Anders Pushing Transgender Hysteria

Calgary MP Rob Anders has once again drawn criticism for controversial comments, this time about the transgender community.Anders wants to stop Bill C279, a private member's bill that would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and hate crime section of the Criminal Code to include "gender identity" and "gender expression" as grounds for discrimination.He says the bill's goal is to give transgendered men access to women's washrooms, which has led it to be nicknamed the "bathroom bill" proposal.

He said it’s the duty of the House of Commons to protect children from any exposure or harm that will come from giving men this kind of access.

Rob Anders makes the news today for pushing a long standing myth that keeps circulating in social conservative circles, that transgendered people are sexual predators.  It is a variation of the blood libel .   Anders is trying to whip up hysteria among conservative church members who will  no doubt be contacting their conservative MPs.

A lot of effort goes into trying to figure out the secretive reasons why Anders is still a member in good standing in the Conservative caucus.  The simplest explanation is the best.  He holds a safe riding that brings in steady revenue.  The secondary reason is that Stephen Harper and Rob Anders are probably closer in thinking than most people think.  Anders feeds the pigs while Harper tries to look professional in the parts of Canada where he needs to win.
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John Bolton + Brian Lilley

via Facebook ads:

Ambassador John Bolton's is one of America's leading minds in foreign relations. His experience has earned him numerous accolades. President George W. Bush called Bolton "a stalwart defender of freedom and peace." Senator Jesse Helms (then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee) referred to Bolton as "the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon." We invite you to join us for what is sure to be an intellectually stimulating conversation on the Consequences of a Second Obama Term.

Stimulating? John Bolton will be speaking at the University of Calgary on October 17, 2012, and in Toronto the next day.  Canada's two most neo-con receptive cities I guess.  Bolton's warmongering about the dire consequences of re-electing Barack Obama rehashes tired right wing themes that have obviously not been working.It's sort of amazing that you can get two of the biggest professional idiots on the same stage.  If only they could get John Baird up there.  I was glad to still be alive after the Bush era came to a close.  It's true that the United Nations is dysfunctional, but the cure was not John Bolton running up and down the hallways threatening other nations with annihilation.   Harper and Baird aren't the cure either.  They're the symptom.

http://www.boltoncanada.com/

Please recommend this post

Harper's Undiplomatic Behavior

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on a trade mission in Brazil right now. He caused a bit of a diplomatic problem by acting like a five year old. Here is my rough translation/paraphrase of the story as reported in a Brazilian Newspaper.

The Original is here.

Title: Canadian Prime Minister goes to the bathroom waiting for demands to be met.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has caused an embarrassment in Brazilian diplomacy on Monday, demanding a change in the protocol and only going to the banquet hall for lunch with the President, after meeting President Dilma Roussef first.

Speeches and toasts are common in this type of event, and can be both before and after lunch. Dilma preferred them later, but Harper made sure they were done before the guests start eating at the meeting yesterday. He did not explain why.

He had already angered aides and diplomats at the Presidential Palace, telling reporters that he would speak there, breaking the rule that such interviews always occur in the Foreign Ministry.

Brazil denied this request. Harper then went to the Foreign Ministry, for lunch, visible angry, and demanding the cancellation of the of the toasts. Then he locked himself in the private bathroom of Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota while waiting for an answer.

Bewildered, Brazilian diplomats did not know what to do, whether to heed the wishes of the Brazilian President, or surrender to the whims of the Canadian Prime Minister.

Only when it was confirmed that he would be obliged, did Harper proceed to the hall where the banquet took place. Lunch was palm heart salad, guinea hen and "pineapple delight". Toasts were made with wines.

Although the Canadian Embassy was surprised by these events, they confirmed the story with the diplomats who were at lunch, and who were in agreement with the distress of their (Brazilian) colleagues, who tried to resolve the impasse.

The lunch was scheduled for 1PM, and the next meeting of the President was the induction of former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim as new defense minister.

Corrections appreciated.

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Calgary Herald Opposes Basic Democracy

To no one's surprise the Calgary Herald wrote an op-ed wholly justifying the Senate's vote down of Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act. It seems so twisted, to me I can only summarise it in point form:

• The bill would cause irreparable economic harm while at the same time mandating unattainble C02 reduction goals. Unattainable, yet catastrophic.

• Millions will end up out of work and we'll be standing in soup lines.

• Ideological climate change denial trumps any consideration of basic democracy.

• Stephen Harper had no choice but to appoint Conservative partisans to the Senate because no other province would hold fake Senate elections like Alberta.

