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After 10 years of a fossil-fuel friendly Conservative government, many Canadians welcomed the election of Justin Trudeau as prime minister. But Trudeau’s decisions to approve two oil pipelines and a major gas facility have left some questioning just how green the new leader really is.

In the months before Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau became Canada’s prime minister in November 2015, he promised “real change” when it came to dealing with the many environmental issues that his Conservative Party predecessor, Stephen Harper, had ignored or seriously undermined. Harper’s legacy had included environmental deregulation, expanding production of Alberta’s heavily polluting tar sands bitumen, a push for drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic, and skepticism about human-caused climate change.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a news conference on the Paris Agreement in April 2016. SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

Trudeau’s first 14 months in office got off to a seemingly promising start. His government reached a tentative agreement with nine of 10 provinces on a national carbon tax, committed $2 billion for clean water and wastewater funds for cities, allocated $518 million for local governments to strengthen their infrastructure from the impacts of climate change, provided money to build electric vehicle recharging stations, and imposed a five-year moratorium on the licensing of oil and gas drilling projects in the Arctic. And for the first time in nearly 10 years, most government scientists could talk to the media about their work, ending a gag order imposed by the Harper administration.

When Trudeau told a town hall meeting in Ontario last week that the country needs to phase out Alberta tar sands production and make the transition away from fossil fuels, he sounded every bit like the environmentally minded politician who ran for prime minister in 2015.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Justin Trudeau’s Shame: Extending Carte Blanche to Israel

March 6, 2016

Justin Trudeau’s Shame: Extending Carte Blanche to Israel

Here’s a Middle East multiple choice question for you (warning: one of these will get you condemned by the government of Justin Trudeau).

Would you rather that the Palestinian people 1) once again take up armed struggle in order to end Israeli occupation of their land or 2) pursue a non-violent strategy of Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) until such time as Israel recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people?

Advocating a return to the use of violence against Israel may or may not get you condemned by the Prime Minister. But it is definitely not okay to advocate for the non-violent BDS campaign. This was made clear by the government’s support of a Conservative resolution opposing the campaign “which promotes the demonization and de-legitimization of the State of Israel,” and called upon the government “to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”

This is a sickening violation of Canadians’ basic rights enshrined by Justin’s father 35 years ago. As the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair (who once described himself as an “ardent supporter of Israel”) said, the resolution “makes it a thought crime to express an opinion.” The NDP and the Bloc, joined by three Liberals, voted against the resolution.

That the Liberal government is so in alignment with Israel lobby groups raises a number of questions: Just who actually makes Canadian policy towards Israel? Did Trudeau think this through at all – such as, is this in Canada’s interests? But perhaps more to the point, is it even in Israel’s interests? Does the Trudeau government have some brilliant ideas about how to get Israel to the bargaining table? Or does it believe the current situation doesn’t need resolving? It smacks of political cowardice.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Liberal fiscal plans less transparent than under Harper, Kevin Page says

February 27, 2016

Liberal fiscal plans less transparent than under Harper, Kevin Page says

Kevin Page, Canada’s former parliamentary budget officer, says the Liberal government is even less transparent on fiscal matters than their Conservative predecessors. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Listen 9:40

Canada’s former parliamentary budget officer says the Liberal government is even less transparent on fiscal matters than the Conservative government it succeeded.

“I don’t think it is [more transparent]. The documents — they’re not better from a government that promised to be better, more transparent … there’s no more information, perhaps even less information, than what we got from the previous government,” Kevin Page said said in an interview CBC Radio’s The House.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the transparency yet,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a pledge to run three “modest” deficits of no more than $10 billion a year. But Finance Minister Bill Morneau released his second fiscal update this week ahead of the March 22 federal budget, and his figures show it will be much higher than that.

The deficit will balloon to $18.4 billion in 2016-17 and $15.5 billion in 2017-18 — and that is before any new spending Morneau outlines in the March budget. Those numbers are drastically different from the $3.9-billion and $2.4-billion shortfalls forecast just three months ago.

“A less ambitious government might see these conditions as a reason to hide, to make cuts or to be overly cautious. But our government might see that the economic downturn makes our plan to grow the economy even more relevant than it was a few short months ago,” Morneau said Monday.

Page, who frequently squared off with the previous Conservative government over their fiscal secrecy, says his concerns about transparency stem from a lack clarity around the deficit figure.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

January 19, 2016

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

And why there’s still time for Trudeau to reject it.

