Since the remarks get pulled back into the public sphere regularly to haunt him, it’s reasonable to consider his old commentary in relation to what he’s done as Prime Minister and figure out if his thinking has grown or changed much.

A lot of people are probably familiar with the speech I’m referencing (full text available on the CTV Web site¹). In the speech, Harper made a bunch of disparaging remarks about his country and fellow citizens, and presented a perspective that was grossly simplistic. While some of what he said was probably intended for humour value, the observations, jokes, and overall perspective represent his manner of thinking.

I’ll quote Mr. Harper and then match the quote to something relevant in his tenure as PM.

1) “…it’s legendary that if you’re like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.”

• Change? Yes: This jest makes one think that Harper wasn’t very impressed with Canadians’ knowledge of history, current events, government, etc. Considering his joke presented the problem, he must have been concerned about this lack of knowledge. Usually a lack of knowledge is solved through learning, or education. While Harper used to be concerned with Canadian education, now he prefers to cut programs designed to improve it.

2) “Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.”

• Change? Not really: It’s possible Harper’s comment was relatively neutral, suggesting simply that there’s a connection between welfare and low economic growth, indeed you’d imagine that if there isn’t much economic growth there might be more unemployed people needing assistance. However taken in context of the rest of his cynical speech it reads more like he’s disparaging the normally high standard of living we have and Canadian attitudes toward helping those who are less fortunate. He begrudgingly succumbed to improving the employment insurance program. In late 2009, the Conservative minority needed a way to survive a non-confidence vote. They traded their normally feeble stance toward EI for the NDP’s timely demands and temporary support. Background from the CBC² (12 September 2009). The Calgary Sun³ (21 December 2009) reported on the surprising $1B in EI this resulted in–badly needed within the context of an economy hurting from the global economic crisis. Harper was dragged into this one so I can’t give him a “yes” for change in this respect. Also I cannot seem to find any articles confirming whether or not he learned that Canada is not on the European continent.

3) “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don’t feel bad about it themselves, as long as they’re receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.”

• Change? No: Canadian news agencies like the CBC⁴ reported in October 2008, when the economy was heading downhill, job losses were mounting, and people were worrying about how bad it might get that Harper suggested buying stocks. One would have to imagine that he believes the unemployed receive extremely “generous social assistance” for that kind of commentary to resonate.

4) “…our executive is the Queen, who doesn’t live here. Her representative is the Governor General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.”

• Change? No: Although he didn’t appoint this particular Governor General, Harper phones her up for a little friendly prorogue whenever he’s having a bad day.

5) “…the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate also is not very important in our political system.”

• Change? No: He still doesn’t seem to believe that the Senate is important in our political system. The proof is in his actions. He said it wasn’t important because it was an appointed body of buddies. Yet Harper has appointed many senators, in spite of committing to making it an elected body.

6) Referring to the executive, two legislative houses, and supreme court: “. . . if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system of checks and balances which quickly becomes a system that’s described as unpaid checks and political imbalances.”

• Change? No: Harper reaffirmed how imbalanced our system is when he twice prorogued parliament (see the little friendly prorogue link above) and went ahead carrying out his Conservative program, unchecked and chock full of deficit. Of course, if he’d just let our system’s watchdogs do their jobs, we might have a little more checking going on.

7) “. . . the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.”

• Change? Yes and No: Although it sounds like Stephen Harper doesn’t like the NDP much (he saw them as interference) he’s grown to see them, like the Liberals and Bloc, as a source for occasional support deals–when it serves his ulterior political motives. I mentioned one example above: the EI versus non-confidence issue. Harper also once upon a time, approached the NDP to help him form a coalition to topple the former Liberal government. If you’re Harper, that’s making a deal with the devil. Of course, they’re too far apart ideologically for that to have worked and when it truly didn’t work he chose to brush his little rejection under the carpet. Later, running from his own imminent loss to a non-confidence vote and Liberal/NDP coalition, he dishonestly framed coalitions as undemocratic⁵. Seems even lost opportunities with the devil can come back to bite. The CBC⁶ article from 1 December 2008 says
  

  “All three opposition leaders accused Harper of reversing his position, pointing to a 2004 letter to the governor general by then Opposition leader Harper that suggested he be allowed to form a coalition government if Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government were to fall. Layton said Harper should remember the meetings in which he proposed the coalition. “I walked out,” the NDP leader said, adding that he wrote about it in his book.”

People change. At least I believe people are capable of changing. Cynics might like to argue that point with me (if you convince me to change my mind–I’ll have proven my point). Often times, in the public sphere, a politician will take a particular stand at one point in time and years later, if he or she changes position, the media will call out the past position as though the politician is being dishonest.

While it may be the case that the politician is indeed being dishonest, sometimes it’s also possible that the person’s experience and thinking simply evolved over time. If politicians would just, publicly state when they’ve changed their minds and what led them to change their minds, I think it would go a long way toward dispelling the aura of dishonesty.

I’d rather vote for people that show me they’re capable of learning and addressing situations the best way possible, rather than sticking to some preconceived notion in spite of contrary evidence or public opinion. I don’t see Stephen Harper doing that but I also don’t see him changing much.

Backtracking, I’ll start with the recent news reporting that Harper will ask the Governor-General to prorogue parliament today, until the end of March 2010 (after the Winter Olympics). Without the prorogue, parliament would otherwise resume on 25 January 2010.

Why would Harper want this extended prorogue? Several reasons seem to benefit the Conservatives: one is that a bunch of bills will die¹, another is that it buys them time to dilute their scandals or otherwise cause the scandals to fade from the public memory (e.g. afghan torture, imbalanced stimulus money, environmental inaction, etc.), finally it gives Harper a chance to take over the Senate with Conservatives. According to CTV’s² (30 December 2009) chief political correspondent, Craig Oliver:

“”(Prorogation) has the great convenience of course of getting this government out of any kind of political trouble, because Parliament will not be sitting until after the Olympics. . . The plan is for the government to come back with a very brief throne speech just talking about what’s to come in the economy, and then a budget probably in days.”

Prorogation will also serve another purpose, Oliver said. Harper will likely appoint another group of new Senators, which will mean the Conservatives will finally hold a majority in the Red Chamber, and by extension, on Senate committees, Oliver said.”

Shouldn’t we be surprised that Harper wants to appoint unelected Senators? No, it’s perfectly consistent with his lies about reforming the Senate. He’s striving for Conservative control with a total disregard toward improving the democratic process. He already acted contrary to his own words on the subject and has proven he has no accountability in this regard.

The London Free Press³ (30 December 2009) pointed out how the prorogue would shut down further inquiry to the Conservative Afghan torture scandal.

“Preventing the return of Parliament until after the Olympics would effectively shut down all government committees, which would stop MPs from pursuing the Afghan detainee controversy until Parliament returned.

“If the government attempts this manoeuvre, it’s a shocking insult to democracy,” said Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale. “The government is in a very sticky place with respect to Afghan detainees and they’re running from accountability here — this is a cut and run government.”"

