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Canadian ‘Totalitarianism’? Hope Can Win, Says Author Thomas King
Canadian ‘Totalitarianism’? Hope Can Win, Says Author Thomas King
Governor General award winner talks election politics and the power of words
Cherished author and former New Democrat candidate Thomas King insists he’ll stay out of politics this pivotal election season.
But on the heels of his Governor General award-winning novelThe Back of the Turtle — set in a coastal B.C. village devastated by a toxic spill — neither is the 72-year-old Order of Canada recipient shying away from controversy.
He’s incensed by the sweep of Conservative legislation under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in particular last month’s wide-reaching anti-terrorism bill, and earlier the slashing of waterway and environmental protections, muzzling of scientists on climate change, and gutting of Canada’s research libraries.
“The pieces of legislation they brought in, to my way of thinking, have been very close to a kind of totalitarianism,” he told The Tyee in a phone interview from his home in Peterborough, Ontario. “That doesn’t make me feel good, and I don’t think it’s very — if I dare say it — Canadian, particularly.”
Last year, The Back of the Turtle secured him the Governor General’s top literary prize. The book follows Dr. Gabriel Quinn, an aboriginal scientist who works for a multinational company whose chemical spill has decimated a small coastal B.C. town. The protagonist disappears and resurfaces in his fictitious hometown, Smoke River Indian Reserve, where he confronts his complicity in the cataclysm.
Despite energy companies’ safety assurances, it’s a feared outcome increasingly familiar across the country as a raft of bitumen and gas pipeline proposals advance.
For King, who is of mixed Cherokee, German and Greek descent, the novel’s clash of worldviews reflects many of the ethical tensions with which many Canadians grapple. But in that clash, he believes, also lies the potential for changing citizens’ hearts and minds.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Tragedy of Harper’s Canada
The Tragedy of Harper’s Canada
“This abuse of executive power is tilting toward totalitarian government and away from the foundations of democracy and the rule of law on which this country was founded.”
-Errol Mendes, Professor of constitutional and international law (University of Ottawa)
The current Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper looks like a tattered and ragged old stuffed animal these days. You know–the ones with one button-eye missing and the other hanging by a single thread. Although he has survived endless scandals and sleazy acts over the past decade, Harper’s musical tune is now screeching and discordant.
Two of his top ministers (the obedient Peter McKay and the attack-dog, know-nothing John Baird) have decided to abandon politics. A third (Jim Prentice) left to run Alberta, but was soundly defeated by a resurgent New Democratic Party. Harper’s possible successor, Jason Kenney, now Minister of Defence, looks bewildered as he repeats NATO’s lies about Russian aggression and fumbles along in a totally incoherent foreign policy.
On the international scene, this mean autocrat has had the gall—if you can believe this—to point his finger at Vladimir Putin and tell him to get out of the Ukraine. This moronic demand bespoke of his ignorance of the Ukraine’s common history and culture with Russia. Harper has murky ties with right-wing Canadian Ukrainians and has adopted the fantastical narrative pushed by the US and its pliant allies in the EU and NATO. He thinks this may get him some votes. He sent 200 troops (disguised as trainers) into the Ukraine to help quell the rebellion in Eastern Ukraine.
The opposition parties are demanding that Stephen the Sneaky come clean regarding his support for the neo-Nazi gangs of thugs in the Ukraine armed forces (like the Azov battalion). He appears to love vilifying Putin. Recently Russian MP Aleksey Puskov (United Russia) stated that Russia is the “most anti-Russian state in the western alliance as a whole and definitely also in the G7 group.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Chicken Little Meet the Friends of Science
Canada’s leading climate conspiracy theorists, the Friends of Science, are out this week with a critique on climate change that would make even Chicken Little blush.
In a press release issued Thursday, the Friends of Science state that if plans proceed to move our country away from carbon-intensive fuel sources like oil and coal, “Canada would have to be completely shut down in order to reach the emissions reduction targets, leaving millions of Canadians unemployed.”
The Friends of Science are no stranger to hyperbole, which is on full-display on the homepage of their website promoting all sorts of pseudo-scientific climate science conspiracy claims.
