tagged w/ Steven Harper
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What in the holy mother of frakin' hell, Baird?!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/baird-demands-gold-drops-canada-from-foreign-affairs-business-card/article2185969/
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"The Conservative Foreign Affairs Minister demanded – and got – gold embossing on his business cards shortly after being shuffled into the portfolio last May, contrary to government rules.
Mr. Baird then ordered the word “Canada” dropped from the standard design, also against federal policy.
And he insisted that “Lester B. Pearson Building” be removed from the standard street address for Foreign Affairs’ headquarters in Ottawa, thereby erasing the name of a former Liberal prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The controversial changes initially provoked resistance from the senior Foreign Affairs bureaucrats who are responsible for implementing policies on government branding.
But in the end, Mr. Baird won a temporary exemption from the rules – and got his way.
A gold-embossed Canadian coat of arms now glistens from his unilingual English business cards, which lack the wordmark “Canada,” a federal branding design that features a small Canadian flag above the last letter.
With the disappearance of the large 'Canada,' the biggest type on the card now is 'The Honourable John Baird, P.C., M.P'."
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There are things in the USA that make rational people sick in their stomach, but this is a punch to the gut for Canadians everywhere, regardless of their political leanings. He refuses to represent Canada AS OUR FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER!!What in the holy mother of frakin' hell, Baird?!... more
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added this
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8 months ago
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Which, as the article already talked about, meant that if this law was already passed before 2003, Omar Khadr would not be a citizen of Canada, and would more likely than not have no one to speak for him. What the hell, Conservatives?!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/citizenship-gone-if-canadians-fight-against-countrys-soldiers-tory-convention-to-propose/article2040793/?cmpid=nl-news1
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"Stephen Harper’s governing Conservative Party will debate whether Canadians should be stripped of their citizenship should they take up arms against this country or its allies.
It’s one of a multitude of proposed changes to the Conservative Party’s official policies up for debate when Tories from across Canada converge in Ottawa for a June 9-11 convention...
The “High Treason” proposal, if adopted, would make it party policy to support automatically voiding the citizenship of Canadians caught fighting soldiers of this country or allied nations.
It would also back trying such a Canadian for “high treason” under the Criminal Code, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment...
Mr. Harper is not bound to support any policy decisions at conventions but the debates offer a glimpse into the mindset and priorities of his party’s most committed supporters."
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"Offer a glimpse into the mindset" would be an understatement. Who knows how long it could be before such a law suddenly starts being interpreted for protests? For speaking up against the Harper government? And what if some soldiers - like we've already seen with one such army commander in 2010 - start using this law to their advantage to exploit innocent Canadians? Suddenly, it's looking a little more embarrassing to be a Canadian with such a leader as this guy and his party members...Which, as the article already talked about, meant that if this law was already passed... more
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added this
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1 year ago
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- Donald MacPherson resigned as Vancouver's Drug Czar, calling the War on Drugs a failure and criticizing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government.
The author of Vancouver's ground-breaking Four Pillars drug strategy criticized the federal government's "utterly failed" approach to drug use in his resignation notice this week.
Donald MacPherson said in an e-mail Tuesday to city staff: "[T]he approach to the drug problem that we have in Canada . . . [a] war-on-drugs approach has utterly failed over the past 40 years and must come to an end.
"The emperor truly has no clothes in this case," said his e-mail.
"People who use drugs should not be criminalized, especially those that develop addictions and/or have mental-health problems or are vulnerable in some other way." MacPherson said he was resigning after 12 years as the city's drug-policy co-ordinator -- the only municipal position of its kind in Canada -- "for personal reasons." "It is time for me to move on to the next adventure and to act on the strong desire to move beyond the municipal realm, build on what we have achieved here in Vancouver and work for policy change at the provincial, national and international level in the area of drug policy," he wrote.
MacPherson blamed the criminalization of drugs for social ills and associated problems.
"Much of what plays out on the streets of Vancouver in the never-sleeping drug market -- the selling, the using, the killing, the infections, the dying and the property crime -- is a direct result of the criminalization of drugs," said the e-mail.
"The nonsensical and seemingly never-ending struggle to keep a small program like Insite open for a population of seriously marginalized and at-risk injection drug users is another example of the counterproductive consequences of bad public policy at the federal level." Four Pillars was struck as a comprehensive approach to reducing drug-overdose deaths and HIV infection caused by illegal drugs. It combines prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction.
