NY Times/The Closing of the Canadain Mind
CountLothian @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:23 pm
We are making international news YAY!!!!
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Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, is creating a legacy of secrecy and ignorance. Credit Mark Blinch/Reuters
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html?_r=0
below a quote from it
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Whether or not he loses, he will leave Canada more ignorant than he found it. The real question for the coming election is a simple but grand one: Do Canadians like their country like that?
The Guardian View
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/04/guardian-view-on-canada-elections-is-stephen-harper-era-over
below a quote from it
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He has gagged government scientists and civil servants, is bringing in new internal security laws, and made Canada a less open society
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Money came to Mr Harper’s rescue in a different way during the international fiscal crisis, because Canada’s prudent and well-regulated banking system and its stable housing market insulated it from the worst effects. None of this was Mr Harper’s doing – his own instincts are antiregulatory – but he got some of the credit.
Of course this is all Bullocks for the Sun Media Ezra Levant loving crowd.roflma!!! they know real news when they read it!!!
andyt @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:29 pm
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but the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.
Mr. Harper’s war against science has been even more damaging to the capacity of Canadians to know what their government is doing. The prime minister’s base of support is Alberta, a western province financially dependent on the oil industry, and he has been dedicated to protecting petrochemical companies from having their feelings hurt by any inconvenient research.
In 2012, he tried to defund government research centers in the High Arctic, and placed Canadian environmental scientists under gag orders. That year, National Research Council members were barred from discussing their work on snowfall with the media. Scientists for the governmental agency Environment Canada, under threat of losing their jobs, have been banned from discussing their research without political approval. Mentions of federal climate change research in the Canadian press have dropped 80 percent. The union that represents federal scientists and other professionals has, for the first time in its history, abandoned neutrality to campaign against Mr. Harper.
His active promotion of ignorance extends into the functions of government itself. Most shockingly, he ended the mandatory long-form census, a decision protested by nearly 500 organizations in Canada, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Catholic Council of Bishops. In the age of information, he has stripped Canada of its capacity to gather information about itself. The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life.
The darkness has resulted, organically, in one of the most scandal-plagued administrations in Canadian history. Mr. Harper’s tenure coincided with the scandal of Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto who admitted to smoking crack while in office and whose secret life came to light only when Gawker, an American website, broke the story. In a famous video at a Ford family barbecue, Mr. Harper praised the Fords as a “Conservative political dynasty.”
Whether or not he loses, he will leave Canada more ignorant than he found it. The real question for the coming election is a simple but grand one: Do Canadians like their country like that?
Mr. Harper’s war against science has been even more damaging to the capacity of Canadians to know what their government is doing. The prime minister’s base of support is Alberta, a western province financially dependent on the oil industry, and he has been dedicated to protecting petrochemical companies from having their feelings hurt by any inconvenient research.
In 2012, he tried to defund government research centers in the High Arctic, and placed Canadian environmental scientists under gag orders. That year, National Research Council members were barred from discussing their work on snowfall with the media. Scientists for the governmental agency Environment Canada, under threat of losing their jobs, have been banned from discussing their research without political approval. Mentions of federal climate change research in the Canadian press have dropped 80 percent. The union that represents federal scientists and other professionals has, for the first time in its history, abandoned neutrality to campaign against Mr. Harper.
His active promotion of ignorance extends into the functions of government itself. Most shockingly, he ended the mandatory long-form census, a decision protested by nearly 500 organizations in Canada, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Catholic Council of Bishops. In the age of information, he has stripped Canada of its capacity to gather information about itself. The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life.
The darkness has resulted, organically, in one of the most scandal-plagued administrations in Canadian history. Mr. Harper’s tenure coincided with the scandal of Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto who admitted to smoking crack while in office and whose secret life came to light only when Gawker, an American website, broke the story. In a famous video at a Ford family barbecue, Mr. Harper praised the Fords as a “Conservative political dynasty.”
Whether or not he loses, he will leave Canada more ignorant than he found it. The real question for the coming election is a simple but grand one: Do Canadians like their country like that?
Unsound @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:30 pm
Against my better judgement I think I've decided to vote conservative. And it's all because of you.
andyt @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:31 pm
I don't believe you.
