About a year ago back here I wrote about what appears to be the culture of lying and deceit that the Harper Conservatives seem to be embracing. Fast forward to now and the revelations that voter suppression tactics were actively used by the Conservative party during the last election show that this culture of lying and deceit has caused an even greater rot to permeate the Harper Conservatives.

There is, rightly, much ado about the internet spying bill C-30 that is currently before the house. A bill so poorly written that the Harper Conservatives have sent it to committee for amendments before it has even reached second reading. There are several moral reasons why the inappropriately named "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act". I say inappropriately named act due to the fact that CSIS has no jurisdiction in dealing with child pornography, but this act allows CSIS the same access as the police. That goes to the bill's deeper purpose, allowing the Harper government to spy on Canadians.

It is well known in political circles that Harper is at best ignoring Quebec and is at worst being actively hostile towards the province. It's at the point where long time Conservatives in Quebec are starting to complain about it. The question of why an allegedly national leader is ignoring Canada's second most populous province? There two reasons for Harper's action (or more appropriately inaction) towards la belle province. First and simplistically it feeds his base in the west who see Quebec as a province of lazy whiners who only take, take, take. The real reason is more Machiavellian, in that Harper needs a strong Bloc Quebecois to maintain his majority in parliament.

In honour of the deep ties between the Conservative Party of Canada and the folks that run the "Ethical" oil organization, a new Conservative Party of Canada logo:

The political right of this and most countries hates unions. They blame them for everything from job losses to hemorrhoids. It is astounding how much the right blames unions for problems. This editorial in the National Post shows how extensive the mythos against unions goes in the political right.

Of late I've noticed that the con-bots of the world have been trumpeting "parliamentary supremacy", especially with respect to the CWB. They seem to be of the mistaken belief that the term parliamentary supremacy means that parliament can do whatever it wants without let or hindrance. This is only partially true.

Calgarians are getting an example of what happens when you blindly put your 'X' beside whatever bale of hay the Conservative party puts up for election, you get the short end of the stick when they're doling out the money since they don't need to buy your vote. Mayor Nenshi and various community groups are justifiably upset that money that was promised is now not coming. They shouldn't be surprised though, as it's just politics.

The federal finance minister sees no recession on the horizon for Canada. Given that last time he said this we got hit hard by recession I doubt many feel that what he says is true.

...Harper Tories losing control of the message. With the Globe and Mail discussing the matter in a less than negative light, it would seem that the not-so-carefully crafted neo-con message of "all taxes bad" isn't resonating as well with Canadians as they would like. Especially if that message comes with the message "massive cuts to social programs".

...doesn't want anyone to know about it. Shortly after getting caught with their pants down in a committee, the Harper Tories cut short public committee inquiry into the quarter billion in cuts they're meting out to Veterans Affairs. Harper wouldn't know support for the troops if it bit him in the posterior.