The Member Of Ford And Harper Nation No One Likes To Talk About

I'm sure this guy would get along famously with Earl Cowan.



One does wonder about what is in Etobicoke's drinking water, though.

Meat For The Conservative Base

... is, I hope, indigestible for the rest of us.

At Sunday's Calgary-Signal Hill all-candidates debate, Conservative candidate Ron Liepert responded to criticisms of the Conservatives' controversial Bill C-51 by suggesting "civil liberties" and "freedom" are not the most pressing issues facing the country in light of "criminal activities."

"I know there's a whole group of people including a couple of the speakers here tonight who talk about civil liberties and about the freedom of having the right to pretty much choose to do what you like," Liepert told voters.

"Folks, that's not the country we live in."

This was not Liepert's first foray into absurdist pronouncements. Last year, he told CBC Radio that supporters of solar and wind energy are "extremists" who live in a "dream world."



It is is hard to understand how the Harper base can feel proud of supporting such patent idiots unless, of course ....

Clearly, There Is Method In Harper's Madness

Recently, Robin Sears wrote a piece severely critical of the Conservative response to the Syrian crisis, a commentary prompted by Immigration Minister Chris Alexander's disastrous appearance on Power and Politics. In it, he suggests that rather than the snarling and aggressive response Alexander gave P&P host Rosemary Barton, he could have said something like the following:

“Like every Canadian tonight, I grieve at the horrible deaths, the fate of members of the Kurdi family on the shores of Turkey.

Like many people watching tonight, I looked at that photo of their lifeless son, Alan, lying like a broken doll on the sand, and I confess, I sat down and I cried ...

I called the prime minister immediately. His reaction was that of a husband and father first, and then he said, “Chris, get me some thoughts on how we can do better, how we can do more, by the morning. This is unacceptable, to me and to our values as Canadians.

I called my department, told them I would be there in a few hours, and we worked all night to ensure we could respond quickly and powerfully to this mounting tragedy. Here’s what the prime minister has ordered us to do …

Of course, we all know that nothing approximating the above has or ever likely will pass the lips of either the Prime Minister or any of his functionaries.

Polls suggest that this is costing the Conservatives politically:

The Nanos survey conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV News suggests many Canadians switched their voting intentions in recent days. The three-day sample puts support for the NDP at 32.7 per cent nationally (up 2.3 percentage points from a week ago), followed by the Liberals at 30.8 per cent (up 0.6 percentage points). Support for the Conservatives has slipped to 26.2 per cent (a 2.3-percentage-point drop).

And yet Stephen Harper remains obdurate. He has refused a 'non-partisan' meeting with Mulcair and Trudeau to address the crisis:

"We're not going to get into partisan games on this," said Harper during a campaign stop in Toronto Monday afternoon.

Pulling numbers out of thin air, he said:

"We've already brought in tens of thousands. As I say, I've already announced that we will increase that number," he said.

"Look, we're obviously pleased that Canadians are seized with this issue and Canadians want us to respond. That's what we are doing."

Harper also repeated his assertion that changes to refugee policy will not be enough to curb the influx of those fleeing violence, and that ongoing military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is the only way to curb the refugee crisis.

Then there is this:

Stephen Harper says the government is looking to improve the refugee resettlement process, but it will not airlift thousands of refugees from countries such as Syria and Iraq, where extremist organizations operate, without conducting a proper security screening.

"To help, we must ensure we screen every potential refugee carefully. We have been clear that we are willing to take more people, but we must be sure we are helping the most vulnerable.

"We cannot open the floodgates and airlift tens of thousands of refugees out of a terrorist war zone without proper process. That is too great a risk for Canada," Harper said on Tuesday during a question-and-answer session on Facebook.

And what is one to make of this, wherein Stephen Harper admits to the possibility of electoral defeat?

In the face of declining poll numbers, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said he still believes he will win the most seats come Election Day but acknowledged for the first time that his political rivals have gained ground.

“We are fighting for and we believe there will be a Conservative government, but the reality is this is a real choice for Canadians, and an NDP government or a Liberal government are real possibilities.”

The method in Harper's madness becomes apparent once the above is examined; a pattern emerges, and his strategy becomes clear. Harper realizes that broadening his base of support is likely impossible, so instead he is doubling down on what he believes his core holds dear: strong 'leadership' and inflexible clear 'principles'.

In doing so, he is sending out a message that if they decide not to vote in October, they run the very real risk of ceding government either to Mulcair or Trudeau or, in what would be a nightmare scenario for the core, a coalition of the two parties. Hence the obdurate refusal to meet with the other leaders on the Syrian crisis, hence the refusal to speed up the process of bringing in refugees, hence the reminder of the potential danger of bringing in terrorists with them, and hence the reminder of the ISIS 'threat.' They are all of a piece.



Then again, I could be completely wrong here, and the Harper campaign is simply beginning to implode.

