Thursday, June 19, 2014

Stephen Harper and the Northern Gateway Monster



Gosh. Have you noticed how these days the Cons are always running away from something? 

Just a few weeks ago Jason Kenney was running away from the foreign workers scandal, as fast as his chubby little legs could carry him. While Julian Fantino ran away from a group of angry veterans.

And now Stephen Harper and the rest of his Con mob are desperately trying to get away from the Northern Gateway Pipeline. Harper hasn't even tweeted a word about his tarry baby.

And some of the other gang members are literally running for cover. 

Conservative MPs and staff are distancing themselves from the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, despite being enthusiastic about finding a way to ship natural resources to Asia. Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford declined interview requests and wasn't available Tuesday to take questions from reporters about the decision.

Several Conservative MPs from British Columbia rushed away from reporters trying to ask them questions.


And as Nathan Cullen points out for very good reason:

"There's a reason for that: This is an incredibly unpopular decision.... These guys have gutted environmental laws, destroyed whole acts that exist on the books of Canada, all to enable this project. They are wedded to it. They can't be half-pregnant on this."

And of course nobody is more desperate than Stephen Harper, who after spending millions and millions of dollars promoting the pipeline, is now too afraid to even talk about it....



And as Tim Harper points out, has only bought himself a heap of trouble.

So, what did Harper buy Tuesday? 

A project with more than 200 conditions placed on Enbridge; five more placed on it by B.C. Premier Christy Clark who controls 60 permits needed for construction; at least five court challenges underway or in the planning stage; a threat of a grassroots provincial referendum to kill the pipeline; widespread provincial opposition; threats of social unrest, and the opposition of Tom Mulcair and his New Democrats, Justin Trudeau and his Liberals and Elizabeth May of the Greens.

And placed his own head on the chopping block.

Despite controlling every aspect of this file, Harper was still unable to close the deal and was left with no option but to spend a bagful of his dwindling political capital on something that may never be built. If the prime minister’s head is in a political guillotine, he placed it there himself.

Which only goes to show once again, as Chantale Hébert points out, that Great Pipeline Leader seems to have acquired the reverse Midas Touch. 



With about a year to go in Stephen Harper’s third mandate, policy wins are becoming few and far between for the ruling Conservatives. Time and time again over the past parliamentary year the government has turned what could have been policy gold into lead.

This was supposed to be the year when Harper broke through the dark clouds of a Senate scandal by moving forward shiny new policy. Things did not work out according to plan.

Which can only make him even more desperate, along with this other piece of bad news.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and his party have widened their public-opinion lead over the ruling Conservatives in the past few weeks, according to a new poll by Forum Research.

Liberals were the preferred party for 39 per cent of poll respondents, compared to 31 per cent for the Conservatives and 19 per cent for the New Democratic Party.


Which shows that nothing he has done in the last six months, all those foreign trips, all those photo-ops, all that propaganda, have done him any good.

Oh boy. You know I took this screen cap of Great Desperate Leader in Question Period today...



And I think it speaks volumes about his fragile state of mind, and the way many in his own party are starting to look at him. 

He isn't the man he once was. Everything he touches turns to shite. He can't escape the scandals, or his tarry baby. His polls are going nowhere. He's threatening to take them all down with him.

He is slowly going crazy. 

And sooner or later, if he doesn't resign first. 

We are going to destroy him....

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14 comments:

ron wilton said...

I have noticed of late that the two strategically placed blonde bookends no longer go orgasmic over every utterance by the classless fool.
In fact the one on the left spends more time on her texting thingy than most teenagers do and seems oblivious to anything her Jimmy Jones wannabee says.

e.a.f. said...

I think his own party is leaving him. when Flaherty sat next to him, he used to look in the opposite direction ,not applaud, etc. The two blondes who framed him, from one row back, well the one, behind his left shoulder has taken over where Flaherty left off, looking in another direction, no applause, just check your last pic. I saw the same thing on the news the other night.

Given the pipeline is going to cause more problems than positives, you have to wonder why Stevie continues to cater to China. Like what do they have on him? How much have they paid him? Is he doing this out of the goodness of his heart for China? Enquiring minds want to know.

This could be enough for him to loose the next election. If the other parties campaign on the promise to revoke the pipeline, and they form government, .................

Embridge has a history of "accidents". Why would anyone want to business with them? If Iraq falls to ISIS, there goes those oil fields. We may need the oil for Canada, like just to run our cars. Why ship tar to China and be held hostage by foreign countries for our oil supply. Makes way more sense to refine the oil in Canada and use if for Canadian customers only. No exports. I would consider exports to the U.S.A. of refined oil, if they needed it for domestic use only. They are our biggest trading partner.

If Canada refines oil in Alberta and then ships it via specially built tanker rail cars, on highly maintained railways, at low speeds, with adequate staff on board, going around any urban centres, we could transport it that way through Canada and into the U.S.A. It would actually create jobs for building the tanker cars, building and maintaining railways, and staff on trains. All the while keeping the oil in Canada and giving Canada oil security, until we have other more environmental sources. We can use the tar but it has to be done in a manner which doesn't violate the environment. One of the first ways to do that is reduce the amount being "mined". We don't need to export the tar/oil. It makes more economic and environmental sense to keep it in Canada, under our control.

Anonymous said...

The quiet parade of Chinese Military Brass, have visited Canada.
03/26/2014
www.embassynews.ca

Harper's Cabinet mulls, massive Chinese resource project in our High Arctic
Dec 27/2012
www.theglobeandmail.com

We know Harper is desperate to get the tar sands oil to China. We know Petro-China put in a bid to *help* build the Enbridge pipeline.

