Harper's War Agenda

From Rabble.ca by Derrick O'Keeffe

Expanding foreign military bases serves Harper's war agenda

"Canadian fighter jets have flown more than 400 sorties over Libya thus far, and NATO's air campaign is intensifying. The Canadian planes have been operating from a NATO base in Italy. To fight wars from the air, you need to have the use of foreign bases.

Last week, Le Devoir broke the news that the Canadian government had completed agreements for new foreign bases in Jamaica and Germany, with talks ongoing to establish bases in Kuwait, Tanzania and several other countries."

The piece includes a link to the Canadian Peace Alliance and a statement against Canada's garrisoning of the planet.

"The Canadian Peace Alliance condemns the plans of the Harper government to establish new foreign military bases for Canada. This is a policy that has been in the works for some time but, like so much else about Canada's foreign policy, it was completely excluded from the discussion during the recent federal election

...The announcement about new foreign bases came at the same time as a request to keep Canadian Forces on the ground in Richelieu, Quebec to help with flood relief was being ignored. The Harper government continues to encourage costly and unnecessary deployments of the Forces abroad, while showing little interest in using its resources at home for disaster relief.

Foreign bases have nothing to do with Canadian security, and everything to do with the Harper government's desire to be able to participate in future military aggressions like the ones ongoing in Afghanistan and Libya."

Canada exports death around the world

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More of the Harper government policies that are making us look really, really good.

From McClatchy:

Lobbyists push use of deadly asbestos in developing nations

A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the international market for asbestos, a known carcinogen that's taken millions of lives and is banned or restricted in 52 countries, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found in a nine-month investigation.

Backed by public and private money and aided by scientists and friendly governments, the groups helped facilitate the sale of 2.2 million tons of asbestos last year, mostly in developing nations. Anchored by the Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute, the network stretches from New Delhi to Mexico City to the city of Asbest in Russia's Ural Mountains. Its message is that asbestos can be used safely under "controlled" conditions

Early in Harper's tenure, an international group met to discuss banning the mining and export of asbestos around the world. Most countries had already done so. The group expected that Canada would join them. The Harper government's representatives showed up at the meeting, were rude and dismissive and completely surprised one of the observers there by their boorish behaviour. That didn't surprise me, but the rest of the world hadn't got the message yet about Our Glorious Leader and Our Glorious Leader's new regime.

I sent the then-Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn an email expressing my surprise that asbestos was being mined and exported given that its use just about everywhere in Canada was banned. I received no reply. (Whoa! Who would have expected that?)

But I must admit that I thought our representatives actually represented us in those days instead of channeling Harperite policies to the 63+% of the people who hadn't voted for his party. I have been rudely awakened from that dream since then.

Gary Lunn has since been bumped down to Minister of State for Sport. I doubt whether it had anything to do with this, though. There were reports that he was giving wealthy landowners grants from a green fund to aid sustainable development, which actually didn't aid green development - but it sure aided his friends.

The present Minister of Natural Resources is Christian Paradis, Conservative MP from Quebec, smack in the middle of the mining district. The asbestos lobby is housed in Montreal and you can bet your next meal there's no asbestos in their lobby.

I'm so proud.

The Three Stooges

I hope you haven't just eaten when you see this picture of "Curly" Baird, "Larry" Harper, and Harper's "new" best friend "Moe" Charest, present leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, formerly a federal Conservative.

What the heck, eh? Since party names don't mean much anymore and loyalty to any one party is bought and sold, let's scrap the party system and vote for individuals without party affiliation who are deserving of the office.