It’s worth noting as well, that preventing Parliament from functioning until after the Olympics, stands a good chance of replacing the negative opinions on the Conservative minority government from fomenting in the public eye and instead replacing them with the optimism and goodwill likely produced through the spectacle of the Olympics. The world’s eyes will be on Canada and all the press will be covering the events. Not only would Parliament resume at a time when the public is in a generally positive mood toward Canada but also much of what had happened prior to 2010, will have effectively been wiped clean from the public memory. The Tories are masters of spin.

So what was going on this time last year: the Conservative minority government found itself in very hot water. It had just come out of an election in which Canadians were once again unwilling to vote-in a Conservative majority government. As parliament met, the Conservatives washed aside real consideration for the economic crisis, instead presenting an inadequate budget that did more to play partisan games than to suit Canadian needs or to develop an effective parliament (minority government are supposed to get the other parties of parliament to cooperate with them on a mutual agenda, the Tories prefer to obstruct parliament).

The opposition parties met and decided two things. First, that they’d lost confidence in the minority Conservative government (Stephen Harper as PM lost the confidence of the house), and second that they could form a stable coalition to serve as an alternate government. According to a Globe and Mail⁴ (3 December 2008) article, which included this point from University of Saskatchewan constitutional scholar David Smith

“As for the opposition parties and their coalition plan, the expert consensus is that they’re following to the letter the precedent established in Canada for the sovereign’s representative to approve a change of government without an election.

The test that has to be met is, first, has the government lost the confidence of Parliament?; second, has an election just occurred?; and, third, is there a viable alternative to the government?”

Nevertheless Stephen Harper ran and asked the Governor General to either dissolve (require a new election–an unlikely option after just coming out of one) or prorogue parliament rather than face the vote of non-confidence by the opposition.

He used this delay tactic to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the proper plan of the opposition and our democratic process. The Conservatives presented the public with false rhetoric about the options (going to the polls again or accepting a coalition representing the majority of the votes).

In the same Globe and Mail article cited above, it identifies some of the difficulties involved in the situation.

“Using prorogation to duck a confidence vote that would terminate the Conservative government is unprecedented, and, although the Governor-General has the power to refuse Mr. Harper’s request, she likely would find herself in stormy constitutional waters if she did.

However, she’d be on firm ground if she granted him a qualified prorogation, severely limiting his ability to govern until he faces the opposition parties in the House of Commons, one of Canada’s leading experts on parliamentary procedure said yesterday.

Queen’s University political scientist C.E.S. Franks said an unprecedented use of prorogation could validly be met with an unprecedented use of the reserve power of the Queen’s representative – the power that can be exercised by the head of state in a parliamentary system without the approval of another branch of the government.

In effect, the Governor-General, by agreeing only to a qualified prorogation, would declare that the government exists in the same state as during an election campaign: unable to carry out anything but the most routine operations, barred from making appointments, executing new policies or authorizing major expenditures. The reason for this is that nobody knows which party ultimately will have the confidence of Parliament.”

Another Globe and Mail article⁵ (2 December 2008) discussed the Governor-General’s options (written by historian Bob Beal). It explains

“If the House decides it does not have confidence in the present government, the Governor-General will have to wonder if the House might have confidence in a different government drawn from the same House. . . .

Constitutional experts say in that situation the most minimal use of the Royal Prerogative would be to let the House get on with its work and let a new prime minister test the confidence of the House.

Accepting the prime minister’s advice for dissolution and an election in the present situation is also a possible, and proper, use of the prerogative. But that would establish a precedent, so far unknown, of the Crown interfering in the work of a newly elected House when it seems possible a new prime minister might be able to command the confidence of the House.

The current Prime Minister could ask the Governor-General to prorogue this session of Parliament, to delay the work of the House until the New Year, an exercise of the Crown’s reserve powers. That request would raise questions that have never been raised before. It seems a murkier situation than a request for dissolution would be.

The Governor-General could refuse a prorogation request on the same grounds as refusing a dissolution request, that the refusal would represent the most minimal use of the Crown’s powers and the least Crown interference with the work of the House. This session has hardly begun, and a confidence vote is scheduled within days.”

As we now know of course, the Governor-General did accept the prorogation request but oddly, not as a qualified prorogation. This stance did not seem to fall in-line with the regular process that would be expected to occur. The process I would have expected, would be that the non-confidence vote would have been allowed, and then the alternate government would be given its chance. But it also allowed the Conservatives to continue governing, making appointments, policies, etc. In fact, as the CBC⁶ reported (22 December 2008), Harper went ahead and appointed eighteen people to the Senate during the prorogue–trying to increase its total number of Conservatives.

“The deluge of appointments sets a record for the most Senate seats filled in a single day and is part of Harper’s efforts to ensure a Tory toehold in the upper chamber. Until now, the prime minister refrained from filling most of the vacancies — with the exception of two — because of his long-held position that those sitting in the Red Chamber should be elected.”

Even though the majority of Canadians did not vote for the Conservatives, even though all opposition parties (which did, collectively enjoy the majority of Canadian votes) were set to vote non-confidence in Harper and his Conservatives, the Governor-General allowed parliament to be put on hold, while Harper had free reign to continue acting against the majority of the Canadian will. Why?

In a Globe and Mail roundtable discussion⁷ (2 December 2008), John Manley (former liberal MP), referring to the Governor-General said

“I think the advice that she would probably receive would be that if the purpose of the prorogation is simply for the government to avoid facing a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, then that’s not an appropriate use of the prorogation of power. I’d be surprised if she agreed to that.

I also think that refusing the advice of the Prime Minister to grant prorogation would be entirely unprecedented. We’re going to see something for the very first time with this. . .”

She didn’t refuse the PM. I would guess that the argument in favour of the Governor-General’s position at that time was that she should act in the way that involves only the most minimal use of the Crown’s powers so as to interfere as little as possible with with the work of elected representatives.

Thus her decision could have been based on an idea that granting whatever the prime minister wanted would be the least interfering action. In other words not asserting her will, which could be contrary to the PM’s. Unfortunately, in that situation, her action actually interfered far more with the functioning of our democratically elected representatives than if she had either allowed the non-confidence vote (and then the alternate coalition to govern), or even granted a qualified prorogation.

It also set a precedent that the Governor-General essentially rubber stamps the PM’s advice when it comes to proroguing parliament. Stephen Harper, having caused that precedent to be set is unashamed to repeatedly use it to his advantage.

December 2009 and we’ve learned that when the Conservative minority government is most likely to fall, is faced with Canada’s greatest hardships, holds no confidence, or is being battered by its own scandals, it runs away. It tries to buy itself time to diffuse its problems or whitewash them in the public eye.

Stephen Harper has a free pass to buy himself time with another extended prorogue because of the precedent he established with the Governor-General in December 2008. While parliament is stuck doing nothing, he gets to continue his Conservative agenda by stuffing the Senate with his cherry-picked, unelected officials–remember his pattern, it’s what he did last year.

To leave this subject, I’d like to ask, aside from political opportunism (the Senate issue), why else might Harper go so far as to request the extended prorogue?

