Here's the problem; on the one hand, the Harperites are committed to keeping the immigration taps wide open. It keeps the labour market pliable.
They are then obligated to troll for the immigrant vote, because once the immigrants are here, they eventually gain citizenship and vote, in many cases with greater zeal than third or forth or tenth generation Canadians. That requires a bevy of humane strategies to accommodate the interests of that immigrant vote.
That bevy of humane strategies is in turn anathema to the Harper base, the Archie Bunker crowd who love Big Steve's "tough on crime" posturing and his anti-Muslim initiatives, but would be aghast if they realized how many of their "hard earned tax dollars" were spent on recent immigrants.
According to the Globe and Mail, the Harper gang are in default mode on the matter; hide the facts and change the subject.
Showing posts with label Stephan Harper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephan Harper. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Friday, January 9, 2015
Jihadi Steve declares war on radical Islam
Big Steve opened his trap yesterday, and sure enough, stupid shit came out.
Steve was thinking aloud about what kind of monsters could possibly carry out the cold-blooded murder of a bunch of harmless cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo. Seems those international baddies have declared war on us, in fact, on all countries and people that don't think and act as they want us to; people like ourselves who value freedom, openness, and tolerance.
Yup, when you hear PM Harper tell the tale, the Nations of Virtue were just sitting around, being virtuous, when, out of the blue, a bunch of bloodthirsty towel-heads took a dislike to us!
To be honest, Steve, it seems to me that those folks would be more than happy to mind their own business, it we would just leave them alone. I don't recall any Islamic nation ever bombing Canada, yet we were beyond proud to be raining down bombs on Libya... oh, sorry! Those weren't bombs, they were "projectiles of democracy!"
Of course we were not acting alone; we were joined by a number of other NATO states, none of which was remotely threatened by Gadaffi either.
There are of course other outrages etched in the collective memories of those evil-doers who have the big hate on for our freedoms. Long before NATO destroyed Libya, we destroyed Iraq, which act, incidentally, birthed al Qaeda, and our lengthy run in Afghanistan has set that country back several generations, and we are currently working our magic in Syria and Iraq again!
So I don't know where you get the idea that those people aren't pissed off for good reasons, Steve. And you know what? I think if you or your brother or father or son was one of the folks in this picture, you'd be pissed off too!
They hate us for a lot more than our freedom.
Steve was thinking aloud about what kind of monsters could possibly carry out the cold-blooded murder of a bunch of harmless cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo. Seems those international baddies have declared war on us, in fact, on all countries and people that don't think and act as they want us to; people like ourselves who value freedom, openness, and tolerance.
Yup, when you hear PM Harper tell the tale, the Nations of Virtue were just sitting around, being virtuous, when, out of the blue, a bunch of bloodthirsty towel-heads took a dislike to us!
To be honest, Steve, it seems to me that those folks would be more than happy to mind their own business, it we would just leave them alone. I don't recall any Islamic nation ever bombing Canada, yet we were beyond proud to be raining down bombs on Libya... oh, sorry! Those weren't bombs, they were "projectiles of democracy!"
Of course we were not acting alone; we were joined by a number of other NATO states, none of which was remotely threatened by Gadaffi either.
There are of course other outrages etched in the collective memories of those evil-doers who have the big hate on for our freedoms. Long before NATO destroyed Libya, we destroyed Iraq, which act, incidentally, birthed al Qaeda, and our lengthy run in Afghanistan has set that country back several generations, and we are currently working our magic in Syria and Iraq again!
So I don't know where you get the idea that those people aren't pissed off for good reasons, Steve. And you know what? I think if you or your brother or father or son was one of the folks in this picture, you'd be pissed off too!
They hate us for a lot more than our freedom.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Harper and Baird outraged; left off "Top Israel Cheerleaders" list
That's gotta hurt.
The US, England, and Australia all get top-shelf billing, but after all the toadying, all the sucking up, all the cringeworthy declarations of Israel's "right to defend itself" as Israel was in the midst of an unprecedented slaughter of Gaza civilians, Canada is left out of the honourable mentions of Israel's most subservient cheerleaders.
This could derail Big Steve's Nobel Peace Prize!
The US, England, and Australia all get top-shelf billing, but after all the toadying, all the sucking up, all the cringeworthy declarations of Israel's "right to defend itself" as Israel was in the midst of an unprecedented slaughter of Gaza civilians, Canada is left out of the honourable mentions of Israel's most subservient cheerleaders.
This could derail Big Steve's Nobel Peace Prize!