The FOS is also no stranger to controversy.
Many longtime DeSmog readers will know that a few years ago this group was outed in an investigative piece by the Globe and Mail for its ties to the Alberta oil patch and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
I am reluctantt to address these latest Chicken Little claims by the Friends of Science, because arguing back at them is exactly what they want and could be mistaken for a sliver of a legitimate place in the debate about how to solve the issue of climate change and transition the world from polluting fossil fuels to clean energy.
And quite frankly, as I pointed out last week, a group like the FOS who still readily claim that climate change is “big green propaganda” and nothing to be concerned about, has no place in a debate about how to deal with a problem they don’t .
Six Tough Questions about the China Trade Deal
Six Tough Questions about the China Trade Deal
Gus Van Harten, author of ‘Sold Down the Yangtze,’ breaks down the FIPA’s impacts.
In a conversation with Andrew Nikiforuk, Van Harten answered six questions about the trade agreement, which the Harper government finalized last year.
Andrew Nikiforuk: Investor-state arbitration is a new tool in the relentless economic march of globalization. What new threats does this foreign investor protection system pose to a democracy?
Gus Van Harten: In Canada, we can elect a government, and the government is subject to the Constitution and Canadian laws, as interpreted by Canadian courts. That’s our democracy.
But the federal government is signing more and more trade agreements that expand a system of “investor-state arbitration,” or what I describe in the book as a world pseudo court. The purpose of the pseudo court is to protect foreign investors, meaning usually the world’s wealthiest companies and people, from the rest of us. Instead of public courts, you now have private lawyers sitting as “arbitrators” with the power to decide how much Canadians must pay to compensate foreign investors for our country’s decisions.
Basically, the power of Canada’s legislatures and judges is being shifted to large companies and wealthy individuals and to a small group of lawyers. The shift is anti-democratic because it will be very difficult for future governments to reverse. Even so, governments can still do things to limit the damage, as I explain in the book.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
As Harper Stalls on Climate, Canada Moves Without Him
As Harper Stalls on Climate, Canada Moves Without Him
Students, provinces, investors and unions are taking action. How long can he ignore it?
One of the first things Stephen Harper did after winning a majority in 2011 was to build a system of levees around the Prime Minister’s Office. They weren’t physical levees, of course, like the type designed to keep water from flooding New Orleans. Rather, they were ideological ones, erected on the belief that climate action is at odds with a healthy economy. Surrounded by those levees, Harper did whatever he wanted on climate change, which for the most part meant ignoring it completely.
His Conservative government passed laws to accelerate the growth of Canada’s oil and gas industry, while pledging carbon regulations that never came. He pulled Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, muzzled federal scientists and cut funding to their research, strong-armed the U.S. on bitumen pipelines and set climate targets he had no clear intention of meeting. But something unexpected happened. A frustrated cohort of students, provinces, investors and unions decided to take decisive climate action on its own.
Harper’s done his best to withstand this rising tide. He’s argued that climate is low on the list of “significant challenges,” for instance, after 400,000 people marched for action in New York; that regulating the emissions of polluters is “crazy,” as Ontario readied a system of cap-and-trade; that Canada is a fossil fuel “superpower,” as billions of investment dollars flowed into clean energy; and that taxing carbon is “job-killing,” as Canada’s largest private sector union argued the exact opposite.
Levees don’t break bit by bit. They collapse all at once — and with a destructive fury. The storm surge that breached New Orleans’ defences in 2005 killed 1,800 people. The surge of anti-Tory opinion in Alberta’s recent election swept away a 44-year-old political dynasty. For four years Harper has been governing on climate change, as well as many other issues, from behind a system of ideological levees. As the federal election this fall nears, how long will Harper ignore the forces rising against him?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Harper Put Canada Massively in the Red
How Harper Put Canada Massively in the Red
He ate up a huge federal surplus, piled up six deficits. This PM wants to run on fiscal smarts? Last in series
In the run up to the 2015 federal election, the Harper government will try to convince Canadians that the prime minister and his crew have been excellent managers of the Canadian economy and that only they are capable of delivering the same stellar results in the future. Heading into this election, they had intended to present a balanced federal budget as proof of their sound stewardship. But as I write this in spring 2015, the latest projections are that the Harper government will have difficulty delivering the long-promised surplus this year. Thanks to the precipitous fall in oil prices and revenues, the government’s budgetary watchdog, Mostafa Askari, estimated a deficit as high as $1.2 billion for this year, and as much as $400 million the year following.
