This Week in Serendipity

Heh. Hahahahaha! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

There's some major synchronicity happening this week in terms of Problematic Optics for the Conservative government:

1. Bill C-484, the "Kicking Abortion's Ass" bill, (also known as the bill that has nothing to do with abortion except that it really does, but it doesn't, but it does): This nefarious stealth attack on womens' rights was blogswarmed this week heading into its debate on Monday. The bill is promoted and supported by religious fundies and anti-abortion whackjobs... the kind of people the Harper government secretly relies on but publicly likes to keep at arm's length, in such contempt does the majority of Canadians hold them and their twisted views. With C-484 the Harper government's anti-choice agenda boogies out of the closet and does a little dance for horrified middle-of-the-road Canadians who overwhelmingly support womens' reproductive freedom.

2. The Cadman Scandal: This thing's got it all -- Conservative party corruption, crime (influence peddling), shady backroom political manoeuvers, and the execrable ethics of manipulating a terminally-ill man who's widely viewed as "the last honest politician" to get his vote. With more legs than a centipede, the Cadman scandal blows the lid right off the canned fable of "clean government" that the Harper conservatives try to propagate, revealing the teeming, slithering worms within.

3. Bill C-10 amendment: This one is juicy! Passed on the sneak as part of an omnibus bill, this ugly little piece of Orwellian legislation gives the government the power to censor the arts through financial hardship by denying tax credits. And guess who's calling the tune -- religious nutjobs like Charles McVety, the same whacked-out wingnuts that the Harper government has tried so hard to distance itself from for the last 2 years. But the gap is closing and the noose is tightening -- McVety was so proud to be a driving force behind this censorship bill (Hello? Hello? Anyone home?) that he couldn't resist beaking off about it, and dig what came out when he opened that sludge trap he calls a mouth:

"We're thankful that someone's finally listening," he said yesterday. "It's fitting with conservative values, and I think that's why Canadians voted for a Conservative government."

"Conservative values" -- oops. The last thing Harper wants is a nutter like McVety identifying himself with the "Conservative Values" brand. And since when did Canadians vote for a conservative government? More than 64% of us voted for something -- anything -- other than a conservative government, and by my kind of math, that's a landslide defeat for "Conservative Values". Which is precisely why Harper's been telling the McVetys to Shut The Fuck Up for the last two years. But never mind that, here's what McVety wants to censor:

"Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign."

Because as we all know, homosexuality, graphic sex and violence are all the same. What, I wonder, would McVety deem as "promoting homosexuality"? The probable answer is "anything that includes a gay character" -- for sure he would have torpedoed Will & Grace given the opportunity.

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It's serendipitous that these three events should all occur in such close proximity to each other. Not only is it a Blogger's Trifecta, it's a synchronistic combination of circumstances that shouts screams shrieeeeeeks! loud and clear that the Harper conservatives are everything Canada was afraid they were when they lost the election in 2004. And that's a nice way to go into an election in 2008.

UPDATE: Related -- Dave at The Galloping Beaver responds to Josh Marshall at TPM on the Cadman scandal.

Skeena-Bulkley Valley: MSM wakes up

Thanks to the intrepid work of Frank Frink at A Creative Revolution*, the MSM is finally awakening from their golden slumbers on the issue of Conservative "government liaison" appointments, specifically in Skeena-Bulkley Valley. Speaking of Conservative MP Dick Harris' announcement of the appointment of Houston Mayor Sharon Smith as "go-to person" in S-BV, Barbara Yaffe at the Vancouver Sun writes:

"Throwing in the waste bin the principles that make representative government in Canada function, Harris explained on a local radio show the other week: "To have access to the ministers, realistically, you have to be part of the government. You want to contact the Prime Minister's Office or even the prime minister when you need to, it helps immensely to be part of the government."

And that's from someone who's generally a Harper apologist. Also, they're fuming up in the riding in question, as evidenced by this editorial in the Northern View (Prince Rupert/the Charlottes):

"Apparently if you didn’t elect one of their candidates, the Conservative government doesn’t really care what you have to say.

"At least that was the impression I was left with after reading a news release from B.C. Conservative Caucus chair Dick Harris, which urged people with “concerns or issues with the Federal Government” to contact Sharon Smith, who will be running for the party in the next federal election. Apparently, according to Harris, Smith will provide residents with direct contact to the federal government, which we have not had since 2004, and will “represent constituents of her riding.”

"That is quite possibly the most arrogant, ignorant and blatantly misleading thing that I have ever heard from any government or government official. Ever." [...]

"And perhaps even more importantly, in what strange and twisted reality does the Conservative Party of Canada or any other political party have the power to appoint someone as our representative on a federal level? They don’t have that power now, they never had that power and they never will have that power! Only the people of the riding have that power, and for the Conservatives to even think they can tell us who we are to talk to is both insulting and a massive slap in the face to the entire democratic process..."

And I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg.

*and all those tenacious bloggers who kept the story on the radar (list here), especially blogging a dead horse who was the first to flag this outrageous story.

UPDATE: MP Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley) speaks in the Interior News, FF has it here.