Monday, July 21, 2014
Usual Putin-haters have field day politicizing MH17 tragedy
The bodies of those 298 unfortunates had hardly hit the ground before Canadian PM Harper issued a statement blaming Russia. No evidence? No problem!... using 298 tragic deaths as a cudgel to bash Putin doesn't require evidence, merely an appalling level of cynical opportunism.
By Saturday the pretend "punk rocker" and professional Putin critic Masha Alekhina had an article in The Guardian likewise holding Putin to account using the same evidence Harper had, which is to say none.
And in a brazen feat of journalistic one-up-man-ship, The New Yorker was able to reveal today that no less an authority than U.S. VP Biden concluded that Putin has no soul!
In these days of hypocritical moral outrage we would do well to recall another moral outrage, the shooting down of Iran Air 655 by the US Navy in 1988.
That wasn't a mistake by ill-trained hooligan militiamen or semi-literate hastily conscripted regulars, it was a deliberate attack on a civilian airliner by the most powerful military in the world.
The U.S. VP of the time, one George Bush, remarked that he would never apologize, and no senior American politician ever has.
Putin has been downright civil and gracious in comparison.
By Saturday the pretend "punk rocker" and professional Putin critic Masha Alekhina had an article in The Guardian likewise holding Putin to account using the same evidence Harper had, which is to say none.
And in a brazen feat of journalistic one-up-man-ship, The New Yorker was able to reveal today that no less an authority than U.S. VP Biden concluded that Putin has no soul!
In these days of hypocritical moral outrage we would do well to recall another moral outrage, the shooting down of Iran Air 655 by the US Navy in 1988.
That wasn't a mistake by ill-trained hooligan militiamen or semi-literate hastily conscripted regulars, it was a deliberate attack on a civilian airliner by the most powerful military in the world.
The U.S. VP of the time, one George Bush, remarked that he would never apologize, and no senior American politician ever has.
Putin has been downright civil and gracious in comparison.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
The unseemly haste of Canada's mission to Ukraine
On the face of it, Canada might seem an unlikely candidate to be the first of the Nations of Virtue to send a senior delegation into the chaos of post-Yanukovich Ukraine.
While Ukraine is doing their best to put a moderate face on the new regime with the announcement that vaguely centrist Arseniy Yatsenyuk is to be interim leader until May elections, there can be no question that it was the extremist right that did the heavy lifting in the triumph over the democratically elected government of Yanukovich.
That is a cohort that features at least two prominent characteristics that are anethema to the purported values of the Canadians.
One is their rampant anti-semitism.
The other is their rampant homophobia. Don't expect gay marriages to become officially sanctioned in Ukraine anytime soon.
So the spectacle of a Canadian delegation led by openly gay Foreign Minister John Baird handing out bon-bons in Independence Square is fraught with multiple layers of irony.
This is the same crew that has embarrassed itself professing absolute loyalty to the Likudniks in Israel.
Perhaps the Canadian mission is tasked with moderating the extremist views of their Ukrainian hosts?
Perhaps not.
Perhaps it's about nothing more than brazen political opportunism. As everybody knows, there is a federal election on the horizon in Canada, and Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives are in for a tight race.
The fundamentalist religious inclinations of certain of their party notwithstanding, the Harper gang sucks up to Israel mainly to impress the Jewish vote in Canada.
They're now sucking up to Ukraine to woo the Ukrainian vote in Canada, which happens to be roughly twice the size of the Jewish vote.
That's a lot of sucking up.
While Ukraine is doing their best to put a moderate face on the new regime with the announcement that vaguely centrist Arseniy Yatsenyuk is to be interim leader until May elections, there can be no question that it was the extremist right that did the heavy lifting in the triumph over the democratically elected government of Yanukovich.
That is a cohort that features at least two prominent characteristics that are anethema to the purported values of the Canadians.
One is their rampant anti-semitism.
The other is their rampant homophobia. Don't expect gay marriages to become officially sanctioned in Ukraine anytime soon.
So the spectacle of a Canadian delegation led by openly gay Foreign Minister John Baird handing out bon-bons in Independence Square is fraught with multiple layers of irony.
This is the same crew that has embarrassed itself professing absolute loyalty to the Likudniks in Israel.
Perhaps the Canadian mission is tasked with moderating the extremist views of their Ukrainian hosts?
Perhaps not.
Perhaps it's about nothing more than brazen political opportunism. As everybody knows, there is a federal election on the horizon in Canada, and Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives are in for a tight race.
The fundamentalist religious inclinations of certain of their party notwithstanding, the Harper gang sucks up to Israel mainly to impress the Jewish vote in Canada.
They're now sucking up to Ukraine to woo the Ukrainian vote in Canada, which happens to be roughly twice the size of the Jewish vote.
That's a lot of sucking up.
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