April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Canada

Poverty Important to Canadians

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While our neo-con governments would have us believe that all Canadians feel as they do that poverty is but a moral failing it turns out that “The vast majority of Canadians want the federal and provincial governments to lead a war on poverty, including raising minimum wages and creating more low-cost child care” [survery by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives] The Gazette

Got that? A war on poverty. Not on child soldiers or 3rd world countries.

This story though consisted of one buried paragraph while surveys from the neo con Fraser Institute are front page news. No wonder Canadians don’t recognize themselves. Their values are being buried under those that the neo con want us to have. Just keep chanting “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength”. Now isn’t that better?

Remember, Canada is not the United States

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He who seeks to be Canada’s first President, tries to remind Canadians the Canada is not the United States.

Harper, at his campaign stop in Val d’Or last evening, sought to comfort skittish investors and to distance the campaign debate from the turbulence south of the border. “Today we see more volatility in financial markets due to the crisis in the United States,” said the prime minister. “Remember, Canada is not the United States.

Sadly though Harper then chooses almost the exact same words as the Republican Presidential candidate with which to assure us all is well.

The fundamentals of the Canadian economy are sound.

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On the campaign trail in Jacksonville, Florida, the Senator declared this morning that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” despite what he described as “tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street.”

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Let them eat cake!
Let them eat cake!
Layton tried to convene an all party conference on the apparent economic collapse going on, however was rebuffed by the others who are more concerned with partisan sniping than in recognizing that economic depression in the US is certainly going to affect our economy as well. Harper, in fact, rejected any co-operative effort outright saying that such matters are for debates. Well it is hardly surprising that the same mindset that sees human rights, reproductive rights etc. as fodder for debate would also see the economic security of Canadians as simple debate material.

One can imagine the Harper Government™ having the opinion as Bush spokesman Tony Fratto; “It’s unfortunate that those people will lose their homes, and there are other options,” Fratto said. “You know, they can rent.”

Has Marie Antoinette taught them nothing?

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Cross border neoConservatism

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Two excellent examples of why we must guard against allowing neoconservatives to achieve positions of power.

First a post by skdadl at pogge which includes a youtube of a Biden speech. Well worth 30 minutes out of your day. He outlines the total disregard for the average American that both the outgoing Bush administration and the hopeful McCain administration share. Though it deals with the American government it is a window into the thinking of the Republican wanna-be that is Harper.

One of my favorite lines from the speech is this; “We’ve seen this movie before and we know that the sequel is always worse than the original.”

You can bet that the sequel to a Harper government, most especially if there is an increase in seats, will be much worse than the original. And this line is particularly significant to those of us here in Ontario struggling to regain ground after the Harris debacle. And let us not forget that Flaherty, Devolin and others were part and parcel of that governmental fiasco.

The second example is a post written in the Hamilton Spec by Tom Cooper (I don’t usually and don’t like copying large passages but hope Cooper will forgive me as it is just so important that this message be heard.)

Three and a half million Canadians (including 800,000 children) live in poverty, and yet there is no sign of the creation of a national anti-poverty strategy.

Tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost in southern Ontario over the last several years. In just the last week there were 800 job losses in Welland, 500 in Oakville and 93 at Hamilton’s Coppley’s Apparrel.

Hundreds of thousands of laid off workers cannot access Employment Insurance benefits after losing a job because criteria discriminate against those, notably women with young children, who work irregular hours.

Many low- and middle-income families don’t have access to affordable child care. And no, a $100/month benefit doesn’t cut it.

A national housing strategy is nonexistent, and homelessness remains dire in many urban centres. The federally funded Homelessness Partnership Initiative is set to expire March 31, 2009, which will have a dramatically negative impact on homelessness in Hamilton and across the country if it is not renewed.

How many of the people affected thought politics didn’t affect them? How many thought–perhaps still think–that their vote doesn’t matter? How many have lost so much there may be no regaining even what they had?

In Biden’s speech he talks about how poverty isn’t just a lack of money. It means a lack of respect, of confidence of ability to properly care for your family or keep your home.

