All posts in category George Bush

Harper continues to ignore will of Parliament

And I’m not referring to the prorogation perogative he was granted in order to avoid a motion of nonconfidence in Parliament.

No, I’m talking about the resolution Parliament passed in June, 2008, the one that says, “conscientious objectors to wars not sanctioned by the Security Council of the United Nations” should not be deported from Canada.  An Angus Reid poll conducted in June 2008 showed that 63 percent of Canadians (that number again!) agreed with allowing war resisters to stay in Canada.  That’s likely because they know the US invasion of Iraq was not sanctioned by the Security Council of the United Nations and is, therefore, an illegal war. Refresh your memory here.

Harper, however, doesn’t have to listen to Parliament, eh? Cuz he’s the Supreme Being, apparently;  he is above the law and certainly above the whims of a majority of Parliament, or so it seems.

Needless to say, I was a little miffed when this landed in my inbox today.   (Note:  There is an action item at the bottom of this post.)

War Resister Cliff Cornell Told to Leave Canada by Christmas Eve

Rivera Family to Get Decision on January 7

Toronto — In the latest of a series of deportation orders, Citizenship and
Immigration Canada has told war resister Cliff Cornell, of Nanaimo, BC, that
he must leave Canada by December 24, or face removal by force. Cliff,
originally from Arkansas, arrived in Canada in January 2005. He currently
works as an Assistant Manager of a retail store near Nanaimo, where he has
an excellent work record.

Cliff’s deportation order comes after similar orders for war resisters Corey
Glass, Jeremy Hinzman and his family, Patrick Hart and his family, Matt
Lowell and Dean Walcott. Like them, Cliff has begun to build a peaceful and
productive life in Canada and hopes to stay in his new country.

War resister Kim Rivera will receive a decision on January 7. Kim served in
the US Army in Iraq. She came to Canada with her husband, Mario, and their
two children, Christian (6) and Rebecca (4) in early 2007. Kim had a new
Canadian-born baby, Katie, on November 23, 2008.

The War Resisters Support Campaign continues to call upon the Harper
government to implement the will of Parliament, as expressed in a House of
Commons motion adopted on June 3, 2008. The motion recommended that
“…conscientious objectors to wars not sanctioned by the Security Council of
the United Nations,” such as the Iraq War, be allowed to remain in Canada
and apply for permanent resident status. It was adopted by a vote of 137-110
and also directed the Government of Canada to stop deportation proceedings
against all of the war resisters here.

I was further miffed when I called the office of the Minister Responsible to voice my concerns about this and the receptionist would not refer me to anyone who could speak about the issue to me.  She had been ordered to not refer telephone calls on this issue to anyone except the call centre.

I am not the only one concerned about this matter.  Sandra Finley, former leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan, a woman who is going to court for her refusal to fill out a census form that would be processed by Lockheed Martin, an arms manufacturer, had an earlier conversation with a Kenney Executive Assistant who claimed to know nothing about the Parliamentary resolution,

I spoke with Ministerial Assistant to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney,:

Essentially I was talking with someone who knows very little about something
he should know a lot about.

It is disconcerting, to know that people in the Minister’s office, in the
Canadian Dept of Immigration, where this has been an on-going issue for a
long time, do not know the most basic of information.

I won’t go into all the details. Some of the back-and-forth:

Lyntner: – no, I am not aware of anything passed by the House of Commons
(that would prohibit the deportations).

(I supplied the date and nature of the motion passed, and mentioned that
the deportees are people who resisted an illegal war.)

Lyntner: – who says it was illegal?

Me: – I don’t believe you would challenge the fact that the Bush
Administration used lies as the basis for dropping bombs on Iraq? There
were no weapons of mass destruction, as claimed. And I don’t think you
would challenge the fact that the U. N Security Council refused to sanction
the war? … okay. There are international laws that prohibit a state from
just dropping bombs on other countries.

Lyntner: – at some point in all this he says “well, that’s your OPINION
that the war was illegal”.

Me: – International Humanitarian Law, also known as the Law on Wars
makes it illegal. It is not my opinion. It is IN FACT an illegal war.