However, if the government is determined, Askari said, a balanced budget is still feasible should they choose to slow spending or delay capital projects. With the government’s earlier forecasts in a tailspin, the budget for the current fiscal year was delayed, no doubt to allow time for a wizard to conjure new numbers that will allow Harper to pull a triumphant, balanced budget out of the proverbial hat.
But Harper’s fiscal management is a tale of reversal and failure, not triumph. Department of Finance Fiscal Reference Tables reveal that in the years before Harper became prime minister, there were nine consecutive years of budgetary surpluses, from 1997 to 2007. In eight of those years, Ottawa amassed a surplus of over $79 billion. Yet In Harper’s first eight years as prime minister, he managed to produce a deficit of almost $127 billion.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Climate change will push Canadian business onside
Companies seem conservative today, but just watch when they reach the profitable tipping point
Until he lost his shirt in the Dirty Thirties, a relative of mine was an influential businessman in southern Saskatchewan. Among his interests was a livery stable, with a blacksmith, harnesses, buggy whips and everything you needed to keep horses on the road and in the field.
Horses are still with us, of course, but today it is hard to realize what an enormous industry they supported only a hundred years ago.
As skeptics scoff about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s grudging concession on the G7 agreement to end the use of fossil fuels, I think it is useful to remember how quickly businesses can completely transform an economy once they get the bit between their teeth.
“If we can get companies putting their innovative genius to work on solving environmental problems, we’re going to find solutions that we can’t even imagine today,” says Stewart Elgie, a professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa.
He is confident that when it comes to fighting climate change, business will pull its share of the load. But we have to get over a hump.
Horse sense
A hundred years ago, the saddlery and harness business had its own industrial journals, well worth perusing. United States Leather, making a product essential to harnesses, was one of the 12 founding companies in the Dow Jones Index.
An inspection of one of world’s biggest monthly harness trade magazines, produced in Walsall, England — a world hub of harness and saddle making — shows that to a large extent, the industry did not see the end coming.
“Whilst some commentators (quite correctly) predicted disaster for the saddlery and harness trade,” says a commentary published by Walsall Council, “others were more complacent, dismissing the motor car as an unreliable and expensive plaything which would never catch on.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The G7 and its 85–year carbon pledge
The G7 gives itself a lifetime to fulfil its climate change promise
If you thought it was hard to keep up your New Year’s resolution, try keeping an 85-year pledge.
That’s exactly what Canada and the other G7 countries are committing themselves to as they try to get control of global greenhouse gases. While Canada failed on its Kyoto agreement and won’t meet its 2020 Copenhagen target, that’s not stopping Prime Minister Stephen Harper from making even more long-lived environmental pledges.
First, a deep cut in carbon emissions by 2050 and second, an eventual end to fossil fuel use by 2100.
At first glance, it’s praiseworthy. The world’s leading economies commit to decarbon the world economy. Some environmental groups were quick to call the G7 announcement “groundbreaking,” although not everyone is as supportive and approving.
- Difficult to invest in green energy in Canada without Big Oil
- Rising carbon emissions from oilsands a ‘unique’ challenge
“It’s not groundbreaking. It is politically cheap to pledge a non-binding commitment that falls way behind someone’s time in office,” said David Keith, an engineering professor at Harvard University and former University of Calgary professor who was one of Time magazine’s “heroes of the environment” in 2009.
“What we really need is specifics in the next few years or decades.”
Vague on execution
The pledges do add weight to the movement to get off of fossil fuels, but how the G7 countries achieve their goals is unclear.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise considering how vague Canada has been in the past about achieving its emissions targets. Just last month, the federal government promised a 30 per cent cut to emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. It gave little indication how it exactly planned to do it. Eliminating all cars for a year would only put a dent in carbon emissions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
OPEC oil glut is shattering Harper’s superpower dream
Producers’ brinksmanship has worked, and Canada is cutting production
In the battle to see who blinks first, OPEC hasn’t blinked. And it looks like it isn’t going to, as it meets this week in Vienna.
