Daggers to
the Heart! 

Today Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin was a guest on CTV's Question Period with host Kevin Newman.  Unfortunately, unlike the US Supreme Court justices who judging by Fat Tony Scalia's verbal diarrhea and habit of foul and threatening gestures from flipping the bird to Sicilian death threats, she was limited to discussing platitudes about the difficulty of access to justice for normal non-one percenters and that the Charter was becoming a "mature" document. She apparently isn't allowed to discuss the recent atrocious ruling that overturned the lower court ruling invalidating the Etobicoke Centre election of Ted Opitz thus restoring Mr. Opitz to his seat by now only six votes, instead of the previous 26. I wrote about his a couple days ago. Today Robin Mathews has weighed in with his analysis of this further attack on the democracy that USED to prevail in Canada before the Harper Government (tm) began the conversion to Chinada. As usual Robin connects many of the dots, showing how the prorogations, GG Johnson, the Oliphant Inquiry and the robo-calls and the "in and out" scam are all parts of the same general multi-front attack on Canadian Democracy and Canadians.

The Supreme Court of Canada
Drives A Dagger Through The Heart
of Canadian Democracy.

by Robin Mathews

The betrayal of Canada by four judges of the Supreme Court of Canada trumpets the collapse of one of the primary protectors of Canadians – Canada’s highest court. The decision of the four judges to deny the challenge presented by Boris Wrzesnewskyj concerning the 2011 election in Etobicoke-Centre is irrational, irresponsible … and it may be much more.

Canadians must see that the protectors of their freedoms, of their democracy, are falling like ten pins before their eyes. The Supreme Court of Canada is just one of the protectors now gone.  Wake Up. Canadians, Wake Up!

Let us be crystal clear on that matter.  Let us remember two points.

The first is that the case before the Supreme Court of Canada was taken on a SAMPLE count of voting.  If all the polling stations could have been examined, hundreds more ‘bad votes’ would have been counted.  The judges ignored that fact. The judges ignored the cost to an ordinary citizen that a full count would have involved.  Shame on them! 

The judges could have ordered Elections Canada to count the ‘bad votes’ in every polling station in the constituency.  They didn’t. In addition, the judges permitted Borys Wrzesnewskyj to pay more than $300,000.00 to undertake a court challenge fundamental to Canadian democracy.  Shame on the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada!  Shame on them all!

The second point is that the judges could have taken a crystal clear High Road and ruled - that for the protection of Canadian Democracy in these special circumstances – a by-election must be held.

The judges of the Supreme Court of Canada should have stated over and over and over and over in their decision that “free elections” must be without taint, without taint of any kind.  That decision would have forced a clean-up of election practices in Canada. Fast! Instead, the decision handed down has given the Stephen Harper forces license to continue practicing election fraud.

Talk about the 1%!!  The four judges were so far away from the needs of the people, from what is called ‘natural justice’, from the fundamental and basic meaning and intention of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, from all that the Common Law has meant in democracies for centuries, and from what Canada essentially means to Canadians that one has to ponder just who or what the four believe they are serving.

Already the Harper Conservatives have been convicted of Election Fraud! The Harper Conservatives ADMITTED GUILT in the 2006 election, admitted to using 68 CONSTITUENCIES to funnel funds illegitimately through the system. The Harper Conservatives fought Elections Canada in court for five years before admitting guilt and to having practiced ELECTION FRAUD IN 2006. And now they are accused of major Election Fraud (the Robocall Scandal) in the 2011 election.  More on that farther on.

Fools and charlatans are saying – “The Supreme Court ruling has come down on the Etobicoke-Centre election challenge.  Accept it and move on.” 

I say the ruling has come down -  Do Not Accept It! It is a tragedy for the nation.  It is a betrayal of Canadian Democracy. I am saying do not accept the ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada.  I am saying hire planes and fly gigantic banners across the country carrying the names of the four judges who betrayed Canada and Canadians.  Marie Deschamp. And Rosalie Abella. And Marshall Rothstein. And Michael Moldaver.  Write on the banner: “They hate us”. Memorize their names. Tell your children that if they are bad, they will grow up to be like those people who betrayed Canadian democracy. Write the judges letters. Smother them with letters of protest.

The Stephen Harper forces rule by deception, deceit, betrayal, secret pacts, election fraud, suborning of public officers, and every other betrayal of democratic trust they can finesse.

Still, in the face of those facts, Canadians believe that we have antiquated and rarely-used protections of our democracy – which are there in times of need.  Canadians must awaken and realize the protections are falling like ten pins – and that Canada is closer than it has ever been to open civil violence in the struggle to protect democracy in the country.

(1) One of the most important, most rarely used, “antiquated” protections of the democratic freedoms of Canadians rests in the powers of the Governor General to refuse prorogation of parliament (the dissolving of parliament on the request of the prime minister) and to refuse the passage of bills passed in the house by ‘majority’.  Those powers have been violated, stolen, kidnapped, raped by Stephen Harper.

On December 4, 2009, Harper dragooned Governor General Michaelle Jean into a prorogation in order to avoid a coalition that would have run him out of power.  She may have been an ignoramus about Constitutional matters in Canada, but her failure was gigantic, nation-destroying, and unforgivable. Then on December 30, 2009 she permitted another prorogation to Harper so that he could avoid facing the charges that he cooperated in torture and abuse in Afghanistan.  Michaelle Jean’s failures are almost beyond belief.  “But,” you say, “she didn’t understand”. 

That cannot be said of the present Governor General who was a Dean of the  Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario.  David Lloyd Johnson “understands” all too well.  He was – by a very strange coincidence - a Harper Conservative, and by another strange coincidence was appointed by Stephen Harper to shape the terms under which Justice Oliphant would investigate the relation of Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney.  Key question was the huge amount of bribe money floated in the Airbus Affair (purchase of 34 planes by Air Canada).  In 2007 Schreiber alleged “secret commissions” were paid to Brian Mulroney – and Stephen Harper had to act fast (to cut off all chance of revelation). 

By a strange coincidence he appointed David Lloyd Johnson to shape the terms – and terms were crafted that prevented the Inquiry (2009) from examining the key and central Airbus facts or from recommending criminal investigation and trial!!

All went well for Stephen Harper. Mr. Justice Oliphant came as close to calling Brian Mulroney a serial liar as he could do.  But he didn’t go near the Airbus bribery facts. And very shortly after David Lloyd Johnson was, by strange coincidence, named Governor General of Canada.  But that is not all.

(2) In December of 2011 the Federal Court of Canada ruled the Harper legislation to gut the Canadian Wheat Board was illegitimate because the government had ignored a requirement to have a vote of Wheat Board members.  Nonetheless, David Lloyd Johnson, legal expert and Governor General, signed the illegitimate bill into law, and, since, has said and done nothing to challenge that illegitimately passed law.

The Governor Generalship in Canada, many Canadians will insist, is now a farce and a fraud. 

(3) The Supreme Court of Canada, they will declare, is now a farce and a fraud. Elections Canada …?

