South Coast Today - stephen harper

Recession report is "good news", says Harper

Timothy Gillespie — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 16:02:57 +0000

In a masterful attempt at political spin, prime minster Stephen Harper called Tuesday's report from Statistics Canada that the country was technically in a recession, a "good news report", because some sectors appeared to be strong.

Canada's economy recoiled for the second-straight quarter of 2015 — knocking the country backwards into a technical definition of recession, fresh Statistics Canada data revealed Tuesday.

The federal agency said real gross domestic product contracted at an annual pace of 0.5 per cent in the second quarter of the year, which followed a revised decline of 0.8 per cent during the first three months of 2015.

Statistics Canada says the first-quarter performance was weaker than originally estimated, forcing the agency to lower its GDP reading for the first three months of the year from an original estimate of 0.6 per cent.

On the positive side, there was evidence to suggest Canada's economy began to bounce back in June as GDP grew by 0.5 per cent for the month after shrinking over five straight months.

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Harper's careless wild salmon play

Timothy Gillespie — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 18:12:01 +0000

“I realize it was a mistake, but it expresses the carelessness of this government toward Pacific salmon. It reeks of the Conservatives supporting Atlantic salmon. It was a Freudian slip … when you say what you actually think.”

VANCOUVER -- An Atlantic salmon photo has been removed from the Conservative party website and replaced with one that looks more like a Pacific chinook, but B.C. supporters of wild salmon remain aghast at the mix-up.

“I think my reaction is like a lot of people’s in B.C.,” said Gerald Amos, a Haisla elder in Kitimat who works with Friends of Wild Salmon, a broad coalition. “It looked out of touch with respect to our coasts. It heightens our cynicism.”

On Friday, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was in the riding of North Island-Powell River to announce that, if re-elected, his government would spend $15 million restoring wild salmon habitats in the lower Harrison River.

He then tweeted a photo of a salmon leaping upstream, its body in mid-air with all of its markings clear for everyone to see. It wasn’t long before sharp eyes caught the poster-salmon’s black spots around the gills, a giveaway that it was an Atlantic salmon.

In fact, a photographer based in northern England had taken the stock photo. He told the Ottawa Citizen the fish wasn’t even Canadian and he had snapped it in England’s Northumberland county.

B.C. environmentalist Alexandra Morton took to Twitter: “This is a fricking ATLANTIC SALMON!!! Guess he is telling us it is over for Pacific salmon! Unbelievable!!! When he talks about protecting salmon in B.C. — he means farmed Atlantic salmon. This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious for B.C.”

She later issued a press release on behalf of the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society and told The Vancouver Sun: “I realize it was a mistake, but it expresses the carelessness of this government toward Pacific salmon. It reeks of the Conservatives supporting Atlantic salmon. It was a Freudian slip … when you say what you actually think.”

“Perhaps if Harper hadn’t fired or muzzled all of his scientists, they could have helped him get this right.”

Before long, the offending salmon was switched to one that looks more like it could be a Pacific one, darker like a chinook, Amos said. “But if they couldn’t get that straight, we should all be worried.”

It’s not the first stock image faux pas. Earlier, a tweet from the pmharper account touting the value of an adoption tax credit featured a stock image of a family in a park. But they all actually live in Seattle and a photographer snapped the scene of family joy in Slovenia.

from the Victoria Sun

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Opinion: Are Leona Aglukkaq and Stephen Harper fucking crazy?

Timothy Gillespie — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 18:58:26 +0000

We all better hope that the people running Shell Canada are not as stupid as the people currently running our government.

Because the devastation caused by a major oil and gas drilling blowout can be so monumental - as evidenced by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico which spilled 650 million litres of oil into the gulf and onto the beaches and wetlands of Mississippi, Louisiana, Floridana and god knows where else - U.S. regulations requires blowouts to be capped within 24 hours.

Now, when Shell oil wants to drill in the Shelburne basin near some of the richest fishing grounds in the world, federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq approved an offshore drilling plan that allows up to 21 days to contain a subsea blowout, when the most recent.

21 days?

On June 15, Aglukkaq signed off on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's assessment of Shell Canada's Shelburne Basin Venture Exploration Drilling Project.

Shell Canada's spill containment plan, accepted by the agency, says it can have a primary capping stack in place within 12 to 21 days after a blowout off southern Nova Scotia.

John Davis, a long-time environmentalist who spends a lot of time on Nova Scotia's South Shore, told CBC today that Shell's plan doesn't make sense.

"It seems to me almost inconceivable that [Shell] would give themselves up to 21 days to stop a blowout in an area that is so close to all of our major fishing ground here on the South Shore," he said.

Shell Canada says the capping stack equipment would be brought in from Stavanger, Norway.

