Harper Government Winging It With Canada's Future

The Auditor General has slammed the Harper regime for spending tens of billions of dollars without cabinet, much less Parliament, knowing the long-term consequences.

In his fall 2012 report released Tuesday, Auditor General Michael Ferguson concluded the Department of Finance Canada often does not take into account the impact of tens of billions of dollars of spending and tax measures on the government’s long-term fiscal sustainability.

 

Furthermore, the lack of federal reporting about long-term economic consequences of major government decisions means parliamentarians are forced to vote blindly on some budget measures without knowing their true impact on the country’s finances, the report says.

 

Just hours after the auditor released his report, the Finance Department unveiled a sweeping study on the economic and fiscal implications of Canada’s aging population. It projects that a greying society will translate into slower growth for the economy and government revenues, and additional stresses on public finances.

 

The auditor’s report says long-term financial projections are important because Canada faces many challenges that could impact the country’s fiscal sustainability, such as changing demographics, climate change and aging infrastructure.

 

The Harper government promised in its 2007 budget to publish a comprehensive report on the government’s fiscal sustainability that would provide a broad analysis of current and future demographic changes, and the implications on Canada’s long-term fiscal outlook. A draft report was prepared in 2007, but it has not been published.

 

Moreover, the long-term fiscal sustainability analyses have been regularly prepared since 2010, but have not been made public.

 

In contrast, governments in several Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have regularly published such reports.

 

“This lack of reporting means that parliamentarians and Canadians do not have all the relevant information to understand the long-term impacts of budgets on the federal, provincial and territorial governments in order to support public debate and to hold the government to account,” the audit says.

In One-Man Rule the notion of responsible disclosure, analysis and accountability is irrelevant.   The only one who needs to know is Steve, our Ruler.   And contrary to the complaints of the Auditor-General, Steve's approach is anything but unusual in plenty of countries - take North Korea for example.
 

My High School Projects Were Never Like This

Hold onto your hat.   The history of everything in two minutes by Joe Bush with music by Zack Hemsey.

Defending What's Ours

 The police didn't intervene.  From the comments of Victoria's deputy police chief, Del Manak, it actually sounded as if the cops were on side with the demonstrators.  “It’s a peaceful, vocal protest and we don’t want to get in the way of sending a strong message to government.”

 Victoria police estimated the crowd size at 3,500.

There were no arrests. The protesters at the Defend Our Coast demonstration, led by Coastal First Nations, environmental groups and unions, were passionate and noisy but well-behaved.

 The aim was to send a strong message to the federal and provincial governments that British Columbians are overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline carrying Alberta oilsands bitumen to Kitimat for export to Asia, planned twinning of the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby and oil supertankers on the coast.

“It’s time to ‘warrior-up,’ ” hereditary Chief Pete Erickson said.

“Together, we can stop this,” said Squamish First Nations Chief Ian Campbell.

 

 Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said First Nations are standing shoulder-to-shoulder to stop the proposed pipelines. “We will fight this insanity through the joint review panel, in the courts of this country and, if necessary, at the barricades on the land itself,” he said.
“We will not stand down, we will not step back. We will stop Enbridge and the Kinder Morgan proposals dead in their tracks.”

What a Romney America Could Look Like

Wanna see something scary?  BusinessInsider.com has a thorough rundown on how Mitt Romney would change America into a country of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.   It's an eye opener.

Who Says Israel is an Apartheid State? Why, a Majority of Israelis, That's Who.

Two-thirds of Israeli Jews want Palestinians denied the vote if their country annexes the West Bank.

Three out of four are in favour of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and 58% believe Israel already practises apartheid against Palestinians, the poll found.

A third want Arab citizens within Israel to be banned from voting in elections to the country's parliament. Almost six out of 10 say Jews should be given preference to Arabs in government jobs, 49% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs, 42% would not want to live in the same building as Arabs and the same number do not want their children going to school with Arabs.

A commentary by Gideon Levy, which accompanied the results of the poll, described the findings as disturbing.  "Israelis themselves ...are openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists," he wrote.

"It's good to live in this country, most Israelis say, not despite its racism, but perhaps because of it. If such a survey were released about the attitude to Jews in a European state, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to us, the rules don't apply."