The approach has involved much debate. Insite, Vancouver's safe-injection site, has drawn particular heat. It operates under an exemption from federal drug laws from Health Canada, but has received little support from the ruling minority Conservative government.
Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang said MacPherson's Four Pillars approach will remain central to Vancouver's housing and social programs.
Jang said council has yet to decide whether to replace MacPherson. His resignation takes effect Oct. 2.- Donald MacPherson resigned as Vancouver's Drug Czar, calling the War on Drugs a... more
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'The details of Bill C-15 should shock the conscience of every Canadian. It is so barbaric it includes a mandatory prison sentence for growing a single cannabis plant'
Supporters of cannabis law reform will be rolling into Niagara Falls on Saturday, April 18, to bring attention to the need to end the expensive and destructive policy of cannabis prohibition, and in particular to Conservative “get tough” drug legislation that would, for the first time in Canadian history, impose mandatory minimum prison sentence for many low-level drug offenses.
The details of Bill C-15 should shock the conscience of every Canadian. It is so barbaric it includes a mandatory prison sentence for growing a single cannabis plant! Justice Department lawyers warned the Conservative government in 2006 that automatic prison terms won't deter crime or protect the public, but those warnings were ignored.
A few years ago, when Canada seemed poised to decriminalize cannabis, politicians opposed to the idea used the excuse that we couldn't risk upsetting the American government for fear of inspection-related slowdowns at the border and a reduction in cross-border trade.
The political landscape has changed since then and now it is the Americans who are making progress on cannabis law reform. A dozen States have some form of decriminalization, and two states are currently considering legalizing cannabis. That’s a stark contrast to the huge step backwards Canada is about to take if Bill C-15 is allowed to pass.
Cannabis policy must be based on an honest evaluation of the science and not determined by ideology or for political advantage by giving the public a false sense of safety by being, so called, "tough on drugs."
Anti-prohibition protesters will also be bringing attention to the many benefits of legalization: organized crime will be starved for funds, police resources can be redirected to more important matters, taxpayers will stop wasting $2B each year on maintaining cannabis prohibition, and a substantial source of revenue will be derived from taxation of a popular product that is, according to the conclusions of the Senate Committee's report, “substantially less harmful than alcohol.”
"We really need to get this Harper guy off 24 Sussex Drive before Canadian pot culture is destroyed (Thats Canada's white house, its where our prime minister lives.) C.D.'The details of Bill C-15 should shock the conscience of every Canadian. It is so... more
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Sunday that Canada will train Mexican police officers to assist Mexico in its brutal war against rival drug cartels.
The announcement came as the prime minister touched down here for a two-day summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama.
Security will be one of the issues on the agenda at the so-called Three Amigos Summit, along with the global recession, the swine-flu outbreak and climate change.
Through the Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program, Canada will invest as much as $15 million a year in projects across the Americas that combat the illicit drug trade, corruption, human trafficking and other regional problems.
Slightly more than $430,000 will go to Mexico to help it fight its drug war, which claimed more than 6,000 people last year, almost double the number of deaths in the previous year.
Global drug cartels in Mexico have been feuding over access to the lucrative North American market. The U.S. State Department, for example, estimates that 90 per cent of the cocaine that enters the United States flows through Mexico.
Con't on linkPrime Minister Stephen Harper announced Sunday that Canada will train Mexican police... more
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It is beyond my comprehension how any climate accord between Canada and the US could even think to exclude tar sands emissions from it. That however, is what Steven Harper is hoping Barack Obama will allow. It will be very telling what he does regarding the tar sands of Alberta, as the Bush administration supported it and its environmental devastation lock, stock, and barrel. Even though Bush now claims to be an "environmentalist' by trying to make us think he saved the oceans that are already saturated with CO2, in part from the huge amounts of CO2 spewed from the tar sands development in Alberta. Let's see what Obama does at this meeting with Harper. If he allows the tar sands emissions to be excluded from this accord it will then be clear to me that he is just a political player who does not really care about the Earth or in reigning in the Co2 that is exacerbating the climate crisis. I hope he stands up for what is right.
The world is watching.It is beyond my comprehension how any climate accord between Canada and the US could... more
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