The end of one career and the start of the next…

“The second point is that all monies have been recovered. The taxpayers are not on the hook for a single dime. That is exactly how our government should act in the circumstances.”

The article linked to this quote is about a Conservative staffer to minister Christian Paradis by the name of Richard Walker. The quick story – said staffer goes on a bit of a vacation in Las Vegas using his government credit card and doesn’t pay the bill for five months. He gets caught, makes a payment and then moves on to his new position of  ‘disgraced former staffer’.

Now go back and re-read the last sentance in the quote above:

That is exactly how our government should act in such circumstances.

Yes, our government should hide criminal activity, protect its staffers until they are caught, and then quietly hope this all goes away before the electorate connects this to our new and improved definition of “accountability”.

Any money on Dick Walker (I’m so childish) re-appearing as someone’s campaign director in a year or so?

I heard a rumour

A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend told me that the entire Federal Conservative caucus was going to step down before the next election in order to sail the good ship Ragnarok into the face of the Rapture. If this actually happens, it will trigger a number of byelections. If these byelections are triggered, who do you plan to vote for?

a) NDP
b) Liberal
c) Bloc
d) Green
e) Ragnarok
f) Other

(In case you think I’m crazy, which is possible, I am mocking this bit of douchebaggery: Conservative douchebaggery)

If You Build It, They Will Come

Real life and some small amount of trouble wrapping my head around mind-boggling brick-stupid has caused me to be a little late with this post but I have a question that needs answering. Where exactly is Stockwell Day going to get the occupants for his new prisons if said prisons are needed to imprison the perpetrators of  “unreported crime”? Crimes which, by their very definition, produce remarkably few convicts. The crimes are unreported. That means that they either haven’t been discovered yet but once they are we can use the prisons that we already have or, and I think that this is more generally the case, we the people just don’t care about the “crime” in question. I don’t see any point to jailing some frosh for a year because he got a good deal on an ounce of weed, or made whatever lifestyle choice gets up the Conservative’s collective ass this week.  And when the hell did the Conservative Party start believing in the value of statistics again? Last month they were all about saving us from that tyranny? Stephen, Stephen, why hast thou forsaken us? Oh yeah, to pander to your base. How’s using one thing that they hate to justify (loosely) doing something they like working out?

This whole thing is making my head bones hurt so I’ll close with one more question. Now that the goal of the conservatives seems to be losing power by making  Iggy look like a good choice again, could they please stop governing based on what makes a small band of tar sands shitkickers happy?

Newsflash: Canadian politicians under the influence!

Of foreigners!!!!111!!one

I say it’s about time CSIS started investigating the clear connections between Stephen Harper and the American Republican Party. Moving Canada towards the failed policies of George Bush, both on domestic and foreign affairs, is tantamount to treason! Good to see that CSIS is not taking this clear influence peddling by forces south of the border laying down.

That is what Fadden was referring to, right? CSIS wouldn’t turn a blind eye to such high-level influence peddling just to put a scare in us over less important provincial and municipal politicians who may or may not be of certain non-white ethnicities, would they?

Vote For Me And I’ll Get Those Damned Kids Off Your Lawn

As is often the way I never seem to make posts here until the day before I’m about to leave on a long trip and have lots of prep work to get done before leaving. I’m looking for a distraction from domestic chores I guess. Fortunately I can always rely on the Conservative Party for this or in this case, there Progressive Conservatives, by way of New Brunswick. There’s the smell of election in the wind in my home province and it’s already being overwhelmed by the reek of pandering. It’s a musky, adrenal scent and in this case it’s being wafted at those NBer’s (of voting age in this case) who rant about hell and handbaskets, how it was done in their day and how the young people need to be brought in line. To that end the PC’s party leader David Alward has come up with a solution. Mandatory Volunteering.  Specifically -

Alward also said he’d make it mandatory for students to accumulate a certain number of community volunteering hours before receiving a high school diploma.

“We certainly want to ensure that our young people have the math and the literacy skills they’re going to need long term,” he said. “We also want them to build the skills of being strong citizens and understand the importance of community involvement and that a strong community leads to a strong New Brunswick.”

Now, I’ve spent my adult life in the Canadian Forces so I have a more than passing familiarity with this concept (take note: if you ever decide to sign up yourself, under no circumstances put up your hand when the Sergeant asks “Who wants to get their military drivers licence?” It’ll always involve immediate unpleasantness and no driving at all) and I can see a couple of problems with this. First and foremost is that the correct, non-weaselword name for this is known more generally as Conscription, never a popular concept and which leads to another problem. Just how much use will the frequently unwilling be to the worthy causes that they’re assigned to? I’ve done volunteer work myself where I was interested in the task and happy to help as have countless others. I’ve also seen the quality of work that gets done by the forced and it’s invariably not high and creates  lots patch-up work  for the rest of the staff.  The other problem is that NB is a largely rural and constantly cash-strapped  province.  For a lot of High School students looking to get that mandatory 100 hour requirement for graduation finding a place to volunteer is going to be logistical nightmare. Are the PC’s willing to spring for, at a minimum, transportation costs or do they see that as another aspect of  volunteering ? For that matter are they willing to put in the effort to find a cause for students to labour at if there are none locally available. Being conservatives they’ll no doubt be willing to determine which causes they deem to be worthy so maybe there’ll be some convenient cross-over in this area.

