Friday, June 8, 2018

Justin Harper, Stephen Trudeau … at the Helm

Justin Harper, Stephen Trudeau … at the Helm
                           


Written by Robin Mathews, June 2018


Those of us who said  (2016) that the Paris Climate Accords were grossly insufficient and a Public Relations Sham … have been proved correct. Justin Trudeau’s enthusiasm for eco-justice - churned into froth among his make-believe ‘middle class’ supporters - burned to a crisp in a matter of weeks. His real policies are Stephen Harper’s policies … which are the policies of the puppeteers pulling both of their strings….

The federal takeover of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline expansion in the last weeks of May, 2018 pursues the Stephen Harper policy – maintaining the questionable National Energy Board structure that was Liberal-election-promised to be reconstructed because it was so obviously tainted! It continues as Harper shaped it… with Harper’s policies… The puppeteers pull both of their strings….  (Harper now drops all pretence of independence and appears in the New York Times exclusively. That’s the paper whose famous motto is “All the news that’s fit to print in an expanding Empire”.)

The Trudeau Liberals will not admit (or even discuss!!) the fact that GIGANTIC budgetary problems could be solved by a return to the pre-1974 Bank of Canada interest-free lending to Canadian governments for Infrastructure and related Social Construction.  That means the hokey, new, private ”Infrastructure Bank” is another gift to the real owners of Canada … and an insult to Canadians. (Government fought every step of the way against the Rocco Galati/COMER case, 2011-2016, to return the Bank of Canada to pre-1974 policy as a national, interest-free lender… the Liberals in lock-step with the Harper baboons.)

Since the very brief ‘Sunny Days’ … almost every important move of the Trudeau Liberal government has mirrored the policies of the preceding anti-democratic Conservative government led by Stephen Harper …  revealing that the ‘deep state’, ‘the backroom’, ‘the corporations and private bankers’ ‘the puppeteers’ continue to rule Canada.  A little sparkling confetti is thrown in the eyes of Canadians…but with no significant change toward ’self-rule’, independence, and (what would follow upon that condition) a reconstructed relation with indigenous people and with “the others who are the despised of the Capitalist Class”: in fact, most Canadians.

With significant change Canada would see a wholly reconstructed attitude to innovation employing Canadian talent and Canadian inventiveness … just for instance, using huge, stored geothermal power available in B.C. … and (available) out-front innovations in hydrogen (vehicle fuel) power.  And much more! All, now, are restricted because our “foreign owners” don’t want Canada on the front lines of anything. Both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau have been and are total supporters of the colonial structure in North America, entitled NAFTA, which assures the smothering of genuine Canadian inventiveness and entrepreneurial force.  That is because, in short, NAFTA is the handmaiden of corporate power on the continent and NOT of the people … especially the people seen as a nation working for the benefit of its population and good it can do in the larger world.

With change, Canadian government would begin to take responsibility, too, for those oppressed and brutally exploited outside Canada at the hands of, yes, Canadians. The toys of Imperial Power, Canadians have helped fight the dirty wars that are U.S./NATO-created. Canada plays lackey whipping-boy for dirty U.S. policies in Central and South America – humiliating every self-respecting Canadian. It did so when Stephen Harper was prime minister.  It does so with Justin Trudeau as prime minister.

Canadian controlled mining companies, in addition, frequently practice brutality against native workers, outside Canada, with the consent of corrupt governments …and with the silent consent of Canadian government which knows most Canadians are unaware of the on-going, gross violations of Human Rights. With Harper … turning a blind eye was expected.  With Trudeau … the same.  Justin Harper.  Stephen Trudeau.

Justin Trudeau, we are told, publicly seeks global equality of rights and freedoms for one and all, except, it would seem, when Canada is called to massacre the innocent in brutal wars, or where Canada is called to “stand in” for the U.S. as anti-democratic bully-boy in Central and South America … or for big Canadian corporations acting  brutally abroad …. 

