This is only the first two months of a four year term....

What Canadians are experiencing is a four year "Amateur Hour" of self-serving CONServative ignorance and arrogance. What follows is only two months' worth of sleazy politics....

1. May 2, 2011 – Conservatives win a majority government. Now starts the slow shift toward the Conservative "hidden" agenda that gives added privilege to the privileged and further oppression  to the oppressed.  Much was mentioned that the throne speech did not belie any "hidden agenda" - yet "hidden" means exactly that - not apparent! The hidden agenda is now what is said, but HOW goals are achieved. The CONServative methods are underhanded, self-serving, "entitled," disingenuous, narrow-minded and simply sleazy. Within two months, there are several examples - over four years, most assuredly, there will be hundreds forming a deep pattern. No wonder this government was found guilty of contempt of parliament - not through some "pesky" opposition manoeuvres, but because the government lied and withheld information from the House of Parliament and, therefore, from Canadians.
2. May 18, 2011 – Harper names 38 cabinet ministers to form new cabinet; the second largest cabinet after – only after another Conservative cabinet of Mulroney in a time of “austerity”
3. May 18, 2011 – Harper appoints 3 Conservative senators to the Senate – these three were recently defeated by the population’s vote in the election of May 2, 2011 doing an end run around democracy. Harper has been saying he wants to reform the Senate to make it, too, an elected House – great first step! And it’s been 120 years since a senator quit to run for political office and then rehired them when they failed to gain their seat. And then these same newly minted senators resist Harper's attempts to implement Senate reforms! The ingrates!!
4. May 29, 2011 - Prime Minister Stephen Harper was asked by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to block G8 leaders from supporting a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, an Israeli newspaper said on Saturday. English-language newspaper Haaretz said that Netanyahu phoned Harper on Tuesday following the Israeli prime minister's speech to U.S. Congress, where Netanyahu insisted his country would not return to the "indefensible borders" that existed before the 1967 war. And Harper was the only hold out at the G8 Conference in France – he disagreed with the rest of the G8, including Obama, at the behest of Israel, highlighting Harper’s anti-Palestine and pro-Israeli stance. A position he has maintained.
5. June 6, 2011 – Elimination of the per vote subsidy for all parties with representation in the House of Parliament. Creates an undemocratic approach whereby the wealthy have an easier time of maintaining power because of huge coffers smaller parties can’t generate.
6. June 9, 2011 – G8/G20 Auditor General’s Report about the spending on these summits made public. Scathing response to the lack of a paper trail regarding to the 50 million that was spent on “legacy” spending. Parliament not informed about spending. Parliament was told that 50 million was for border infrastructure/security; however, the government intentionally siphoned off 50 million from border security to build summit legacy projects. Why the bait and switch? No public servants were a part of this process, removing any accountability or transparency. They knowingly lied to Parliament to they steal from one dept to cover for something else. And they had to hurry – to build toilets 70 km away and for the fake lake in Muskoka, of all places! Auditor General says this is a violation of the rules. The AG wants a paper trail! Imagine that!! Baird says they didn’t mislead Parliament – which begs the question why would the government follow the AG’s recommendations??? Tony Clement is now the minister in charge of making government cuts to find 11 Billion in cost savings – to get rid of governmental waste. So, during the G8 Tony benefits from a 50 million slush fund for pork barrel projects in his riding to getting rid of government waste! Such irony!
7. June 11 – Conservative convention in Ottawa – has affirmed as party policy that marriage is between a man and a woman. Thankfully, this is not government policy – yet! Also, interesting when electing a leader there is a move to make ridings proportional so that larger ridings get more votes than smaller ridings – essentially undermining any leadership hopeful from smaller ridings. For now, it’s one member/one vote – sounds like democracy to me!
8. Harper and James Moore fly down on an armed forces jet at $10,000/hr to watch the Vancouver/Boston Stanley Cup game in Boston (assuming 2 hours each way – not including having jet in Boston over night – that’s $40,000!). Moore and Harper, after taking some public heat agree to each pay $500 for borrowing the jet!!!
9. June 14 – Harper Government refuses to attach any sort of warning to asbestos sold internationally in order to protect the asbestos industry in Canada and protect 200 jobs in Asbestos, Quebec. Despite asbestos being a known carcinogen.
10. June 20 – Harper government set to pass back-to-work legislation against Canada Post workers despite negotiations ongoing. Last week the Harper government, within hours of an Air Canada strike, decided it was going to pass back-to-work legislation against front line Air Canada workers despite ongoing negotiations. This approach puts the federal government in the position of labour arbiter rather than legislation. Further, this kind of approach undermines fundamental labour laws in this country, allowing both sides to negotiate a settlement among themselves rather than the government impose legislation.
11. The Afghani detainee issue is back in the media when 40,000 documents are released publicly - BUT many of these pages are completely redacted making the documents useless. Such silliness. Such petulance. Such arrogance. It is unlikely that Parliament will ever get the full picture on the Afghani detainees and torture. Because of the amateurish foot dragging and stalling of the CONS government, it's not unreasonable to assume that there was Afghani detainee torture. Otherwise, why not simply come clean? Another example of CONS contempt for Parliament and the Canadian people.
12. The Canada Post back-to-work legislation highlights the not-so-hidden agenda of the CONServatives. Despite the long-fought negotiations between Canada Post management and the CUPW union, Harper and his government decided to impose a wage rate below what Canada Post management had offered and had also included in the bill that an arbitrator will choose either the entirety of management's position or the union's position without negotiation. This back to work bill is simply an attempt to bust the unions by a so-called non-interventionist, neoliberal government (apparently that's the case only when it serves the CONServative interests). Here are the key issues that arose during this bill:

