Big Guy Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Already, the Trudeau government has reversed the Harper approach to the long form census. This new government has just reversed the directions given to government employees on how to deal with the media: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/06/muzzles-removed-for-federal-scientists-at-department-of-fisheries-and-oceans.html I thought it might be interesting to create a thread for only those actions of the Trudeau government which are reversals of the Harper regime. I understand that the Conservative interim leader Ambrose, has already indicated that the Conservatives will vote to reverse the stated Harper position on the public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rona-ambrose-will-support-inquiry-into-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-1.3308463 Stay tuned for more reversals. Quote Note - For those expecting a response from Big Guy: I generally do not read or respond to posts longer then 300 words nor to parsed comments.
ReeferMadness Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Scientists have been unmuzzled in a couple of Ministries already. And today, employees in Foreign Affairs cheered the PM. That's gotta count as some kind of reversal. Quote Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while preserving privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists. - Noam Chomsky It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
ReeferMadness Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Oh. And cabinet ministers have been giving interviews without permission from the PMO. Quote Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while preserving privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists. - Noam Chomsky It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
CITIZEN_2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) I tell you a reversal. How about the smiling friendly face of Justin Trudeau walking into the Press room and answering journalists with respect in contrast to arrogant frown face of Harper avoiding journalists or treating them (and public servants) with utter disrespect and ruling with iron fist? This got to count for a reversal. I will never vote for the conservative party no matter what (or as long as these wolves in sheep's closing calling themselves progressive conservatives) are there. Edited November 7, 2015 by CITIZEN_2015 Quote
Big Guy Posted November 7, 2015 Author Report Posted November 7, 2015 I had always believed that when a new government was elected, the previous government could be evaluated by the number of direct reversals made by the new government. Often, the new government, while having talked opposing views before the election, did not change legislation once in power - showing that the defeated government actually did the right thing. It will be interesting to see what particular legislation hidden in those omnibus bills will be reversed - assuming of course the Liberals have read and understand all of those bills. I do hope that these reversals do not take place in new omnibus bills rammed through legislature. I thought the process of omnibus bills was one of the major undemocratic and politically unsavory that the Harper government had employed. Quote Note - For those expecting a response from Big Guy: I generally do not read or respond to posts longer then 300 words nor to parsed comments.
CITIZEN_2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 I definitely look forward to see bills C-51 and C-36 reversed hopefully sooner than later. Quote
Argus Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Scientists have been unmuzzled in a couple of Ministries already. You do know that it was the last LIBERAL government which fired a scientist for disputing government policy in a case which went right to the supreme court, right? The SC stated that scientists who worked for the government needed to shut up when the government told them to. And today, employees in Foreign Affairs cheered the PM. That's gotta count as some kind of reversal. Oh definitely. The Harperites had really restricted the heavy spending on luxurious foreign accommodation and champagne parties the foreign affairs crowd felt was their right. No doubt the Liberals will be more generous. Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
Argus Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Oh. And cabinet ministers have been giving interviews without permission from the PMO. How do you know? Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
Moonbox Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Scientists have been unmuzzled in a couple of Ministries already. They were never really "muzzled". Nobody ever stopped them from publishing their research, peer reviewing other people's research, or factually disputing claims made by the government. Look at the PBO's office for indication that the Harper cons weren't suppressing criticism. What the Tories did do, however, was prevent publicly funded researches from loud and partisan criticism of the government that employed them. The courts upheld these restrictions and found that they were perfectly valid. And today, employees in Foreign Affairs cheered the PM. That's gotta count as some kind of reversal. No doubt the federal public service is more than pleased that their incestuous relationship with the Liberals is back. Quote "A man is no more entitled to an opinion for which he cannot account than he is for a pint of beer for which he cannot pay" - Anonymous
The_Squid Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 The muzzling had nothing to do with criticism of their employers. It was about not being allowed to even discuss their work, regardless of what it was. http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467501a.html All governments try to control their political message and push for policies that reflect party philosophy, but these new restrictions also seek to control the scientific message in research with no link to partisan politics. When Scott Dallimore, a geoscientist for Natural Resources Canada in Sidney, British Columbia, reported evidence of the colossal flood that occurred in northern Canada at the end of the last ice age ( Nature 464, 740–743; 2010), he was put through the message-moulding machine. As a result, Canada's taxpayers, who funded the research, were left in the dark. While the news broke elsewhere, journalists in Canada who had previously had open access to Dallimore, a gifted communicator, were left spinning their wheels while deadlines passed. The flood happened 13,000 years ago, so how can this work be construed as politically sensitive? Quote
ToadBrother Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 They were never really "muzzled". Nobody ever stopped them from publishing their research, peer reviewing other people's research, or factually disputing claims made by the government. Look at the PBO's office for indication that the Harper cons weren't suppressing criticism. What the Tories did do, however, was prevent publicly funded researches from loud and partisan criticism of the government that employed them. The courts upheld these restrictions and found that they were perfectly valid. Because publicly discussing climate change with a government fixated on exporting hydrocarbons is rebellious and improper. Quote
Big Guy Posted November 7, 2015 Author Report Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) Couple more updates: Harper government had put retrictions and conditions on health care for refugees. Health Minister McCallum has just stated; "We will totally restore health care to refugees." - A reversal Another reversal - Harper government opposed any inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women. Jody Wilson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General has just began organizing this inquiry. Rona Ambrose, the interim leader of the Conservative party has just revealed that she will fully support this inquiry and in fact had always been for it. She has just said that "This is absolutely not a partisan issue." Huh? I sure do not remember her saying anything at the time. The reversals continue. Edited November 7, 2015 by Big Guy Quote Note - For those expecting a response from Big Guy: I generally do not read or respond to posts longer then 300 words nor to parsed comments.
