Propaganda - Week 218 - June 22-29

Justin Trudeau continues not providing clear policy goals.  End the Isis combat mission.  Restore diplomatic relations with Iran.  What is he trying to say?  Of course, the Conservatives have plunged to new depths in their response.  Out of context quotes...blatantly mis-stating the truth...using ISIS imagery.  Some speculate this might contravene their own Bill C-51.  Another speculates that the use of images of POW's contravenes the Geneva Conventions.  It's "better than news" though.  Somehow.  Truthiness, I guess.  As well, government ministers have taken to issuing partisan attacks on the subject using public resources.  And Steve has decided that re-instituting diplomatic relations means "becoming best friends with Iran".

No shit.  "Canadian Muslim leaders wary of Stephen Harper’s Ramadan meal motives"

Tim Uppal is angry about getting called out for calling out Muslim women.

Since 9/11, more people have died at the hand of non-muslim extremists than at the hands of muslim extremists in the US.

Dean Del Mastro.  Sentenced to one month in jail.  I wonder how a "tough on crime" MP fairs in prison?

We've talked about cuts to sex offender rehabilitation programs before.  Maybe we're just framing it wrong?  Conservative cuts cause child molesters to re-offend at a 75% higher rate (the Walrus suggests even higher).  Maybe phrasing it like that will change the conversation?

The Cons shovelled a lot more money into their own ridings from an infrastructure fund, than went into opposition ridings.  On average, each Conservative riding received 48% more.

Our good buddy Steve used to speak publically about how gay marriage was "vile and disgusting".  Guess he didn't rainbowize his Facebook avatar.

Even the National Post seems to be realizing that the loss of the mandatory long form census is a horrible thing.

Details on the law against Safe Injection sites.

The Cons are banning their own followers from chastising them on social media over C-51.

Holy shit.  We've spent $265 Million over the last 5 years detaining immigrants and refugees.

Leaked documents show that we really sucked up to Saudi Arabia in pursuit of that big arms deal.

Jason Kenney blames the military for not allowing opposition MP's onto military bases.  Documents point out that the minister is the one with the final say.

HarperPAC only lasted four days.  Lots of articles on the sad state of affairs that these PAC's hint at.

Every country seems to be clueing in that the TPP is a bad deal for regular citizens.  This one has an Australian bent.

A report finds that the PMO is deleting e-mails that should be kept.

Apparently, many more seniors are going bankrupt these days.

An interesting behind-the-scenes of a Stephen Harper photo op.

Like I said last week - the long gun registry data case is heating up.  A court orders the RCMP to turn over data.

Late again - Week 184 - Nov 3-12

The BC Government has come out hard and fast to protect it's citizens from danger.  Strong language.  Talk of increased fines.  Government resources to investigate and hold people to account.  Mine safety?  Pipelines?  No, no, silly human.  Uber.  Of course, it's all in the citizens interest.  Nothing to do with complaints from the Taxi and Limousine industry.

This story is titled "Less Money to Help Veterans, More to Remember Them".  Seems fitting.

It's kind of embarrassing how excited everybody is getting about bombing ISIS.  "ISIS dump truck may have been target of first Canadian air strikes in Iraq" reads the headline.  The rest of the world is embarrassed for us.

Del Mastro took the high road!  Holy shit.

Unfortunately, the Cons have not.  This is a video link, which sucks.  But Thomas Mulcair is pointing out that the Conservatives have quietly amended a bill to remove the pensions of MP's convicted of crimes to not include MP's convicted of crimes under the Elections Act.  So basically, Del Mastro gets to keep his pension due to the Conservatives changing the law.

An intervenor in the Trans Mountain/Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion approval process has withdrawn and blasted the process as ridiculous and too heavily in favour of Trans Mountain/Kinder Morgan.  No big deal.  Except that he's a former government minister and oil company board member.  More people are speaking out about the Kinder Morgan/NEB hearings being a farce.

The NDP is upset that Trudeau made public statements about the MP harassment issue.  I don't understand was he was supposed to do.  Suspend the MP's with no justification?  Not suspend them?  I guess that was an option.  The complaint seems to be that the victims privacy has been violated.  But they haven't been named.  I don't know though - Maybe this isn't right, but it seems like you can have privacy or you can have justice.  You might not be able to have both?  Question mark.

