How Harper sees Canada’s role in the world and where he wants to take the country - Macleans Interview

How he sees Canada’s role in the world and where he wants to take the country - The Interview - Macleans.ca

Where he wants to take our country???
This is one of the scariest interviews I think I have ever read. To hell with realities or even pretending to represent our country as we are - of discerning a national consensus.  The stated agenda of this man and his government is to sell us conservative principles, not only sell them to us but to the rest of the world too.  It is, in his mind, the morally correct world view and he is right to insist on it.

"And I think with the eventual merger of the Reform Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, we’ve achieved an organization that embodies conservative principles but is also pragmatic and trying to reach a sufficient number of Canadians to form a government. But it’s also about, in the success of advancing conservative principles, of moving the country toward the values that you represent and that you demonstrate through the policies and the programs you deliver. And I think that both those things are happening. I also think the party and the government have been moving the country toward conservative principles."

To all the hopeful voices that might wish to register different realities, different perspectives in the next four years, his clear message is: "Don't bother. We've got our answers. Not only will we not be listening; we have a lesson to teach you to correct your wrong headedness."

We can thank the wishy-washy Liberals for the spread of this sort of simplistic thinking and its ultimate rise to power in our country.  Harper himself acknowledges their contribution: "we’re greatly helped not just by our own result but by the relative incoherence of the opposition as an alternative for government."  The former 'natural ruling party' lost touch with the principles and the passions of our founding fathers ... leaders like MacDonald and Laurier who, in creating and holding this country together found they must fiercely insist on the accommodation of diversity.  Harper can get away with demeaning a "nice", consensus-building kind of Canada because no leader since Pearson, no modern political party has represented the kind of courage it takes to absolutely insist that different perspectives be heard and validated.  Harper sees consensus building and the accommodation of complexity as weak when, in fact, these are the most challenging, the most sophisticated and, indeed, the most necessary of skills in our ever more complex, ever shrinking world.

Our country -our world- desperately need a voice for the radical centre.  A brave, clarion voice for the difficult principles of respect, inclusion and free speech;  …the principles necessary to build and maintain balance in a great circle.
What we've got is a linear-thinking, single-minded Harper.  God help us.

Canada: Down one more large notch in world opinion

"Canada's cold new dawn

Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper
is our version of George W Bush, minus the warmth
and intellect"   The Guardian:

"The triumph of Harper's Conservatives is a revolution in Canada. Grumpy old men are happy but modernists, women, young people, immigrants, people fond of evidence-based policy will be much less so. It's the beginning of a kind of war, conducted in a dull, quietly agonising way."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/canada-stephen-harper-american-politics

Reflections on the eve of the election. - May 1st, 2011

I find it interesting that it was Quebeckers who ultimately reminded us of who we are as a country.  It was Quebeckers who looked past all the fear mongering and the party flag waving and discerned that it was social, environmental and democratic principles that mattered most and they concluded that they were going to make their electoral choice based on those values.  It seems they had judged that the incumbent leadership did not reflect them as a people nor were the values, as practiced, good for Quebec.  They  were ready for change.  Not surprisingly the rest of the country seems to have arrived at a similar conclusion because the kinder, gentler, greener Orange Wave was washing from sea to sea to sea.  The shared ideals were there, we were all just awaiting the arrival of a suitable champion.  The ranks were thin from which to chose, but chose we must because the status quo was unacceptable.  

So Quebec chose first and, in doing so, reminded us that in this shared cold land, it's all about the values, stupid.  

 It's anyone's guess what will happen next.  The mathematical realities of splits and turnouts and failed strategic voting may yet produce a Conservative majority, but no one can deny that there has been a sea change here.  We were being pared away as a people and our collective, structural bones began to show …and they showed first in Quebec where they are strongest -where they matter most.  Who knows, with the influence of the Bloc somewhat muted, perhaps this new post-election reality might afford us the opportunity discover that we might be a coherent collective after all - maybe even a unique kind of country - just not the one Steven Harper imagined.

Merci Quebec! 

Dismantling Democracy - A Reminder

Canada used to be a country in which there was some opportunity for the voiceless to have a voice; for the constitutionality of the actions of our governments to be challenged.  It was a cumbersome process and it was flawed, yes, but the principles of human rights and accountability existed. Now, thanks to Steven Harper and the likes of John Baird and Vic Toews, the principle of constitutional accountability doesn't even exist in principle.