(4) Elections Canada is failing massively on the investigations into Robocall fraud in the 2011 election and into the accusations against Harper MP Dean Del Maestro who, according to court documents, filled out a false return with Elections Canada and made an illegal contribution to his own campaign. The chief and hard-working enforcer of Elections Canada rules, William Corbett, recently resigned before the end of his term. Why? Why?

His replacement is an ex-ombudsman for National Defence, Yves Cote. On his leaving the post with National Defence, the Armed Forces magazine Esprit de Corps damned him with faint praise. Clearly the conclusion might be he was NOT an effective ombudsman there. Marc Mayrand, Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer, has expressed confidence in Cote – which the rest of Canadians need not have.

 Look at Elections Canada.  When the Robocall Scandal broke – and widespread investigations were absolutely necessary – Marc Mayrand should have taken public platform and asked for an immediate $10  million from the Harper government to conduct full and complete investigation.  He should have refused to take no for an answer.  He should have told Stephen Harper publicly that after the Conservative Party admission of Election Fraud in the 2006 election the $10 million must be forthcoming.  He should have been willing to fight tooth and nail for the funds to investigate.  He wasn’t.

Elections Canada is taking too long on the Robocall investigation.  It is taking too long on the investigation of Dean Del Maestro.  What is going on at Elections Canada?  Is it, too, collapsing before the neo-fascist Harper onslaught?

(5) Readers cannot say that - despite those things - all is well because we have Parliament, the House of Commons with a dynamic Party System at work.  We do not have those things.  The only person fighting Harper corruption with any credibility is Elizabeth May, the only Green Party MP. Thomas Mulcair and Bob Rae are empty, nearly useless ciphers, pretending the Canadian parliament is fine – and is not facing its greatest threat in history.

Thomas Mulcair and Bob Rae should be undertaking every blockage ruse they can invent in Parliament. They should be before audiences all over Canada.  They should be organizing, wherever possible, applications for injunctions against Harper actions.  They should be visiting the Governor General to force his hand about signing legislation illegitimately passed.  They should be openly preventing House of Commons business from proceeding.  They should be loudly and publicly visiting every provincial premier and Opposition leader in Canada. They should be using every tactic they can discover, invent, or imagine to force Canadians to see the crisis their democracy is facing, to force the Mainstream Press and Media to inform Canadians.

 We do not have defense of Canadian democracy in the provincial legislatures. As Stephen Harper rapes the Canadian parliament, as he pushes through a secretly designed, oppressive destroyer of provincial powers – the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement – no provincial premier will get a court order demanding ratification be cancelled until full information has been given, full debate has been conducted, and amendments put forward by interested Canadian governments included.  

The decision has been made to destroy the democratic challenge made by Borys Wrzesnewskyj concerning an (almost certainly improper) election in Etobicoke-Centre. The four Supreme Court of Canada judges responsible, Marie Deschamps, Rosalie Abella, Marshall Rothstein, and Michael Modaver cannot be condemned strongly enough, and those judges cannot be openly criticized often enough, publicly, frequently, tirelessly. 

The decision has been made, we are told.  Now we must ‘accept it and move on’.  That advice comes from … you can guess who gives that advice. 

Don’t heed it. Don’t accept it. Don’t move on.  Fight the decision in every way you can fight it. If the Supreme Court of Canada is willing to destroy democracy in Canada, Canadians must be willing to destroy the Supreme Court of Canada.

 

When Slime
Smiles!

Why is this man creature
smiling?

It's only Thursday morning, but it has already been a good week for Treason Steven Harper.  This morning the Supreme Court of Canada, in an apparent attempt to become more like its cousin to the south the USSC, both in the tenor of its decisions and the polorized split evidenced by the 4-3 judgement, over turned  Ontario Superior Court Justice Thomas Lederer's ruling that invalidated the results of the 2011 election in Etobicoke Centre riding. Once again the PsuedoCons of the Harper Government (tm) were reassured that cheating is just fine, if that is what it takes to win. Of course they also have the resources of the Canadian taxpayers to finance their ongoing attempts to wiggle away anytime they are called on, or challenged about their gradual destruction of democracy and establishment by stealth of Stephen Harper as Emperor - Stephen the Great.

When they were accused of violating election finance rules over the in and out scandal, they denied with vigor for a couple of years until they finally had to essentially plead guilty and pay a miniscule fine, less than the cost of one of their sickening attack ads on opposition leaders and/or potential opposition leaders that run even when no election is in sight. In the view of the majority justices 59 of the votes tossed out by the lower court judge were not invalid, thus giving Ted Opitz a six vote victory. However, the dissenting three judges, not only dissenting,- but dissenting quite strongly, included the Chief Justice and had a very different opinion.
According to the CBC:

What is surprising is that three of the judges reached an opinion that is almost diametrically opposed to the four in the majority.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justices Louis LeBel and Morris Fish found that 65 of the 79 ballots discarded by the lower court judge should have been tossed.

The minority judges took a much harsher view of procedural errors...../snip

 "The Chief Justice, in her words, says she cannot accept the view of the majority ... (that) imperfections in the conduct of an election are inevitable. That is to say, I suppose, that imperfections are acceptable. I don't think that is the kind of elections Canadians want," Tighe (attorney for the plaintiff) said after the ruling.

Stephen Harper and Ted Opitz refused to comment, at least that I can find so far. Ted Opitz of course had a good excuse because he had a plane to catch so he could go to the Ukraine to teach Ukrainians how to steal run elections. Bob Rae issued a statement after the ruling was announced.

.....interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae thanked Wrzesnewskyj for his "dedication to upholding the integrity of Canada’s electoral system," calling his faith in democracy "nothing short of remarkable."

"In addition to the split ruling today, there still exists a disturbing trend of irregularities and reports of election fraud stemming from the 2011 general election," Rae said in the statement. "We cannot forget that Canadians across the country were deprived of their right to vote through a co-ordinated attack on our democracy.

"There is still much work to be done and many questions to be answered in order to restore our confidence in Canada's electoral institutions," he said.

Over at the Sixth Estate, the decision is broken down in detail, and links provided to the complete judgements in both the lower court and today's Supreme Court smackdown. SE quotes from SCC judgement as follows:

A candidate who lost in a close federal election attempts to set aside the result of that election. We are asked to disqualify the votes of several Canadian citizens based on administrative mistakes… We decline the invitation to do so. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms… [has] clear and historic purposes of enfranchising Canadian citizens, such that they may express their democratic preference, and of protecting the integrity of our electoral process… we reject the candidate’s attempt to disenfranchise entitled voters and so undermine public confidence in the electoral process.

This diligent blogger then goes on to point out, and I agree fully:

 
Before we go on here, I want to highlight that last sentence. The Supreme Court is accusing the Liberal Party of attempting to “undermine public confidence in the electoral process.” Not just saying that the effect of the ruling would be to do that, but that this was the active intention of the candidate. These are highly accomplished jurists writing here: it’s safe say to say they mean what they write. It’s sad to see the court politicized in this fashion, and presumably it’s something we can come to expect with regularity under the Harper regime.