Argus Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Couple more updates: Harper government had put retrictions and conditions on health care for refugees. Health Minister McCallum has just stated; "We will totally restore health care to refugees." - A reversal To be more factual, the government put restrictions on health care for FAILED refugees who refused to leave. Another reversal - Harper government opposed any inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women. Jody Wilson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General has just began organizing this inquiry. The RCMP have already published statistics showing missing and murdered aboriginal women go missing and are murdered at pretty much the same rate as an other variety of women. Are we going to get inquiries into missing and murdered black women next, missing and murdered Asian women? Missing and murdered albino women? Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
Big Guy Posted November 7, 2015 Author Report Posted November 7, 2015 I definitely look forward to see bills C-51 and C-36 reversed hopefully sooner than later. It will be interesting to see if these bills are re-written in some manner or just deleted. The Harper Conservatives did re-write some legislation passed by he previous governments but also "reversed" some legislation like the long gun registry. My point is that since the Liberals have shown no indicator that they want to revive that registry then they accept the fact that it was originally a mistake and the Harper Conservatives were correct in reversing it. That is the way democracy is supposed to work. Quote Note - For those expecting a response from Big Guy: I generally do not read or respond to posts longer then 300 words nor to parsed comments.
The_Squid Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) To be more factual, the government put restrictions on health care for FAILED refugees who refused to leave.Absolutely false. You are attempting to revise history. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)00457-2/fulltext?rss%3Dyes Rashid said that the Prime Minister is either ill-informed or dishonest. No refugee claimant ever received more health-care coverage than Canadians receiving social assistance, Rashid noted in direct contradiction of the government's depiction of gold-plated refugee heath-care services, including entitlements it claims are not available to Canadians. And despite his denials, Harper's policies have severely curbed access to health care even for refugee claimants the government accepts as legitimate, Rashid explained. Under changes introduced by the Conservatives, said Rashid, those within a category labelled privately sponsored refugees (PSRs) now receive no coverage for medications, no urgent mental health care for traumatised children, and no prostheses, wheelchairs, and therapy for war-related amputations and injuries. The Conservative Government, he added, is abandoning PSRs once they arrive, leaving it to sponsoring Canadians to pick up health costs previously covered by the government. ----------------------------------------------------------The RCMP have already published statistics showing missing and murdered aboriginal women go missing and are murdered at pretty much the same rate as an other variety of women.Really Argus? Maybe you should read the report before making a claim about it. The RCMP report is available online. Here is what it says very early on in the executive summary:The total indicates that Aboriginal women are over-represented among Canada's murdered and missing women http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.htmDo you care to revise your claim? Edited November 7, 2015 by The_Squid Quote
Argus Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Absolutely false. You are attempting to revise history. Nonsense. According to your own cite the existing restrictions are only on privately sponsored refugees, and consist of prescriptions (which regular Canadians don't get coverage of either, and prostheses, wheelchairs, and therapy for war-related amputations and injuries - 'therapy' not being defined. So your statement that refugees don't get health care is clearly false. Do you care to revise your claim? Okay. Let me revise it by saying the solution rate for aboriginal victims of violence is about the same as for all other women, and that it is known that most of them are the victims of family violence. The social fabric of reserves means statistically more aboriginal women are involved in crime, particularly prostitution, and the overuse of alcohol and drugs, and with criminal/drunken/drugged up partners. However, their murder rate is lower than that of aboriginal men. The reason the Tories resisted an inquiry is there isn't anything we need to learn that we don't already know. We know about alcohol and drug problems on reserves, and how much familiar violence there is. We've known for decades. There have been endless studies and reports to tell us as much. What exactly does anyone think an inquiry is going to tell us? That aboriginal men murder their wives a lot? We know that. That being a prostitute is dangerous? We know that too. Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
marcus Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 To be more factual, the government put restrictions on health care for FAILED refugees who refused to leave. Refugee claimants are not failed refugees. How many times are you going to spread misinformation? Quote "What do you think of Western civilization?" Gandhi was asked. "I think it would be a good idea," he said.
