Prorougation Again!

Well here we are at the end of yet another year and our beloved Conservative government has gone to the Governor General (Michaelle Jean) to ask her again to prorogue parliament. The last time Steven Harper did this was to avoid a confidence vote which would have ushered in a coalition government between the Liberals and the N.D.P. This coalition did with have the approval of the block Quebecois and the promise of letting them govern for eighteen months before they would consider voting against the coalition. During the time off while parliament was prorogued the Conservatives launched a massive ad campaign to denounce this coup d'etat as a over throw of our government. The reality however, was that this was totally legal and in fact Steven Harper was engineering a coalition of his own back when Paul Martin and the Liberals were in power. Unfortunately the media and pretty much all the journalist neglected to discuss that very much all they seem to do is side with Steven Harper and repeat or trumpet his message that those dam Liberals were trying to steal power away from him. Steven Harper seemed to think that because he won the election with 37% of the vote, that Canadians wanted him to be the leader. This advertising campaign went on for weeks and every poll and every news cast seem to re-affirm this belief, every talking head or political analysis repeated what Harper was saying. By the time parliament did re-convene, Canadians were led to believe that this was bad for the country(roughly 60%against to 40%for) and the Liberals under (Micheal Ignatieff) scrapped the whole coalition idea. Also Ignatieff scraped it because now that parliament was prorogued the only way to go forward would be a non confidence vote in the spring budget, which would lead to yet another election. In my opinion the Liberals had neither the money nor the confidence that Canadians knew enough about their new leader Michael Ignatieff, so rather than going into an election the Liberals insisted that the Conservatives include in that budget spending provisions (The Canada Action Plan) that would help Canada get out of this world financial crisis and set up a series of reporting periods that must be met to show how the infrastructure spending is doing. Ya what the media and journalist seem to report little about is that this whole coalition was caused by Harper releasing a budget that included no plans to combat the global financial crisis, instead he attacked a couple of social programs and revoked the public funding for political parties. What the media focused on was the party funding and little was said about the fifty billion plus dollars needed to help our economy get back on its feet.
So now another Prorogation of parliament and already the media is parroting the P.M.O.'s message that this is a just a routine occurrence in parliamentary process, however that is a lie. Prorogation is used to end the session after everything needed to be done is done or closed to being done, and on special occasions where the Prime Minister believes that it is a necessity. Prorogation is not to avoid confidence votes, like the last time, or to avoid court orders from committees, like the one from the Afghanistan committee that requires the government to release the documents from the detainee issue dating back to 2006 until now (not backed out). This government is so slippery, I believe they will probably get away with this and our media will play an important role in its execution. No wonder Canadians are more and more less interested in Canadian politics, the crap that goes on is depressing. However, now more than ever Canadians need to stop listening to the bias media and investigate more for themselves, get to the bottom of every truth, do not let journalist get away with regurgitating the politicains pollished talking points or their carefully constructed message. I read a good blog on this today by Red Torry ( I tried to get the whole link thing happening but, not), anyways the post is a clip of a journalist holdiong the Rebublicans to account for the lies they have been spewing for the last week regarding President Obama, its a very good post.

