Klein Dares Harper

During the election Stephen Harper made no bones about it he defended the Canada Health Act. Well now he will get his chance. Becuase his good friend from Calgary, Ralph Klein has drawn the line in the sand and has shoved Harper with a dare ya challenge. Klein intends to violate the Canada Health Act with the hope that the newly elected Conservative goverment will not do anything. Caught in a quandry Mr. Harper is. Does he defend provincial government autonomy to do as it pleases or does he defend the Canada Health Act. This will be a test of his Prime Ministership. Gee it doesn't get any better than this, challenged by Klein within 72 hours of being elected. Now if it had been a Liberal government, well Klein would have never had dared. He has waited since 1999 for a sympathetic Conservative government in Ottawa.

Alberta to push ahead private health care bill

Edmonton — The Alberta government is moving ahead with its long-stated intention to allow more private health care.

Premier Ralph Klein says the party caucus has agreed unanimously to bring in legislation that would, among other things, allow people to buy private insurance for some procedures.

Another of the so-called “third way” reforms would allow doctors to practise in both the public and private health systems.

Mr. Klein admits that some of the changes might violate the Canada Health Act, but says that remains to be seen.

He also says it remains to be seen how the new Conservative minority government of Stephen Harper will react.

Mr. Klein says his government will likely table its new health law in the upcoming session of the legislature, which begins next month.

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Alberta
Politics
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Health Care
Canadian Election
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Hamas Win Stuns World But Not Me

Watching Lou Dobbs on CNN I have discovered that America is stunned at the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. George Bush looked stunned when his much touted Democratic revolution resulted in a Hamas victory. Even PM designate Stephen Harper seemed stunned at the election results and announced that Hamas had to disavow terrorism, that is armed self defense and armed struggle, to be recognized as the government of Palestine.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Hamas 'secures stunning victory'

CNN's Lou Dobbs asserts that this was an intelligence break down by the CIA and Mossad. Really?! I knew Hamas was going to win the other day, it was a given in the middle eastern media. Which is why I wrote Green Eggs and Hamas. Guess this is another case of bloggers being in the know more than the MSM and the CIA.

That being said all Hamas has to do now is to integrate their armed forces into the Palestinian authority and claim they no longer are an independent armed force. However the world is demanding that they do more. World governments will not recognize them unless Hamas renounces its belief that Israel has no right to exist.Can Hamas Change Its Ways?

Well fine. But gee wasn't that George Bush who said democracy would free the Middle East. Well these were democratic elections. And Palestinians like Canadians voted for the only party that was an alternative to the corruption of Fatah. While the US supported, with CIA funding, Fatah. Opps.

Is democracy empowering Islamists?



Finally as I wrote here about the need for Arab Anarchism once again we see that it is patriarchical power that Hamas represents . Notice that whenever there is a rally in an Islamic country women are nowhere to be seen. Just guys. In the case of Palestine, male children and teenagers.

Q&A: What the Hamas victory means

Here's a look at what the Hamas victory could mean for Palestinian relations, Middle East peacemaking and Palestinian politics.

Q: How did Hamas pull off this shocking upset?

A: Hamas exploited public discontent with the corruption-tainted Fatah Party, which has dominated Palestinian politics for four decades.

While reiterating its commitment to "resistance" against Israel, Hamas focused its campaign on internal Palestinian issues, promising better public services, honesty in government and an end to lawlessness.

Hamas win shatters status quo
from the January 27, 2006 edition

VICTORY: Hamas leader, and top candidate for the Palestinian parliamentary elections, Ismail Hanieh, salutes supporters outside his house in Gaza City. HATEM MOUSSA/AP Hamas win shatters status quo Islamic militant group gains the upper hand in Palestinian politics. By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor JERUSALEM – The Islamic group Hamas staged a stunning upset of the ruling Fatah faction in Palestinian parliamentary polls Wednesday, winning a solid outright majority of the total 132 seats and making the strongest ever showing of an Islamist movement in the Arab world. With such a decisive win, Hamas is unlikely to need a coalition partner, sidelining the Palestine Liberation Organization's Fatah Party and promising to redefine the troubled Middle East peace process.

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Hamas
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Pinochet Tax Evader

Pinochet may never face trial for his Coup and the deaths of thousands of Chileans under his regime of terror, but he and his family face tax evasion charges. Reminds me Al Capone. The government may not get ya for murder but they will hunt you down like a dog to get them taxes.

