Best of Canadian Politics - 2014

Sometimes I meet people in the real world and they suggest that they vote Conservative and I become really confused.  I reach a place where my frustration wells up and I can't form a coherent argument.  So I’ll start mumbling things like “But...Rob Anders!” or “Wha...what about science?” It results in me feeling sad with myself for several days, before I finally think up some awesome shit to say that would have blown their minds.  So I become a cliché.  The sad nerd pounding out witty political barbs, for the benefit of nobody, without any pants on, drinking tea and high fiving himself.   

But the next time this happens...oh man.  The next time this happens, those guys better look out.   I’m so ready.  I’m going to look them in the eye, and them I'm going to turn around, march right out of there, find a computer, pull this link up, type out an e-mail and then just be all like “Hey buddy!  Suck on this!  And that’s just 2014!  They’ve done way worse shit in the past.”

So here it is, my annual list of all the terrible things the Conservative Government of Canada has done this year that I can both remember and find links to.  Enjoy.

They use the government as as their official promotional apparatus

You would think spending public money on partisan activities would rile up staunch Conservatives.  But who am I to know these things?  Maybe they have a new rallying cry?  “Cut the size of government except for Public Relations employees!”  “No more government spending except on partisan advertisements!”  Seems a bit strange, but apparently this is the new reality. 

Our government spends insane amounts of money telling us how great they are.   I took a harder look at this earlier in the year and determined that actual dollar amounts on government advertising aren’t much different than what the Liberals did before them.  But the subject of those advertisements is completely different.  The Liberals taught us about the harms of smoking, how to file our taxes online and snookered people into joining the army.  The Cons told us that down is up, became the marketing arm of the Canadian oil industry and kept telling us about how great a job they’re doing.  While also trying to snooker people into joining the army. 

For years we’ve wondered how the Cons are able to make so much more in donations than the other parties.  We have some new insight.  Joe Oliver turned his latest economic update speech into an $800 per table fundraising event.  Shelley Glover “invited” members of the Winnepeg Arts Community...who rely on her ministry for funding...to a fundraiser.  Leona Aglukkaq did something similar.  And Mark Adler decided to invite a bunch of lobbyists...lobbyists who officially lobbied him...to come to a fundraiser.  They probably were in his office when the invitations were delivered and he felt awkward not inviting them, right?

Worst though, is that they’re using government agencies as political tools.  They’ve unleashed the CRA on charities whose message they don’t like, subjecting them to audits.  People high up in the CRA have even admitted that they look at political leanings when they select charities for audit (she later claims that she misspoke) and that they listen to complaints from MP’s and Ministers.  This hit peak ridiculousness when a birdwatching group received a threatening letter from the CRA shortly after sending letters to several ministers over concerns about threatened bird habitat.  Don’t worry though.  The Cons looked into their own actions and decided it doesn’t need to be investigated.

They cheat at elections and are rigging the deck in their favour

The money shot here is, of course, Michael Sona.  Who is the only person found guilty in the Robocalls scandal, even though there is all kinds of information pointing to more people being involved.

But then there is Dean Del Mastro, who was also been found guilty of cheating in an election.  Surprisingly, he actually took the high road in the end, and resigned from Parliament.  Don’t feel too bad for him though, because the Cons changed the law so that he could keep his pension.

 

Add Peter Penashue and Ted Opitz into the mix... and James Bezan... you have a healthy number of Cons cheating in elections and an appetite for reeling the cheaters in.  Opportunity knocks!  The Cons decide to “fix” things with the “Fair Elections Act”:

• Removing investigatory power from the Chief Electoral Officer

• Taking away their ability to advertise to “get out the vote” 

• Give incumbent MP’s the power to appoint key election workers 

• Requires ID to vote and takes away vouching

• Make it super difficult for expats to vote

• Creates a loophole to spend limitless sums of money to communicate with previous donors

• Allow for scrutineers to use smartphones and tablets (and getting a head start on an app via a potential conflict of interest)

This is all bad enough, but then several of them started making up stories about  rampant voter fraud to justify their actions (don’t worry, they looked into it and decided not to investigate themselves).  Then it came out that they didn’t consult with the Chief Electoral Officer before they wrote the bill (or the guy that will be taking over investigations from him), and they bastardized the conclusions of a report to justify their actions.  And then they decided to limit debate on the bill. 