He has more information about the goings-on of the Conservative minority government, he has the information on the Conservative Afghan torture scandal, which won’t be released. While that’s a hot issue, it isn’t threatening his government to the extreme that 2008′s non-confidence vote/coalition did. Perhaps Harper knows that what is yet to come from the Conservative scandals will reach a point that boils past the level we saw in 2008.

(Follow up from the Toronto Star after the Governor-General granted Harper’s request)

“Robert Marleau, the information commissioner of Canada, says that contrary to Mr. Harper’s election pledge to make transparency a hallmark of his administration, a “fog over information” has crept across the government’s activities. Marleau said complaints to the commissioner’s office about lack of access to government information have doubled in the past year.

. . . public servants, ambassadors, as well as cabinet ministers and Conservative MPs are muzzled or kept on a short leash. Canwest News Service revealed last week that Environment Canada’s scientists, once among the most media-accessible specialists, have been slapped with orders to refer all journalists’ queries to the government where communications officers will help them respond with “approved lines.”"

It’s not a good sign when the information comissioner complains that the government is putting a fog over information.

Getting information out to the public is one issue, how it’s presented is another and Harper’s Conservatives have a machine for that too. The Toronto Star² reported (26 May 2008) about the Con machine (first part of a good series they wrote on the topic).

“Questions on the hot issues of the day all get funnelled through this office, the “communications and consultations” unit of the Privy Council Office. . . Public appearances by cabinet ministers – whether it’s a speech or an interview – are carefully staged, starting with a “message event proposal” vetted by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic wing of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

And in a marked change from previous governments, now even basic demands for information from reporters, once easily fielded by department spokespersons, are sent to this office for review – and often heavy editing – before they are okayed for public release, government insiders say.”

It shows how contolled the information we receive from the government is, everything is crafted for the spin the Conservatives desire.

It goes further than information and messaging though, government appointed watchdogs that were supposed to ensure more accountability also get silenced when their message isn’t helpful to the Conservative cause. There are a number of examples, I won’t try to point them all out but consider what the National Post³ (18 June 2009) said of budget watchdog, Kevin Page (PBO).

“the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (OPBO) provides authoritative, non-partisan financial and economic analysis to support Parliament and parliamentarians in exercising their oversight role over the government’s stewardship of public funds and in ensuring budget transparency.

Kevin Page was appointed as the first budget officer in March of 2008. It was a move intended to create more transparency in government by explaining to Canadians about fiscal planning and scrutiny of budget estimates. In government there is so much spending that goes unaccounted for, unexamined, and unexplained that I had high hopes for Mr.Page. Unfortunately, it appears his job has been hampered by a plague of budget cuts.

Mr. Page has said a lack of consistent reporting and transparency from the government has made estimating difficult, but he has still projected far larger deficits than the government. From reworking the estimates, to revising corporate revenue projections, he has angered the Conservative government by challenging its forecasts. For essentially doing his job. For holding to account Mr.Flaherty when he makes predictions like this. Part of being “accountable” is having an authority which is able to hold the government to their projections.”

The Globe and Mail⁴ (26 June 2009) corroborates this issue. Kevin Page was supposed to more or less say what the Conservatives liked and when he didn’t, they implied they wouldn’t fund his office anymore. That threat would essentially have shut him down, but instead they offered this.

“Mr. Page has been offered the $2.8-million budget he was promised more than a year ago. But the condition is that he no longer report on “the state of the nation’s finances and trends in the national economy” directly to the House of Commons and the public.”

So he gets to keep doing what he was supposed to do, just so long as it doesn’t get easily released to the public, without presumably going through the Conservative stamp of approval machine.

Finally, the Toronto Star⁵ (24 December 2009) reported on the muzzling phenomenon, as I mentioned, it extends well beyond Page.

“Three essential oversight agencies will begin 2010 without leadership and wearing government-issued blinkers. By hook and crook, Harper Conservatives have gutted the effectiveness of the Military Complaints Commission, the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP and the Office of the Information Commissioner.

All three top posts are now empty. Not one was vacated quietly.

Peter Tinsley is howling that pushing him out of the job will effectively kneecap the already crippled inquiry into claims that Afghans tortured prisoners. Paul Kennedy is furious not to be staying to bring fully independent investigations and civilian oversight to the RCMP. Robert Marleau retired as information commissioner in June, a few months after issuing a set of failing-grade report cards that blamed those “at the very top” for systematically denying Canadians information about what the government is doing in their name.”

For a party that spoke a lot about accountability and claimed not to have secret agendas, the actions they’ve taken while in office give every impression that they’re anything but accountable or open.

For more information about Canadian access to information take a look at Stanley Tromp’s site⁶, where he’s published an extensive report on the issue. It’s a very long report, several hundred pages, but you can focus in on the issue of the Conservative minority government’s secrecy with the brief and informative postcript⁷ (PDF).

Informative read from the University of Alberta’s Centre for Constitutional studies, regarding Freedom of the Press and Harper’s Media Policy.

I remember reflecting at the time of the initial GST cuts what the real rationale might be–it couldn’t be what the Conservatives were saying publicly because that had too many holes to make sense. When the Tories kept announcing what seemed like short-sighted cuts to the taxes, which would have little to no economic affect on the majority of Canadians, why did they consistently tout these as putting money back into the hands of consumers (a sham).

What is the real rationale for the Conservatives’ GST cuts? The GST cuts affect the government’s ability to support various services and programs that impact the well-being of our society. Ah, but that’s right, the Conservatives aren’t generally in favour of such services and programs, they want to shrink government, preferring to leave everyone to fare for themselves. But they can’t come out and tell everyone they want to cut federal programs and services, because then they’d risk losing the minority popular support that they have. So what to do? How about engineering some great big deficits? A deficit situation enables the Conservatives to justify cutting federal programs and services, to justify selling off our crown assets to private interests, all under the guise of being fiscally responsible.

Let’s see how this adds up.

Reuter’s¹ reported (25 July 2008) that the Conservative-led government wasn’t off to a good start to the fiscal year.

“. . . posting a deficit of C$517 million ($507 million) for April and May as corporate and sales tax collection fell sharply. The deficit compares with a surplus of C$2.78 billion in the same two months of 2007. The weak results were due to a 17 percent decline in corporate income tax revenue as well as a 21 percent drop in intake from the goods and services sales tax, the Department of Finance said in a report on Friday.” [emphasis mine]

The article continues to note that the Conservative government estimated it would have a surplus of $2 to $3 billion for the year. It contrasts sharply with the prior year’s surplus of about $10 B. Striking however, that the Conservatives were still publicly estimating a surplus, not a deficit. It suggests that either they weren’t very good at taking stock of the economic situation or else they were simply trying to keep things quiet and control public perception over eventually slipping into a deficit.

Continuing with Reuter’s reports² (18 November 2008), we can see how much the Conservatives tried to veil the situation. This is about the time that budget officer, Kevin Page, prepared to release his first forecast.

“The idea of running a budget deficit in Canada has been political anathema since the 1990s when the previous Liberal government painfully eliminated it over a period of several years. Ottawa has subsequently posted annual surpluses, the only major industrialized country to do so.

