All true, of course. But Harper has taken it to a new level, being his government.
He tells them what to say, and when to shut up, in a controlling way that, I believe, has not been seen before. He even decides who can give interviews, sheesh.
Even in the height of his arrogance, Trudeau never suggested changing ‘Government of Canada’ to ‘the Trudeau Government’ in official documents or press releases from the Government of Canada.
From this article in the Globe and Mail
I much prefer Rick Mercer’s take on the question.
Cite?
A controlling way that has not been seen before?
In my life, I’ve experienced Liberal Pierre Trudeau bypassing Parliament and using an Order-in-Council to invoke martial law during the October Crisis; Conservative Brian Mulroney stacking the Senate with Tories to ensure his GST bill is passed; and NDPer Bob Rae ignoring collective bargaining rights and ordering Ontario public employees to take days off without pay.
Somehow, Canada survived each of the above. I like to think we’re strong enough that what anybody, even the government itself, calls the federal government, doesn’t matter. Sticks and stones, and all that.
You’re seriously concerned about the cancellation of a census form?
American style prisons? Please. Our population is growing; therefore we need more prison space. Just like, as our population grows, we need more schools and more hospitals.
This “US-style” moniker is thrown about by left-wing media who are somehow convinced that the need for more prison space somehow equates us with the ridiculous incarceration of people with minor drug offences, which occurs in the US.
We don’t jail people for minor drug offences. We have a pretty decent court system. Unfortunately as our population grows, we need more prison spaces. This is not a legal exercise; this is a mathematical exercise.
And you’re being brainwashed.
Having accurate information is the foundation of sound public policy. How can a government make good decisions without solid information? Harper’s rejection of knowledge-based decision making in favour of truthiness frankly scares me.
You must have been right up above. We are occupying completely different planets. Do you pay any attention at all to politics? Your statements here are completely at odds with the “[del]tough[/del] dumb on crime” legislation that Harper keeps trying to push through.
Yes. The elimination of the compulsory long form census means that the information gathered will be less accurate. It will also cost more to gather and the Conservatives therefore intend to charge more for people to access the information gathered.
Economists are supposed to make dispassionate decisions based on the best available information. Making it more expensive and less accurate is a strange move for someone who is lauded for having a Masters in Economics, especially when the decision is based on some undocumented phone calls to Tony Clement’s riding office.
Crime is down. We don’t need bigger prisons at the moment, and there’s no indication we will need bigger prisons in the future. When pressed on the question, Stockwell Day said that the amount of unreported crime was a concern that merited bigger prisons. And if the crime is unreported, who exactly is going to prison for it?? That never got an answer that I heard…
Building prisons does play well with people who are brainwashed, and don’t look at crime statistics.
By the way, will you accept the above Globe and Mail quotation as a cite for elbows’ post? Her wording is stronger than I would have chosen, but it would seem that the Prime Minister’s Office was directing civil servants to make the change to ‘The Harper Government’. I am one of those who finds that unforgivably arrogant for someone who had only 30% of the popular vote.
I dunno.
Anyway, aren’t other countries also abandoning long-form census forms? It’s late, and my Google-fu is weak, but didn’t a few other countries (UK?) just do the same thing since, due to electronic databases, and information sharing, the need to duplicate the effort was deemed wasteful?
Seriously asking, but I think you’ll find this is the real reason why the bureaucratic waste behind the long-form census was stopped.
Crime isn’t down either. The methods of reporting crime have changed. Crime isn’t down. I’ll come back tomorrow with a cite. Really. It’s late.
ETA: I should care if the government wants to call itself the Harper Government?
Yes, it was the use of “Harper government” on official memos that I was referring to, not the media’s use of the term to reference them. It smacks of an arrogance that doesn’t sit well with me, and I think that would only get worse with a majority government.
I’m also against scrapping the long-form census, because I believe the data on a voluntary survey would skew the results to exclude minorities, low-income and low-education households since they are less likely to fill out the form - I believe this based on the facts and data provided the Statistics Canada. I think that policy decisions made on the new survey will harm those people, and I think that’s a terrible thing and that the Harper government has shown that they don’t care about members of these groups.
