New Conservative Party? Yes Please

I’ve felt badly for a while now that conservative voters have no ethical right wing party to vote for in Canada (or the USA, for that matter). The Conservative Party of Canada is the only Canadian political party with the word “coalition” in its Constitution. The CPC coalition of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, removed right wing voters’ choice, so Harper’s new CPC could more easily cheat their way to victory.

Rathgeber: "There is speculative talk about starting a new political party and even reviving old ones." brentrathgeber.ca/brents-blog/—
Paul Wells (@InklessPW) June 17, 2013

With the future crop of Conservative Party of Canada MPs already heading toward jail, what are conservative voters to do? The present parade of perps, is patently preposterous. Do they stay home? Vote Liberal? Hold their noses and vote for more election fraud and other crime while simultaneously endorsing unbalanced budgets and the bigger Harper Government?

I’m opposed to the Liberals, NDP, and Greens merging their distinct parties, since electoral cooperation can be achieved without uniting under one (corruptible) banner. Putting all eggs into one basket is an efficient means to move them from point A to Ottawa, but you’ll never unpack those eggs when they get to Ottawa. They’ll be “Ottawashed”, says Rathgeber. A multi-party system serves Canada best, since there are many distinct regions with their own interests. The problems have been a lack of electoral reform (to keep pace with technology), and a centralization of power in party leaders, the unelected staff of the PMO, and an antiquated, unaccountable, appointed Senate.

End Point

If we pass the point of no return, we will have runaway global warming and the end point is human extinction. I don’t think people quite get that yet.

I know many who don’t take the issue of civilization’s survivability very seriously. Most of my peers have grown up hearing that climate change is happening, and we need to do something about it, but we assumed the older generations were doing something. Turns out, the problem is much worse today than in 1990, and we’ve spent the majority of our lives hearing that it’s been worked on. The efforts to reduce air pollution, have run up against real world efforts to work against progress, leaving large ground lost. Obstinate, short-sighted conservatives call science a “liberal billionaire crusade”, a “gimmick“, as if civilization has an innate, God-given right to exist no matter the destructive, damning policies it opts to enact on the real world at breakneck speed.

The “Denial Machine” churns away, fueling not only air pollution, but actively damaging bi-partisan political efforts to reduce preventable pollution. Every dollar invested into gasoline, a Walmart or Dollar store trinket, or an automobile is another quiet vote for the death of civilization. This is not a right wing vs. left wing issue at its core. It’s a struggle for survival, and the right wing has chosen the side of the struggle whose end point is human extinction. Why would they do this? They choose ignorance, so they don’t feel so bad about doing what they ought to know they shouldn’t be doing. How could they? Life trends toward death, so deadly policies are innately easier to enact and defend politically. It’s a cake walk when your supporters clamp their hands over their ears, and shut their eyes as a political instinct.

It takes no creativity to die,
No resistance to shrug and to sigh,
It’s the status-quo,
And don’t you know?
Civilization’s evening draws nigh.

Three weeks ago, as the Senate scandal was breaking, the planet passed 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, [May] says.

“We relate better to issues we can understand. Which means we will get very excited about things that are fundamentally trivial and miss that we are sleepwalking towards the edge of cliff,” she says.
[...]
Her eyes are moistening with tears, but she holds back.

“I have obligations.”

Don’t we all have an obligation to preserve a future for life after ours? Too many don’t think or act like they care. Shouldn’t they care?

Women In Short Pants Run Around, Bullying MPs

It’s always good to hear Elizabeth May speak in the House. Today was no disappointment, as she took the Prime Minster’s Office to task for being a totally unaccountable creation of the unwritten constitution, where $10,000,000 goes each year to die.

May: The guys in short pants who run around bullying MPs, muzzling scientists and harassing civil servants report to one boss. Is it not time to have accountability out of the PMO?

Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister does take responsibility for leading this country and the results speak for themselves.

Strangely enough, the results Poilievre listed didn’t include Senate expense refunds to Senators who’ve made illicit expense claims.