This post is a reminder of what was lost and to whom.

Below is a letter written to the Prime Minister in October of 2006 on behalf of over 175 concerned Canadian organizations. Even at this early stage of the Harper government, it was clear that the strategy was to use discretionary administrative and budgetary powers to dismantle important institutions that had been put in place by thoughtful former parliaments of our country.  Canada's long-held democratic institutions have been eroded even more since then by these weasely methods.

Read 'em and weep.

Then VOTE dammit!  The fundamentals of our country are at stake.

(Here's the link to the original letter posting: http://www.fafia-afai.org/en/node/365 )

----------------------------------

LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER

October 4, 2006

Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

80 Wellington Street, Ottawa,

K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister,

We write today to ask you to reinstate the Court Challenges Program. Only by reinstating the Program can you demonstrate that your government intends to respect the human rights of Canada’s people.

The Canadian Constitution establishes important constitutional rights, including the rights of official language minority groups to education and government services in their primary language and the rights of everyone to equality before and under the law and to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination. However, these rights are empty unless the individuals and groups they are designed to protect can exercise and enforce them.

Since the Charter was adopted 25 years ago, successive federal governments have recognized that they have a responsibility to ensure that disadvantaged minorities have funding to take Charter cases forward.

The Court Challenges Program, by providing modest contributions to the cost of important test cases dealing with language and equality rights, has made these constitutional rights accessible to Canadians. Without the Court Challenges Program, Canada’s constitutional rights are real only for the wealthy. This is unfair. And it does not comply with the rule of law, which is a fundamental principle of our Constitution.

The Honourable John Baird has been quoted in the press as saying that it does not make sense “for the government to subsidize lawyers to challenge the government’s own laws in court.” This statement implies that: 1) lawyers are the prime beneficiaries of the Program and 2) the government should not support challenges to its own laws. On both counts, deeper analysis is needed.

First, the beneficiaries of the CCP are individuals and groups who believe that laws and policies discriminate against them or deny them their language rights. They cannot go forward without lawyers to represent them, since constitutional challenges are legally complex. Secondly, when a country like Canada enacts constitutional rights it takes for granted that residents, when they believe the government is violating their rights, can and will challenge the offending law or policy. If residents cannot use their rights because of financial barriers, then Canada’s constitutional democracy is hollow. Governments must care that the rights they embrace are not meaningless, and the CCP has provided a simple and modest way of ensuring that they are not. We should emphasize that what the CCP provides is far from universal access to the exercise of constitutional equality and language rights. The CCP provides only limited funds for selected test cases.

Critics of the CCP dislike some of the cases that it has supported: cases related to same sex marriage, voting rights for federal prisoners, criminal law provisions regarding hitting children. The fact that some individuals or groups do not agree with some of the test cases funded by the Program is not a reason to cancel it. No one among us is likely to agree with every single test case that appears. The point of a constitutional human rights regime is to ensure that diverse claims, perspectives and life experiences are respected and taken into account in the design of laws and policies. The equality guarantee and the language rights in the Constitution were designed to help minorities, whose views and needs may not be reflected by governments, to be heard on issues that affect them closely. Cancelling the Court Challenges Program mutes their voices further, and makes Canada a meaner, less tolerant society.

The Minister of Justice, the Honourable Vic Toews, has questioned the accountability of the Court Challenges Program. This is not a sustainable objection. The Court Challenges Program has an established track record as an effective and accountable institution that promotes access to justice. It provides quarterly reports on its activities to the government and publishes an annual report with statistics on the number and types of cases that it has funded. The annual reports are public documents and are available on the CCP’s website:www.ccppcj.ca . It has been evaluated on three separate occasions by independent evaluators, most recently in 2003-2004, and received an extremely positive report each time.

The CCP is subject to some legal restrictions on disclosing information about cases that are before the courts. This information is protected by solicitor-client privilege and cannot be released by CCP, in the same way that legal aid organizations cannot divulge information about their clients. The CCP’s responsibility to protect this information was affirmed by a Federal Court ruling in 2000 (L’Hirondelle v. The Queen).

In short, Prime Minister, criticisms of the Court Challenges Program are feeble, and the need for the Program is strong. It is disturbing that your Government, in a budget-cutting exercise, would take the step of cancelling this Program that is considered by many Canadians a cornerstone of our justice system.