Pinochet daughter seeks US asylum

9.20AM, Thu Jan 26 2006

A daughter of former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is seeking asylum in the US after being arrested at Washington's Dulles airport.

Lucia Pinochet has been indicted by a Chilean judge on tax evasion and false passport charges and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

She was detained after she got off a plane in the US from Argentina.

Chilean Foreign Minister Ignacio Walker said he ordered his country's consul in Washington, Felipe Cousino, to try to interview Lucia Pinochet.

He said she apparently has three alternatives, to have US authorities send her back to the country from which she arrived, Argentina; to voluntarily return to Chile and appear in court; or go back to Argentina by herself, which would open the way for an extradition request by Chile.

Lucia Pinochet and several members of her family are implicated in a scandal involving the now-defunct Riggs Bank of Washington.

Congressional investigators alleged that General Pinochet worked with bank managers to set up phoney offshore companies to hide the existence of about $8 million at the bank.

A subsequent judicial investigation in Chile determined that Pinochet had deposited as much as $28 million in accounts in several countries.

Last year, Gen. Pinochet issued a statement denying any wrongdoing and claiming his advisers had paid all of his outstanding taxes.

Investigators say the defendants together evaded $2.05 million in taxes.

Daily Journal

Pinochet family out on bail Daily Journal, Venezuela - 24 Jan 2006 SANTIAGO – Augusto Pinochet’s wife and three of his five children were released on bail Tuesday, after a judge ordered them to stand trial for tax evasion. ...

Santiago Times

PINOCHET’S DAUGHTER ON THE RUN IN CHILE Santiago Times (subscription), Chile - 24 Jan 2006 25, 2006) Former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s eldest daughter failed to appear before the Santiago Appeals Court Tuesday morning with her mother and four ...

Pinochet's wife and children arrested
Swissinfo, Switzerland - 23 Jan 2006
SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - The wife and five children of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were arrested on Monday on tax evasion and fraud charges as ...

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Chile
Pinochet
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crime

Che Meets Benedict

During WWII it is said that those who survived the Nazi Concentration Camps were the Communists and those whose religious faith was unshakable. Today the new Catholic Pope Benedict XVI made his first papal encyclical declaring that God is Love, God is Solidarity. So in that light I thought it a good idea to compare the idea of love of social love and solidarity, between these two ideologies Communism and Catholicism. Between Che Guevera and Pope Benedict.

Che Guevera

Socialism and the New Man

The great multitudes continue to develop; the new ideas continue to attain their proper force within society; the material possibilities for the full development of all members of society make the task much more fruitful. The present is a time for struggle; the future is ours.

Our task is to prevent the present generation, torn asunder by its conflicts, from becoming perverted and from perverting new generations. We must not bring into being either docile servant of official thought or scholarship students who live at the expense of the state— practising "freedom." Already there are revolutionaries coming who will sing the song of the new man in the true voice of the people. This is a process, which takes time.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to call their fathers by name; wives, from whom they have to be separated as part of the general sacrifice of their lives to bring the revolution to its fulfilment; the circle of their friends is limited strictly to the number of fellow revolutionists. There is no life outside of the revolution.

In these circumstances one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.

Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties with the masses midway in the great task. There is also the danger of weaknesses. If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to the revolution means, that in return he should not have such worries as that his son lacks certain things, or that his children's shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of future corruption.

In our case we have maintained that our children should have or should go without those things that the children of the average man have or go without, and that our families should understand this and strive to uphold this standard. The revolution is made through man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit day by day.



An unexpected letter of love from the Pope to his church

The open papal letter to the church is titled Deus Caritas Est -- God is love. Before its publication, the Pope said his intention was "to show the concept of love in its different dimensions. I hope it might illuminate and help our Christian life."

In particular his objective appears to be to identify a common thread running through the Greek words eros -- human sexual love -- and agape -- spiritual love.

He writes that sexual love "is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings." He says: "True eros tends to rise in ecstasy towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves . . . [on] a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.

"Even if eros is at first mainly covetous . . . a fascination for the great promise of happiness in drawing near to the other, it [becomes] less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants 'to be there' for the other.

"The element of agape thus enters this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. . . . Fundamentally 'love' is a single reality, but with different dimensions; at different times, one or other dimension may emerge more clearly."