More hilariously, John Baird stood up and tried to be offended at May’s use of “guys in short pants”. He accused her of sexism. She readily agreed that her comment was a bit of levity, in common use by House backbencher MPs, and accepted that there are also “young, talented women”, as Baird described the female PMO staff, who run around bullying MPs, harass scientists and muzzle civil servants.

Mr Speaker: Glad we sorted that out.

Baird ran into a problem found when only part of a multi-part accusation is responded to with an incomplete form response. It can be suggested by the accuser that the part not refuted is true. That’s how I came to learn that Joe Oliver is the Minister of Threatening Canadians.

ConCalls: “The Liberals Did It First”(TM) #RoboCon #cdnpoli

The Conservative trolls will have to get new talking points so they don’t look hopelessly dated. Multiple Conservative parties, the NDP, and another Liberal MP were all fined thousands of dollars for broadcasting robocalls in a deceptive manner where the true identity of the caller was not revealed.

Just the other day I had to mock a flying monkey that was using this year old canard:
“No mention in the article that the only confirmed case of robocalls involved the Liberals.”
That hapless chap was stuck on the Liberal MP for Guelph sending a robocall that got confused with the Pierre Poutine robocalls pretending to be from Elections Canada. The Guelph Liberals were calling people to say the CPC candidate had a distasteful stance on abortion, but didn’t use their real name, naughty, naughty.

The CRTC got a little more strict after that point. Prior to that case, were the Irwin Cotler slander calls by Nick’s Campaign Research, which the Speaker called “reprehensible”. I don’t think the CRTC gave a fine for those push poll calls.

Bottom line: “The Liberals Did It First”(TM) is a Conservative dismissal that has jumped the robo-shark. If you see a Conservative using this line, send them the link to this blog.

–

I’ll point out every so smugly (and with acceptance that this may one day change) that the only national party not involved in a robocall scandal, is the Greens.

–

Marc paid a $2500 fine for listing his name at the end, with no address.

@kady @MarcGarneau Seems the issue was he put his name at the end of message instead of beginning & no mailing address—
Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) May 29, 2013

Wright Quits, Wallin & Duffy Half-Quit, May Lashes the PM #cdnpoli

What dirt does Duffy have on the Prime Minister, that would have had him order his Chief of Staff to cut Mike Duffy a cheque for more than $90,000?

Mike #Duffy and Nancy Greene, #senators raising money for CPC. Corruption and sponsorship #cdnpoli #revolting. en: youtu.be/FJUCugE8ZZQ—
Susan (@SusanFelicity) May 19, 2013

It’s not this video with Duffy and climate change denier Greene-Raine fluffing the Olympics for partisan gain.

Is it this one that has a clue in it? Did the Prime Minister promise a journalist (Duffy) a Senate seat if he helped throw the election? Remember the unconventional airing of the do-overs that Dion did? That was Duffy that determined that damaging display of dialogue.

One question put to me yesterday, was of legitimacy Wallin, Braz Man, and Duffy have for remaining in the Senate at all, after the Prime Minister who put them there has caused or accepted their removal from the Conservative caucus. I would suggest that a Prime Minister who appoints, then fires partisans, to the Senate, calls into question their own legitimacy to govern. As it stands, we’re entering unheard of territory, and so far as I know, there’s nothing written in our Constitution about what to do. We’re writing that unwritten bit of our Constitution now by what we let this rogue Prime Minister get away with.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said Sunday that, regardless of Wright’s resignation, important questions are still outstanding about why he would have offered his own money to save a floundering Duffy.

“Why would Nigel Wright do something that was so obviously wrong? Intuitively, it would make sense to ask ‘Did the prime minister ask him to do it?’ as opposed to ‘Did the prime minister know he did it?’”

The Garlic: Interview With Carbon Dioxide

The Onion hasn’t lived up to its journalistic standards of fake news, so I’m writing a piece for The Garlic, and interviewing Carbon Dioxide to get its thoughts on surpassing the dangerous 400 parts per million mark.

John Klein (JK): So, Carbon Dioxide, do you mind if I call you Carbon for short?

Carbon Dioxide (CO2): Sure John, no problem. I’ll even let you abbreviate my name to CO2 without making the two subscript.