Six months ago the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, announced it would keep pumping crude even though the world was swimming in the stuff.
While some analysts are predicting a surprise at this week’s meeting, most reports now say OPEC is not considering reining in production.
- Global glut grows to two million barrels a day as OPEC pumps more
- Canada’s crude production falls to nearly two-year lows, says Barclays
And whether or not OPEC continues to pump, there are new signs that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s dream for Canada as an “emerging energy superpower” may be in trouble.
A report this week from Barclays showed Canadian production tumbling. The global giants with a stake in Canada’s oil sands have stopped expansion plans and many have walked away.
Meanwhile, Alberta oil producers have threatened to put new developments on hold until they see whether Rachel Notley’s new NDP government gives them what they want.
Missing a crucial window
To add insult to injury, low prices have emboldened the “dirty oil” lobby. There are new reports this week that the New York oil hub is rejecting petroleum from Canada’s “tarsands.”
Alberta’s oilsands may still contain some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves, up there with Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, but there is an increasing danger that Canada has missed a crucial window to develop and extract those resources.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Canada’s truthiest election campaign begins: Don Pittis
True or not, politicians defend their promises with passion and confidence
The Harper Conservatives are the balanced-budget party. You might as well get that into your head now, because you are going to be hearing it repeated till election day.
This is also the economic stewardship party, the spending-on-transit party and the party fighting for the poor and middle class. Yesterday, Finance Minister Joe Oliver even implied they were the fight-against-climate-change party.
An independent analyst might dispute those statements. In fact, independent analysts in newspapers and columns across the country have been doing just that this week following Oliver’s federal budget. But in what is shaping up to be Canada’s “truthiest” election campaign, scientific evidence doesn’t strictly matter.
Truthiness, as coined by U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert, is something expressed as a truth because it is a feeling from the heart without evidence or logic.
After reading a wonderful piece by Oxford economist John Kay called “How beliefs became truths for the political establishment,” it struck me that this is exactly what we are seeing in our own Canadian (pre-) election campaign.
As well as claiming a balanced budget, Oliver promised spending on transit and other infrastructure and tax breaks that would stimulate the economy. But there may be less substance to these boasts than appear.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Harper’s Folly: Canada Losing $30+ Billion/Year on Tar-Sands Oil
Harper’s Folly: Canada Losing $30+ Billion/Year on Tar-Sands Oil
Oil is our most-precious commodity as fuel for the global economy. It is also becoming a scarce commodity, as global production has flattened, while global demand continues to climb relentlessly, everywhere in the world except for the dying economies of Europe and North America. It is a classic “seller’s market.”
Then we have Canada. Under the Harper regime; Canada has rapidly/recklessly ramped-up production of tar sands oil (vying with U.S. shale-oil production for the title of “world’s dirtiest oil”). In less than 20 years; tar sands production has increased by a factor of ten, from less than 200,000 barrels per day to over 2 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2014. This amounts to annual tar sands production of roughly 750 million barrels.
Thanks to this reckless over-production; Canadian tar sands oil production has created three ultra-expensive/ultra-inefficient bottlenecks for itself:
a) Insufficient refining capacity
b) Insufficient shipping/pipeline infrastructure
c) Insufficient skilled labour
Because of (a) and (b); Canada’s tar sands oil has been sold at “discounts” of up to $40/barrel. Because of (c) and other factors;production costs for tar sands oil (which was already the world’s most-expensive) continue to soar.
Legions of workers must be flown in, housed and fed, adding to costs. Competition for labour is so fierce that some companies now subsidize mortgage payments on $600,000 houses to entice workers to stick around.
The combination of a grossly insufficient labour force, and grossly insufficient infrastructure to support this production is that while it is “the lowest priced oil in the world”, currently trading at a pathetic $36.02 per barrel, it is the most-expensive oilin the world to produce.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Bill C-51 ‘Day of Action’ protests denounce new policing powers
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May join protests in Montreal, Toronto
Protests are underway across Canada against the government’s proposed anti-terrorism legislation, which would give police much broader powers and allow them to detain terror suspects and give new powers to Canada’s spy agency.