•  Harper and the CONServatives are defacto working as Canada Post management by overriding the wishes of Canada Post by writing in a lower wage rate than management was offering. If Harper wants to truly cut costs, he could just get rid of Canada Post management and continue to run Canada Post directly. They're doing that now with the back to work legislation.
• Harper likes to suggest that the market should resolve itself under the auspices of neoliberal and conservative management principles, yet unilaterally interferes with the market mechanism of labour negotiations.
• Free labour negotiations are a constitutional right in this country - something Harper, through this back to work legislation - and some of the terms in the bill - have completely trampled. I bet a constitutional challenge will be made against this legislation, as there should be. I suspect the legislation is inherently illegal - but Harper simply doesn't care as long as he gets his way.
• Harper and the CONServatives are utterly utterly naive if they think that the back to work legislation is going to make labour/management relations all warm and cozy - if anything this legislation has made things far worse and there will be a new militancy arise.
• The NDP as opposition and as a party has always been supportive of union rights. The CONServatives have always been supportive of wealthy/corporate individuals. For Harper and John Baird to rise up on their hind legs to proclaim the CONServatives support and be here for ALL Canadians. Well, we know that's not true. The CONServatives party policy has recently affirmed that marriage is narrowly construed as being only between a man and a woman - so gays and lesbians are excluded. Women's centres and programs have been cut under this party, so women are largely unsupported. First Nations are hugely ignored by this government. And, of course. workers' rights have been completely underminded by this government. Easily, that's more than half of citizens in this country are being unsupported and ignored by this government, so Baird is an utter liar. Harper is an utter liar. The CONS have the right name for their party.
• That the Harper Government is concerned about the Canadian economy. Really? Well, CUPW was carrying out rotating strikes to help minimize the effect on postal delivery. It is Canada Post Management, presumably with some input from the Canadian Government (the owners of Canada Post) who locked employees out and completely shut down all postal delivery. The CONS are hypocrites and liars and are in complete contempt of Canadians.

Finally, the filibuster is over and the CONS can go home to plan new manipulations of the Canadian government, media and people. Over the summer, as things pop up (as they most assuredly will - this is amateur time with Harper and his key puppets: Baird, Clements, Kenney, Oda and the rest ....