The Cons are on a rampage against things that are already illegal in our country.  Honour killings.  Polygamy.  These are problems for Steve.

We've decided to pay Roma refugees money to abandon their refugee claims.  I guess one could argue that if you're willing to accept cash to go away, your refugee claim is suspect.  But what the fuck?

We're resorting to hiring smugglers to deport people to Somalia, because it's so fucking dangerous there government officials aren't allowed to travel there themselves.  This is insane.

Other refugees...well, we just throw them in prison with no charges until we can sort things out.

How noble.  The Conservatives are going to comply with the court ruling that requires them to provide health care to refugees.

John Baird isn't just making Canadians angry now.  Russia isn't too pleased with his comments about the Ukraine.

The Governor of the Bank of Canada suggests that unemployed, basement dwelling kids, should work for free.  You know, for experience.  I'm not sure if he went on to give other advice from his childhood...pound the streets...hand out resumes...Why it only took me a couple of days to find a great job, why can't these kids manage it?  What a fucking asshole.

Two new spy watchdogs have been named.  One, a former Conservative MP with no intelligence experience.  Two, a former security consultant who might have a conflict of interest.  Mulcair doesn't like either.

Another report on the insane amount of subsidies for oil companies from rich, western governments.  $88 Billion a year, apparently.  Similarly, BC Natural Gas subsidies are insane.

I'm sure that this was the result of a direct question...but if I'm Peter McKay, I find a better answer when somebody asks me if I've seen harassment on Parliament Hill.  This could be part of the reason why the Conservatives very recently decided to do nothing about workplace harassment on Parliament Hill.

More detail on why it's terrible to ban travelers from Ebola ravaged countries.

Trudeau lays out his case against income splitting.  Interesting how supporters are sticking to their argument that income tax splitting is somehow more fair.  Global News is on the case and has proven that 87% of Canadians won't benefit from income splitting.  MacLean's shows that even with the $2000 limit, it's primarily benefiting people with higher incomes.

Way to go RCMP.  You lost a "high risk traveller".  If you can't manage the resources that you have, why should we give you more?  Failing at things should not be an argument for more power.

The Cons lost in court a few months ago with respect to CSIS and their actions overseas.

A pension board appointed by the Cons to oversee federal employee pensions has been accused of utilizing offshore tax loopholes.  The same loopholes the Cons are apparently really upset about.

America thinks we're getting four F-35's in 2017?

The Federal Information Watchdog is nearly out of money.  I'm sure Steve will tell her to manage her budget better.

Use of foodbanks in Canada is accelerating.

I'm not saying that this is a result of cuts to Statscan or hating science...but it's funny that the Conservatives aren't able to give numbers to support their policies.

UBC is building a pricey international students only college?  That seems like a terrible idea.

Kinder Morgan is really upset that protesters are giving them dirty looks.  Seriously.

The Q Billy Bob Thornton interview is pretty humourous in hindsight.  Billy Bob comes off looking kind of amazing rather than kind of crazy.  There's some amazing leaps in the comments.

A few more states decide to legalize marijuana.  Pretty much the whole west coast (come on...California with it's medicinal marijuana culture is pretty much legal) except for BC is now legal.

I'm not going to pretend to know what this guy is talking about.  But he's suggesting that the munitions we are sending our fighter jets into battle with are less than ideal.  "Own a powerful gun but buy no ammo to shoot with it' mentality" is what he calls it.

Dropping Off - Weeks 170/171 - July 28 - Aug 11

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I've been on vacation.  It's been tough to stay positive the last few weeks, hasn't it?

I'm going to start by talking about the tailings pond spill in Northern BC.  Just because it's a nice little reminder that bad things happen.  Can you believe the response from the BC Government was anything but "We're going to do everything possible to hold this company accountable to clean up this mess"?  It's especially troubling seeing as there were a number of red flags pointing to trouble in the past.  Is it a coincidence that the company was a heavy donor to the BC Libs?  And their maximum fine might only be $1 Million?  If that.

