No sooner had I finished my last post, about Stephen Harper's decision to approve the Northern Gateway pipeline, when I was struck by a sudden happy thought. Could that be his final act? Could that be his final gift to Alberta? And could he be planning to resign, before construction begins, and the shit hits the fan? So he can get the credit for the idea, and not be blamed for the bloodbath. But sadly that moment of euphoria didn't last long eh? Because along came the guy who wrote Harperland to puncture that happy thought.
Well the day of decision is finally here. The day Stephen Harper must decide whether to approve the Northern Gateway Pipeline. And no doubt he is psyching himself up in his bunker, by among other things reminding himself that David Suzuki was on that list of Canadian heroes I wrote about yesterday. And he isn't. But of course it won't be an easy decision, because there are no easy political options.
For more than eight years he has waged war on Canada and its values. The Canada he once called a "second tier socialist country." The country whose values he hates so much. He has assaulted our democracy, smeared and bullied his opponents, muzzled scientists, gutted the census, burned books, and turned his hideous Harperland into a surveillance state, where fear is a weapon, and the Big Lie RULES. But now he is crazy desperate, his Big Oil dreams are collapsing, and the final Battle for Canada is about to begin.
When historians assess the legacy of Stephen Harper fifty years from now, the many scandals of his corrupt regime will probably merit only a few paragraphs. But what they will say of him without a doubt, is that at a critical point in human history he failed his country and his planet. For at a time when scientists were warning that time was running out for climate change action. The disconnect couldn't be greater.
Well after two weeks in virtual seclusion plotting his comeback, and hiding from the media, Stephen Harper finally stumbled out of his crypt. Jetted off to British Columbia. And got a warm B.C. welcome. Two climate change activists managed to sneak up behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday just as he was getting ready to start a question and answer session at the Vancouver Board of Trade. One of the activists, a male, stood behind Harper holding a sign that read "Climate justice now."
The second activist, a female, held up a sign saying "The Conservatives take climate change seriously," with the sentence crossed out.
Well it seems that Stephen Harper is pulling out all the stops to try to crush all opposition to his Northern Gateway pipeline. By not only getting the National Energy Board to rubber-stamp his insane project. But also by getting Canada's top spy watchdog to lobby for the pipeline maniacs from Enbridge.
Well I see Stephen Harper got an early Christmas present, courtesy of the Big Oil gang at the National Energy Board. A polarizing debate over the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline heated up Thursday after an independent panel from the National Energy Board recommended the federal government approve the pipeline with conditions. Because he needed something to cheer him up eh? And now the scam is on, and the fix is in.
Well he may be losing his battle to convince Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, but I see nothing will stop Stephen Harper from launching yet another oily crusade. First he will conquer or bribe British Columbia.
A parade of cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats will head to British Columbia starting next week as part of a major push to mollify opponents of building oil pipelines to the West Coast, CBC News has learned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is signalling he intends to make progress on proposals to connect Alberta's oilsands with ports in British Columbia and the lucrative Asian markets beyond. And then he will take the East !!!!
Well it has been a year since Stephen Harper declared war on environmentalists. And started going after the Green Menace like Joe McCarthy went after the red one. Calling respected environmental groups "radicals" and "extremists" and ordering that they be investigated.
Now the first results are in, and no doubt Harper is rolling on the floor of his bunker tonight, screaming with disappointment, and/or biting the carpet.
Gawd. You just can't teach old Cons new tricks eh? For there they are bombarding the airwaves with their grotesque Porky Action Plan ads again. Even though it's costing a fortune. The Harper government spent $21 million on major advertising campaigns under its Economic Action Plan brand in 2011-12, according to the latest annual report on ad spending. And even though we've told them those crappy ads are driving us NUTS !#@#!!
As you know Joe Oliver has had some pretty bad news conferences eh? Like the time he called environmentalists radicals or dangerous extremists. Or the time he claimed we would be able to drink the tarry bubbly from the tailing ponds. Well, the other day he held another big photo-op in Vancouver, and it was even more ridiculous.