Norway?

Shell said it would also deploy a backup capping stack from either Scotland, South Africa, Singapore or Brazil.

Scotland, South Africa, Singapore or Brazil?

Environment Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency have refused to explain Aglukkaq's reasoning for approving Shell Canada's well containment plan for Shelburne Basin, deferring questions to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board.

That board has historically been a rubber stamp for industry wishes.

The costs of a major blowout would cripple this area, as they did much of the Gulf Coast. Some examples: (in addition to the 650 million litres of oil):

$42 billion in clean-up costs
Billions in fines to BP and others
25,000 kilometres of spoiled coastline, spanning five states. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
400 animal species affected. Over 6,000 dead birds, over 600 dead sea turtles, over 150 dead mammals

We all better hope that the people running Shell Canada are not as stupid as the people currently running our government.

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Opinion: Send Harper's band of despots, jailbirds, ideologues and incompetents packing

Guest Editorial — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 23:27:51 +0000

OP-ED FROM CHRONICLE HERALD: Here’s more regarding my standing prophecy that federal civil servants, seething under Stephen Harper’s repressive yoke, will spit out the full story between now and the election.

After my column of two weeks ago saying that the “Mother Canada” statue for Cape Breton Highlands National Park was a cook-up by the Prime Minister’s Office served up through clenched teeth by Parks Canada officials, I got a call from a Deep Throat within Parks Canada saying “right on,” but here’s another one you might want to know about.

In 2010, a “legacy centre”' was opened at Cupids, Nfld., west of St. John’s across Conception Bay, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement — led by merchant John Guy of Bristol, England in 1610 — in what is now Canada.

The centre cost some $4 million to build. Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, were there for the festivities, along with the prime minister and Peter MacKay.

A big deal, in other words.

There was only one problem, said my informant. There’s not a lick of evidence that Cupids was the actual site of the John Guy settlement, although oral tradition tends to put it there. Parks Canada archaeologists produced internal studies on this, trying to raise the issue, but were snuffed. Never mind. Harper doesn’t need facts.

And that’s not all. Now, a scant five years later, there’s a huge uproar in Cupids because the powers that be — through the politically connected citizens group that runs it — want the town of 800 to take it over. In April, there was a rowdy public meeting in which, according to CBC, a citizen and a councillor “nearly came to blows” amid accusations of official skullduggery.

In May, there was a referendum in which the proposal that the town take it over was soundly defeated. Citizens feared tax increases to maintain the centre and are apparently not happy that Harperist politics has disturbed the peace of their town.

Which raises an issue with regard to the Mother Canada statue, said my informant. After Harper and his friends have had their moment with it, who’s going to pay for its upkeep? Good point.

Meanwhile, a spitting match has erupted over how the discovery of one of the lost ships of the fabled Franklin expedition in the Arctic was handled. This is supposedly one of the crowning projects of Harper’s Arctic policy, laying down Canadian jurisdiction and poking the Russians in the eye. Getting political credit is the key to the whole thing. Now Paul Watson, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who was following the complaints of scientists about how the event was politically manipulated, has quit the Toronto Star after he was allegedly told to drop the story. But he’s continuing to dig.

The details of the intrigue have yet to play out, but it looks like another Harper machination spinning out of control.

Further, an old friend I hadn’t heard from for years dropped a line out of the blue saying he’d retired from the civil service early because he couldn’t take it any more. His job was to publicize and promote the work of federal scientists — obviously an impossible job in the bizarre Harperist world where scientists are muzzled. Before Harper came to power, he says, government of Canada communications documents spoke of a “responsibility” of public sector employees to communicate with the public. After Harper, the word “responsibility” quietly disappeared. Amen.

Meanwhile, a survey of top civil servants by the Public Service of Canada reports that 80 per cent of them feel they have been virtually reduced to the level of clerks, amid a deteriorating relationship with politicians — Harper ministers have a tendency to blame civil servants for their own messes — and “an air of distrust and disrespect”' that reduces their capacity to do their jobs.

Harper’s problem with the “liberal state” had a certain resonance at its starting point — too much bureaucracy getting ever bigger. However, Harper never had a good point that he didn’t take to extremes. His solution was to take an ideological axe to the public service and swing wildly — starting with his damaging blow to Canada’s highly regarded long-form census shortly after coming to office, plus the firing of a number of heads of federal regulatory commissions and the micro-control of every aspect of the governmental machinery from the Prime Minister’s Office. It wasn’t just scientists who were muzzled. Even employees as non-controversial as librarians could no longer speak to library professionals without going through the stultifying ideological machine of Harper’s office.