JK: Very kind of you, Carbon.

CO2: No problem, it’s my pleasure to help out. It’s the least I can do, for helping to destroy your climate.

JK: It’s really humanity’s fault though for burning so much fossil fuel. You can’t take responsibility for that, you’re just a molecule created through oxidation of carbon.
Let’s get to the questions. How do you feel about surpassing 400 ppm in the atmosphere for the first time during human civilization?

CO2: I feel pretty negative about the whole situation, right down to my electrons. I was quite content at levels under 300 ppm, and it seems like only a few years ago that I was at 350 ppm.

JK: It was only a few years ago you were at 350 ppm, before 1988.

CO2: Anyway, I feel really burned out by all of this talk about sequestering me. I’d rather spend time at the ocean.

JK: You mean you by becoming carbonic acid in the Earth’s oceans, and harming shell fish and other aquatic life?

CO2: There’s no malice intended, I’m just a molecule, as you’ve already pointed out. If you had a choice between taking a soak in the ocean, or being put into a high pressure situation under the Canadian plains, what would you choose?

JK: I see your point.

CO2: It’s not easy being humankind’s most despised molecule, with some many millions out to reduce my levels. I can count on some support from misguided, or well paid carbon fluffers, but it’s not easy being anti-green. At least plants (and potted plants in Congress) love me.
See:

Another twisted and scientifically bad #climate piece in the #WSJ. Deceptive from the first paragraph to the last. online.wsj.com/article/SB1000….—
Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) May 09, 2013

JK: The plants that don’t end up underwater from flooding, or burned from drought, love you?

CO2: Yes.

JK: My city has been trying to cut back on creating Carbon Dioxide since the early 1990s. Here’s a sign from 1999′s Cool Down The City Challenge:

They installed one bike rack for ten bikes. There are over 220,000 people in Regina. It would appear people don’t take Carbon Dioxide very seriously.

CO2: My influence on human civilization and daily life is vastly underestimated by most people.

JK: Indeed. It was a pleasure speaking to you, I should let you get back to warming our atmosphere too much.

CO2: Thanks for asking me to talk, John. I think I’m going to chill for a bit (as a liquid, naturally).

JK: Poor Carbon gets such a bum rap. There are so many good politicians on its case.

Atmospheric CO2 levels breached 400ppm for first time in history of human civ. A sad milestone. A call to action. bit.ly/10ztcQU—
Al Gore (@algore) May 10, 2013

Conservatives Stopped Conserving

It’s frustrating to be a Canadian, with such terrifically stupid and dishonest political representation. Sure, our insecure ‘strong’ leaders don’t send the police to your door (unless you’ve written them a mean letter), but that mildly redeeming trait isn’t enough. They have to stop denying that climate change isn’t killing people, and they must stop pretending that there is more wildlife in less habitat (particularly polar bears).

We don’t have until 2015 to piss away a chance to reduce air pollution. We’ve wasted 30 years already, we’re out of time.

“Hostility to expertise in all of its forms is the closest thing that Canadian conservatives have to a unifying ideology.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/defence+sociology/8317722/story.html#ixzz2RzLVxko5
“

ConCalls: Well, That Didn’t Work. Queen Steps Back

A week ago, Elizabeth May finally got a response from the Queen of Canada regarding the sovereign’s position on election fraud in our country. Her opinion is that Harper’s appointed Governor General is the suitable person to decide if a Royal Commission should be held to investigate the Prime Minister’s party supporters who fraudulently robocalled thousands to mislead them on where to vote. Thousands more calls were made pretending to be Liberals or NDP who were rude.

If the Governor General decides not to investigate why it took over 701 days to charge a single man with an elaborate cross-country conspiracy to criminally cheat Canadians out of their rights to vote, the Queen really doesn’t care. Our military still swears to protect her though. This, despite her uncaring response to information that Canada’s democratic system is in doubt, and its ability to respond to the internal problems are crippled by conflicts of interest due to appointments by the Prime Minister of the party most closely associated to the election fraud problem.

