Harper's Lies & Deceit regarding the Canadian Economy

Stephen Harper is continuously deceiving and lying to Canadians about the state of our economy. Yesterday, Stephen Harper claimed:

There are more people working in Canada today than before the recession, the ONLY advanced country where that is the case.

This sounds all very positive, but, unfortunately, it's far from the truth.

Let's analyse.

Canada's unemployment is up (NOT down).

1) "There are more people working in Canada today than before the recession." That might well be the case, but there are also more Canadians without a job than before the recession. 

You don't believe me? 

Check out this report from our own Stats Canada (9 September 2011), and see the unemployment figure, which I have copied below:

You see? 7.4% of Canadians are unemployed now, while that number was close to 6% before the 2008 recession hit.Harper's "there are more people at work now than before the recession" implies unemployment is down, when in reality  unemployment is up.

But then it get's worse, and Harper moves from implicit deceit to explicitly lying, all in a single sentence (what a craftsman):


2) "Canada is the ONLY advanced country where that is the case" - Really? How about one of Europe's strongest economies, Germany?

Canadas economy performs far worse than Germany's (yes, Germany is an advanced country...) 

Apparently Germany has been doing really well throughout this recession. A simple Google News search shows how Harper is lying through his teeth. On August 31 Bloomberg's BusinessWeek.com reported:

[Germany's] jobless rate held at 7 percent, the lowest since records for a reunified Germany began in 1991.

Yesterday, the same website explains:

German unemployment at a two-decade low of 7 percent may boost household spending and help offset slowing exports.

This information is being backed up by a recent (and highly reliable) report by Germany's own Bundesagentur fur Arbeit (Germany's Federal Employment Agency.) On page 12, figure 6, the "Deutchland" line represents the falling unemployment (Arbeitslose) of all of Germany (copied below):


Germany's current unemployment numbers are far below those right before the recession, so, Harper, isn't it time for an apology to the Canadian people. Apparently not. Today Harper makes the same false claim again. Both times journalists (Gloria Galloway from the G&M, and Mark Kennedy from Post Media News) do not refute the false claims made by our country's Prime Minister. 

MSM journalists are failing us
Personally I don't really blame Stephen Harper for his lies and deceit.Apart from being a heartless asshole, he's just doing his work by playing politics with the facts. What bothers me most is the complacency of the Canadian newspapers, who simply copy and paste whatever comes out of Harper's ass. Journalist are supposed to keep our politicians honest by refuting lies and deceit, so why is it that they aren't doing their homework?

I get the impression that The Globe and Mail, a corporate entity, believes that painting rosy picture of the economy is good for business (and investment), and therefore G&M sides with their corporate advertisers (who, BTW, believe the same thing).NOT refuting Harper's lies is a "cheap" (or sophisticated, depending on one's own bias) way to feed the rosy picture of the economy and keep corporate advertisers happy, without doing the actual lying (Harper lied, G&M just spreads the lies); a win-win for the corporate elite, if you will.


Lame MSM has become mouthpiece for Conservatives and Corporate power
G&M (and Canada's MSM) clearly have become a mouthpiece of the Harper government, and one starts wondering how different such a media/government relationship really is from the one the Russia had some 30 years ago. They equally produce propaganda, journalistic garbage.

The Globe and Mail's pro Harper bias: it's everywhere

If one thing has become evident in the last few days it is the following: Canada's capitalist media has a clear pro-Conservative bias. And I'm not just talking about the National Post.

Take the Globe and Mail.
Example #1: Andrew Steele's “Harper's Options”. Anyone who has read it will have to conclude that Andrew did not include all options available, on the contrary.

How about the option of letting democracy prevail by doing “non of the above”? Did Andrew really forget the most decent option of all or has his (anticipated?) bias in favour of the Conservatives tainted his ability to proper reasoning?

Why it is bias: it is pro-Harper bias because Andrew seems to have intentionally left out the most obvious and descent thing to do: after the government falls (on Monday), let the majority backed coalition rule.

Example #2: Jeffrey Simpson's “Harper bulldozes his way to the brink”. His opening puts right away on the wrong foot:

What an unpalatable choice now beckons Canadians: a government led by a Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, whose approach has disappointed so many; or a government led by Stéphane Dion, the Liberal Leader Canadians resoundingly rejected six weeks ago.

