*promote this *quality rant.

Harper's Watergate moment? Frankly I doubt it- they've probably got so many layers of "plausible deniability" built into this thing, but this is the most disturbing story in Canadian politics in my lifetime.

I never thought Harper would be so successful at importing the political stylings of George DoubleYa. Maybe if more people made fun of him... *promote!

Until you can grow and smoke marijuana legally like you can any other plant, we do not live in a free country.

The idea that the government gets to put you in jail if you grow or possess marijuana is utter insanity to me. That's not hyperbole... I find it to be a crazy notion. Wow I feel super-duper free (sarcasm).

I used to think it would inevitably be legalized. Now I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes even more illegal (which the Harper gov. is doing).

>> ^therealblankman:

>> ^Peroxide:
Kathryn Marshall is married to Harper’s former manager of strategic planning.

Can you cite this? I'm really interested.


http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/2012/01/09/ndp-mp-nathan-cullen-slams-harper%E2%80%99s-witch-hunt-environmental-charities

About Kathryn Marshall -- married to Harper's former strategic planning manager: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/real+foreign+interests+oilsands/5982437/story.html (see paragraph 13).

>> ^Peroxide:

Kathryn Marshall is married to Harper’s former manager of strategic planning.


Can you cite this? I'm really interested.

Kathryn Marshall is married to Harper’s former manager of strategic planning.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

For those who care, Christie Clark (Premier of BC) has a new chief of staff. An Enbridge lobbyist.
If she is still in office when the decision is made, the outcome of the hearings is irrelevant. She will greenlight the project.


Tragic. The Government of BC, bought and paid for by the same people who purchased Stephen Harper back in 2004.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/clarks-new-chief-of-staff-advised-harper-lobbied-for-enbridge/article2301027
/?from=sec368

The $5.5-billion Enbridge pipeline project is all about sending Alberta bitumen in huge oil tankers to China. Beijing’s own state enterprises are among the project’s major backers, and Beijing has been buying up Alberta’s oilpatch at such a dizzying pace lately it’s hard to keep up. In the spring of 2010, China’s state-owned Sinopec Corp. took a $4.65-billion piece of Syncrude. Then the China Investment Corporation, which is run by the Chinese Communist Party, took possession of a $1.25-billon share of Penn West Petroleum. Last summer, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation gobbled up Opti Canada for $2.34 billion. And so on.

Then, last month, Sinopec spent $2.2-billion to take over Daylight Energy Ltd., and last week, Petro-China, with the final push of $1.9 billion, became the owner and manager of the MacKay River oilsands project. This is what Ottawa doesn’t want you noticing.

----

It turns out that two can play this sort of game. B.C.’s environmentalists are now making great sport of it, pointing out that Ottawa’s “ethical oil” branding exercise was begun by Conservative party gadfly Ezra Levant, who was succeeded at the Ethical Oil institute by none other than the otherwise intelligent Alykhan Velshi, who parked himself there between his term with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and his new job in Stephen Harper’s office. Bonus points: Ethical Oil dial-a-quote Kathryn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, Harper’s former strategic planning manager.

While it’s all good fun to play Spot the Freemason, something very serious is going on here. Last summer, John Bruk, the Asia Pacific Foundation’s founding president, warned that Ottawa was ignoring the rapid emergence of Chinese government interests “in sheep’s clothing” taking over Canada’s natural resource industries. Bruk told B.C. Business magazine: “Are we jeopardizing prosperity for our children and grandchildren while putting at risk our economic independence? In my view, this is exactly what is happening.”

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=5981230&sponsor

We have 10% the population of the US, so no big surprise on the first map. The second map probably has something to do with Harper.>> ^notarobot:

Geez, where did Canada go??

The Conservative government have done everything they could to undermine Kyoto since coming to power in 2006. They, along with their Oil Patch backers, have delayed implementing key strategies until indeed now it is too late, too expensive, and completely unfeasible to reach the targets that BY LAW our country had committed to. At the same time those same political and financial interests have waged a propaganda campaign to convince Canadians that Kyoto was too expensive and unfair to our national interests in that it put too large a burden on developed nations like ours while developing nations such as India and China were not obliged to lower their own emissions.

I remember being angry that the United States, under then President George W. Bush, refused to ratify Kyoto which the previous President Clinton had agreed to do. However Canada DID ratify the treaty, making our offense much, much worse.

The recent talks at Durban, known colloquially as Kyoto II, failed for the same reasons. The Canadian Government deliberately sabotaged the talks and bullied smaller nations to do the same with threats to withdraw financial aid and impose trade and travel barriers. Our government is behaving like an Imperial power forcing other nations to do what we, and more specifically our business interests, want them to do.

We Canadians have a certain view of ourselves- we think the world sees us as peacemakers and conciliators. This may have been the case in the time of Trudeau and Pearson, but is the case no longer. Harper is quickly leading us down a much darker path where we are increasingly being seen as obstructionist, militant and bullying.

Shame on our Prime Minister, shame on the Conservative Government.

Shame on all of us.

Jesus! I just realized this guy is Stephen Harper!

Right, cause that's worked sooo well here in the U.S.

Aboot time there were some Canadian ghettos/projects/hoods.

>> ^notarobot:

In Canada, The Harper Government has solved the problem of corporations and private interest being unable to profit from solving the problem of homelessness. Earlier this year they declared that they will devote billions into a new low-income housing project.

In Canada, The Harper Government has solved the problem of corporations and private interest being unable to profit from solving the problem of homelessness. Earlier this year they declared that they will devote billions into a new low-income housing project.