Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

As other bloggers have noted, the Conservatives are looking to finish off several opposition parties including the Greens and Liberals, by cutting off funding promised to them prior to the last election. Below is the Green Party email explaining the situation as they (and I see it).

Voices and ideas should determine elections, not money. Our system of parties isn’t that fantastic to begin with, because it tends to prevent individuals with great ideas from turning them into national policy or law. Perhaps that tempering factor provides needed stability and we have to take the bad parts of parties along with the good?

Of course, most funding for parties should come directly from donations from individuals. Ideally the government would not have to fund political parties at all. Unfortunately, as the Conservatives have shown, they aren’t shy about spending GOVERNMENT money on PARTISAN purposes like 10%er propaganda, breaking campaign promises on equalization to pay off Quebec, or in bailout bribes to vote-giving industries. To not give money also to the opposition parties, is to invite corruption that comes from being in power unchallenged. In this day and age, money = power. Conservatives in power = money for Conservatives (and consequentially less money for everyone else).

See the Liberals 1990s-2006 for an example of entitlement and localized corruption. The Conservatives are already to the point of cocky entitlement (largest cabinet ever in a time of economic crisis???), and it didn’t even take them a decade to get there. Should we let them get to the point of further corruption?

Dear Green Party supporter,

Today Jim Flaherty is expected to announce that the Tories will cut the public subsidy to all federal political parties. It is disguised as a response to the economic crisis. It is actually a scheme to destroy Harper’s political opponents. It is an assault on fair financing rules brought about through sweeping reforms. These reforms were designed to eliminate the power of Big Money in our elections. Harper wants that power back.

This could well be the biggest challenge ever to face the Green Party of Canada.
Continue Reading »

Wells goes over the top, and I guess he did it on purpose, because look, I’m writing about his ridiculous comparison. To compare one of Canada’s leading environmentalists, and the leader of the Green Party to traditionally pro-establishment/NDP and environment-ambivalent Buzz Hargrove, is frankly absurd.

Channeling my inner-Wells, let me just say that Stephen Dion is Canada’s worst hybrid nightmare because it would never call an election, but if it did, it’d be sure to let other MPs vote about it while it leaves the room.

There’s also a whole schwack of commenters on Wells’ blog who seem to think it’s a good idea to exclude smaller political parties from televised debates. If televised time isn’t going to swing an election, why did the Conservatives try so hard to cheat an extra ~$1.2 worth of airtime out of the last election? Do the mainstream parties have buddies running defense at the head of the TV and media stations running the next televised debate? They’ll keep May out of the spotlight for those short hours, because they know it will strengthen the slide of voters away from the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP.

UPDATE: May has responded, not really to this, but to the next smear, and that’s one where the Conservatives are vividly SMACKED down. If there were any justice, talk radio would be playing Nelson from the Simpsons saying HA HA after reading what Harper said about Canada, compared to what May just wrote. If the Cons are going to open that “pride in country” can of worms, they are going to get vermicomposted!

The drive by smear of my reputation attacked my love of country. It claimed I had said Canada had the worst government on earth. The Harper lackeys claimed this showed “shocking ignorance of the deplorable human rights situations faced by other people around the world.” I am quite well aware of shocking human rights situations. We held a press conference last week decrying the human rights abuses of the government of Colombia and urging that Canada not proceed with a new trade pact with Colombia. What I said at the Global Greens Congress in Sao Paulo (and anyone can see it on YouTube was part of a speech on climate change, setting out the response of governments around the world to the climate crisis:

“I am ashamed to admit that the Canadian government is now the worst in the world.”

[...]

What is galling about being attacked is that I believe Canadians are the most blessed people on earth, living in a beautiful and wealthy country, one that prizes community and shared well-being. I am fiercely loyal to Canada and regard receiving the honour of being an Officer of the Order of Canada as the greatest of all honours. (By the way, none of the other leaders have received the Order of Canada). Having received it, I stand on guard for Canada. So the gall of these nasty little minions in issuing a press release attacking my love of country began to raise my ire.

And then the irony hit me. Who do we know who went about attacking those very qualities that makes Canada such an incredibly generous and wonderful place to live?

These are quotes from Prime Minister Harper when he headed the National Citizens Coalition.

Here’s one from a letter he wrote to the National Post in 1997:

“Canada appears content to become a second tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second rate status.”

Or this one from 1997, which was part of a speech he delivered to the right wing Council for National Policy:

“Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term and very proud of it.”

And he made that statement in the United States. Hard not to see a real problem with love of country in those speeches.

–
Hat tip to Mark, and also to Mike of RationalReasons.