There is nothing particularly shocking in these results, perhaps except for the open expression of a reality rational people always understood existed.

Israel is not "of us."  It is not a Western state nor does it embrace our values. It is a quintessential Middle Eastern, theocratic state only it's Jewish, not Muslim.   Israel faces an intractable problem, its Arab residents.   Some are Israeli citizens, others are Palestinians under occupation.   Israel has no intention of returning the West Bank to the Palestinians.   It sits atop a strategic aquifer that Israel deems critical to its survival.    That land and that aquifer are not going to be restored to Palestinian control.   Netanyahu has said as much.

We in the West have built a relationship with Israel founded on illusions.   We need a new relationship, one based on reality.

This Is My Mecca

I make it pretty plain that I'm a biker.  I had my first serious crash in, I think, 1965.  '75, '85, '95, '05, what is it now, 2012?  I've ridden Europe, N. Africa, most of N. America, a hunk of Central America and a gaggle of island states most of them too small to mention.  I've owned Triumphs (Bonneville), Nortons (Atlas & Commando), BSA (Lightning & Spitfire), Matchless, Royal Enfield (Interceptor), Hondas and Yamahas.  And, yes, I have seen the inside of an emergency operating room or two although most times I was unconscious and saw nothing.

In my geezerdom I ride this, "The Beast."   Since 2006 this has been the mechanized love of my life.  It has carried me from the island to eastern Ontario, many times alone the Pacific Coast Highway to the desert, through Mexico.  I have left a tip for breakfast in Lethbridge, Alberta and ordered supper from the menu in Kenora, Ontario.  There's a true Zen state that comes with riding for hours on end at 90 to 110 mph.   Your worries disappear, your mind going into a subconscious zone focused solely on keeping you upright.



Good enough for geezers but it can't erase memories of an earlier time, a younger time, in England.   Then bikes were simpler and far more dangerous, much less forgiving.  Our gods were Mike "the Hammer" Hailwood and Giacomo "Ago" Agostini.   We went to places with names like Silverstone and Brands Hatch to see these immortals.   But we also went to motorcycle Mecca, the Isle of Man, for the legendary Tourist Trophy, or TT.

I only managed to go once, when I was 20.  I almost went back this year but I had to put it off...   maybe next year.  Here's just about everything you need to understand what is and has always been the greatest street race on Earth.



At times I think we're going to need a new generation of Hailwoods and Agostinis to inspire us to fight our way through the challenges of the 21st century.  Truly fearless people who draw others to emulate them.  In this century, it won't be recklessness that kills you.

Only 44?

Only 44?   That was my first reaction to the announcement that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had agreed to send 44 observers from its human rights office to monitor America's elections this year.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

 “They [will] observe the overall election process, not just the ballot casting,” said Giovanna Maiola, spokeswoman for OSCE. “They are focusing on a number of areas on the state level, including the legal system, election administration, the campaign, the campaign financing [and] new voting technologies used in the different states.”

BC'ers Turn Out to Say No to Northern Gateway.

Organizers of the Defend Our Coast protest were hoping a thousand people would turn up outside the BC legislature to say "no" to the bitumen pipelines and supertanker initiative.   The weather was anything but helpful - unduly cold and wet.   But they turned out, thousands of them, and stood in defiance of Harper and Enbridge and Big Oil.

More Trouble for Old Massett Village

They say it was a salmon restoration project.   The banking documents suggest it was really about flogging lucrative carbon credits.  "It" was the dumping of 200,000 pounds of iron sulphide in the Pacific off the Queen Charlotte Islands.

The council of the Old Massett Village band borrowed $2.5-million for the project.   The funds were loaned by the Northern Savings Credit Union.   The loan was fully secured by assets of the Gwaii Trust.

The credit union, although fully secured, was plainly skeptical of the claims made by OMV's economic development officer, John Disney.   The credit union checked out Disney's supporting material and found it incredible.   Given the loan was fully secured, the credit union went ahead with the loan but felt it had a duty to the band council to point out the discrepancies and its concerns.

