HARPER APPOINTS CONSERVATIVE HACK TO POLICE THE POLICE

OTHERS WHO DID NOT CARE MUCH FOR POLICING THE POLICE

Red meat* law and order Conservatives love the police. They believe they represent the very thin blue line that separates all of the true and honest of any society – namely, them - from the chaos created by the bad guy. Bad guys, they believe, are either born that way or coddled into being that way by liberals. That is their view of the relationship between society and the law.

They also believe that bad guys abound in society and everyone is at risk all of the time. Therefore they stand for unfettered police and state prosecution powers (unless it affects them, such as what happened to Conrad Black, who screamed blue murder when U.S. authorities threw the book at him for his crimes).

As far as punishment is concerned, red meat Conservatives have little time for the principle of rehabilitation but plenty of time for deterrence. The mercifully retired ex-cop Calgary MP Art Hangar was typical of that crowd. He once went to Singapore to see first hand the wondrous positive effects of flogging in its penal system. Another time he took the time to go to Texas and argue that Governor George W. Bush should put to death a former Alberta resident and Canadian citizen who was on death row there after being convicted of murder. He did this at the same time as the government of Canada was petitioning that his life be spared. Of course Bush made sure that the guy was executed.

Conservatives also believe that whatever cops want they should get. Thus, they give police all of the bells and whistles they ask for – shotguns, assault rifles, machine guns, hollow point bullets, robots, cannon-armed helicopters, pepper spray, tasers, and cell phones to complement the milder tools of their trade such as automatic pistols, handcuffs, billy clubs, and fast cars equipped with the latest of computer technology. Oh, yes, Conservatives also make sure there are generous budgets to buy all of the stuff. Because after all, it’s a jungle out there and these brave men and women are the thin blue line that protects us from all of that savagery.

Stephen Harper is a red meat Conservative who seems to have a dark view of human nature. He also appears to believe all of the stuff about the mean streets of Canada. And whether he believes it or not, he knows that it is good politics to be perceived to believe it. For years now, Canadian society has been bamboozled by local television news and the tabloid print media into believing that it really is a jungle out there, and that crime and mayhem are rampant, with large numbers of innocent people victimized daily by rapists, robbers, murderers, arsonists, drug-dealers and other low-lifes. Conservatives like Harper love to hear that stuff and they play it politically for all it’s worth.

Arming police to the teeth with the latest and most effective of fire power in what is largely a very peaceful society is bad enough. However, Harper’s most recent tactic of moving to abolish meaningful public oversight of oppressive police actions and behavior goes too far. That is just what he's done with his most recent bonehead move of appointing Toronto wills and estates lawyer Ian McPhail to head the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP. McPhail’s credentials for the job are that he is an estates lawyer and a Conservative Party apparatchik. Some people might call him a political hack. He admits that he has no experience or background for the job, policing, criminal law, or federal oversight agencies. Read: http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20100126.BCMASON26ART2226/TPStory//

Harper has appointed McPhail to preside over an administration of 90 public servants whose job it is to investigate public complaints against members of the RCMP for incidents such as excessive use of force, officers exceeding authority, and other deviant or criminal behaviour as it affects the public. They investigate incidents of the unnecessary use of tasers for example, or assaults that cause bodily harm.

The job of policing the police is a tough one that requires tough people because the thin blue line culture in Canada has allowed police institutions to establish their own stonewall culture as a defence against public scrutiny. For years now the RCMP complaints commission has been hamstrung in carrying out its duties by an RCMP administration that believes that it is none of the public’s damn business what their men do on the street, because it’s a jungle out there, and they protect people from the bad guys, and . . . yada, yada, yada. All of which Conservatives swallow hook, line and sinker, with Harper chief among them.

McPhail defends his appointment saying that having no police background is unimportant because he is merely a chairman, and that his main qualification is to understand how an administrative agency works. He prides himself in being ‘collegial.’ That kind of feeble weak-kneed statement is music to the ears of the stonewallers. It telegraphs to the RCMP they need not worry about their excesses because the commission is now led by some namby-pamby without the gonads to get tough with errant cops.

McPhail is replacing political independent Paul Kennedy as commission chair. Kennedy had 35 years of experience in federal security agencies before he took the job in 2005. His job performance was characterized by dogged diligence and tough reports while he tried to get to the bottom of what he was charged to investigate.

Harper has now come to the rescue of the thin blue line.

His decision reflects an approach that if left unchecked leads to a police state. Dictators like tough cops. It keeps the people in line. Franco, Stalin, and Hitler in Germany liked their cops tough and unimpeded.

It can be good politics to be sure. But it is not very good for the country.

*Dictionary definition of “throw red meat”
throw red meatv. to appease, satisfy, rally, or excite one’s (political) supporters.

