Bravo Zulo, Gordon O'Connor

Skdadl over at POGGE rightly pays due respect to the four Conservatives who voted against Bill C-484, the incremental and unconstitutional attempt to change the definition of human life.

In that post she recognizes Josée Verner, CPC, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women and Official Languages; Lawrence Cannon, CPC, Minister of Transport; Infrastructure, and Communities; Sylvie Boucher, CPC, MP; and, Gordon O'Connor, CPC, Minister of National Revenue.

I've taken more than my fair share of chunks out of Gordon O'Connor. When he was Minister of National Defence I can only describe him as a near perfect target.

That was then. This is now. I was always willing to single out O'Connor for his failings. I am just as willing to applaud him for his courage.

Gordon O'Connor demonstrated political integrity yesterday. He also joined three others of his party in refusing to join a mindless herd of MPs who clearly have either no respect for or no knowledge of constitutional law.

Well done, Mr. O'Connor. You have put some of the members opposite to shame.

Bravo Zulu is the is the supplementary signal from the Allied Naval Signal Book carrying the meaning Well Done.

An unnecessary message from Gordon O'Connor

This morning, along with a corporate tax form, this little piece of information arrived in the mail. (Click to enlarge)

I don't mind information, but the propaganda nature of this little blue slip of paper is more than just factual information.

The Canada Revenue Agency, in its role of dealing with taxpayers, cannot assume a position of determining what does or does not benefit those taxpayers.

It implements policy; It does not judge its worth.

I would have had no problem with an information bulletin which announced the changes in a matter-of-fact manner.

This little blue slip however, is a policy statement accompanied by political propaganda.

If this is to become routine, O'Connor might want to include, above his signature, that most economists disagree with the reduction of the GST as sound tax policy.

It's a first. Brought to you by the perpetual election campaign of the Steve Harper Party of Canada.

Update from Cheryl: Being in the accounting business, I'm inundated with mail from CRA detailing changes in tax laws, updates, etc. This ridiculous insert was in a GST news bulletin I received today. When Dave saw my slack-jawed reaction, I told him that this was an absolute first in all my 25 years of receiving mail from CRA. Stevie baby does it again (maybe the most surprising thing was that they didn't blame the Liberals for something or another in the insert)

Harper the warrior king. Channeling Dick Cheney

What Tim said. Steve Harper has done it again.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared to have had enough of Dion's line of questioning about the competence of O'Connor, who had served previously as a general in Canada's military.

"The minister of National Defence is a veteran of the Canadian Forces," Harper said. "He has served this country courageously in uniform for 32 years and when the leader of the opposition is able to stand in uniform and serve his country then I'll care about his opinion."

Actually, O'Connor was a brigadier general who never achieved his goal. He wanted to be the Chief of Defence Staff but came up three ranks shy. Not that any of that matters. He isn't in the fucking service anymore. He's a civilian. A minister of the Crown. While I know there are countless dozens of people who criticized the performance of O'Connor when he was in uniform, no one is bringing that up.

But we could.

Harper, as Stephane Dion pointed out, has placed a caveat on criticism of the Minister of National Defence. In Harper's mind only those who have been members of the armed services are allowed to criticize Gordon O'Connor's record as a cabinet minister. And, when called on his own military service, Harper had this to say.

"It's true I've never served in the armed forces," the PM admitted. "I consider that an experience in my life that I've missed."

Really?! I can do no better than to quote Canadian Cynic.

Let me explain something to you, Steve, you ignorant sack of pus -- military service is not something that you "miss." It's not something that just pops by briefly while you were out and forgets to leave a note. Military service is something you explicitly and deliberately choose not to partake of. It's a decision you make consciously, not an unfortunate accident you look back on wistfully and wonder, "What if?".

Precisely, and I'm going to go one further. Harper intentionally and deliberately avoided any form of military service because he's a coward. On 13 April 2006, while addressing troops in Wainwright, he said this:

And I believe that military service is the highest calling of citizenship, not because you are ready to die for your country, though every soldier is prepared to do that. No, it is the highest calling of citizenship because you are ready to live for your country.