Benedict says sexual love is rooted in every human being. He acknowledges that Christianity in the past was often criticized for being "opposed to the body," and he says: "It is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed.

"Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure sex, has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great 'yes' to the body."

He then challenges the conventional opposing definitions of spiritual love and sexual love and argues that they are the same, that even God manifests a love for humanity that is sexual but also totally spiritual -- a love that is personal but exists with the aim of healing the whole human race.

In the Pope's words

Excerpts from Pope Benedict's first encyclical:

"Today, the term 'love' has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words. . . . We speak of love of country, love of one's profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness."

". . . Love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to her [the church] as ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. . . . For the church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being."

Sounds like Benedict has been reading the Post Structuralists, especially his comments on the body and its commodification. "Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure sex, has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great 'yes' to the body

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socialism
communism
Che
Catholicism
Pope Benedict XVI
Papal Encyclical
Socialism and the New Man
Catholic Church

Prisons Need Police Society Needs Mediators

In this article the assumption is that primates need social controls, policing, authority figures in order to maintain community.

Primate police prevent monkeying around
Chaos can descend on human societies without policing. The authority figures are also needed to maintain social stability among primates, say researchers who studied captive animals.

This tells us nothing about the nature of these primates when in their natural environment. And definitions of leadership and authority as policing and social control are subject to interpretation.

While this news item has traveled around, the link abouve is to the CBC report, the Scientific American article,below, gives the best description of the study.

If we change the terminology, not just for semantic but ideological purposes, from policing to mediation the role played by the mediator takes on a more positive light.

It reflects what we know of human societies and the role of elders and shamans. Often social control is exerted as mediation rather than force. And if you read this carefully you will see that our cousins here use mediation rather than force.

Anarchy breaks out not when mediation is removed but when mediation and mediators are present. In other words social consensus versus force.

While this research will be sure to be used by those who believe in domination, authority, policing and control, it actually shows that organic organization of community is more about mediation than 'force' which is what authority and policing implies.

And while the study apparently removed three alpha males, there are also alpha females in this primate society. No discussion here of what their role is or was.

Monkey Police Provide Social Stability

Of the 21 species of macaque monkeys, pigtailed macaques live in societies that fall somewhere between the despotic and egalitarian extremes. A dominant male and female run the show but conflict among other monkeys is common, if rarely extreme. Most such conflicts end with a third party intervening, usually in favor of one or the other opponent. But sometimes the most powerful monkeys literally stand between the two combatants and, occasionally without even threatening them, impartially resolve the conflict. It is this occasional policing that allows pigtailed macaque society to be more diverse instead of breaking down into warring cliques, according to new research.

Without the peacemakers, some macaques also become more violent, Jessica Flack of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and her colleagues report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"Policing not only controls conflict, we find it significantly influences the structure of networks that constitute essential social resources in gregarious primate societies," the researchers wrote.

"The structure of such networks plays a critical role in infant survivorship, emergence and spread of co-operative behaviour, social learning and cultural traditions."

"We tend to associate power with privilege, but both in human and animal society it also entails a constructive contribution, or at least ought to. Through their stabilising presence and active peacekeeping, the dominant males contribute to a more cooperative society.

Also See:

Mutual Aid

Anarchism and Authority

Primate Man

For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

The Right To Be Greedy

Tags
anarchism
Libertarian
Mutual Aid
evolution
Darwin
primates
policing

Globalization=Contracting Out

Canada's ruthless corporate ruling class is not satisfied with record profits and its ability to hire and fire at will. Nor its ability to contract out and privatize our jobs. Nope it wants more and more from us, in order to feed its rapacious addiction to profits.

And if you are unionized you are under threat of contracting out, lock out and ultimately giving concessions like the Telus workers, the Air Canada workers, the Autoworkers all have faced this past year.

And the Conference Board of Canada says this is business as usual in the new globalized economy.


Globalization is reshaping labour relations in Canada

 "Globalization is transforming the dynamics of labour relations in
Canada," said Prem Benimadhu, Vice-President, Organizational Performance.
"Faced with global competition, management is increasingly determined to hold
its ground by demanding concessions or resorting to lockouts.
"Unions are faced with the difficult choice of accepting concessions or
watching jobs go to lower-cost countries. At the same time, unions are looking
to maintain their power by building the international labour movement in these
same countries.