Does anyone see a problem with this kind of reasoning? Well, I do! First off, Jeffrey implies that Canadians need to make a choice. Wrong! Canadians have already resoundingly spoken in the last election, only six weeks ago. Suffering from temporary Alzheimers, Jeffrey?

Why it is bias: Jeffrey Simpsons suggests that Canadians need to go to the polls (something favoured by the Conservatives, if you haven't noticed). But our democracy is designed in such a way that a majority of MPs make the choice of who gets to govern; no other intervention is needed to let the majority-backed coalition govern.

The rest of the article is more of the same bias, combined with some more of the same (blah blah blah - national paper lost in provincialism); I will leave that for what it is.

Example #3 Adam Radwanski's “From the kitchen table to the cabinet table”. Lets not dwell on the title for now, but jump right to the end of the article:

Oh, and if Pat Martin is poised to take a cabinet seat, Stephen Harper is entirely justified in proroguing Parliament, barring the doors to the House of Commons, and doing whatever else it takes to prevent this thing from ever happening.

Why this is bias: It is a majority-backed coalition's full right to elect a government of their choosing. Where's the logic that a failed Prime Minister of Canada (a.k.a. Steve) is “entirely justified” to prorogue Parliament on the basis of a disliked MP? Where does Adam Radwanski's disdain for democracy stem from? Are all writers at the Globe and Mail that biased?

Keep reading

Example #4: Front page presents four links, three of them link to overly (or should I say overtly?) biased articles justifying the Conservative's "we-are-sooo-outraged" propaganda crap forward by the Conservatives:
Let me explain.

1. Audio: New Conservative Radio ad (!)
2. Can the PM sack the Governor-General (discussed above, #1)
3. Who would the NDP put in cabinet (discussed above, #2)
(4. Globe Politics)

Here's what a progressive would have enjoyed to see in a national paper:

1. Audio: Listen to the latest Conservative and Coalition backing ads.
2. Can Harper regain the confidence of the house?
3. Is Harper going to spend his Christmas in Ottawa?
(4. Globe Politics)

Why it bias:

(1) Publishing exact copies of Conservative ads but not once mention the latest ad in support of the coalition goes against one of the general rules of journalism: bring balance by finding and reporting on every side of a story. Why not at least present both ads?

I've already discussed Radwanski's (3) lack of logic and disdain for parliamentary democracy. Suggesting that the GG (2) is subordinate to the PM (when the opposite is closer to the truth) is favouring the all-over-the-capitalist-media-bias that what has been done to the PM is outrageous when in fact there's only one person to blame for his own misery: Stephen Harper himself. Had Harper presented a more agreeable budget and not provoked the majority opposition with his mean-spirited cuts to political financing then I would not have been writing this post.

Our Prime Minister has lost all confidence from the newly elected MPs (the house), yet he continues his campaign of misinformation and slander (and even lies that seem to have been "missed" by this wonderful paper) in order to organize as much "outrage" possible in order to influence an upcoming decision by Michaele Jean.

His disrespect for the house and the majority of people who did NOT elect this Bush backing Conservative is far more outragious to people than anything else. I would like to see a goverment that works.

Lastly, I do realize that this posting is far from conclusive. Nevertheless I hope I have been able to show my readers how highly biased (in this case in favour of the Conservative Party) Canadian corporate media is.

BC Premier Gordon Campbell's support for killers of Robert Dziekanski is disgusting

There are quite a few things to be learnt from one of CBC's latest Access To Information (ATI) requests, consisting of email exchanges between RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass and RCMP Commissioner William Elliot. Here's the obvious (read the emails at the bottom of this posting):

1. The RCMP's “law and order” ideology is highly supported by BC's top Liberal administrators, including (well-known drunk and overpaid monkey) Gordon Campbell.

2. The RCMP doesn't trust the Globe and Mail, suggesting the paper is biased against the RCMP.

3. The RCMP doesn't trust the public at large, especially those critical of the RCMP.

4. The RCMP's own investigation was part of the overall media strategy to whitewash the killing of Robert Dziekanski by the four RCMP officers.

