Jan 30
Can we talk about this?
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Can we talk about this?
Speaking before a room full of policymakers from midwestern Canada and the United States, former prime minister Stephen Harper said the ongo
Speaking before a room full of policymakers from midwestern Canada and the United States, former prime minister Stephen Harper said the ongoing trade war with the U.S. is a "wake-up call" for Canada to diversify its trade and export markets. "I was — I think it's fair to say — probably the most pro-American prime minister in Canadian history," Harper said of his tenure from 2006 to 2015. If the current government asked him a year ago for advice on U.S. President Donald Trump being re-elected and wanting to renegotiate trade, he says he would have thought it was a real opportunity for Canada to deepen its economic and security partnership with the United States.
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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland
black beauty portrait (new york city 2022)
artist: luke bridgers
"Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative": The Fool's Gold of Politics [Part 1]
Why conservatives need to be bigoted for their platform to work; a case study.
Americans, some brief [long and multipart] Canadian lore you might find useful, in regards to demystifying why the right is-- you know. Just like that.
Because there was a time in recent Canadian history where the right wasn't "like that" for a hot minute. It caused so many problems for them it ended like most conservative disagreements do-- a cat fight, a messy divorce and a custody battle for the kids.
Let me tell you about Prime Minister Stephen Harper. 22nd PM. Served from 2006 to 2015. Nine years. Impressive for a conservative. They notoriously have a harder time keeping the PM spot historically. And that shows-- their political philosophy, frankly, operates "better" as redhoric while they are acting as the offical opposition.
Keep in mind-- though the PM spot is obviously the most powerful position-- any seats at all in the commons are not trivial. Having official party status (12 seats or more) is significant enough influence many third parties rely and aim for it, official opposition (being the party with the second largest amount of seats) is even better. The PM's (party with most seats-- 170 for majority government, meaning they have over half) power is very beholden to being able to make nice with the entire House of Commons.
Back to Harper. He was for sure, a different kind of Conservative. The Conservative Party is, to be frank, more or less the originator of culturally specific flavor of racism and queerphobia in Canada-- going all the way back to confederation. They are at least the ones that federalized it.
They have also imploded several times. Imploded, reformed and come back with a new name and a new hat-- promising to be "different" than the old Conservative Party [I should do a post on all the iterations of the Conservative Party-- because they are kinda hilarious, the gimmicks vs. The reality.]
And to be fair to Harper-- the party was different. While he was party leader. We shall get to it. [Forshadowing is a literary device where--]
Basically, the life cycle of almost every iteration of the conservative party starts with them being "a new type of conservative." Sometimes bigoted in a sort of New Coke formula. Or, they have a new schtick that starts off as mostly them talking about an economic plan, and then it eventually progresses into bigotry.
Because conservative economic policies are also conservative-- which for whatever reason, people don't seem to understand that means they're outdated. Something that's been tried before-- so we'd know already if it works. They're sort of trapped in this vicious cycle where to maintain power they need to start spindoctoring scapegoats so they can invent their own problems to solve. First Nations, the gays, the jews, immigrants-- whatever. Whatever is the hot sexy new bigotry the kids are all raving about. Or really they're all old bigotry, with a new coat of paint. I cannot explain to you why this is not an inherently obvious incentive to anyone who thinks about it. Other than people don't know how money works, rich people want to not pay taxes, so they influence government to poison the well and get people to advocate against their own interests.
But by all accounts, Harper was conservatism "done right." The most lawful good conservatism gets-- Stephen Harper's iteration of the Cons. You could absolutely argue plenty of his policies and redhoric were still bigoted-- but it was just the gentle implication immigrants are ruining the economy-- you feel me? We're talkin' conservatives here, right? He was mostly an economics guy-- which, ideally, is what all politicians are supposed to be. They're supposed to focus on policy-- and the majority of his song and dance was having the country in a better economic position. Balancing budgets, managing trade, blah blah blah. Which, to be clear, in the abstract are all good things. My guy Harper was very big on not messing about in people's personal lives for the most part. Very much, live and let live [Unless your living involved something they could get away with punishing you for. "Tough on crime". Aka, cops will fuck you for an ounce of weed.]
This is what likely made him inoffensive enough for eastern canada to tolerate him for as long as they did. As the way eastern Canada votes tends to decide elections.
But Stephen was still, at the end of the day-- a conservative. And things were about to get spicy.
A country's debt is not something you can leave to fester. Part of the position America is in now is from doing that. And depending on what's happened before, there can be no easy answer on how to fix debt.
The liberal party has a tendency to run up government debt, and kick the problem down the road. They have good reason to do this, at times, however-- because they are ALSO an establishment party with rich benefactors who use money to get the libs to roll over for them. Too often, they take on more debt instead of just raise taxes. Especially on the rich.
For reasons we don't have time to get into the Liberal party was in a full on crying on tiktok live in a car style crashout era, having partaken in some insane spending that would have really made the country hurt later down the line.
This ended up being parliament's attitude era-- there is an attempt at a cue via legal loophole that ends in the most hilariously Canadian way possible. I don't have time to explain any of that. Just know there's lots of shit going on over Harper's tenure with the Libs and they keep eating shit.
The budget FOR SURE needed to be balanced and the debt addressed. There's no arguing that. Though no one knew this when Harper took office, the 2008 housing bubble is on the horizon. Believe it or not, as dire as the housing crisis is right now, there's a chance it could have been worse.
Unfortunately, that money had to come from somewhere. And though the Libs drag their feet on raising taxes, the Cons are fucking allergic to it.
Harper was a neoliberal. And how he was planning to fix government debt was through-- you guessed it, austerity. Using austerity policies to fix government debt is like paying utilities with money you needed for groceries. It does technically work-- and now you get to starve in your heated and lit home.