They create ridiculously names for their terrible laws

After talking about the “Fair Elections Act”, it seems like a really great time to transition into talking about all the other ridiculously named Acts created by the Cons.  Luckily, somebody has dug into this in depth.   Several people, actually.  Let’s talk about some of these gems:

The “Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act” – Where we call out barbarians (i.e. other cultures) and make things that are already illegal super-duper illegal.

The “Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act” – Where we tell prostitutes what is best for them and don’t take their opinions into consideration.

The “Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act” – They decided to make it easier for people to own guns...until it seemed like it wasn’t the right time to make it easier to own guns.

The “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act” – Where we make citizenship an arbitrary thing that can be taken away.  Don’t worry though...they’re totally going to do the right thing.

The “Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act” – This is an oldie, but a goodie.  It improved prosperity by reducing oversight on CSIS, weakening employment equity protections for women, minorities and the disabled, and gutting a whole bunch of environmental protections.  But the main reason I bring it up is that this sucker, in 2012, made it easier for companies to hire Temporary Foreign Workers.  Which brings us to... 

They turned Temporary Foreign Workers into a total shitstorm
Temporary Foreign Workers were the issue that united Canada in 2014.  Liberal leaning folk hated it because the TFW’s were exploited by employers.  True conservatives should probably hate it because it messes with the free market labour system.  And racists hated it because it let foreigners into the country to steal their jobs.  So of course the Conservatives had to come out against this terrible thing that they allowed.  Let’s summarize all the terrible TFW crap that happened:

• Businesses and individuals are starting to swindle foreigners, asking for money up front and sometimes not even providing them with jobs.  Here.  Here.  Here.  Death threats here.  Intimidation here.

• An electrical contractor in Saskatchewan laid off Canadian workers and kept all the TFW’s

• There are safety issues in some Oilsands construction projects because of language and communication issues

• Other Oil Sands workers have been laid off and replaced with Croation TFW’s

• A food court in an area of high aboriginal unemployment brought in TFW’s

• A Victoria McDonald’s became the poster child for TFW issues and was banned from the program...until they made a phone call and had some TFW’s fast tracked

• A fast food lobby group sought a special meeting with the PM to complain about changes to the TFW program

• With the full knowledge of Jason Kenney, airlines are skirting the rules and hiring all sorts of foreign pilots

• A bunch of waitresses in Saskatchewan were let go to make way for TFW’s

See?  A total mess.  Of course, the Conservatives agree that something has to be changed.  Even though (Remember from above) they made it easier to bring in TFW’s.  Even though complaints have been rampant since 2006.  Even though Conservative MP’s are the ones most frequently making requests on behalf of constituents.  Even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer suggests the whole reason for the program, shortage of skilled labour, is bunk.  They’re on your side.  Now.  Kind of.

What I think is worst though, is that these jackasses have used the promise of jobs to push through all sorts of environmentally destructive, dubiously tax generating mega projects on promise of “jobs”.  But when the “jobs” finally appear...shit, they need special training and we don’t have enough people so 40-70% of the jobs to build that reduced tax rate paying LNG Mega Project are going to have to be TFW’s.  Damn.  Sorry.  We’re complaining about Steve, not Christy.

They think they know better than everybody else

I once worked with a guy who could not be swayed by any argument.  No matter how many facts he was given to contradict his position, he was always right.  It was the worst.  Okay.  That’s actually me.  But imagine an entire government made up of these people?  They’re always more right than you, even if you’re a heavily trained expert in your field.

They decided that they know law way, way better than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and made some over-the-top accusations against her with no merit.  They also attempted some legal shenanigans to get their way, but their stoolie wouldn’t play ball.

They decided that they know better than the RCMP, and forced them into keeping their fur hats.

They told Canada Border Services that they had to keep filming the TV Show Border Security, even though they had a lot of issues with it and didn't think it was a good idea. 

They’re so bent out of shape about harm reduction strategies, they’re trying to block them not just in Canada, but on an international level.  Because no country should be able to decide that drugs are okay if Steve thinks they shouldn’t be.

We know Steve hates science, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when they ignore their own scientists when deciding fisheries policies.

And then we have a past Olympic Champion, and all around terrible Human Being, Nancy Greene-Raine, deciding that she’s an expert on Fish Farms.  Yes.  I know.  I have to let this go.

We're going to ignore the findings from the Ashley Smith inquiry and not make any changes to solitary confinement policies.  Nope, instead we're going to remain "focused on the victims".  They actually fucking said that in response to findings related to the death of an 18 year old girl. 

They’re taking money away from a successful sex offender treatment program because fuck those guys, right?

