Toronto Star: We have a PM who is ... neutralizing the safeguards put in place to protect the public

[marmar]

Legacy of 2009: a plateful of unsavoury leftovers

By Carol Goar Editorial Board
Published On Wed Dec 30 2009


Before we close the book on 2009, there's a bit of unfinished business to discuss.

While we were coping with the worst recession in 25 years, our elected officials were quietly dismantling pieces of our democratic heritage.

Unless we turn this trend around, our children will live in a diminished Canada.

Here's a brief look at the troubling legacy of 2009.

We have a Prime Minister who is systematically neutralizing the safeguards put in place to protect the public.

Since taking power in 2006, Stephen Harper has fired nuclear safety watchdog Linda Keen; terminated the mandates of military watchdog Peter Tinsley and RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy; challenged the authority of chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand; publicly attacked parliamentary budget watchdog Kevin Page and attempted to undermine any public official who disclosed embarrassing information.

He has marginalized the media, shut down parliamentary committees, silenced any MP or cabinet minister who departs from his script and chopped public funding to organizations that don't share his ideology. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/743955

[polly7]

1. Proroguing parliament is 'routine,' Tories say

"(The Conservative government is) doing this because they want to avoid the scrutiny of government and it is undemocratic fundamentally and they will pay the price for it," he added."

"Kinsella said Prime Minister Stephen Harper will use the time to improve conditions for his minority government by likely filling five vacant seats in the Liberal-dominated Senate with Conservative supporters."

"The move means that Parliamentary committees have also been suspended, including the one that has been probing allegations of abuse against Afghan detainees -- an issue that has been plaguing the Conservatives for months."
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091231/parliament_prorogued_091231/20091231?hub=TopStoriesV2

[roamer65]

2. I hope Canada remembers the Mulroney years before....

giving the CONS a majority gov't.

[tom_paine]

3. sounds like the Canadian-American "anschluss with better PR" is moving forward nicely

You poor bastards. Just like us, just like the 1933 Germans, you will have no idea what hit you or how to fight it, for if you do not fight it soon it will grow too strong to ever stop.

Now you get to experience life as an American in the years 1980-1999, and perhaps you, too, will scratch your heads and wonder why the "opposition" always seems to lose, even when it wins.

I don't know Canada well enough to know how far along you are, maybe further than I think, maybe less. And your gleichschaltung will be different than ours, tailored to your national fears and myths.

But the totalitarian darkness still is closing in on North America, and Obama's "election" hasn't even slowed it down a whit.

You're next. You poor bastards. If you were bitching and blaming us Americans like we used to blame the Germans for their complicity and lack of willingness to fight the Nazis themselves, now you will get to experience the humiliating shame of what it was like (minus the violence, which would be bad PR and not at all suited to the modern age) to be trapped like a bug in amber in a nation being dismantled with eevr-increasing speed.

I used to despise the 1933 Germans. Now I understand them more than I ever dreamed I would.

[glitch]

5. I understand them and still despise them, as I do their North American counterparts.

On our willfully ignorant, greedy, complacent and utterly arrogant watch.

(sorry, I should probably eat breakfast)

[tom_paine]

7. But not so easy to resist, not effectively anyway.

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

Plus a change, plus a la meme chose

(the more things change, the more they stay the same)

And remember this, if you are also a citizen of the United Corporations of America as I am, to despise them, we MUST despise ourselves, as well, for we are them and they are us.

I despise them, too, but it's all mixed up in the shame of us letting it happen AGAIN. And the understanding of just how impossible it is once the thing has passed a certain threshold of "snowballing" to stop it.

[Vidar]

4. K&R.

[Captain Hilts]

6. The Star is about the only progressive daily in North America. I read it regularly. nt