In essence, this ruling can be summarized as: prove it.

This is the same attitude the Harper excuse for a government has used repeatedly when caught engaging in questionable tactics. When a dying independent former Reform and Con MP was offered a bribe to prop up Stevie's majority, even a recording of Harper and a cohort discussing it wasn't proof enough and apparently the promise of her husband's seat in the house was enough to shut up the widow and daughter who had originally protested the gall of offering a dying man a million dollar life insurance policy. I'm starting to believe that even a picture of Slime Stevie in bed with a dead hooker or a live boy would just be attributed to PhotoShop (tm).

The meme that these particular robo-calls or this instance of voter suppression or fraud wouldn't change the results of the election comes up often and as far as I am concerned is completely irrelevant. I'm confident that if I attempted to rob a bank, and left without any money and without hurting anyone, I wouldn't have much luck using that in my defense, other than in my plea for a lighter sentence - and even then it might not count for much, especially under the HarperCons Tough on Crime (as long as we didn't do it) Government!

Treason Steven might be even happier with the result of a trial in Italy in which the verdict and sentences came down a day or two ago. From Time magazine

Yesterday was a very good day for stupid — better than any it’s had in a while. Stupid gets fewer good days in the 21st century than it used to get, but it enjoyed a great ride for a long time — back in the day when there were witches to burn and demons to exorcise and astronomers to put on trial for saying that the Earth orbits around the sun.

But yesterday was a reminder of stupid’s golden era, when an Italian court sentenced six scientists and a government official to six years in prison on manslaughter charges, for failing to predict a 2009 earthquake that killed 300 people in the town of l’Aquila. The defendants are also required to pay €7.8 million ($10 million) in damages.

If there are any folks Stevie Slime detests more than opposition politicians, they are scientists and statisticians. If there is anything other than a bullet that strikes fear into the heart of an ideologue like Harper and his Canadian Taliban it is scientific or mathematical facts. I fear that this judgement in Italy will give Steve and the Choirboys 'n Girls ideas. So far they have limited their assault on reality to weakening the ability of Statscan to gather information and gagging scientists working for, theoretically, the people of Canada.  I can see Harper in my mind's eye right now, rubbing his hands together and emitting a Montgomery Burns worthy cackle as he plots how to arrest, charge and jail dem irritating scientists that are concerned with climate change and the environment.  The only knowledge (other than biblical fairytales) that Harper respects are the discredited economic theories of his mentors at the University of Calgary and the font of neo-liberal golden showers, the Chicago School of Reich Wing Monetary Voodoo!

The good doctor, Doctor Dawg, captured the absurdity very well with his post DawgNews exclusive: Ottawa weatherman jailed

  (Ottawa, October 24) DawgNews has learned that the once-popular CBC weatherman Ian Black was sentenced to a eighteen-month jail term today for public mischief, after being found guilty by an Ottawa judge of “misleading weather predictions causing harm to the community.”

Uncontradicted evidence had been submitted to the court that Black, on numerous occasions in the past year, referred to a “possibility of precipitation,” without exercising due diligence to warn citizens of impending heavy snowfalls and thunderstorms.

“My car went into a ditch after skidding on a patch of ice,” prosecution witness Elmer Fairfield testified. “The unexpected snow had concealed it from view.”

Lettie Hollander, a spokesperson for the Westboro Unified Church, testified that a summer picnic she had helped to organize at the Experimental Farm had been “utterly ruined.” “We were soaked to the skin,” she said. “And our sandwiches were too soggy to eat.”

As usual it is well worth a trip over to Dr. Dawg's joint for not only the rest of the post about the incarceration of the weatherman, but his commenters who carry on the discussion just as tongue in cheek. We have to use humor as a weapon, it's either that or going more Latin American or Middle Eastern - bullets and bombs.

Calling Lisa Raitt   

Lisa Raitt, who is usually on top of labor disputes even before anybody is locked out or out on strike has been conspicuous by her invisibility during this owner initiated cessation of Canada's favorite winter team sport at the highest professional level. Recently I suggested she step in like she had with the Post Office and Air Canada and order the seven Canadian teams back to their arenas - and invite Buffalo to join, being as it is a depressed city and it would be cool to have a four team division for both East and West. After all there are many folks undergoing ECONOMIC hardship in seven Canadian cities right now. I dare say the lack of the Canucks, Flames, Oilers, Maple Laughs, Canadians, Jets and Senators really hurts sales of jerseys, business at sports bars and massive losses for the owners of parking facilities from coast to coast. I can only guess that since both sides in the NHL dispute are one percenters, the millionaires versus the billionaires, Lisa can't figure out which side of her constituency to favor.

I haven't heard from Canada's First Fan, Stephen Harper on the issue, but last night on Jay Leno, President Obama said:

  "I just want to remind the owners and the players: you guys make money because you've got a whole bunch of fans out there who are working really hard. They buy tickets. They're watching on TV. Y'all should be able to figure this out. Get this done."

Afghans must

be Dumb!
or maybe it's Mitt

Afghan inks deal with Iran for access to seaport

AP /  September 5, 2012 

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan government has signed an agreement with Iran that gives land-locked Afghanistan access to a key seaport in the neighboring country.

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasool and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi inked the deal in Kabul on Wednesday.

Rasool told reporters that the agreement guarantees Afghanistan access to the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Indian Ocean. Iran has been working to develop Chabahar as a regional economic hub.

yeah, it's Mitt
 

1100 miles of coastline from the Persian Gulf
to the Indian Ocean

Last night the MittStake with the magic Mormon underwear continued his demonstration of his faith in the power of lies, no surprise. However on a number of subjects he also showed himself to be a male equivalent of Sarah Palin with the polish of an Ivy League education, which apparently taught him very little other than how to move money from where ever into the pockets and offshore accounts of himself and his ilk. Here is a man with two graduate degrees from Harvard (he should demand his money back) who has also traveled in the region who not only doesn't seem to realize that Iran has over a thousand miles of coastline, littered with too many ports for me to even list here, but had no access to Syria, other than by sea via the Suez Canal or through it's arch enemy, well they were arch enemies until G Dubya and his master Dick upset that apple cart, Iraq.

Let's Play Battleship

Nowadays folks can't seem to even play solitaire with actual cards anymore, but when I was a kid we used to play battleship with just a couple pieces of paper and pencils. Last night Obama beat Romney at a short hand of the Battleship game. After Romney bemoaned the fact that the U.S. Navy had less vessels today than during World War One, to which Obama pointed out they also had fewer bayonets and horses. Of course the ReThuglican pundits who afterward piped up afterward that the US military still had both horses and bayonets, missed the point completely, illustrating that they were merely as disingenuous or retarded as their not necessarily preferred but the candidate with whom their are stuck. Little buddy Lyin' Ryan, whose speaking skills seem limited to prevaricating with ease, didn't even understand what Obama was saying:

It’s not usually national news when some guy doesn’t get a joke. But apparently that doesn't apply if that person is Paul Ryan, who told CBS this morning that he didn’t get Obama’s horses and bayonets zinger. 