The Trudeau government still has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the TPP on Canada’s behalf. Protest photo by arindambanerjee via Shutterstock.

The Harper government agreed to the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with 12 countries including the U.S., Canada and Japan, shortly before the federal election on Oct. 19. Yet the TPP text was not made public until after the election.

Before it can enter into force, the TPP must be signed and then ratified by member countries. Therefore, the Trudeau government has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the deal on Canada’s behalf.

In this article, I offer seven reasons why the TPP’s provisions on foreign investor protection — mostly found in its chapters on investment and financial services — should be rejected. These provisions reveal how the deal carries unacceptable risks for voters and taxpayers in TPP countries, while giving unjustified benefits to big multinationals and the super-wealthy.

1. The TPP would give special protections to foreign investors at significant public cost, without compelling evidence of a public benefit.

Like other trade agreements, the TPP would give foreign investors special rights to protect their assets by suing countries for compensation in the face of laws, regulations and other decisions that the foreign investor thinks are unfair. These potent international rights are not available to domestic investors or anyone else, even in the most extreme situations of mistreatment.

Why should foreign investors have a special global status and, effectively, a generous public subsidy against the economic risks of democracy and regulation that apply to everyone? The onus should be on promoters of the TPP to give compelling evidence of a corresponding benefit of foreign investor protections for the public. To my knowledge, they have not yet done so.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

January 18, 2016

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

And why there’s still time for Trudeau to reject it.

The Trudeau government still has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the TPP on Canada’s behalf. Protest photo by arindambanerjee via Shutterstock.

1. The TPP would give special protections to foreign investors at significant public cost, without compelling evidence of a public benefit.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Let’s Help Canada’s Newspapers Stop Embarrassing Themselves

October 31, 2015

Let’s Help Canada’s Newspapers Stop Embarrassing Themselves

In this post-Harper era, our democratic institutions must be fixed. Start with media.

Observing the cathartic effect of the end the Harper regime reveals just how traumatized millions of Canadians were by nearly 10 years of rule by this vindictive prime minister. The analogies and metaphors keep coming: like getting out of jail, like waking up from a nightmare, like the end of an occupation.

This election will provide students, pundits and authors with career-building opportunities to dissect the results. Part of that analysis will, of course, examine the unprecedented assault on democracy carried about the Conservatives. As it should, because undoing the damage must be the litmus test for the new Liberal government and Parliament.

However, while it is critical to track these efforts, the other democratic institution which needs renewed attention is the media and in particular the newspapers in this country. Regrettably, we have adapted to the outrageous concentration of newspaper ownership in Canada, greater than in any other developed Western nation.

But the newspapers perhaps did us a favour in the last week of the campaign with their inane endorsement of the Harper autocracy for yet another four-year term. Postmedia and the Globe and Mail actually managed to write editorials justifying the re-election of a man turfed from office by a tsunami of voter revulsion.

The Globe and Mail and the National Post editorials both declared their support because of Harper’s economic record — but ignored all the actual evidence. The Globe declared: “The key issue of the election should have been the economy and the financial health of Canadians. On that score, the Conservative Party has a solid record.” And the National Post: “Harper’s commendable record in office cannot be dismissed. Our economy is in good shape…”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Canadian Election: A Study in Values

October 31, 2015

Canadian Election: A Study in Values

Those who work on climate change were both chuffed and chagrined by its role in Canada’s federal election campaign, which peaked last week with the victory of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and defeat of Conservative incumbent Stephen Harper.

“The environment” – a catch-all concept that often encompasses concern about climate change – consistently ranked close to economy and healthcare on voters’ list of top priorities. Oilsands and climate change issues took up nearly a quarter of the first leaders debate, commanding more than twice the airtime they did in 2011. Several media outlets ran editorials calling on all parties to take a strong stance on reducing GHG emissions or put a price on carbon. To quote professor and commentator George Hoberg, “energy and environmental issues have become central to Canadian electoral politics.”

Despite all of this, climate change didn’t have a significant impact on the election’s outcome. Fundamentally this was a campaign about values where action on global warming was bundled into a broader set of aspirations and ideas that Canadians said yes to last Monday.

The election of Canada’s new prime minister is an important case study in the powerful potential of values-based messaging. Where the Conservative campaign sought to preserve the status quo and motivate voters with threats of an unstable or unsafe future, the Liberal campaign (and to a different extent, the New Democrats) mobilized Canadians with a vision of change centred on honesty, inclusion and fairness.