What a load of fucking tripe, and what a demonstration of how little that overweight sack of shit knows about military service. Declaring that military service is the highest calling of citizenship, he stands out as someone who has avoided answering that call. Further, I don't know anybody with a modicum of sanity who is prepared to die for their country. Service personnel are prepared to fight for their country and swear an oath or affirmation to do so. But nowhere does it say on any document that the members of the Canadian Forces stand ready to die. Only a flat-faced, pencil-necked, reeky fucking politician would be dumb enough to even suggest such a thing.

But then, that's exactly what Harper is. He's also a ghoul.

On 18 September 2006 Harper told Peter Mansbridge that the war in Afghanistan had made Canada's military a better military "... because of the casualties."

As long as he's not one of them.

You see, Harper would have failed miserably in any branch of the military. The armed forces is a team effort and Harper is anything but a team player. Given his propensity for back-stabbing and uncontrolled fits of temper, he would have been extremely unpopular and, I would go so far as to say, he probably would have had his lights punched out before seeing off his sixteenth week of service.

Harper had no desire to join anything. He hates established institutions unless they're willing to change to suit his view of the world. And he's not patient enough to adapt to the demands of the institution, as he has already demonstrated many times in his contempt for the parliamentary process.

Harper has another problem which would preclude his serving in the military. Advancement in the armed forces is based on merit and performance. That wouldn't sit well with a political animal like Harper who craves, more than anything else, power. The armed forces expects servile compliance from its members. Harper, who has spent his career advancing on the backs of others and manipulating his way to the top would have found the military far too tough.

In short, he wouldn't have lasted in the service. He would have quit. Again, not that it matters. He never even entertained the thought of actually visiting a recruiting office. He missed that part.

Let's get back to O'Connor for a minute. Apparently, according to Harper, only those who have served, in uniform, are in a position to criticize the Minister of National Defence.

I qualify.

I have more decorations than Gordon O'Connor. We are members of the same military order. I have combat experience. O'Connor doesn't.

I don't care what O'Connor was like as a brigadier general, although I considered him a careerist boob at the time. What he is now is an incompetent, lying, shiftless moron. He has forced unwanted equipment on the military without completing a proper defence review; he was so confused as to prisoner transfer arrangements that an international aid organization had to lay out for him exactly what they were not doing; he so lacked awareness of the budget demands of the Afghanistan mission that he left the navy underfunded to carry out scheduled patrols; and, now, he has no idea why an assistant deputy minister had not issued payment for the funerals of service personnel killed in action.

He says he directed that all costs to the families be reimbursed but that order was not obeyed.

Really?

Well then, Gordon O'Connor, with all that luscious, courageous military service should be able to get himself off the hook with a great deal of ease. You see, we former military types understand how such direction works and an order of that nature would be written. O'Connor has simply to appear in Parliament and show us the signed and dated direction that he issued. It is undoubtedly unclassified.

Unless O'Connor is lying to us again.

While we're discussing "orders", O'Connor should issue one to his blow-hard Chief of Defence Staff. Tell him to quit showing up at public events and news conferences dressed in camouflage combat clothing. Unless he's in the field, he has an office job and we have the right to see him properly dressed with visible rank insignia and medal ribbons. Being dressed as a variegated, multi-leafed plant in downtown Ottawa is incongruous with proper military deportment.

O'Connor goes for "Third Time Lucky"

So, Harper is trying to dismiss a report which contained this statement:

Despite some positive developments, the overall human rights situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in 2006 ... Extra judicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common. Freedom of expression still faces serious obstacles, there are serious deficiencies in adherence to the rule of law and due process by police and judicial officials. Impunity remains a problem in the aftermath of three decades of war and much needed reforms of the judiciary systems remain to be implemented.

