Kelowna Accord

A great deal of gnashing and wailing has occured over the Harpocrites abandonment of the Kelowna Accord.

Stageleft does a well thought out presentation on the Conservatives anti-aboriginal agenda.

Unfortunately what gets overlooked is who speaks for aboriginal peoples. There is no real self government amongst aboriginal peoples in Canada.

The self appointed family compact of leaders in the aboriginal community, those recognized by the Department of Indian Affairs and by Provincial and Federal governments, continue to claim they speak for the people. Ha.

As anyone knows there is no democracy in native communities they are colonial governments appointed and recognized by the Colonial Department of Indian Affairs.

If any political party wanted to seriously address aboriginal self government they would first abolish this colonial hangover, and assure that all aboriginal peoples, including those disenfranchised by department policies such as native women, and those whose families are not in power now, had their democratic and economic rights assured. Then we could hand over the $9 billion the department controls to the people who really need it.

The Kelowna accord was not worth the paper it was written on. Contrary to Stagelefts assertions, the bottom line is it was too little too late, Paul Martins swan song. It was a political ploy by the Liberals to stay in power until this spring. And it failed. Sure blame the Conservatives for their right wing agenda, but don't forget to blame the Liberals who had 13 years to settle this matter.

If the Kelowna accord meant anything then the Caledonia protest laid lie to that.And it laid lie to the phony government appointed leadership in the aboriginal community in Canada.




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Jack Fights Back Over Census

Jack Layton has responded to the ViveCanada.ca campaign against the contracting out of Census data collection to Lockheed Martin. The first and only leader of a federal Canadian political party to do so. I got his email response as did others who have sent in their complaints via the Count Me Out campaign website. And I got my census form in the mail yesterday.

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Bloggers Budget Reaction

As expected there was uniform joy in the land of Blogging Tories over the Harpocrite budget. These guys are so predictable. The majority all cooed over the budget like the syncophants they are. And they denounce the left for being in lockstep. Ha.

One critical comment on the budget, because it failed the military, and one link to my comment on the budget. I shocked the BT's. And only one liberaltarian amongst the lot who reviewed the budget in a balanced way.

Stephn Taylor the webmeister of BT runs the closest thing to a critical comment in his blog where he basically quotes the reactions to the budget.

On the other hand this blog and others of us in the Progressive Bloggers did not do the knee jerk reaction thingee, showing which blogosphere actually does not follow the party line. In particular the following did not go with the usual Liberal or NDP criticism of the budget. One could say these were fair and balanced comments from the No Spin Zone (wink).

Liberal Catnip

RCI Budget Analysis

Capitalist Pig vs. Socialist Swine

Pample the Moose

Calgary Grit

Syncategorematic

Red Tory

The Moderate Post

The Liberal Times

Flash Point Canada

And at least Progressive Bloggers pointed out, with no help from the political spinmeisters that the Harpocrites are incapable of telling the truth about their budget.

Lies Lies Lies

Flaherty Lies, Layton Cries

Tax reduction? Only if you're wealthy enough

Now if only the Blogging Tories could be as honest or at least take off the rose coloured glasses and speak truth to power. For political honesty in comments on the budget the score is PB 14 BT 2



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Census Beer

Not satisfied with going south of the border and contracting out computer operations for the 2006 Census to the warmachine maker Lockeed Martin, Stats Canada takes contracting out one step further. Now they are running ads for Census 2006 in Alberta on a scab made beer.

If you are from Western Canada, in particular their home base of Alberta or recently Manitoba where they have been aggressively advertising, you know these guys as the low cost www.damngoodbeer.ca

The only thing good about it is the cheap cost. And how do they get that cost, why the same way they get their watery flavour, they have it brewed south of the border. Mountain Crest Breweries is not a brewery it's a Calgary holding company that contracts out its brewing to a Wisconsin brewery. Its a guy his warehouse, truck and his webpage.

It's the ultiamte NAFTA beer. US made beer shipped to Canada, all they do is take care of the packagining and re-selling. Well now Stats Canada in an effort to get 18-24 year olds to take the Census in Alberta, has teamed up with this scummy company and created Census Beer.

This is a new low for even them. Think so, well maybe not. Stats Canada is just as scummy since it is one of the few government departments that contracts out Census work on a mass scale and still uses piece wage labour.

And besides the lucrative contract paid for by you and me what does this beer front company get? Advertising and demographic data.

And Stats Canada is doing this promotion, in Alberta only, why?

Not enough Albertans between 18 and 24 participate in the federal census, so Statistics Canada has come up with a new gimmick to get their attention: advertising on beer cans. The feds have partnered with Calgary's Mountain Crest Brewing Co. to market Mountain Crest Census Brew 2006, a run of 25,000 six-packs promoting census day on May 16.

Wait a minute I thought it was illegal NOT to participate in the Census.

So if all these folks between 18-24 aren't how does Stats Canada know that? Or are they guessing. And what does that mean for their so called "you must participate or face a fine or jail" threat? Not much guess it's as watered down as the beer.