ReeferMadness Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 How do you know? Because the media are reporting that they are amazed their phone calls for interviews are being returned promptly whereas under Harper they often waited days or weeks (sometimes well after the publishing deadline had passed) only to be told nobody was available. Quote Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while preserving privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists. - Noam Chomsky It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
BC_chick Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 I just LOVE how miserably Harper failed at turning Canada into a conservative country. His plan to kill small-l liberalism could not have gone more awry. The cabinet ministers alone are the biggest middle finger I've ever seen to an outgoing government. Acknowledging climate change. Indigenous Minister of Justice in charge of the inquiry. Minister of Defence who doesn't think c-51 fights terrorism. I could not be happier. Quote It's kind of the worst thing that any humans could be doing at this time in human history. Other than that, it's fine." Bill Nye on Alberta Oil Sands
ReeferMadness Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 I just LOVE how miserably Harper failed at turning Canada into a conservative country. His plan to kill small-l liberalism could not have gone more awry. The cabinet ministers alone are the biggest middle finger I've ever seen to an outgoing government. Acknowledging climate change. Indigenous Minister of Justice in charge of the inquiry. Minister of Defence who doesn't think c-51 fights terrorism. I could not be happier. There's a lot to be happy about. Here is a report card from Jim Stanford on how we are doing on a number of progressive metrics. It isn't all good news but it's certainly better than it would be had this group split the vote to squeak through the middle. Quote Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while preserving privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists. - Noam Chomsky It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
ReeferMadness Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 They were never really "muzzled". Nobody ever stopped them from publishing their research, peer reviewing other people's research, or factually disputing claims made by the government. Look at the PBO's office for indication that the Harper cons weren't suppressing criticism. What the Tories did do, however, was prevent publicly funded researches from loud and partisan criticism of the government that employed them. The courts upheld these restrictions and found that they were perfectly valid. So, we could accept your word for it. Or we could check with an actual scientist. It's a far cry from 2011, when Miller was shocked to find herself prevented from discussing her research into the 2009 Fraser River sockeye salmon collapse following its publication in Science magazine. "I was told at the time that the problem with the study was that it was talking about dying salmon, and that wasn't a positive news story," Miller said. So, yeah. I guess all those dying salmon were engaged "loud and partisan criticism" of the Harper government. Quote Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while preserving privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists. - Noam Chomsky It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
Wilber Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Balanced Budget's - Forward? That's not what JT is telling us. Quote "Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice". WSC
ReeferMadness Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 Balanced Budget's - Forward? That's not what JT is telling us. Read the article, not just the picture. As a progressive economist (not many of those around), he's saying that it is positive that we are no longer obsessing over balancing the budget. Not that we should pay no attention to the larger issue of debt but that the focus over whether the budget is balanced in a particular year is misplaced. Quote Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while preserving privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists. - Noam Chomsky It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
The_Squid Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 According to your own cite the existing restrictions are only on privately sponsored refugees, and consist of prescriptions (which regular Canadians don't get coverage of either, and prostheses, wheelchairs, and therapy for war-related amputations and injuries - 'therapy' not being defined. So it wasn't cuts to failed refugees as you claimed it was. So your statement that refugees don't get health care is clearly false. I didn't say say that. Now you've changed what you claimed and claim that I said something that I didn't. Nice try though. Quote
Wilber Posted November 7, 2015 Report Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) Read the article, not just the picture. As a progressive economist (not many of those around), he's saying that it is positive that we are no longer obsessing over balancing the budget. Not that we should pay no attention to the larger issue of debt but that the focus over whether the budget is balanced in a particular year is misplaced. A particular year? You must be kidding. That's the problem, we never have focused on balancing the budget in a particular year, or much of any years for that matter. Canadian governments have balanced the budget or run a surplus exactly eleven times since 1963. JT is just planning on continuing the tradition of accumulating debt and never paying it off. Edited November 7, 2015 by Wilber Quote "Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice". WSC
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