• Canadians will freeze in the dark, will have to stop driving, and will have turn down their heat by 40%.

• Our estimates and statistics were very carefully checked by Lord Monckton.

• For rhetorical purposes, the oil sands and coal based electricity do not exist and do not produce C02. All reductions are on individuals.

Ok, I made the part up about Monckton. But would you have doubted it if I hadn't said so?

As Harper's era comes to an end, and the rest of the world starts tackling climate change without us, the status quo will be defended by liars.

Please recommend this post

Shortest Post Ever

I don't believe a single thing Stephen Harper says about Afghanistan. Please recommend this post

Queer Ugandans ask Parliament for refugee assistance (Canada)

Since when is it the role of a Member of Parliament to agree or disagree with someone's lifestyle choice. Someone please shoot me, I can't live in this country anymore.

The Commons subcommittee on international human rights – part of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development – heard from the Pride Uganda Alliance International on the plight on queers in Uganda.

He also noted that the influence of American evangelical Christian groups has been widely felt as they try to use the proposed Ugandan law as a “model” for other countries to follow when it comes to legislating against homosexuality.

The mention of these evangelical groups prompted Conservative MP Dave Sweet to try assure the witnesses that not all Christians condone the acts of hate even though “we might not agree with the lifestyle choice,” while Reid said that he felt his parents, who were evangelical missionaries, would be horrified by what has transpired in Uganda.

Bold is mine. One hopes our government will do the right thing. It must be incredibly awkward for the social conservative caucus in Harper's Government, given their close ties to the groups that are exporting homophobia to Africa.

Please recommend this post

CAPPYYC Rally Afterburn

Disclaimer: My Blog, this post, and my thoughts here reflect my own views and are not associated with the Organizing Committee of CAPPYYC.






We had a post rally debriefing meeting last night. We put together the following statement for our Facebook supporters:

Our rally outside Mr. Harper’s office this past Saturday was a solid success. Over 350 people attended (based on the 357 signatures on our petition as well as the estimates of the police and news crews!) and we had solid coverage from 3 English television networks, one Chinese network and a wide variety of local papers. The tone of the gathering was polite and positive, attendance exceeded our expectations despite the weather, and we are very happy with how everything turned out. Thank you to everyone who took some time out of their day to come out and make their opinion known!

Here is a link to a video of the event,
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=295426917159&oid=233912789510
plus a link to the delivery of the signatures today,
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=302982977159&oid=233912789510

The steering committee had a debrief meeting on Wednesday to discuss lessons learned and the possibility of future events, and we agreed that much remains to be done. We don’t want this issue to fade or to get lost in partisan posturing! As a result we will begin working on events dedicated toward increasing civic engagement and educating people about our system, as well as a second rally to be held close to the actual sitting of Parliament in March. The fact that concern over the erosion of our representative institutions got over 350 Calgarians out in the January cold seems to us to indicate that there is work to be done before the next election!




I thought the debriefing meeting was a little intense as everyone shared their thoughts about the things that worked well and the things we could have done a better job on.  There were a lot of things we could have done better.  Generally, I think every one felt the rally was a great success.  We got a turn out of about 350 people.  That may not seem like a lot, but consider that it was -10c with blowing snow, and we were in the most conservative federal riding in all of Canada.

I thought the Calgary media was really good to us in terms of coverage and reporting the event fairly. I really didn't know what to expect from the media. The 3 or 4 Calgary Police Officers assigned to the event were really nice to us even though we spilled out onto the road due to a lack of room on the sidewalk.

We feel we picked the right location in front of Stephen Harper's constituency office.  I had some off and on worries that the location might not work.

Another thing that totally impressed me was the attitude of the crowd and the atmosphere.  Everyone was really happy and friendly.  Everyone I talked to agreed that it was a fun atmosphere.

While it would not be fair for me to divulge specific comments of other committee members, I can tell you the list of "learn from" issues that I brought to the discussion:

• Not enough time to recruit volunteers. Five people did all the work, and among us the work wasn't really distributed properly.
• Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogs has mixed results for generating interest. This may have been due to the compressed delivery time, or we just may not have been messaging properly.
• I thought people with key tasks should have some redundancy or backup in case they couldn't deliver their responsibility for some reason.
• If we had more time we could have identified people's skills and interests more and mapped tasks a bit better.
• There was no real project time line to see where we were in the planning.  Again, due to compressed time frame.
• Our  petition  should have gone out much earlier. 
• We should have had some type of hand-out at the event. (There were about 4-5 other groups that showed up and handed out their stuff.)
• I would have liked to live blog the event, or video stream it.  We didn't have the time or resources

All of our self-criticisms seems to come out of not having enough time and people.  Nonetheless I am personally very happy with the way the event turned out.  And I also am in awe of my fellow committee members for their smarts, determination, and passion.