Lyntner: – well who passed that law? A country has to sign these laws
before they are binding.

Me: – The United Nations passed the various conventions that make up
International Humanitarian Law and Canada is signatory to those treaties.
Google “International Humanitarian Law” or “Law of War” – you can find it
all.

Lyntner: – There are many different agencies (how can it be “international”
or “UN”).

Me: I am aware that there are many different agencies. But they all fall
under the rubric of the UN. There are International Laws that clearly make
the War on Iraq an illegal war.

Harper doesn’t care about anyone but himself and his own power.  We, as compassionate Canadians do and are taking action:
Contact Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney and ask him to:

• STOP deportation proceedings against U.S. Iraq war resisters, including
Cliff Cornell and Kim Rivera and her family; and
• IMPLEMENT the motion adopted by Canada’s Parliament to allow U.S. Iraq war
resisters to apply for permanent resident status.

Here are the numbers to call:

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney
Call 613.954.1064

MP Jason Kenney’s Parliamentary office:
613.992.2235

Or email him at:
minister@cic.gc.ca
or
Kenney.j@parl.gc.ca

Please cc the opposition party critics if you email Jason Kenney:
Liberal party immigration critic Borys Wrzesnewskyj:
wrzesnewskyj.b@parl.gc.ca
NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow: chow.o@parl.gc.ca
Bloc Québécois immigration critic Thierry St-Cyr: st-cyr.t@parl.gc.ca.

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2 Comments
by Bernadette Wagner on December 17, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in activism, Canada, George Bush, Stephen Harper, USA, war

Posted by Bernadette Wagner on December 17, 2008

https://thereginamom.com/2008/12/17/harper-continues-to-ignore-will-of-parliament/

North American Union, Listeriosis, TILMA & the Stephen Harper Party

A trip through some blog posts has my neural pathways click-click-clicking! Be forewarned, this is a click-heavy post!

It all started with Alison@Creekside, talking about Stock Day and the hook-up with the Conference Board of Canada, Bell Canada, Microsoft and the RCMP for discussions on the server in the sky, that whacked-out plan for a surveillance society.  It’s a plan which flows from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), that nasty piece of work cobbled together by the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE – those poor, poor millionaires) and the Mexican Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (Comex, a group sponsored by Exxon Mobil, and boasting affiliation with none other than Milton Friedman’s Chicago School of Economics).

After civil society defeated the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), a piece on the path to North American Union, the CCCE worked with the CFR and Comex on another way of making change.  They proposed, in 2003, the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative (NASPI) which identifed five key areas of work:

Wholehearted action on these began when the SPP agreement was signed by former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, US President George W. Bush and former Mexican President, Vincente Fox, in 2005.  It has been lovingly tended by PM Harper, President Bush and Mexico’s President Calderon.

On my blogging journey, when I got to Larry Hubich‘s post discussing the Stephen Harper defence strategy that’s absent from the Conservative platform, I thought SPP.  He sent me over to Owls and Roosters, for more on the $490,000,000,000 defence plan.

In the sidebar at OnR, I noted a piece about TILMA, the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement that puts investment ahead of people.  Get this!  A re-elected Stephen Harper government would force TILMA on the provinces.  From page 16 of Stephen Harper’s de-sweatered platform:

A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will work to eliminate barriers that restrict or impair trade, investment or labour mobility between provinces and territories by 2010… We hope to see further progress, but are prepared to intervene by exercising federal authority if barriers to trade, investment and mobility remain by 2010.

And guess where talk of labour mobility barriers first appeared.

Yup!  The CCCE! It’s in the section on regulatory efficiencies:

  • As part of this effort, three issues of significant sensitivity must be addressed: the use of trade remedies within a de facto integrated market; regulatory restrictions on access and ownership in major industries; and impediments to the mobility of skilled labour.