And then we have Israel.  Apparently unflinching support includes not getting too bent out of shape if a school is bombed.  Just figure out a way to blame the other guys.  "Well I wouldn't have to do all these terrible things if you'd just do exactly what I want you to."  Lucky for us, a Jewish group has flown 5 MP's to Israel...to visit Israeli soldiers in the hospital...and to better understand the "Jewish perspective"...and then they'll return home and enlighten us with their "facts".  No meetings are planned with the Palestinians.

Good news.  More government money to advertise the Oil Sands in the US.  Some info on the increased budget for "communications" as well.  But I guess we need them to run around like crazy sending sexist e-mails for Peter McKay, and then dealing with the repercussions.  And millions for public opinion surveys.

We've decided that fracking chemicals are not pollutants.

An interesting window into the CRA and their audits on charities.  They effectively admit that they look at political leanings and listen to gripes from cabinet ministers.

I kind of love it.  We talk about how tough our sanctions are on Russia...and then call them "short sighted" when Russia responds in kind..and belittle them as ineffective.

Steve lost another legal challenge.  The whole "Victim Surcharge" has been exposed as the sham that it is.

I will admit that transparency is a good thing.  But why is it always "transparency for others" with the Conservatives?  It's very hard to justify a chief taking away a million dollars on a land deal (worth 8 million...), but we have no context.  And no other side of the story.  Just Conservatives jumping up and down screaming about how correct they are.  As well, this is one of 600 bands that reported.  So...one bad apple (perhaps) used to shame everybody.

Garth points out that our entire economy seems to be based on building condos for one another (which we then rent out at a loss and call an investment), which is troubling.  And the jobs that we do create are not good ones.

Jason Kenney is really angry that Justin Trudeau visited a mosque a few years ago.  Is Jason Kenney the new Angry John Baird?

Marc Emery is vowing revenge on Stephen Harper.

It's been ruled that Mr. Big operations can still take place, but with more rules.  Hard to find what those rules are.

Even the Government can't even decide if Omar Khadr is a horrible terrorist.  But nobody is allowed to talk to him about it.

Somebody finally listened to Dean Del Mastro...An investigation into Wikipedia edits from Parliament computers is launched.

Duffman. Up on Charges. Oh Yeah! - Week 168 - July 14-21

Sorry for the Simpson's reference in the title.  Let's have a cheer for Mike Duffy.

31 charges is going to be a tough one to conquer.  How did Nigel Wright skate through this?

To me, this is a new low for taxpayer funded mailouts.  The Cons are actually using it to collect data on voters.  With patriotism!

Some soon-to-be jobless moron in the Finance Dept. initiated a focus group about Steve's policies.  Turns out Canadians don't really agree with what he is doing.  Probably bad data though, right Steve?  Speaking of bad data...The PBO has determined that current sick leave policies for civil servants don't really cost the government much, despite the Cons insistence that it does and it needs to be changed.

Steve finally won a court case!  And he'll probably lose this one (on native constitutional claims related to Northern Gateway).

Apparently somebody has proof (proof I tell ya!) that Steve plans on privatizing Canada Post.

Dean Del Mastro is really upset that somebody in the House of Commons keeps changing his Wikipedia page.  Which is kind of funny in the "taste of their own medicine" sort of way.  As the Conservatives are notorious for bad Wikipedia editing.

This article points out why using EI premiums to balance the budget is an unfair policy.  TLDR - rich people don't end up paying very much.

John Baird continues blaming everybody but Israel.  I mean, why wouldn't Hamas want to sign on to an agreement that all the other parties negotiated without them?  I'll admit that firing rockets at the exact time the agreement was supposed to start was a bit much...But I don't think the very public John Baird Yelling and unconditional support for Israel really helps anything.

The Tyee points out that we've done almost nothing with respect to Syrian refugees.

I had no idea that New Brunswick was such a strange little place.  Where you can't get an abortion, apparently.  And where one of the guys tasked with investigating the impacts of fracking holds a fracking specific patent...so he's totally unbiased in the outcome.

Boingboing highlights that Ontario police share all sorts of data about individuals with all sorts of people.  Employers.  Border Services.  Etc.  It doesn't help people sort things out and it doesn't necessarily even come about due to any sort of "guilt".  Similar things might be happening in BC.

The DFO seems to not have great control over BC clam fisheries, and is looking to expand them.

This article is a bit tough to follow, but it makes fun of Joe Oliver so it's all good.  It suggests that not providing information and then criticizing people for not having that information is bad form.

