Huh? No, that’s not what I did. It’s not even close to a reasonable interpretation of what I said.
Wolfpup claimed two things:
That the Conservative government enforced “rebranding” by eliminating use of “Government of Canada” in press releases and replacing it with “the Harper Government”; and
As an example of that, they fired a scientist who complained about this policy.
As to point #1, it is provably untrue. To this day, you can see “Government of Canada” on press releases. It is not true that the government itself was “re-branded”.
As to point #2, it is true a scientist was fired for pointing out the idiocy of making people like him use “the new Government”. However, this firing was by an advisor to the Deputy Minister, whom the scientist in question had essentially called an “idiot”. The Deputy Minister, when he found out about it (through the media shitstorm), promptly re-instated the scientist and the Minister confirmed that the scientist was correct - the term was, according to the Minister, never intended for government functionaries - only for actual Harper-appointed ministers.
Make of those facts as you will. To my mind, it makes more sense to see the “scientist fired” incident as an example of an underling making a big and dumb mistake out of spite (for being called an idiot by said scientist).
foolsguinea is right – it’s mind-boggling that you can try to claim that something is “provably untrue” when back in 2011 Harper’s own parliamentary secretary admitted it! And the Canadian Press spoke with civil servants from four different departments who acknowledged receiving such a directive! And it’s not even the first time he did it – the first rebranding was in 2006, this is the second-generation branding.
…[the rebranding] was acknowledged Wednesday by the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“The communications speak for themselves,” Dean Del Mastro told CBC Radio’s The Current.
“We have in fact, in communications, in press releases by departments, referred to the ‘Harper Government.’ Those facts stand for themselves.”
… a directive went out to public servants late last year that “Government of Canada” in federal communications should be replaced by the words “Harper Government.”
Public servants from four different line departments told The Canadian Press the instruction came from “the Centre” - meaning the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office that serves the prime minister. None would speak on the record for fear of retribution.
It appears that, just like the firing of the scientist, things were reconsidered after a public shitstorm when the facts became known. Which is not the same as your claim that it never happened.
I’ll agree with one thing, though – this is small potatoes compared to the more substantive things Harper has done. A record of anti-environmentalism that rivals that of George W. Bush, of information spin and fanatical secrecy that rivals Machiavelli, and a contempt for science that rivals the policies of the Taliban – those things are far more worrisome.
Just to cite some random examples… a few years ago the CBC’s Fifth Estate investigative program ran a documentary on Harper’s unprecedented battle between his appointed ideologues and scientists simply conducting research, when the results of that research were inconvenient to ideology-driven government policy. These Harper mandarins are the sort that I mentioned upthread, where it boggles the mind that they could hold any sort of responsible position at any level of government more senior than the position of village idiot. Scientific programs and research have been defunded, environmental monitoring terminated or drastically weakened, and over 2000 scientists fired since 2008. Of Canada’s 11 world-class Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries, 7 were shut down, and thousands of important historical and research documents wantonly disposed of in dumpsters and landfills in a fitting symbolism of Harper’s utter contempt for science. At least three of his Environment Ministers seem to have been climate change deniers including the current one, and several of his cabinet ministers including a one-time Science Minister appear to have been evolution-denying fundies.
Ironically, this was a gun registry that traces its origins to Kim Cambell’s Conservatives, back in the days of the original Progressive Conservative Party, before it merged with the loons of the Reform/Canadian Alliance and Harper took over.
On most of the listed issues, I think the more appropriate statement is that the Canadian public is far more liberal than their American counterparts, reflecting a middle of the road more like Europe. This has absolutely nothing to do with Harper. Harper is a consummately skilled political pragmatist who knows that challenging public opinion on issues like abortion or health care would simply render him unelectable. So these are issues he won’t touch with a ten-foot barge pole, and his silence about his own personal beliefs is interesting to say the least. But to claim that the party itself is so comfortably progressive is to deny that Harper constantly has to suppress extremists within his party – his own backbenchers and even cabinet ministers – many of whom come from the lunatic Reform/CA legacy – when they blurt out tirades against abortion or climate change or evolution or turn out to be raving homophobes. It’s almost like watching a game of lunatic whack-a-mole – he pounds one down, and another pops up.