CountLothian @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:31 pm
The Guardian's View that he made us a less open society.
I recall a while ago I posted here that we have had our international view changed, not a direct quote, and people jumped on me with bullocks ....not a direct quote.
Unsound @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:33 pm
andyt andyt:
I don't believe you.
Why not?
CountLothian @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:36 pm
Unsound Unsound:
Against my better judgement I think I've decided to vote conservative. And it's all because of you.
Thats ok we still live in a free society. Other countries view us as damaged and less open but hey we still have a semblance of a free society.
The problem for me is I post two articles , not my words and I still get flak .
You think you are not brain washed and that this is not an issue.
He gagged science, this is a throw back to Galileo's times.
And I get flak for mentioning it.
Thanos @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:37 pm
If I want to read sheer ignorance, malice, and open hatred of Canadians by other Canadians all I have to do is read any of the comments made on CBC.com. If there's an utterly vicious, misanthropic, and mean-spirited side in Canada it comes almost entirely from the Canadian left, not the right.
andyt @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:38 pm
You're smarter than that. I can easily accept that Harper's your guy, but not that Lothian has swayed your vote.
Thanos @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:39 pm
Unsound Unsound:
Against my better judgement I think I've decided to vote conservative. And it's all because of you.
Yup. This is the kind of choad that'll be utterly insufferable if something like Mulcair wins. Have to stick with Harper to keep these cretins from destroying the country altogether as they seek their 'revenge'.
Thanos @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:42 pm
andyt andyt:
You're smarter than that. I can easily accept that Harper's your guy, but not that Lothian has swayed your vote.
Lothian is typical of the spirit and mentality of the Canadian left-wing. An NDP win will be like the CBC comment section taking over the country the same way the Bolsheviks took over St. Petersburg. An absolute disaster marked not by any desire to make the country a better place but merely to seek vengeance against those they hate so much.
Unsound @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:43 pm
edit: I took too long to post. It should be obvious this is directed at Lothian, but in case it's not obvious... it's directed at Lothian.
The problem is that you're not a real person. You show up just in time for the election and spend all your time spewing partisan talking points and posting partisan articles.
THe rest of us, partisan as we might get at times especially elections, are real people who have complete identities here. We talk about music or tv. We make fun of each other's spelling. We have relationships.
You're an advertisement. Spam.
Spend some time on the boards talking about anything at all besides how evil terrible not very good at all Harper is, and maybe we'll take you more seriously.
And btw I'm not brainwashed. I'm well aware of many of the criticisms of Harper. Some I have time for, some I don't. Same as with all the other parties and leaders. But I'll make up my mind based on my own research and discussion with people who's opinions I respect.
Unsound @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:45 pm
andyt andyt:
You're smarter than that. I can easily accept that Harper's your guy, but not that Lothian has swayed your vote.
Shhh, don't tell him that. I'm hoping to cost him his bonus from Liberal HQ
andyt @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:48 pm
Thanos Thanos:
andyt andyt:
You're smarter than that. I can easily accept that Harper's your guy, but not that Lothian has swayed your vote.
Lothian is typical of the spirit and mentality of the Canadian left-wing. An NDP win will be like the CBC comment section taking over the country the same way the Bolsheviks took over St. Petersburg. An absolute disaster marked not by any desire to make the country a better place but merely to seek vengeance against those they hate so much.
Yeah, yeah. You're just doing a lothian in reverse here. Lots of 1/lothians on this board, he mostly stands out by being a minority.
Thanos @ Mon Aug 17, 2015 5:52 pm
andyt andyt:
Thanos Thanos:
andyt andyt:
You're smarter than that. I can easily accept that Harper's your guy, but not that Lothian has swayed your vote.
Lothian is typical of the spirit and mentality of the Canadian left-wing. An NDP win will be like the CBC comment section taking over the country the same way the Bolsheviks took over St. Petersburg. An absolute disaster marked not by any desire to make the country a better place but merely to seek vengeance against those they hate so much.
Yeah, yeah. You're just doing a lothian in reverse here. Lots of 1/lothians on this board, he mostly stands out by being a minority.
Here he's a minority. In other places he's typical of a majority of commenters. I won't underestimate their numbers and other Canadians of the moderate/conservative streak shouldn't either.