Given what’s happening on Wall Street right now, it would make more sense for Canada to race away from markets more integrated with the USA!  But Steve, like Noah of the Old Testament, is staying the course.  In fact, Canada should have run away from the North American integration a long while ago.  That might have prevented 20 recent deaths.  From the same regulatory/economic efficiencies section:

  • With respect to standards, inspection and certification procedures, our two countries should be able to apply a principle of “tested once” for purposes of the Canada-United States market. Examples of such areas are the consumer and industrial goods sector, food safety and pharmaceuticals.

Food safety, huh?

But wait! There’s more.

I had to travel back to Alison@Creekside, in 2006, where she quoted a Maclean’s article (note the changed URL),

This is how the future of North America now promises to be written: not in a sweeping trade agreement on which elections will turn, but by the accretion of hundreds of incremental changes implemented by executive agencies, bureaucracies and regulators.

Incremental changes, huh?

One more bit from that Maclean’s article.  Ron Covais, president of the Americas for the arms manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and a former adviser to US Vice President, Dick Cheney, said of the 2006 SPP meeting, “We’ve decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes because we won’t get anywhere.”

Democratic process is such a pain, isn’t it?

Government by stealth; the Stephen Harper Party’s strength.

Can you stand more, dear reader?

Go ahead, watch this without me; I’ve had enough for one day!

—

Crossposted at rabble.ca/election

3 Comments
by Bernadette Wagner on October 10, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Canada, Council of Canadians, economics, George Bush, North American Union, spp, Stephen Harper
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Bernadette Wagner on October 10, 2008

https://thereginamom.com/2008/10/10/north-american-union-listeriosis-tilma-the-stephen-harper-party/

The SPP lacks democratic approval

Last summer, Linda McQuaig (Part I and Part II) spoke of the “sophistication” of the business elite in their soft-peddling of continental integration through the Security and Prosperity Agreement (SPP).  The deal has been kept quite quiet and the work of moving it forward is ongoing via various business leaders, politicians and bureaucrats.

McQuaig’s focus is North American Energy Security which, in essence, is an agreement that Canada guarantee an energy supply to the USA.  The catch is that we must do that before we take what we need!  Why would Canada agree to ensuring the US supply before ensuring our own?  As McQuaig says, there are about 10 years of regular oil supplies left in Canada.  Are we too nice, offering it to the US first?  Or, too stupid?  Yes, there’s the Alberta tar sands, but that über project has garnered a huge outcry from ecological organizations, northern peoples, environmentalists, and even a few politicians, such as former Alberta premier, Peter Lougheed and the Mayor of the Alberta boomtown, Fort McMurray.

Are we, as Canadians, really prepared to give over our own energy security, the ecological integrity of our beautiful north and the well-being of our northern and First Peoples so that the business elite can continue to line their own pockets?  Do we really want to continue fueling the USA’s wars?  Furthermore, are we willing to let this carry on without the due process of our democratic institutions?

In August 2007, Prime Minister Harper refused to accept letters on this matter from 10,000 concerned Canadians.  In the April 2006 Throne Speech, Mr. Harper promised to present “significant international treaties” to a vote in Parliament.  In the last session, he did not do so.  Did he lie to Canadians?  And why, as we learned from US President Bush’s State of the Union Address earlier this week, is our Prime Minister is continuing to forge ahead with the SPP?  He has plans to meet with Presidents Bush and Calderon this April in New Orleans.  But he will do so without the consent of the Canadian people, despite promises — not to mention the obligation — to do so!

Should you so wish, you can tell the Prime Minister how you feel about this lack of democratic process.  The Council of Canadians have been following the developments on the SPP very closely.  It was the organization that forced some media attention onto the issue last summer.

If we truly treasure democracy then we are obliged, as responsible citizens, to speak out when it is being circumvented or abused.  This, I think, is one of those times.  If you do nothing else, at least inform yourself on this important issue.  It will change your life, one way or the other.

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by Bernadette Wagner on January 31, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Alberta Tar Sands, Canada, Council of Canadians, George Bush, Linda McQuaig, Lubicon Cree, Mexico, north american competitiveness council, North American Energy Security, North American Union, spp, Stephen Harper

Posted by Bernadette Wagner on January 31, 2008

https://thereginamom.com/2008/01/31/the-spp-lacks-democratic-approval/