Or so says Jeffrey Simpson. The Northern Gateway pipeline that Enbridge proposes to build from Alberta’s bitumen oil to the Pacific coast of British Columbia is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Yes, regulatory hearings before the National Energy Board will continue until the NEB approves the project. And yes, Enbridge will keep pushing for it. And yes, the Harper government, which is so publicly committed to the project, will continue to extol its virtues as part of the need to get Canadian resources to Asia. But the project is dead. It has too many obstacles now, and there’ll be more in the future.
Good golly Miss Molly. Who needs Pussy Riot when we got Stephen Harper?
And could this possibly be true? Could he really be a changed man, as his new/old image would suggest?
Could he really have morphed into a Great Purry Furry Leader who now loves scientists, isn't going to force that nasty pipeline up B.C.'s behind, is going to tell our Chinese overlords to take a hike, and put politics before business?
Well there he was in a classroom in Vancouver, in yet another tightly controlled phony photo-op.
Handing out E.I. benefits to the parents of sick kids, posing as Big Daddy, but still sounding like Big Brother.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is defending the independence of the environmental review process underway for Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline, telling reporters in Vancouver the project will be evaluated scientifically and a green light to proceed would not be based on politics.
I wish I could cheer for Christy Clark in her battle with Alison Redford over the future of the Northern Gateway pipeline.
But I just can't eh?
I just don't believe that bartering with someone who wants to shove a pipeline up your ass is something that should be celebrated. At least not in polite company.
Last night I told you how the Harper regime was creating a Royal Canadian Oil Police to make sure that nobody but NOBODY stops their planned pipeline to British Columbia.
Today they're setting up a Royal Canadian Mop and Pail Brigade to clean up this latest oil spill.
Up to 3,000 barrels of crude oil have spilled from a pipeline into a tributary of the Red Deer River in west-central Alberta.The area around Sundre is considered pristine wilderness by many in Alberta. It’s a common getaway area for people in Calgary and popular with anglers and hunters.
It was without a doubt the most grotesque spectacle the Davos Cozy Capitalist Club had ever seen. As they sat there in their silk leather pajamas watching Stephen Harper pose as an economist.
Bragging about the stability of our banking system, while forgetting to tell them that if it had been up to him and his Reform Con cowboys our banks would have been deregulated, and in worse shape than those in Europe or the United States.
Bragging about his job creation prowess even though the Canadian economy hasn't created any good jobs for the last six months. Despite all those juicy tax breaks for big corporations.
Lecturing the Europeans about their debt problems, when he turned a surplus into a massive structural deficit. And Canadians are drowning in household debt.
Ballooning household debt has made headlines in recent months, and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney has warned it is the No. 1 domestic risk to Canada's economy.
At the mercy of a housing bubble that he helped create.
In the first half of this year (2008), as the subprime mortgage crisis was exploding in the United States, a contagion of U.S.-style lending practices quietly crossed the border and infected Canada's previously prudent mortgage regime.
And now there's no money for anything except prisons, and fancy jet planes. So what's his solution? Make the old work longer. So hopefully more will drop dead before ever collecting any money.
In December, the National Post reported that there was internal debate within the government about increasing the age of eligibility for the other major element of the public pension scheme - Old Age Security - from 65 to 67.
Make sure they build a pipeline to get Alberta's dirty oil to market, by intimidating their opponents, and sabotaging the process by appointing their friends.
The federal government disassociated itself on Thursday from an embarrassing official policy paper that said the country’s independent energy regulator, now studying a controversial oil pipeline, is in fact a government ally.
The Conservative government is confirming what it’s been hinting at for weeks: Spending cuts in the upcoming federal budget could be twice as deep as Ottawa’s original target.
Because making Alberta rich and killing government is all they care about. Even if it drives the rest of the country into a recession.
Oh boy. To think that so many Canadians thought the Cons were good money managers.
Never were so many so dumb. Never was a Canadian government so corrupt and so foul.