"To compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets, I just don't understand that comparison," Ryan said.

Then after his slow mind finally got the joke, Little Paul doubled down on dumbness and told CBS News:

 

“The ocean hasn’t shrunk,” Ryan declared in the CBS interview. 

No matter how much the Reich Wingnuts protest that Obama was mean or condescending or that overall Mitt won the debate, the surest sign they aren't that confident that in spite of all the blatant lies and pre-arranged Republican and Romney Family owned and operated voting machines (Forbes, Truthout), especially in Ohio, voter suppression and disappearing voter registrations (GOP Voter Registration Scandal Widens, Prosecutors File Criminal Charges) haven't guaranteed a win is watching KKKarl Rove seeming to actually lose it. Last night he was even crazier than when he pulled out the childlike sketches during the McCain-Tundra Trailer Trash Thrashing to somehow prove some secret math that only he understood - that math was apparently as bad as is Romney's and Ryan's. The sad excuse for a man better known as Bu$h's Brain or Turd Blossom fired off an editorial on Faux Snooze comparing Obama to Louis the XIV of France.

 ......he thought Obama came off as looking “a little pompous,” which then led him to conclude that Obama was like “Louis XIV masquerading as the President of the United States.”

Considering the level of American comprehension of European history, or even their own, I would think it not smart to bring up "pompous" French monarchs, since even I couldn`t help thinking of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, who famously lost their heads at the Bastille and their twenty-first century versions  Mitt and Ann Romney, who seem less charitable than even Marie and would like to deprive the 47% of even their cake so the ``non-takers¨ could use that cake money to create jobs, in China.

Harper's
Junta

It is pretty easy to believe that Stevie Slime will be curled up with popcorn rooting for the Mittster tonight as he and the Kenyan Communist have their final debate in Boca Raton. Treason Steven won't be able to control his bladder in two weeks if the MittStake should happen to either win the election or with the help of KKKarl Rove and Diebold, steal it, if necessary. It is clear that in spite of the fact that Obama is hardly even a Democrat, much less a socialist, that our man (or boy?) Herr Harper would be much happier with a ReThuglican in the White House. Indeed there are many who think that all these decisions about Nexxan and other proposed foreign takeovers of Canadian resources are being punted down the road until Stevie and his Canadian Taliban know who will be in the White House next January.

I just posted two posts by Robin Mathews over at the Legislature Raids one of which discusses the Council of Canadians and their role in trying to protect Canadian sovereignty, a role abdicated apparently by both government and opposition since Lyin' Brian initiated the fire sale of Canada. Now it seems that Canadians themselves are being offered as serfs to our new Yankee or Chinese masters, or both. 

The more recent post from Robin over at Mary's may seem somewhat extreme to some, but give your head a shake and consider how extreme are the policies that this excuse for a government under Stephen Harper are pursuing. In Dismembering Canada Mr. Mathews suggests that British Columbians, especially, might consider using the same referendum process that was supposed to eliminate the H.S.T., to leave a Confederation that is being set up to be run from Bejing, without representation from Canadians. 

Also in my inbox this morning was a link to a short piece by Joshua Holland about how China built a factory, in China of course, for Mitt's former company Bain to ship American jobs ($14-$17 per hour w/benefits) in order to both hide profits, avoid taxes and pay wages of 99 cents to $1.35 per hour for twelve hour days.

Inside Bain's Chinese Sensata Factories, Where Workers Put in 12-Hour Days for $.99-$1.35 an Hour

Bain didn't build that new factory -- the Chinese Government did.

October 20, 2012  |  

Mitt Romney has made Obama's out-of-context “you didn't build that” quote a central theme of his campaign. It's ironic, as Mitt Romney is going to profit just before the election when Bain-owned Sensata Technologies moves 170 high-tech jobs from Freeport, Illinois, to a plant in China built for the firm by the Chinese government.
Sensata enjoyed record revenues last year – this isn't about making the “hard choices” necessary to save a failing enterprise. The workers in Freeport have been working 24 hours a day, in three shifts. They make $14-17 per hour, with benefits........../snip

The man who would be king:

 As I was trolling the tooobz for a regal portrait of Herr Harper to create King Stevie's new Chinadian Flag I came across an excerpt of a Dan Gardner column from the Ottawa Citizen from April, 2010. In this piece Mr. Gardner compares Our Little Steven to Charles the First of the 17th century. 

So I was thinking about the implications of a prime minister getting away with telling Parliament to do something indecent with the ceremonial mace and this naturally led me to imagine which figures from history best exemplify Stephen Harper....../snip

 If Stephen Harper can open and close Parliament at will, and tell the honourable members of that institution that he will disclose to them what he wishes when he chooses, then he will have rolled back four centuries of parliamentary governance. He will be Charles I, circa 1635.

Now, I must admit I am an excitable fellow and this did strike me, on reflection, as being a bit over the top. So I called Errol Mendes, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and one of the country’s leading constitutional scholars. Have I lost it, I asked?

No, he said. You’re right.

 I really kinda wanted to check out the rest of the column over at the Citizen, but when I tried to access it I was told:

We’re sorry, the page you requested is not available.

 Oh well, I got the gist of the idea, and it is eerie the degree to which what is going on with the Mittster, with Stevie Slime and our own non-Premier Lady GagMe Christy Clark and China especially and the democratic deficit, marginalization of government itself other than the Head (or toilet in nautical jargon) and it's rule be fiat and imperial dictact seems almost seamless. I am comforted a bit when I recall what happened to Charles the First in 1649 though, because his reign of arrogance abruptly came to an end when his royal head was forcibly removed from the rest of his arseholish body.  Perhaps Herr Harper should consider how so many who thought they could rule without the consent of the ruled wound up, it ain't always pretty!

The contempt that Harper and his Taliban have shown for Parliament doesn't begin to compare to the contempt I hold for him and his ilk!

We Get (Spam) Comments

Though I have the odd complaint here and there with Google and Blogspot, overall they do provide a good service at no cost (other than what they can gain from their data mining etc.) and their built in in-house spam detection/protection is pretty darn good.  I either run or help manage a few blogs and at times spam comments can become a real problem. So far though I have been able to avoid subjecting my prospective commenters to an eye test, but have implemented a level of protection, one part of which is refusing to accept comments on older posts without moderation. Today though I got one for Mary's Legislature Raids that though I won't publish it there, on the post it was intended for, I will publish it here on the front page of the House of Infamy.  It is just so appropriate, and if it coaxes  anyone to go back and read Robin Mathews'  post there from last November, so much the better!   

 Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Tony Clement And The G8 Boondoggle. November 24. ...":

Admiring the persistence you put into your
website and detailed information you provide. It's good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same outdated rehashed material.
Great read! I've saved your site and I'm adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.
My weblog - www.mygazebo.com

Publish
Delete
Mark as spam

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Anonymous to The Legislature Raids at 22 October, 2012 8:58 AM

Isn't that precious, that someone with a blog perhaps selling gazebos, gazebo kits or just some kind of phishing site (I won't find out cuz I ain't going there, well maybe I will on a public machine, but not my own) would try to sell/push/promote whatever they're pushing on a blogpost almost a year old because of Tony "Gazebos on the Border" Clement and John "I've got more spittle than anyone" Baird?  I almost want to set up an RSS feed for the creep, of some kind of porn or something........

Mitten's
Wimmens!

Last night many folks were relieved to see Obama show up for the debate on Long Island. It would appear that two weeks ago in Denver Obama was either feeling the effects of high altitude, or completely taken by surprise by the "New" Moderate Mitt Romney. After almost two years of virtually denying he had ever been governor of blue Taxachussetts and claiming no credit for implementing the model for Obamacare in his state, in Denver a completely new Romney appeared that would practically out Obama in coddling both the rich, the poor and the downtrodden endangered species we call the middle class. It seems that Obama must have prepared for the Mittster who spent months posing as a more extreme conservative than whack jobs like Rick "Frothy" Santorum, Big Hair Rick Perry who set an even lower bar for governor of Texas than his Predecessor, George Bu$h the Lesser, and Tea-Party Queen Michelle Bachmann.

So last night Obama arrived prepared to call out Mitt RMoney at every prevarication, like Uncle Joe Biden had done with Little Paul "crying" Ryan, with even more class and style. It is really fun to read this morning about the wing-nuts on the right and how they try to spin last night as another victory for the MittStake. The silliness ranged from simple Goebbels style Big Lie repitition to outright denial, to blaming the Moderator for throwing the fight. Actually all that really happened was Obama took advantage of the fact that the truth and facts are biased, and not in the direction that Romney, Ryan and their bosses like the Koch brothers and KKKarl Rove would like to take the country and the planet.

Over at Think Progress, Igor Volskey who found 27 egregious lies that issued from Mitt's Lips last time in 38 minutes found that with three extra minutes to work with, the Mitt managed four more lies documented at Romney Told 31 Myths In 41 Minutes During Last Night's Debate.  It was an amazing performance by Mitt, considering that Obama used his share of the time to effectively debunk so many of them on the spot.

Comparable to Romney's threat to Big Bird last time was Mitt's claim to have asked for binders of women candidates for high level government positions during his one term Massachusetts practice session for being preznit. Although Mitt claimed last night that he, upon detecting a shortage of women in such positions had demanded that suitable women be suggested, what actually happened was pretty much exactly the opposite. According to the a reporter at the Boston Phoenix: 

In fact, Romney did not direct women's groups to bring him female candidates, Boston Phoenix reporter David Bernstein points out. A non-partisan collaboration of women’s groups called Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP) was responsible for the effort in 2002, when the group's leaders realized that women held only 30 percent of the top appointed positions in the state.

To top this little excursion into the non-factual, the actual percentage of women in such positions at the end of Romney's practice term had declined to  27.6%.

Another oft repeated meme by the Mittster was the charge that under Obama oil production in the US on public lands had declined by 14 percent. But as Andrea Mitchell, no left wing LIBrul, indeed the wife of Wall Street's friend Alan Greenspan, pointed out that in the one year period when most of the offshore production was going straight into the Gulf of Mexico, instead of into barrels, thanks to the Deep Horizon mess, production had been curtailed by about 14%. No barrels were coming from Deep Horizon and most of the Gulf was shut down for good reason. However over the almost four years of the Obama administration production overall had increased almost thirty percent over the time Washington was ruled by the oily Gee Dubya and Dick Cheney.  Perhaps if Mitt could take some time from personally building the Keystone Pipeline, which he has threatened to do, he could measure the amount of oil that was injected directly into the Gulf of Mexico during the ongoing destruction courtesy of British Petroleum. 

Last night even the Moderator did some instant real time fact checking, calling Mitt on the false claim that it took two weeks for the administration to suggest the attack on Ben Ghazi was terrorism - which the President called it the next day in the Rose Garden. For more analysis of the strange dis-connect between Mitt Romney and the ReThuglican Party and the truth please check out Juan Cole and Robert Reich.  I guess we are headed back to the state where only voter suppression and Diebold can offer the imaginary Mitt Romney a chance to live at the White House. 

I still waver in my preference though. While there is no question Obama is the lesser evil, sometimes I feel to go with the devil himself might lead to the real change that is going to have to come if our species is going to survive with any kind of quality of life. Electing Obama might merely delay the  revolution that may be necessary economically and politically!

Make Believe Mitt
in Denver

If you don't like my position,
...Just Shake Please.

The pundit-sphere has been falling all over themselves the last few days about how Mitt the Twit "won" the debate on Wednesday night. Well, I guess he did, if running over the moderator and just saying whatever seemed palatable while repudiating the  last two years of campaigning and essentially out Obama-ing Obama on Obama's platform is any kind of victory.  Of course for the pundits, the contest has to remain a horse race, and the way it has been going for the Mittstake, pretty soon - no body was going to be interested in what the talking heads had to say.

Over at Think Progress, with ease, they were able to illustrate how Mitt was able to spin 27 myths in a mere 38 minutes.  Of course to the Romney campaign this is simply not relevant, after all, Romney pollster  Neil Newhouse responded to earlier criticism about the same factual shortcomings , saying, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” That is a pretty clear statement that the truth really doesn't matter to the Romney camp.

Matt Taibbi, in the Rolling Stone, was even blunter, even though he couldn't stomach actually watching the de-BAIT itself, he read in in transcript form. From this reading it was clear that Mitt from Moron won only if one suspended reality in order to render a decision.

Romney's performance was better than Obama's, but only if you throw out criteria like "wasn't 100% full of shit from the opening bell" and "made an actual attempt to explain who he is and what his plans are." Unfortunately, that is good enough for our news media, which drools over the gamesmanship aspects of these debates, because it loves candidates who sink their teeth into the horse-race nonsense that they think validates their professional lives.

 From his grab-bag of lies for all occasions, Mitt even managed to dig up the old Tundra Trailer Trash Palin chestnut about "death panels," that would be part of the ObamaCare that is so faithful to Republican ideals as evidenced in RomneyCare in Massachusetts. If insurance company bean-counters that decide on who gets what, if any treatment today in the U.S. aren't an actual "death panel,"  then Adolf Eichmann's whole career was an attempt to improve the life of Jews everywhere.As Matt, in the article linked to above goes on to say:

I read the transcript of the debate and all I got from Romney was either outright factual lies, or total rhetorical dishonesty. He even tried out a version of the for-years-debunked death panel business:

    In order to bring the cost of health care down, we don't need to have a -- an -- a board of 15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have.

Really? Hey, Mitt – what do you think health insurance is? It is, by definition, a bunch of people deciding what kinds of treatments we should have.