SENATOR DUFFY'S SENATE QUALIFICATIONS: A CONSERVATIVE SHILL WITH NO CLASS

Senator Duffy: A Conservative Shill

With No Class

At Christmas time Mike Duffy, the famously corpulent and cherubic, but aging, former television newsman was rewarded for his many years as a Conservative shill. He was one of eighteen Conservative faithful to receive courtesy of their pal the Prime Minister, the crown jewel of Canadian political patronage – an appointment to the Senate of Canada. Among the party hacks, flaks and hangers-on like Duffy, a Senate appointment is a dream come true - the big enchilada of politics - the mother of all cushy political appointments.

And no wonder. Senators make a base salary of $130,400 a year and get extra for serving as committee chairs. The pension is 75% of the Senator’s five best years of salary and is payable after the tender age of 55 and only six years in the Senate. And of course, it is indexed to the cost of living.

And there is more. A Senator gets 64 free return trips a year anywhere in Canada by plane or train and can give away his ticket to someone else to use. If he lives 100 km or more from Ottawa, he can pick up an extra twenty grand a year in expenses. He also has a hundred fifty thou to fix up his new offices, and can hire staff, etc., all courtesy of you and I the loyal and faithful Canadian taxpayer.

Ah, but was Duffy qualified to receive such munificence? Of course he was, and in two very important respects. First of all, his reporting on CTV in recent years so clearly supported his patrons, that alone would have made him a natural selection.

But he is qualified to be a Conservative Senator in another very important way, as evidenced by his rich oratory in his maiden speech delivered in the Red Chamber on Tuesday. After buttering up his patron and offering an assortment of banalities, his blackberry buzzed - a big no, no in the Chamber.

After that gaucherie, Senator Duffy had this to say to his distinguished colleagues of the gravy train: “Honourable Senators, I was disappointed to see that our dynamic young premier in Prince Edward Island, Robert Ghiz, has climbed into bed with the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and honourable Senators know what a grotesque scene that is. Do honourable Senators know what happens when two politicians climb into bed together? One of them comes out on top and I am afraid that when one is in bed with Danny Williams he will come out on top and I would hate to see where that will leave P.E.I in the end.”

His comments in the Senate were a little tamer than what he said at the P.E.I. Progressive Conservative annual meeting a few days before. At that meeting Duffy, in referring to Ghiz and Williams said, "when two men get into bed together one is going to get the shaft, and I assure you it won't be Danny Williams."

When pressed for an apology the classy Senator only had this to say: "Honourable senators, if the metaphor I used in my speech on Feb. 3 was offensive to some members of this chamber, I withdraw the metaphor."

All of this reminded me of another instance that Duffy revealed something of himself. More than ten years ago he launched a defamation lawsuit against the now-defunct but wonderful publication known as Frank Magazine. During the proceedings he gave testimony that he had been deprived of an Order of Canada appointment because of the things that Frank had written about him. Duffy alleged that his source was Prime Minister Chretien no less. Of course, he was unable to prove his allegation.

And so if shilling for the Conservatives was Duffy’s first qualification to be a Conservative Senator, what was the second qualification? It is the same characteristic possessed by present day Conservatives too numerous too mention. It is what has set people like Gerry Ritz, Myron Thompson, Art Hangar, Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, John Baird, a host of other Conservatives and now Duffy, apart from distinguished and respectable parliamentarians.

They all – Duffy among them - have no class.

And so, being a Conservative shill and having no class, of course Senator Duffy is qualified to be a Conservative Senator.

STEPHEN HARPER'S DESTRUCTION OF CANADIAN VALUES

I’m betting that most Canadians are content with Canadian values. Human rights, a charitable spirit, peace, tolerance, compassion. All of the good basic stuff of a civilized society that has evolved here in he last 350 or so years. It makes Canada one of the best. Most Canadians like it. Indeed they love it. And they will protect it. That's my bet.

And the first line of defense of that protection is not against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is not in Iran, or Iraq. It is right here in Canada. And the battle that determines whether my bet wins will be the next federal election.

Make no mistake, this Harper Conservative party – the Reform Alliance Tory mishmash (the acronym is, fittingly, RAT) - does not believe in Canadian values.

We know where Conservatives stand on human rights. They have been bitching and complaining about the Charter of Rights since then Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau introduced the idea in 1967. Conservatives have no respect for the Charter (unless, of course, they are under arrest). Neither do they have respect for judges that interpret the Charter. Conservatives have launched cowardly attacks on judges of Charter cases since the cases began coming before the courts.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, while Alberta Provincial Treasurer during the dark ages of the Klein years made it very clear about what he thought about human rights. In a statement about Clifford Olson – admittedly not a popular Canadian – Day said: “People like myself say. ‘Fix the problem. Put him in the general (prison) population. The moral prisoner will deal with in a way which we don’t have the nerve to do.’” http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-vancouver/2000-November/002788.html

Of course, in April 2007, the Harper Conservatives boorishly refused to take part in the commemoration 25th Anniversary of the signing of the Charter of Rights. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=76a8a5c9-d036-4985-8e87-cdb0c868d735&k=76569

The Conservatives believing in charity? That’s some kind of joke. Oh, maybe when Conservative politicians put fellow Conservatives on the payroll. The homeless, the young finding ways to pay for their education, the sick and permanently infirm, or the trucker going broke because of the price of gasoline – Conservatives have no time for them. Tough luck, they say. Live and die by the market.