People were feeling the burn almost immediately. If the liberal party was not in the political flop messy bitch era, next election he would have been out. The unfortunate reality is that a depressingly large amount of the Canadian public falsely believes that voting for a third-party is a "waisted vote." There is no other reason to believe this other than Americanisms leaking over the border. But there it is.
Even so, despite the odds, enter stage left--
One of the legendary giga chads of Canadian politics--
Jack Layton.
Again, don't have time, but Jack Layton is the GOAT. One of the best leaders of the NDP of all time-- he oversaw what I believe is the only time in Canadian history a third party held the position of official opposition.
To convince you he's the chad to Harper's virgin without going on a tangent, here's a picture of him in a Star Trek costume at a event:
The Conservatives found their success at maintaining PM and the downfall of their biggest rival had come with a monkey's paw curse.
The Canadian public had become so put off by the crashout behavior of the Libs-- many Canadians who would be voting liberal typically as the trusted establishment party weren't. However, the Conservatives, despite the rebrand and the wide birth they were giving any to the bigotry fear-mongering the party had engaged in in the past-- many ethnic groups had already been burned in the past. Burned so bad it left a 100+ year long bitterness towards the them regardless. For places like Quebec, the sins of the father loom large, and that's a big part of what kneecaps conservative success in the country to this day. Quebec prefers to vote Bloc when they don't vote lib. Though this was one of the longest stints the Cons had ever held the PM seat, they only ever held minority government. They came close, but never quite captured the widespread support the Liberals had enjoyed in the past.
We actually would not have another majority government until Justin Trudeau got elected in 2015 at the end of the conservatives rein.
On top of that, the ashes of the libs left a massive vacuum for the strictly left-leaning voter. Many leftist were emboldened to vote third party possibly for the first time-- and they voted NDP. The Libs and the Cons are truly not actually that politically far off. There is no doubt in my mind that had the libs been the con's opposition, the austerity would have gone a lot farther.
The NDP under Jack Layton's stewardship was a TRUE opposition the Conservatives had no easy answer to combat. The NDP's platform means they almost never get any of the big ticket donors the Libs and the Cons do. They were fueled by genuine democratic process that made it in their best interests to fight tooth and nail the Cons' most aggressive cost-cutting to stay in favor with their voters.
The Healthcare system, the infrastructure of communities, and vital social programs many Canadians relief on was not worth offering up like a sacrificial lamb to the budget gods. And this was, categorically, a good thing. We have seen the devastation austerity can cause countries with examples like Thatcherism. And the kicker is that it really doesn't work long term. A population who's quality of life goes down can easily end up being MORE expensive. Upkeep of societal well-being costs more in the here and now, but less over time. Austerity measures weren't so much going to balance the budget as it was transferring it into a different economic concern.
Because God forbid we tax the rich. God forbid.
Are you starting to see what sort of double bind this put Harper in? Can't tax the rich donors, can't do the austerity they want to do.
I can't prove this-- but I actually think Layton's presence, counter intuitively, was a massive part of Harper staying on for as long as he did when he was kind of pleasing no one for nine years straight. Exactly because he was standing in the way of so much austerity measures. Again, unfortunately, because of American influence, I think a not insignificant amount of Canadian voters think whatever happens in government and with the economy, the Prime Minister is the most to thank/to blame for it. So everything kinda just getting worse in minor increments instead of some kind of aggressive conservative policy hitting us like a truck made Harper seem not as bad as he potentially could have been. That, plus again, the Canadian public's hesitancy to vote third party. You know, not the worst guy, so.
And this whole time . . .
A decent handful of cons in Harper's cabinet slowly start to seeth more and more. The drama in the room, as it often is . . .
Was the Gay Agenda.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
i was reading up on stephen harpers anti-science measures imposed during the canadian conservative majority of 2011-2015 (they forbade any government scientist from speaking to media without permission and widely defunded government research facilities and closed scientific libraries. all of this was seemingly a crusade against climate change and environmentalist research, but wound up affecting scientists in every field.)
and i stumbled across a blog post from early 2017 detailing some advice one scientist had for americans suffering from similar issues under the new trump government which, um. seems relevant again now. so here it is.
interestingly enough much of the advice does seem to be what people have been doing for the past month: communicate anonymously, get collaborators in more protected situations, unionize to bargain for better conditions or for greater visibility, and reach out to the public about both the importance of science and science in the role of government policy. a lot of the other posts on this blog are worth reading too, if you have the time.
I am not Canadian under a Harper government
Le Très Honorable Stephen Harper, ancien premier ministre du Canada. Je donne un 5/5 pour l’effort de parler français.
(NDLR: il tente de dire le mot « élection »… c’est dur… dur dur ^^
Canadian money helped develop high-tech tools like “behaviour recognition” then used in Israel
Eleven days after Hamas attacked Israel in October, former prime minister Stephen Harper’s current business partner Yaron Ashkenazi wrote an op-ed about how their company would help the country “stop these evil terrorists in their tracks.”
Their venture capital fund, Awz Ventures, was well-positioned. For years, the company has poured investments—totalling at least $350 million—into high-tech companies that support the Israeli security industry.
Harper is a leading partner at the firm and president of its advisory committee. The former prime minister, who was a hard-line supporter of Israel while in office, has promoted the company in Israeli media outlets and has said that Awz Ventures is a chance to “continue what I did in government.”
In 2021, Awz launched a start-up accelerator in Tel Aviv that partners with the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s research and development wing and other Israeli agencies, including intelligence agency Mossad, security agency Shin Bet, and the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) elite cyber intelligence unit.
That partnership has never before been reported in the Canadian media. The Breach can also reveal new details about three companies funded by Awz that are helping Israel’s post-Oct. 7 actions, as well as six more that have done business with Israeli governments in recent years.