Mitt has had to walk back numerous of his MittStatements, starting almost as soon as he left the stage - including this one, #26 from the list:

 26) “I think about half of [the green firms Obama invested in], of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.” As of late last year, only “three out of the 26 recipients of 1705 loan guarantees have filed for bankruptcy, with losses estimated at just over $600 million.

So many of the lies simply accuse the President of positions or actions actually done or proposed by him and his little buddy, Paul Ryan. Like when he accuses Obama of wanting to drastically cut the military budget. He neglects to mention that Obama actually doesn't want to cut the budget much, but the sequester forced by the Paul Ryan House instead of any compromise over the debt ceiling will cut military spending and affect the budget in many drastic ways.  When Mitch McConnell, minority leader in the Senate announced at the start of Obama's presidency that the business of Congress would be to insure Barrack was a one term president, it is easy to assign blame to the proper party for the lack of bi-partisan co-operation.

The Republicans have devolved into a party that would rather destroy the Republic than let the Angry, Black, Muslim, born in Kenya run the show. A lot like the twit on the playground who takes his ball home unless he gets to win. 

Mitt, though unwilling to specify which loopholes he would close to make up for his 5 trillion dollar tax gift to the rich, wasn't as vague about programs and agencies he would terminate, as he has been all through the primary debates as well. But in Denver he declared a new enemy to freedom and fiscal responsibility. He will fire both Jim Lehrer (maybe justified, based on his useless performance as a moderator) and Big Bird. Wow, Mitt, that will probably save about one millionth of a percent of the Federal Budget, not quite enough to start another war, but every penny helps!

Take that you varmint!

Mitt Romney: Job Creator!

The Moron Mormon MittStake likes to characterize himself and his billionaire friends and supporters as "job creators." Well, at least he isn't lying about this, because he does create thousands of j5obs, unfortunately for Mitt, the fortunate (?) folks with those jobs mostly can't vote in American elections, not even absentee. Here is where a few thousand of them labor, behind razor wire fences to discourage quitting, often forced to work over 100 hours per seven day week.

Want a Job? Move to China
Work for Romney

At a gathering of potential donors in Boca Raton, Florida, the Mitt stayed true to the vision he shared with his infamous "47% of Americans (especially retirees, students, disabled and vets) are parasites," when he told of the good ol' days at Bain Capital.

Betting Against American Workers

Mr. Romney and Bain Capital Invest in a Brutal Sweatshop in China

• “When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there.”  Mr. Romney was a pioneer of outsourcing U.S. jobs and production to China.
• At its peak, for two and a half years from April 1998 through August 2000, Mr. Romney and his Brookside Capital Partners Fund invested approximately $23 million in the Global-Tech sweatshop in Dongguan, China.
• Mr. Romney was there when the Race to the Bottom in the global sweatshop economy was launched.  Mr. Romney noted “the pittance they earned”— just 24 cents an hour in 1998 and less than $2.00 a day.  Wages in Global-Tech were less than 2 percent of U.S. wages.
• Despite his investment and power as Bain Capital’s CEO, Mr. Romney apparently failed to urge Chinese management to even modestly improve Global-Tech’s gross working and living conditions or the pitifully low wages of its workers.
• If Mr. Romney had spoken up, conditions at Global-Tech might be far better today.  Sadly, in 2012, Global-Tech remains a brutal sweatshop, where workers are paid starvation wages of $1.00 an hour and have no rights.
• Today at Global-Tech, every single labor law in China is violated:  primitive, filthy dorm conditions are the norm;  routine 15- to 16-hour shifts prevail, along with grueling 105- to 112-hour, seven-day work weeks.    
• Eight hundred student interns — many exhausted children, just 16 years old — are forced to work the grueling 15- to 16-hour shifts with no overtime pay.
• In the context of Mr. Romney’s present “get tough on China” stance, it would be critical for Mr. Romney to clarify exactly what he and Bain Capital did at the Global-Tech factory in Dongguan, China to push back against the evident abuses in the factory and to assure respect for human, women’s and workers’ rights.

Click on Image to Enlarge

For a summary of what it is like to work in Mitt's World, click on the image above. For a more complete analysis of the wonders of Romney's idea of job creation (reminiscent of the Motto displayed at Nazi death camps "Work is Freedom") see the complete report at the Global Labour and Human Rights Web site. 

Updated......
not so Dumb &
Dumbest!

Reconsidering Redford

In yesterday's post I may have given Ms. Redford more props for smarts than she deserves. Of course a slobbering lobotomized gibbon would appear to possess rare wisdom, placed next to BeeCee's own version of a hybrid between Sarah "Tundra Trailer Trash" Palin and Snooki - our photo-op seeking pretend premier Christy Clark.  According to the plagiary prone Glop and Pail , the meeting between the belles of the west was in a word (the belles' word) 'frosty!'

Of course I wasn't in the room when these two met, so I know not what our bubbling fountain of bullshit may or may not have said. However Christy's excuse for a Five Point plan regarding Northern Gateway has been very well publicized and as a graduate of law school I would think Alison can read. However the "not so" in yesterday's title banner had to be stricken because Alison:

 ......said sharing bitumen royalties and taxes is out of the question, said Ms. Clark is short on suggestions when it comes to how B.C. could increase its slice of the pipeline’s economic benefits.

“She didn’t have a response. So I (Alison) don’t have any idea what she (Christy) means....../snip

Ms. Redford seems to only hear the one point that Christy makes, that B.C. should benefit economically from such a risky project, while ignoring the points relating to the environment and first nations. Whether or not Christy would sell out the north if the price was right is irrelevant, because in this one instance Christy's demands for environmental accountability DO REFLECT the majority of British Columbians - more and more of whom are coming to the conclusion that commenter "caesar" expresses as on of the almost 300 comments already submitted when I was there.

caesar

12:33 AM on October 2, 2012

WE WILL STOP IT

ALBERTA WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO DESTROY BEAUTIFUL BC TO SELL ITS BITAMIN FOR PEANUTS TO POLLUTING COMMUNIST CHINA

Much of the comments, as usual on any mainstream comment thread are stupid name calling and recitation of talking points from Big Oil or Big Steve, Big Peter Kent and the rest of the Merry Canadian Taliban Corporate Buttlickers' Club. However, a few brought up another very good point. They thought that perhaps all the Albertans running down the dope smoking fantasy dwelling BeeCeers should consider retiring in the mostly flat, boring and often polluted province where they made all their money.

After all, why should British Columbia not only risk the destruction of the north, the coast and the fisheries, but also accept and pay the health costs of all these now breaking down Old Albertans?  Everyone knows that the proportion of health care costs one incurs during their life is greatest in the last years. Why should Alberta benefit from the wages and taxes from all these working folks busily toxifying the planet and then dump them when they will need expensive health care on the taxpayers of B.C.?

