Scott's DiaTribes » Conservative Party

Who NOT to bully

Scott Tribe — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:37:55 +0000

We’re going to continue where we left off yesterday on the theme of Conservative bullying. Yesterday it was Madame Supreme Court Justice Beverly Mclachlan who made it clear she wasn’t impressed by Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney’s attempt to bully the judiciary into being cowed into ruling for Harper’s policies. Today, the Conservatives are figuring out that perhaps trying to threaten and bully a widow isn’t such a great idea.

This lady and her cause against Canada exporting asbestos (which killed her husband) was wallowing in obscurity until the Conservative Party decided to try and bully her into taking down a party logo she was using on her [...]

The CPC funding strategy: always look for enemies.

Scott Tribe — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:14:33 +0000

Now that the Liberals are decimated and the Conservatives have a majority government, that once favourite whipping boy for raising donations among its base is gone, so it will have to revert to other boogey-people.

The NDP it won’t touch for another 3 1/2 years, so it’s decided that the new threat to Conservative Party values is the media:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is calling on supporters to dip into their wallets to help the party counter a new foe. In a letter sent out in the past few days, Conservative Party President John Walsh is urging supporters to help the party counter a “hailstorm” of [...]

More stupidity revealed on Census changes

Scott Tribe — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:41:59 +0000

We find out today that 25 million of the 30 million extra dollars that the Conservatives are spending on making the mandatory longform census a voluntary survey is actually going to be used to explain to potentially confused people how they screwed the census up because of their ideological idiocy on the census. Some of the background to that is revealed by this Canadian Press report, albeit from the Conservatives insider(s) point of view (no surprise either that the PM is solely responsible for this debacle).

The only surprise to me is how Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz managed to convince his boss that farmers should continue to suffer under [...]

So Mr. Taylor and I agree on the census thing…

Scott Tribe — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:21:10 +0000

Mr. Stephen Taylor decided to publish thoughts on the Census controversy yesterday. Of course, he is cheering that move on, all for it. What may surprise you is that we agree on at least one point – the government’s motives behind this move. I and others have suspected that this move to kill the mandatory longform census is less to do with privacy concerns, and more to do with trying to prevent governments from having reliable data – to see certain social problems or inequalities for instance – because it will be harder to target them with programs, or revamp initial ones. Stephen doesn’t exactly say he suspects the [...]

More G8/G20 waste: Over a million $ for the posters you’ll see.

Scott Tribe — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:29:11 +0000

Greg Weston of Sunmedia has really been on a roll cataloguing all the wasteful spending that’s going on at this G8/G20 summit. His latest reveal: the posters you’ll see in the backdrop of all the photo-op shots cost over a million of your taxpayers bucks:

The latest bit of fiscal fun at public expense is $1,102,500 — wait for it — for backdrops in the two meeting halls hosting the summits. No joke: Foreign Affairs is shelling out over a million bucks for those really big banners and signboards commonly used as backdrops behind speakers’ podiums. These will be used mainly to decorate the meeting halls in Toronto and [...]

Dumbest excuse put forth to defend Conservative ‘fake lake’?

Scott Tribe — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:45:31 +0000

So far, that honour appears to go to cabinet minister Peter Kent:

Peter Kent, junior foreign affairs minister and former TV anchorman, blamed the media for the fake lake in Toronto, accusing television networks of using make believe backgrounds for their stand ups and interviews. “Every host country provides a media facility and . . . for a less cynical international media this will probably prove to be a benefit,” Kent said.

So it’s the media’s fault for the fake lake? Did they request the government build them a suitable background? Am I missing something here?

On a slightly related topic, a nice slam here from a couple of [...]

Was Guergis kicked out of the Conservative Party due to mere optics?

Scott Tribe — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:55:55 +0000

I read this last night from Aaron Wherry over at Macleans:

The private investigator says the Prime Minister’s Office did not accurately report to the ethics commissioner the information he passed on to them. He says he has no evidence as to the conduct of Ms. Guergis in his “possession or knowledge.” The concern, he says, was “optics”.

But, the PMO’s chief parrot defends the decision, citing the evidence that Jaffer was using Guergis’ office and email accounts for his personal business dealings. So, since Harper hasn’t said a word yet about the reasons why Guergis was deposed, would that be his official reason why, since Soudas, his director of [...]

This might be why there’s no election over Afghan detainee documents

Scott Tribe — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:03:05 +0000

.. because if this poll is correct, the electorate is overwhelmingly for human rights and for following international law:

A solid majority of Canadians believe prisoners detained by Canadian soldiers have been tortured after being transferred to Afghan authorities, a new Ipsos Reid poll suggests. Pollster John Wright said Canadians are saying they “care deeply” about the possibility of detainees being tortured after Canadian soldiers have transferred them to Afghan custody. “They’re saying it’s not proper, it should have stopped and, if it didn’t, somebody should have done something about it,” he said. … Almost eight in 10 surveyed said that, assuming transferred detainees were tortured by the Afghan [...]

This is just a hunch..

Scott Tribe — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:30:56 +0000

..from seeing some of his responses in QP yesterday (that were also duly noted by media observers) but I’m going to bet that Harper will not comply with the Speakers ruling to turn over unredacted/uncensored documents to Parliament.

I predict he’ll put on a show of appearing to be reasonable, but in the end I suspect he’ll try to precipitate a crisis over this and hope he can cow the opposition parties into backing off, and failing that, will dissolve Parliament when his government is ruled in contempt of Parliament. It appears to me he’d rather take his chances with the electorate and try to fear-monger his way [...]

How conveeeenient.

Scott Tribe — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:00:56 +0000

About the only good thing to say about this next news item is that this is just more evidence to present to the public that the Conservative government must have an awful lot to hide from in these documents, when they’re not only trying not to let Parliament have uncensored access to them, but also are trying to get them lost:

The Military Police Complaints Commission heard Tuesday that documents it has requested regarding the transfer of Afghan detainees could take years to sort out. According to testimony by Maj. Denis Gagnon, the relevant files were “all thrown together in a storage bin, a sea container.” The process of [...]