British spies are able to manipulate online polls, among other things.

Get yer guns - Week 167 - July 7-14

Well this is frightening.  The OECD predicts the fall of the Western World.  Recommends austerity and worker flexibility.

Peter MacKay 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 notice and time to attend the opening.  Because Peter MacKay is turning into one of the biggest dicks in the Conservative party.

Morningstar, via Macleans, has bad news about Canadian Real Estate.

Omar Khadr wins the right to be transferred to a Provincial prison.

A "flood" of calls to the Revenue Canada offshore snitch line has resulted in 80 new leads...Call Noah, I guess.  Since March, 800 people have called.  And 251 were "actual" calls.  And only 100 of those were actual, actual calls.

I guess you have to argue something...Dean Del Mastro's attorney suggests a power surge may be the reason for why he looks guilty as hell.  That could possibly explain the data trail.  Maybe the same power surge altered the memory of the guy who said Del Mastro told him to change it?

An organization has put together a report suggesting Canada does a terrible job of managing its parks.  "Short sighted" is the description, I believe.

More court cases.  Remember the end to the Navigable Waters Protection Act?  Yep.  Lawsuit.

Religious groups in Alberta are responsible for teaching some of the sex ed programs in High Schools.

CNRL admits that they caused the strange bitumen seeping issues in Northern Alberta.  Will they have to fix it?

This meathead makes a lot of strange claims about Canada's greatest scourge: foreign mothers giving birth in Canada!  Hundreds of them!

The NSA targets innocent vs. "guilty" people at a ratio of 9:1...

A relatively short one - Week 166 - July 2-7

Is it "hoisted on your own petard" or "foisted on your own petard"?  Something else?  Anyhow, the US has justified killing the shit out of people with drones and insists that they have the legal right to do so.  And in doing so have made a legal argument for Omar Khadr not being a war criminal.

Peter MacKay and his band of merry yes men are probably facing a(nother) court challenge over their prostitution legislation.  After losing a court case over refugee healthcare.  And will probably be added to the giant pile of laws the Conservatives have passed that have been overturned by the courts - thanks to the CBC for saving us all the time of tracking them down.  I'm sure the argument will be something like "When yer busy doin' stuff you step on a few toes."

It's not looking very good for Dean Del Mastro.  Testimony has been made that it was his request to backdate all of those invoices.  It really makes you wonder where the hubris came from to get up on his soapbox for so long?

This sounds a bit like nothing more than fancy bookkeeping.  But it's more than that.  Kinder Morgan is allowed to charge a surcharge on its pipeline traffic in order to lobby the government for a larger pipeline.  Said charges are somehow tax deductible.  So Canadian taxpayers are essentially paying for Kinder Morgan to lobby and develop a bigger pipeline.

Conservatives:  Man...we sure are awesome!  Look at how many women we've appointed to senior positions! (they actually use the phrase "outstandingly well")
Reality:  Actually...you're doing worse than the Liberals before you.  16% worse. (Liberals - 36%, Conservatives - 30%, that's a 16% drop) 

Another anti-science decision by the Conservatives.  The DFO is going to allow up to triple the amount of Coho to be caught unintentionally to allow for a larger Sockeye catch.  There's no scientific evidence to back up their decisions.  Just "Coho stocks are getting better".  Scientists disagree.

A round of meetings on the TPP are taking place in Canada next week (well...this week, I guess).  And everything has been moved from Vancouver to Ottawa at the last minute.  And there's basically no information on what will be happening or where.  It's all a giant secret.  That will totally impact us for eternity.

This is kind of funny.  The 2010 Olympics are officially "in the black".  Meaning "we took enough money from the government to pay for everything.  and forget about all those security costs.  Those don't count."

Seems like a good program for Canada to get involved with...All of the F-35's have been grounded again.  Engine fires.

Oh fuck the hell off.  A doctor in Calgary is refusing to prescribe the pill.  Personal beliefs.  Doesn't your professional obligation as a doctor trump your personal beliefs?

Super Late - Week 165 - June 23 - July 2

It's funny how by-elections are always pumped up as some huge deal.  But then nothing dramatic every really happens.  Except for only 12% (or something like that) of eligible voters showing up in Fort McMurray.  Don't make me open the link again.