The newly re-elected Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted throughout this year’s election campaign that it would continue to balance the books. However, it has since allowed that a temporary deficit is likely. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has said he expects to post a small surplus in the 2008-09 fiscal year but the budget might slide into deficit after that as the result of possible stimulus measures that have yet to be defined. In February, when the government laid out its spending plans for 2008-09, Flaherty saw . . . the surplus slimming down to C$1.3 billion in 2009-10.

Economists, including the influential chief economist of Toronto-Dominion Bank, Don Drummond, have estimated Canada could face a budget shortfall of up to C$10 billion next year.”

At about the same time, the Montreal Gazette reported³ (14 November 2008) Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty’s intentions to sell crown assets.

“Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said yesterday the Harper government is considering selling real estate and other crown assets to help keep the budget balanced as the economy worsens. . . . “We are going to review the corporate assets, the capital assets, of the government of Canada, to see whether they still perform a useful function for the Canadian people. If that review shows that there should be some assets that should be sold, then we’ll go ahead with them.”"

Clearly (because Flaherty says so) the Conservatives knew at this point that they would have at least a difficult time balancing the budget. But he puts the blame on a worsening economy, totally neglecting his own government’s reckless GST cuts. Or were they reckless? Maybe they served the Conservative strategy of reducing federal programs and services. Flaherty’s talking about selling off crown assets–those belong to us don’t they, not private parties. But this talking strategy will prove consistent with future Conservative announcements and with current Conservative ideology.

Jumping ahead, the Conservatives started predicting they’d run a $34 billion deficit for 2009/10, and a $30 B deficit the year after. Harper said the budget they’d introduce would have “permanent tax cuts”–interesting way to deal with a shortfall: lose more money.

The CBC reporting⁴ (22 June 2009) on the massive federal deficit expectation points out that we’re likely to see what had been estimated as a $1.3 billion surplus changed into a $50 billion deficit. Roughly $10 billion of that can be attributed to the GST cut. That’s $10 billion in federal social programs down the drain. The article quotes Canadian autoworks economist Jim Stanford on the link between cutting the GST and the purchasing decisions “The links are not as strong as you might think…” which corroborates others’s positions at the time of the announced cuts (I called attention to these just above).

To be fair, the article also notes that $10 B is only a portion of the ~$50 B deficit. But much of what led to the deficit was not as predictable or controllable as the $10 B portion. Part of the deficit comes from measures, like the economic stimulus taken (and to varying degrees pushed by the other parties) to deal with the severe recession.

Nevertheless $10 B of the deficit was within the purvue of the Conservatives’ decisions. That’s $10 B that could have been used toward stimulus and social programs. That’s $10 B that could have been considered a safety net for a worsening economy (which as we know now, it did). The Conservatives had a safety net coming into office, which gave them some  room to manage our country even while the world was heading into a deep recession. Rather than recognize their good fortune in having that wiggle room they put policies in place, which even at the time signalled an end to such a safety net. That’s an intentional act.

So I ask, can it be reckless planning? Lack of forsight? Or is it part of the Conservative strategy to reduce the government–recognizing that if anything dire did happen, they’d get their opportunity to cut federal programs to support only the most essential of federal duties? I think it’s the latter. While I may disagree with their goals, calling them short-sighted, I don’t actually think the Conservatives are stupidly bumbling around with these measures, rather they’re carrying through with their policies for a reason.

The United Press reported⁵ (11 September 2009)

“Canada’s budget deficit was adjusted upward to $55.9 billion this year . . . Flaherty said much of the effort to get the deficit down to $5.2 billion by 2015 will “require decisions of government that won’t always be popular or pain free,” and “it will require a lot of saying ‘no’ to pet projects and special interests.”"

In order to reduce the deficit (not even talking about hitting a surplus again) by 2015, Flaherty starts trying to get the public used to the idea that cuts will come, and that they’ll be painful. Wondering what he characterizes as “pet projects and special interests”?

My guess is that’s just about anything outside current Conservative doctrine. How long before the Conservatives proceed with deeper cuts to cultural programs, social services, and more? Could cuts required to get us out of this deficit eventually be a rationale for the Conservatives to open the door to privatized health care? So much of the Conservative agenda, reigning in the social infrastructure, which characterizes (in part) the well-being of Canadian life, comes down to cutting the programs and services that are now Canadian institutions.

The National Post⁸ (2 November 2009) discussed Kevin Page’s report (Parliamentary Budget Office) examining our future deficit in relation to the Conservatives’ plans. His office is of course, supposed to shed light on what goes on within their domain and has sometimes been at odds with the Conservatives’ numbers. Page says the federal government will be in a substanatial structural deficit for a number of years and that the government will have to raise taxes or else make cuts in its programs. He also brought up an interesting issue.

“According to Mr. Page, the government’s projections include $5.8-billion in unidentified savings over the next five years through reviews of program spending, including $2-billion this year. Mr. Page says his office has requested expenditure planning documents from the federal Treasury Board, but has thus far been rebuffed.”

And now that the holidays are upon us, the Conservatives are releasing plenty of bits warning that they’ll begin making cuts–are these the unidentified savings, Page mentioned? Perhaps the Conservatives think people will forget these warnings over the holidays, or that the warnings will sink into the background of our consciousness so we’re more receptive when they finally do occur. The Globe and Mail⁶ (21 December 2009) talks about Harper’s stimulus plan exit strategy involving years of “belt-tightening”. They quote Stephen Harper saying:

“The government’s approach will be clear. We won’t be raising taxes, but we will be constraining growth . . . And within four to five years, if we follow that path, we should be back to a balanced budget.”

Harper uses the euphemism “restraining growth” but as his government noted previously, they mean cuts to federal programs and services, along with selling off crown assets. Reading the language used by Harper and his Conservatives, and the way it gets reported frequently you can see that they use words like frugal and belt-tightening, which imply wisdom and resolve rather than the actual short-sightedness or cunning strategy. The article continues with insightful counterpoints from respected economists and ministers

“Mr. Harper’s view that his government will be able to chip away at deficits by squeezing the growth of public spending has been questioned by economists and by former officials with the Finance Department. Former deputy ministers Scott Clark and David Dodge [former Governor of the Bank of Canada] have already stepped forward to challenge the government’s plans for eliminating the deficit, which is projected to reach $56-billion this fiscal year. Mr. Clark has said that Ottawa will have to raise the GST, which Mr. Harper cut in 2006.

“I don’t think it’s very likely that they can balance the budget without some very severe spending restraint,” said Bank of Montreal deputy chief economist Douglas Porter.”"

It’s not just Flaherty and Harper talking cuts, but well-known economists saying the Conservatives cannot follow through on their promises without backtracking their initial decisions on the GST cut or else severely cutting spending. And last but not least, let’s follow this up with the most recent news coming from Jim Flaherty’s mouth and reported by The Globe and Mail⁷ (22 December 2009).