Commitment to the protection of the Charter rights of disadvantaged individuals and groups is one of Canada’s core values. Prime Minister, you recognized this commitment in the last election campaign, when you stated that if elected, a Conservative government would “articulate Canada’s core values on the world stage,” including “the rule of law”, “human rights” and “compassion for the less fortunate.”

In May, 2006, your Government appeared before a UN Committee in Geneva to defend its commitment to human rights in Canada, and described the Court Challenges Program as evidence of this commitment. Your Government wrote to the UN Committee:

The Court Challenges Program (CCP) provides funding for test cases of national significance in order to clarify the understanding of the rights of official language minority communities and the equality rights of disadvantaged groups. …

It is not possible for the government to support all court challenges, but this uniquely Canadian program has been successful in supporting a number of important court cases that have had direct impacts on the implementation of linguistic and equality rights in Canada. A recent evaluation found that there remain dimensions of the constitutional provisions currently covered by the CCP that still require clarification and the current program was extended to March 2009.

The cancellation of the Program stands in contradiction to the position that you and your Government have taken publicly on the Charter and human rights.

Finally, cancelling the Program shows profound disrespect for the francophones who live in provinces outside of Quebec, the anglophones in Quebec, and for all Canadian residents who may need the protection of equality rights, including women, Aboriginal peoples, people with disabilities, members of racialized minorities, immigrants, refugees, lesbians and gay men, children and seniors.

The laws of Canada are never perfect. Those who need to point out the imperfections in our laws, in order that they may live on an equal footing with others, deserve to be heard. By cancelling the Court Challenges Program, your Government has indicated that they will not be and do not deserve to be.

Please reverse this decision and give us back a Canada that supports human rights.

Sincerely,

Nathalie Des Rosiers

La doyenne

Faculte de droit civil

Universite d’Ottawa

A. Wayne McKay

Professor of Law

Dalhousie Law School

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On behalf of

Action Canada for Population and Development

Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes (AOcVF)

African Canadian Legal Clinic

Alberta Association for Community Living

Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians / L'Alliance pour l'ÉgalitÉ des Personnes

Aveugles du Canada (AEBC)

ARCH Disability Law Centre/ ARCH Centre du droit des personnes handicapées

Association des juristes d'expression française de la Colombie-Britannique

Association des juristes d'expression française du Nouveau-Brunswick - AJEFNB

Association of Chinese Canadian Lawyers of Ontario

B.C. Human Rights Coalition

BC Coalition of People with Disabilities

Brain Injury Association Network (B.I.A.N.)

Breast Cancer Action Montreal

Canadian Arab Federation

Canadian Association for Community Living

Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS)

Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT)

Canadian Association of the Deaf / L'Association des Sourds du Canada

Canadian Auto Workers Union CAW-TCA CANADA

Canadian Bar Association/ L’Association du Barreau Canadien

Canadian Council for Refugees/ Conseil canadien pour les réfugiés

Canadian Council of Muslim Women

Canadian Federation of Students/Fédération canadienne des étudiantes et étudiants

Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action

Canadian Hard of Hearing Association

Canadian Health Coalition

Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) University of Ottawa,

Faculty of Law

Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW)/

Canadian Union of Public Employees / Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique

Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2204

Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3260

Canadian Women's Health Network

Canadians for Equal Families

Canadians for Equal Marriage / Canadiens et Canadiennes pour le droit égal au mariage

Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractére sexuel (Calacs) région Côte-Nord

Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel (CALACS) de Rimouski

Centre de Communication Adaptée (CCA)

Centre de femmes l'Éclaircie

Centre d'éducation des femmes

Centre Entre-Femmes de Rouyn-Noranda

Centre québécois de la déficience auditive / Quebec Centre for the Hearing Impaired

CFT French Legal Aid Services/Services d'aide juridique du CFT

Charter Committee on Poverty Issues

Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada

Child Care Workers of Eastern Ontario

Chinese Canadian National Council, Ottawa Chapter

Coalition of Persons with Disabilities (COD) - NL

Community Advocates Network

Community Business and Professional Association of Canada

Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec (COPHAN)

Congress of Black Women of Canada, Manitoba Chapter

Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD)/ Conseil des Canadiens avec Déficiences

Cross-Disabilities, Genders, and Sexualities Working Group

Dalhousie Legal Aid Service

DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN) Ontario/Le Réseau des femmes handicapées de l'Ontario

DisAbled Women's Network Canada (DAWN Canada)

Disabled Workers' Complex Case Network Inc.