Some details have come out in the Dean Del Mastro trial.  He backdated cheques (allegedly) so that expenses incurred during the election didn't look like they had occurred during the election.  This seems like it will be fairly easy to prove/disprove.  And this guy was a Minister!

Government departments are starting to point out that climate change is happening.  That's a pretty good way to get branded a radical bureaucrat and have your funding cut.  Meanwhile, rising sea levels.  Dropping lake levels.  Lack of water in the Great Lakes could become exceedingly expensive.  I wish they'd finally get some scientists to prove this global warming shit.  Gawd.

Washington State is concerned that our pipelines and tanker traffic might impact them negatively.  Especially their otters.  I've seen one of these little guys.  They're pretty awesome.

Peter MacKay never does anything wrong.  It wasn't his fault that he sent out sexist e-mails for Mother's Day.  It was a female staffer.  He just signed them without reading them.  His actual excuse...which is supposed to make it okay.  "I'm not sexist...I just don't give a shit about these things and I'm going to blame some poor staffer."

The Conservatives have always been up in arms about the Temporary Foreign Workers program.  I mean, until recently they were up in arms that it was too difficult to bring them in to the country...Meanwhile, Complaints about the Temporary Foreign Workers program date back to 2006.  Quick action, I tell you!  More details on how decisions about Temporary Foreign Workers are made using terribly awful data.

The Egyptian journalist jailing lays bare the absurdity of the Conservatives citizenship stripping bill (not to mention their terrible response to the whole thing).  By the letter, this guy should be a non-Canadian according to the Conservatives.  But don't worry, in their infinite wisdom and judgement he will remain a Canadian.  But this should be left to the governments judgement?

A Conservative Senator hired his girlfriend.  Twice.  But it's somehow not a conflict of interest.  She looks just his type, no?  There's some info on him bilking for expenses buried in the story as well.

Tough Talkin' Stephen Harper has inspired Putin to start flying bombers towards Canada.

Why are there so many sketchy "loans" to Conservative MP's and why is Nigel Wright in the shadows in dealing with all of them?  details on Mark Adler and his court case/"loan" repayment.

So it begins.  The CBC starts cutting back.

Come on Vice, this is weeks old news (about the request for information on any and all protests by the government).

Is this still a good thing?  Turns out Starbucks isn't actually contributing any money towards employees educations as they suggested in their employee scholarship announcement of a few weeks ago.  It looks like they just negotiated with the University to drop the prices a bit for Starbucks employees.

2013 Best Of Canadian Federal Politics

Seeing as 98% of you are new readers and you have no idea who I am or what this is, I’ll give a brief introduction.  This little blog here is my attempt to keep track of all the wonderful things that the Harper Government is doing to this fine country.  I update it once a week and this is my summary of all the terribly awesome things that have happened in the past year.

And who can keep track?  Looking back, this has been a staggeringly awful year for Canadian politics.  Or perhaps it’s been an amazing year?  Who even knows anymore?  Let’s plunge in.  We’ll start with a photo of our dear leader with Justin Bieber, because who doesn't want to see that?

The Senate

Of course you couldn’t read a fortune cookie this year without a mention of the Senate.  Who can make sense of this crazy, crazy debacle?

• You have Senators who don’t actually live in the province which they represent, which should (perhaps) disqualify them from being a Senator in the first place

• You have Senators fraudulently claiming living expenses

• You have Senators claiming travel expenses while they fly around the country doing work for Corporate boards and the Conservative Party of Canada

• You have a key member of Stephen Harper’s inner circle paying for the expenses of a Senator out-of-pocket in the hopes the whole thing will just go away.  Illegally paying.

• You have Senators actively campaigning to disrupt a 3^rd Party audit, in the hopes that it will all just go away

• You have Conservative Senators whitewashing an audit report so that their own Senators get off lightly and don't look too bad

• You have the Prime Minister, a notorious micro-manager, disavowing any knowledge or responsibility for the wrongdoings of all these people who he more-or-less directly appointed (and even though he had previously claimed that some of these things were a-ok)

Am I missing anything?  Oh wait.  The funniest thing about all of this?  After thoroughly hanging Nigel Wright out todry, it comes out that our great leader actually praised Nigel Wright for his help with “ethics” in the foreword to his book about Canadian Hockey.  Which he wrote while sitting as the Prime Minister of our country.

