Taking Sides as an Elected Official

Mayors and Councillors are entitled, of course, to their personal political opinions but as an elected official of a community and supposedly representing the community as a whole, many would consider it inappropriate, distasteful and insulting to have an elected official use that position to endorse one political party, for as such they speak for their whole community. Mayors and their Councils must work with their Provincial and Federal representatives, from any party for the betterment of their communities and it might be considered very unwise to blatantly take sides.

Unfortunately Cranbrook’s Mayor Pratt chose to do just that by endorsing one political party in a paid political advertisement in the Thursday, October 8th edition of the Townsman.

“By taking a position you’re basically taking a position on behalf of the entire municipality,” said Welland Mayor Frank Campion. “I think it would be wrong and probably insulting to take a position on a particular party.”

Campion said that he recognizes it’s no secret he ran for the Conservatives in the last provincial election, and that people know where he’s coming from, but as mayor he won’t throw support behind any particular party or candidate.

He said his personal politics are cross-party, saying he agrees with certain aspects of each party’s platform.

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/2015/09/04/mayors-mum-on-endorsing-candidates

“But otherwise I will stay uninvolved in the campaign because I think I’m the mayor of all the people — I’m the mayor of Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, Greens, Rhinoceros Party, Marijuana Party people,” he said. “I’m the mayor of all the people and it is my job to get the best deal for Toronto and not to get involved in the campaign.” Toronto Mayor Tory

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/08/04/tory-refuses-to-endorse-a-federal-leader

What's Happening.....

Tuesday Oct 6 to October 30th

Cranbrook and District Arts Council
presents their first exhibit in the new location
Member's Fall Autumn Inspired Exhibit
1013, Baker St.
next to Sakura
(the old Hobby Shop)

Saturday October 10th

Cranbrook Thanksgiving Farmer's Market
Final Fall market
10:00am - 1:00pm
Tenth Avenue S.

East Kootenay Outdoor Club
Hike to Kootenay River
Michel, 250-581-0660

Sunday October 11th

'Chasing Fall Colours' Hike
250-427-7043

Key City Theatre Gallery

now 'til October 17th
The iconic photography of
Ethan Russell
Rolling Stones, the Who, the Beatles
and more

October 9th, 10th, 14,15,16,17,21,22,23,24
Cranbrook Community Theatre presents
'Making God Laugh'
8:00pm
Studio Stage Door
Tickets at Lotus Books and at the Door

How to pack the house....

The Key City Theatre was packed on Wednesday October 7th for Cranbrook's premier viewing of the 'Jumbo' movie/documentary.  There were no empty seats and the majority of attendees were young adults. On the other hand, there was a sprinkling of people, (maybe one hundred and fifty) at the All Candidates Forum the night before and the majority of attendees were more senior in years. Jumbo, the movie is receiving rave reviews and we were privileged to be able to watch this stunning production before it embarks on a world tour.

These numbers might illustrate many things but one is surely, what many young adults really care about.  Let's hope they also care enough to vote and make the changes they wish to see happen.

Forum

Jumbo, the movie

Active Promotion of Ignorance

This article was published in the New York Times during August.


The Closing of the Candian Mind

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html?_r=0

By STEPHEN MARCHEAUG. 14, 2015

Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education.

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.

His relationship to the press is one of outright hostility. At his notoriously brief news conferences, his handlers vet every journalist, picking and choosing who can ask questions. In the usual give-and-take between press and politicians, the hurly-burly of any healthy democracy, he has simply removed the give.

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.

Harper's Abuses of Power contd. 41-50.

On August 11th we published the first part of this article from the Tyee.  

Tyee staff and contributors have compiled a list of 70 government assaults on democracy and the law.  As a list of 70 is pretty difficult for anyone to verify all at once we have been posting a few at a time.  To read the entire list at once go to this link.