We now look forward to planning another event that we hope will be even more successful. Stay tuned. Please recommend this post

CAPP YYC Rally Tomorrow

Thanks for all who worked to get the Calgary Rally off the ground, and thanks ahead of time for all of you who are going to show up tomorrow.

Here is a link to our petition document.  It got out a bit late, but whatever signatures you can get is great. We will have lots of places to sign tomorrow at the rally.

Two final reminders:
1. Parking is very limited around Mr Harper's office.  Please try to avoid driving if you can.  There is lots of parking in South Glenmore park, but its a 10-15 minute walk.
2. We still need volunteers.

Map Please recommend this post

CAPPYYC Rally Blogger Plug

Calgary's CAPP rally is this Saturday, January 23,2010, on the parking lot directly outside Stephen Harper's Constituency Office.

The address is:

1600 - 90 th Avenue SW
(also known as Glenmore Landing, a popular shopping centre.)

We recommend you not bring your car to the event due to limited parking.  There is a lot of parking in nearby, but not in the shopping centre.  There are maps and transit info on the event page.  We also wanted to avoid causing a problem for the retail businesses around Mr. Harper's office.

If you like walking, the location is about 15-20 minutes from the Heritage CTrain Station.

The rally will start at 1pm and will go for at least an hour, and longer if the participants want.

Because of the right leaning nature of Calgary's Social media, and the completely appropriate  attention shift to the Haiti relief efforts, it has been difficult to get our rally talked about in the blogosphere or on Twitter. If you are a Calgary blogger please help us and blog about this non-partisan event.  There are tonnes of excellent opinion blog posts about the Prorogue so I won't cover that territory here.

We will be presenting a petition to Mr.Harper's constituency office and hope you will help gather signatures. The petition asks that Parliament return in January. A PDF version of the petition and signing sheets will be available sometime today.

A link an image of  one of our posters is here.

Our press release is here

Follow the organizers on Twitter.

Thanks to the Calgarians who have supported this event, and the organizers who have worked very hard.

Tell your friends. Please recommend this post

Calgary's Rally Until Now Noticeably Lacking

I was surprised to learn Calgary, Alberta was one of the few cities in Canada not organizing an anti-prorogue rally.  Ok, I wasn't really surprised I was just being polite.

Although I loath facebook it is somewhat useful for organizing groups and events. Please join the group I created attempting to organize a rally in Calgary. If it falls on dead ears, at least we tried.  Sorry, typo, I meant deaf ears. I was thinking of brains.

What we need now are ideas, facebook tips, admins and joiners.

If you can think of any other social media sites we could supplement this group with please let me know.

In the meantime a little Bruce Cockburn:

Please recommend this post

Mr. Harper's Farewell Song

A little song I worked up in the heat of Winter Solstice insomnia. Sung to the tune of Henry Kissinger by Monty Python. Maybe it could be sung at one of those swank Galas when next time all the elites get together again.

Dear Prime Minister
We won't be missing yer
You're not the Leader of our dreams
Your too much to bear with your empty stare
And your Machiavellian schemes

I know they say that you are very vain
And rude and dumb and loud - and likely quite insane
Mr. Prime Minister
We won't be missing yer
Just wishing you were gone

Mr. Prime Minister
we're all dismissing yer
Looks like yer out on the street
With your Timmy's clothes and your think tank prose
You leave me feeling so downbeat.

All right so people say that you don't care
but the gays know where they stand
and the poor don't have a prayer.

Mr. Prime Minister
We'll be happy when you are done.

(boom boom bada tish)

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December 6 and Hong Kong

Our Prime Minister should have been in Ottawa on December 6 to honour the 20^th Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. This is a very solemn and significant day for Canadians and the absence of Mr. Harper is deplorable to me. My hopes were never high, but still.

One of my father's good friends when we were growing up was a Canadian soldier in Hong Kong when it fell to the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941. He survived the battle but remained a prisoner of war until liberation in 1945. He and the other Commonwealth POW's were beaten, tortured and starved contrary to international war conventions. He had lifelong health problems from malnutrition and died too young. It chills me to think what went on in his head all those years. I suspect there are a lot of Canadians who have some connection to the battle of Hong Kong. In high school I learned about Dieppe, Vimy Ridge and the Normandy and Sicily campaigns. I had no idea until later in University about the Honk Kong veterans.