Of course, the timing couldn’t have been better. Much has been said about why Canadians’ were ready to bid farewell to one of their longer-standing leaders – corruption, fiscal mismanagement, deepening degrees of intolerance and an overt contempt for basic democratic principles being among them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trust Trudeau? I’ll Wait and See

October 23, 2015

Trust Trudeau? I’ll Wait and See

Canada’s young prince promises ‘real change.’ I can’t help but be wary.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Like many Canadians, I want to trust the Liberals, but I don’t enjoy having to trust them. Photo by Mario Jean.

How are we feeling about the new Canadian Camelot? Justin Trudeau is young, movie star handsome, and projects the confident hope of his famous pedigree. All of North America seems swept up in the romance of his remarkable moment, and of course there are obvious reasons to celebrate.

Like 70 per cent of the voting public, I am savouring the end of the Stephen Harper era as one might relish being released from a Turkish prison. His insidious regime edged us toward a mean and narrow vision of Canada that was becoming almost unrecognizable.

While the Tory defeat was decisive by pundit standards, many of us hoped for more of a Mulroneyesque wipeout worthy of Harper’s jagged hubris. Alas, the Conservatives were only wounded and may re-emerge under new leadership as a political force more familiar and somewhat less toxic to our country.

Trudeau and his team no doubt ran a masterful campaign, but I fear the victorious Liberals might take the wrong lessons from Monday night. Like all political partisans, Liberal supporters are apt to confound what is good for their party with what is best for our nation.

Will they embrace meaningful changes to our antiquated voting system now that they have again hit the electoral jackpot? The Liberal party has enjoyed fully 16 “majority” governments since Confederation, while only three represented an actual majority of votes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Harper’s Revolutionary Foreign Policy

October 15, 2015

Harper’s Revolutionary Foreign Policy

Bellicose words, pandering flip flops, just one aim: Win votes at home.

Shredded by vote-driven strategy, Canada’s foreign policy has no real conservative agenda, no moral centre. Canadian flag image via Shutterstock.

No Canadian prime minister has put his personal stamp on foreign affairs more than Stephen Harper. And no prime minister has parted so radically from the national traditions of the past.

Canada used to play the role of a noble and sometimes self-serving Boy Scout abroad. The nation brokered peace deals, elevated the status of women, fought international poverty, championed arms control, and shared critical science.

It practiced real diplomacy and in the process, as former prime minister Joe Clark wrote in How We Lead, the nation became a “reliable, respected and responsible” global partner that built “concentric circles of influence on issues from defence, to development, to conciliation, to trade.”

There were blind spots, of course. The nation often ignored the abuses of Canada’s mining industry abroad and championed secret trade deals that have given unfettered power to corporations.

But the Boy Scout is long gone and a bully has taken its place. The Harper government practices “megaphone diplomacy” and flits from one outrageous rhetorical outburst to another.

One day Harper harangues Vladimir Putin as a common criminal, while the next day his Tory minions compare Iran to Nazi Germany. Canada has morphed from the reasoned voice of a middle power to a brittle fear monger that is now the first to close embassies, cut off dialogue and impose sanctions.

At the same time the Harper government can ignore the Syrian refugee crisis, because as Harper routinely suggests, many of these people might be terrorists or God forbid, homeless Muslims.

At first glance, much of this bombast (The Globe and Mail ridiculously calls it “muscular”) might seem totally incoherent and inconsistent, and you’d be right.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Canadian Elections: Cover-Up and Steal (Again)

October 8, 2015

The Canadian Elections: Cover-Up and Steal (Again)

Canadians are within a few days of stopping or allowing the Harper regime to continue to destroy the democracy and life fabric of Canada. But the dots are taboo to connect. The PR-led opposition has joined the corporate media in a public stage ritual of forgetting. The endless lies, election cheats, and bullying abuses through nine years of PMO civil destruction go scot free.

The Harper regime has cheated or stole every election. Yet not even the Conservative robo-call fraud to deprive up to 500,000 citizens of their votes in the 2011 election has been raised in the official campaign. No-one on stage remembers any of it back to the first Harper theft of power in 2006, featuring the Harper-RCMP deal to falsely accuse the Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale in criminal investigation just prior to the election. Nor is Harper’s violation of his own Election Act in calling the 2008 election and its massive illegal spending on attacks ads filling the airwaves with public hate just before the vote. All has been proven off the campaign stage, but all has been silenced on it. The regime’s near-daily record of lies, scandals and violations has gone the memory hole of the electoral campaign, with $54 million on hand for attack ads.