All of this will surely be biting back as the election approaches. Indeed, if we have any self-respect as a nation, it’s surely one more reason to send this band of despots, jailbirds, ideologues and incompetents packing.

Ralph Surette

Yarmouth, NS

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Polls and NDP surge in Alberta are game-changers in federal election strategies

Timothy Gillespie — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:59:11 +0000

Recent polling numbers and events like the NDP surge in Alberta are changing the electoral map so significantly that leaders’ summer strategies are still a work in progress and will remain as flexible as possible to respond to opponents, strategists say.

As Parliament winds down and the campaign gears up, the federal parties are poised to ride the pre-election momentum into the summer, with a watchful eye on each other’s movements.

“I think everybody is going to be testing what they’re planning to do against how well it played and what your competitors are doing,” said Robin Sears, a principal with Earnscliffe Strategy Group and an NDP strategist.

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Government of Canada committed cultural genocide, says commission

Timothy Gillespie — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 12:03:07 +0000

Stripped of self-respect and identity - Government still silent

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report issues in Ottawa Wednesday found that students were often physically and sexually abused at Residential Schools overseen by the Government of Canada

A Commission study has found rules that required Canadian aboriginals to attend state-funded church schools were responsible for "cultural genocide".

The report found that First Nations children were "Stripped of their self-respect and they were stripped of their identity," said Murray Sinclair, Commission chair and one of the study's authors.

More than 130 residential schools operated across Canada.

The Canadian government forced more than 150,000 First Nation children to attend these schools from the 19th Century until the 1970s. The schools sought to integrate the children into mainstream Canadian society, but in doing so rid them of their native culture.

The policies have been cited as a major factor in an epidemic of substance abuse on reservations. Students said they were beaten for speaking their native language and were separated from their parents and customs.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 recommendations

Silence has largely been the government’s official response to the 94 recommendations released Tuesday by the commission, whose nearly six-year examination of Canada’s residential-schools history resulted in calls for sweeping reforms to government policy and a conclusion that the system amounted to “cultural genocide.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a historic apology in parliament in 2008, acknowledging the physical and sexual abuse that took place in the schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which wrote the report, was created in 2006 as part of a $5 billion bn class action settlement between the government, churches and the 90,000 surviving First Nation students.

The report issued 94 recommendations including an investigation into missing and murdered aboriginal women and an apology from Pope Francis on behalf of the Catholic Church.

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Corporate Canada's cash in tax havens explodes to $199 billion under Stephen Harper

Timothy Gillespie — Sat, 09 May 2015 10:21:17 +0000

Curious?
Despite claims that raising corporate taxes will lead to "capital flight," Corporate Canada has managed to smash its old record, sending close to $200 billion to tax havens – even as Canadian corporations enjoy their lowest tax rates in recent history (and among the lowest in the world) thanks to Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

New data from Statistics Canada show the amount of money flowing from Corporate Canada into the world's top 10 tax havens hit a record $199 billion last year. And if that doesn't surprise you, get this: the second biggest destination for money flowing out of Canada is now Barbados.

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Harper's abuse of Parliament designed to curtail federal power?

Timothy Gillespie — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:11:21 +0000

Stephen Harper’s abuse of Parliament, done in part through centralizing power around the Prime Minister’s Office, is designed in part to alienate Canadians from federal politics and reduce Ottawa’s perceived legitimacy, thus curtailing federal power and influence in Canada, argues Zach Paikin, in The Hill Times.

Despite being in power for nearly a decade, at first glance it appears as if Stephen Harper’s government has produced almost no landmark, enduring, “conservative” achievements.

The Keystone pipeline has been in limbo for an eternity. Free trade deals with the European Union and within the Trans-Pacific Partnership have yet to be completed. Much of the Harper government’s “tough on crime” legislation has not withstood judicial scrutiny. And, as Andrew Coyne recently noted, spending remains 12 per cent higher—even after inflation and population growth—than it was when the Conservatives first took over.

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OK, let's make up!

Timothy Gillespie — Sat, 18 Apr 2015 16:10:06 +0000

Steve & Mike's powder-puff derby...

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Forget Duffy, Canadians need to wake up to Harper’s true incompetence

Timothy Gillespie — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 12:54:57 +0000

MICHAEL HARRIS FROM IPOLITCS: It’s enough to have Stephen Harper’s base choking on their Kool Aid.

The same prime minister who adamantly blocked Cuba’s participation in the Summit of the Americas in 2012 now shaking hands with President Raul Castro. What’s next, Harper in a Che Guevara T-shirt having a stogie with Fidel?

While Canada’s PM was abandoning any ideological high ground by sucking around for a meeting with Castro, the federal cabinet was congratulating itself for its “world-class” reaction to an oil spill in the waters off Vancouver’s legendary Stanley Park.

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