Harper's defence? This:

Mr. Harper said the government had “no evidence of specific allegations” revealed by the Globe and Mail.

No evidence of specific allegations. That was Harper's line throughout Question Period in Parliament. But he didn't say he didn't see the report mentioned above. He may not have had a specific report; but he had that one.

He knew, O'Connor knew and MacKay knew.... OK... so MacKay didn't know. After all, it was produced by his department. None of them, (except MacKay), have denied that they actually saw that report. And the question has to be, why didn't they take the appropriate action to ensure that prisoners handed over to the Karzai government were being treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions? Because they never did take that action. What makes that clear is this report appearing late today:

Canada has reached an agreement with Afghan officials to check on the status of detainees, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said Wednesday in the face of intense questioning at the House of Commons.

O'Connor told a foreign affairs committee that officials have struck a deal with the governor of Kandahar that will let them visit Afghan detainees handed over by Canadian troops.

That agreement, reached Wednesday, would not have been deemed necessary unless so-called rumours of abuse and worse had some basis in fact and the leaders of the Canadian government were aware of it.

But there's more. O'Connor has now implemented a third supposed agreement. The first was with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which turned out not to exist; the next agreement was with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has claimed it cannot gain access to prisoners, therefore cannot produce information it supposedly promised to provide. Now O'Connor has gone to the governor of Kandahar to allow, what appears to be, Canadians to actually check the condition of prisoners taken by Canadians troops.

There's only one problem: For the last few months at least, the Canadian government has no idea who it was that they actually turned over to the Afghans because they didn't properly document the transfers.

So, who are they going to look at?

And why should we believe O'Connor now? This is his third shot at the same problem. He's screwed the pooch twice before and now we are expected to believe he's finally found the solution? That is more latitude than O'Connor would have given a junior officer when he was a brigadier-general.

Feh.

The snake oil salesman and his special brand of remedy

Steve Harper is expected to get up on a podium today, smile at the crowd and declare that he slayed the dragon. Health care wait times are no more.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to address a conference on wait times Wednesday, and bets are that he will announce the fulfilment of his election promise on medical wait-time guarantees.

Organizers of the Taming of the Queue conference, an annual meeting in Ottawa on wait times, had expected an appearance by Health Minister Tony Clement but the surprise visit by Harper suggests political news in the offing.

Surprise visit by Harper? Oh Sandra, you are so adroit. The smartest man in the room™ is shoving aside his adequate minister to make the announcement personally that health care waiting time guarantees, the election promise, have been fulfilled.

Care guarantees were one of the five priority election promises of the Conservatives in the 2006 election - the idea was that patients unable to get timely medical care would be sent to another jurisdiction or allowed to get treatment in private clinics at public expense.

Failure to deliver on the high-profile promise would provide a target for opposition parties in a possible election. But provinces initially refused to buy into the plan on which they had not been consulted.

Consultation. That's like checking with the people you're about to unload on. No.... no no no. This is Steve Harper. He's right!

The March budget provided $612 million for provinces and Ottawa to fulfil a somewhat reduced promise: a care guarantee in one treatment area rather than all five priority areas - cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements and sight restoration - initially outlined.

To get its share, a province can promise to provide a guarantee in the area of its choice, and do so in the manner of its choosing.

That's not what Harper said when he was asking for the job.

"No government's going to walk away from a pot of money," said Harvey Voogd of Alberta-based Friends of Medicare, suggesting that provinces could merely continue to do what they were doing anyway.

"Nobody has signed on to a difficult wait time, all have signed up for wait times they're already beavering away at or successfully meeting.

"Anybody who follows this stuff can see what the federal government is doing is not a well thought out wait-time plan but is covering their political backside for any federal election."

Yup. This pre-election period is one of the most expensive series of non-accomplishments the Canadian taxpayer has ever funded.

In other news, conservative clarity is breaking out in the office of the Minister of National Defence and George W Bush is declaring the Surge a success which hasn't happened yet.