The Living Oceans Society argues that there is no way the Old Massett Village band was looking to salmon stocks to repay this loan.   The leaders had to have been expecting to recoup their investment out of flogging carbon credits.   Now experts are lining up claiming there's no way OMV will realize any sellable carbon credits out of this gambit.  This is rapidly turning into a complete fiasco.

Against Our Will, Without Our Consent

The only thing Steve Harper can count on if he tries to ram through the Northern Gateway pipeline/supertanker project is a united British Columbia determined to stop him.

Even our unelected/unelectable/outgoing premier, Crispy Clark, knows what awaits Harper.  “Heaven forbid, it would be a national political crisis. Whether or not people supported the pipeline, they would band together to fight the federal government if they decided to intrude into British Columbia without our consent.”

That's right, band together to fight the federal government.   There are plenty of people who will go to jail before the first tanker docks in Kitimat and most of them have got kids or mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who won't stand for seeing their loved ones banged up in Harper's cells over this.   Who knows it might even fracture the Conservative Party.

Suzuki On the Broader Issue at Stake in the Northern Gateway Battle

David Suzuki and the executive director of Coastal First Nations, Art Sterritt,  write in today's Globe and Mail that the upswelling of opposition among British Columbians to Harper's Northern Gateway initiative is about far more than just pipelines.

However hopeful it is to see everyone looking closely at pipelines and tankers, it’s time we took a distant look – from 10,000 metres up and 200 years in the future.

That’s because this is about far more than the proposed Enbridge pipeline and the tankers they plan to fill. Back in Alberta’s tar sands, oil companies are tearing up hundreds of square kilometres of earth, polluting millions of litres of water and pumping millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere just to extract oil from the tar sands.

And once the oil is in China, it will be burned to make us more cheap products, sending ever more carbon into our shared atmosphere, and edging us closer to catastrophic climate chaos.

Underlying the widespread opposition to tankers on the coast is a much broader discontent with the way our social and political systems are working. People are angry about the decisions that degrade and destroy the foundation of life on Earth. When government should have stepped forward to protect Canadians and the environment, ours gutted Canada’s environmental laws.

People are rushing to stop the pipeline, because it is such a drastic attack on nature. But we are reacting to a single soldier from a single battle in a much bigger war, and ignoring the bloodbath. That bloodbath is the war on nature, a war on the very foundation of life – on the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soils that provide us with the food we eat. We are simply failing to address the fundamental issue; it’s about our long-term survival and quality of life, not whether B.C. gets enough money from the pipeline.

Conrad Black Calls Rupert Murdoch a "Psychopath"

Former Canadian media mogul Conrad Black has never concealed his contempt for his Aussie contemporary, Rupert Murdoch.  But now Connie has really dropped the gloves.

"He's a psychopath ... like Stalin, except that he doesn't kill people," Lord Black was quoted in The Independent newspaper.

"I'm not suggesting he's a homicidal psychopath - he just severs people out of his life like that.

 

"I have great admiration for what he's achieved but he's a terrible man."

He said the public outcry over revelations of phone hacking within News Corp was "one of the all-time backflips of hypocrisy".

"For 40 years (the establishment) knew how Murdoch ran his company and they did nothing but kiss his undercarriage," Lord Black said.

"Mr Murdoch is a psychopath, a person of no emotional or ethical thought, governed entirely by an expedient analysis of what his self-interest requires."

Hey, wait a second - a person of no emotional or ethical thought, governed entirely by an expedient analysis of what his self-interest requires - isn't that the very job description of our Conservative prime minister?

How Petty Can Israel Get

Last week ambitious students around the world took the SAT, or scholastic aptitude test, their ticket to a chance at a good education and a bright future.

Students around the world except for Palestinian students that is.  It seems the Israelis received the exams for the Palestinian kids and withheld them.   From the Harvard Crimson.

The Israeli authorities held the exams sent by the College Board for weeks, not releasing the tests to AMIDEAST’s office in Ramallah.

AMIDEAST is the only testing agency in the West Bank, serving over three hundred thousand Palestinian students. Yet Israel controls the flow of goods and people in and out of the ever-shrinking Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli occupation impacts nearly every aspect of Palestinian life. In particular, the military occupation, illegal under international law, violates the basic right to education for Palestinian youth.