Could it be? The Communist China Army be brought to Canada to protect, China's vast interests in this country? As you see? I don't trust Harper as far as I could throw him. To me Harper is vile enough, to do just that. Don't trust anything Christy Clark says either. The BC Liberals work for Harper. Ex BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell was rewarded by Harper, the post as High Commissioner to the U.K. The Campbell/Clark BC Liberals and Harper have handed a lot of BC to Communist China. Mills, timber, mines and resource jobs. Christy would give BC's NG to China and on China's terms, just as their deal with the tar sands oil, is on China's terms.

Anonymous said...

..."all those foreign trips, photo ops and propaganda have done him any good"

And I would add, Simon, all that taxpayers money he has wasted in order to prop himself and his oil baron cronies up has been a failed experiment in a massive drive to be the dictator. But still, his scurrilous Con MP's cannot man up and acknowledge the writing on the wall. Some are departing in time for the next election, but that is only because they've reached the magic number "6" as in 6 years for a full pension, again primarily financed by the tax-paying public of this once wonderful country. May he wallow in his own self-pity.

deb said...

china has us in an ironclad contract, thanks to Harper, and his corrupt minions. With or without the election that fool has chained us to china for years, and it may be how he plans to force the northern gateway pipeline.

Anonymous said...

To Deb Scott--
We just don't bother to honor the fucking contracts and if the Chinese don't like it, we threaten to nuke their country back into the fucking stone age just like any other state in the union would do!
Oh, wait...we're not the 51st state yet so I guess we can't be like the 'murkans yet and threated to use our nukes 'cause we don't has 'em yet but just wait 'til we do! Then we can tell our preznit O-Bomb-A to fucking nuke China back to the fucking stone age once Canada is the 51st state, right harpie? And then we don't have to give China one fucking thing, just like the 'murkans! Oh, wait . . . what's this about China bankrupting the 'murkans if they call in all the markers the 'murkans owe because of China financing so much of the 'murkan debt?
Okay, never mind

Anonymous said...

@e.a.f., liked what you had to say! Makes way too much sense to be implemented.

David said...

Video:
http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/scrums/episodes/33652497/

Scrums - June 17, 2014
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, NDP MP Nathan Cullen, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May react to the federal government's conditional approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

0:01 Thomas Mulcair

9:00 Nathan Cullen

12:28 Justin Trudeau

22:15 Elizabeth May: "We don't know how to clean up dilbit." (diluted bitumen)

POWER AND POLITICS Jun 17, 2014 (special program on Northern Gateway pipeline)

Power and Politics with Evan Solomon
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/Power+%26+Politics+with+Evan+Solomon/ID/2465598038/

David said...

Question Period - June 19, 2014
http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/question-period/episodes/90003439/

Question Period - June 18, 2014
http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/question-period/episodes/90003437/

Question Period - June 17, 2014
http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/question-period/episodes/90003432/

Question Period - June 16, 2014
http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/question-period/episodes/90003431/

Simon said...

hi ron....yes the strategically placed bookends are no longer applauding as they should, and it won't be long before their attitude is noticed in the PMO. I have to admit that I do have a soft spot for Rempel, and keep hoping that she will finally see the light. But although she sometimes looks like she wasn't sitting right behind him she still stops teeing occasionally and claps on command....

Simon said...

hi e.a.f...It's not just the two blondes, you can see that a lot of the Cons are not quite as enamoured of their leader as they once were. They have their seats to worry about, and he's not doing them any favours. Should this situation continue for much longer I'm pretty sure you will see them fidgeting in their seats even more than they already are...

Simon said...

hi anon...I don't think I've ever seen a situation where so much money was used to try to brainwash a people, and failed so miserably. But as I pointed out a while back Big Oil has just launched a massive new publicity campaign, their biggest ever, so escaping their hideous propaganda will be just about impossible. The good news is that if the reaction to the Porky Action Plan ads is any guide, the more they bombard us with those ads, the more more they annoy Canadians which can only be good for us...

deb said...

yeah we can refuse to honour the contract and I hope we do, but it will cost us billions but yeah if we take an american styled path, we can refuse to honour our debt when they sue us. Perhaps international courts will allow a legal challenge...that will be that we had a corrupt dictator sign that contract. One that contravened our own domestic laws(he never brought it in for parliamentary debate)

e.a.f. said...

I don't know how much Canadian debt the Chinese hold. I do know they hold much of the American debt. Canada could simply tell China, new government, new attitude, good bye. China could then take us to court. That would be entertaining because even most in the international community know China's courts are a joke. Their only alternative would be to take Canada to the International Court in the Hague or in Canada. How that would work, might be entertaining because the Hague may hold up our right to self determination and if the P.M. did something illegal with China in an attempt to have these contracts signed, they wouldn't be worth the paper they were written on.

Now as to one country telling another to take a hike. Argentina did that back in the 80, when they were burdened with huge debts and high interest rates. They simply told the bond holders, good luck we're not paying. Another government did this, we're the new guys. Last week an American court ruled Argentina has to pay up. Turns out those bond holders were a very large American bond holding corp. We all know the type. Sort of like those 'too big to fail groups' which did and then got a bail out from the American government, while they forced Americans who couldn't afford their homes anymore to go bankrupt. It will be interesting to see what happens. What this judgement permits the American bond holders to do is, seize Argentinian holdings in the U.S.A. They might try it because Argentinia is once again having problems. Of course if Argentinia was smart, they'd move their assets out of the U.S.A.

It is doubtful Canada has assets parked in China. There maybe corporations who have assets there, but quite frankly I don't give a rats ass about them. I am more interested in Canada retaining its sovereignty. As Mom always said, Charity begins at home. You look after your own first.