Today in the neo-liberal economy its ratcheting down workers wages and benefits in order to keep stock prices high. It has been occuring since the 1980's and the labour movement is barely able to keep itself fighting defensive battles in this order to keep running on the spot. Because as usual the business unions fail to understand this is not a battle over bread and butter issues but Class War.

See:
Union Busting Alberta Style
This is Class War

Gone is the Keynesian Social Contract that kept the Welfare State booming.
It's a little thing Herr Dr. Marx called the falling rate of profit.

After the long boom after World War Two, it would seem that capital did indeed come up against a crisis in the falling rate of profit and overproduction of capital, leading to the crisis of the late 1960s and the opening up of a period of “stagflation” in the 1970s.

So in an era of riches the workers once again are asked to take crumbs from the table. And even the booming economy can mean profit failure for some industries while we create untold riches for others.

Strongest Canadian dollar in 14 years hinders Q4 results

Canadian Oil Sands Trust announces strong financial results for the fourth quarter of 2005 and a distribution of $1.00 per Unit

Shell Canada announces record earnings of $2 billion


But Canada is not alone in this situation. While profits soar and trillions of dollars, fictious capital, travel in the market place making money off of money, work, the actual source of profit, continues to decline as it gets automated and outsourced. It is not just Canada's problem but is actually the crisis of globalization itself. As capital moves out of the industrialized countries, or hires workers out of the underground immigrant communities in the industrialized countries; the sans papiers, those without papers, and as it replaces labour with technology we face not a leisure society with abundance for all . Au contraire we face a growing crisis of employment. Such as we have not seen since the depression of the 1930's. And why it is greater is that it is global. There are no longer peasant societies anywhere in the world. There is a global proletariat, the multitude if you like. And there is a crisis of employment.

ILO Director-General warns of 'unprecedented jobs crisis' [ILO]


Companies get tough in bargaining
Toronto Star - 18 hours ago
Fierce worldwide competition is making companies more militant during contract negotiations, while unions are pushing back by globalizing the labour movement, according to a report released yesterday by the Conference Board of Canada.
'Militancy' the new catchword for employers Globe and Mail
Globalization holding down Canadian union wages, Conference Board ... CBC News
Calgary Sun - National Union of Public and General Employees - Ottawa Sun - all 30 related »

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labour
labor
Canada
unions
globalization
lock out

Outlaw Working Alone

Once again a worker a teenage girl on a night shift has been killed while working alone.

Girl, 17, killed on first night shift at Montreal store

A 17-year-old female clerk was killed overnight inside a gas station convenience store in the St-Léonard area of Montreal, police said on Wednesday morning.

Last year it was a young woman again working alone this time in Ontario that was killed. And the McGuinty government downplayed the need for safer working conditions. The safest would be to have no-one work alone in a retail outlet during the night shift. But of course that would cut into the bottomline.

Working Alone Kills
Body in Ottawa identified as missing 18-year-old Exhausted after more than a week of torturous uncertainty, her brother and others had no public words to offer about the vivacious Jennifer, a student and soccer goalie who chatted with friends on the walk home from her late shift at a fast food restaurant, then disappeared. Ms. Teague's friends are also, understandably, distraught

McGuinty Denies Workers Safety
Late night laws unnecessary: McGuinty Canadian Press September 21, 2005 TORONTO -- Premier Dalton McGuinty does not think legislation is necessary to ensure young workers in Ontario get homtee safely from their late night jobs. McGuinty is calling on businesses to "be good corporate citizens" and ensure they have a voluntary plan in place to assist employees who work late.

In Alberta it took a number of attacks on women working alone and finally a death of a young woman in a Calgary Sub shop to get the Alberta Government to introduce its, toothless, Working Alone legislation. Which of course the big retail chains like 7-11 lobbied against. And of course this always occurs in a non-union workplace.

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working alone
labour
labor
work kills
worker safety
health and safety
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Canada
Quebec

Old Kate Snivels

Old Kate the voice of the Republican arm of the Conservatives over at Sniveling Dead Animals was whinning again, or is that whinnying, about how the media has a liberal left bias in Canada.

Really could have fooled me. Watching CPAC with its cross country coverage of Talk Shows during the elction one gets the feeling that every single radio host must be a subscriber to the National Review in order to get hired. And being a loud mouth right winger is defined as 'controversial'. I would think that with such a plethora of right wingers on talk shows it would be more controversial to have a left wing host.