They actually told us that they were doing a really great job of  appointing women to senior positions.  They use the phrase "outstandingly well" to describe themselves.  But they're actually doing 16% worse than the Liberals before them.

They’re so sure they’re right, sometimes they end up arguing with themselves about who is righter.  Employment and Social Development Canada put together a report that suggested the Canadian middle class has seen wage stagnation.  Finance Canada pointed out that this"appears to conflict with the general message in Budget 2014 and previous internal briefings", so they put together a new report that says the opposite.

This actually started a fun little game for me.  Type "Conservatives" plus "reject" into the google machine and see what it spits out.  You might have to add "Canada" in there someplace, because this doesn't seem limited to our Conservatives.  Reject a report on current policies harming prostitutes.  Reject a recommended ban on generic Oxycodone.  Reject a plea for increased legal aid funding.  Reject a UN Indigenous Rights document.  Fun game.

They’re watching you

I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy...but Jian Gomeshi released a book called 1982... and then all that stuff happens roughly 2 months before the year ends...  Add you add those numbers together...divide by the CBC...The math is pretty obvious, people.

The Cons have decided to use the full might of the Canadian government to track people taking part in peaceful protests, panel discussions and University lectures.  Absolutely nothing frightening about that.

And now they can search your phone without a warrant.  They have to arrest you first, but that's just kind of a win-win, isn't it?

But why worry?  We have watchdogs to oversee that stuff, right?  Except that the newly appointed privacy watchdog spent his career drafting the laws that he’s supposed to be watch-dogging.  No bias there, of course.  I’m totally able to judge my previous work with nothing but impartiality.

Of course, the average citizen is probably okay, no?  Well, Canadian law enforcement makes approximately  1.2 million requests (94% of which are warrantless) to Canadian telcos for users information every year.  I’m sure they’re all criminals.

They’ve also decided that it’s okay to snoop on your Facebook and other social media.  All that stuff is public anyhow, so why shouldn’t they be able to pore over it and...shit...nobody really knows what they’re doing with it.  Probably just trying to figure out which photos of yours to like.

But we have laws and shit so things can’t get too bad.  Right?  Well, even though it is illegal for CSEC to spy on Canadians, that’s exactly what happened when they decided to track a bunch of Canadians via an airport Wifi hack.  At first they denied it.  Then they admitted it but said there was nothing to worry about.  And decided that it didn’t really need to be investigated.

Well.  Fine.  If I have to give up some of my freedom to stop terrorists, that’s cool.  Except some of the actions of these agencies are being determined by complaints and requests from Corporations, that have nothing to do with terrorism, public safety or...shit...anything remotely criminal.  The RCMP and CSIS have been very busy spying on foes of the Northern Gateway pipeline.  At the request of Enbridge.  I wish they’d at least have the decency to hire their own thugs, spooks and goons.

They pass all sorts of shitty laws that get overturned by the courts

CBC covers it here (until June anyhow), so I almost don’t need to write this.  But there’s more, of course.  Always more.  It felt like at least a couple of times each month I wrote “The Conservatives lose another court case...”  Activist judges are the problem, I’m guessing.

The biggest of the year was probably the rejection of the Marc Nadon Supreme Court appointment and the spat that ensued from there.  The good news there was that they made Canadians aware of how awesome our Chief Justice is.

Next, the Supreme Court upheld Canadians right to online privacy, while the government attempted to allow police to obtain customers information without a warrant.

After that, we get into prostitution.  The Feds lost a case last year and were told to re-jig the laws.  Which they’re trying to do, but their new proposed law will probably fail the same test.

The overturning of “Tough on Crime” laws could get its own section.   Limits to pretrial sentencing laws are overturned (and here).  The “victim’s surcharge” faces problems.  The repeal of early parole rights is overturned.  All while crime rates continue to see their long running trends towards historic lows.  A judge refuses to adhere to minimum sentencing laws.

Moving along, the ban on medical marijuana cookies was overturned.  And an injunction was enacted to allow licensed medical marijuana growers to keep growing at home.

They probably don’t really want to do anything about this anyhow...but their plans on Senate Reform were turned back by the Supreme Court as well.

That doesn’t even include all the shit currently in court.  A group suing to overturn the “Fair Elections Act”.  A group of Veteran’s suing to get their previous injury settlements back (which turns into a more ridiculous story every day).  They seem to be struggling with a lawsuit from the victims of Residential Schools.