“”Over time, what we’re going to see in the federal government in any event is some attrition because of the demographics and aging public service and we’ll have to be mindful of that as we try to watch growth in spending and restrain growth in spending,”"

Which is an oblique way of saying the Conservative minority government would look toward cutting public services. How can I justify that comment? Consider that if you don’t rehire public workers, or worse, you eliminate their jobs, then you no longer can offer the public services they were responsible for delivering. The article says

“Aiming for a leaner civil service, and looking to the salary savings of a reduced federal work force, provides a new twist on what has long been viewed as the public service’s demographic challenge. . . . “I hope he realizes that when you cut public servants, you cut public service,” said Gary Corbett, the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. Mr. Corbett said cutting public-service jobs means cutting back on important jobs like food safety inspectors and scientific research.”

The Star⁹ (23 December 2009) also has a piece on Flaherty’s recent announcements. It provides some other details such as marking a flippant sounding attitude toward the situation and this point of Flaherty history:

“In his 2001 Ontario budget, Flaherty handed $2.4 billion in tax cuts to the province’s corporations, promised personal tax breaks and paid down $3 billion in provincial debt – all while balancing the books by holding down badly needed expenditures for universities, hospitals and infrastructure projects.”

Furthermore, according to the Globe and Mal article, Flaherty believes government revenues will largely stem from economic growth. That’s sure a positive outlook. While that would be welcome and might even be likely, it’s far from certain. Things could even take a turn for the worse.

“The concern expressed by the deputy ministers and others is that the government’s revenues have fallen so steeply that Mr. Flaherty simply will not be able to find enough savings to wipe out the deficit. They argue that even when economic growth returns to normal, the Conservatives’ two point GST cut has left Ottawa with a continuing deficit.”

The Conservatives have thus set up the game board for a future election campaign. With the spectre of permanent deficits, they can pit their party’s harsh cuts to federal services against the other parties’ options, which will likely be to either mimic the Conservative choice or to reverse the tax cuts that the Conservatives propaganda’d their minority public support into applauding in the first place.

Remember how the Conservatives got their first two attempts at copyright change wrong? Later the government set up a consultation with the Canadian public. The consultation ought to be applauded for opening lines of communication so that everyone in our shared culture had a chance to speak out on what we’d like to see in terms of reform (if at all).

That consultation however, feels increasingly like little more than a publicity ruse to keep concerned citizens occupied while the Conservatives work their way through the secret negotiations with foreign interests.

The copyright consultation Web site¹ says:

“It is important that any new legislation that is tabled not only reflect the current technological reality, but is also forward-looking and can withstand the test of time. The government is taking this opportunity to listen to Canadians about what is important to them on copyright. …the government will take stock of the submissions that Canadians have made and the discussions that took place. With these in mind, the government will draft and table new legislation.”

Why does the Conservative minority government pay lip-service to caring about Canadians’ voices on the subject? Why is it proceeding on the international stage without respect to what Canadians want (sometimes even contrary to what many Canadians have expressed)? And why does it have the gall to keep its foreign talks secret and not release the information to the public?

Canada is involved in the ACTA treaty, which has been widely criticized for its potential to bring in regulations on Canadian content, “intellectual property”, and other copyright issues that interfere with the ideas and values Canadians expressed during our public copyright consultation. Consider this Wired News² (4 December 2009) article

“According to leaked documents, the European Union expressed alarm that the Obama administration is lobbying on behalf of the entertainment industry as part of the negotiations for the new international copyright accord.

The document, “European Union’s Comments to the U.S. Proposal,” notes that the “most important provision” of the U.S.-proposed copyright section includes language noting that the United States’ “overarching objective” is to “facilitate the continued development of industry.”"

The US has great interest in controlling “intellectual property”, implementing strategies to secure this domain of economic empire, so it’s not surprising that the sentiment expressed above would exist. But how does that fit with Canada’s participation? The Financial Times³ (26 May 2008) reported

“OTTAWA — The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws … Called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the new plan would see Canada join other countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, to form an international coalition against copyright infringement. … Federal trade agreements do not require parliamentary approval.”

Interestingly, so long as it’s a trade agreement, the minority Conservative government essentially seems to have free rein. Our government gets to bow to outside interests (industry and foreign governments) discarding Canadian desires. Indeed, no governments have fully released the ACTA documents to the public, it’s only through occasional partial leaks that the public discovers what is happening without broad consent, behind closed doors.

Michael Geist has posted a nice timeline⁴ (31 March 2009) of ACTA events. But things got worse recently, as noted on Geist’s site⁵ (16 December 2009). Geist brought up that current Canada/EU talks on a trade agreement, separate from ACTA, have a segment addressing “intellectual property”. He says:

“the EU proposal for the IP chapter has just leaked online^[6] and the document is incredibly troubling.  When combined with ACTA, the two agreements would render Canadian copyright law virtually unrecognizable as Canada would be required to undertake a significant rewrite of its law.  The notion of a “made-in-Canada” approach – already under threat from ACTA – would be lost entirely, replaced by a made-in-Washington-and-Brussels law.”

So Conservatives, what are you really doing? You set up two rounds of failed copyright reforms, which were embarrasing in their short-sighted, industry-controlled direction, then set up a sham public consultation, and finally are engaged in not one, but two secret trade agreements involving “intellectual property” restrictions that are contrary to the best interests of the Canadian public.

“”When I become prime minister I will undertake an unprecedented overhaul of the federal government… That is my commitment to you.”

“Cleaning up government begins at the top,” he added, accusing Prime Minister Paul Martin of deflecting blame whenever the taint of scandal touches him.”

In principle of course, I don’t think many would argue that greater government accountability is not only important but necessary for the well-being of our democracy. Unfortunately, the Conservatives’ act was largely just an act. It did little of what the Conservatives led Canadian citizens to believe they’d do. Worse, the Conservatives have repeatedly acted against the spirit of not the letter of the act. Here’s some background and evidence.

Democracy Watch² (16 December 2009) reported on the Conservatives progress since 2006, noting that they’d increased or attempted to increase accountability in a few instances but also that they’d weakened it in eight ways, failed on 29 promises, and ignored 90 loopholes or flaws in the accountability system. Thus they gave the Conservatives a much lower grade than the Conservatives originally set out to earn. Democracy Watch also graded the main parties’ platforms^2b, with the NDP in the lead.

CBC reported³ (25 October 2006) about Justice John Gomery’s concerns his commissions studied recommendations on accountability had fallen into a black hole. John Gomery of course was responsible for the inquiry into the sponsorship scandal and so the 18 recommendations in his reports would have been incredibly relevant to for the Conservatives’ push on accountability. The article states

“Gomery said he thought the government would have taken action on the recommendations by now, or at the very least, started a debate on the issues covered by the inquiry. The inquiry covered a lot more ground than does the accountability act, he said. The act is designed to make the government more transparent and to crack down on unethical government actions. It also tightens political financing laws in Canada. It has not yet been proclaimed into law, although it has passed second reading in the Senate. Gomery said his request for a report on implementation did not mean that the government should do nothing for two years.”

Since Gomery’s report recommended solutions to the very lack of accountability that enabled both the sponsorship scandal to occur and the Conservatives to trumpet their accountability credo and thus eake their way into an minority government, why didn’t the Conservatives pay attention to it?

Gomery was back in the news with a Calgary Herald⁴ report (13 March 2008).

