Day 19: August 20, 2015: Reasons NOT to Vote CON #'s 451 to 475

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."

454. The similarities between Harper and Richard Nixon are astounding, including it seems, their shamelessness to lie.

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.

456. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan.

457. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Chemicals Management Plan

458. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters

459. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Clean Air Agenda

460. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Air Quality Health Index

461. Harper is spending $116,000,000 to build an Arctic naval base to fend off the Russians. The press advised the Nanisivik facility "will have no functional use during winter." Guess Canadians can surmise that reading this, Putin will decide to attack during the NHL hockey season.

462. Harper's Cabinet Ministers Peter MacKay and Tony Clement should have RESIGNED AS MPs due to their acquisition bungling, according to then-CON MP Brent Rathgeber. That was why Rathgeber became a former CON. While still a CON MP Rathgeber was so upset with the CON’s handling of the F-35 purchase, he wrote a blog entry critiquing it. That was a huge problem in Harper's word since Rathgeber was a CON MP himself and backbenchers are supposed to shut up and say nothing without Harper's prior approval. Soon after, the phone rang, with Harper’s office on the line demanding the blog post be removed. When the caller was told no the caller said, “You don’t understand; I am calling from the PMO.” After being tossed from the CON caucus by harper, Rathgeber went more public with his sentiments describing the tightly controlled CON caucus, where backbenchers are given little say and punished for stepping out of line with a relocated office, a less desirable committee and the cancelling of travel junkets.

463. Harper's proposed regulations for Canada's broadcast industry criticized by Google at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings looking at how consumers view and pay for TV programming. Google explained how Harper's ideas would, "likely increase costs to consumers in the form of increased subscription fees."

464. Harper muzzles Canada's Military Generals.

465. Harper's Delusions of Grandeur: setting up military bases around the world, increase military spending and screw the Vets. "Today Ottawa, tomorrow the WORLD!" Historian and defense expert Jack Granatstein noted that Harper has shifted Canada’s military posture from one focused on protecting North America, (with a dose of United Nations peacekeeping thrown in), to one in which Canadian soldiers play an active fighting role in far-away places. Steven Staples, a military analyst and head of Ottawa’s Rideau Institute, calls Harper's entire idea a waste of money.

466. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Species at Risk Programme

467. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Weather and Environmental Services

468. Harper's SLASHING of public research and environmental science institutions included the Substance and Waste Management

469. Harper's Fascism: OBSTRUCT! OBSTRUCT! OBSTRUCT! Seriously, this IS happening in Canada: a request to interview a government scientist took 110 pages of E-mails! It is now virtually impossible to get past the "Minister of Propaganda."

470. Harper's control of scientists could easily result in the deaths of Canadians. Harper orders marine scientists NOT to issue WARNINGS about DEADLY red tides to Canadians UNTIL his release approvals are granted.  Calvin Sandborn, a lawyer with the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria stated, "[We] just hope that nobody dies while we're waiting for political approval from a minister's office. It's crazy. We have fisheries scientists saying that they're restricted from issuing red tide warnings without getting political approval from Ottawa. So, you have a government scientist put in a quandary: do we issue a red tide warning, because red tides can kill people, do I do that right now or do I send it off to Ottawa and follow all the protocols and just hope that nobody dies while we're waiting for political approval from a minister's office?" These days, Canadian scientists are sent to international conferences with "government minders," Sandborn added.

471. Harper's hired staff have the authority to GAG elected Members of Parliament, threaten to THROW OUT ELECTED Members of Parliament from the CON Party, and ORDER elected Members of Parliament to LIE to the Canadians they were ELECTED to serve!

472. Harper's SECRET Canada-European Union Trade Agreement gives corporations the RIGHT TO SUE the Canadian Government if they do NOT get their way! Harper is SELLING OUT Canada to Big Business! 

473. Harper was challenged by First Nations Women with their 'Am I Next?' campaign after his idiotic and senseless “Sociological Phenomenon" comment.

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.”

475. Harper labelled a RACIST for his double-standard against First Nations Women by Jakeet Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics & Government, Illinois State University.

ref: 1858/1874