And peace? Had Harper been Prime Minister when his chicken hawk pal in the states went off to war over Saddam’s WMD’s, Canadian soldiers would have been marching into Baghdad lock-step with their American comrades. He and his pal Stockwell even wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal lamenting the Chretien government’s decision to take a pass in Iraq. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/879589/posts

In Afghanistan, we are bleeding more than any other country. Afghanistan is in a helluva mess. Canada is in a helluva mess in Afghanistan. Our so-called allies do little more than wish us well. Ah, but Conservatives like spilled Canadian blood on the battlefield. It gives Canada a seat at the table with the ‘big boys’ as they and their pals have said so often. http://darrylraymaker.blogspot.com/2008/04/general-hillier-hes-no-macarthur.html

And when it comes to tolerance, think of the record of their Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day (the Conservatives gift to the Liberals that keeps on giving). In the dark ages when he was a Minister for Ralph Klein, Day supported a move to ban John Steinbeck’s classic novel Of Mice and Men from Alberta schools because of profanity. When the Supreme Court said that gays and lesbians are protected under Alberta human rights legislation he argued overruling the case by applying the notwithstanding clause. Day’s record on a host of issues is one to be laughed at – and feared.http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0011938

Harper, for his part, refused to attend the Toronto's biggest conference of the year in August of 2006. It happened to be an AIDS conference attended by 24,000 delegates from 132 countries, including Bill and Melinda Gates and Bill Clinton. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=76a8a5c9-d036-4985-8e87-cdb0c868d735&k=76569

And then there is Art Hangar, the loud mouth ex-cop, soon to be retiring Calgary MP. A former Jasper, Alberta resident, Stan Faulder had spent years on death row in Texas after being convicted of the 1975 murder of an oil rich 75 year old widow. By the late nineties, many were making representations to Gov. George W. Bush for a commutation of his sentence or at least a delay pending appeals. They included Bishop Desmond Tutu, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and the Government of Canada. The basis of the appeals was that for years Faulder had been denied the right to contact his native government for help, contrary to the Vienna Convention.

During Faulder's appeals process, enter ex-cop Hangar MP. He led a delegation to Texas to tell the authorities that Ottawa should stop interfering in the Faulder case. Said Hangar, “We feel he has, indeed, received due process. More than due process, actually. Now the time has come . . . . that he just be executed.”

In 1999 the Texans executed Faulder by lethal injection. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:1C6otW2krh4J:www.ccadp.org/faulder.htm+Stanley+Faulder+Art+Hangar&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1

For years it was the practice of the federal government to lobby foreign governments on humanitarian grounds not to impose the death penalty on Canadians convicted within their jurisdictions. Equally, if a Canadian was convicted and sentenced in a foreign court the federal government’s practice was to lobby the foreign government so that the sentence would be served in Canada.

Ronald Allen Smith of Red Deer has been on death row in Montana for more than twenty years. In November, after considering Smith's plight, Stockwell Day announced that henceforth the feds would not lobby on behalf of murderers “who have been tried in a democratic country that supports the rule of law,” adding that “it would send a wrong message.” Mr. Smith awaits his fate. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/11/01/death-penalty.html

The smart money says that should Harper win the next election, capital punishment will be back on the table in Canada. The names of wrongfully convicted murder susupects Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Thomas Sophonow, yada, yada, yada, be damned!

The case of Brenda Martin was little different from the Smith case. It mattered not a whit to Harper and Day that Martin had been convicted in a largely outlaw state ridden by corruption at all levels. The state had no evidence against Martin. She was a maid/cook for a fraud artist. Harper's government did nothing to help her, until she started to scream at the top of her lungs from her Guadalajara jail. It was a high risk action on her part, because the noise she made undoubtedly angered her hosts. However, as a result of her pleas enough Canadians became outraged so that the Harperites finally did something about it. They brought her home on a private jet – after she spent two years in a Mexican slammer for a crime she didn’t commit. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/01/martin-return.html

Harper's Conservatives continue their mayhem on Canadian values. Canadians rotting in foreign prisons, many of them for crimes they did not commit, have been advised that before they can be transferred back to Canada to serve out their sentences, they must go though a CSIS terrorism check. The process will take months and perhaps years. One of those affected is a 57 year old former fireman who had voluntarily given himself up to the authorities in respect of some drug offenses. Since Day took office prison transfers back to Canada have been reduced by almost 50%.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080616.wcriminals14/BNStory/National/

The foregoing examples are just tips of the iceberg. Harper's attack on Canadian values continues unabated with daily examples. An increasing number of Canadians recognize what is happening. And they are becoming afraid. If not, they better be. If given a free rein, a Conservative government will change this country to some unrecognizable, mean-spirited neocon replica of Bush’s United States. It will be a country of Harper's values.

Yes, be very afraid.