Well it has been a while since my last blog post and their sure is a lot to talk about. First thing to talk about is the "Gun Registry". A Conservative M.P. Candice Hoeppner had put forward a bill to scrap the gun registry program back in May of 2009 Bill C-391 and after all this time they finally had the vote. The bill was struck down (thank goodness), however what is important to talk about is the way the Conservative government conducted themselves here. The reason the vote took so long is because Steven Harper continues to obstruct and officiously gum up the whole political process, he has prorogued Parliament on two separate occasions were all legislation not yet passed in then dead on the table and has to be re-introduced. He and his Conservative M.P.'s also purposely obstruct and delay these committees tasked with debating these bills. They lie to Canadians and say that the program is a huge amount of money wasted every year, however the fact is that the initial set up of the program was a massive mismanaged cost overran fiasco but the actual cost of running it now is very minimal and very cost effective. I think one of the most striking fact of this escapade is that all of the top R.C.M.P. brass said they found the registry to be a useful tool that many officers use daily and that it saved lives. Also the head of the police chiefs for every municipality were strongly opposed to scrapping the registry and that the city police use it daily as well. The whole time the Harper government stood by decision and kept smearing the people who opposed their point of view. One last notable thing about this debacle of events for the Harper Government is that after loosing the vote he came out of the chambers and in front of all the television cameras stated that his government would not rest until the gun registry is repealed, makes you think what else would they never rest for if they didn't get their way.
Another item to talk about is that over the summer the Harper government descided to do away with the mandatory long form census that Canadains fill out periodically for Statistics Canada. Whats important about this is that other countris have tried this but have always gone back to the mandatory form, yet this govenment refuses to listen to facts and does whatever they feel like. I personally think they don't want Statistics Canada to disagree with some of their wild claims, for example the Conservatives have alwways said they were the tough on crime party and that things here in Canada are really bad (fear mongering) and when the opposition parties pointer out that in reality crime in canada has been on the decline for the last ten or so years, the statement from the Conservatives (Stockwell Day) was that they weree talking about unreported crime and that unreported crime was at epidemic propotions. My question and many other journalist is, if its unreported how do they know a crime actually was committed? This seems to be just another major step away from a free and democratic Canada.
The last but not least item to blog about is that Canada has for the first time since its inception, lost a bid to have a seat at the United Nations Security Council. Many people say that it is because Canada is losing it reputation on the world stage. Canada used to be a peaceful nuetral country that would mediate and negotiate between other countries, now we are an extention of the George Bushes shoot them up blow them up bring it on policies, tough on crime tough on terrorist and we'll kick their asses. However the world now knows that George Bushes Republicans fooled its people and the rest of the world by constantly keeping us fearful and worried that life as we know it was hanging by a string and all we had to do is be good little sheep and listen to our leader, who was starting wars in the name of war on terror but was actually a greed driven plan to secure oil reserves. Now that President Obama has ended that stupid war in Iraq and put the real enphasis on Afgahanistan where the real terrorist are (there and India), people are now learning about the many and huge lies told to us to scare us into letting the politicians do what ever they want in the name of "a true leader". I'm glad Canada lost its bid for the seat on the Security Council because maybe this will be a huge wake up call for all Canadians as to what is taking place in Ottawa with regards to our foriegn polocies. Maybe Canada will get rid of this right wing parisan Conservatives and start correcting and reversing the descission made such as; YES Canada DOES cares about climate change and we WILL honour our commitments made even if they were made by a different political party, and YES we do care about Africa and WILL honour our commitments made, and YES family planning is an essential part of helping mother and children health around the world and we don't need to make this about religion. Right now our foriegn policy seems to be about ridding the world of Muslims and making everyone devoted Catholics, everyone should have the right to practice whatever religion they wish as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else. Maybe just maybe this is the wakeup call Canadians need to get back on track and start having that world vission we once had and not just doing things for big oil companies from Alberta. Anyways tthats my rant for today and that was just three of the main issues within the last couple of weeks.