I don’t think the numbers add up for the money for federal prisons the Conservatives want to spend. I also don’t know how anyone could be prosecuted and put in jail for unreported crimes.
I don’t follow politics all that closely, but I do read my news from several news sources - I’ll read the articles from the G&M, Gazette, National Post, Toronto Sun and Star and the CBC as they show up on my Google News feed. On issues like these, I try and read multiple points of view, and although I don’t retain details well enough to debate them here, I generally reach a conclusion on any given issue that does not mesh with the Conservatives. They do not represent me, and they make me uncomfortable and unhappy with my government.
… to add to the corrections that have alreadyy been made to your misapprehension of the F-35’s capabilities, the Super Hornet was not designed to replace the CF-18. It was designed as a multi-role fighter (like, say, the F-35) to meet the needs of the US Navy, to replace the F/A-18, F-14 and A-6 and A-7; it is very much a fighter meant t be able to do everything, and in that way is like the F-35.
You are, no doubt, going to come back with the Macdonald-Laurier report that was released recently. That report had serious problems, including failing at basic arithmetic.
As one who deals with crime and criminals in the courts, I don’t know if I agree with “crime is down”; but I will attest to the fact that we in Canada tend to deal with things differently than our American friends do. With the understanding that most accuseds (the term we use instead of the American “defendant”) whom I have represented are accused of “small stuff,” I’ll state that most accuseds are not incarcerated pending court, JIROs (aka bail hearings) present a chance for the accused to legally get out of custody, and habeas corpus always obtains. Within that context, most (sadly, not all) accuseds I’ve known and represented have behaved themselves, shown up to court on time, and obeyed all conditions of JIRO and probation orders. In other words, from my point of view, “it ain’t broke, so don’t fix it.”
I’m a little leery of the Tories’ “tough on crime” agenda; I worry that my “small stuff” clients will end up being somehow screwed when they don’t deserve it.
You don’t think those data already exist? They do.
Harper government doesn’t care about minorities, low-income, low-education people? Wow. Just wow. There is no plausible reason for making such absurd and defamatory statements. This is unacceptable, really. Do you really think Mr. Harper, and his wife (his Humane Society supporting wife) don’t care about the underprivileged?
You don’t “think.” You have no facts. Crime is a constant. We need jails. You want Russell Williams out on parole?
Do some research.
The Conservatives are good guys. Do you think they intentionally want to ruin the country or something? Their policies are sound. They have only the best interests of Canadians at hand.
Sorry, but I’m trying to place myself in a position where I would state that the “Liberals are an arrogant bunch of pricks, who are trying to steal democracy away from Canada. They want to spend money on war planes, give money to rich banks and oil companies, and don’t give a shit about Canadian families.”
This is the rhetoric being spewed by the left now, and if you could please just shake your head, you would realize that no Canadian government party would actually think this way.
You are, of course, free to feel that no other government in Canada’s history has been arrogant; but I would suggest that the facts are otherwise. Both Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney showed (IMHO, YMMV) incredible arrogance towards the people of Canada; displaying at times a smug paternalism in the sense of “poor children, they have no idea what is best for them, so I will tell them what is best for them and force them to do it.”
I guess my point is that “arrogance” means little to nothing, as arguable examples can be found in all governments throughout our history. After all, which party’s Prime Minster was the only one to use an Order-in-Council to bypass Parliament, curtail civil rights, and invoke martial law during peacetime? Hint: the party name started with “L.” Which party, despite the wishes of Canadians, stacked the Senate to ensure passage of a bill that was massively unpopular? Hint: The party name was abbreviated “PC.”
Just so there are no assumptions about me personally, I’ll add that I am the Canadian politician’s worst nightmare: non-partisan, and unwilling to see Harper, Ignatieff, or Layton as the single unqualified answer to all that ails us at this time. I support none but will listen to all while considering the context of history, and would like to see a good discussion of all positions on the issues. I hope we can have one here.
Ok, my wording was awkward. Let me try again.
I think that eliminating the long form census (rather than the more simple fix of no jail time, but fines and still making it mandatory) dismisses groups that will be underrepresented by the voluntary survey and makes it appear as though the government is completely fine with that and doesn’t care about their interest. Is that clearer?