Like Never Before, Limits Placed on Media Access

Journalists have been hard-pressed to recall another time when controls put on them were so tight. At the Conservatives' 2013 Calgary convention, reporters wrote of being harassed and penned in at every turn by the PMO's command and control system. In his book Killing The Messenger, journalist Mark Bourrie charts the many examples of new limits on freedom of speech introduced in the Harper era.

Harper's Team Tries to Ban Journalist for Asking Question

Veteran TV cameraman Dave Ellis covered a Harper speech about oil to a business audience. Though media had been instructed no questions allowed, Ellis posed one about charges laid against a Conservative MP. The PMO tried to punish Ellis and his network by kicking him off covering Harper's trip to Malaysia. After media hue and cry, Harper backed down and Ellis went.

Harper Minister Sucker Punches CBC Budget

After the 2011 federal election Heritage Minister James Moore assured Conservatives would "maintain or increase support for the CBC. That is our platform and we have said that before and we will commit to that." The next year, Harper's Cons delivered the biggest government cut to CBC since the mid-1990s, much deeper in proportion than overall trims to federal programs, defying public sentiment.

Suppression of Research

In the gun registration debate, incriminating research and documents such as a Firearms Report were deliberately withheld from the public. While ramping up their prison building, Conservatives suppressed related research and studies contradicting their political priorities.

The Vic Toews Porno Smear

In a vivid example of the browbeating of opponents, the minister of public safety said anyone who opposed federal plans to make electronic surveillance of Canadians easier for authorities was siding with child pornographers.

Harper's Fallen Soldiers Blackout

Emulating George W. Bush's optics tactics, Stephen Harper banned media coverage of fallen soldiers' caskets returning from Afghanistan. He also refused to lower the flag half-mast. Soldiers' family members expressed confusion and anger at the perceived show of disrespect.

Protesters Put under Blanket Surveillance

According to a leaked memo, as part of its command and control approach, the Conservatives have approved a system wherein all advocates, protesters and demonstrations can be monitored by authorities. The Government Operations Centre has requested federal departments to assist it in compiling a comprehensive inventory of protesters. Security specialists have called it a breach of Canadians' Charter of Rights. Conservatives have moved to give CSIS even more powers than the spy agency wants.

Rights and Democracy, Other Groups, Dismantled

In a show of brute force, the Montreal-based group Rights and Democracy was pole-axed for its alleged political leanings and eventually disbanded. Organizations like the church group Kairos were de-budgeted or dismantled for political leanings. Nuclear Safety Commission head Linda Keen was dumped. Among the complaints cited by the PM was that in her distant past, she had some Liberal ties.

Harper Government Spied on Aboriginal Critic, 'Retaliated'

Aboriginal child welfare advocate Cindy Blackstock was spied on by the Harper government, and when she arrived for a meeting with other First Nations leaders at the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs only she was barred entry. Finding Blackstock had been "retaliated" against by a ministry official, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal awarded her $20,000 for pain and suffering.

Revenue Canada Loosed to Attack Charities

Not all charities, just the ones that don't seem adequately aligned with the Harper brand. Enough to include many environmental, aid, human rights and free speech charities that banded together to push back against what looks like a politically motivated witch hunt.

CBC interviews former Progressive Conservative Premier of Newfoundland about Stephen Harper

Danny Williams says Stephen Harper's tactics are borderline racist

Former Newfoundland and Labrador premier launches scathing attack of longtime political foe

CBC News Posted: Oct 05, 2015 12:28 PM NT Last Updated: Oct 05, 2015 2:49 PM NT

Former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams says some of the tactics of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper are borderline racist.

Williams, who led a Progressive Conservative government in Canada's most easterly province from 2003 to 2010, launched his latest scathing attack against Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada on Sunday during an interview with CBC News.

He used the word racism in reference to the debate over the wearing of the niqab by Muslim women taking part in the oath of citizenship.

Williams said the issue is not worthy of becoming a national issue, but the Conservatives have latched onto it in order to secure votes.

"He doesn't care if he isolates the issues of women or if he isolates the issue of minorities, and even crosses, possibly, that racism line," Williams stated.

