April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Harper

Keen on covering their asses

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Linda Keen was fired last night.

The sacking of Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission president Linda Keen will put more pressure on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, already under fire from opposition legislators and the media for his handling of the affair.

Keen lost her job for refusing to allow a 50-year-old reactor at the Chalk River facility in Ontario to reopen after regular maintenance in November. The reactor makes more than two-thirds of the global supply of medical isotopes.

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Carol Goar pulls no punches in her assessment of the situation;

If they held auditions on Parliament Hill for a hot-tempered bully and his thuggish sidekick, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn would be shoo-ins.

Their month-long attack on Linda Keen, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, has been ugly, unwarranted and unfair.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion would be perfect for the role of hypocritical scold. In his rush to demand Lunn’s resignation, he overlooked the fact that his own party had ignored warnings of serious deficiencies at the Chalk River nuclear reactor site for years.

Yet this blundering trio may have done the nation an inadvertent service.

At long last, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the crown corporation at the centre of the medical isotope scandal, is getting public scrutiny. Finally, the red lights that have been flashing since at least 2000 are attracting some attention.

For more info and background see

Politics n Poetry

POGGE

The Galloping Beaver

How Harper celebrated Women’s History Month

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As we near the end of Women’s History Month it is time to pause and reflect on the way our ignoble PM celebrated with us.

Red Jenny tells us of a new bill

The Harper government yesterday introduced legislation requiring all voters – including veiled Muslim women – to show their faces before being allowed to cast ballots in federal elections.

A Creative Revolution informs us of his support for women in the north

The Status of Women cuts that the UnReal women of Canada so lauded and cheered about like a bunch of mindless maroons, the ones that killed NAWL funding, have had an even harsher effect in the real great white north.

Women in the Yukon are 2.9 times more likely to experience sexual abuse, or be killed by a spouse than women in other parts of Canada. The Organizations that seek to help them are being forced to scramble for alternate funds through bake sales and garage sales.

Mere days before WHM we saw the passing of National Association of Women and the Law

Close Harper friend and advisor Tom Flanagan speaks;

Flanagan calls funding cuts to Status of Women Canada and the elimination of the Court Challenges Program a “nice step,” asserting without equivocation that Conservatives will “defund” all equality-seeking groups – with feminists at the top of the list. He goes further, clarifying that Conservatives also plan to choke-off these groups’ supposedly privileged access to government by, for example, denying “meetings with ministers.” But for strategic reasons, Flanagan notes, this will all happen incrementally. To avoid the perception of mean-spirited retribution, he says, “incrementalism is the way to go.”

Avoid the perception yet not the reality.

And the PM Statement section? Still reads, “forthcoming”.

Of course Harper is proving that actions do speak louder than words.

That’s ok Stevie we’re not waiting for your call…we’re just not that into you.

Anger, Resentment & Politics

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The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough. ~Bede Jarrett

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. ~Phyllis Diller

In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer. ~Mark Twain

Life has intervened lately on my ability to read and/or blog as often as I would like. However, I have reached a state of anger and resentment of the whole political process that I simply must vent.

It would appear that the concept of democracy has all but been lost.

The current Harper Government™ seems to have confused being elected by a modest number of people with absolute right to mob rule. Further evidence of the need to reframe our current process. The lack of will shown by the other parties to partake in any form of fight against this Bush wannabe is an outrage. They are all, as modern day Nero’s, fiddling while all our hard won rights and cherished freedoms burn.

Speaking frankly as a voter, a citizen, a woman, A CANADIAN, I really don’t give a rat’s furry ass how your poll numbers look. Want better poll showings? DO SOMETHING! SAY SOMETHING!

Prove you are there to do more than warm seats and gather pensions.

Please Try to Remember the First of Octember

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If you are, or were, a Dr. Suess fan you may remember this book. Written about the glorious things you could do on the First of Octember such as stay up all night to drink “66 six packs of Doodle Delight.”

October is Women’s History month. A current look at the SWC site shows this statement from our Prime Minister;

“forthcoming”

Mid way through October Canada’s New Government™ has yet to issue a statement. Perhaps the script from Gwen was delayed….indefinitely?

One imagines that Harper et al would far rather Women’s History month, and indeed all matters pertaining to women’s equality, be relegated to the First of Octember.