It’s probably difficult to balance the budget while funding over-bloated departments with a sense of entitlement.
The Conservative government supports climate change, they’ve said so in numerous press releases.
I don’t share your irrational fear of a government that has quite handily guided Canada over the last 9 years to a position of global respect and admiration.
Who cares what the government may, or may not, like to call itself. Someone mentioned a tempest in a teapot. I’ll second that.
My crown corporation is currently being tendered out to the private sector for control of operations. I think that’s a GOOD thing. Conservatives are elected periodically in Canada to make sure we don’t turn into another Greece. Socialism is fine, but every now and again it needs to be tempered with common sense.
Right, and the way to fix that all up is to fire actual research scientists doing real work. Specifically, scientists working on environment and environment-related issues inconvenient to government ideology, and stuff the administration of funding agencies with Harper cronies and political hacks, ideologues, climate change deniers, and general ignoramuses.
How charmingly naive. Because of course when any institution comprised of self-serving mendacious assholes with a record of fanatical micromanagement and spin of public information says they support climate change mitigation, it must be true! It especially must be true when this bunch of mendacious assholes has decimated climate research, pulled out of a major international climate treaty, rolled back environmental protections, and undermined international climate conferences.
How charmingly naive, once again. Here’s how it actually plays out on this planet, as opposed to Planet Harper:
Shamed on the world stage and ridiculed by many, Canada has been exposed in recent days as a country with political leadership that is greedy, self-indulgent, incompetent and dismissive of our children, as well as woefully captive of special interests.
… What makes it worse is that this comes at a time when the government of Stephen Harper faces criticism for blackening Canada’s reputation in foreign policy in other areas as well. Although it hasn’t received the media attention of the Ford soap opera, Canada in the past week has been the target of unprecedented international condemnation as one of the world’s worst polluters. These reports have coincided with a major UN climate change conference in Warsaw, Poland. One after another, accusations have been directed at the Harper government for being an international deadbeat when it comes to climate change and the environment.
This Week, Canada’s Poor Climate Change Reputation Got Worse
Canada’s dismal record on fighting climate change was brought into the spotlight twice this week – first with a crucial UN report spelling out the tough task ahead for the world’s nations, and second, with the president of France delivering an embarrassing lecture to the Harper government in our own Parliament on Monday.
Of course, there are broader issues and other criteria on which to judge how Canada’s international reputation, which has historically been excellent, has fared under Harper. If you look hard enough you can find partisan arguments on both sides, but I find the following the most balanced, impartial, and persuasive: Canada falling in governance rankings because of Harper majority, report finds
Canada generally stacks up well compared to other countries in quality of life, incomes and happiness.
But when it comes to good government, Canada is just average, and slipping, according to a new report.
Among the key reasons: the Senate expenses scandal, weakened environmental laws, and a lack of commitment to “evidence-based decision-making,” says a global ranking of sustainable governance released on Thursday by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation.
“The word I use is ‘middling,’” remarked Andrew Sharpe, executive director of the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards, which compiled the Canadian scores and analyzed the country’s policies.
Canada placed 20th out of 41 developed countries in overall policy performance, 17th in the quality of its democracy and 10th in governance.
The worst score was on environmental policies, where Canada ranked 38th out of 41 countries, including ones as diverse as Croatia and the United States.
“Environmental policy is the area that has most tarnished the government’s reputation for sustainable governance, both domestically and internationally,” according to a 43-page report that accompanies the ranking. It cited the streamlining of energy projects, weakened environmental assessments and diluted species and habitat protection.
The country also scored in 26th in access to information, where the report found a “reluctance on the part of political and bureaucratic officials to release information that puts the government in a bad light.”