UPDATED: Now Trending

Following yesterday's sterling advertisement for the Harper base, the satirical publication The Beaverton decided to have some fun:

TORONTO - During a campaign stop reporters asking questions about the Duffy scandal were cursed at by a Harper supporter, before he was removed and offered a seat in the Senate.

“I spoke to my current Chief of Staff, Ray Novak, about making this problem go away,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when asked later about the Senate appointment. Harper further elaborated, “Considering after the 2011 election I appointed Mike Duffy to the Senate in exchange for him doing ‘work’ in the press, this just kind of made sense.”

Harper then clarified that he had no knowledge of any conversations with Novak, and “rejected the premise” that he had said the opposite mere minutes previous.

The latest Senator from Etobicoke has refused to offer any identification outside of the prominent “Doug Ford Mayor” campaign button on his jacket. Following his nomination to the senate, he is expected to chair a committee on how “the media are all lying pieces of shit”.

At a later campaign stop, Conservative spokesperson Kory Teneycke apologized to journalists for the outburst, adding “If you think that guy was bad, you should see the supporters that we screen out.”

It would seem prudent for all future innocent bystanders at Harper rallies to wear protective apparel to guard againt the spewing of infected saliva.

As well, perhaps angry white guy can put an end to this abuse by the Senate, as reported by Buzzfeed.

In a March 2013 memo to Stephen Harper, his chief of staff Nigel Wright and other senior staffers raged that Conservative Senators were too independent and had recommended policies that were not pre-approved by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Imagine, the bought-and-paid-for Red Chamber Conservatives thinking they could act independently! A sobering second thought indeed.

UPDATE: Angry white guy now has a name: Earl Cowan. When contacted by the Toronto Star, he had this to say:

“If I wrote anything for the Star,” he added, “the issue would be: is or is not the Toronto media a piece of s---. Excuse me, a lying piece of s---. I’m forgetting my own lines here . . . That’s the issue. That’s the only issue.”

UPDATED: A Member Of The Rabid Harper Base Foams At The Mouth

The following occurred this morning, at a Harper rally in Etobicoke:


You can read about it here.

A persistent Terry Milewski was met by the same crowd lustily urging that the government "shut down the CBC."



Two more reasons not to live in one of Toronto's suburbs.

UPDATE: The fallout begins:

UPDATED: Reassuring Legislation For Xenophobes and Bigots, A.K.A. The Harper Base

I don't know who composes the names for government bills these days, but they are blatantly selective in their intended audiences. The latest proposed piece of Harper legislation leaves little doubt that its target audience is the red meat supporters of our current regime: the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act (Bill S-7).

Hmmm, interesting title. Cultural - can't be referring to Canadians, since we are reputed by many to have no culture. Barbaric - outside of cultural outliers like Luka Magnotta and Paul Bernard, no barbarism amongst our native-born. And clearly the ex-soldier who attempted to blow up a downtown Calgary skyscraper that houses a Veteran Affairs Canada office was disturbed, not a barbaric ideological warrior/terrorist.

This bill is transparent in design and intent, guaranteed to ensure that our equanimity, so recently roiled by the Parliament hill attack, is not too quickly re-established. In his column today, Thomas Walkom points out that the bill has merit only in three aspects:

One would explicitly outlaw forced marriages. Another would clarify the general provincial practice that sets 16 as the minimum age for marriage. A third would make it illegal to transport a child under 16 abroad for the purpose of marriage.

The rest, however, goes over ground already covered in the Criminal Code:

Polygamy, for instance, is already illegal in Canada. Governments have the power to arrest and charge polygamists. Yet as the long-running, Bountiful, B.C. polygamy saga shows, Canadian government have not been anxious to do so.

But the new federal bill does not address the barbaric practices of established Canadian polygamists in B.C. Instead, it focuses solely on immigrants.

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander claims there are hundreds of immigrant engaged in this foul practice. The bill would allow for their deportation.

And then there is this,

... the section dealing with honour killings that is the most curious. Bill S-7 would rewrite the Criminal Code to preclude a defendant in a murder trial from arguing that an insult to family honour provoked his action.

Such a clause might be necessary if Canada’s courts were routinely soft on honour killers. But they aren’t.

Alexander himself

cited the case of Mohammad Shafia, an Afghan immigrant who, along with his wife and son, killed three of his daughters and the girls’ stepmother.

What the minister didn’t point out is that all three killers received the maximum sentence — life in prison.

So it remains clear that the Harper regime is continuing to do what it does best: sowing fear, suspicion and hatred, emotions sure to appeal to a certain segment of the population that is largely responsible for the debasement of politics that has been ongoing since their election of Dear Leader.

I just thought of a better name for Bill S-7. How about The Shameless Manipulation of the Canadian People By a Corrupt Government Act?

UPDATE: Click here to see Press Progress' definitive ranking of the most ridiculous and misleading Conservative names for bills.