Think of the glorious things he could do like ignore the child care issue, roll back programs that most especially help women, place tax cuts above health care, child poverty, employment issues….mmm seems he is already doing that.

Perhaps our ignoble PM lives in the land of Octember.

October 18th is Person’s Day. This is a day to commemorate the Person’s Case.

On October 18, 1929, the five Lords of the Judicial Committee came to the unanimous conclusion that “the word ‘persons’ in Section 24 includes both the male and female sex.…” According to them, the exclusion of women from public office was “a relic of days more barbarous than ours.

It is a sad and sobering thought that there are those who would joyously lead us back to those “barbaric” times. Those who see women not as persons in their own right but simply as wombs from which issue the cannon fodder needed to perpetuate war. War against other countries and war against the marginalized.

As we reflect upon Women’s History let us not forget the struggles that we are free not to face. The struggle for education, for our own name, for our own property, to not be included as property, the right to be paid a decent wage, to fight against sexual impropriety in the workplace, the right to control our reproduction, the right to say no in marriage and so much more.

Our fight to keep our rights, to move forward in our struggle, to ensure our daughters’ never have to fight to be recognized as persons in their own right, is one that must not be relegated to the First of Octember.

( cross posted @ Rose’s Place )

Democracy? Fuck that shit

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Title shamelessly stolen from Mike in a comment at Unrepentant Old Hippie

Anyone who still believes Canada’s New Government™ has any concept of democracy, decency or shame, must surely be disabused of that notion by this from Blogging a Dead Horse;

“Three days ago, Dick Harris, the Conservative MP for Cariboo-Prince George announced that the Conservatives have named their local candidate Sharon Smith the “Skeena-Bulkley Valley liason to the federal government.

That’s right, seems that after only 20 months of trying it, the Conservatives have decided that listening to MPs – particularly those from other parties – is way too onerous and distracting. The solution is obvious really: replace them with compliant and agreeable people who look like MPs, pretend to be MPs, but have absolutely no legitimacy.”

Many parties with a minority government have thought of ways to have more members elected next time round. None have dared to dispense with the electoral process and simply install members as they see fit.

This is not simple partisan politics. This is a reshaping of the very foundations on which our government, our country is built.

Harper’s Government™ must hear loudly and clearly that this heinous assault on our democratic process will not be tolerated.

CAPs Update

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Community Access Program (CAP) has been renewed. However, the funding only lasts till March 2008 and $1.5 million was cut from the budget.

This proves the lack of commitment this government has to those in need, and to ensuring that all citizens have access to what is fast becoming necessary technologies.

Thank you to all who signed the petition. I hope we will see this program reinstated in full in the not too distance future.

From the NDP

OTTAWA – NDP Literacy Advocate Denise Savoie (Victoria) cautiously welcomed yesterday’s long-delayed announcement that the Community Access Program (CAP) has been renewed, albeit only until March 2008 and with a $1.5 million cut.

“This is a victory for the community groups who deliver and believe in this program, and it’s good news for those vulnerable Canadians whose access to online literacy and job skills resources was hanging in the balance,” said Savoie. “But once again it is only a short-term reprieve instead of a long-term commitment. It is consistent with the Conservatives’ half-hearted, piecemeal approach to literacy programs.”

The program, which expired on March 31st, supports the provision of Internet access to low-income, unemployed and homeless Canadians at over 4,000 community sites across Canada. Yesterday, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier formally announced that funding would be provided for the 2007-08 fiscal year. The call for applications went out quietly to past recipients in late April to early May, with a May 31st deadline and a warning that contribution agreements could take up to three months to issue.

“That’s seven months’ worth of funding before the program expires again in March,” said Savoie, who also noted that the program’s budget was cut for the second consecutive year. Last October’s Supplementary Estimates (A) confirmed a $6 million cut from 2005-06, to $20.5 million in contributions for CAP. This year, the department says the budget is set at $19 million.

“This Conservative government is clearly not committed to literacy for vulnerable Canadians,” said Savoie. “They have undermined literacy programming at every turn, with delays, cuts, and one-year extensions instead of providing stable, transparent funding for the long term.”

Savoie questioned the secrecy surrounding the renewal of the program.

“The whole process was inexplicably hidden from public view,” said Savoie. “I hounded the Minister for months in the House to publicly confirm that CAP would be renewed. But the formal announcement didn’t happen until after the application deadline. Why did the Conservatives leave these vulnerable groups in the lurch?”