I think the most important thing we will talk about today is that the Harper Government invited US spy agencies into Canada to spy on people during the G8/G20, which is all kinds of fucked up. Canadian law prevents Canadian agencies from spying in Canada, so this seems like a nice little workaround. There seem to be a whole lot of "all countries spy on one another" arguments getting thrown around. Really? All the other hosts of Summits invite their buddies over to help them spy on all the other participants? And of course, the only thing the Harper government has to say about this is "Glenn Greenwald got paid for this article", so, logically, any journalist paid to write a piece has to be lying. Or something.
How happy was the government to be able to announce that they caught a Chinese "super spy"?
Canada continues to buck world opinion on anything related to Israel. Of course the Iran nuclear deal isn't supported by the Conservatives.
A tax lawyer that Jim Flaherty appointed as a tax consultant (and Chairman of the Canadian Mint) is embroiled in a massive offshore tax shelter scandal.
Some more details about diplomats shifting their focus to "commerce". Of the people, for the corporations
The Conservatives killed a plan to study the environmental effects of lead shot and bullets. Who needs science when you know all your policies are right regardless?
So the by-elections resulted in a whole lot of nothing.
Another week, another pissed off batch of scientists. Biologists/Fish/Fisheries Law this week.
I know that many, many people don't care at all about criminals and think they need to "get what's coming to them." But what is the point of prison? Punishment? Rehabilitation? I think if you removed the prison culture mentality from the United States you'd have a country that was light years ahead of where it is now. Canada isn't quite as bad but listen to what our "Ombudsman for Federal Inmates" has to say. "More crowded and violent." "Less successful at rehabilitation." Yes, the Conservatives war on crime is creating less rehabilitated, more violent criminals. Well done boys. At least we've cut down on the number of white prisoners! Just to clarify, yes, that is a joke. Honestly. Just read this quote. "You cannot reasonably claim to have a just society with incarceration rates like these. And most troubling, the growth in the custody population appears to be policy, not crime, driven. After all, crime rates are down while incarceration rates grow,"
I don't know what to think about Randall Hopley. Yes, kidnapping a small child is terrible. But...this could have ended so, so very much worse. In the end he did the right thing and there has to be a degree of leniency shown for that. This man obviously (I think) has some mental health issues and needs some help. But if we simply declare him a "dangerous offender" and throw him in jail forever after he makes the right decision, what message is that sending to the next guy facing a similar choice? In the end, 7 years and 10 years of monitoring once released from prison...sounds about right. Hopefully he gets the help he needs.
This sounds a lot worse than it is. E-mails belonging to a lawyer who dealt with Duffy/Wright were thought to have been deleted by the PMO. But have now been found. This is the same guy that has had a complaint filed against him for breach of ethics.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Stephen Harper thanks Nigel Wright for all his solid ethics help in the acknowledgments of his hockey book.
Let's balance budgets by selling off assets and history! Canada sells a diplomatic building in London for $500 Million.
Jim Flaherty apparently doesn't know how to fill out expense claims. Good quality in a finance minister.
What a strange double standard we have when it comes to marijuana. Yes, you can legally smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. No, you can't do it in your police uniform. Can you imagine if they banned the taking of all medicines while in uniform? Peter McKay thinks he's setting a "poor example" by using his prescription medication.
We're number one! We're number one! BC has the largest rate of child poverty. By a large margin. Families first, right Christie! Speaking of making fun of Christy "families first" Clark. Shit. I was just making a joke. This article points out just how much of a hypocrite she is. What the fuck, BC? How did she get voted back in?
I was surprised to find out that emergencies on reserves are handled by a separate agency to emergencies elsewhere. I guess this makes sense. It also makes sense that it is run poorly.
Stephen Harper sings at the event where he announces his first trip to Israel.
Who knew that the new pope would be such a bad-ass?
Conservative Senators voted to block a member of the Deloitte audit team from testifying in there...it's kind of confusing. Anyhow. The gist - they don't seem to want to hear from somebody that might make them look bad.
Alberta, the province that pays for the rest of us "takers" and "have nots", caused a spike in the deficit due to flood relief. That's why you're not supposed to get too uppity when you pay a bit more than the next province at any given time, Alberta. You never know who is going to need government resources. This is what a government does.
Speaking of what government does, here is a perfect example. The history of air traffic control. In the US. US Senators know an essential service when they see one.
The Federal Government is going to hire a firm to continuously monitor social media.
The Cold War was always kept in check through mutually assured destruction. You bomb us we'll annihilate you. But there's threatening to turn anybody that attacks you into rubble and then there's actually wanting to turn anybody who attacks you into rubble. This factoid suggests the latter - to speed up the response time, all minuteman missile silos had their launch code set to 00000000.
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