The Sixth Estate

I will be out of touch for most of the day, and if I’m lucky, by the time I get back to my computer this evening, the culprits will have been fully outed. (I’m not holding my breath, mind you.) In the meantime, thanks to the updates processed last night, the Sixth Estate Vote Suppression List now totals 68 ridings — more than one in five ridings across the country. My list is the largest on the Internet, including reports from all media and party sources. I also encourage anyone to submit stories of their own to SixthEstateCanada@gmail.com, either by name or anonymously.

In the meantime, I’d like to go over how this scheme must have worked. For the moment we can set aside who is responsible. I have my theories, and you have yours, and I’ll close with that. First of all, it’s important to differentiate between three types of calls, all of which have now been proved beyond doubt.

(more…)

As one commenter noted in my previous thread, the timing of this is unfortunate, to say the least. I assume it is only because Corbett is reaching 65 or some such, and not because of the present investigation. But even if that’s true, it would throw a monkey wrench into whatever investigations are still ongoing:

Elections Canada is currently seeking a new Commissioner of Canadian Elections...

The successful candidate will be a senior executive with significant experience in legal and/or regulatory decision making on complex and sensitive issues for a private or public sector organization. As a seasoned professional, the successful candidate will have significant experience in interpreting the provisions of statutes, regulations, policies and other enabling frameworks, as well as in assessing the relevance of precedents in order to render decisions, and will have the ability to make recommendations within the framework of the law.

The successful candidate must have proven experience in handling sensitive and complex matters. He or she must be able to build and maintain effective relationships with parliamentarians, senior government officials and other stakeholders. The candidate must be a Canadian citizen with a degree from a recognized university in a field relevant to the position. The place of work is located in the National Capital Region. Proficiency in both official languages is required.

An additional statement outlines the job qualifications:

• a “degree from a recognized university”
• management experience
• 20 years’ experience in legal practice and/or government regulation
• knowledge of the Canadian parliamentary system (duh)
• “ability to analyze differing opinions and viewpoints in complex situations”
• “no partisan activities or party affiliation in at least the last 5 years”

If you want the job, email your C.V. to Lynda Naveda at LNconsulting@rogers.com (I wish I was kidding on this point). Applications are due this Friday, March 2.

… in addition to the robocalled ones. I’m going to need a bigger list:

Callers on behalf of the federal Conservative Party were instructed in the days before last year’s election to read scripts telling voters that Elections Canada had changed their voting locations, say telephone operators who worked for a Thunder Bay-based call centre…

In a new twist on new growing allegations of political “dirty tricks,” three former employees of RMG — Responsive Marketing Group Inc.’s call centre in Thunder Bay — told the Star about the scripts.

Something is very seriously wrong with this  story, however. The big news from the Star is that RMG call centre employees may account for some of the live-call misdirections which are on my list:

Desgagné… said some workers shortened their script — although they weren’t supposed to — and said “I’m calling from Elections Canada.”

Now, I’ve never been blessed with a job at a call centre, but I know enough people who have been that I have a rough idea how it works. Scripts may not exactly be holy writ, but they matter. So does the law. Deliberately sending people to the wrong polling station is a crime, but they can claim ignorance on that front. On the other hand, deliberately impersonating Elections Canada is a crime too.

The Star wants mo te believe, it seems, that multiple low-level telemarketers independently decided to impersonate Elections Canada by going off-script. Colour me skeptical. There is more to this than meets the eye.

The next week will determine whether the Conservative robocall scheme becomes the moment at which a critical mass of Canadians become aware of this government’s repeated blatant illegalities, or whether it, like so many other crimes, will be buried beneath the weight of media complacency. This blog will make its own contribution, however small, to making sure the issue remains front and centre.

The Harper regime has three propaganda tools when there is a scandal in the offing, and they’ve already used them all.  I wonder if they have a plan for what happens if the media shows a so-far-hidden display of resolve and keeps talking about the issue for more than 72 hours. I’ll bet Plan D involves scapegoats.

(more…)

Because as a historian I don’t get many chances (har har) to read books by paranoid manipulative megalomaniacs, I’ve been on the edge of my seat for months now as Stephen Harper’s long-awaited hockey history book wends its way through the final steps to publication. Apparently, publishers are now bidding on it competitively. Anansi and Douglas & McIntyre, both well-know members of the liberal conspiracy, are not bidding on it. We will soon be sending their executives to Nunavut for re-education.

You’ll forgive my over-the-top sarcasm, of course, but you must admit there’s something vaguely appalling about this whole escapade. This sort of “the leader is the expert at everything” nonsense smacks of a personality cult more than a responsible democracy. The idea that Stephen Harper is really an expert on the early history of professional hockey, has something worth saying about it in a book, and, more importantly, conceived of this idea just after he reformed the Conservative Party and has been diligently working away on it ever since is ridiculous. Prime Ministers do not write carefully researched historical texts.

Sixth Estate will be reviewing the new book, of course, because I am quite certain it will earn fawning praise from every newspaper in the country that has ever published a book review before. But I won’t be buying this book, so it will take some time for me to get around to it. I’m not padding the Dear Leader’s pockets any more than the tax laws legally require me to.

In the meantime:

• How much public money went into the writing of this book?
• How much research, writing, and editing work was paid for out of the public purse through the work of the Prime Minister’s Office, civil servants, and archivists?
• How many people outside government assisted in writing this book?
• What proportion of the labour hours involved in its production were actually Stephen’s?

And I thought they’d buried the case.