And my favourite...the Conservatives cuts to Refugee Health Care were overturned.  Which brings us to...

They treat refugees like shit

And really, why not?  It’s easy to cut funding for people who aren’t even Canadians yet.  They don’t even have votes that can be suppressed.

First up, remember that health care decision we were just talking about?  Well, they might be ignoring it anyhow.

They stuffed changes to refugee social assistance into the back of an Omnibus Bill.  I need to hotkey that sentence.  Just change the subject to suit the day.

We’ve decided to no longer accept North Korean refugees.  Because who needs to escape that land of freedom?  You know what our excuse is?  They’re able to settle in South Korea.  So they’re not eligible as refugees here.  Which is a pretty giant loophole you’re creating there.

But if you think North Koreans are the only people we don’t give a shit about, think again.  We’re paying thousands of Roma to abandon their refugee claims.  We’ve resorted to paying human smugglers to take refugees back into Somalia.  It’s so dangerous there, Canadians aren’t allowed to travel there on government business.  Should be just fine for the poor schmucks we’re sending back.  Others we just throw in jail indefinitely, with no charges.

And why wouldn’t our refugee programs suck?  They’re run by Chris Alexander.  Who couldn’t answer a simple question on Syrian Refugees, so he hung up on As it Happens.  Turns out he probably had a reason to duck the question.   And when you’re best option is “act like an asshole on the radio”, you’re probably not doing a very good job.  And now we're thinking of only taking Syrian Christians on as refugees, because that's what these people all need right now is some more judgement, categorization and discrimination.

And not really refugees, but we instituted a fear based visa ban on anybody from one of them Ebola countries.  Many knowledgeable people pointed out why this is dumb.

We had a really great segue into talking about marijuana in our last segment, but I had to use it to talk about refugees.  So here is a terrible segue into that subject.

They’ve got their heads up their asses on marijuana

I don’t smoke pot, but I’m sick of all this reefer madness bullshit.  And you knew that when Trudeau came out in favour of legalization they were going to double down on stupid.  Their continued insistence that Justin Trudeau won’t be happy until all the kids are stoned is pretty hilarious.  This guy too.  And another.

Since that announcement, they’ve used Health Canada to make a massive push on telling us that pot is bad for us (and they tried to recruit doctors to sign on to the ads, but they didn’t bite).  They insist this was planned all along, but records show the decisions were made very recently.  Don’t worry.  They insist none of this is political.

Ads aren’t all they’ve got though.  They’ve also used Health Canada to come down hard on medical marijuana companies for advertising, while allowing prescription drug companies to do whatever they want.  And they’ve pumped some money into some one sided studies.  They truly don’t seem to understand public opinion on this one.  Or sound policy.  Or anything other than their own science.

An incredibly large number of them are total assholes

You’re only as good as the people that you surround you with.  Until they do something wrong and you hang them out to dry and blame them for the mistake and how dare you suggest that I had anything to do with it?  But honestly, there are so many terrible Conservatives in positions of power it’s actually kind of mind boggling.  It makes you wonder how terrible their backbench idiots are that they don't let out in public.

Leona Aglukkaq

Leona is our asshole of the year.  She just can’t stop stepping in it lately, in loud, embarrassing fashion.  It’s difficult to even understand some of her spats.  Her most recent involves a spat with a Deputy Mayor in Rankin Inlet, after said Deputy Mayor suggested some people were so hard up in his community, they were foraging at the local dump for food.  Leona may or may not have phoned him and demanded an apology.  And she may or may not have threatened to sue him.  But she did most certainly read a newspaper in the House of Commons as debate over the incident swirled around her.  She actually apologized for this, which almost knocked her off the top of our list.  But alas, no.

I’ll remind you that this lady is our Minister of the Environment.  And doesn’t seem to give a shit about the environment.  Her response for why Canada doesn’t do anything about Global Warming?  Well, Canada only puts out 2% of Global GHG emissions, so why bother.  That’s 0.5% of the World’s Population putting out 2% of the emissions...but who cares about things like that?  She also just kind of tends to make things up when asked to defend ourselves.

At least she has her bosses support in not doing a fucking thing about the environment and in not worrying at all about reaching the laughably terrible targets that we have set.

What’s amazing is that the woman who decides what makes it onto the Endangered Species List, doesn’t have a problem with hunting polar bears.  Or seals.  Seems to think there is no reason to block the international trade of 76 endangered species.  Or caribou.  And has terrible manners.  And seems to be delusional about our place in the world.   And uses her position to speak out against Greenpeace.

