Hey look, Rob Anders is awake!
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A running tab of Harper Flip Flops
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Hey look, Rob Anders is awake!
Recently, I have noticed 3 flip flops made by the Conservative gov’t. For the most part they are small flip flops so I’m going to put them all in here.
Flip Flop - Women’s Groups Funding
Let’s start with what I just heard Minister Ambrose say during Question Period:
She stated the Conservative gov’t has provided more funding for women’s groups and that more women’s groups are applying for funding.
Well… all it took was 1 minute into a google search to prove her wrong (notwithstanding the most recent news of the Cons cutting funding to 11 women’s groups)
Back in 2006, the Cons cut funding to the Status of Women. This is something Ms.Ambrose should know since she is the Minister for the Status of Women.
Five million has been shaved off the Status’s funding, almost 40 per cent of their total operating budget. The cuts will have devastating effects and major reorganization is now in the works.
They also closed 12 of Canada’s 16 Status of Women offices.
Flip Flop - Offshore Oil
On Tuesday, our government stated that they would take a tough stand on offshore drilling so that what is happening in Louisiana will not happen here. Great finally the Conservatives seem to do something right. Hmm.. well that lasted all of 24hrs because on Wednesday news came out that in Newfoundland not enough safeguards have been taken on a new oil well.
Chevron Canada is deploying a rig 400 kilometres northeast of St. John’s to drill 2,600 metres below the ocean surface in search of crude. The well, located in an area known as the Orphan Basin, would be almost a kilometre deeper than the one that has ruptured off the southern U.S. coast.
The project comes as the Canadian government is talking tough about maintaining strict safety regulations on future offshore drilling in the Arctic. However, questions are arising over whether Ottawa is taking a strong enough stand on existing projects, particularly those on the East Coast.
Flip Flop - White Collar Crime
The Conservatives latest ‘tough on crime’ approach is to get tough on white collar crime. Finally I thought to myself when I heard this, well once the shock wore off that the Conservatives would try to punish white collar crime, since they’re buddies with the corporate world.
Well… what comes out last night? One of their MPs is being investigated for white collar crime (specifically mortgage fraud). To make this whole situation worse, I have Question Period on in the background and the Conservatives refuse to take any responsibility for this, they simply blame the Liberals for everything. They can’t even answer question, they just play the blame game. It’s such a disgrace. Which I guess points to the fact that Cons still have yet, to prove that they can be accountable and transparent.
These may be ‘small’ flip flops but they add up. The Conservatives have many fiascoes and scandals on their hands and yet they all bounce off of them. I don’t get it, I don’t understand how this disaster of a government can still be leading in the polls. They are taking us back decades instead of moving us forward. It’s a shame and a disgrace. It makes me weep for my country and its future and the intelligence and open-mindedness of its citizens.
On our main list of Flip Flops, down towards the bottom, you’ll see a mention about maternal health.
There was a lot of flip flopping about this but in the end, the Cons have refused to include abortion into their maternal health funding for African countries. See the Conservatives do not believe that abortion should be apart of this; even though we are talking about countries where women are gang raped and that is seen as a form of male bonding. Countries where young girls are raped and become pregnant. Countries where women are over-burdened with children, don’t have access to supplies to care for their children and will become pregnant with more children.
A lot of aid groups are really upset about this, and understandable so. In return, what they get from the Conservatives is this lovely soundbite:
Aid experts alarmed by Canada’s new anti-abortion stand in foreign policy have been advised to “shut the f—- up” or risk Prime Minister Stephen Harper taking even more harsh measures – abroad, or maybe even at home if abortion becomes an election issue.
“We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the f—- up on this issue,” Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth told a group of international-development advocates who gathered on Parliament Hill on Monday to sound the alarm about Canada’s hard-right stand against abortion in foreign aid.
We’ve seen the headlines in the past 24 hrs. Examples being:
Harper open to suggestions on detainee documents
Compromise appears possible in Afghan detainee dispute
But see here’s the thing, the headlines are misleading. If you watched Question Period yesterday (April 27th), you’d know that Stephen Harper is not truly willing to compromise on this issue. Well at least that’s what he said but he also said he would compromise. So which is it?
The Toronto Star is reporting a similar story. In the House during QP Stephen Harper gave mixed messages, mostly appearing to not be willing to follow Milliken’s ruling.
“The fact is that the government has certain obligations” to protect the release of documents that might threaten national security, said Harper.