Dundurn Community Legal Services

East Toronto Community Legal Services Inc.

Egale Canada

Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario - Bluewater Local

Elizabeth Fry Society of Manitoba

Ethno Racial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario (ERDCO)

Excalibur Learning Resource Centre Canada Corp

Family Alliance Ontario

Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA)

Fédération des associations de juristes d’expression française de common law inc.

Fédération des femmes du Québec

Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC

Feminist Coalition of Newfoundland and Labrador

Feminists for Just and Equitable Public Policy (FemJEPP)

Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)

Greater Vancouver Association of the Deaf

Grey-Bruce Community Legal Clinic

Halton Community Legal Services

Hamilton Mountain Legal & Community Services

Income Security Advocacy Centre

Institut Canadien De Recherches Sur Le Femmes (ICREF)

Jamaican Canadian Association, Toronto

Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice

John Howard Society of Manitoba Inc.

Justice for Girls

Kamloops and District Elizabeth Fry Society

Kelowna Women's Resource Centre

Kenora Community Legal Clinic Suite

Kensington Bellwoods Community Legal Services

Kitchen Table Collective (KTC)

La Table Régionale des Organismes Volontaires d'Éducation Populaire de la Montérégie (TROVEPM)

L'Association multi-ethnique pour l'intégration des personnes handicapées

Law Office of Mary Eberts

Law Union of Ontario

Le Centre francophone de Toronto

Le Comité des langues officielles de l’Association du Barreau de l’Ontario /The

Official Languages Committee of the Ontario Bar Association

Le Front commun des personnes assistées sociales du Québec

Le Mouvement Action Chômage Pabok Inc

Le Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ)

Les Centres d’Accueil Héritage, Toronto

Les Frères et Soeurs d'Émile-Nelligan

Let's Teach About Women

LIFT - Low Income Families Together

Ligue des droits et libertés du Québec

Mad Student's Society

Maison l'Océane

Malaspina Faculty Association

MATCH International

Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic

Mokami Status of Women Council

Mouvement d'éducation populaire autonome de Lanaudière (MÉPAL)

Mouvement d'education populaire et d'action communautaire du Québec

National Action Committee on the Status of Women(NAC)/Le Comité Canadien

D'Action Sur le Statut de la Femme(CCA)

National Association of Women and the Law/Association nationale Femmes et droit

National Council of Women of Canada/Le Conseil national des femmes du Canada

National Eating Disorder Information Centre

Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women

Nipissing Community Legal Clinic/La Clinique Juridique Communitaire de Nipissing

North Bay & District Labour Council

North Bay Network for Social Action

Northern Society for Domestic Peace

Nouveau Départ National

Okanagan Advocacy and Resource Society (OARS)

Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)

Osgoode Hall Law Union

Pacific DisAbled Women's Network (Pacific DAWN)

Parkdale Community Legal Services

PEI Council of the Disabled

PRAXIS Conflict Consulting

Promotion handicap Estrie Inc.

Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan

Provincial Council of Women of Manitoba, Inc.

Public Service Alliance of Canada/Alliance de la Fonction publique du Canada

Quebec Community Groups Network

Quebec English School Boards Association (Association des commissions scolaires anglophones du Québec)

Quebec Native Women/Femmes Autochtones du Québec

Refugee Law Office, Toronto

Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario

Regroupement des centres de femmes du Québec

Regroupement de femmes de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue

Regroupement des associations de personnes traumatisées cranio-cérébrales du Qubébec (RAPTCCQ)

Regroupement provincial des maisons d'hébergement et de transition pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale

Regroupement québécois des Centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel (RQCALACS)

Response: A Thousand Voices

Roach, Schwartz and Associates

Saskatchewan Voice of People with Disabilities

Selkirk College Faculty Association

Smith & Hughes Law Firm

Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia (SPARC BC Society)

Société Logique

South Ottawa Community Legal Services

South-East Ottawa Centre for a Healthy Community /Centre du sud-est d'Ottawa

pour une communauté en santé

Students, Recent Graduates, and Legal Workers working group (Law Union of Ontario)

