WTF TORY

From The Globe and Mail:

Stephen Harper wasted no time in bringing back three defeated candidates, appointing former Quebec cabinet minister Josée Verner to the Senate and reappointing Larry Smith and Fabian Manning.

Minutes after he finished answering questions from reporters about his cabinet shuffle, the Prime Minister’s Office sent out a release announcing the three appointments. So Mr. Harper did not have to address the issue in public.

From The Globe and Mail:

A bill to fix a heavily flawed five-year-old plan to sell cheap Canadian medicines to impoverished countries is set to die because the New Democrat who sponsored it has resigned and the Conservatives are unlikely to allow another MP to take it over – a courtesy that was once extended to Stephen Harper.

The House of Commons must give unanimous consent for a bill that has been abandoned by one member to be sponsored by another. In this case, when Judy Wasylycia-Leis quit her job as a federal MP to run for municipal politics in Winnipeg, her New Democrat colleague Brian Masse was willing to take over Bill C-393, which aimed to reform the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime.

There is precedent for such a handover. In 1997, when Mr. Harper quit his seat in the back benches of the Reform Party caucus, the House unanimously agreed to let Preston Manning take over his bill to establish the terms and conditions that must apply to a referendum relating to the separation of Quebec from Canada.

But Richard Elliott, the executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, said Tuesday he has been told there will be no such goodwill extended with regard to Ms. Wasylycia-Leis’s bill.

From The Toronto Star:

The Harper government used a pervasive message-control tool to persuade Canadians their foremost purpose in Afghanistan was building schools and fostering democracy rather than waging a war that was turning bloodier by the day.

An investigation by The Canadian Press shows The Conservatives systematically drafted “Message Event Proposals” as part of a quiet campaign to persuade Canadians their country was primarily engaged in development work to rebuild a shattered nation rather than hunting down and killing an emboldened insurgency.

The government used MEPs to literally script the words it wanted to hear from the mouths of its top diplomats, aid workers and cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 to divert public attention from the soaring double-digit death toll of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

While the message was being massaged in Ottawa, the reconstituted Taliban unleashed a fresh wave of attacks on NATO troops and innocent Kandaharis.

“Desired soundbite: ‘Canada’s mission in Afghanistan is refocusing its mission towards development, reconstruction and diplomatic efforts,’” says an MEP prepared by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic wing that serves the Prime Minister’s Office.

The document, among hundreds of MEPs obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, was prepared for a 2008 media tour by Arif Lalani, then the Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan.

Other records show the government went so far as to script an identical set of quotes and talking points for two returning aid workers, who were supposed to be giving separate interviews on their “personal perspective” on progress in Afghanistan.

Alheli Picazo at Rabble on the details of who knew what when about the allegations and evidence of Afghan detainees being handed over by Canadian forces to Afghan authorities subsequently being tortured.

But for the mission in Afghanistan, the ethics and standards that once guided military decisions have been all but abandoned by the military brass. Under the Harper government, the rules governing the battlefield are ignored; the Geneva conventions are flouted and war crimes are committed.

The Prime Minister has long been aware of the repercussions his policy on detainees was having, and the implications on his government if the warnings were not heeded. But it wasn’t until a diplomat, who’d been muzzled by Harper, broke his silence that Canadians became aware of the misconduct being perpetrated by our government in Afghanistan.

[…]

The Canadian diplomat began alerting Ottawa to the “serious, imminent and alarming” circumstances surrounding detainees in 2006; sending a series of memos to both the senior ranks of the military and Department of National Defence.

[…]

Following his testimony, the Conservative government set their sights on Colvin; Intent to undermine his credibility and reputation. The relentless smearing of the well respected diplomat prompted twenty-three former Canadian ambassadors (joined later by an additional twelve) to release a letter to the media condemning the behaviour of the Conservative government.
One of the letters signatories, former ambassador Paul Durand, singled out Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s particularly reprehensible attacks.
“He savaged him in public, and ridiculed him,” said Durand. “And that’s not the way to treat a guy who’s doing his job. He is not a whistleblower. He was hauled before a parliamentary committee and had to state the truth.”

[…]

In direct contrast to MacKay’s assertion “not a single Taliban prisoner turned over by Canadian Forces can be proven to have been abused,” uncensored documents and sworn testimony by senior officers detail an instance in 2006 where an detainee transferred to Afghan police was so severely beaten, Canadian troops had to intervene and ultimately took the man back. The Globe notes “the Canadian soldier’s account, handwritten in a field notebook in the hours after the June 19, 2006 incident, is corroborated by a medic’s examination of the detainee’s injuries and photographs, which the (Harper) government refuses to release.”

[…]

A Globe report from November 2008 outlined that “more than 20 months after it first promised full co-operation, the Harper government has moved to block public hearings into whether it ordered Canadian soldiers to transfer prisoners to Afghan security forces knowing the detainees would likely be tortured … The government is seeking a Federal Court order that the MPCC can neither investigate nor hold hearings into allegations that transferred prisoners were tortured and that senior government officials and military officers knew it would happen. Government censors have blacked out key passages of secret documents that showed that ministers knew that torture was rife in Afghan prisons.”

The federal government spent $37-million on advertising and other communications related to the H1N1 flu pandemic, more than it devoted to antiviral drugs or managing the outbreak combined, according to newly divulged cost figures.

A prominent critic of government response to H1N1 said much of that ad blitz came after the epidemic had peaked, urging Canadians to get flu shots at a time when they were virtually pointless.

National Post

Nobody remembers the act that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show after Elvis Presley. After the kid with the guitar, nothing else could leave much of an impression.

Similarly, whatever history records about Derek Burney, it will pay scant heed to the speech he gave at the big Liberal thinkers’ conference in Montreal over the weekend. Burney used to run the Prime Minister’s Office for Brian Mulroney. He was Canada’s ambassador to Washington from 1989 to 1993. He led Stephen Harper’s transition to power in 2006. But on Sunday he drew the short straw and spoke after a barnburning speech by Bob Fowler, the retired former ambassador who accused both Harper and the Liberals of selling out the country’s best diplomatic traditions. Coming after that broadside, Burney was all but ignored.

Too bad. Burney had useful things to say about Canada-U.S. relations. He devoted nearly half his remarks to the dangers of passivity and timidity, urging leaders not to “hestitate to lead,” calling for “confidence” over “reticence,” preferring a “vigorous, creative and active approach” over “risk-averse, correct stewardship” in a bilateral relationship that “should be stimulated and led by the prime minister.”

I buttonholed Burney after the speech. Was this a critique of the current government?

He broke into a wide smile. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Paul.” Fair enough. Derek Burney was not talking about Stephen Harper when he warned against hesitation, reticence, risk aversion and lack of leadership. He was speaking in the abstract. You cannot get me to say otherwise.

I, on the other hand, am a free agent, so nothing is stopping me from saying that the Canada-U.S. relationship under Harper has begun to go quietly, seriously, off the rails. [more]

Macleans