And no wonder she doesn't want to do anything about the fur hunt.

Julian Fantino

Julian rivals Leona for chief asshole.  It was close, but he lost out simply because he’s screwing over a smaller percentage of the population.  Julian is the poster child for all of our Veteran’s Affairs issues.  Where to start?

You’d think we’d start with the place where Julian’s department gets called out by the Auditor General for providing abysmal mental health services to veterans.  Or about how he ducked out of the country on the day of the Auditor General’s announcement.  Or on how their pre-emptive strike in the weeks leading up to the announcement was a total fiction and their “$200 Million over 6 years” was actually “$200 Million over 50 years”.

Or you’d think we’d start with the time he blew off a bunch of Veterans he was supposed to be meeting with to talk about closures of Veterans Affairs offices.  It was a total shitstorm.  And he blamed the union.

Or maybe I’d talk about the $1.1 Billion in funds his office has left on the table instead of spending on supporting Veterans.

Or his insistence that only “back office” jobs have been cut, despite boatloads of evidence to the contrary.

Or about how the Harper Government seem to be really happy to celebrate and commemorate past military glories while shafting current soldiers.

Or his Justin Trudeau reefer madness that we already talked about.

But I’m actually going to start/finish with my favourite Julian Fantino moment.  Where he insisted wounded soldiers received “$10,000 per month” in benefits.  Which is true.  For 4 soldiers.

How does this guy not have more respect for Veterans?

Rob “Sleepy Time” Anders

Sleepy Time had a quiet year this year.  Probably because he had to fight in so many nomination battles because he kept losing.  And it seems to me that we may not see Sleepy Time for quite a while now.  So, this is more of a “Lifetime Achievement Award” than anything.  Sleepy Time has been so awful, for so long, I sometimes don’t even remember why he’s so terrible.  Honestly, I was trying to explain it to my Mom a while back and I couldn’t really think of anything.

Most of his ridiculousness relates back to his first nomination battle.   During that campaign, hemade misleading phone calls, banked on a non-endorsement from the PM and threatened to sue his opponent.  And seemed to be unaware that more than one person can have the same name.  It got so bad, his own party has told him to cut it out.

Other than that, he had a quiet year.  Other than suggesting we go to war with Russia.

Sorry.  Can't resist this photo...

The Laundry List

And then we have the one hit wonder assholes.

The Conservative Senator who had to apologize for hiring his girlfriend.  I do love this photo though, as it seems like true love.

Or how about Conservative Senator Don Meredith, who has degrees from imaginary Universities.  He also flew to Washington for a prayer meeting after it was specifically not approved.  With his wife.  Business Class.

And who can forget Pamela Wallin.  Who actually stated that she regrets paying back her expense money.  I'd imagine there's a healthy dose of "I didn't think they'd hang me out to dry after doing so" in this statement.

Patrick Brazeau is too sad now to make fun of now.  He shows us how bad it can get when you get sucked into the Conservative vortex.

How about Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant, who is busy raising money to fight the fascist ban on incandescent light bulbs.  That her party put in place.  Can’t wait until she sticks it to those out of touch government stooges.

Eve Adams and Dimitri Soudas teemed up to make awesome everywhere.  A temper tantrum over a 6 dollar car wash...campaigning with taxpayer funded mailouts... Dimitri getting fired...just a totally insane nomination battle that entertained everybody.  Our power couple of the year, for sure.

What about Conservative MP Patrick Brown who tried to bill taxpayers for his trip to New York City to run in the marathon?

Paul Calandra embarrassed himself in the House of Commons by refusing to come remotely close to answering a question, much to the delight of the clapping seals standing behind him.  His excitement was short lived though, as he was forced to apologize after getting hung out to dry by his party.  It did give us this though, which was awesome.

And Peter McKay. Who rushed an unveiling of an Afghan war memorial so that it would take place while he was still minister.  This was deemed more important than giving the families of those memorialized the required notice to be able to attend the opening.

And finally, Chuck Strahl.  Who, while still holding some sort of oversight position with CSIS, registered as a lobbyist for the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  You know?  Former Conservative Minister Chuck Strahl?  Who resigned to allow his son to sketchily take his position?  And CSIS?  Who is secretly watching Northern Gateway protesters?  This thing is just so messy.  They really put this whole Conservative shitstorm into a tidy little package of difficult to digest nuggets.

Well.  I'm depressed.  Sorry.