The Canadian Hearing Society/ La Société Canadienne de l' Ouïe

The North Shore Women's Centre

Toronto Disaster Relief Committee

Toronto Women for a Just and Healthy Planet

Toronto Women's Call to Action

Transportation Action Now

United in Marriage (a program of the United Church of Canada)

University of Victoria Association for Women

University of Western Ontario Faculty Association

Urban Alliance on Race Relation

Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter

Victoria Youth Empowerment Society

West Coast Women's Legal Education & Action Fund (LEAF)

Women Elders in Action (WE*ACT)

Women for a Just and Healthy Planet

Women of Halton Action Movement, WHAM

Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), Toronto Chapter

Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund Inc. (LEAF)

Women's Health Clinic, Winnipeg

Womenspace

Yukon Status of Women Council

Happy springtime everyone.

    
What a wonderful world!

"Let's Settle This Once and For All"

If ever there was a statement of our problem with Treaty, this is it!

http://www.chroniclejournal.com//editorial/daily_editorial/2011-02-25/let’s-settle-once-and-all

The Editor of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal seems to think that our Treaties are some kind of deal founded on British contract law. "You get this, I get that. Sign here. There, we're done." But our Treaties are not like that. They are statements of complex relationships. They are like describing what it means to be a member of a family. They are our solemn, constitutionally-confirmed commitment to relationships among people who seek to achieve and maintain a peaceful and equitable sharing of land and resources for as long as the grass grows and the rivers run. But forever is a long, long time, so change has to be assumed. Once and for all, carved-in-stone decisions cannot possibly stand the test of this challenging time frame. Perpetuity -- the fundamental assumption on which our Treaties are founded, is the very antithesis of "once and for all," legal, contractual kind of thinking. ***

When we contemplate a relationship that is to last forever we are led into thinking about the sort of sharing that recognizes variable needs over time; one that maintains careful consideration for present and long-term sustainability within a landscape that is partly renewable, always changing and definitely finite. This perspective suggests that decision-making and the capacity for subtle adjustment would best be extremely well connected to the lands and waters that are to sustain us all. Decision-making needs to be sensitive and intimately knowledgeable if this sort of endless equitable sharing is to have any hope of success.

Our Treaties bind two peoples and the land together for a very, very long time. Neither nation gets to abandon the balance beam. The past century of failure, conflict and instability has occurred precisely because past decision-makers treated our Treaties like "once and for all" deals. But "consultation and accommodation", the phrase used by the Supreme Court to describe our Treaty dance, is not a one-shot arrangement.

If we hope to achieve and to maintain the harmonious alliances suggested by the Treaty negotiators, we are going to have to build workable, respectful, processes for shared desision-making -- ongoing processes that permit constant and effective accommodation of inevitable change. We need to have smooth systems for constantly communicating with each other and with the land because "forever" demands that we will be perpetually tweeking and re-balancing our considerations. When one considers the nature of this relationship it soon becomes evident that this sort of sophisticated, elegant balancing act cannot possibly be achieved by distant and disconnected bureaucrats and politicians whose interests are at odds with the sustainability of our Treaty regions and our Treaty people. Any serious attempt to make our Treaties work leads inevitably to the conclusion that there must be made-in-our-Treaty-areas decision-making …in other words, meaningful regional self-government.

If any once-and-for-all action is needed, it's a change to the power structure. We can't achieve the sustainability demanded by our Treaties if Queen's Park and Bay Street control the resources of our region. What's really needed is to move the centre of decision-making into our Treaty Regions ...once and for all. It is only here that the possibility for any kind of respectful, sensitive, sustainable, practical working relationship exists. As people whose lives depend upon these lands, we're capable of making up our own resource regulations …and then changing them as our sustainable Treaty relationship among the lands, waters and the people requires.

***Lawyers actually have a "Rule against perpetuities". You can look it up. The very existence of such a rule says a great deal about the true value of laws and lawyers when they prove incapable of pondering the infinite. On the other hand, Anishnaabe Elders and other deep thinkers think quite a lot about circles and endless cycles ...and they seem to suggest that it would be prudent for other beings who share this small planet to do likewise.

If only we could always stand together like this!

Anishnaabe, French, English protecting the land that cares for us.