Thursday, May 27, 2004
Stephen Harper and Ted White
Harper stated goal has been to lower Canadian taxes to such an extent that they lower than what they are in the US. At the same time, he promises to blance the budget. Under his “legislated taxpayer protection plan” he plans to make deficits illegal! I will let you figure out where that leaves Canada's social programs. This all seems to be part of the plan. For Harper taxes cuts are a means of rolling back social programs. Indeed for 5 years Harper help head the National Citizens Coalition, three years as president and 2 years as VP. Founded in 1967 to fight public healthcare, the NCC raison d’ etat was succinctly put up in 1996 by then president David Somerville. “The fact of the matter is, we have stood since 1967 for more freedom through less government and we have promoted that philosophy in a number of different ways, through (public advocacy of) privatization, tax cuts, spending cuts and opposing gag laws. We’ve been consistent for almost 30 years.” If all this sounds familer, it is because the Heritage Foundation in the States is devoted to exactly the same end. Grover Norquist expressed the same idea in slightly different terms. He said that he wanted to so weaken the State by straving it of its life blood (i.e., tax revenue), that he could take it into a washroom and drown it in the bathtub.
There is more. In a 1994 speech to the NCC, Harper addressed possibility of Quebec separation.
“Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion,” said Harper, who was at the time constitutional affairs critic for Reform. “What matters and should matter to politicians and people who believe in the kind of values that I believe the National Citizens’ Coalition share and the Reform Party share is not whether the Canadian state prospers, but whether the Canadian people and the land we call Canada prosper. “Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be.”
In other words, for Harper cutting the government down to size is more important then that the country surives
While I am at it, I might mention what a gem Conservative MP Ted White is and how puzzling it was that some people, in the lead up to the 1997 election did not like Kinsella digging up White's past. Why is this irksome? Kinsella pointed out that Ted White had a past relationship with Doug Christie. Doug Christie is not exactly a fine upstanding citizen and Kinsella was right to bring up that Ted White once belonged to the Western separatist party that Christie heads, viz., the Western Canada Concept. For those who do not know, Doug Christie is a Victoria lawyer who has made a name for himself by defending Canada’s most notorious Neo Nazis and Holocaust deniers. Among others, Christie has defended Ernst Zundel, Terry Long, former leader of the Aryan Nations of Canada and James Keegstra. It not that he defends these people; it is that he sympathizes with them. In 1985, Vancouver broadcaster Gary Bannerman said "Doug Christie has aligned himself so many times with these perverted monsters that he has to be viewed as one himself." Christie sued Bannerman for libel and lost. He appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, and lost again. Quotes like the following kind of gave away his facist leanings and the fact that he was frequently spotted with these guys at various meetings did not help either. "Spiritual revitalization (requires) the manifestation of a heroic role model for the European male. The leader is always the source of such a model. The leader must always epitomize the ideal of the nation."
There is a whole lot more that should be pointed out about Ted White. His outrageous claim he made in the house March 31 of last year comes to mind. "At least 40 per cent of all the Iranians living there (North Vancouver) are refugee claimants”. "Most of them are bogus." Equally disturbing is that he one of two Alliance MPs that refused to condemn ex Alliance family issues critic Larry Spencer homophobic comments. Spencer said that homosexuality should be illegal and that there is a secret homosexual conspiracy to bring children into their ranks. Oh well, what can you expect from a candidate whose leader said back in 2001 that "west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada: people who live in ghettoes and who are not integrated into western Canadian society.”
There is one more thing that should be said about White. Namely, he is anti-intellectual. "I cannot conceive of any way in which research in the fields of fine arts, classical studies, philosophy, anthropology, modern languages and literature, or medieval studies, which together accounted for over $5.3 million in grants from SSHRC in the last fiscal year, contributes to any ‘understanding of Canadian society of the challenges we face as we enter the 21st century.’ Research into such fields, as far as my constituents are concerned, constitutes a personal past-time, and has no benefit to Canadian taxpayers. As their representative, I cannot justify funding such activities with their tax dollars."
Dr. Laura Moss, a professor of Canadian and World literature at the University of Manitoba, feels that White's attack on federally funded research itself undermines the mandate of the SSHRC.
"The list of topics that MP Ted White finds questionable may be roughly broken into five categories: those based on gender norms and critiquing gender roles in Canadian society, those based on race, those based on youth culture, those based on studies of 'foreign' cultures, and those based on reassessing history," Moss explained.