When asked about social programs Harper opines that we can’t afford them. BUT we can afford 5 BILLION dollars in welfare payments tax cuts to corporations? Easy to see where his priorities lie. Easy to see that he like the person mentioned in Biden’s speech could be one to say that middle class is someone making less than 5 million a year.

This is not a time to turn away in apathy. Your country needs you. VOTE!

Canada’s n00b Government

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n00b
1) A person who is new to a game <–this would actually be a newb
2) A person who, regardless of experience, lacks the skill or competence to be competitive in a certain game
3) Someone who tends to whine or complain when being beaten at a game – often done by accusing more skilled opponents of hacking
4) One who may talk trash, claiming to be elite at a game, only to be beaten down by a better player, or will turn down any games when challenged by better players.
5) Overall, a real jerk.

If the current election ads for Harper are any indication, either an election has already been called in his mind, or he is jealous of the 3 year media-whore fest that the American election process has become.

One of the things supposedly off the table in this election bid is the contentious fetal personhood bill, aka Bill-C484. Harper has said he is not interested in reopening the abortion debate.

And once elected, faster than Chris Angel can pick your pocket, Harper announced all women to be already fully equal and therefore no longer in need of advocacy or women’s issues no longer in need of study and universal childcare to be satisfied with a cheque resulting in taxing lower income Canadians.

So when Harper says he has no interest in reopening the abortion debate what he means is that if elected to a majority government he will reward his fundamentalist friends with the passage of anti abortion laws. There will be no need for debate as such a bill would pass easily through a Reform government majority. And Presto Change-o no reopening of debate. Promise kept.

Make no mistake. Like a certain ring bearer Harper sees the brass ring of the PM’s office as belonging rightfully to him.

harperg.gif

For every Liberal scandal of which Harper & Co. have railed on about they have equaled and surpassed themselves. Yet they continue to presume moral superiority in a way that only those lacking it can.

This will not be an election fought under traditional Canadian terms. This will be fought with all the dirty tricks of the Bush Republicans. Cheney, Rove, the Swiftboaters. This will be a war fought by Christians who do not follow the teachings of Christ. By Conservatives who don’t believe in conservation. A class war fought from the top down. A battle to wrest the rights that the majority of Canadians believe in from them while they allow apathy and disillusionment with the system to lull them in a false sense of security that things will always be pretty much the same.

This will be an historic election. It will be the election that decides if Canada survives.

“He’s doing politics, we’re doing health care”

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Quote from Robert Ouellet.
“Robert Ouellet a radiologist in Montreal, said safe injection sites are an important point of entry for addicts into the health care system. He said the goal is harm reduction — by lowering the risk of disease transmission through dirty needles — as well as by providing education about drug addiction”.
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Health Minister Tony Clement does what ReformaCons do best, try to win by smearing your opponent. Of course when the case you are making has no real basis in fact, smear tactics are what’s left.
This time it is doctors who support Insite who are getting slammed.

“Is it ethical for health-care professionals to support the administration of drugs that are of unknown substance, or purity or potency — drugs that cannot otherwise be legally prescribed?”
In any other medical setting, supervised overdoses would be considered “highly unprofessional,”

So are we meant to nod our heads in agreement that many Canadian doctors are both unethical and unprofessional? This is though the same government who wants politicians not doctors to decide what can/should/will be done with women’s reproductive concerns. Little wonder then that they have no hesitancy in purporting to know more about how to treat addicts than health care professionals.

Clement goes on to talk about continued efforts at addiction treatment, however, treatment has many facets such as dealing with underlying issues of addiction and life changes. Many addicts are poor and/or homeless and often have some sort of background of abuse or mental health issues. This are issues that need to be addressed long before what are often shame based treatments are considered.

In any case the lock ’em all up crowd of which the Cons are part, see prison as the treatment for addiction. War on Drugs™ and all that. The major source of concern is more likely that places such as Insite humanize rather than demonize those with addiction.

Canada’s New Government™ is old, stale and mouldy and needs to be thrown out like last months bread.

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