Nothing sticks because public information is repressed in every form by the Harper PMO, the corporate media publish only transient details and flattering pictures, and the mainstream parties silently submit to the rule of amnesia. Yet every destruction tracks back to the Mafia-like despotism of the Harper PMO whose rule of fear, division, lies, character assassination and public sector dismantling runs free with no connection on stage. Even as I write, Harper tells more public lies that “there are no cuts at the CBC” and that “marijuana is far more dangerous than tobacco’.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Canada’s Biggest Political Scandal You Never Heard Of

October 5, 2015

Canada’s Biggest Political Scandal You Never Heard Of

Big oil, taxpayers’ millions, call girls and a ‘mechanic’ named Bruce Carson.

It’s probably the biggest political scandal you’ve never heard of.

The tale involves Big Oil, millions of taxpayer dollars, call girls and someone the RCMP describes as “one of the prime minister’s longest serving advisors”: Bruce Carson.

And it largely took place at Stephen Harper’s alma mater: the University of Calgary between 2009 and 2011 with a cast of industry CEOs as well as several Harper ministers and aides, including Nigel Wright.

CANADA’S NO-TEETH LOBBYING ACT

The 1989 Lobbying Act bans public office holders from lobbying for five years after they have left office.

The act requires anyone paid to communicate or set up meetings with federal public office holders on a variety of subjects set out in the statute to register their activities in the Registry of Lobbyists, a federal list with more than 5,000 names.

The act, however, is weakly enforced and full of loopholes. Between 2005 and 2010, the nation’s lobbying commissioner referred only 11 cases to the RCMP. No charges were laid.

Since then the Office of the Lobbying Commissioner, the RCMP and Crown prosecutors have decided not to penalize 67 lobbyists caught violating the act and Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct.

Their identities have been kept secret.

To date, only one person has been found guilty of violating the act, and only two other people have been charged with violating it, including Bruce Carson.

Democracy Watch calculates that nearly 1,600 people have violated the Lobbying Act and Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct since 2004, but that 95 per cent of them were not caught and that 81 per cent were left off the hook.

“Lobbying Commissioner Karen Shepherd has clearly failed to enforce the federal lobbying law and code effectively as she has failed to even name and shame 81 per cent of the lobbyists caught violating the law,” saidDuff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch and visiting professor at the University of Ottawa in a 2015 press release.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Let Me Be Clear: Fact Checking Leaders on Foreign Policy

September 30, 2015

Let Me Be Clear: Fact Checking Leaders on Foreign Policy

A civil debate, sure. But civility, it seems, doesn’t always encourage truthfulness.

The fourth debate in this election “season” — a campaign as long as some places in Canada go without snow — was rather polite compared to the first two English debates.

It was clear host Munk Debates wanted a civil conversation among gentlemen, where the moderator held court and didn’t let the leaders shout over one another. The audience laughed and clapped as though there was a flashing sign telling them to do so, and even booed Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for speaking over Conservative leader Stephen Harper. Apparently they’re sticklers for manners, too.

Civility doesn’t equal truthiness, however, and it turns out there were some whopper-sized statements in last night’s foreign policy debate. As per form, we picked one statement per leader to debunk.

Thomas Mulcair: “It’s very difficult to see how Canada’s superior interests were being served when Prime Minister Harper said to President Obama that it was ‘a complete no brainer’ — those were his exact words — that the Americans had to approve Keystone XL. I know that Keystone XL represents the export of 40,000 Canadian jobs because Mr. Harper told the Americans so.”

The NDP leader’s first sentence is misleading. Speaking to reporters in New York at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in 2011, Harper told an American reporter that approving the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship raw bitumen from Alberta to Nebraska, would be a “no brainer.” He could have said this to Obama in a private conversation, but in public he said it to a reporter.

The second sentence is false, with a caveat. Keystone won’t “export” jobs to the United States. Mulcair could be referring to the fact that exporting raw bitumen means American refineries get to refine the product, rather than a Canadian facility. But the 40,000 jobs number comes from a U.S. state department report, and the majority are either temporary positions or they already exist.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue

September 26, 2015

How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue

Government says contract will create and sustain 3,000 jobs

Niqabs, the economy, national unity — all issues that predictably came up in Thursday night’s French-language debate.