“Gomery told MPs on the government operations committee he was profoundly disappointed the Harper government ignored many of his recommendations because its signature Federal Accountability Act will not fix the imbalance of power between MPs, the prime minister and cabinet.”

According to the article the Harper government never responded to Gomery’s recommendations. Instead the Harper government has let the power of unelected political aides increase.

CBC reported⁵ (12 January 2007) that the Conservatives were already neglecting their own Accountability Act. It had become law in December of 2006. That same month Harper’s Conservatives made 118 appointments but were accused of violating the spirit of their act, which required that an independent body oversee such appointments. This trend would continue.

The Globe and Mail⁶ (5 January 2008) reported about a broken election promise the Conservatives had made requiring “ministers to record their contacts with lobbyists.” the article states

“In the 2006 election campaign, the Conservative Party platform pledged a new law to “require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists.”

However, a federal spokesman said the new rules are not going in that direction. The new regulations are the details of how the Lobbying Act, which was passed in 2006 [emphasis mine], will work.

“The balanced approach that we determined as a Parliament was to put the positive obligation on the lobbyists,” said Mike Storeshaw, a spokesman for Treasury Board President Vic Toews.”

It doesn’t sound like the Conservatives followed through with a regulation that would make government more accountable, rather one that introduces easy ways out for officials communicating with lobbyists.

That year continued to show Harper breaking his promises for more accountability in government. After he talked up a storm about reforming the senate, pushing to turn it into an elected body, his actions went in the opposite direction. The Star⁷ (29 December 2008) pointed out that

“With his appointment of 18 Senators, most of whom are Conservative party cronies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has added another broken promise to the 27 democratic reform and government accountability promises the Conservatives have already broken since they were elected in January 2006.”

Note that Stephen Harper⁸ addressed a senate committee (7 Septemeber 2006) regarding his plans for senate reform.

“As everyone in this room knows, it has become a right of passage for aspiring leaders and prime ministers to promise Senate reform – on their way to the top… But once they are elected, Senate reform quickly falls to the bottom of the Government’s agenda. Nothing ever gets done. And the status quo goes on. Honourable Senators, this has got to stop… As yet another step in fulfilling our commitment to make the Senate more effective and more democratic, the Government – hopefully this fall, – will introduce a bill in the House to create a process to choose elected Senators. This bill will further demonstrate how seriously the Government takes the issue of Senate reform.”

Look back at that same Star (29 Dec ’08) article, which recalls that the Conservatives

“promised to establish an independent Public Appointments Commission to ensure fair, merit-based and widely publicized searches for qualified candidates for the PM and his cabinet to appoint to government agencies, boards and commissions.”

As stated previously the Conservatives already had a problem with their 118 appointments made in 2007, when they also pledged to have that Public Appointments Commission set up in no time. It seems that almost two years later, instead of setting up the commission they continued appointing people, actually over 1000 appointments. So it’s perfectly consistent that they’d do nothing on senate reform after two years either. Stephen Harper succeeded with his own right of passage to get elected and do nothing about senate reform.

These few examples show that Harper’s Conservatives cannot be trusted to act on their own accountability act. There are other examples including questionable use of campaign money, mistreatment of the financial watchdog, and mistreatment of a whistleblower, I’ll get to those in other posts but Greg Weston summarizes nicely in his Toronto Sun article (13 December 2009)⁹.

Other perspectives on the Conservative accountability problem include

• Keith Martin, M.P. — Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca¹⁰ (12 May 2006)
• Doug Banwell’s Blog¹¹ (4 April 2009)

“A Conservative official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mailing lists the Prime Minister’s Office uses are drawn from community directories, free publications available to the general public or word of mouth from friends and relatives, but not government records.”

I can’t help but think that it’s a bit creepy to imagine Conservatives getting names and addresses via “word of mouth from friends and relatives.” How exactly would a conversation go in which someone from the Conservative Party asks people to divulge contact information about their relatives and friends? In spite of the types of sources the official mentioned were used, a number of people that received these cards were not practicing Jews and did not have their names or contact information available in such sources to begin with. It casts doubt on how this list was developed.

A year later (10 September 2008), The Ottawa Citizen² followed up its report with another. The Conservatives repeated their weird greeting card campaign, with much the same sort of response. Many people in Jewish communities did not like receiving the blatant grab for votes delivered under the guise of goodwill. Indeed, the article quotes one person’s sentiments

“‘I was a little alarmed at the idea that the government might have some list of Canadian Jews, whether or not they’re using that for benevolent or malevolent or cynical reasons,” Mr. Terkel said. “It doesn’t seem my religion should be the business of any federal government.’”

Although the statement ought to apply to any religion, I would have thought the Conservatives might have given a little extra consideration to the issue not just because of the outcry the prior year but in the context of history, they should know better than to present themselves organizing lists of Jews. Bad form.

Finally they changed tactics as the Canadian Press reported³ (19 November 2009)

“Conservative MPs have distributed taxpayer-funded pamphlets that suggest the Grits are anti-Semitic.”

It goes on to quote Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler

“‘To intentionally misrepresent the facts and to drive a wedge and to seek to associate the Liberals somehow with fuelling anti-Semitic polices or being associated with terrorism, that, I have to say, is something that I have not seen (before),’ said Cotler.”

It wasn’t just the Liberals that were outraged, even though they were the target of the attack. Both the NDP and the Bloc stood against it as well, derided it as a low point in the attack propaganda the Conservative Party distributes.

And finally, The Star reported⁴ (27 November 2009) that the Tories got officially rebuked by the Peter Milliken (the Commons Speaker).

“Agreeing that former justice minister Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal) had been dealt a ‘direct and personal’ blow with the circulation of the flyers, Commons Speaker Peter Milliken said ‘the mailing constitutes interference with (Cotler’s) ability to perform his parliamentary functions in that its content is damaging to his reputation and his credibility.’”

It also pointed out that after receiving the propaganda, some people in Cotler’s riding wanted him to leave parliament as well as the Jewish community. Cotler “…is an internationally recognized expert on human rights, especially surrounding Israel, and whose daughter has served in the Israeli military.” So the Tory attack campaign seems to have accomplished significant damage to Cotler’s reputation.

Will the official rebuke, shaming as it is, be enough to stop the Conservatives from their propaganda campaigns targeting Jews? I doubt it, the reports linked above seem to show that the Conservative Party is unable to see anything wrong with its actions.

I’ll quote just a few of the statements below.

First, the Conservative message says

“Canadians passed judgment on Stephen Harper when they awarded the Conservative Party a strengthened mandate.”

I’d argue that in our last election while Canadians may have passed any type of judgement on Stephen Harper, we didn’t award the Conservative Party a strengthened mandate. The Conservatives ended up with only a plurality of the seats, it did not win a majority government, thus its mandate was no stronger than before the election. If anything, I’d argue it was weaker. Why weaker? Because it was well publicized how before the election the Conservatives tried to govern as though they were a majority. Playing political games to force policies through without obtaining agreement or concensus from the other parties. What they did accomplish, they accomplished without the will of the majority of Canadians. To trigger an election and end up back where they started should have been received as a message that they haven’t won the majority of Canadians’ support and needed to work with the other parties in order to find that support.