Last time I checked the Sun chain was right wing, and the Canada.com chain carries both liberal and conservative commentators. The National Post is the very essence of the voice of the right. The Globe and Mail also has its fair share of Right Wing nutbars. Macleans now is the Alberta Report reborn. Go here for a break down of the Election coverage and its Conservative Bias.

So the if the media is the mirror that Kate wants to see her reflection in it certainly is there. Mirror Mirror on the wall who is the most right wing of all. While the Left in Canada is the real political force that is on the outside, with small circulation publications like Canadian Dimension and from Kats home province; Briarpatch.

And even CBC has the likes of Ezra Levant on to comment, has a columnist from the right on its web page and hired Rick Anderson of the Reform party to be its masked insider commentator on the Canadian Election.

Old Kate also wants to see taxpayers quit funding liberal think tanks. How about if we quit funding the more influential right wing think tanks like the C.D. Howe Institute, The Fraser Institute and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.
The media in Canada has gone through a seismic shift since the eighties when Lubor Zink was the lone voice of the looney right wailing about the liberal left media, ok him and Peter Worthington.

So where has Kate been? Even in Saskatchewan the Canada.com papers there spin the editorials and opinion pages to the right.

But hey Kate isn't satisfied until we have Faux news here. With its ever objective Bill O' Reilly as a commentator. You see to the right wing its only free speech if you can lie, slander and denigrate your oponents while saying, don't you agree.

Without acknowledging error, O'Reilly modified false Abramoff claim; attacked "organized terror" from "far-left websites"

Summary: Bill O'Reilly modified his previous false claim that lobbyist Jack Abramoff donated money to both Republicans and Democrats, saying: "His personal donations were to Republicans." However, O'Reilly made no admission of his previous error, and went on to attack "far-left websites" for "put[ting] out a fatwa" against him and Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, further claiming the websites engage in "organized terror."

On the January 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly modified a false claim he made three days before that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff donated money to both Democrats and Republicans, saying: "His personal donations were to Republicans." In modifying his claim, however, O'Reilly made no admission of his previous error, nor did he apologize for having berated a caller to his nationally syndicated radio show for correctly noting that Democrats received no money directly from Abramoff. O'Reilly went on to attack the "far-left websites" for "put[ting] out a fatwa" against him and Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell and and to claim that the websites engage in "organized terror.

Also see:

Much Ado About BCE

CTV is NOT the CBC

CTV/G&M Showing Conservative Bias

CTV Liberal Bias

This is Fearmongering?

The Revolving door at the National Pest

Macleans the New Alberta Report

It's A Family Thing

Tags
Canada
Politics
blog
right wing
Fox News
media

US Planned to Invade Canada

Well will wonders never cease. Here is a secret plan for the U.S. to invade Canada. Now couple that with secret biological chemical warfare tests done in Winnipeg, and again during the Viet Nam war in New Brunswick, the current Agent Orange scandal, and one can see that the Conservatives are right to want to secure Canadian Soverignty by expanding our military. And arming border guards. And eliminating the gun registery so every Canadian can be armed. And there you just thought the Conservatives were patsy's for the U.S.

Plan to invade Canada unveiled

12/30/05

Start by capturing Halifax, seize Canadian Power plants near Niagara Falls, follow up with Army troops invading on three fronts.

That was the opening strategy in 1930 in the event of a U.S. invasion of Canada, according to The Washington Post.

The paper quotes from War Plan Red, declassified in 1974. The plan's official planners stated the goal in capital letters: ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL.

The strategy for an invasion of Canada was part of War Plan Red's design for a possible war with England over international trade.

According to the Washington Post, American planners thought England might use Canada as a launching pad in the event of war with the U.S.

War Plan Red was approved by the War Department in 1930 and updated in 1934 and 1935, the declassified documents show.

After seizing Halifax and plunging Canada into darkness by disabling its power plants, the plan called for U.S. Army troops to invade:

From Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec

From North Dakota to capture railroad facilities in Winnipeg

From the Midwest to seize Ontario's nickel mines.

The planners noted that if England and Canada won the war with the U.S., Canada was likely to demand the award of Alaska to Canadian territory.

The Washington Post story says there was also a 1935 plan to build three military airfield near the Canadian border and disguise them as civilian airports.

And the U.S. wasn't alone in drawing up war plans targeting the world's longest undefended border: the story says Canadian military strategists had a plan for invading the U.S. in 1921.