Yet at the same time, his Minister, Rob Nicholson appears to give the illusion of working with the other parties to come to an agreement.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said while the government welcomes the possibility of a compromise, “our government will not compromise Canada’s national security, nor will it jeopardize the lives of our men and women in uniform.”
With all of that said, the parties are meeting to try and work something out. I have very little faith that the Cons will truly work towards a compromise.
For a government that likes to preach about accountability and transparency and also touts itself as being “law-abiding” and tough on crime, what do they have to hide? Why can’t they let some Opposition MPs see these documents? The Speaker has already stated that it is Parliament’s right to see them, yet the Cons believe they are above it all. Stephen Harper likes to wrap himself up in our flag and pretend that this is a national security issue. I fail to see how it is, especially if Opposition MPs are willing to swear to an oath of secrecy on this.
So then, what is Stephen Harper telling us with this latest flip flop? He’s telling us a few things and here’s how I see it:
1) He will give the illusion of working with the other parties to reach a compromise i.e continuing his trend of playing petty partisan games that keep the electorate thinking that he is a leader
2) He is not afraid of going into an election on this issue
3) There is something really big in these documents and will do anything to keep that hidden
4) He is above the law even though he preaches on tough laws in this country.
In summation? He’s flip flopping on this, he is a hypocrite and there must be something really bad in these documents.
I think the title sets out what this post will accomplish.
Back in late 2005/ early 2006, we had an election going on, it would prove to be an election that, for better or worse (I say worse), changed the political map in Canada. See up until now, the Liberals had been in power for about 13 yrs.
2 things happened to change this:
1) Stephen Harper realized that if he united the right, that he had a chance of forming government
2) The sponsorship scandal
Since the sponsorship scandal was a huge deal during that election, Stephen Harper, wisely campaigned on accountability and transparency in government.
“Restoring accountability will be one of the major priorities of our new government. Accountability is what ordinary Canadians, working Canadians, those people who pay their bills, pay their taxes, expect from their political leaders.”
As with most promises Harper makes, he has not kept this one.
Here are some examples where he has flip flopped on transparency and accountability in government
So those are just a few instances where Stephen Harper has flip flopped when it comes to his promise of improving accountability and transparency in government. I know there are more examples of this, so if you have any, share them!
The above quote was said by Stephen Harper in an interview with Evan Solomon in 2004. At the time, Harper was the leader of the Opposition.
How have things changed since Harper has become PM of 2 minority governments? How is this a flip flop?
Well, let’s take a look, with Harper as he wears his flip flops, on this stroll down memory lane:
Sure this list may not be a long one, but all these issues speak to the heart of democracy. We have a PM who when in Opposition, claimed it was vital for all parties to work together in minority governments, but now that the shoe (or rather flip flop?) is on the other foot, he simply won’t work with others. In fact he thinks they should be the ones who work with him. It’s truly a flip flop of epic proportions.
Last month, when the House was vigorously debating Canada’s role in maternal health for emerging nations (specifically, most parties wanted funding to include access to abortion and contraceptives), PM Harper made it clear that he did not want to reopen the abortion debate.
2 quotes that support what I just said:
Harper: “But we do not want a debate, here or elsewhere, on abortion.”
Dimitri Soudas, Harper’s spokesman, said in December 2008. “We will not introduce or support legislation on abortion.”
Ok we get it, Stephen Harper does not want to reopen the abortion debate, nor will they introduce legislation that deals with it.
So then why is a Tory backbencher introducing legislation to make it illegal to coerce women into having an abortion?
I smell a flip flop in the making.
In 2006, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives campaigned on creating a more open and transparent government. As part of this, they said they would update the Access to Information policies, in fact this was one of their main campaign promises.
Throughout the years, they have made it harder for people to access information and at one point shut down one of its key databases, claiming that it was too expensive.
Well things have now gotten so bad, that the whole Access to Information is becoming meaningless. It’s taking longer and longer to get access and sometimes the documents are redacted. It’s actually become common policy for Conservatives to interfere with the release of documents. An interesting quote from the article just linked to:
“Since we formed government, the PMO has been pressuring us to take a hard line on ATIP requests,” the staffer, who did not want to be identified, told The Hill Times.
To make matters worse, as recently as March 2010, the government said that they would improve this after one of Minister Finley’s employees’ blocked bureaucrats from accessing information. (If you’re curious about what he was trying to block, it was the government spending $5million of our dollars on advertisements basically promoting themselves during the Olympics. You can see why they’d want to hide this.)