Canada – Stephen Harper’s personal Advertising Agency

One of the perks of getting elected is that you get to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars advertising how great you are in hopes that people vote for you the next time around.  First off, "The Harper Government" has really blown up.  That phrase has shown up on 522 government news releases.  That was back in May though, so I'm sure it's much more than that by now.

Not only that, but Harper has gotten the PMO (an organization which was originally just supposed to plan his day out) to get involved in political mud-sligging.  The Conservatives also pretty consistently use taxpayer funded mailouts to do their partisan dirtywork and seem to routinely place criticism of the opposition on government websites.

Then there's the little annoying ones.  The splashy event, cancelled at the last minute, to celebrate the end of the Long Gun Registry.  Yes, nothing screams "prudent fiscal managers" more than spending a lot of money to cancel an expensive program and then spending more money on a party to celebrate all the waste.  They also decided to scrub references to "Environment Canada" from the Environment Canada website (I think to make room for more Economic Action Plan ads, by the look of it).

But that's just a tiny little amuse bouche leading up to the double fisting, strap on the fat pants, all-you-can-eat buffet of wasteful awfulness.  It's probably impossible to figure out exactly how much this government has spent on totally useless advertising since coming to power.  $548 Million is the best guess here.  Think about that for a minute.  The "fiscally conservative" government in the midst of cutting programs and benefits and environmental protection to "save money", has spent a half billion dollars telling the country how great they are.  I guess you need to do something to keep the 4,000 communications related employees busy.

These ad campaigns are so unbelievably insane.  Honestly, how desensitized are we to these things?

• The "Economic Action Plan", where a tonne of money is spent to convince everybody that the economy is great (and the ads don't really work)
  

• Advertising campaigns to convince the USA that we're not a bunch of oil burning knuckle draggers (so that they'll let a private corporation plow a pipeline down the center of their country).  They've spent approx. $40 Million on this

• Ads to encourage "Resource Development"...lots and lots of it 

• Planning to spend a shit-tonne of money on history propaganda  leading up to Canada's 150th birthday

• A $9 Million dollar campaign justifying opening up Canada's cell phone industry to competition from the United States

• Advertised a great job training/creation program...that hasn't been signed off on by the Provinces (as they'll have to pony up most of the cash) and doesn't actually exist yet

It's just an amazing act of gall to spend this much money blowing smoke up the asses of your own citizens.

Government Spying

Oh sure, America, you have the NSA.  Turns out we’re just as bad.  Not only are we your muckraking minions , like some sort of ill-conceived Hells Angels puppet club, setting up spy-posts in places the USA can't get to.  But we're also helping the USA spy on our friends that we invited to our great big G8/G20 gazebo blowout/Summit.  And it seems like we really learned some things, because then we turned around and started spying on foreign countries (friendly ones) on behalf of Canadian industries.  You have to credit the Harpoids for creating a new way to discredit Glenn Greenwald though – did you know that he’s actually taking money to write these articles?  Gasp.

And more good news.  They're actually looking to fund an organization to continually monitor your social media.  I mean, I'm sure they're already monitoring your social media, but this will be more involved.

Treating People Like Assholes

Did you know that 40% of Canada’s native children live in poverty?  No worries though, because we’re probably just going to throw them in jail when they grow up.  We’re equal opportunity child haters though, as James Moore points out, it’s not his job (or the Federal Government's) to feed his neighbours hungry children.  I mean, who expects help from the government, right?  Speaking of James Moore, I mean...what the Jerry Gergich is going on here?

But it’s not just children and natives that Stephen Harper hates.  He’d also like all the employees of Members of Parliament to sign ongoing, life long, forever inperpetuity, non disclosure agreements.  I mean, nothing screams “transparency” more than ensuring the (taxpayer paid) employees that act out your terrible, terrible plans can never speak to anybody ever about anything.  This isn’t without precedent though.  He tried to get librarians to sign a loyalty pact as well.

This year also saw a cabinet shuffle.  Fresh starts and all that.  Except...our great leader asked the outgoing Ministers to draw up lists of enemies as he hurried out the door.  Nixon would be proud.