Canadian psychology professor Floyd Rudmin has long maintained the U.S. has a plan to invade Canada including use of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum.

Fort Drum spokesman Ben Abel is quoted in the story as saying "We most certainly are not preparing to invade Canada."

Tags
Canada
Canadian Military
Politics
Canada US Relations

Defense Spending
US invades Canada

Conservatives

The Tories First Scandal

Not even sworn in yet and already we have the potential for a mini scandal brewing in the in coming PMO.

Forces get marching orders
Tories plan $5.3b boost to military, navy spending

A Dalhousie University defense analyst warns it could be tough for a Conservative minority government to deliver on all its promises to beef up the navy, army and air force. The new government might consider tactical moves that donÂ’t necessarily cost anything, such as throwing open the debate on ballistic missiledefensee, he said.

The Conservative platform and press releases during the election say nothing about missile defense. Don't believe me check. Harper only mentioned it during the campaign, an off the cuff comment, it is not in the Party policy book. So is it a promise or a musing. I would say the later. With no political basis to change Canada's position.

In a recent interview with Radio Canada, he suggested he would revisit a Canadian decision not to participate in the U.S. missile-defense system. The Conservative platform calls for increases in foreign aid to bolster the role of Canada in the world, as well as an additional 5.3 billion Canadian dollars, or $4.6 billion, in military spending during the next five years, and the recruiting of an additional 13,000 troops and 10,000 reservists. In Canada, nuts-and-bolts is the right's approach

And if Canada does increase its defense spending as promised will Derek Burney recuse himself from the PMO as he is so closely linked to companies and associations that would benefit from increased Military spending.

As for the idea of Canadian sovereignty in the North well that's a clever ploy to cover up for increased Canadian involvement with the US in creating a North American Security state corridor sanitare. What is possible is closer US Canadian military and securtiy ties which will surely happen under Burney's watch in the PMO.

Don't go looking for armed icebreakers on the horizon, either, he said.

"That is way too expensive for the short term and, I think, a bit crazy, to be honest," Mr. Middlemiss said.

Mr. O'’Connor defended the plan as a means to maintain control over the North.

"American icebreakers have been able to go right to the geographic North Pole," he said. "They can go anywhere up there, and we can't. That'’s our territory; there are vast resources up there, and we've got to start enforcing our sovereignty."

While claiming to be converted on the road to Damascus as being opposed to the Bush War in Iraq, we maintain troops in Afghanistan, something that will have to change. We cannot afford Harpers military promises while maintaining forces there in the heart of darkness being used as cannon fodder as the Americans pull out.

It is interesting to see the Cato Institute the American right wing tank take on this and how it dove tails with Derek Burneys view of Canadian U.S. Relations. In the opinion piece below they refer to Michael Hart who is an associate of Bureny's. To Americans increased military spending would indicate a move towards better bilateral relations between our two countries. Not sovereignty.

Ottawa's backward anti-Americanism
Washington Times, DC - 29 Dec 2005

Speaking earlier this year at the Washington-based Canada Institute, Carleton University's Michael Hart underscored the costs associated with America-baiting. According to Mr. Hart, Canada's preference for a multilateralist foreign policy is unrealistic because the urge to differentiate Canadian from American policy leads to policies that are at odds with Canada's national interest.
Under successive Liberal governments, Canada became a nagging liability to American policymakers over everything from Kyoto to the International Criminal Court, from missile defense to military intervention. This approach directly undermines Canadian prosperity because it harms Canada's relationship with the United States.
An alternative approach is the model artfully practiced by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in the 1980s. Mr. Mulroney grasped the nettle: Closer relations with the U.S., the most powerful nation in history, must be a Canadian priority. Active accommodation with her southern neighbor was pragmatic because that is where Canada's interests lie. The 1988 Free Trade Agreement that underpinned the past decade of Canadian economic growth epitomized this approach.
Mr. Harper should explain to Canadians that bilateralism reinforces multilateralism. If Americans saw Canada as a more reliable partner, Canada would be more influential around the world because she would be more influential in Washington.
Charles Doran, director of Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, observes that Canada does foreign policy on the cheap. Canada has been free riding on the American taxpayer for defense and security for 60 years. This free-rider status is starting to grate on American policymakers.

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Canada
Canadian Military
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Canada US Relations
Harper
Defense Spending
Canadian Election
Derek Burney
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