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Harper defined

Posted on 23 January 2012 | No responses

HARPER: Horrid Anal Retentive Politician Emulating Republicans.

Credit to MooneyPilot, Toronto Star comment author.

Harper’s Grand Solution

Posted on 21 October 2011 | Comments Off

The information in this post was emailed to me by Leadnow.ca. If you are not happy with the direction that Harper is taking us then act!!

This week, experts are speaking out against the massive crime bill that our Conservative government is rushing through Parliament.1 Even conservative Texans are warning Canada not to follow America’s failed path of mandatory sentences and massive prison expansion.2 Now, we need a massive public outcry to stop the bill, and make Canada safer, not meaner.

Experts agree that the crime bill would make Canada a more dangerous place by filling new prisons with people who should not be there. Instead, experience shows that we should focus on proven strategies to prevent crime, rehabilitate people and reintegrate them into society.1,3 The stakes are huge: if this bill passes we’ll be spending billions to trap people and create a permanent underclass of Canadians with little hope for a better life.4

The good news is that more and more Canadians are speaking out and public opinion is close to a decisive shift. The Conservatives want to be “Canada’s natural governing party” and they care about public opinion. We need to show the Conservative government that they can either choose a better path, or they will pay a serious political cost for making Canada a meaner and more dangerous place.

Click here to tell Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and your MP you want a new strategy for Canadian justice:

http://www.leadnow.ca/keep-canada-safe

Mandatory sentences and prison expansion backfired in the United States, a country with only 5% of the global population and 25% of all the world’s prisoners. Today, state after state is in crisis and is repealing those laws.2

One conservative Texan, Judge John Creuzot of the Dallas County Court, has warned us, saying: “You will spend billions and billions and billions on locking people up. And there will come a point in time where the public says, ‘Enough!’ And you’ll wind up letting them out.” 2

We all want to make Canada safer. Yes, there is a role for punishment that is proportionate to the crime and wisely chosen for the circumstance. However, in the vast majority of cases, rehabilitation is better than long jail sentences. Canada’s focus on prevention and rehabilitation has already brought crime rates to historic lows.3,5

Every billion dollars our federal government forces our provinces to spend on new prisons is a billion dollars that could have been spent preventing crimes by supporting programs for at-risk youth, drug and alcohol treatment programs, and strategies for mental health.

Click here to send a message that you want to stop this bill, and establish an independent commission of diverse citizens and experts to create a 21st century Canadian justice plan:

http://www.leadnow.ca/keep-canada-safe

The crime bill represents a creeping erosion of Canada’s social fabric. We know that millions of Canadians believe that prevention and restorative justice – approaches that make sure the victim’s needs are met and the community is healed – should be the heart of Canadian justice.

This crime bill would move us in the wrong direction. Who benefits from one-size-fits-all punishments? Who benefits from massive prison expansion? Who benefits from throwing more of Canada’s youth, poor, and mentally ill in prison?

It’s time we speak out together. This petition is an essential first step in a major campaign. Will you join us?

Thank you.

With hope and respect,
Jamie, Matthew, Emma, Adam, Ryan, Tria and the whole Leadnow.ca team

P.S. The crime bill would raise the cost of filing for a pardon from $150 to $600. Why? That money wont pay for new prisons, it will keep poor people from getting jobs.

Sources:

[1] Critics of omnibus bill ‘advocate for criminals,’ Conservatives charge (Globe and Mail):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/critics-of-omnibus-bill-advocate-for-criminals-conservatives-charge/article2205213/

[2] Texas conservatives reject Harper’s crime plan – ‘Been there; done that; didn’t work,’ say Texas crime-fighters (CBC):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/17/pol-vp-milewski-texas-crime.html

[3] Study: Prevention Fights Crime Better Than Jail (Seattle Times):

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960620&slug=2335526

[4] Tough on crime will likely lead to more crime, bigger deficit (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives):

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/tough-crime-will-likely-lead-more-crime-bigger-deficit-report

[5] Crime rates fall to lowest level since 1973

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/07/21/crime-rates.html

[6] Open letter to the Government opposing mandatory sentences from over 550 Canadian experts and public health professionals (Urban Health Research Initiative):

http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/content/view/90

[7] A Meaner Canada : Junk Politics and the Omnibus Crime Bill (Alex Himelfarb)

http://afhimelfarb.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/a-meaner-canada-junk-politics-and-the-omnibus-crime-bill/

[8] What’s Wrong With Harper’s Omnibus Crime Bill (Behind the Numbers)

http://www.behindthenumbers.ca/2011/09/20/whats-wrong-with-harpers-omnibus-crime-bill/

[9] Rough Justice in America: Too many laws, too many prisoners – Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little (The Economist):

http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

[10] Salvaging a faulty crime bill (Irvin Waller)

http://www.themarknews.com/articles/6942-salvaging-a-faulty-crime-bill

[11] Incarceration and Crime: A Complex Relationship, (The Sentencing Project)

http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_iandc_complex.pdf

[12] The cartoon is by Malcolm Mayes, in the Edmonton Journal

Conservative crime bill

Posted on 21 October 2011 | Comments Off

Now that Harper has his majority he is set on destroying the country as we know it.

This new crime bill he’s pushing through is going to take the country back in time to much less enlightened times. While having the appearance of cracking down on crime the crime bill will create more criminals and not only cost taxpayers more money but also make them more susceptible to future crime.

By enforcing mandatory penalties for those convicted of crimes judges will have no discretion in setting sentences. This will lead to many people being locked up when another course of action would be better suited to the circumstances of their life and the individual crime. Some criminals should be locked away but many will only be made worse by incarceration.

Even the State of Texas, which has the toughest crime bills in the US, is saying that Harper’s crime bill is a mistake that will ultimately cost too much money and not solve any of the reasons many crimes occur in the first place.

For more information visit http://www.cba.org/CBA/News/2011_Releases/2011-10-17-omnibus-critique-eng.aspx? and http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/17/pol-vp-milewski-texas-crime.html?

For those who oppose this bill and want make their voices heard click this: http://greenparty.ca/omnibusbill?

The Green Thing

Posted on 30 September 2011 | Comments Off

This is a little off my regular topics but it makes so much sense I decided to post it.

In the queue at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.”

He was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

Remember: Don’t make old People mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off.

Baird is a disgrace to most Canadians

Posted on 30 September 2011 | Comments Off

In a articles in several newspapers today John Baird was reported as demanding that his business cards no longer have the “Canada” brand logo on it and that it be gold embossed. Both of these demands are against the rules for business cards used by our MPs and ministers.

First off, if he doesn’t want to be associated with Canada, he can quit.

If he wants novelty cards, he can pay for them out of his own pocket.

The man behaves like a spoiled little kid.

Baird paying twice the going rate for business cards; MacKay using taxpayer aircraft for questionable purposes; this government is not very good at practicing restraint. I wonder if they would have got away with these expenses if they were coming from the Conservative party budget?

I am surprised though that he stopped at removing “Canada” when he could have replaced it with “Harperland”.

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