It would appear that Alison wants everything her way. She and her foreign owners can suck up all the profits from the tar sands and then dump all the environmental risk and burnt out old people on British Columbia.  Just two comments from one rather heated thread about this issue were between (Building an) Ark who thinks B.C. is for Alberta to exploit in whatever manner it chooses and one Hugh Wood are:

Hugh Wood

12:02 AM on October 2, 2012

Where are you planning to retire Ark, Medicine Hat?
Report Abuse

Score: -2
Building an Ark

12:13 AM on October 2, 2012

Rossland BC...no where near Idiots such as yourself...real people, real life...not Prop up Dippers Dolls like you left Coasters!

Well, Mr. Building an Ark, if you want to stay away from "us idiots," perhaps you should reconsider your retirement destination, try maybe the Okanagan,  or Red Neck Bill Bennett's town of Cranbrook. Rossland is located in an island of sanity represented by the NDP both federally and provincially.  You wouldn't want to be propping us up now, would you?

not so Dumb &
Dumbest!

Gal Pals of the Wild West

from the plagiarism friendly Globe and Mail

......On Monday, Alberta Premier Alison Redford and B.C. Premier Christy Clark are meeting in Calgary, under the frostiest terms, to discuss a lynchpin in Alberta’s plan to get its energy resources to Asian markets – the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Today our very own Snooki of the Western Shores is in Cowtown to engage in some girl talk, minus the giggles, with her much more intelligent Alberta counterpart. By now I'm no longer surprised by the synchronicity that last night, true Canadian patriot, Robin Mathews, sent me another column to post that deals with the oil patch, the media and the legacy of the so recently late Edgar Peter Lougheed. I take full responsibility for any bold passages. Of course there may not be any, because every time I start to make this disclaimer it turns out that I find almost the whole piece worthy of the bold treatment.

Peter Lougheed
The Destruction of Canada.
The Collapse
of the
Mainstream Press and Media.
submitted by - Robin Mathews

This column is about the sell-out of Canada, the organized, structured sell-out of Canada, the intended betrayal of Canadians.  It begins with the Mainstream Press and Media, a major instrument of sell-out.

There are Canadians who persist in believing the “democracy” we live in is functional and that the Mainstream Press and Media (the MSM) are what they themselves say they are – guardians of truth and democratic freedoms. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Margaret Wente and the allegations of her plagiarism in the Globe and Mail provide a symptom of the way things are, a symptom of the sickness upon the land.  She is the tiny, tiny tip of a huge unseen iceberg. Fire her, or leave her alone, and no one will notice….

Apparently, there are Canadians surprised that columnist Margaret Wente was recently discovered in plagiarism, that the Globe and Mail – her employer – “disciplined” her secretly while approving of her work. (Plagiarism is the big NO of journalism among journalists – stealing other people’s writing.  But in Canada it is a lesser sin – as we will see.)

The Mainstream Press and Media (the MSM) in Canada are stranglers of Canadian democracy.  They are cover-up experts of sell-out. They are hireling magicians who wave the ugly truth away from sight and replace it with pretty, plastic make-believe.

The cathedral bells have ended their mournful tolling at his death, and the hireling journalists have folded away their cotton-candy phrases extolling the greatness of E. Peter Lougheed, premier of Alberta. In that position he acted from 1971 to 1985.  He claimed to be Canadian first, Albertan second, and Progressive Conservative third.  The MSM (Mainstream Press and Media) repeated that and similar cotton candy fluff endlessly upon Lougheed’s death on Sept. 13, 2012. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Every evidence I can find reveals E. Peter Lougheed was one of Canada’s leading sell-outs, his reputation made by U.S. oil interests, reactionary propaganda tents like the Fraser Institute, and by Harper-style neo-liberals.  All of their expressions of admiration have been repeated as gospel by the hirelings of the MSM.

Again and again he is praised for “protecting” Alberta’s oil from the incursions of Ottawa and for fighting the National Energy Program set up by the Pierre Trudeau Liberals in 1980.  But something about that program must have been good.  80% of Canadians polled favoured it. 80% of Albertans polled favoured it. That last fact is now buried under the lies and propaganda of the latter-day neo-liberals. None of the journalistic hirelings I could read (or hear) described the National Energy Program clearly and fairly for audience.

If 80% of Canadians favoured the National Energy Program, then who didn’t?  The people who owned the Canadian oil patch and E. Peter Lougheed – in short, the U.S. oil interests. A fundamental argument must be put forward here:  E. Peter Lougheed was, I believe, first and foremost the spokeman for and protector of U.S. oil interests in Alberta and Canada.  All else came after that.  He was, in effect, an important bridge to Stephen Harper and the open sell-out of Canada.

When he ended his 14 year stint as premier of Alberta, E. Peter Lougheed went to Ottawa. To do what?  To advise the federal cabinet on energy policy for Canada?  No. To be a lobbyist for U.S. oil interests in Ottawa. An edifying picture.  Just out of a job, the long-time premier of Alberta travelled to Ottawa to protect the interests of major U.S. corporations exploiting the wealth of Canada for foreign profit and power. At least he was consistent in and out of office.

Since, constitutionally, both federal and provincial governments have powers relating to energy, both could argue for final power.  After the 1979 Iranian Revolution oil prices rocketted up 150%.  The federal government kept a lid on Canadian prices for obvious, positive reasons.  That didn’t please E. Peter Lougheed – which, as I see it, means it didn’t please the U.S. oil interests he served. In 1980, the national government put the National Energy Program in place.

When commentators say that, in March 1981, “Alberta” cut its daily output of 1.2 million barrels by 60,000 barrels “to fight Canada’s National Energy Program”, they don’t point out that the cuts would never have been made without close harmony (to put the matter delicately) between E. Peter Lougheed and the U.S. oilmen in Alberta.

In fact, the rise in oil prices produced a huge transfer of wealth from Canada to the U.S. because of the high level of U.S. ownership of the oil and gas industry.  Indeed, the absence of almost any Canadian presence in the fossil fuel industry in Canada had brought about the creation of Petro Canada in 1975, a wholly-owned, Canadian corporation as a Crown Corporation. In 1973 the NDP government of Saskatchewan created Saskoil for the same reason. Both were successful, though Petro Canada faced some tough times in roller-coaster oil markets. Both were privatized by Right governments. Saskoil eventually became a part of Nexxen Canada. 

Nowhere (that I heard or read) did writers for the MSM, at the time of E. Peter Lougheed’s death, say what the purposes were of the National Energy Program (and, earlier, the creation of Petro Canada and Saskoil).  I suggest they didn’t dare.  For if they had done so, their unstinting praise of E. Peter Lougheed’s Canadianism would have looked the sham and hypocrisy it was.

The National Energy Program was designed to promote Canadian ownership, to provide oil self-sufficiency for Canada (still not achieved), to lower prices, to promote exploration, to encourage alternative energy sources, and to increase government revenues. It was the beginning of what might well have become – with care and determination – a “Norwegian model” in Canada.

Norway moved into major oil production in the 1970s. It produces much less petroleum than Canada, but it has saved $600 billion for the country’s use.  Canada has a national debt close to $570 billion.  Norway is free of debt and has full employment. Norway has (by careful planning) avoided a huge increase in the value of the krone (Norway’s dollar), and has no “Dutch disease” which is afflicting Canada and damaging Ontario’s economy because oil sale and tar sands development have pushed the dollar over what almost all experts agree is a reasonable value.