Wait a minute this is kinda last minute ain't it. Wonder if this is a Tory perk to the beer boy in Calgary.

This story was edited May 6, 2006. See: Correction

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Daisy Kinsella

So big bad nasty Warren Kinsella has gone off on his own with some pals and created a new consulting firm called...wait for it...Daisy.

Actually it should probably should have been called Daisy Chain.

A rose by any other name...?
Really Daisy?!

Kinda of whimpy name for folks who claim to be able to do all this and leap buildings in a single bound.

• Need someone to improve a government decision
• Need someone to protect your reputation
• Need someone to move public opinion
• Need someone to help face a crisis

After all Kinsella is no Spring Daisy (think geriatric punk rocker) and he certainly ain't no wilting daisy when it comes to selling out.


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May Day Redux

Rabble.ca has published an excellent essay on May Day versus Labour Day, by Canadian Marxist Leo Panitch. He refer's to Bryan Palmers book; Cultures of Darkness:

Palmer was a student of E.P.Thompson's (The Making of the English Working Class) and is a leading Canadian Labour Historian. Panitch sums up Palmers thesis which coincides with mine, click on the title to read it.

Debate on the origins of May Day is conducted in the truncated Babble.ca


What Palmer says about May Day fits well with my Origins and Traditions of May Day

This radical May Day tradition is nowhere better captured than in Bryan Palmer's monumental book, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression [From Medieval to Modern] (Monthly Review Press, 2000). Palmer, one of Canada's foremost Marxist labour historians, has done more than anyone to recover and analyze the cultures of resistance that working people developed in practicing class struggle from below. He's strongly critical of labour-movement leaders who've appealed to those elements of working-class culture that crave ersatz bourgeois respectability.

Set amid chapters on peasants and witches in late feudalism, on pirates and slaves during the rise of mercantile imperialism, on fraternal lodge members and anarchists in the new cities of industrial capitalism, on lesbians, homosexuals and communists under fascism, and on the mafia, youth gangs and race riots, jazz, beats and bohemians in modern U.S. capitalism, are two chapters that brilliantly tell the story of May Day.

One locates Haymarket in the context of the Victorian bourgeoisie's fears of what they called the “dangerous classes.” This account confirms the central role of the “anarcho-communist movement in Chicago [which] was blessed with talented leaders, dedicated ranks and the most active left-wing press in the country. The dangerous classes were becoming truly dangerous.”

The other chapter, a survey of “Festivals of Revolution,” locates “the celebratory May Day, a festive seizure of working-class initiative that encompassed demands for shorter hours, improvement in conditions, and socialist agitation and organization” against the backdrop of the traditional spring calendar of class confrontation.

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Tories Are Boozers

I don't klnow what it is about the Tories but they seem to have an inordinate fondness for booze, take King Ralph. Well in the new Federal Budget they made a big deal out of dropping excise taxes for Canadian wineries and Beer Microbreweries. Just in time for Canada Day, hic.

— Effective July 1st, 100-per-cent Canadian wine produced by small vintners will be exempt from duty.

— Effective July 1st, the rate of excise duty on beer produced by small brewers will be reduced.

Text of James Flaherty's budget speech

So I guess that makes the Liberals and NDP Pot Heads.



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The Man Who Would Be King

A tip o' the blog Steve Janke for this. It gives new meaning to that old conservative phrase; For King and Country. Well we know he is an autarch.

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Tories Good News Budget

They kept their promises even the ones that we don't like. But over all the budget aimed its tax cuts at the working class, the first budget in twenty years, yes including the Mulroney years, to do so.

As I predicted the BQ will back the Tories on the budget.

Honk For Public Day Care

Harper Plays Charest

They will hold their noses as Duceppe says and vote for the Budget, which the Liberals and NDP will oppose.

The budget gives tax breaks to workers with all of us getting a $1000 tax credit for home purchases of computers etc. apprenticeship tax breaks, tool tax breaks, child athletics/sports tax break, etc. The savings to workers, pensioners, and even small business offset the corporate tax cuts in the budget. It also cut off low income earners from income tax, As a result, about 655,000 low-income Canadians will be removed from the tax rolls altogether.

It is a blue collar budget, not a champagne budget, one aimed at staying in power for the rest of the year. The Liberals call it a political budget, which it is,there is something for everyone, a chicken in every pot, a way of forstalling another election. It is not so much a Conservative budget as a populist one. Expect the Tories poll numbers to jump accordingly.

The real Conservative budget will be revealed next year. For now we can celebrate a budget that gives us back some of our money, while surpluses remain for social spending.

That issue will be the fight the Conservatives will face over the next year, how to spend the surplus on social programs, and which social programs. How they will deal with the environment and with the fiscal imbalance.

On childcare they have sweetened the pot by claiming they will look at funding daycare spaces, how well that is still to be determined, and so the public pressure has to continue, they have weakened already on their corporate tax credit for daycare by saying this.

As for the Liberals promises, well they weren't worth the paper they were written on once the election was called.



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The Capitalist System

Long Live May Day

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IWW, MayDay