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General Canadian politics thread
Because Canada is more than Rob Ford. And I wanted a place outside of IJBMer Updates to wank about the Northern Gateway pipeline, since the Kitimat plebiscite is today.
The whole project is indicative of Canada's current sorry state. Don't ask questions, tar the majority of B.C. residents as environmentalist radicals for opposing it, install Enbridge lackeys to spy on opposition, rush approval as soon as possible because oil! Oil! That can't even pay for Alberta's hospitals or schools because of low royalties.
Everyone can be forgiven for forgetting that we were once the country that hosted the treaty to ban CFC's and discovered the negative effects of acid rain. Even investigating Norse settlements on Baffin Island is forbidden now.
Also, the nation must have collective amnesia for "tar sands" to be an insult. That's what they were called before development took off.
Comments
I hear some prominent Conservative Party finance minister named Jim Flaherty (?) passed away recently, I think? The local NPR broadcasts CBC radio late at night, so I sometimes run into it. Also, I heard that people were kinda outraged that the Minnesota (US state) state supreme court overturned the conviction of a creep who lures people into committing suicide, sending the decision back to a lower court to review after declaring a certain part of a law unconstitutional.
That's all I really know. Also that Rob Ford is obnoxious.
Mmhmm. Federal finance minister (and provincial finance minister in Ontario before that) up until a month ago, when he resigned due to health issues. Outside the Conservative party, consensus is "he was a pretty nice guy, but wherever he went, we hope he took his policies with him". I forget, was he the guy who hid Ontario's huge deficit (which "suddenly" resurfaced as soon as a Liberal government was in power)?
@ pipeline: Ugh, we get the advertisements all the time. "We're committed* to protecting** the environment."
Speaking of ads, the attack ads for Justin Trudeau have already started rolling in, in preparation for next year's election. Quotes presented without context ("how can a guy who thinks 'the budget will balance itself' be trusted to run our economy?"), his stance on marijuana legalization juxtaposed with images of children playing, dramatic music, the works.
Needs more colours.
The attacks on Justin Trudeau are so ridiculous that they actually make me want to support him, honestly.
What exactly is the supposed connection between legalizing marijuana and hurting children?
Adults will use drugs and there will be no authority to tell them not to so they will go nuts with it and children will learn from the example and ruin their lives by doing drugs.
Kitimat voted No to Northern Gateway. It's non-binding, so they can still ignore it (as usual). But it's nice to see Enbridge's propaganda fail.
As for attack ads, ugh. I remember a news story back in 2006 in which people complained how demoralizing the attack ads were. Now perpetual campaigning is the new normal. Jack Layton running positive ads in 2011 was the main reason I was motivated to vote for NDP.
I've heard a lot of crap about the U.S. Supreme Court system, but I'd say in Canada, the Supreme Court is the sole redeeming thing about the government right now since they do call them out on their crap frequently.
Can you tell me why is investigating Norse settlements forbidden?
It was a major discovery by Pat Sutherland at what was formerly known as the Canadian Museum of Civilization, but when the government changed it to the Canadian Museum of History, they decided that non-Canadian history was out and so was Sutherland. People suspect she was dismissed because the idea of Norse settlements on Baffin Island would conflict with Harper's push to assert Arctic sovereignty, which unfortunately doesn't seem too far-fetched considering his suppression of science across the country.
Tell me more about this Harper guy, 'cause what you say would be some crazy shit even for a fictional character. Baffin Island already being Canadian, for one. Who voted for the guy, how long he's there, so on. I guess I won't get anything without some briefing. And checking wikipedia is too normal. I'm not totally cut off when it comes to Canadian affairs, but what I know, seems like, is certainly not enough.
He's been around since 2006. Got a majority in 2011 with only 39% of the popular vote despite being found in contempt of Parliament (thanks, first-past-the-post). Much of his support comes from Alberta because oil, and his ideology originates from a school of right-wing nutters at the University of Calgary (apparently Koch Industries and similar American interests have also influenced them). Doesn't let anyone speak to the media without his permission, including government scientists, and only if they follow his party line (Nature even ran an editorial complaining about the state of science in Canada). Entire economic policy is based around oil after all, and environmental science tends to be inconvenient in that regard.