"Paradoxically, by calling into question the value of work that deals with gender, race, multiculturalism, culture, history, and generational differences, White is reinforcing the very necessity for such work as representing some of the challenges we, as Canadians, face as we enter the 21st century,"
Harper stated goal has been to lower Canadian taxes to such an extent that they lower than what they are in the US. At the same time, he promises to blance the budget. Under his “legislated taxpayer protection plan” he plans to make deficits illegal! I will let you figure out where that leaves Canada's social programs. This all seems to be part of the plan. For Harper taxes cuts are a means of rolling back social programs. Indeed for 5 years Harper help head the National Citizens Coalition, three years as president and 2 years as VP. Founded in 1967 to fight public healthcare, the NCC raison d’ etat was succinctly put up in 1996 by then president David Somerville. “The fact of the matter is, we have stood since 1967 for more freedom through less government and we have promoted that philosophy in a number of different ways, through (public advocacy of) privatization, tax cuts, spending cuts and opposing gag laws. We’ve been consistent for almost 30 years.” If all this sounds familer, it is because the Heritage Foundation in the States is devoted to exactly the same end. Grover Norquist expressed the same idea in slightly different terms. He said that he wanted to so weaken the State by straving it of its life blood (i.e., tax revenue), that he could take it into a washroom and drown it in the bathtub.
There is more. In a 1994 speech to the NCC, Harper addressed possibility of Quebec separation.
“Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion,” said Harper, who was at the time constitutional affairs critic for Reform. “What matters and should matter to politicians and people who believe in the kind of values that I believe the National Citizens’ Coalition share and the Reform Party share is not whether the Canadian state prospers, but whether the Canadian people and the land we call Canada prosper. “Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be.”
In other words, for Harper cutting the government down to size is more important then that the country surives
While I am at it, I might mention what a gem Conservative MP Ted White is and how puzzling it was that some people, in the lead up to the 1997 election did not like Kinsella digging up White's past. Why is this irksome? Kinsella pointed out that Ted White had a past relationship with Doug Christie. Doug Christie is not exactly a fine upstanding citizen and Kinsella was right to bring up that Ted White once belonged to the Western separatist party that Christie heads, viz., the Western Canada Concept. For those who do not know, Doug Christie is a Victoria lawyer who has made a name for himself by defending Canada’s most notorious Neo Nazis and Holocaust deniers. Among others, Christie has defended Ernst Zundel, Terry Long, former leader of the Aryan Nations of Canada and James Keegstra. It not that he defends these people; it is that he sympathizes with them. In 1985, Vancouver broadcaster Gary Bannerman said "Doug Christie has aligned himself so many times with these perverted monsters that he has to be viewed as one himself." Christie sued Bannerman for libel and lost. He appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, and lost again. Quotes like the following kind of gave away his facist leanings and the fact that he was frequently spotted with these guys at various meetings did not help either. "Spiritual revitalization (requires) the manifestation of a heroic role model for the European male. The leader is always the source of such a model. The leader must always epitomize the ideal of the nation."
There is a whole lot more that should be pointed out about Ted White. His outrageous claim he made in the house March 31 of last year comes to mind. "At least 40 per cent of all the Iranians living there (North Vancouver) are refugee claimants”. "Most of them are bogus." Equally disturbing is that he one of two Alliance MPs that refused to condemn ex Alliance family issues critic Larry Spencer homophobic comments. Spencer said that homosexuality should be illegal and that there is a secret homosexual conspiracy to bring children into their ranks. Oh well, what can you expect from a candidate whose leader said back in 2001 that "west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada: people who live in ghettoes and who are not integrated into western Canadian society.”
There is one more thing that should be said about White. Namely, he is anti-intellectual. "I cannot conceive of any way in which research in the fields of fine arts, classical studies, philosophy, anthropology, modern languages and literature, or medieval studies, which together accounted for over $5.3 million in grants from SSHRC in the last fiscal year, contributes to any ‘understanding of Canadian society of the challenges we face as we enter the 21st century.’ Research into such fields, as far as my constituents are concerned, constitutes a personal past-time, and has no benefit to Canadian taxpayers. As their representative, I cannot justify funding such activities with their tax dollars."
Dr. Laura Moss, a professor of Canadian and World literature at the University of Manitoba, feels that White's attack on federally funded research itself undermines the mandate of the SSHRC.
"The list of topics that MP Ted White finds questionable may be roughly broken into five categories: those based on gender norms and critiquing gender roles in Canadian society, those based on race, those based on youth culture, those based on studies of 'foreign' cultures, and those based on reassessing history," Moss explained.
"Paradoxically, by calling into question the value of work that deals with gender, race, multiculturalism, culture, history, and generational differences, White is reinforcing the very necessity for such work as representing some of the challenges we, as Canadians, face as we enter the 21st century,"
Comments:
Post a Comment