We Blew up a Town

Okay, we can't entirely blame the Lac Megantic train explosion on Stephen Harper.  But after that train exploded, we sure talked a lot about preventing exploding trains.  And then another train exploded while we continued to talk about it.

What's awesome is that the amount of oil shipped by rail has gone up by 28,000% since 2009, yet we deregulate, and train companies do things like lobby to use obsolete rail cars.  But why shouldn't we let these companies haul more oil with fewer and fewer regulations.  I mean, the company responsible for Lac Megantic has really stepped up to the plate.  By going bankrupt and by having their license pulled for inadequate 3rd party liability insurance.  Real princes of private enterprise.

Winning the War on Crime

If there is one thing Conservatives are good for, it's being tough on crime.  In fact, this government has been so tough on crime lately that crime has steadily been going down since 1991, a full 15 years before they came to power.  If I've learned anything in my career as an Engineer though it's this: If you see a really positive trend and things are heading in the right direction, start messing with stuff!  Let's look at some graphs (and this is from the National Post!  Who knows what fancy statistics the left wing can dig up)

But of course it's only radicals and criminals that are opposed to this stuff.  People like judges, who are refusing to honor minimum sentencing laws.  Or pointing out that mandatory sentencing laws are unconstitutional.  Or charge criminals the "victims services surcharge".

The judges aren't the only radicals though.  Look at this crazy guy, the Ombudsman for Federal Inmates.  "More crowded and violent."  "Less successful at rehabilitation."  Yes, the Conservatives war on crime is creating less rehabilitated, more violent criminals.  Who can trust somebody that says things like "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,"

Another crazy radical not on board: The Parliamentary Budget Officer.  Here, he shows how radical he is by pointing out that most of the costs of all this new legislation will fall to the Provinces (and that crime rates are falling and these expenditures don't make sense).

But what pisses me off the most is just how red-meat-for-the-base all of this stuff is.  Is our countries top priority really stripping terrorists of their citizenship?  Should we focus on keeping the mentally ill in prison for longer, or should we put some money into getting them help?

Dominating the War on Science

This is becoming such a thing, there are actually several roundups (and a book) on all the damage Stephen Harper has done to science in this country.  You may cry a little.

It's getting so bad that scientists are actually starting to march in protest.  Prompting our "Science Minister" to send out fundraising letters to combat "radical ideologue" scientist.

Not all science is bad though.  When you can re-purpose a Federal Research Organization (The NRC) to do science on behalf of industry, that's good science!  When you can just sort of make some shit up about polar bears to forward your climate change denying ideals, that's good science!  When you can use "science" to determine when life begins, that's good science!

Unfortunately, most science in Canada is bad science, and needs to be scrapped.  Research into the effect of lead bullets and shot?  Scrap it!  Fisheries libraries with irreplaceable documents (many fisheries libraries...and apparently not just libraries but budgets and jobs at the DFO as well...and perhaps proof that it's been done to "cull materials" rather than "save money")?  Scrap them!  Protection for endangered freshwater fish?  Scrap it!  A program that has greatly reduced heroin overdoses on the Downtown East Side?  Better try to scrap that!  Doctors trying to reduce heroin dependency using prescription heroin?  Scrap it!  The UN Drought Convention?  Scrap it!

And this is how crazy it has gotten.  Can you believe that Statscan is actually putting disclaimers on it's data due to scrapping of the mandatory long form census?  Our Environment Minister has doubts about climate change!  Gee, can't imagine why they are so afraid of admitting that climate change is real?

Hiring everybody but Canadians

(It's tough to talk about this stuff without sounding like a xenophobe.  Really, I'm pro immigration.  I'm just not pro bring-people-in-from-outside-the-country-at-lower-wages-and-then-send-them-home) I’ve got to admit, this is just a stroke of genius.  John Le Carre couldn’t dream up a plot this thick with cunning and irony.  Imagine selling Canadian people on all sorts of environmentally harmful mega projects with the promise of long term, well paying jobs.  And you have to cut all those pesky environmental reviews because they take too long and gosh darnit, Canada needs job.  Except.  Man, we need these projects done so quickly we don’t actually have enough people to do these jobs so we’re just going to hire all sorts of people from outside of the country (even if there's lots of unemployed people with the requisite skillset) and pay them a lot less and steal their money and not really bother with creating all these Canadian jobs in the first place.  It’s beautiful.  Not only that, but we’re also going to:

• Let people with the employable skills jump to the front of the line

• Let Corporations decide who gets to come to Canada

So we're going to have some sort of hand-picked, corporately acceptable society of welders?  Just so that we can harvest oil really cheaply?  Not that there's anything wrong with welders.