Since a majority essentially means unchecked power due to party solidarity, whatever the Conservative Party says in terms of legislation goes, no matter how much everyone else hates it (current one up is the "Fair Elections Act" which proposes to end vouching and strip away powers from Elections Canada, among other things). Bombards us with constant "Jobs, Growth, Prosperity" ads that cost significant amounts of taxpayers' money while boasting about their fiscal record, which consists of deficits year after year due to their "starve the beast" policies. We're seen as a disgrace now at the UN since the Conservative Party ranges from apathetic to obstructionist at their meetings. Biggest Canadian newspapers, National Post and The Globe and Mail (and other provincial news outlets their companies own), are essentially Conservative Party cheerleaders. And that's not all.
I guess I'm gonna side with Nature on this one.
Law school gets approved amidst complaints about anti-gay sentiments. Sochi Russia? No, this is about B.C. Apparently, "freedom of speech" means "freedom from criticism".
Omar Khadr is currently undergoing a jury appeal from an adult to a youth sentence.
For the uninitiated, Omar was 15 when he allegedly threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. 15. Rather than go into excruciating detail as to how much wrong that is, let me sum up the reaction of Our Dear Leader and the media, especially The Sun, in this video.
Considering how long this guy has been imprisoned in one place or another and what he has had to endure, at this point I don't even care if he threw the grenade or not; the punishment has far exceeded the alleged crime in terms of the amount of suffering inflicted on Khadr.
So, he killed a man by grenade, 12 years ago, when he was 15? Fun thing, there are adults who walked free in shorter time than that.
Okay, so it turns out that homicides involving aboriginal women are solved at pretty much the same rate as other cases, it's just that there are disproportionately more of them-- 4.3% of the female population, 16% of female murder victims. (In Manitoba, that stat is 16.7% population to 49% of victims.)
Northern Gateway got approved by Harper. Everyone saw that coming. In more interesting news, the Tsilhqot'in First Nations won a unanimous Supreme Court ruling over claims to their traditional land. It's hard not to admire their resolve in defending their land and culture. The rest of Canada could learn something from the First Nations.
More Harper dirt.
So the Canadian Revenue Agency has been off auditing charities to check if they are spending more than 10% of their money on political activities. Sounds neutral? Well, who's on their hit list? Environmental organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation and Greenpeace, social justice charities like Canada Without Poverty and Amnesty International, and a free speech organization called PEN Canada (and I never heard of them until now, so thanks, Harper). Who's not on the list? The economically libertarian Fraser Institute. Also related:
"Relieving poverty is charitable, but preventing it is not."
Yes, someone actually said this.
Also, the Therese Casgrain Volunteer Award (she fought for women's right to vote in Quebec) had her award quietly replaced by the Prime Minister's Volunteer Award in 2010. You know, I just realized why I don't view Harper the same way as other right-wing nutjobs. David Cameron is funny. George Bush is hilarious. Tony Abbott is a riot. And nothing else needs to be said about Silvio Berlusconi. But Harper, he's decidedly unfunny. Because instead of showing his craziness to the public, it quietly infects his actions. And silence is the most frightening sound imaginable. If politicians were movie genres, Harper would be horror.
Great, now I wonder which of them suits which horror subgenre. So far I got these picks:
* Berlusconi - Troma movie
* Bush - slasher
* Harper - religious horror
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edit: mhm, I probably should have posted that somewhere where it wouldn't be off-topic.
Well, obviously we have an MRA rape apologist at National Post. So hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husbands cause there be rape culture out there. Also, there's no way I'm actually going to directly link her articles, so you can search her editorials or International Conference on Men's Issues presentation yourself. Be warned; the more I read her shit, the more I understand the feeling that a good chunk of Scots had when Margaret Thatcher died.
Isn't the research on this almost conclusive on how to combat the problem? This bit from the second link: "the assailant is as likely to be drunk as the victim(ed.: off the top of my head, this is the case in 3/4 of the college rape victims), impulsive types are more likely to assault when they are drunk and predatory types will drink as an excuse to assault -- so perhaps it is their drinking we should call into question" plus Lisak's research on serial rapists' psychological profiles, the lion's share in college rape cases and the effectiveness of bystander intervention training versus 'men must not rape'-style awareness campaigns already give an effective solution. The buddy system is already taught to fight against drunk driving in many fresher introductions, expanding it to guys watching each other for risky behaviour at parties shouldn't be too hard(even when tipsy themselves) and the whiners conveniently label themselves with red flags already.