Throw National Post a Lifeline

I haven’t encountered a Kelly McParland article that I can say I agree with. His latest, about Elizabeth May’s attempt to subvert the stalemate in Parliament amongst the opposition parties, is missing the point. May isn’t just out to help the Green Party, which of course is a given, despite McParland’s ridiculous claim that he’s revealed a dastardly, secret trap that the NDP or Liberals could fall into. May’s insistence that she’s putting the country before partisanship isn’t hot air, she’s attempting to win the next election using co-operation. Co-operation was not tried on a grand enough scale the last 3 elections, and the Liberals, NDP, and Greens have come out the losers in them as a result. (Widespread election fraud by Conservative supporters, didn’t help either, of course.)

“Should the other parties agree to pool resources with her in some ridings, as Ms. May suggests, her troops are likely to gain far more than they can contribute.”
This notion that McParland puts forward is built upon the opinion that it’s unfair for Canadians to be represented proportionally in the House of Commons, based upon popular vote election results. May isn’t only out to help the Greens take seats from Conservative MPs, she’s offered to help Liberals and NDP MPs win in place of Conservatives also. The result from another First Past the Post (FPTP) election could very well be totally unbalanced, where the NDP, Liberals, and Greens win all but a dozen seats, and the Conservatives end up under-represented in the House. The next step isn’t to hold onto power unfairly, but to change the electoral system so Canadians can decide and feel more satisfied with the resulting Parliament.

The dull, partisan point McParland is trying to have people agree with, is that it’s better for Canadians to be subjected to FPTP perpetually, than it is to support Greens who oppose it. May is seeking a functional, practical solution to overcoming the system, but McParland wants to protect that system, along with Mulcair, and other power hungry political leaders who think they are better off with all or nothing. The Greens hold a sort of ‘nuclear option’ as does any other national party that can get a million votes or more. If co-operation isn’t reached in time, the Conservatives can basically win by default (or so it seems). This means the NDP and Liberals have more to lose by failing to talk with the Greens, than they have to gain by ignoring co-operation. If it’s more important to Mulcair that May’s Greens not pick up any more seats, than it is for him to win his party a fair amount of power, then McParland and the Conservatives get what they argue for.

So how does a national newspaper writer get national politics so very wrong? Probably intentionally, right? It’s hard to see how his analysis supports the progression of a fair democratic country, unless we assume that’s not his mark.

#IdleNoMore: Regina Round Dance on Albert St. Bridge

Another exciting day of protest in Regina, and across the country, as Canadians rise up against the Harper regime and their undemocratic ominbus bills. This was at least the second march down Regina’s main street, Albert St. in the past weeks, and the second appearance of a crowd of hundreds in front of the Legislature too.

I estimated more than 300 people were packed onto one lane of Albert St. for the entire Green Mile (and then some). A few minutes were taken on the Albert St. Bridge (longest bridge over shortest span of water, in the world) to do a round dance.

Last night, Saskatoon’s downtown mall saw thousands of people show up in protest of the Harper ominbus bill C-45, and the removal of fresh and navigable waters protection (among other abuses).

Today, Warren McCall reminded people that it’s not just First Nations this undemocratic bill harms. Chief Spence in Ottawa, starving for justice, is leading the way. Harper has time for Bieber, but not for Chief Spence or other Chiefs?

-Goodale makes an announcement that draws a roar from the crowd.

ADDED – CTV’s report.

Last Updated Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 7:45PM CST

In First Nations culture, a round dance is common – it symbolizes peace and friendship. But Friday afternoon what wasn’t common was where an Idle No More round dance was held .

Hundreds of supporters stopped traffic on Regina’s busy Albert Street bridge. The rally was peaceful. It coincided with dozens of other such events across the nation. First nations elder Mike Pinay told CTV News “ we have to sit down and work together and save this land, this country and these waters”.

Idle No More supporters oppose federal bill c-45 which impacts many aspects of Canadian life – from the treaties of First Nations people to protection of lakes and rivers.

Regina Liberal MP Ralph Goodale argues the bill was “not advanced in a way that was proper and consistent with the democratic process of Canada.”

Organizers vow Friday’s event will not be the last.