Second, the Conservative message says

“Voters offered no mandate to Stéphane Dion and the Liberals to govern the country.  They offered no mandate to Jack Layton and the NDP to influence the economy.”

It’s a bit of an odd thing to say. Like the Conservatives, neither of these parties won a majority, however upon forming a coalition with the support of the Bloc Québécois, they do have a majority. So this coalition represents the majority of Canadian voters, and that is not something the Conservatives can claim⁴ for themselves. It seems like the coalition has more of a mandate than the minority Conservatives do.

Finally, the Conservative message ends with

“The Liberals, NDP and separatist must first face the Canadian voters.  Otherwise any coalition will be an illegitimate regime without any mandate to govern.”

Actually the Liberal/NDP and Bloc already faced the Canadian voters (see above). Their coalition is not an illegitimate regime. It’s a democratically elected one, where the majority of the parties are working together (the Conservatives failed to do this). In fact, it’s in keeping with our Parliamentary rules².

“If no party gets a clear majority, the Cabinet that was in office before and during the election has two choices. It can resign, in which case the Governor General or Lieutenant-Governor will call on the leader of the largest opposition party to form a Cabinet. Or the Cabinet already in office can choose to stay in office and meet the newly elected House — which, however, it must do promptly…

…if a minority government is defeated on a motion of want of confidence very early in the first session of a new Parliament, and there is a reasonable possibility that a government of another party can be formed and get the support of the House of Commons, then the Governor General could refuse the request for a fresh election. The same is true for the Lieutenant-Governors of the provinces.”

Finally, Ed Broadbent wrote a concise and well formulated article³ that reveals the facts on the situation that Harper and his Conservatives have been trying to distort. Broadbent observes:

Instead of following constitutional precedent and allowing a democratic confidence vote to take place when it should, we have a power-hungry man who will be recorded as the first prime minister in Canada’s history to deliberately create a political crisis and set the fire of national disunity.

Follow the links for more details

1) PDF of the Conservative page of errors, for reliable reference, review, and criticism.

2) PDF of the Parliament of Canada Web page explaining how parliamentary government operates, for reliable reference, review, and criticism.

However, the speech wasn’t Harper’s. He copied it from another country’s prime minister and passed it off as his own. He didn’t bother to cite the original author. Thus, on a matter of national importance, putting human lives at risk and influencing the course of world history, Harper committed plagiarism.

The speech Stephen Harper delivered was in fact plagiarized from Australian PM, John Howard. To be precise although we know Stephen Harper didn’t write the speech, (like some other politicians) he often doesn’t write his speeches. Not writing one’s own speeches, while perhaps regrettable, is not the same as plagiarism, it’s a matter of using speech writers. Regardless, Harper ought to be directly accountable for the plagiarism. Here’s why.

While Stephen Harper might deliver many ghost-written speeches, he doesn’t typically give credit to the speech writers when the speech goes over well. He doesn’t stand up and say this was written by so-and-so. Rather he takes credit for the speech, as the one delivering it, as representing his perspective, as representing the position of the Conservative party, even Canada’s stance, depending on the circumstance.

We know Stephen Harper is quite conscientious of the message he delivers and likely works closely with his speech writers. His Conservatives have set up one of the most impressive spin and message control machines in Canadian politics. Prior to 1988, he even wrote speeches for Preston Manning, so he knows what’s involved.

If it’s standard practice to accept the glory of a good speech, then Harper must take equal responsibility of accepting the blame for a speech gone bad. But he didn’t.

According a CBC¹ article (30 September 2008) on the subject the speech writer was quickly sent to publicly take the blame, thus deflecting responsibility from Stephen Harper.

“”Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader’s speech,” Owen Lippert [the speech writer] says in a news release sent out by the Conservative camp on Tuesday afternoon.”

While this event may lead the public to lose some of its trust in Stephen Harper’s honesty or accountability, that issue pales compared to the more pressing matter, which is that one of our political leaders tried his best to commit Canada to grave action without putting truly Canadian perspectives at the center of his argument, nor even verifying what he was presenting.

Harper undeniably delivered a copied rationale–no matter how faulty it was–of another country, and used that as Canada’s own. How can the public trust that Harper’s Conservatives will hold Canadian interests and perspectives at the crux of their vision for Canada? Harper acted on the behalf of other countries making Canada’s best interests subservient to foreign interests. The argument he plagiarized promoted one of the poorer courses of action that could possibly have been taken on the world stage.

It wasn’t the only time Harper delivered a plagiarized speech. He also delivered a speech that plagiarized Ontario Conservative leader, Mike Harris. The CBC² also reported on this (4 October 2008).

“Ottawa-South candidate David McGuinty said Friday that similarities had been found between a 2002 speech by the former Progressive Conservative leader and a 2003 address by Harper in the House of Commons.

The Liberals cite Harris’s Dec. 4, 2002 speaking notes as posted on the Montreal Economic Institute website. . .”

Perhaps this is a lesser problem since at least it came from a Canadian Conservative. It’s still a problem because it shows Harper has a history of saying things that are not his own. How can we trust a “leader’s” perspectives when he will not even express them in his own voice?

This issue is also an embarrassment on the world stage as international news agencies carried the story. For example, the BBC³ (1 October 2008) reported on it and touched on the leadership contradiction we see in Harper.

“The BBC’s Lee Carter in Toronto says the revelation comes during an election campaign that has focused heavily on leadership, with Mr Harper depicting himself as honest and dependable, contrasting himself to Mr Dion, who has been criticised for poor leadership and communication skills.”

There is a PDF⁴ identifying the copied text in the speech, as well as a YouTube video playing the Harper/Howard speeches against each other. It’s pretty obvious how Harper plagiarized Howard.

“In 2003, Stephen Harper and Australian Prime Minister John Howard deliver largely identical speeches urging their nations to join George W. Bush’s Coalition of the Willing to go to war with Iraq.”

Now its October 2008, post election, and with minority status the Conservatives sound intent to push through what they failed to accomplish previously. Although large quantities of candidates from the other parties signed on to Michael Geist’s copyright pledge, the Conservatives didn’t. Their words (spinning ideas copied from industry) saying their approach is balanced and trying to sound positive are hollow doublespeak at best. Here’s the background.

2007 from the Financial Post:

A single sentence on copyright reform in Tuesday’s Speech from the Throne spoke volumes about what the future of managing digital media could look like in Canada and suggested a U.S.-style amendment to the Copyright Act is on the way…

In the United States, copyright reform resulted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed by Congress in 1998 and centres around standards established by the World Intellectual Property Organization…

Mr. Knopf said the music industry and the U.S. government will gain if copyright reform is accomplished in Canada are.
“The American record industry is trying very hard to get the same kind of drastic remedies in Canada as [it] can ? in the United States, so you can go around suing children and dead grandmothers, which is not a very Canadian thing to do,” he said in an interview…

In 2007, this was the retreat as reported by CBC:

“A controversial bill that seeks to reform Canadian copyright laws will not be introduced this week, federal officials confirmed on Thursday…

…Prentice was expected to introduce the copyright reform bill earlier this week. The bill would have made such activities as the time-shifting of television shows, file-sharing of music and video, and copying files to CDs or MP3 players illegal…

…Critics said the proposed legislation will mirror the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and take a hard line against the copying of digital materials. Geist accused Prentice of caving in to lobbying from U.S. entertainment companies, who are seeking to curtail digital copying in all its forms…”

12 June 2008, CBC reported on the introduction of Bill C-61:

The federal government has introduced a controversial bill it says balances the rights of copyright holders and consumers – but it opens millions of Canadians to huge lawsuits, prompting critics to warn it will create a “police state.”…

However, Liberal industry critic Scott Brison blasted the government for its lack of consultation with Canadian stakeholders and for not considering the implications of the bill if it passes.