Merry Christmas

Well Christmas day is here at last and what a wonderful Christmas it has been, good family fun, good food, even the dog seems to be having more fun than usual. The only thing that could be better is to have the entire family here and not spread out in multiple cities, oh well, thank god for technology. You know I really enjoy the love people share at this time of year and the efforts people go to in order to contact friends and family, I only wonder why do we make these efforts only once a year and not more often. It seems at though the various charities do the bulk of their campaigning at Christmas time, do people need these charities less at other times of the year? To me I wish we could have the same generous attitude at Easter, Canada Day, Labour Day, or Thanksgiving Day, heck maybe we could be more generous on every full moon of every month, I guess that's going a little far. One thing for sure is, that it is nice that during this time of the year when it is generally colder outside that our charities can provide blankets and warm clothes, warms meals and some times a shelter to sleep in for the people who have no homes and can't afford a good meal. It's nice that we have people who organize giving gifts for that time of the year when families that don't have a lot to spend on gifts for the children, who for the most part don't place a lot of importance on toys ( it's seems like they know when there isn't enough money), but they sure do enjoy the gifts when they receive them. It's nice that when a family that does get over burdened with expense, that they at least know they can go to a food bank and have food in the fridge for this time of year. I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to live a life outside of poverty and each year at this time I really become thankful of the life I have (more so then normally). However, each year I say to myself that I should do more to get involved with more charities and ya sure I donate a little money here and there, but the closest I've ever gotten to actually getting fiscally involved with doing something concrete, well a couple of years ago I read that book "Giving" by Bill Clinton ( a great read), I need to do more this coming year for helping out in my community and get more involved period! I guess I have found a new short, medium, and long range goal for the new year. Anyways Merry Christmas and hopefully everyone has a splendid time.

Post Copenhagen

Well the Copenhagen Climate Conference ended on the weekend with nothing more than a Treaty that hopes to deal with the problem in the near future, and sets money aside for developing countries to combat climate change. I think the conference was a failure because the Copenhagen Conference was the fifteenth so far and way back at conference number seven in 2005, they had a legally binding contract called the Kyoto Accord one hundred and eighty seven countries or states agreed to lower green house gasses by 5.2% of 1990 levels. Sure the Kyoto Accord did not have hard targets for big emitters such as the United States, China, or India, and a few other developed nations, but in my opinion and the opinion of many others, Kyoto was the starting point at which countries could adjust targets and ratify objectives. None of that happened, now four years later, people were looking for a new accord, one that included everyone and one that made targets extremely soft. On a positive side they did agree to set aside money for poor developing countries to build new environment friendly technologies (ie: wind turbines and solar panels). The one thing that really upsets me about this meeting is that Canada played a obstructive role and made no attempts to continue to lead in this forum. Our government was on record months before saying that they didn't think anything would be achieved from the Copenhagen Conference, what an utter disappointment. Countries around the world now view Canada as a country who doesn't believe in global warming and as a country who has no intention of doing anything about it. I have now changed my profile picture from a Canadian flag to a picture of Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) peeing on a picture of the world and a sign that says "I am Canadian" Again what a disappointment!

What a Wonderful World, Let's Keep It That Way

Well it's been a while since my last post on this political blog, I believe it's because of feeling so helpless and insignificant when it comes to having any say or input into what happens here in Canada with our politicians. I have made several comments on many other blogs but have written nothing here on Frankly Canadian's blog, so time to get back to it and make another go of it. Last week and next week is the United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen Summit, and yesterday alone the city had over ten thousand protesters who want our leaders to stop talking and farting around and start taking immediate action. There is a group (Avaaz) who send out weekly e-mails and organize protest throughout the world and they have over three thousand candle light vigils set up for Saturday night as well. I started thinking how easy it is to feel insignificant and how important it is that people around the world don't feel helpless. I also started to realize that their are people around the world who believe they can and will make a difference to create positive change in our world. Throughout history the people have come to a boiling point and began to take charge and instigate the changes necessary, the results of these changes have given us a society we can all be proud of. When I look at how President Obama was elected and how he himself symbolizes the whole idea of "The Audacity Of Hope", I realize the people truly do have the ultimate power. When I see that no matter how big the corporations get and how much they influence our media (newspapers, radio, television, and now news feeds on popular web sites), and when I see how much these same big corporations influence our political process and the politicians themselves, I realize throughout history the people do have the ultimate power. I am a witness to how things change when people begin to rebel, they organize and protest, they make movies and write books, they do what ever they can to instigate change. I have began to realize no matter how helpless and insignificant I feel, that I too can have a part (even if a small part) in the change taking place. I can blog or comment on a blog, I can write the newspapers in the opinions columns, I can take part in some of the events taking place, even if all I do is talk about what needs to be done, I still have a part in instigating change. I do believe we live in a wonderful world and we need to insure that it continues to remain a wonderful world.