451. Harper is undermining public health care according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, (CMAJ). In 2011, the Conservatives unilaterally announced they would scale back federal health transfers to provinces from an annual increase of 6% to a rate tied with GDP, (or a minimum of 3%). the 2014 federal budget made the equalization portion of the Health Care Transfer contingent on a per capita formula -- as opposed to needs-based. This move is expected to reduce transfers to have-not provinces by $16.5 billion over five years. The Canadian Medical Association reports that four out of five Canadians said they are not confident they will have access to health services when they need it and 61% doubt Canada's hospitals and long-term care facilities will be able to meet the demands of an aging population. CMAJ's Deputy Editor, Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, stated, "For much of the last decade, Canadian federal health policy has been conspicuous by its absence. In recent years, the [Harper] government has neglected [its health care] responsibilities, even when courts have ordered them to do otherwise. During that time, the [Harper] government has walked away from collaborating with the provinces through the Council of the Federation and declined to renew the First Ministers’ Accord on Health Care; dithered on public health measures of glaringly obvious benefit, such as tobacco control and asbestos elimination; ignored and disbanded expert advisory panels on health issues; weakened the authority of the public health agency; muzzled scientists; eliminated the long form census, the best source of information on regional disparities relevant to health; and eroded research support, while increasingly tying what remains to business interests rather than health benefits. By all appearances, the [Harper] government seems to be trying to get itself out of the health care business. It cannot. Many essential aspects of health care are a federal responsibility, and our biggest, most complex problems in the health care system cannot be solved without federal leadership. Without such leadership, Canadians will continue to suffer. The CMAJ is calling on "all Canadians to make sure that health care is a key issue in the upcoming federal election."
452. 55,000 unionized Canadian voters will be voting AGAINST Harper and the CONs on October 19, 2015. The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada is abandoning its tradition of neutrality in elections to actively campaign against Harper. The union, which represents some 55,000 professionals in the public service, has traditionally chosen to stay at arm’s length from elections. Union President, Debi Daviau, stated, “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions. This [Harper] government has forced non-partisan organizations such as ours to make a very difficult choice: to remain silent or to speak out. We have chosen to speak out.” Daviau cited several controversial bills as proof that the government has targeted “the very existence of unions and collective bargaining.” A survey commissioned by the union last year found HUNDREDS of scientists who claimed they had been asked to EXCLUDE OR ALTER INFORMATION in government documents for non-scientific reasons. And thousands more said they’d been PREVENTED from talking freely about their work with the media or the public. “Canadians deserve to know the damage this government is inflicting, unnecessarily and often underhandedly, to their services, their programs and even to their democracy,” Daviau said.
453. Harper, when asked by the Press about all the corruption in his Prime Minister's Office, as confessed in court at the Duffy trial by Nigel Wright, his former Chief of Staff, he REFUSED TO ANSWER stating he did not like the premise of the question! Verbatim, Harper said, "Well, look, while I don't accept the premise of the question, I'm not going to get into disputing individual matters that are currently before the court." This was in reply to CBC News' Hannah Thibedeau asking Harper how it felt to know that his senior staff, including his current Chief of Staff Ray Novak, "knowingly allowed you to repeat a lie for months that Mike Duffy had repaid his own expenses when that actually wasn't the case."
455. Harper IGNORED his own staff lawyer's advice on Senate residency qualifications, as revealed by that lawyer's testimony, under oath, at Duffy's trial on August 20, 2015. Harper's former legal adviser, Benjamin Perrin, (currently a law professor at the University of British Columbia), worked as a legal affairs and policy adviser to Harper from 2012-13. On the stand he explained that he was "taken aback" by Harper's position that an individual only needed to own $4,000 of property in a province to be constitutionally qualified to represent the region. Perrin testified that he communicated his concerns diplomatically to the PMO but the PMO stood firm on its definition. At the time, there had been questions about whether some senators, including Duffy, met the constitutional residency requirements. The Constitution clearly states that a senator "shall be resident in the province for which he is appointed" and must own property worth at least $4,000 in that province.
474. Harper's personal definition of crime, insisting that, "Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women is NOT a “Sociological Phenomenon” but simply a series of individual crimes" was WRONG and RACIST, according to Jakeet Singh, Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics & Government at Illinois State University. Singh explained, "Harper really seems to have it out for sociology. In 2013, in response to an alleged plot against a VIA train, Harper remarked that we should not “commit sociology,” but pursue an anti-crime approach. And last week, in response to the death of Tina Fontaine, Harper argued that an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women is not needed, because this is not a “ sociological phenomenon ” but simply a series of individual crimes.
Of course, not only is all crime a sociological phenomenon , but also without a broader sociological analysis we can’t begin to understand why the rates of missing and murdered indigenous women are tragically high compared to non-indigenous women. Furthermore, it’s clear that if rates of violence against non-indigenous women climbed as high as those of indigenous women, this government (even with its woeful record on women’s issues) would be more likely to announce not only a public inquiry but a full-scale national strategy. This double-standard in how we value human lives is what sociologists call “racism.”
ref: 1858/1874