Countdown to the second Conservative election fraud case: 10… 9… 8…

Following hard on the heels of the Prime Minister’s ridiculous endorsement of the crank claim that a long-dead Mohawk woman holds the key to curing flesh-eating disease (but only sometimes), the Globe & Mail has printed a column by Robert Joustra of the Cardus institute, a Christian right think tank, called “Beware the Secular Atheocracy.”

The article is an excellent piece of pretzel logic, and I see no reason to critique it, because I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to bother with an intellectual refutation of a representative of an organization whose statement of purpose contains the following claim:

Drawing on more than 2000 years of Christian social thought, we work to enrich and challenge public debate.

Well, we’re off to a mathematically challenged start there, aren’t we?

We already know that Vic Toews hasn’t. I’d said all I have to say on the subject, or so I thought, and then I came across this blatant fiction — there is no other way to describe it — from National Post columnist Chris Selley:

One of the bright points in the legislation is that it would require disclosure to customers when “Internet providers and telecom companies provide subscriber data without a warrant.”

Um, no. It wouldn’t. I’m going to provide a point-by-point summary of the Harper regime’s Big Brother bill. For those of you who haven’t read it already, this is essential reading, believe me. If you have already, I suppose it’s of less use to you, but it might still help focus your thoughts. If you don’t trust me, you can read it yourself.

Short Title: Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act — To paraphrase Yes, Prime Minister, one should always dispose of the difficult bits in the title: they do less damage there than in the law itself. In this case, the opposite is true. The title refers to child protection, but none of the provisions in this law actually restrict the government to snooping on our computers only when kids are at risk. This would be an easy fix, and the fact that it’s not there tells you all you need to know about their real intentions.

(more…)

Stephen Harper has welcomed the news that a fellow religious extremist turned head of state, Benedict XVI, is officially turning a long-dead Mohawk woman named Katherine Tekakwitha into a saint. This is “a deep honour for our country,” he claims. Apparently the fact that Tekakwitha died in 1680, before there was a Canada, doesn’t alter the “honor” calculus at all. Harper doesn’t honour Aboriginal land claims, but he’s happy to claim their “saints” as Canadian.

More to the point, though, it’s worth pointing out to the Dear Leader that officially one does not become a Catholic saint by being a good person. According to Catholic doctrine, one becomes a saint by performing two miracles. That’s what Harper is endorsing here, not the honouring of an ancient Canadian indigenous woman.

And honouring for what, exactly? Does anyone in the PMO know why she is famous? Are they suggesting we should all swear ourselves to celibacy and walk across beds of hot coals to show our devotion to God? Is abstinance official Cabinet policy now? That’s going to come as one hell of a disappointment to Vic Toews, and to a few other ministers as well.

The two miracles, you’ll be interested to know, are that the smallpox scars on Katherine’s face vanished moments after she died, and a young boy whose life-threatening infection was magically cured several years ago after praying to Katherine to intercede. It was also “magically” cured after he was given a truckload of antibiotics, but I’m sure we all know what really cured him. Right?

This hokey claptrap is not an “honour” to Canada. Incidentally, Benedict XVI also says that God’s chief representatives on Earth are always, and only, men, because God thinks women are just not able to fill such positions of authority. Not a problem for Harper — his church is currently debating whether or not God thinks women can be pastors or not, too. I personally have no truck with such a God, and neither should my country. Take your sainthood and go back to the Vatican, Benedict. You can come out when you promise to share the toys with the other half of the human species.

First, the government asked their pet Speaker to “investigate” who is behind Vikileaks30. Now, they want the police to investigate everyone who is behind the Twitter attacks. (Lest you think that Toews will limit his investigation to people threatening physical violence against him, remember that this regime currently defines groups that are “publicly critical of government policy” as national security threats.)

Now, for the record, I don’t care who was behind Vikileaks30. Maybe it was an NDP staffer (though they wouldn’t have denied it if they thought it might be — much too embarrassing.) Maybe it was Elizabeth May. Maybe it was a Liberal staffer. Maybe it was me. Or you. Or the guy down the street.

I’ll tell you who I think it was, though: a Conservative staffer. Someone who doesn’t like Toews and figured this would be a good chance to ruin his career. Or maybe someone who does like him, and figured this would be a good chance to deflect attention from the Big Brother bill into a wild goose chase for mysterious dissidents, police state-style. Sound unlikely? Maybe, but the opposition parties don’t really have any better motivation for it. The surveillance bill stinks to high heaven without adding in any juicy stories about Toews cheating on his wife, fathering children out of wedlock, and cheating on his election expenses, all of which were already common knowedge among those of us who avidly follow politics in any case.

If I really wanted to dedicate a mysterious anonymous online persona to bringing down the government, I wouldn’t do it by attacking Toews. I’d do it by supporting him. Or, better yet, someone else — Peter MacKay? Jason Kenney? It doesn’t really matter who, as long as it’s plausible. Pick someone, and start building a leadership campaign for them. Allude to support within the caucus, who are afraid to speak up themselves because of Harper’s heavy-handed management style. Spread rumours. Create uncertainty. Suggest, for instance, that a new formation is being established by Stephen Woodworth and Brad Trost to support a palace coup by Jason Kenney, in exchange for a quid pro quo on the abortion issue.

The best part is, there’s probably a kernel of truth in it somewhere. This is still a political party, after all, and Stephen I isn’t going to be around forever. No amount of evidence will convince me that MacKay and Kenney, at the very least, haven’t been arranging for at least a few cautious backroom conversations over the last year.

This is the most paranoid government in Canadian history. The best way to knock it off course is to give it a thousand potential palace coups to worry about.

Unfortunately, unlike the government, I have a strict ethical code which prevents me from deliberately spreading false rumours about political opponents. So Sixth Estate will not be beginning the Jason Kenney for Dear Leader campaign just yet.