College tribunals backfire half the time and give the rapist the slap on the wrist of expulsion, while making the college extremely vulnerable to lolsuits due to one-sided trial proceedings. Applying Allport's Scale of prejudice to rape jokes is unfounded, since Lisak's research shows the type of rapist who doesn't know what he's doing is wrong is fucking rare and you don't even need that ill-researched schtick when you can just focus on how it makes the victim feel to have a proper argument against that type of humour.
On the side of the MRAs, nobody ever rolls out the research on the psychological profiles and signs of proven false rape accusers(which are almost always serial accusers too, with ample signs of lying and attention-seeking behaviour in other fields) or manners to prevent entering a risky situation in the first place that takes into account the college lifestyle of drinking and hook-ups(plenty of water, simply cuddling if she's too wasted in your own opinion and then going for a morning delight if she's still in the mood at that point, etc.).
Research is the bane of any anti-intellectual. If they actually were serious in identifying false rape accusations, they wouldn't be able to bullshit about it being a vast conspiracy.
But the point is that nucking futs pundits are spawned in Canada as well. They just don't get nearly as much attention as the US or the UK, and that means Canadian media is under less scrutiny. Which is a pity, since there is a good deal of humour value to be extracted from the National Post editorial board. One of my favourites is Terence Corcoran crying about the inability for Northern Gateway to freely trample over First Nations, or even the general B.C. public's right to a healthy environment.
Second week of School's Out in B.C. due to the teachers' strike, which has been going on since classes were cancelled before the end of June. The story behind it is even longer, more than a decade in the making. A few context points:
A more opinionated point, some are suspecting that the lack of education funding is a ploy to starve the beast and prop up private schools (which do receive public funding). Among others, evidence is that dear leader Christy Clark has her kids in private schooling and that the Fraser Institute is notoriously biased towards them.
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As an aside, since journalistic integrity is currently a major issue, Postmedia, the company that runs the National Post and most of the provincial newspapers, is buddies with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). At this point, major organizations being in cahoots with the oil industry is barely surprising.
Reeeally glad I finished high school a year before all of this came to a head.
Well, archaeologists have found one of the ships that was part of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. Harper, showing a rare interest in science, was bragging all about it.
Stephen Harper to world: We are angry, and we have adjectives.
Remember when the CRA was auditing charities for disagreeing with Stephen Harper? They're still at it. This time, they are targeting a bunch of bird watchers for, wait for it, complaining that government-used chemicals are bad for bees. To paraphrase the Conservative Party, "Keep your politics out of our charities! (Unless it agrees with us)."
Now that I think about it, ongoing news doesn't have the same punch that breaking news does, even though the former has more educational value.
Probably the biggest Canadian newsmaker of the year: Jian Ghomeshi, the interviewer for Q, a radio show about arts and culture, gets fired from the CBC over sexual abuse accusations on October 26. Immediately afterwards, he puts out a Facebook post accusing the CBC of finding his BDSM distasteful and using the "jilted ex-lover" defense. Since he's a national icon, people initially come to defend him (I myself wasn't sure what to make of the allegations at first). However, more accusations came out, and his position becomes less defensible. So he got arrested and is going to court while the country self-reflects on rape culture and workplace harassment in the CBC.
Worth noting that people saw him as skeevy as early as his York University days and throughout the years at CBC, but he always put on a charming, progressive face (kind of like Prince Hans from Frozen). Also, this coincides with the rebirth of long-standing sexual abuse allegations against Bill Cosby in the USA.
...interesting.
See, I barely know the name "Jian Gomeshi", which I used to spell "Gion Gomeshi" up until I saw it here. Not that I ever spelled it on paper anyway. See, the only reason I knew him is because WAMU -- my local NPR affiliate -- broadcasts CBC radio at late-night hours. So yeah, he showed up occasionally.