I welcome the Canadian Prime Minister visiting the Cenotaph in Hong Kong and paying formal respects to our war dead. However, I would prefer that he avoided the hyper-nationalistic manipulation of war imagery. I would prefer that he stop using slanderous rhetoric and smearing Canadians who want to know the truth about detainee issues in Afghanistan. Soldiers, dead or alive are not visuals to be used casually for self aggrandizement.

I don't think our Prime Minister gets the meaning of our history. Please recommend this post

Why Harper’s Speech Doesn’t Matter

If you were shocked and saddened by Stephen Harper's leaked private speech delivered last night, you're probably not alone. I felt very demoralized last night and still do. However if you learned anything new about Harper from that mean spirited hate-filled speech then I would suggest you probably haven't been paying attention. That was vintage Stephen Harper, consistent with every partisan speech he's made going back to the early nineties and the birth of the Reform Party. As an Albertan this type of McCarthyist BS is nothing new.

It won't have much of an impact on people who already support Harper, in fact it will probably energize them. Those moderate conservatives, leftovers from the PC days maybe, have no influence and are tied and gagged in the basement.

I doubt very much whether the opposition parties will pick up any new energy or supporters from this speech because we've seen time and time again where these type of things don't really register with the average voter who are worried about feeding their dogs. Or kids. If we look at it honestly, voters can be irrational about a lot of things. The entire Bush era and the current American Health care debate are cases in point.

Unless polling suggests otherwise, I'm willing to bet that this speech will be quickly forgotten in a swirl of garbage noise from the CPC.

Here's Milewski's take on the speech.

Update: September 10, 2009 09:40 MST

I'm starting to believe that the leak was deliberate. At the very least I doubt that Harper would be angry at the leak since it sends all the right messages to the people they're trying to keep on board. Sad.







Join the conversation on Twitter.

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Harper's Election Law was a gimmick

As we speak lawyers for Elections Canada and Democracy Watch are arguing in Federal Court whether the last election was illegal. I support Democracy watch, in general, and can't wait for Harper to be retired to a think tank somewhere. Yet, I have doubts and I think the lawsuit is misdirected effort.

Its true that Stephen Harper broke his own law, and its true that this shows his lack of character and professionalism. However the law was a gimmick. It was a brain fart from the original Reform platform. None of the Reformers had much regard for the Constitution Act of 1982 and it continues to show.

A sitting Prime Minister making a law about election dates in a minority government is bizarre beyond belief, and I doubt the Supreme Court would be able to uphold such a law if it was ever challenged. It was a gimmick and nothing more, best remedied by the voters not the courts.

Harper knew ahead of time that ignoring such a bullshit law would be perfectly legal.

Democracy watch should focus on more important issues for now, given our growing democracy deficit. And yes, for the record, I believe we should have fixed election dates as part of overall electoral reform. I can only get behind that if its based on broad consultation. Stephen Harper isn't the one to do that, he can barely collaborate within his own tribe. Also, he doesn't understand what rule of law means.

Update September 8, 2009 14:15. Fix minor typos.

Update September 8, 2009 21:00 Links to other bloggers on same topic:

Pogge.ca
Impolitical
Kirby Cairo
Impolitical (strikes again)




Join the conversation on Twitter.

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Jacques Demers: Just Visiting

Can you imagine if Jacques Demers had been appointed to the Senate as a Liberal by a Liberal Prime Minister. I was just thinking of the creepy voice over of a creepy Conservative attack ad:

Jacques Demers hates Canada. Jacques Demers coached in the United States for almost two decades. He only came back for the Senate appointment... etc.

All the way from Montenegro...

I was a Habs fan growing up. I only became an Oilers fan when they came to Edmonton in 1977. (<-fact check) I became a Habs fan briefly again when they won the Stanley Cup under Demers in 1992-93. When Shayne Corson and Vincent Damphouse did their reluctant tour of duty as Edmonton Oilers I hoped they would bring some Demers magic with them. Hope is a funny emotion.

I admire Demers very much. I think he is a great communicator and motivator and obviously overcame the huge handicap of illiteracy in the Hockey world, where any kind of weakness is not easily accepted and maleness is distorted.

(Run on sentence. Check.)

Demers said in an interview today that running for election wasn't really him, or words to that effect. As a result I hope he doesn't say anything at all about Senate Reform. If he did it would be an obvious broken argument.