Canada fell further behind in all three categories – policy, democracy and governance – compared to Bertelsmann’s previous report in 2011. Canada ranks much higher in its economic (7th), and social policies (7th).
The report traces Canada’s slide in the overall rankings directly to the Conservative government’s majority election win in May, 2011.
Well if your view is that Canada is some sort of hotbed of “left-wing propaganda”, you need to carefully and objectively consider whether this is a statement about Canada, or a statement about yourself and your position on the political spectrum.
The first two links I provided are indeed from sources usually considered left-leaning, which is precisely why I also provided the third one. Most people consider the Globe to be pretty centrist, but that doesn’t even matter because the Globe is quoting the Bertelsmann Foundation. Look it up. If anything, it’s been criticized by some for alleged neoliberalism – you can look that up too, but it’s loosely defined as a policy that promotes “… privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy. Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.”
So you think this is “left wing media propaganda”?
But these are the folks whose analysis concluded that Harper is a dumbass who has been destroying Canada’s international reputation.
I don’t know what will happen in October. Harper has so far benefited from the Liberals electing an endless series of complete doofuses to the party leadership ever since the departure of Chretien, not one of whom I was willing to vote for, and until fairly recently the NDP has just seemed like throwing away a vote. The landscape is quite different with the upcoming election, though it’s still too soon to tell how it will all shape up. Harper may once again benefit, this time from left-centre vote-splitting between Liberals and NDP, but if he wins again I can’t see him getting anything other than a minority. A Harper minority with the NDP and Liberals as power brokers might not be too bad, and even a good opportunity for Justin to sharpen his skills.
For the record, in case you or anyone else was wondering, I have at various times voted for – and dutifully put up lawn signs for – all three of the major parties. It depends on leadership and the issues of the day, not blind ideology.
I’ve never voted NDP, but I have voted Liberal in the past, federally at least. I supported Chretien in his first term, after supporting Mulroney previously, so I’m not completely driven by dogma or ideology.
I just think that the current Conservative government is performing exceptionally well and I’m willing to support them into the next election.
I also think, as you can tell, that the media is extremely biased against the current government.
I don’t believe I’ve attacked Trudeau or Mulcair directly in this thread, yet you’ve attacked our Prime Minister numerous times. I think Canada would be fine under Trudeau. I think we’d be in trouble under Mulcair. Although I think Harper is the best possible choice.
Your claim was that the “rebranding” was an accomplished fact. It isn’t. As two seconds of research demonstrates! Yet, rather than admitting you were wrong and moving on, you claim my position is “bullshit”.
As for the “directive”, you have alleged that it was to replace all mention of the “Government of Canada” with “The Harper Government” (and that this was in fact done). I have yet to see what exactly the directive said, and in any event, the “rebranding” was not done.
In reality, Canadian governments have often used the “government of the day” branding for some communications (the Liberals did this, as you own cite demonstrates). The issue was fear that the Conservatives were expanding this to make it compulsory for all communications - even from ‘neutral’ civil servants.
This simply didn’t happen, and no amount of claiming that it did can change the actual facts.
Though I do love how you completely gloss over the fact that the scientist was re-instated, and his position on communications confirmed as “[followed by a long explanation that essentially says Harper’s goons reversed themselves after the story went public!]”. It is interesting that you see no significance in the fact that the actual Ministers from the government you hate explicitly repudiated the position you claim they still hold.
You mistake me for someone who is a Harper supporter. I’m not.
What I am, is against making absurd and easily-disprovable claims.
Really, comparing Harper to the Taliban isn’t doing your position any favours in that respect.
While one or two of those things might be a bit over the top, most of them are indeed essentially true. Thanks for reminding me – I had forgotten things like the Harper goons scuttling the census long form, a move that was decried by civic leaders across the country as seriously undermining the crucial objectives of social and infrastructure planning. It also reminded me of how The Harper Government™ likes to introduce giant multi-thousand page omnibus bills where it turns out that, golly gee, they forgot to mention that hidden deep within it is yet another insidious measure to grant yet more police powers and curtail our civil liberties. Fortunately, we have conscientious members of opposition parties who actually read the bills.