It looks bad, and for a lot of special interest groups, there is a legitimate fear that future data collected won’t adequately represent them. The data currently exists because it’s part of the mandatory census, or Stats Can makes specific - and costly - research programs to obtain the data in the event that it isn’t. In order to address the gaps in the voluntary survey, specific surveys and statistics research programs would have to be established, thereby costing us more money in the long run.
FWIW, I clearly do not feel that anything I’ve ever been asked on the long and short census has been a violation of my privacy. That data is available through other sources, but it is far from unified (one reason the UK could do it is that they have more shared data management across the country than we do - to pick a random example off the top of my head, the RAMQ does not have shared data with Ontario Health, while the NIH is national in the UK). The long form census is a controlled, consistent, clearer and cheaper way to obtain information very much needed by various interest groups and for policy decisions.
It was the conclusion I came to at the time, when I was reading articles about the so-called need for prisons and the “unreported crime.” I saw no numbers that adequately convinced me that the plan was worth it. That’s not saying no prisons are needed. That’s not saying some new prisons aren’t needed. I’m saying that I was not convinced that the claims the Conservative government was making were backed up by enough information, and therefore I reached the conclusion that the proposed legislation was inappropriate.
I refuse to spend a ton of money on jails because of one person. The existence of Russell Williams is not enough of a bogeyman to convince me we need to spend a shit ton of money on prisons.
Intentionally want to ruin the country? No. But I do not like their policies, I do not agree with them on various issues - at least enough issues for me to disagree with them in general; I’m sure there are some things I agree with, just not enough - and most importantly they do not represent me. They are not the direction I want this country to go in, and so I cannot and will not vote for them. I make this choice because as a voter I have the best interest of Canadians and Québecois at hand.
I never said such a thing, I do not feel that way, and I’m perfectly aware of how arrogant other governments have been or appeared to be. But those aren’t the government we have today, and I dislike the arrogance of the current one, and I feel perfectly within my rights to call them on it. The current government is arrogant enough as a minority, I’d hate to see them as a majority. They ran on accountability and transparency, then duck, hide, lie, control and manipulate left and right. It’s disgusting and condescending. Others have done it, others will do it again, but I’m tired of this band of “leaders”.
Right - I vote for the collection of ideas/principles/policies that most closely resemble my own opinions on issues and/or the ones I am at least somewhat comfortable with if they were applied to this country. That just has yet to ever coincide with what the Conservatives have offered.
I’ll pay a little more attention in the coming month, I’ll listen to the issues, I’ll try and make an informed choice, and I will vote my conscience, as I always do.
I’ll add my voice to people saying that I don’t see the Harper Conservatives doing anything that I haven’t seen other parties and leaders doing before. As for Prime Minister Harper personally being arrogant, well, as they say in sports, it ain’t bragging if you can do it - he is arguably the most powerful man in Canada, and if he wants to feel a little full of himself, he’s kind of earned it (I don’t actually see that in him myself; I see him as being less charismatic than someone like Trudeau {who I think was truly arrogant - haven’t seen PM Harper giving anyone the finger recently}, and that doesn’t always play well in the media).
As for people being brainwashed, I like to turn on the CTV National news every once in a while to see how things are being spun on that station versus our local stations. If you think media doesn’t have bias, you’re kidding yourself.
Apologies, then. I did not mean to attribute anything,
That’s fine. But given that you are a Quebeoise. I’m sure that you know that the working class of the ROC regards your vote as biased. You vote Bloc, and that’s what Quebecers do; you vote Liberal because of Trudeau (who was a Quebecer); you vote Tory because of Mulroney (who was also a Quebecer). You won’t vote based on reason as regards the entire country; to you, Quebec’s interests trump all. And once again, Quebec gives a hearty “screw you” to the ROC.
Sorry, but that’s how the rest of us in the ROC see you.
I’m sorry, mneosyne, and to the other Quebec Dopers, but I’d suggest that until you give us a good reason why we should listen to you as regards why Quebecers are somehow special in Confederation; you are just one province in ten. No more nor less special rhan any other province.
An interesting development; from this article -
I have no idea how this will play out but for those of us who feel this is an issue in this election, the irony is palpable.