Consider this an on-going flip flop. Since 2006, the government has dragged its heels on this (pun intended) and shows no sign of improving upon their behaviour.This should be considered alarming to most Canadians. They should be asking themselves the following:
Transparency, accountability, openness, these are all paramount to having a democratic government. Unfortunately ours just pretends to want these things and instead does the opposite in order to remain in power.
Another Tuesday, another Flip Flop from the Harper Conservatives.
This is still quite new, so forgive me for not having links to everything. With that out of the way, here is what I think could be a flip flop in the making. I think it’s important to capture these flip flops as they happen; they sometimes happen fast and furiously or on days when other political stories are grabbing more of the media’s and Canadian public’s attention.
From the cbc.ca website on Saturday, in an article about Afghanistan, we had this:
Defence Minister Peter MacKay on Saturday repeated the government’s official line that the country’s soldiers would be withdrawn from combat in Afghanistan next year, but he also suggested some Canadians might stay.
Canada is willing to continue mentoring Afghan police after the troop disengagement begins in summer 2011, MacKay said as he wrapped up a three-day trip to the Central Asian country.
That in and of itself could be considered a bit of a flip flop, since the government continuously says we are out of there in 2011. At the end of Question Period today, Secretary of State Peter Kent said (and I’m doing my best to quote this based on memory) ” We are out of Afghanistan in 2001 [point].”
So then, which is it? Are we out in 2011 or not? Even if we stay on in a mentoring role, that is still considered as being in Afghanistan.
The following list details the Conservative government’s flip flops since 2006. It’s important to note the difference between a flip flop and a lie.
A flip flop is where the government says 1 thing and then changes its mind soon after, most likely due to internal polling telling them that their policies or programs are not popular. So they are changing their mind for political gain and they most likely do not have Canadians best interests in mind. A flip flop can also be used to confuse Canadians and to distract them from real issues at hand.
A lie on the other hand is something they have said or campaigned on with the intention of never keeping it (see taxing income trusts for an example).
Conservative Flip Flops
The Conservatives passed fixed election date legislation. - They then broke their own legislation in spirit in Sept. 2008, in order to have an election before the truth about our economy was revealed.
The Conservatives campaigned on an elected senate – Credit must be given where due, they did try and pass this legislation but when it wouldn’t pass, Stephen Harper stacked the senate with Conservative supporters. Therefore, this was broken in December of 2008.
Stephen Harper believes in small government - Currently has 38 Cabinet Ministers. Making for a very large government, considering for his first term he only had about 29 Ministers.
Transparency in government – Never kept it
Coalition being legal - this wasn’t a problem when he wanted to form a coalition and constitutionally it is legal
Working with other parties that you claim are separatist and socialist – Broke Sept. 2004 and again in 2009
Fiscally conservative – Broke during first term in 2006 while squandering a $13 billion surplus
Being against floor crossing – Broke BEFORE sworn in Jan 2006
Promised not to appoint an MP for Montreal if no Conservatives won in that area - broke in Feb. 2006 by appointing Michael Fortier (who didn’t run in the election because he couldn’t be bothered) to the Senate.
Election platform swore he’d work with Ethics Commissioner -Broke during first term
Never to run a deficit – Broke in fall 2008
Wanting to make the National Anthem gender neutral – Broke less than 48 hrs after proposing this
Put forth a budget about financial restraint – Broke in the same budget as the PMO budget is increased by $13 million
Feb. 2010 Harper and Minister Gary Lunn state that the funding for Own the Podium will be canceled– Flip flopped after Olympics due to Canada doing well and doubled the funding
G8 Maternal Health, Bev Oda said this does not include family planning or contraceptives – While they are still receiving heat for this, I believe the next day Harper said it would include contraceptives and they then went back and changed their mind again, not allowing it to include contraceptives or abortion as part of a maternal health plan.
Conservatives stated that they will not honour the Liberal motion to cut 10 per centers and other gov’t funding - Later, the PMO said they would endorse it
Calling the Liberals “Anti-American” for wanting abortion and family planning in the maternal health program – Had an ad campaign (and a website!) called “Ignatieff Just Visiting” because Ignatieff has lived and worked in the US and UK.
Conservatives include in budget that “Sister in Spirit” program will not have its funding cut - 3 weeks later is it being reported that they will cut the funding.
Speaks out again Libyan leader Gadhafi - days later personally approves his layover in Newfoundland.
Conservatives announce that they will cut funding for a program where libraries, community groups etc… have free internet for people who otherwise would not have access - A few days later, Minister Clement calls this a misunderstanding and says the funding is intact.
