The Canada thread

[Iamwhomiam]

Thanks for the VO article, Jeff.

It's believable that Walker has no idea where the money they receive is spent, but certainly a younger fellow would. One would think that such a 'charitable' organization would have an informed spokesperson available for such interviews.

Willow, I'll check out the vid when I have access to a faster connection tomorrow. Bless the Children!

[Jeff]

^^^I'm sure she's with the Canadian Action Party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Action_Party

They're fairly new and quite obscure, question 9/11, and founder Paul Hellyer is a complicated man. Jeff or some other canucks may have opinions-- I just see them as thought-provoking libertarian anti-federal-reserve types who will never be elected because they spook the normals.

I found them refreshing and progressive until Hellyer stepped down. (He tried to engineer a merger with the NDP. The NDP said, Er, no thanks, but you're welcome to join us. At least one former CAP candidate subsequently ran for the NDP.) Recent years they've been drinking too deeply at the Jones/Paul well for my taste, and are essentially defunct now. (Only 12 candidates in the last election and less than 2,000 votes.)

[elfismiles]

Wildrose leader Danielle Smith attacks premier’s attendance at Bilderberg conference
By Karen Kleiss, edmontonjournal.com May 30, 2012


Wildrose Leader Danielle SmithPhotograph by: Ed Kaiser , edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON - Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith attacked Premier Alison Redford on Wednesday for attending the elite Bilderberg conference.

Smith said Albertans shouldn’t have to foot the $19,000 bill to attend the conference of power brokers because the meeting is closed to media, will pass no resolutions and Redford won’t be able to say what happened or what she accomplished.

“That’s $19,000 on the taxpayer dime for a committee that meets in secret, has no policies, no resolutions, nobody is allowed — it’s invite only,” Smith said. “What is Alberta getting out of this?

“I think in fact she’s actually thinking more about her career after politics and she’s using it as a networking event. Well, fair enough, then she can pay for it herself. We don’t think Albertans should be on the hook for this tab.”

Redford defended the trip, saying Smith is trying to make political hay out of routine business. She insinuated the Wildrose leader doesn’t understand how international relations are conducted.

“The job of a premier is to advance Alberta’s interests around the world, in a number of different forums, and I feel incredibly privileged to have been invited to this,” Redford said of the three-day meeting in Chantilly, Virgina, a small town near Washington, D.C.

Though the meetings are conducted in secret, Redford said she intends to report back to Albertans on what she achieved.

The Bilderberg conferences have been held since 1954. Organizers typically invite about 130 powerful people to engage in talks that generally centre on international affairs and economic issues.

Organizers say the meetings are private so people can speak freely, but the secrecy has fuelled conspiracy theories about the purpose and goals of the conference.

Redford is believed to be the first Alberta premier invited to the meeting, but she is not the first Albertan or the first Canadian premier to attend.

In 2009, University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera attended the talks in Greece, along with Indigo Books CEO Heather Reisman, former Torstar CEO Robert Pritchard and former U.S. Ambassador Frank McKenna.

In 2010, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell attended, along with CBC correspondent Peter Mansbridge. In 2011, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney was there.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended in 2003, and Prime Ministers Paul Martin, Jean Chretien and Pierre Trudeau have also attended.

kkleiss@edmontonjournal.com

twitter.com/ablegreporter

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/alb ... /story.htm

[norton ash]

My Wild Fascist Rose wrote:

“That’s $19,000 on the taxpayer dime for a committee that meets in secret, has no policies, no resolutions, nobody is allowed — it’s invite only,” Smith said. “What is Alberta getting out of this?

Oh, stop being coy, you Neocon strumpet. Did the Koch Brothers call for a little limited hangout?

[Iamwhomiam]

Alberta Tar/Oils Sands = Bilderberg Invite

[2012 Countdown]

moved...nm

[2012 Countdown]

-

Followup to Project Willow's post-
The girl video has gone 'viral'

'Banks rob us!' Canadian girl becomes Internet sensation after exposing banksters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qBG8hhe ... playnext=1

Published on Jun 4, 2012 by RTAmerica
Economists around the world are struggling to break free of the clutches of the financial crisis. But a twelve-year-old Canadian knows what needs to be done. Victoria Grant took the Internet by storm overnight, after a video of her slamming Canada's banks for robbing the people went viral. RT talks to internet sensation Victoria Grant and her mother Marcia Grant.

--

Orig video
545,134
4,292 likes, 160 dislikes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5Sc3vWefE

[Jeff]

One of the best, anguished rants about our national catastrophe I've read.

El Stephano, northern bull-fighter iPolitics Insight
Posted on Wed, Jun 6, 2012, 5:04 am by Michael Harris

Watching the last days of this parliamentary session is like taking in the demise of a skinny-assed bull at the hands of an incompetent matador – messy, cruel, and slightly disgusting.

You know the bull will soon drop to its knees, pink froth at the nostrils, eyes rolling up inside the skull, instinctively thrashing the air with sluggish horns. It doesn’t know the contest is now a formality – like democracy in Canada.

Shut down in committee, de-financed by legislation, closed off in debate and out-voted on every item of the Harper government’s undeclared agenda (as measured against the party’s 2011 election platform), the opposition bellows and staggers along. The House of Commons is a grotty dust bowl where the bull always dies ingloriously.