Willing volunteering to help where it’s needed is a good and noble thing. It can make a person feel more involved in their community and bring the knowledge that there is something outside of yourself that is deserving of your efforts. This is what Alward says he’s aiming at with this policy. He may even believe it. We should note though that very few of the students this will affect are of voting age and likely wouldn’t vote conservative if they could. They’re safe to offend.  I’m pretty sure that the primary goal here is to garner support from those voting NBer’s who wish things were like they were in the old days and want those damned kids out of the house.

Congratulations to the Media…

… You are now officially complicit in Prime Monster Harper’s efforts to distract Canadians from what really matters by introducing a classic red herring – namely, the ‘sexist’ language in our national anthem.

Hey, Look over here!

So the government is concerned about women. Explain this to me in that context:

The (labour and women’s groups) coalition’s report points out the government’s decision to eliminate the phrase “gender equality” from the mandate of Status of Women Canada, the country’s primary institution responsible for gender equality. It also highlights the closing of 12 of 16 Status of Women offices and the elimination of funding to a program for court challenges related to equality rights.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/22/women-gender-equality-un.html#ixzz0hDGXAWJS

Or this, from the Toronto Star:

As the federal government prepares to roll out a new budget on Thursday, a new study by a Queen’s University professor argues that men are seeing a disproportionate share of the benefits of Ottawa’s record spending over the past year.

According to Kathleen Lahey’s analysis, women have only received about 7 to 22 per cent of federal infrastructure spending, because they are under-represented in the construction, manufacturing and engineering industries.

By Lahey’s calculations, women are also not getting as much as men out of the billions Ottawa has committed to corporate, GST and personal-income tax cuts. And though women represent around 50 per cent of the population, they’re only seeing roughly a third of the enhancements to the employment-insurance program, according to Lahey’s study.

Yep, feeling the love you have for women, Stevie boy.  Oh, and nice job appointing that begging-to-be-tasered meat puppet Helena Guergis to lead the march backward.

I have a suggestion. How about “By all thy scum’s command”? Certainly fits the circumstances, don’t it?

In Bed With the Media

Well, congratulations are in order for obergruppenfuehrer Defense Minister Peter MacKay, who has ensured himself and his party a lifetime exemption from scrutiny by CTV News by becoming engaged to be married to Jana Juginovic, a producer.  Unless, of course, history repeats itself, and she breaks up with him and moves to the CBC.

The future Mrs. MacKay should move into documentaries – they always say that to be a good documentarian, you need to empathize with and experience what others are feeling. At least now she’ll get a first-hand (?) experience of what the Conservatives are doing to the rest of the country.

Comments, dear readers, are invited – send your congratulatory messages through us, we’ll make sure they get passed on to the happy couple.

The Republic for Which it Spams…

Ma Belle Mére, as is her habit, has passed on to me the link to an interesting website, sponsored by the Liberals, which describes the Harper government’s usage of taxpayer funds as vote-buying capital. Not only interesting, but I love the name – kudos to the unidentified staffer who came up with this one. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: The Cheque Republic.

Merci bien, Belle Mére!

Stimulus Package? I’ll Say…

In another startling display of rampant incompetence that would be amusing if it wasn’t so disheartening, fishermen looking for details on an aid package which is to provide short-term support for lobstermen were directed to call a particular telephone number – which turned out to be a phone sex line.

Well, let’s just insert the joke about short-term support here, shall we?

Hey, baby – do you like big, firm, glistening, meaty… claws?

It is a fundamental precept of public service to proofread and verify, then do it again, then have someone else do it as well, for any piece of information provided to the public. Either the people responsible for this are understaffed, and therefore rushed, or just don’t care. Given the recent record of the government, I’ll bet on the latter.

H1N1 Assistance? It’s In the Bag…

Rising to ever-startling new heights of incompetence, Federal officials have set a new record for insensitivity and callousness. Aboriginal nursing stations on Reserves in Manitoba, along with badly-needed gloves, masks and hand sanitizers, were sent body bags. How symbolic and appropriate for a government that consistently disrespects Native peoples and criminally neglects its responsibilities. Native leaders have every right to be alarmed about the level of help they require from the Feds come flu season. The reserves were hard-hit in the Spring, and this Fall, which is expected to be worse worldwide, could be catastrophic without adequate supplies.

Manitoba First Nation – from Here.

One sometimes gets the impression that a shipment of body bags would be the response given by the Harper government to all pleas for assistance from First Nations peoples in every case, not just where disease is concerned.

Your Government at Work

Obviously, this is worse than previous governments’ reactions to Aboriginal issues, but it certainly follows the same theme. When you become accustomed to systematic, institutionalized racism, it’s hard to stop.

See also this from the Globe and Mail.

Addendum September 18: Apology not accepted.