NDP leader Tom Mulcair joined hundreds In Montreal in a march through the city. One protester held up a poster saying “C-51 is an act of terror,” while others carried red “Stop Harper” signs.
The protest was expected to end in front of the riding office ofLiberal Leader Justin Trudeau. Trudeau has said his caucus will vote in favour of the bill.
- Bill C-51 hearings: Diane Ablonczy’s questions to Muslim group ‘McCarthyesque’
- Anti-terror bill committee hears monologues, but few questions
- Privacy watchdog blocked from witness list
- Proposed CSIS powers a ‘constitutional mess,’ says ex-watchdog
NDP MPs Craig Scott and Linda Duncan were part of the crowd gathered outside Canada Place in downtown Edmonton. Some placards called the bill “criminalization of dissent” and warned “big brother is watching you.”
Protesters said they are worried the bill will be used to harass or silence critics of government’s environmental and aboriginal policies.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
New Anti Terror Laws Coming After Attack On Charlie Hebdo
New Anti Terror Laws Coming After Attack On Charlie Hebdo
Stephen Harper announced that an “international Jihadist Movement Has Declared War On The World”, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in France. He also stated that new anti terrorism legislation would be introduced shortly after the House of Commons winter break.
The Canadian government responded to the fall attacks in Ottawa and Quebec, in the same fashion. Intoducing Bill C-44. You can read the full version of Bill C-44 HERE.
Critics of Bill C-44 cite concerns such as:
“Our government is already in the midst of giving spies more power through the passage of Bill C-13 (better known as the Cyberbullying Bill), which makes it easier for law enforcement agencies to surveil Canadians and allows Internet Service Providers to voluntarily turn your information over to the government without consequence, and without notifying you. The bill is so broad that even Carol Todd – mother of Amanda Todd, whose heartbreaking death helped inspire C-13 – has spoken out against its surveillance provisions.
And now, following last week’s attacks, the government wants to expand its spying powers even further through C-44. The bill has a lot of problems, but I want to concentrate on just one. C-44 would cut judicial oversight out of the admission of information from confidential informants at trial, automatically preserving the anonymity of those informants. In other words, Canadians would lose the right to confront their accusers in court; in essence, it’s the loss of our right to due process.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Prospect of deficit threatens Conservative government’s best laid plans | Toronto Star
Prospect of deficit threatens Conservative government’s best laid plans | Toronto Star.
TTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government faces a roller-coaster ride in the coming months as it tries to balance Ottawa’s books and implement a lavish program of family-oriented tax cuts and spending in advance of an election.
The Conservatives have been saying 2015 will be the year they end seven years of consecutive budget deficits and bring in billions of dollars worth of goodies for voters in keeping with promises made in the last election in 2011.
But the linchpin of this strategy — running a budget surplus — has been thrown into doubt by the sudden, unexpected plunge in world oil prices.
Stephen Harper’s climate-change comments only half the story, critics say – Politics – CBC News
Stephen Harper’s climate-change comments only half the story, critics say – Politics – CBC News.
Stephen Harper is often accused of being absent on environmental issues, but in a year-end interview with CBC News chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge, the prime minister said his government is doing its bit to combat climate change and that greenhouse gas emissions have dropped on his watch.
- Stephen Harper says Alberta’s carbon pricing model could ‘go broader’
- Full text of Peter Mansbridge’s interview with Stephen Harper
“We’ve got more work to do, but our emissions are falling,” Harper said on Wednesday.
“Other countries’ emissions for the most part are going up. World emissions are going up. Canada’s have not been going up.”
Canada’s emissions have dropped since 2008 largely because of the recession and industry slowdown. They have remained flat since 2010.
But the government’s own report suggests emissions will go up dramatically by the end of the decade because of oil and gas production, Canada’s emissions will be 22 per cent higher than its Copenhagen target of reducing greenhouse gases by 17 per cent below their 2005 levels by 2020.
