Tagged: Bob Rae
Liberal honey vs. Harper bile
I’m a little late with this, but it’s worth noting for the record the contrast between the way the Liberal Party of Canada and the governing Harper Conservatives reacted to Thomas Mulcair’s election as leader of the New Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition Saturday night.
Rae issued the following statement:
I want to offer my warm congratulations to Thomas Mulcair on winning the leadership contest in the New Democratic Party. I know Mr. Mulcair well and look forward to working with him to ensure Parliament acts on behalf of all Canadians.
I also want to congratulate the NDP for a successful leadership convention, particularly in opening up the selection process to Canadians across the country.
I also want to salute Mme Nycole Turmel for the integrity she showed as Interim Leader of the NDP. Her grace was apparent as she courageously carried out her duties admirably in the wake of the tragic passing of Jack Layton.
At about the same time, Harper’s Conservative Party issued a set of talking points to select reporters:
Today in Toronto, the NDP have chosen Thomas Mulcair to push their agenda of high taxes, high spending and less economic growth.
Thomas Mulcair is an opportunist whose high tax agenda, blind ambition, and divisive personality would put Canadian families and their jobs at risk.
Mulcair has said he would bring back a risky, job-killing carbon tax which would raise the price of everything – even though Canadians overwhelmingly rejected carbon taxes. Canadians can’t afford Mulcair’s dangerous economic experiments.
Also, Thomas Mulcair has vowed to bring back the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and his soft on crime positions would take Canada back to policies that put the rights of criminals ahead of those of victims.
Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to create jobs and economic growth. For hard-working Canadian families looking for a government that will put them first, it is clear that the only choice is Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
Very different statements to be sure, but both, in their way, a mark of their respective author’s character.
“Not my department,” says Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s insistence that the torture of prisoners Canada hands over to Afghan authorities is a problem for Afghanistan, not Canada, calls to mind Tom Leher’s lyric about rocket scientist Wernher von Braun’s apparent indifference to the consequences of his work on Germany’s World War II V2 rocket:
Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
‘That’s not my department’, says Wernher von Braun.
In fact, as Bob Rae points out in the same Globe and Mail article, transferring prisoners with the expectation they may be tortured is a violation of the Geneva Conventions – a war crime, in other words.
The blithe indifference to torture shown by both the Harper and Martin governments is a marked departure from the international standards Canadians are accustomed to upholding. But it pales by comparison with the US approach. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald (here) and the New York Times (here) have chilling recapitulations of the US torture and subsequent seven-year imprisonment at Guantanamo, without charge, of Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, during which he was interrogated not about terrorism but about Al Jazeera’s operations.
Says Greenwald:
The due-process-free imprisonment of this journalist by the U.S. government was ignored almost completely by the American media (other than Nicholas Kristof), even as it righteously obsessed on the far shorter imprisonment of journalists by countries such as Iran and North Korea (hey, look over there at those tyrannical countries – they imprison our journalists!!!!!). Aside from al-Hajj, we’ve imprisoned numerous other journalists without charges in Iraq — and continue to this day to do so — including ones who work for Reuters and the Associated Press.
Colvin’s torture testimony – #1
Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin told the Commons Committee on Afghan Detainees today that virtually all the prisoners Canada turned over to Afghan security forces in 2006 and 2007 were tortured. Colvin says senior Canadian military and civilian ignored his warnings about the abuse, and Red Cross officials who tried to intervene could not get their phone calls returned for three months. Here is:
- The Canadian Press account of Colvin’s testimony.
- A transcript of his opening statement.
- Video of Bob Rae questioning Peter MacKay on the allegations in Question Period.
- Stories from CBC, the Toronto Sun, the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail.
If anyone has video of Colvin’s actual testimony, please send me the link.
The Globe and Mail quotes military and foreign affairs sources as saying Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan in 2007 were ordered to hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners because the explosive human-rights controversy was seen as ‘detracting from the narrative’ Harper government wanted to promote.
McNeil draws a specious distinction
Liberal Donor John Bragg
Liberal leader Steven McNeil tries to draw a distinction between political contributions from unions and those from corporations on the grounds that the next premier will have to negotiate with unions.
In fact, the next government is far more likely to find itself negotiating with the companies owned by John Bragg, whose Oxford Seafoods Ltd. is one of McNeil’s two largest donors, than with the Mainland Building and Construction Trades Council and its member unions.
Bragg’s companies, including Eastlink, have multiple business dealings with the province, including bidding on contracts and receiving loans and other assistance. The Trades Council negotiates mainly with a parallel employers’ council consisting of large construction companies. Its members are not public sector unions and would have little occasion to negotiate with government. Read more »