To watch the interview and read the entire article go to:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/danny-williams-stephen-harper-election-1.3256756

Still wondering how to vote?

Moyie Narrows on a perfect Fall Sunday

photo Stewart Wilson

An election presenting a difficult dilemma: Perceptions by Gerry Warner

An election presenting a difficult dilemma

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Let me confess here and now that I’m completely flummoxed by this election! So flummoxed that for the first time in my life I don’t think I know where I’ll mark my “X’ on the ballot until I enter the darkness of the polling booth.

For a political junkie like me that’s unusual. Actually it’s worse than that. It’s downright scary!

Let me explain. I grew up a socialist. But before you non-socialists turn away,  please hear me out. My dad “Monty” worked 44 years at the Cominco smelter in     Trail. That old smelter was a pretty hellish place to work back then. I can remember dad coming home from work and mom asking him how it went that day. Many-a-time, dad would say he went to a “memorial.” What’s that you ask. It was a short funeral ceremony on site for a worker that had died from the toxic fumes and lead particles in the air that you breathed at Cominco. But by the time I did my stint at Cominco in the late 1960’s, it was a vastly different operation. The company spent millions, actually over a billion I think, to clean the place up. I won’t go into the details, but if you go to Trail today only a bit of steam comes out of the stacks and the hills are green again with trees planted by Cominco.

Now Cominco didn’t do this entirely out of the goodness of its heart. In part, it did it because it was pushed damn hard by the union, originally the good ol’ Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, a communist-influenced union at that! But that’s not the point. Today, it’s the Steelworkers that represent the workers at Trail and between them and Cominco they’ve made that ugly, old smelter a safe and reasonably clean place to work and a provider of more than a thousand jobs in Trail and a major contributor of taxes to the government.

In other words, with a little good will, the system can work to the benefit of everyone regardless of their politics. But it takes good will and that’s a precious commodity at any time, especially today.

Let’s fast forward to the present. When you think of the Conservative Party of Canada today does the expression “good will” cross your mind. Not likely. And again, I ask you not to turn away because for a period I was a strong supporter of the so-called Conservative “core” group, namely the Reform Party and I volunteered for them in  the 1993 federal election when Preston Manning led the party and Reform won the Edmonton-Strathcona seat. Why was I supporting Reform at that time? Mainly because I’m a fiscal conservative at heart and want a government that’s careful with my money. But you can’t base your precious vote on one issue and when I take a dispassionate look at the four main parties running today some things stand out starkly in black and white.

The Conservative Party of Canada today is not “progressive” in any way whatsoever. Stephen Harper took care of that. Under Harper, the Conservative Party has become a hard-nosed, mean-spirited, fear-mongering  party, that like Harper, has ice-water in its veins and little or no compassion for anyone that dares disagree with it. It should really be called the “Regressive” Conservative Party of Canada because under Harper it brought down seven consecutive deficit budgets, involved us in two unwinnable Middle Eastern wars, denies climate change, muzzles scientists, is unsympathetic to refugees, sneers at our civil liberties through Bill C-51 and rejects democracy in favour of executive rule by the the PMO. And when they get caught at it, they lie as most people believe Harper has in the Duffy scandal. Or they engage in thinly disguised racist politics as they’ve done on the niqab issue.

Not a pretty picture.

And then there’s the other parties and none of them are perfect either. That’s why I’ll be in a deep quandary when I walk into that polling booth Oct. 19 and I suspect many will feel the same. This leads to a difficult decision. Vote according to your political principles or vote strategically against the meanest prime minister of our time.

Actually, when you really think about it, it’s not such a hard decision at all.

Harper has got to go.

               

'Blue Rodeo' has released a protest song and video against Stephen Harper and his Conservative government.

 Blue Rodeo, has released a protest song and video against Stephen Harper and his Conservative government.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/09/28/news/blue-rodeo-releases-song-slamming-stephen-harper-video