Something about Philosophies Involved in this Blog

MY PHILOSOPHY

Politically, I am of a social anarchist or social ecological perspective in that this belief opposes all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized. I'm not talking communism here, which is a state-controlled hierarchy and I'm not talking Marxism which has, at its core, the dictates of the proletariate interests. This perspective is a simple, collectivist one - one without hierarchy, in that 'anarchy' relates to the notion of mutual aid. by mutual aid, I refer to the notion that the focus of each indiviudal is on the care of every other individual rather than a focus on him- or herself first. A rough parallel is in the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." The focus of the village is on the child's interest rather than the self-interest of each inhabitant. Capitalism is all about hierarchies, ownership of wealth and a me-first mentality. Capitalism becomes doubly performed in spectacular fashion when we see the Conservative Government in action. There are hierarchies of interests that get played out and are, at times, in tension with one another: there are MPs' own self interests (career, status, wealth, etc.), the government's self interests (policy, status, wealth, power, etc.) and the sponsors of the government (wealthy individuals, corporations, foreign government allies, etc.). What we see missing are key interests: ordinary citizenes, marginalized groups, workers, unions, and so on. Inevitably, those who fall outside the sphere of interests of the Conservative Canadian government will experience greater inequity and disadvantage at the expense of those groups already taking for granted great privilege and advantage. My key philosophy with regard to government and government policy is that any society will be evaluated by how it deals with its most marginalized, disenfranchized and oppressed individuals and groups. Every policy should have at its core, the betterment of life for those living on the social edges. Too often, expecially with regard to Conservative government policy, the most privileged are the ones who win out. The richer get richer while the poor get poorer - through Conservative Government of Canada policy.

I know Canada, being a member of "the West" IS a capitalist society. And with that comes all sorts of disparity. I'm sad to see the NDP exploring whether or not to drop "socialism" from its philosophy all in a bid to become "more mainstream." Tommy Douglas included socialism in the CCF because of his philosophy of collective care and support - to bring everyone forward as equitably as possible. My fear is that with dropping of the word "socialist" will eventually come the shift toward wanting to be all things to everyone in the mainstream and losing sight of this collectivist impulse.

I'm suggesting that we, collectively, need to move to ward a more social ecological or social anarchist way of life where we actually look after one another with great care and compassion - not to get or expect something in return for that care, but instead knowing that as we look after others, others are looking after us. It's about operating in a collective where authority is no longer needed - and without authority, there is no need for status or disparity. This is a gentler form of anarchism in that there is no espousal of violence or overthrowing, but changing through evolution and though change in thinking and perspective.

CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

This government has as its philosophy Neo-liberalism, in that that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, free/unencumbered trade and relatively open markets; therefore seeking to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state: business drives government policy. Further, neo-liberalism is an ideological paradigm that leads to social, cultural, and political practices and policies that use the language of markets, efficiency, consumer choice, transactional thinking and individual autonomy to shift risk from governments and corporations onto individuals and the volunteer sector. In addition, there is a subtle hegemonic push to extend this kind of market logic and language into the realm of taken for granted individual belief systems and how social relationships unquestioningly operate. The legacy of the Conservative form of neoliberalism, continuing with Stephen Harper, includes: reducing taxes (under the myth that consumers will spend more and drive the economy foward - to what we are never told.), reduce welfare spending (in an attempt to force cheap labour into the workplace to benefit wealthy production owners), minimizing of government (goes hand in hand with low taxes) and reform of public healthcare and education (meaning offload government responsibility to the volunteer sector or if money can be made, to corporations in the form of for-profit healthcare), reduction in workers' rights in order to allow owners maximum freedom to maximize profits and a conservative social policy that narrows the diversity of its citizens making them easier and cheaper to manage (lower taxes required again). The Conservatives are a "borrow and spend" government, which they say is better than a "tax and spend" government because more money is kept in the pockets of taxpayers; however, borrowing is simply a mortgaging of the future away from upcoming generations - but who cares? The Conservatives are not likely to be in government over the long term; that's someone else's headache. We saw that with the Mulroney years. It was the Liberal government that dug Canada out of the huge debt created by Mulroney. I suspect the same will eventually be true after Harper has left government. Personally, the tax and spend approach puts the income and costs in alignment with one another. Further, taxes should be going up, not down. If there was more tax revenue there would be more money for senior citizens, people with disabilities, First Nations, poverty and so on. The erroneous assumption Conservatives make is that if there were fewer taxes, people would spend more - corporations would spend more on jobs - and that has just never been the case. Money is used to generate more money, not more jobs. Profits, after all, is what business want more of. Jobs are created if there is a need. And we have had jobless economic recoveries in the past and will likely in the future.