The story goes on … and on – of the benefits Norway has exacted from the exploitation of its own fossil fuels. (see Mitchell Anderson, Tyee, July 2012, Norway-Oil-Wealth.)

What matters most, probably, is that Norway has (a) an important Norwegian State oil company, Statoil, and others, owning almost a third of oil production, and (b) foreign oil operators pay corporate taxes twice as high as in Canada, a special oil profits tax, and follow strict regulations about Norwegian employment and technology sharing. Canada is, apparently, the only major oil producer in the world with no National Corporation!

At the grass roots, Norwegians get university education free, have universal day care, and twenty-five days of paid holiday as well as higher spending on arts and culture and health care than Canadians do.

Those of us who remember the years before the creation of Petro Canada remember also that Canada’s National Energy Board (founded 1959) was helped by information sought from major oilpatch corporations.  Since almost no Canadians could be counted among them, the National Energy Board was alleged to receive regular, purposeful misinformation from its helpful U.S. advisors. The famous Leduc oil discovery happened in 1947 and by the 1960s U.S. interests had a stranglehold on the oilpatch – which E. Peter Lougheed did almost nothing to loosen.

In the early 1960s I spoke in Calgary about oil and Canadian ownership.  After my address to an audience of professionals, oilpatch representatives, politicians and others, four or five Canadians in U.S. oil corporations lingered to thank me.  “We sat together during your speech. You spoke our mind,” one of them said.  “If we even dared to say out loud what you said here about Canadian participation in the exploitation of our own oil wealth, we’d be on the street the next day looking for a job.”

The organization I spoke for was called The Knights of the Round Table – a group which met once a month to hear speakers with ideas that would not otherwise be permitted to be uttered in Alberta.

In those years, too, I was a very minor part of a critical literary/political quarterly published out of Edmonton and concerned, mostly, with Alberta. One of my old undergraduate friends from UBC who had become an oil geologist for a major U.S. corporation in Calgary told me he took a copy of the (perfectly acceptable) quarterly into the oil company lounge for others to see.  Within two hours, he reported, he was called “upstairs” and told that anyone who wanted to remain employed by that U.S. corporation would not be identified as bringing that kind of publication into the lounge.

From the start, U.S. oil interests muzzled and threatened Canadians seeking Canadian ownership.  Indeed, James Henry Gray, well-known journalist and writer of prairie history, was editor of the Western Oil Examiner in Alberta in the late 1950s.  No Socialist, Gray was concerned about Canadian participation in oil exploitation. At the time U.S. oil companies had control of gigantic areas of Alberta territory possessing potential oil wealth.  They let small Canadian operators search parts of the ground, but under onerous and nasty terms, Gray apparently believed.  The Canadians were, in fact, under U.S. owner power.

No Socialist, remember, James Gray began to ask some reasonable questions about fair Canadian participation (and benefit) from Alberta’s oil wealth. To punish him, U.S. operators withdrew advertising from the Western Oil Examiner, branded him an anti-American, forced the few Canadian operators to boycott him as well – and destroyed the publication.

By the 1980s Petro Canada had become one of Canada’s largest petroleum companies – hated by the U.S. oil owners.  Petro Canada’s Calgary headquarters was dubbed “Red Square” by those enemies. E. Peter Lougheed supported U.S. oil ownership.  He supported Brian Mulroney’s destruction of Petro Canada and his Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. that guaranteed U.S. power over Canadian fossil fuels almost without end (or until Canadians get a Canadian federal government with guts).

In fact, he joined the business alliance in Canada as co-chair of the Canadian Alliance for Free Trade and Job Opportunities to propagandize and push for the first Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. And those who say he protected Alberta’s oil/energy independence fail to see the Norwegian example. In that country much, much, much more has been achieved for all the people from foreign participation.  Clearly, Alberta’s victory was largely Pyhrric: the Alberta Heritage fund is almost empty and super-rich Alberta is about to go into serious deficit. Compared to Norway, Alberta is a basket case.

At the time of the National Energy Program the U.S. oil industry was furious at the idea of Canadians gaining an increase in oil revenues.  The oil provinces – led by a much more aggressive Lougheed Alberta – argued that they, too, would “sacrifice” revenue (that would be devoted to the good of all Canadians).  The argument was, I believe, mostly a mask for support of U.S. ownership.

E. Peter Lougheed helped destroy a national Canadian energy policy – a far-sighted attempt to begin organization of energy power in Canada to serve Canadians in every way. As the premier of Alberta he could have been a key and major force in building an energy structure that would have ensured strength, independence, revenue. and well-being for Canada and Canadians into the far future.  Instead, he sided with the enemy. He sold out. He was not Alberta’s champion.  He was, I maintain, the champion of foreign ownership of the Canadian oilpatch and an enemy of ordinary Canadians everywhere. 

He is credited with encouraging various researches in the oilpatch and in the tar sands.  But he didn’t create an Alberta “Saskoil”, nor did he support Petro Canada.  He created a multi-billion dollar Alberta Heritage Savings Trust, never entertaining the idea he could use its pot of gold to cooperate with Petro Canada and Saskoil and make Canada dominant in the extraction, development, and refining of one of our own huge energy resources. Perish the thought.

One of the jokes in Alberta at the end of his career as premier was that he named more places, things, and awards after himself and his family than anyone in Canada had ever done … or would ever do in the future.  Then, after his stint as premier, the Canadian Press story says “he moved on” after winning his fourth straight election and serving three years of that stint.  He moved on, to Ottawa, to serve the U.S. as a lobbyist/supporter of U.S. oilpatch dominance in Canada.

Search the Mainstream Press and Media as you might, you will not come upon a hint of E. Peter Lougheed’s real role in the sell-out and destruction of Canada.  All you will come upon, in my judgement, is pretty, plastic make-believe to hide the truth.  In doing so, you will be a witness to one more evidence of the ugly collapse of the Mainstream Press and Media in Canada.

-------END Mathews------- ---return to kootcoot---   Of course it could be said that things are even worse today, as China seems to be trying to wrest control of Canada's oil patch from the Americans with the help of born again Calgarian, Treason Steven Harper. With mega naval and other military forces massing in the Straits of Hormuz and the South China Sea, to mention just two itchy trigger potential shooting wars loci for the control of energy resources that foment as I type, it would be ironic if WWIII broke out between the Chinese Empire and the US Empire, putting us in the middle.  Then there's the even more desperate looming confrontations over the resource even more necessary to life - WATER - of which Canada holds the greatest reserves on the planet. Of course China is already short of both potable water and rivers with enough water to navigate and the United States isn't far behind, what with barges stranded on sand bars up and down the Mississippi this past summer and aquifers being drained or poisoned by fracking. industrial pollution and industrial agriculture. I don't think it is too hyperbolic to worry about the possibility for Canada to become the Poland of the twenty-first century as both the prize and the corridor for warring super powers.