Nor has Justin Trudeau seen fit to act in any significant way where gigantic tax frauds (and forms of highly questionable incorporation) are perpetrated through tax-haven constructs, as revealed in ”The Panama Papers” (2015). (Justin Trudeau’s chief fund-raiser, Stephen Bronfman, as well as the Paul Martin family-owned Canada Steamship Line, and more than 3600 other Canadian names, we are told, appear in The Panama Papers/Paradise Papers exposures. Any morally prudent government would undertake full investigation and – indeed – undertake clear-eyed law-making to protect Canada and Canadians from harbouring (unknown) what are, in fact, criminals and/or opportunists ready to exploit any loop-holes exploitable anywhere that present legislation permits.

Other countries have already, at least, retrieved large tax sums owed.  Canada has done – if results mean anything  -  nothing….

Not to act in the matter, many believe, is to declare partnership in criminal and opportunistic actions. Neither the Harper-led Conservatives not the Trudeau-led Liberals have acted on behalf of Canada and Canadians in the matter. Their policy has been one policy: the policy of the puppeteers pulling their strings. Justin Harper, Stephen Trudeau.

What must surprise many Canadians is that the Liberal Government of Canada led by Justin Trudeau is fighting the Council of Canadians at work to overthrow the dirty, anti-democratic, sleazy, voter-suppression law rushed through by the Harperites in 2014!  (Elections Canada estimates the Act denied 172,000 eligible voters the right to vote in 2016.) The law angered Canadians. Many believe the Act contributed strongly to the swing in the polls that elected the Liberals to government and many believed the Liberals would erase the Harper legislation!  But now the Council of Canadians is seeking special donations …. 

Guess why?  The e-mail letter (June 2, 2018) from Andrea Furlong, Executive Director of the COC, reports that “the biggest reason for the mounting court costs and delays has been the Trudeau government…. Astonishingly, it’s become clear that the [Liberal] government and its legal team are now defending the Act and Harper’s voter suppression measures – and opposing our challenge!”

Read that paragraph again!  And then read it again! The Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau is fighting to prevent an anti-democratic Elections act sleazed into law by the Harper baboons from being extinguished in the Supreme Court of Canada! Justin Trudeau is spending huge sums of taxpayers’ dollars on Justice Department time and expertise to deny Canadians the right to vote … and to support one of the dirtiest actions of the Stephen Harper years. [That is what the puppeteers pulling Trudeau’s strings want him to do.] At the same time, Liberal legislation is pending to replace the Harper dirty Election Act ….  Pending.  Will remedial legislation ever see the light of day? 

I think I heard voices – at the start of this column (Liberal voices?) - saying any comparison of the Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau with the previous Conservative government led by Stephen Harper is an out-and-out insult! ! !

Perhaps the people behind those voices (after retching with nausea) will begin thinking: Justin Harper, Stephen Trudeau.  If they are honest, “What else can they think"


___________________




The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Your title reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago, in the 60's when I was in high school. We were looking at a publication for high school students that was produced by the United Nations. The course was called "World Problems." All the students had to do was read a publication from the UN that was for high school students. WE would then read the articles and study the pictures and have a polite discussion. In one issue, there was a cartoon of an elephant looking into a two-way mirror and on the other side of the mirror, there was a donkey looking into it as well. The caption came from both of them and it said, "Horrors, I'm beginning to look like you."
It hit me and still stays with me after more than 50 years. And it sums up the US Republicans and the US Democrats.
It is still with me to this day.

Unknown said...

Your title reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago, in the 60's when I was in high school. We were looking at a publication for high school students that was produced by the United Nations. The course was called "World Problems." All the students had to do was read a publication from the UN that was for high school students. WE would then read the articles and study the pictures and have a polite discussion. In one issue, there was a cartoon of an elephant looking into a two-way mirror and on the other side of the mirror, there was a donkey looking into it as well. The caption came from both of them and it said, "Horrors, I'm beginning to look like you."
It hit me and still stays with me after more than 50 years. And it sums up the US Republicans and the US Democrats.
It is still with me to this day.