On Balance - Growth vs Cuts

This marks the first in a new feature for The Incendiary Collective, where we will very intentionally (and for a change) give equal time to the Conservative POV, posting "the other side" of the issue in tandem with our usual editorial sniping. We do this not because we believe in balance and objectivity here at The Incendiary Collective (although, largely speaking, we do), but because we are confident that the Conservative positions on most issues will become even more inexplicable when expressed in their own words.

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Rabble.ca columnist Toby Sanger says that not only will the anticipated slashes in federal spending be painful for those Canadians least able to cope with them, but will also be damaging for the economy.

The Harper government's June Budget is almost entirely a reprinted version of the budget they tabled two-and-a-half months ago in March. Outside of $2.2 billion for Quebec's sales tax harmonization and the elimination of federal support for political parties, there's nothing new in the budget -- and that's the problem.

While the budget includes a few positive measures, many of which were proposed by the NDP -- such as increases to GIS payments for seniors, reintroducing incentives for energy retrofits -- they are overshadowed by what's bad and what's not there.

Most troubling are the $5 billion in cuts to public services for Canadians that will pay for their over $6 billion in corporate tax cuts with much of the benefits going to highly profitable banks, finance and oil companies. When public investments provide six times as much economic boost and jobs as corporate tax cuts, this type of trade off will endanger an already faltering economy and do nothing for the many millions of Canadians out of work or struggling with their household finances.

To read more of this content at rabble.ca, click here.

As expected, the opposite position is occupied by the ruling Conservatives, foremost among them Finance Minister Flaherty...who says cuts are "no big deal".

"Finding $4 billion to cut from the federal government's $80 billion in program expenses is no big deal, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday.

Speaking on CBC News Network the morning after unveiling his latest budget in the House of Commons, Flaherty denied the cuts were anything like the ones he took part in while a minister in the Ontario government of Mike Harris, which touched off outrage across the province."

To read more of this content at CBC News, click here.

The Tale of Dark Lord Stephen Harper and his Tar Sands Kingdom

In what is the perfect illustration of post-millenial politics, combining hacktivism with social media, Black Flood and the Yes Men coordinated a beautiful awareness campaign-slash-prank that paints Stephen Harper as the tyrannical Middle Earth evil spirit Sauron, and his cursed black land of Mordor the Alberta Tar Sands.

I wonder if that makes Jack Layton Frodo Baggins?

Top photo: The Peace Tower in Stephen Harper's Ottawa. Bottom photo: The Dark Tower in Sauron's Mordor.

Coincidence?

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Excerpt from rabble.ca:

Travellers at Terminal 3 in the Toronto airport were astounded Tuesday morning to see Gandalf the Grey and several hobbits march their handcuffed prisoner Stephen Harper, dressed as the evil lord Sauron, into a Syncrude Ltd. recruiting meeting. They demanded that Synacrude take him back to Mordor aka the Alberta tar sands, "the hell on earth that he created."

The performance was the culmination of a series of media reports that director Peter Jackson is shooting scenes from "The Hobbit" film in the tar sands. In a press release issued today, a troupe of Toronto activists calling themselves Black Flood, working alongside the infamous pranksters of The Yes Lab, confirmed their role in the events for "the purpose of stirring up some hot and bubbly controversy on the Alberta tar sands."

It all started on Saturday when Stop Mordor appeared on Facebook demanding that the Alberta government stop the plans to use the Alberta tar sands as Mordor in the new Hobbit film. At the same time there were some tweets claiming sightings of Elijah Wood, reprising his role as Frodo Baggins, in Fort McMurray.
Using their extensive networks, the group starting pushing the news through social media. Naomi Klein, posted the first tweet

"Apex of disaster capitalism: Hobbit being filmed in Alberta, with tar sands as Mordor. G8 way to save $ on sets." Naomi's tweet was followed in minutes by famed environmental activist Bill McKibben: "Hobbits in hot tar? It sure looks like mordor. Say it ain't so." Twitter was abuzz.

Curators, scientists lose jobs in public service cuts

There's word of job cuts in the public service, just days before the Conservative government delivers its budget outlining its plan to get rid of the federal deficit.

Five curators at the National Gallery of Canada were told Wednesday that their jobs will be eliminated as part of an effort to cut costs.

Officials say it's the largest single cut of curators at the gallery in four decades. Last March, 27 other positions were eliminated through attrition.

At Environment Canada, about 50 short-term employees, including scientists and scientific support staff, will lose their jobs by the end of the month. The job cuts there don't affect any permanent employees.

To read more of this content at CTV News, click here.

An Open Letter to Jack Layton: Now is the Time

Dear Mr Layton;

Let me extend my sincerest congratulations to you and the New Democratic Party on an historic win. An NDP official opposition is needed now more than at any time in our country's history, as we are poised upon a precipice. The direction in which we lean may determine the very future of our unique and precious nation.

Now is the time to work toward a Canada that truly represents the will of the Canadian people, in all their wonderful common sense, diversity and seeming contradictions. Now is the time to translate the values we all recognize as being at the core of our confederation - cooperation, compassion, inclusion and a respect for the dignity of all peoples - into a new path forward.

Now is the time to confirm Canada's place in the world as a truly progressive nation.