“There’s no excuse for why the government has not consulted broadly the diverse stakeholders,” he said. “The government has not thought this through. It has not thought about how it will enforce these provisions.”…

“They’ve got a few headline-grabbing reforms but the reality is those are also undermined by this anti-circumvention legislation. They’ve essentially provided digital rights to the U.S. and entertainment lobby and a few analog rights to Canadians,” [Michael] Geist told CBCNews.ca. “The truth of the matter is the reforms are laden with all sorts of limitations and in some cases rendered inoperable.”…”

The Toronto Star Reported in early 2008:

“Last week’s introduction of new copyright legislation ignited a firestorm with thousands of Canadians expressing genuine shock at provisions that opposition MPs argued would create a “police state.” As opposition to the copyright bill mounts, the most common question is “why”?…

…Why did a minority government introduce a bill that appears likely to generate strong opposition from both the Liberals and NDP with limited political gain?…

Why did senior ministers refuse to even meet with many creator and consumer groups who have unsurprisingly voiced disappointment with the bill?…the bill dubbed by critics as the Canadian Digital Millennium Copyright Act (after the U.S. version of the law) is the result of an intense public and private campaign waged by the U.S. government to pressure Canada into following its much-criticized digital copyright model…

The private campaign was even more important. Sources say that U.S. officials, emboldened by the successful campaign for anti-camcording legislation, upped the ante at the Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting in Quebec last summer. Canadian officials arrived ready to talk about a series of economic concerns but were quickly rebuffed by their U.S. counterparts, who indicated that progress on other issues would depend upon action on the copyright file…

Those demands were echoed earlier by the USTR, which, according to documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, made veiled threats about “thickening the border” between Canada and the U.S. if Canada refused to put copyright reform on the legislative agenda….

7 October 2008, CBC reported that:

The Conservatives are promising to reintroduce controversial copyright-reform legislation if they are re-elected, according to the party’s official platform released on Tuesday…

The Conservatives’ previous copyright-reform legislation, Bill C-61, which died on the order paper when the election was called, was released in June to a wave of criticism. While a number of organizations that represent copyright holders, such as the Canadian Recording Industry Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, praised the plan, it was roundly criticized as unfair by consumer advocates, artists, privacy watchdogs, education groups and other businesses…

Follow the links for the details

The Chalk River reactor/medical isotope problem put the Conservatives in a particularly difficult quandary. Although I think it would have been possible to find a more positive and dynamic solution than to simply choose option a over option b, that’s beside the point. This post is about how the Conservatives chose to deal with the situation rather than what the end result was.

The Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario is a research facility operating a reactor that produces much of the world’s supply of medical isotopes. It is supposed to be regulated by the independent Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which in 2007 found that the facility needed repairs. The Conservatives pushed through orders that overrode the CNSC’s shutdown of the facility, and the story behind that is what looks rather unseemly. The CBC¹ reported on 13 December 2007

“The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) had ordered the 50-year-old Chalk River reactor closed because its emergency power system was not connected to the cooling pumps, as required to prevent overheating during a disaster such as an earthquake.

But the federal government bypassed the regulatory body’s order by fast-tracking an emergency bill allowing AECL to restart the reactor for 120 days.”

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post that was one solution, a debatable one, but the way they went about accomplishing it was not. They drafted emergency legislation and ousted the head of CNSC, Linda Keen. According to CTV News² 18 December 2007

“The Conservative government issued a cabinet order last week to federal nuclear regulators in an apparent effort to pressure them into letting medical isotope production resume at the Chalk River nuclear reactor.

But the directive, dated Dec. 10, failed to resolve a dispute between Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which operates the reactor, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which sets licensing, health and safety rules.

The government brought in emergency legislation the next day that made a temporary end run around the rules to enable isotope production to resume.”

The CBC article mentioned above also said

“…Earlier in the week, Keen told a committee of MPs the government removed the CNSC’s legal counsel so the agency could not dispute the legislation.”

Harper, as he frequently does, wasted no time making the controversy over a dangerously critical situation, political, suggesting the Liberals fought against the Conservatives’ actions because, Linda Keen, had originally been appointed by liberals. But she was just doing her job. Had the CNSC given the go ahead for the reactor to start up after its last maintenance, it would have been acting contrarily to its responsibilities. It wouldn’t have been ensuring that the proper safety was met. But then, Harper is notorious for ridding us of oversight committees and watchdogs. The political gaming was intensified through Conservative MP Lisa Raitt, but I’ll get to that.

Bolstering the public understanding of Keen’s job description is Thomas Walkom’s 17 January 2008 article³ in The Star explaining

“The government’s case, articulated by Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn at a Commons committee yesterday, is that it was Keen’s job to get Chalk River up and running. In fact, as the minister responsible for AECL, that task belonged to him. Her job under the law was to set and enforce nuclear safety standards – which she did… Certainly, Lunn’s arguments yesterday made little sense. He characterized AECL’s failure to meet the regulator’s safety standards as a “dispute” between two agencies – which is rather like suggesting that someone who breaks the law is having a “dispute” with the convicting judge.”

As promised, here is where things go downhill. Lunn got shuffled out of his job as Natural Resources Minister, and was replaced by Lisa Raitt. As reported by Canwest News Service⁴ (9 June 2009) Lisa Raitt, in conversation with an aide made some unfortunate remarks.

“‘…when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue.

‘It’s really clear,’ said Raitt. ‘Oh, Leona. I’m so disappointed.’

Later on the tape, the aide says the isotope issue is difficult to manage ‘because it’s confusing to a lot of people.’

‘But it’s sexy,’ Raitt responds. ‘Radioactive leaks. Cancer.’

‘Nuclear contamination,’ the aide says.”

Of course this was a private tape before released to the press. It’s arguable that some of what she said ought not to be taken too seriously, but rather as off-the-cuff remarks. Nevetheless it portrays the attitude that this Conservative representative has toward her responsibilities.

The issue revolves around a reactor, radioactivity, people’s health, our environment. It’s insufficient to reduce it to simply money. Raitt’s flippant remark about it being a sexy issue belies her greater interest in the shallow side of politicking than her deeper responsibility of serving the Canadian public. One would think her career would see better results if she undertook her job responsibilities more earnestly.

(Update: The Globe and Mail reported 19 January 2010 that in Harper’s latest cabinet reshuffling, “Lisa Raitt was downgraded to Labour from Natural Resources after a string of 2009 gaffes”)