...

In many ways, the Harper legacy will come down to this: how much can he get away with? Incumbency furnishes a speedy getaway car. From a legislative perspective, Harper might as well be King Tut. He can do whatever he wants for the next three years or so. Bill C-38, which makes the War Measures Act look like a piece of legislation declaring a public holiday, demonstrates just how aware this PM is of the total power vested in him. And how oblivious he is to Canada’s institutional integrity. One-third of C-38′s monstrous abuse of process is dedicated to dismantling environmental legislation that was never mentioned in the 2011 Tory master plan.

Harper gets it. It’s now or never, baby.

But what about all those spectators sitting in the arena watching the bull’s slow and sloppy death in the dust? Will the daily bludgeoning of democratic institutions become the new normal or will it offend? Might it even become the proffered evidence of Stephen Harper’s superiority and fitness to govern? After all, this is a torero who goes for ears, nose and tail with brio.

Some commentators have tripped over themselves equating the PM’s uncivil bloodlust with political virtuosity. If that view carries the day, it will be parliament that the public ends up despising, not parliament’s usurpers. Far fetched? Just over a year ago, a party fresh from being found in contempt of Parliament was rewarded with a majority government.

So far, most of the financial press and the Big Thumbsuckers from the mainstream media (with wonderful exceptions like Canadian Press), have more or less ignored if not endorsed Canada’s odd transition from a majority government to a virtual one-party system. There was a time when a $10 billion lie about a government acquisitions program like the F-35 would have sunk the QM2 in the media. Now it wouldn’t swamp a dory. There was a time when if a minister misled the House (i.e., lied his brains out at the behest of Dear Leader), the stories would keep coming until he was going.

...

Stephen Harper’s gamble comes down to this — do Canadians give a hoot about the fact that their democracy is now a mere formality. Do they accept the Nixonian proposition that when your leader does something wrong, it’s actually right because he’s your leader? In other words, do we, like the wall-eyed People of the Corn in the Republican Party south of the border, believe that the office sanctifies the man?

Harper has concluded that with the proper balance of fear, marketing, and suppression of dissent, he can successfully argue that a small pox scar is really a dimple. Look what climate change deniers have done with a handful of zealots and scads of money from people like the Koch brothers.

But there is only so much fear you can put into people, just so much, and no more. And when people stop fearing you, that dimple starts looking like a small pox scar after all.

Did these guys rig an election? Are they letting the FBI loose in Canada because their real intention is to erase the border? Are they crushing organized labour to save the economy or just some money for their corporate allies? Do they work for Canadians or for Big Oil? Are the bombs, drones, jets, tanks, armored vehicles and ships, all $500 billion worth, about protecting Canada? Or are we turning into Northern Command placing our order against the next escapade?

...

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/06/06/mich ... l-fighter/

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Not liking the marathon voting thing one bit. No siree bub.

[Jeff]

I was hoping the Conservatives would miscount their members, which would lose them a vote, which would be recognized as a budget vote, which would mean a vote of confidence, the consequences of which Harper would respect, which would mean an election.

I don't know what I was doing with that much hope.

[Jeff]

Latest poll: NDP 37%, Con 30%, Lib 22%. (The most dramatic post-election poll, and the results are buried on page 4 of The National Post and they're not even running the story online.)

But still three years to go, if we make it. In a week that saw the budget pass, more evidence of election fraud, pundits gaga over the possibility of a Trudeau Liberal leadership campaign, and revelations that public employees are being instructed they have a "duty" to support the Harper government, I remain pessimistic.

Video here of Rohinton Mistry's wonderful, allegorical Ryerson U convocation address. ("There is no tyrant. Just a pathetic little villain called citizen apathy.")

[Jeff]

Canada: The world’s newest petrostate isn’t playing nice anymore.
Posted By Adrienne Klasa Friday, June 15, 2012 - 6:22 PM

Nearly 24 hours of voting, 425 pages of legislation, over 800 proposed amendments: This is the marathon from which Canadian members of parliament (MPs) emerged on June 15.

The session, characterized by the Globe and Mail as "22-plus hours of consecutive spanking" of the dissenting opposition parties by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative majority government, will allow the government to push through omnibus bill C-38.

Canadians are up in arms about the bill because it includes legislation that will weaken and threaten the legal status of leading environmental groups.

Because Harper is determined to build a new pipeline out of the Alberta tar sands, the center of Canada's oil industry with known reserves that rival Saudi Arabia's. And he is not about to wait for November to get it done.

...

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/201 ... ce_anymore

[justdrew]

I was hoping the Conservatives would miscount their members, which would lose them a vote, which would be recognized as a budget vote, which would mean a vote of confidence, the consequences of which Harper would respect, which would mean an election.

I don't know what I was doing with that much hope.

well, still, the Queen could tell the Governor General to fire Harper

[Joe Hillshoist]

I was hoping the Conservatives would miscount their members, which would lose them a vote, which would be recognized as a budget vote, which would mean a vote of confidence, the consequences of which Harper would respect, which would mean an election.

I don't know what I was doing with that much hope.

well, still, the Queen could tell the Governor General to fire Harper

Its only the CIA does that.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

To be glib, I think allowing US law enforcement to make arrests in Canada, sucks.