9.10.2009

Harper wants to re:shape the Supreme Court

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently delivered a speech behind closed doors in Northern Ontario. The speech was very much an election speech, rallying the troops to do the work needed to elect more Conservative MP's.



The CBC obtained the video of the secret speech from the Liberal party who said they got it from someone that secretly videotaped it.

Most of the speech is not a surprise. Most of us know what a majority Conservative government would look like and its not going to be progressive on any front.

I found the most interesting comments were about the Supreme Court and gun registry...

See the speech here on CBC.

Harper on the gun registry...
(4:00 minutes) We are still, you know we believe that you go after the people that use guns to commit crimes, we are still trying to get rid of that registry, we have the NDP, the Liberals and the BLOC stopping us from even having a vote on that issue in the House of Commons. We need to get a mandate so we get that passed.(4:27 minutes)

Harper continuously railed against the appointments to the Supreme Court before he was elected to anything and as opposition leader, here he goes on to imply that there are too many "left wing ideologues" in government the courts and agencies and if you re-elect his party to a majority, he will change this...

(5:31 minutes)...Just ask you to imagine how different things would be if the Liberals were still in power, imagine the bloated bureaucracy their national day care program would have been created and problaby not have delivered a single child care space, imagine how many left wing ideologues they would be putting in the courts, federal institutions, agencies, the Senate, I should say how many more they would be putting in...(5:49 minutes)
We have come along way to providing a decent caring and fair country, only to see the likes of Stephen Harper win a majority government and impose his views of what this country should look like. The Supreme Court will look like the right wing US Supreme Court. Judges throughout the system from the bottom up will have to pass a political leaning test, something we did away with some 40 years ago.

A couple elections ago, Harper said we shouldn't be scared of him because the Supreme Court and the bureaucracy would keep him in check. If Harper gets a majority, who will be there to check his government? No one, no thing, no law, nothing.


We will see neighbourhoods fighting to keep new prisons from being built. The new prisons will be run and operated by private companies just as in the United States. They will have quotas. That is, the Government of Canada will guarantee these private prisons so many new inmates each year. The number of prisoners will have to be increased each year so the private prisons can see growth in its profits year after year.

Health care will be under new restrictions with many services now provided by government handed over to the private sector. Those that can afford it will be able to purchase private services and thus go to the head of the line, just as happens in the US today.

This is only the beginnings of Harper's plan to reshape Canada into what I would call, The Alabama Project. Want to know what that looks like? Take a look at the state of Alabama. Its not pretty.

See CBC story here,
Northwestern Lad's blog post here
and in Montreal Simon Says


4 comments:

West End Bob said...

Scary thought, that.

stevie with a majority sends shivers down one's spine.

Oh, BTW. I won't mention that Alabama Project thing to "drf" as he's currently there visiting his Mom . . . . :)

Ricky Barnes said...

It is scary. As to visiting family in Alabama... We were in Arkansas recently. Its pretty scary too.

Anonymous said...

What have you personally experienced that was scary about Alabama? While Alabama is extremely conservative overall, not all Alabamians are of that bent. I have number of gay and lesbian friends who have decided that Alabama is their home and have desire to move. They find something redeeming about the place, despite the lack of perfection.

Ricky Barnes said...

"What have you personally experienced that was scary about Alabama? While Alabama is extremely conservative overall, not all Alabamians are of that bent. I have number of gay and lesbian friends who have decided that Alabama is their home and have desire to move. They find something redeeming about the place, despite the lack of perfection.

I am happy that people have found Alabama a good place. Still it remains a place that is very conservative and one where open gay individuals are frowned upon, where prisons are poorly run, where schools are underfunded, where poor folks are disadvantaged by a so called "work ethic" culture.

We can all find good in a place. We have to see how it affects others as well.