But few had forecast that Canada’s relations with Saudi Arabia, and specifically, a multibillion-dollar contract to sell armoured vehicles to the country, would erupt as an issue. It made for one of the more interesting exchanges of the night, and a reprieve for debate watchers tiring of the party leaders covering the same old ground.

The issue of whether Canada should be involved in such a deal with a country with a poor human rights record carried forward Friday. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, as he did the night before, defended the $15-billion deal that Canada helped secure last year, under which the London, Ont.-based manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems will sell armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

At a campaign stop in Rivière-du-Loup, Que., Harper was asked whether he was putting Canadian jobs ahead of human rights concerns.

“As I’ve said in the debate, it’s frankly all of our partners and allies who were pursuing that contract, not just Canada. So this is a deal frankly with a country, and notwithstanding its human rights violations, which are significant, this is a contract with a country that is an ally in the fighting against the Islamic State. A contract that any one of our allies would have signed,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Spin cycle: Can 1.3-million new jobs be created in 5 years?

September 23, 2015

Spin cycle: Can 1.3-million new jobs be created in 5 years?

This election has a theme common to almost all others before it: everyone is promising more jobs

The promise of jobs, jobs, and more jobs has long been a staple of election campaigns.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has promised a basket of goodies to help manufacturing and other sectors create jobs, as well as help for young people and veterans to connect with the new jobs.

The Liberals, meanwhile, decided to go big or go home by promising $125-billion in infrastructure spending — even if it means short-term deficits.

Now it seems the Conservatives, not wanting to be outdone, are making a bold promise of their own.

Perhaps channeling Babe Ruth, Conservative leader Stephen Harper figuratively pointed to the faraway bleachers on Tuesday and promised “1.3-million net new jobs.”

The spin

“I would say that there is no reason why we can’t have a similar record on that we have now,” Harper told reporters on Tuesday.

Harper points out that the economy created 1.3-million new jobs since the “depths of the global recession.”

Of course, those jobs were created in large part by the unprecedented stimulus spending the government launched — including the largest deficit in Canadian history.

This time around is quite different. Harper’s plan to duplicate the results involves maintaining a balanced budget, reducing employment insurance premiums two years from now, and re-introducing the home renovation tax credit.

The counter spin

“I find that number, to put it mildly, wildly optimistic,” Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said.

Trudeau is dismissing this as just another empty campaign promise.

No one is going to campaign against creating more jobs. In fact, as mentioned, everyone in this campaign is promising that.

The critique, and indeed the test, of Harper’s promise is whether or not it is a realistic goal and, if so, are the measures in place to achieve it.

Economics and demographics

To borrow an old adage, if you asked 12 economists if tax cuts lead to job creation — you are likely to get 13 different opinions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Harper’s Worst Offense against Refugees May Be His Climate Record

September 7, 2015

Harper’s Worst Offense against Refugees May Be His Climate Record

Scorching effects of rising temperatures add to chaos in the Middle East, scientists say.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is right about the Syrian refugee crisis, for all the wrong reasons. His government is being battered by outrage over Canada’s wretched response to this humanitarian emergency. Our country of once-proud humanitarian leadership has so far admitted a mere 622 government-sponsored refugees when in past crises we admitted tens of thousands and were a better nation for it.

However, Harper correctly observed that no amount of charity and shelter would solve this dire situation. People are being displaced from their homes in the millions, and many more are on the way. His solution is more bombing of ISIS militants by CF-18s. In Harper’s simplistic worldview, what the people of Syria really need is more explosives from the sky.

Yet a recent study from the University of California reveals another plausible scenario for why Syria has become so dangerously destabilized, with troubling implications for Canada. Researchers looked at the role that climate change played in the Syrian civil war and concluded that an unprecedented drought in the Fertile Crescent forced 1.5 million rural farmers off their land and into the crowded suburbs of Syria’s already overcrowded cities, exacerbating unrest in the region.

This was occurring just as millions more were arriving from war-torn Iraq, fleeing the disastrous decade-long conflict sponsored by the U.S. (and enthusiastically supported by Harper when he was in opposition). Obviously climate change is not the only factor contributing to the crisis, but the authors believe their data supports the grim conclusion that our warming world will see many more families forced from their countries and homes in the future.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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