Let's get a bit more detail here:

(1) Do you remember what happened to BC's Premier in January 2003? Wikipedia does! He's Canada's only premier that has spent time in jail due to drinking and driving, yet is still in office. Driving with a blood-alcohol concentration level of above .08 per cent he COULD have easily killed someone!

Compare that with Robert Dziekanski's final “holiday trip” to heaven, killed after being tasered to hell and back. Having spent hours in the Vancouver airport's security zone, not knowing where to go and what to do next, he just lost it. Yes, he threw some computer stuff around, but anyone who has seen the Dziekanski Tasering video would agree with me that Dziekanski himself WASN'T going to kill anyone, not in a million years.

We now know that Gordon Campbell was highly supportive of the Force and the four officers involved.

(2) The anti Globe and Mail bias was quite revealing to me. I personally don't take the G & M too seriously (because of it's overall corporate and culturally conservative bias), but why does the RCMP hate the Globe and Mail so much? Perhaps point #3 is the answer?

(3) Gary Bass labels those critical of the RCMP as “armchair quarterbacks”. The derogatory seems to be used to disqualify all criticism, regardless of the validity.

I'm pretty sure that the majority of the people who saw the video were appalled by how the four RCMP officers “solved” the “C.E.W. incident”... there were plenty of very good reasons for critical discourse. Why did the RCMP use the taser on an unarmed immigrant in one of the most secure zones of the Vancouver Airport? Why did the RCMP have to kill Robert Dziekanski? Why did the RCMP not try to resuscitate Robert Dziekanski? Why did RCMP tell so many lies about the killing? Why have the killers not been charged? Who are the RCMP officers? Why are their names not made public? All valid questions (if you ask me), but non of them have ever been answered properly, and no apology has been made either.

The RCMP might not trust the public, but with "incidents" like these we surely can't trust the RCMP, and for overly obvious reasons: they get away with killing and lying without further consequences.

(4) Whitewash galore! At least the RCMP gets some things done! Remember Ian Bush? He was the youngster that was shot in the back of his head by the incredible rubber mountie while in custody. No serious problem for the RCMP spin machine (as long as pesky video cameras have been turned off, and ATI requests can be neutralized).

And the same RCMP started their media campaign in the Dziekanski killing case right "from the get-go". Remember Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, lying through his teeth? I do.

Make no mistake about it; Robert Dziekanski was killed by four RCMP officers. And plenty of people have helped to cover it up or whitewash it, including Gordon Campbell:

[Gordon Campbell] was highly complementary of the Force, disappointed over the degree of criticism, and wants to support [the four RCMP officers that killed Robert Dziekanski] somehow.”

Supporting killers now, Mr. Gordon Campbell?

LINKS
- CBC: RCMP e-mails throw Dziekanski Taser probe into question, critics say
- Dr Dawg: Ian Bush and the incredible rubber mountie
- Wikipedia: I'm Gordon Campbell, and I got caught drinking and driving
- Wikipedia: Ian Bush (1983 -2005)
- Benediction Blogs On: RCMP Emails regarding Robert Dziekanski's taser-death(pdf)
- Getting it right: something fishy about Sergeant Pierre Lemaitre...
- Getting it right: Robert Dziekanski

Rush transcript of the emails:
---------------------------------------------------
2007/12/04 Gary Bass - Re: Members Involved in YVR C.E.W. Incident

From: Gary BASS
To: Elliot, William
Subject: Re: Members Involved in YVR C.E.W. Incident

That's great. I'm sure that they did appreciate the call as do I your comments of support.
This is really tough business these days and really hard on the men and women in the trenches trying so hard to serve well.
When I arrived home tonight, there was a Langley Det car and two young members next door.

[ deleted material]

It sure made me very proud. Not likely to see that one in the G and M in the morning, or anyone else for that matter.

Gary.
-----Original Message-----
From: William Elliott
To: BASS, Gary <00000t654.ops.ediv_ehq>

Sent: 11/15/2007 10:44:39 PM
Subject: Re: Members Involved in YVR C.E.W. Incident

Thanks Gary,

I have just now placed calls to all 4 members. I spoke to 3 of the 4.

The only person I did not reach is [deleted material] I left a message on his home voicemail indicating who was calling and that I would try again to reach him. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

I know this is tough and you and all our folks in E Division. Please be assured of my ongoing support.

Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary BASS
Cc: MACINTYRE, Al <000001690.ops.ediv_ehq>
Cc: BOUCHER, Byron <000038391.ops.ediv_ehq>
Cc: PETERS, Gerry <000039349.ops.ediv_ehq>
Cc: Rideout, Wayne <000037745.sc.ediv_lmd>
To: Booth, Rod <000036789.nhq3.ncr_hq>
To: Elliott, William <000163439.nhq4.ncr_hq>

Sent: 11/15/2007 9:33:28 PM
Subject: Re: Members Involved in YVR C.E.W. Incident

Cmmr;
Further to our conversation today, I confirmed with the OIC IHIT that your proposed calls will not be a problem. I will call them as well after you have done so.
You can be confident that a highly professional and thorough job is being done by the team. CPC are fully engaged and pleased with the cooperation they are receiving.
Lots of armchair quarterbacks on the news there tonight and linkages to the Bush case. The sooner the CPC makes that release the better. We are monitoring very closely and I will once again review the duty status with the Crops Officer inthe (sic) morning.

[ deleted material]

2007/12/04 Gary BASS - YVR

From: Gary BASS
To: William Elliott, Bill Sweeney
Date: 2007/11/24 10:47
Subjecty: YVR

I just ran into our Premier at the airport and we had a great discussion on the issue generally. He had called Mrs. Cisowski yesterday just after we left there. He was highly complimentary of the Force, disappointed over the degree of criticism and wants to support the members involved somehow. He asked me to think about what he could do in this regard and get back to him next week.
He supports the continued use of Taser and any other tools which support and protect our members. He said that the inquiry will not be a negative attack on the Force but a focused examination of all the issues. Extremely positive and supportive comments which we really cannot do much with but good to know.

Gary

JimBobby's SPP Challenge: Count Me In

The latest news you won't find in the Globe and Mail. Why? Well, because it's on SPP.

- SPP?

Yeah, SPP, the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership"!

- Never heard of it.

No wonder you've never heard of it. And you won't be hearing much of it in the Canadian MSM either. It's the latest little secret of corporatists and those who are submissive to them (yes, corporate media and their submissive "gatekeepers are us" chief editors).

In fact, SPP has been in progress since March 23, 2005. For all this time it has been flying under the radar, hidden for most of us. Therefore several blogs (including Getting It Right) have joined JimBobby's "SPP Challenge - Blogosphere-Meatspace Crossover Poll" (read about the origins here).

I'm personally appalled by the main press of Canada (Globe and Mail, where are you?) completely ignoring the issue, including the latest squelching of the freedom of speech (by the RCMP and the US Army in Quebec.

So for all the Globe and Mail readers out there, here's the news on SPP you won't find in your paper:

From Vive le Canada:

RCMP, U.S. Army block public forum on the Security and Prosperity Partnership

The Council of Canadians has been told it will not be allowed to rent a municipal community centre for a public forum it had planned to coincide with the next Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit in Montebello, Quebec on August 20 and 21.

The Municipality of Papineauville, which is about six kilometres from Montebello, has informed the Council of Canadians that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for a public forum on Sunday August 19, on the eve of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership Leaders Summit.

“It is deplorable that we are being prevented from bringing together a panel of writers, academics and parliamentarians to share their concerns about the Security and Prosperity Partnership with Canadians,” said Brent Patterson, director of organizing with the Council of Canadians. “Meanwhile, six kilometres away, corporate leaders from the United States, Mexico and Canada will have unimpeded access to our political leaders.” [...]

Footnote: The Liberal Party is noticably silent on SPP. A simple Google query (site:www.liberal.ca/ spp) will show you zero results on SPP. Here are the Google query results of political parties in Canada:
NDP (45), CPO(4), Green Party(21), Liberal Party(0). Do the Liberals simply not care?

- H/T to JimBobby Sez
- Wikipedia: SPP, or Security and Prosperity Partnership
- The Council of Canadians on SPP (pdf, but very useful)
- Canadian media publishing on SPP: Vive Le Canada, PEJ News, Rabble.ca
- Blogs participating in JimBobby Sez's SPP Challenge: Red Tory, StageLeft, Woman at Mile 0.

Update: Read my latest post too: "Bye, Bye, Canada; Stephane Dion doesn't see any problem with SPP's Deep Integration plans"