We Only Help Countries that Have Something to Offer Us in Return

You’ve heard of foreign aid?  That’s where you help out countries that are less fortunate than your own.  You’d think you’d decide on who needs help based on who needs it the most, right?  No.  Canada decides based on who can offer something in return.  I think all charities should function like this.  I think I'll only give to the food bank if they can send somebody over to mow my lawn.

We've also started telling our diplomats to worry more about developing trade than on...well...whatever they'd normally be doing.  Spying on friendly countries, I guess.  And anybody that has a problem with any of this is an "extremist fear monger".  Is there like one old lady in Mississauga that isn't an extremist fear monger according to the Conservatives?

The Stephen Harper 2013 List of All-Stars

Let's end this list by focusing on our Great Leaders best performers.

"Sleepy Time" Rob Anders - First, I'd like to congratulate Rob Anders on a fantastic 2013.  I don't think he was caught sleeping on the job at all this year.  Well done.  Unfortunately, it seems this left him more time to talk and express himself.  He did such things like rail against that terrorist Nelson Mandela (in his defense, Stephen Harper probably used to agree with him).  Unfortunately, this was not his only windbag moment.  Thanks for sending this great Canadian to Parliament, Calgary West.  Sorry.  Can't resist posting this photo.

Dean Del Mastro - Poor Dean Del Mastro.  People just wouldn't lay off him with the accusations of election shenanigans.  He complained that his good name was being sullied.  He used his Parliamentary privilege to bully witnesses.  He begged to either be charged or set free of his terrible hell.  So they charged him.  I hope he's feeling better about all of this now.

Peter Goldring - I missed this guy last year.  He somehow managed to beat his drunk driving charges for refusing to blow (honestly, read through this story and try to figure out how this came to pass) and has been welcomed back to the Conservative fold with open arms.

Jim Flaherty - I used to think Jim Flaherty was one of the okay guys.  He didn't do or say anything terrible.  He just hacked and slashed budgets.  And then...well...I can't even believe I'm writing this.  He's started confronting other Conservatives who have spoken out against Rob Ford.  I think he might be on the wrong side of this issue.  As well, he had some difficulties filling out expense claims this year, which is a bit troubling considering he's the Minister of Finance.  We're also going to celebrate the only mention of Rob Ford in this article by showing a picture of Rob Ford with the Hamburgler.

Vic Toews - I was almost sad to see this guy go.  I feel like nobody brought Canadians together quite like Vic Toews.  He actually blamed the opposition for the Conservatives fiercely enough when they appointed a now disgraced former CSIS watchdog.  It was their fault that they didn't question them hard enough about what they were doing.  Not only that though, but after creating a bunch of laws that will put a bunch more people in jail, he complained that policing costs have gotten too high.  For a Minister of Justice, he seemed to have a tremendously poor understanding of crime statistics.

Peter "Helicopter Captain" McKay - Peter McKay freaked out when Justin Trudeau talked about marijuana legalization in front of "school children"...after some high school kids directly asked Justin Trudeau about it and he answered their question.  I've heard politicians talking about marijuana is one of the #1 causes of drug addiction.  I think Peter might just be confused because most Conservatives aren't used to the concept of directly answering people's questions.

Tony Clement - Good old Tony was actually following me on Twitter for a while this year.  Which is odd.  He had the unenviable task of explaining to Canada that the government hadn't actually lost $3.1 Billion dollars, they just didn't know where it was.  These things are different, apparently.

Jean-Guy Degenais - Jean-Guy Degenais is a Conservative Senator.  An unelected Conservative Senator.  He's upset because the MP for his region is "useless and powerless", by his estimation.  If only the good people of Quebec would be smart enough to vote Conservative and hop on board the gravy train.

Conclusions

In the end though, what can we do about this?  Who is going to make it all better?  That's what I keep asking myself.  And I think I found the solution.  Anything the Conservatives are this strongly against is probably worth looking into.