Just like a household - it's better to spend what one can afford rather than pile debt on debt to pay for things now. But this is capitalism at play - citizens are looking out for themselves and what they can buy - not on the collective good.....

Just as a reminder, I am posting the Conservative Party Platform from the 2011 Election, below. There are five points which Harper suggests are the guiding princples for Conservativism ruling Canada:

The “Here for Canada” plan focuses on five key priorities:

• Creating jobs through training, trade and low taxes.
• Supporting families through our Family Tax Cut and more support for seniors and caregivers.
• Eliminating the deficit by 2014-2015 by controlling spending and cutting waste.
• Making our streets safe through new laws to protect children and the elderly.

• Standing on guard for Canada by investing in the development of Canada’s North, cracking down on human smuggling and strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Conservative Party of Canada's 2011 Election platform can be found here: http://www.conservative.ca/policy/platform_2011/


My next posting will start to look at the past two months of the Conservatives in power and then, moving forward, I'll look at the issues as they arise. I know it will be a surprising mixture of neoliberalism in action and the hypocrisy of it through some federal government policies and action.http://www.conservative.ca/policy/platform_2011/

Introduction: Part B

The other part of this introduction is about me, the blogger. I was born in North Vancouver and at a young age our family moved to Toronto. After a few years in a city, my parents decided that a family with four boys would do better in a rural environment. When I was 8, our family moved to a small farming community north of Toronto; there, I grew up until I was 18. My first love has always been theatre and the make-believe worlds I could escape to when life became too overwhelming. You see, in a town of 1200 in the 1960s and 1970s, I was someone always coming to understand my gay identity and life - completely on my own. In 1979 I achieved part of my dream when I graduated high school, to move on to the University of Windsor to study theatre. However, at the age of 19, I didn't really have a lot of financial resources to see this dream to completion and my parents made it clear they were not interested in helping. So, I went into the world they wanted me to head toward - business. I was pretty good at it too! My area of business was human resources and training (something at least performative!). I studied human resources, training, accounting and even did a degree in Business. My parents were more open to supporting my efforts because after all this was their world and they saw the practicality of it (and this was an area far more familiar, after all!). But then the 1980s revealed HIV/AIDS and there was a irrational fear in business of all things gay. And the company I was working in was a travel services company - all businesses within this area had large numbers of gay men and they were dying at increasing numbers. Insurance companies were buying back employee plans to make things harder for gay men, so that insurance companies could remain profitable. In my function within human resources I did what I could to protect gay employees by warning all gay men that at the first sign of HIV, they needed to go on disability. Several heeded my advice and were protected before they were fired. All of them died, but did so with dignity. A small victory.

Being gay, I knew my days were numbered. One Monday, I was laid off without warning, as were several other gay men. Of course the corporation denied they didn't like gays; however, actions speak louder than words. And so I was left with wondering what was next for me.

I decided to go back to university and graduate school. I was refused entry at the University of Toronto's OISE, but was accepted at the University of British Columbia. So, for the next 13 years I graduated with a Diploma in Adult Education, my Masters of Arts in Adult Education and my Ph.D. in Educational Studies (Sociology). The students I met there were phenomenal and were from around the world. I grew and evolved in so many ways - personally, philosophically, politically, socially. I found several of the faculty were oppressive, hypocritical, arrogant and elitist - most notably my own supervisor who did much to try and undermine my graduate success. My committee members were amazing in safeguarding my interests. I was lucky to have those committee members who saw my vision for working with marginalized adults and youth as something worthwhile. And this is where my heart continues to reside: within marginalized communities. And I was able to reconnect with my theatre background doing community development work, through theatre, in marginalized communities. Some of the groups I've worked with are: senior citizens, youth addicted to crystal meth, homeless women living with HIV/Hep C, addictions and children on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and in the Surrey Central areas, sexual minorites, people wth disabilities, adults with psychiatric disorders, immigrant women and Aboriginal adults and youth. My partner and I lived on a reserve for several years as teachers. My time living in BC were the best years of my life. Now we live in Ottawa, which is a living hell.