This SAT cancellation has been devastating for high school seniors across the West Bank who were planning to apply to college in the United States—including those from the Ramallah Friends School.

If You Consider Yourself Progressive, You Need to Watch Where Your Future Could Be Headed

Sure, it's the United States.   But Canada is lashed tightly to its gunwales.   And we're taking on water.   You need to watch this.

An Australian Take on the American Voter

The 2012 presidential election is so close that the outcome will come down to the undecided voter.   Yet it seems this is the group most easily buffaloed with nonsensical claims disseminated repetitively by today's corporate media.   The Sydney Morning Herald has one Australian's take on the state of the American voter who will decide this election.

In rally after rally, from airport hangars in Florida to obscure Ohio colleges, Mitt pops up, impeccably groomed, like an ageing Max Headroom with his soft-focus wife, Ann, by his side, and his five sons, interchangeable as a set of spanners, behind him, and tells the crowd: ''I have a plan.''

A plan that will create 12 million jobs in four years, and balance the budget! That will cut taxes for the middle class but add $2 trillion to military spending, to make sure America is respected again! To crack down on the ''unfair competition'' by the Chinese, and ensure that full employment returns. Taken together with his promises not to touch key programs such as social security and Medicare (the socialised medicine program for the over-65s), the proposal is nonsense, reliant on deep cuts, and as likely to reverse recovery by lowering demand as it is to stimulate the dozens of new Apples and Microsofts that will somehow replace vanished manufacturing.

 But as visions go, it's a beguiling one, the future as the past, the economy of the 1950s, the mores of the 1960s, and all the cool stuff that started coming in the '70s. Even in Springfield, a Democratic stronghold, the Romney vision tempts.

''Yeah, I'm really thinking of giving Romney a shot,'' says Martha, a former factory nurse, from the days when there was health and safety, and factories. She'll be voting in Pennsylvania, a state that could come into play should Obama's campaign falter further.

Adds her husband, Steve, an electrician: ''Y'know, we gotta stop buying cheap stuff from China.''

This election illustrates - yet again - that far too many people are willing to believe nonsense when their media won't tell them it's nonsense.   The essential function of the media as gatekeeper to ward off and expose outright lies is no more.   And the segment of the voting public left confused and misled is more than enough to swing an election.   Mission Accomplished.

It's a worthwhile article that deserves to be read and considered in its entirety.

 

Will Anybody Demand Peter Kent's Resignation?

Would someone who didn't have prior knowledge of this please demand Peter Kent's resignation?   This, of course, is the deliberate dumping last July of 200,000 pounds of iron sulphide into the waters off the Queen Charlotte Islands or Haida Gwaii.

The Old Massett Village band, scrambling for cover, says the Harper department of fisheries and oceans and the Harper environment ministry knew of it and did nothing to stop it.  The MP for the Charlottes, NDP Nathan Cullen admits he knew all about it and likewise did nothing to stop it.

Given the NDP are caught up in this there's no realistic hope of the leader of the official opposition going after Kent who, himself, has said the dumping violates Canadian law.  Do we really have to leave it up to Elizabeth May to carry the ball yet again?

Demand Kent's resignation.    Given the integrity of the Harper government, getting it will be a real long shot but it's a pretty clear case of ministerial responsibility.

NatGeo Sheds Light on Queen Charlotte Iron Dumping

Russ George is a man on a mission to come up with some scheme that will allow him to create, and sell, a fortune in carbon credits.  His scheme of choice has been to promote seeing oceans with iron powders.   The iron is supposed to promote algae blooms that will then absorb CO2 before dying and taking that trapped CO2 to the ocean floor for safe and permanent disposal.

National Geographic pours salt water on the scheme.