The argument we’ve heard here that Harper has been good for international relations is belied by the evidence that I cited, and the argument that he’s been good for the economy is belied by the fact that our relatively good passage through the last recession was not due to anything that Harper did, but, arguably, in spite of it. We did well in the last recession because of institutional strengths intrinsic to Canadian history, not because of Harper: we have a strong, stable banking system because it’s highly regulated, and the housing marking remained strong because we don’t have Wall Street crooks running amok packaging subprime mortgages to other crooks that run hedge funds. If Harper had his way all of that would eventually be demolished. He’s already turned our normally progressive tax system on its head with the doubling of TFSA allowances, a move that will cost the government billions and benefits only the most wealthy.
To say that Harper should be excused because he managed the economy pretty well is like saying that a serial killer should be excused because he’s kind to dogs.
See the change in tense there, between “was” (past tense) and “isn’t” (present tense)? Therein lies your confusion.
It is a fact that the Harper Government™ issued an edict in 2006 that the government be referred to as “Canada’s New Government”. It is a fact that Harper issued a similar edict in December, 2010 regarding the mandatory use of the brand “the Harper Government” – unless all the senior civil servants that the Canadian Press talked to in at least four different government departments were all lying.
I am simply stating these facts, as reported in the credible news stories that I cited. I state them as further evidence supporting all the other cites suggesting that Harper is a control freak obsessed with controlling the media and the message.
If you want to claim that Harper has backed off this edict in light of the negative attention it’s attracted, fine. It doesn’t matter – the point I made is still correct, and it still stands. And it’s a significant point. Harper may indeed have backed off, but so what? It wouldn’t be the first time Harper has reversed himself on policy matters when public outrage about yet another of his asinine schemes hit the media and hit him where it hurts – his precious electability numbers.
Remember Bill C-30 – the draconian Internet surveillance bill? The public found out, the shit hit the fan, and Harper backtracked. Remember the US Republican style voter suppression in Bill C-23? The public found out, the shit hit the fan, and Harper backtracked. Remember Harper endorsing the right for companies to sack Canadian workers and hire foreign temps for 15% less? The public found out, the shit hit the fan, and Harper backtracked. It’s an old story with many iterations. Harper would rat out his own mother if it helped his election numbers.
P.S.- I didn’t see your post before or I would have responded earlier.
This scares me the most about Harper. Bill C-24 came into effect June 15 and it divides Canadians based on their birth location, and their right to citizenship.
And last year’s op ed on the dangers of C-24
What the hell happened? It feels like we have a dictator instead of a leader. Anyone but Harper for PM>
My mother, her parents, and some grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents were born in this country. I am an eighth-generation Canadian. And yet, with a stroke of a pen, my citizenship has been demoted because I had the lack of foresight to be born in another country.
(And, of course, on that side of the border, there’s a small but noisy crowd out to strip the citizenship of people born to illegal immigrants. If enough Conservatives get into power, I’ll be stateless by the time I’m 50.)
Blogs and op-eds don’t scare me. It comes down to this:
Hell, I wasn’t even born in Canada and I have no issue with this; if you want to remain a Canadian citizen then don’t participate in terrorist activities, treason or taking up arms against Canada as a member of a foreign army or terrorist group.
How exactly do you revoke the citizenship of a Canadian with only Canadian citizenship? The bill is to allow revoking of Canadian citizenship when these convicted terrorists and traitors hold dual citizenship. It seems like a no-brainer to me.
If you commit any other heinous crime in Canada you get to stick around and be fairly subjected to our judicial system. If you commit treason, or an act of terrorism, then you may well have your Canadian citizenship revoked and sent to the country of which you are also a citizen.