He probably will get an orientation and realize very quickly that he is just there to vote the party line. Not to think. Not to talk. It would be nice if he could talk to people about literacy, but big daddy doesn't like that kind of thing. Too bad, because he is an animated and lively speaker.

Jacques Demers is too good a person to be wasted on Stephen Harper. He's in the wrong party. Its a shame. Please recommend this post

Peter Lougheed: Just Visiting

As mentioned from time to time on this site, Alberta's most pivotal Premier of the modern era was shockingly absent from Alberta and shockingly returned to get elected to the Alberta Legislature. Shocking. It could be that Stephen Harper has overlooked his bio, or he just hasn't got around to slandering him yet. Harper's probably kind of busy that way.

Before his political career, in the 1950's Lougheed went to Harvard (make sour ewwy face) to obtain an MBA. Although he was a stellar student in all respects he did flunk out of How to Talk With a Parisian Accent. He just wasn't good at it. And it was an elective. In the summers he worked for an oil company in Oklahoma. He saw first hand what happens when the oil and gas runs out.

After returning to Alberta, Lougheed ran for office in the mid 60's, again shockingly, and then won the landslide election of 1971, in spite of his presumptuousness in getting an education.

Going, coming, going, coming. "Education." These elitists are all the same. I can hardly believe a true Albertan would act that way.


(I suppose I'll have to mention I'm being sarcastic. But I'm only using a very small font.)

Please recommend this post

Curious About Harper's History Lesson

I'm curious to know when and how Stephen Harper arrived at this curious epiphany about not being able to win the war in Afghanistan.

Was it last Thursday at 3:14 AM? Was it in 1984?

I think it is an important question. When did he know this? Which books did he read? If he knew this before the Conservative Party came to power and escalated the Afghanistan mission then he traded ethics for politic posturing and death.

If he knew before the insufferable General Hillier went all jingoistic then he was negligent in not forwarding those history books to the General to read before he spoke.

I remember listening to General Hillier and thinking what it must have been like to have been a Soldier in 1914 listening to some General blather on about what a great adventure it will be and how you'll all be home by Christmas. It didn't turn out that way then our now.

Hopefully Harper's next historical epiphany will be about R.B.Bennett and the Great Depression. Can't wait. Please recommend this post

Harper Less Classy Than Nixon

Is it just me, or do you agree that Stephen Harper is completely afraid of Canadians engaging in any kind of Barack Obama adulation. I'm not really into hero worship but it was hard not to notice that in the lead up to the Presidential Election Barack Obama was eliciting a certain kind of enthusiastic response that has been noticeably lacking in our politics for some time.

I can't remember an American President who was so widely popularized in foreign countries, except perhaps John F. Kennedy. Reagan did get cheered at that SS cemetery in Germany but I think those were mostly neo-Nazis. (Obligatory Reagan joke.)

Our photo archives are full of Trudeau and Nixon meeting and talking in front of the media. The two loathed one another but they did meet out in the open. My point is I think what Harper is doing is unprecedented and without class.

Can you think of any other democracy where the Head of State is not allowed to greet a foreign leader in the open presence of a free media?

Does Stephen Harper fear Obamamania will infect Canada? Please recommend this post

On Getting Blown Off Course

This just in:

The federal government must "stick to the course" outlined in its massive economic stimulus plan despite the "bad news" of Canada shedding 129,000 jobs in January, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday.

The prime minister made the comment in New Brunswick when asked about Statistics Canada's report on Friday, which said the country's unemployment rate shot up by 0.6 percentage points in January to 7.2 per cent. Almost all of the job losses were in full-time work.

When you are a dull thinker, mean spirited, value ideology over facts, of course you would not change your plans in the face of changing evidence.

I'm starting to believe that Stephen Harper's personality and lack of intellectual agility will do us some long term harm. Please recommend this post

I'm On Irony Overload

Consider the events of the last week:

1. The Prime Minister says he will rebalance the Parliament by giving Ontario 20 more seats.

2. The Prime Minister confirms he will make 18 patronage appointments to the Senate.

3. The Conservative government of Alberta says it will break its own law and run a deficit in 09.

Somewhere in a parallel universe Stephane Dion is Prime Minister and Kevin Taft is the Premier of Alberta. They are doing the exact same things listed above, except it causes an east-west civil war.

Is it just me, or is the silence in the western media regarding these issues conspicuously absent of any kind of criticism? Please recommend this post