At the same time, some of the biggest liars on the planet are running governments in the West. What’s wrong with this picture?
The next prime minister of Canada has either got to let Canadians in on what is really happening in this country and this world, or see the profession of politics fall into permanent disgrace. It won’t be lousy voter turn-out we’ll be talking about then — it will voter turn-off and the extinction of democracy, Alberta-style.
The lies, obfuscations and skullduggery have got to stop. Is there anyone in the country who believes the Harper government’s latest whopper that a $26 billion sole-sourced contract for new frigates was the work of a bureaucrat and that cabinet had nothing to do with it?
Does anyone believe that it was a wise move for the public to make this staggering purchase, the largest in Canadian history, with no competitive bidding process?
Is there anyone who doesn’t know from the catastrophic bungling of the F-35 stealth jet fighter project that sole-source contracts add on average about 20 per cent to the overall acquisition costs, as procurement expert Alan Williams has said repeatedly? Williams now correctly says that no one really understands what the government is doing with the frigate program. That is, of course, Stephen Harper’s idea of political Nirvana.
Most outrageous of all, the government of Canada handed this massive contract to a single company, Irving Shipbuilding, without a word of debate or explanation in Parliament. Three decades worth of commitments without a single word about the whys and wherefores, let alone a debate in Parliament.
Oh, I forgot. The Harper government didn’t award the contract, that was done “by a bureaucrat.” It was “an administrative decision.”
Sound familiar? The Harper government didn’t approve the Northern Gateway Pipeline either. That was done by the National Energy Board. All Harper did was stack the board with people from Alberta’s oilpatch and regulatory process, and expand its powers to include key environmental decisions.
Who are they trying to kid? With this bunch, no bureaucrat goes to the loo without approval from the PMO. That approval is never in writing, of course; God forbid there’s a public record of this stuff. And nothing is done that affects Alberta’s oil industry without first being passed under the prime ministerial nose for a good sniff.
And what about Mr. Harper’s much-touted “terrorist” video, the one that proves that Michael Bibeau was a radicalized Muslim? The RCMP, which now has to report to the Public Safety minister before talking to MPs, now says it probably won’t ever release it, despite the fact that Commissioner Paulson said he would back in October, shortly after the attacks.
And even though the public doesn’t know if Bibeau was a terrorist or a mentally deranged person who fell through the cracks of the system, the PM continues to talk about the two unrelated incidents involving the deaths of Canadian soldiers as both being terrorist-related.
If that’s true, then cough up the videotape Mr. Prime Minister. And while you’re at it, fork over the 36,000 documents you continue to withhold from Parliament relating to the Afghan detainee affair. As former Speaker Peter Milliken has said, until you do, you remain in contempt of Parliament.
Why can’t Canadians know if their government has assurances that the armoured vehicles we sold to Saudi Arabia for $15 billion will not be used against the Saudi people themselves, as previously-sold vehicles were used against the protesting citizens of Bahrain?
What is happening in Stephen Harper’s Canada — the hoarding and choking-off of information, the outright lying — is going on in many of the aging, decrepit democracies in the West. The establishments of several countries have effectively decided that they are above the law — and often cite national security threats to justify anti-democratic and, in some cases, thoroughly illegal behaviours.
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, the Energizer Bunny of post-politics money-grubbing, misled the British people into taking part in the Iraq War. There was no proof of weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s hands, and without that evidence, the invasion likely violated international law.
According to military commanders who gave evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, Blair told them to delay preparations for the invasion because he didn’t want the United Nations, Parliament or the British public to know he had already decided on war. Why does that matter, besides the obvious deception involved? It meant that British troops could not be properly prepared for the invasion, as Admiral Lord Boyce, chief of the defence staff at the time of the Iraq War, told the inquiry.
“I was not allowed to speak, for example, to the chief of defence logistics. I was prevented from doing that by the defence secretary because of the concern of it becoming public knowledge that we were planning for a military contribution, which might be unhelpful in the activity in the UN to secure a security council resolution,” Lord Boyce testified.
And now, after five years of footdragging by investigators, the British people find out that the Chilcot Report will not be released until after the U.K.’s upcoming election on May 7, 2015. Worse, the notes between former president Bush and Blair — one of the keys to understanding how Britain actually got into the war — will not be reproduced in the report.
Oddly, Blair himself even gets a sneak peek at the Chilcot findings so he can respond to the criticism and even demand changes. And that may take even more time; the report is said to run to more than a million pages. Not much bestseller potential there.
In the wake of 9/11, President George W. Bush repeatedly told Americans than the country did not torture detainees and that its detention and interrogation program was “humane and legal.” More than that, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that intelligence gathered by the CIA was essential in thwarting terrorist plots.
Then, just before Christmas last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee lowered the boom in a 6,000-page report based on thousands of classified CIA documents. The U.S. did indeed practise illegal and widespread torture during the Bush presidency, including medically unnecessary rectal feeding or hydration, a series of simulated drownings called waterboarding, and extreme sleep deprivation.
The committee also determined there was no evidence that the torture program disrupted even a single terror plot, or capture any terrorist leaders. President Obama called the CIA’s program a “betrayal” of American values. No one has been charged.
Finally, in Australia last June, the courts declared an unprecedented censorship order concerning a corruption case that involved current and past heads of state, their relatives and seven senior executives connected to the Reserve Bank of Australia. The court case deals with allegations of multi-million dollar bribes made by agents of the RBA to national leaders in Asia in order to secure contracts for the supply of Australian-made polymer bank notes.
The super-injunction argued “national security” concerns to justify the banning all reporting about the case, and even banning publication of the details of the gag order itself. Here is how Julian Assange saw it:
“With this order, the worst in living memory, the Australian government is not just gagging the Australian press, it is blindfolding the Australian public … Foreign Minister Julie Bishop must explain why she is threatening every Australian with imprisonment in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing corruption scandal involving the Australian government.”
Isn’t jail is a strange place to put people who just want to know or tell the truth — at least in a democracy?
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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