The ‘experiment’ that was executed by George and colleagues is primarily under fire because it was done undercover, without scientific peer review or process, and without international collaboration, yet can have global consequences. It is also the largest iron fertilization experiment to have occurred anywhere – 200,000 pounds versus a few thousand pounds. Other smaller scale international experiments over the last fifteen-plus years have concluded that the sequestering efficiency is low (and sometimes no effect was seen) – the amount of iron you’d need to make even a slight dent in our carbon emissions is in the million tons per year, and even if you put in that amount, it may just not work. Unregulated iron fertilization on this scale could have dramatic consequences and goes against an international moratoria created by the UN to protect ocean environments. Far from being a savior, this experiment is being called a large scale dumping of waste into our oceans.

Enough said.   Now maybe Peter Kent, whose job it is to know about these goings on, and Nathan Cullen, the NDP MP who did know about it in advance yet apparently did nothing to stop it, can explain themselves.

Another Scurrying Rat - This Time He's NDP

NDP MP Nathan Cullen says the federal government should have done more to prevent the experimental dumping of 100-tonnes of iron sulphide in the waters off the Queen Charlottes.

Oddly enough Cullen, the MP for that area, acknowledges he knew about the project as far back as last summer when he met with its backers and it appears he saw no need to sound an alarm.

"I never got the sense that they were trying to do harm or that there was any bad intent at all, and felt like they had done their work in terms of talking to marine scientists and lawyers. … They thought they had a defensible case," the NDP MP said.

Nothing two-faced about that, is there?

No Woman Dies in Childbirth, Another Republican Fable

This time it's in Illinois where Republican congressman Joe Walsh attacked the abortion exception for "life of the mother" on the basis that no woman today dies from childbirth.



In fact, pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. have been increasing and now stand at just over 15-deaths per 100,000 live births.

Peace? It's a Dangerously Flexible Concept

The Canadian debate over the F-35 has always overlooked perhaps the most critical issue.   We never want to discuss what signing on for the F-35 means for Canada's defence policy and posture.   Yet that airplane, as none other could, will steer our defence policy and posture for decades to come.


The F-35 is the love child of America's 21st century hyper-militarism.  It's not a fighter, that's just bullshit.   The F-35 is a light attack bomber, a "penetration" warplane intended to wrap itself in stealth protection to enter heavily defended airspace, bomb some target, and get back out again.   Like all bombers, it's a "straight line" warplane.   Even the manufacturer says that.

Here's something everyone can understand.   Canada won't be attacking anyone with sophisticated air defences, say Russia or China, on our own.   So that must mean our political and military leadership envisage using our light attack bomber in conjunction with someone else or under some other military's command.  Hmm, what country might that be?   Presumably it would be a country that has the specialized support aircraft the F-35 needs  in order to operate - the United States.

Which raises the question of just what Canadians know of United States defence and diplomatic policy today, the policies we're signing on to support?  Should we maybe take a look at what we're getting ourselves in for?

We like to think the United States just wants peace, first and foremost - peace.  But, as career soldier turned professor, Andrew Bacevich points out in the latest Harper's magazine, peace to America today has taken on a much different meaning.

"Peace means different things to different governments and countries.  To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect.  To others it serves as a euphemism for dominance, defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.

"....A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ force as a last resort.  The United States once subscribed to this view...

"A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely.  This has long been an Israeli predilection.  Since the end of the cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well.

"...For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute and assured.  Defined this way, security requires not simply military advantage but military supremacy, and threats to supremacy require anticipatory action, the earlier the better.

"...What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path.    A partial explanation may lie with the rightward tilt of American politics that began in the late 1970s, affecting the way both Republicans and Democrats have approached national security ever since.  Among hawks in both parties, Israeli pugnacity strikes a chord.  As a political posture it can also win votes.

"...Over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, following in Israel's path is precisely what we've done.   The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste for assassination, all justified to self-defense: that pretty much sums up our m.o."

"...We have choices that Israel does not.  In disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled into an Israel-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to the unrealistic expectation that adversaries and would-be adversaries will acquiesce to Washington's will."

Canada could pay dearly for failing to recognize the metamorphosis of the modern American politic into a true, permanent warfare state.   Washington has adopted military force and coercion over diplomacy as its principle instruments of foreign policy.   The F-35 is a "top tier" instrument of military coercion.   Do we really want to get in on that?   If we do, shouldn't we first have a candid and honest debate on the question.