Harper the Deceiver! - The “report on human rights performance (meaning abuses) in other countries does not exist”...and then all of a sudden - voila here it is with the truth blackened out. Doesn't that make you want to reminisce about the "good old days" of the Bush administration in justifying Guantanamo prisoners without charges and no access to counsel and the final admission about other secret CIA prisons around the globe? Yup, and we western democracies are supposed to be the good guys.
We need to thank someone somewhere in or around the government for leaking to the Globe and Mail the complete unedited and unabridged version of the officially non-existent human rights performance report. Actually that is too euphemistic a way to describe what the Harper Cons have done here. We should call the Harper Cons "released" version of the newly discovered report for what it really is THE OFFICIAL CENSORED VERSION OF THE FACTS."
Harper and Co. can bring shame on themselves and their party (think Anders' "unanimous nomination" in Calgary West that was recently overturned by the courts twice, as a place to start) and I really don't care too much. Bring my country in disrepute and expose our military to war crimes accusations and the consequences and I care. Do it with such reckless abandon and with such and irresponsible attitude and I care. I really care.
The most generous explanation for this breach of trust and inexcusable dishonesty is wilful blindness and that is not governing, never mind good governing. Shame on the Prime Minister and his "brain trust" of Day and O'Connor. Foreign Affairs Minister MacKay is just lucky he was in China for much of this...and out of the loop, as usual!
We citizens are now being seriously played for fools by our federal government on this and so many other issues right now. I am including the Liberal and Bloc phony motion yesterday to force a pullout of Afghanistan on a deadline that ignores the reality of that situation too. The situational ethics of the NDP in this issue that was used to justify them supporting the Cons on this motion was also astonishingly cute by a half. We are not fools. We can see what is going on with our governance. It has to stop.
Get off the artificial sort-game election path and start governing for the future with a longer term sense of the difficult and serious situations we face in this country. Where is the honest leadership that will be straight with us and who will rise to the occasion with intelligence and wisdom?
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Harper has a serious credibility problem and this is only the most recent example.
ReplyDeleteHarper is singularly driven to satisfy his ambition. As a result we get policies from the CONs which are crafted for their elctoral benefit and not for the public interest. Harper does not want to acknowledge the foreign affairs problems that he has created. And so we get this bizarro posturing.
The other problem with the CONs in Alberta (aside from the Anders debacle) is that the MPs have surprisingly thin resumes. They have no training or experience to draw on to either negotiate within their own caucus or anticipate the results of their policies. James Rajotte, Rahim Jaffer, Rona, Kenny, Lake etc. all these guys have no leadership or private sector experience. In Rajotte's case it is shocking that he is the industry chair for Canada. He has never spent one day working in industry. His work expereince is as an EA to Ian Mclellean, then he was elected. It is frightening that he is a significant player in industry.
Harper is saddled with a weak team. And knows it. That's why appointed Fortier as an unelected cabinet minister.
We as voters have to be more discerning about who we put in office. And hold them to account when this goofy short term posturing occurs.
We need to attract better qualty thinkers and high caliber characters into politics. We won't do that by belittling them over every superficial petty personality point or at every media defined "gaffe" opportunity either.
ReplyDeleteKen, it is your writing that is highly deceptive and is unbecoming of a lawyer. As a lawyer yourself, you know well enough that it is government lawyers who decided which portions of requests under the Access to Information Act are to blacked out. There is no political interference in that process and, if the libs don't like what was blacked out, they can appeal to another independent body. To state that the government was somehow involved in the black out of reports is, quite frankly, beneath contempt.
ReplyDeleteContempt eric? You want to talk contempt! Let do it.
ReplyDeleteWilful blindness from someone in a position of authority is contemptuous. When it comes from a Minister it is breathtakingly contemptuous.
Claming or even not knowing what reports exists in their departments on such a key issue or what is going on with prisoners by the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs is contemptuous.
Misleading the House on the facts is contemptuous.
Denying the facts under the privileges of the House of Commons is contemptuous.
Exposing our military and other government personnel to prosecution in the International Criminal Court for breach of the Geneva Convention is contemptuous.
Blaming others for your own ineptitude and shifting the blame and misdirecting on the issues is contemptuous.
The Minister of Defence making up and announcing new policy and procedures on dealing detainees as a "drop in comment" at Commons Committee hearings without careful consideration or even telling the Foreign Affairs Minister what you are doing is contemptuous.
Regardless of who blacked out the previously non-existent report, to not take the Ministerial responsibility for this purely "departmental action" (presuming you are right eric) and not releasing the full report is contemptuous.
Sullying the reputation of Canada and Canadians in the international community in this way is contemptuous.
I could go on! Your government has just squandered any benefit of the doubt it had in trying to capitalize and position for the next election. It has fundamentally breached the trust of Canadians and done so in a that is so grievous and monumentally disrespectful and by Ministers no less.
Adscam angered Canadians and as a result you Cons were given a chance to prove yourselves in the election of January 2006. This Afghan Deceit makes the frauds of Adscam by Liberal party volunteers and their businessmen friends, who turned out to be criminals, pale in comparison.
It proves once and for all the Harper government is unworthy of being trusted or respected and should not be given our consent to be governed in the next election.
Minister O'Connor apologized because he honestly thought that it was the Red Cross who was looking after the prisoners. You can say that he was in error and, as well, incompetent - but that is different than saying he knowingly mislead the House. A similar logical argument could be made with Dion and the sponsorship scandal - he was a senior Minister in Quebec at the time - how could he not have known something was amiss? I will not make that argument because I believe Dion has integrity as does Minister O'Connor.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Minister O'Connor should stick his nose in the affairs of Access to Information lawyers who blacked out portions they thought were inappropriate to disclose - I presume they had a reason (national safety comes to mind). There must be a separation of powers.
Remember that the it was the LIBERAL government that signed the initial agreement on the transfer of prisoners which was inadequate. Yes, I admit that we should have picked up on the LPC's terrible mistake.