As you read this letter, I will be disappointed if you begin to discern it as a series of demands, issuing forth only one day after the federal election. I wish I could allow you an interval to enjoy the satisfaction of victory, but there's no time to waste, and to the degree that Mr Harper is also a beneficiary of your good fortune, I wish you would turn your attention to him immediately. If it makes my message any more palatable, I can assure you that these are not the words of a disappointed Liberal. In fact, I am a lifelong NDP supporter, albeit one who has at times, with regret, not been able to cast my ballot in that direction. I am one of those creatures, more common on the Canadian political lansdscape than is generally realized, a strategic voter. In particular, I am one of those who, election, voted with a clear conscience for the NDP. And yet, I am not without mixed emotions about the outcome. I suspect the results of the 'vote split' will haunt me for the next four years.

I was born in Saskatchewan in the year of the doctor's strike, the successful resolution of which paved the way for the Saskatoon Agreement. As you remember, it was that compromise by Woodrow Lloyd and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation that secured the realization of Tommy Douglas' dream of universal health care in Saskatchewan, and ultimately made possible the national system of which we are all so proud today. You may also recall that it was not implemented without cost, as many agree that it led to the defeat of the CCF at the hands of the Thatcher Liberals.

I suspect that you will be called upon to make similar difficult choices in the months and years ahead, but I submit to you that now is the time to put aside purely partisan concerns and place the very existence of a progressive coalition at the top of your list of priorities. I hope that you will begin immediately to build the kind of united front that is clearly the only lever that will enable the defeat of the Conservative regime. Now is the time to begin planning a strategy that recognizes the fact that - majority or no - the Conservatives cannot lay claim to the loyalties of the majority of Canadian voters. Their relatively unchanged share of the popular vote in this election illustrates plainly that they do not represent mainstream Canadian values regardless of how desperately they wish to depict their majority status as a mandate from the people.

Clearly, it is not. Now is the time to highlight that fact.

You've made it clear that you stand for a politics of inclusion. Now is the time to put that principle into action and work toward the dream of a government that reflects Canada's values in 2015. I think this means putting party affiliation and tradition in second place for a while. I think it requires a level of unity among progressives that we've not seen in Canada for a long, long time. Still, I trust that you are a leader who can accept this difficult task, and make the necessary choices, difficult though some of them may prove to be. And, as you know, one of the first choices you must make as the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition regards the composition of your shadow cabinet. I humbly submit to you that this choice represents a unique opportunity. Now is the time to take the first steady steps towards the united movement we all seek, by reaching across the aisle to your Liberal colleagues. I urge you to take advantage of the experience, passion, principles and organization possessed by the rump of that party in the House of Commons. Despite the severity of their party's fall, there were many fine Liberals re-elected who could significantly boost the effectiveness of your Opposition if they were asked to serve in your shadow cabinet. Now is the time to make overtures to Members of Parliament such as Justin Trudeau, Stephane Dion and, perhaps most especially, Bob Rae.

I don't know if there exists, or will ever exist, sufficient appetite within the NDP and Liberal party apparatuses to enable a formal merger. But I do know that now is the time for an innovative approach to Opposition politics. We have four years to build a machine that can defeat the Conservatives, but there is much to do, and no time to waste.

Please, start today.

Now is the time.


Resepectfully yours,

Clifton Bertram
St Thomas, Ontario

Court Upholds Protection Law for Women, Abortion Clinics in B.C.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge to the so-called bubble-zone law aimed at protecting women's access to abortion clinics in the province.

Donald David Spratt and Gordon Stephen Watson mounted the constitutional challenge after they were convicted of violations under the Access to Abortion Services Act in August 2000.

'You don't have freedom of speech in British Columbia — that's what that means.'
— Donald David SprattSpratt and Watson were convicted because they protested within an "access zone" prohibited under the law outside a Vancouver abortion clinic. They carried signs and spoke against abortion to women entering and leaving the Everywoman's Health Centre, which first opened in 1988 and had been a continuing target of anti-abortionists.

To read more of this content at CBC.ca, click here.

Quebec, Ontario Culture Ministers Blast Conservatives for Arts Cuts

The culture ministers of Quebec and Ontario have written an open letter to the federal government questioning its decision to cut arts and culture programs.

Ontario Culture Minister Aileen Carroll and Quebec Culture Minister Christine St-Pierre express their "disappointment" with recent cuts to seven federal arts programs, calling the move "ill-advised."

"This is not the time for the federal government to reduce support for culture," they say in a letter published Friday in the Toronto Star. "Governments need to invest in the people and businesses that make up our cultural industries so that Canada's economy will reap the benefits."

To read more of this content at CBC News, click here.

Conservatives' Pro-Industry Approach Compromises Food Safety, Say Liberals

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion accused Conservative cabinet ministers yesterday of taking the same pro-industry approach to food safety that he says was ultimately responsible for the tainted-water deaths under their watch in Walkerton, Ont.

With the Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Toronto meat-processing plant closed in a nationwide outbreak of listeria infection, Mr. Dion accused the government of wanting to walk away from the “core” responsibility of food inspection in favour of privatization. He named former Ontario Progressive Conservative ministers Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement as key supporters of privatization.

“It's unacceptable,” Mr. Dion told reporters during a stop in Toronto. “These are the same people – Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Baird, Mr. Clement – who are responsible [for] what happened in Walkerton, who privatized [Ontario's] propane inspection, and they want to do something equivalent about food inspections, which is at the core of what the government should do.

To read more of this content at the Globe and Mail, click here