I live with my partner - 14 years this August - whom I met on the Internet. I was living in Vancouver and he was living in Brantford Ontario (though he was born on Cape Breton Island). Through email exchanges and a program that was the precursor to MS Messenger, we chatted online for several months before he packed up everything and moved to live with me, sight unseen, in Vancouver. We've been together ever since. He did a lot of searching and finding his way with regard to work over the years, but is now working as an ESL teacher and loves it.

We moved to Ottawa, in part, for me to take a teaching job at the University of Ottawa, in the Faculty of Education, there - and also as part of our future goal to move to the East Coast, where people are friendlier and the quality of life far better than in a city. Both coasts seems to have the best quality of life, though BC is far more expensive!  So, we are in the nation's capital (very depressing that THIS is the best we can do for presenting 'a face' to the world!). This is a city that is very hard to 'break into' because of the political nature of the place and people are very cliquish, rude (it's been labelled the rudest city in Canada by Readers' Digest), 'entitled' and inward looking. Very cold and unwelcoming for newcomers. The added discomfort is the English/French character of the city. The population is made up of about 15% francophones, 5% other languages and 80% anglophone, yet bilingualism is enforced so that one must be able to speak both English and French to get most jobs. The University of Ottawa likes to say it's a bilingual university, yet it is French first and often communications are French only. Interestingly, many of the faculty are anglophones (with some being bilingual) while almost all administrative staff are francophones (most being bilingual and French first). When someone is unemployed and anglophone in this city, finding a job is next to impossible. Most francophones are bilingual because job opportunities are in the English world rather than the French world, so it's more lucrative to enter the English job market; far less attractive to enter the French job market. Bilingualism is the ticket in, but once in French is rarely used in many jobs. The bilingualism policy has many wrinkles all in the favour of francophone bilingual speakers.

For three years I worked at the University of Ottawa, experiencing much success there as a replacement prof. Then the Dean decided that she wanted to cut my salary by 25% and cut all my benefits while continuing to teach in an overload situation. I filed a grievance. The Dean responded by renegging on the contract we had agreed to, locked me out of my office, leaving me to face unemployment. I ultimately won my grievance because of the illegal contract the Dean was trying to force on me, but was never to get my job back. So, now, I'm unemployed and have been looking for work for a year, but because of the bilingualism policies here many jobs I would be qualified for elsewhere are out of reach here. Over the past year I have applied for 200+ active openings; I've been asked to one interview. And that opening, obviously, I didn't land. I applied for 23 assistant professor openings across the eastern half of Canada; I was not asked to a single interview. My employment insurnace benefits run out in September, so I thought while my world is burning I would spend some time writing a blog. I'm entering a make-believe world, once again, when life becomes overwhelming.

And this make-believe world is the surreal and absurd one being created by the Harper Conservatives. So, hopefully, given my background, what I end  up writing makes sense and perhaps resonates and sparks discussion in worlds I may never know....

Preamble to the Regression of Canada's Integrity

Before I begin my blog on how the election of Stephen Harper and his cronies on May 2, 2011, I need to create a preamble to what is to follow. I write this blog as a private citizen, living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - which, of course, is also the nation's capital. Here, Harper's regressive, narrow-minded, short-sighted, elitist and arrogant machinations take place that directly effect the rest of the country. On May 2, 2011 Canada's electorate, bizarrely, and with great naivete and deep blindness elected in a government - get this - that has just been ousted for being held in contempt of parliament!!! That means this party lied, withheld information from Parliament and the people - and the same people had just elected the party back in. Now, to be clear, a large number of the electorate abstained from voting, with the popular vote going to the NDP (for the first time sitting in the House of Parliament as Official Opposition) - so in effect, a minority of the electorate actually voted Harper's CONServatives into government. Sounds like a form of apartheid, doesn't it? And for those who suggest that those who abstained shouldn't be counted - that is absolutely idiotic. Abstaining - or doing nothing - is doing something. Abstentions are like a protest vote indicating that the electorate see no one to their liking - and that's a choice. I voted, but certainly for Harper. That's a disaster, as the country is very quickly (in about a month)finding out.