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6:30 AM
nintendo
6:30 AM
nintendo
Dear Messieurs Ignatieff, Layton, Duceppe and Ms. May
In the 2006 election, the Conservative Party’s slogan was “Stand Up for Canada”. In the coming election, your common slogan must be “Stand Up for Canadian Democracy”.
I know that you will explain to Canadians why you disagree with various policies of the current government. I am asking that, in addition, you remind Canadians of the numerous practices of Stephen Harper which are undermining our democratic institutions - Parliament; the Judiciary; the Civil Service; and Canadians’ right to information and the truth from their government:
5:30 AM
nintendo
3:30 AM
nintendo
It’s not the parts that count but the sum of the parts. Which invites the question: Is anyone doing the math?
Just recently, four senior Conservatives (including two senators) were charged with willfully exceeding spending limits in the 2006 campaign that brought the Tories to power. The “in and out” financing scheme came at the same time that Stephen Harper was promising a new era of transparency and accountability.
Just recently, we had the document-altering scandal featuring International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, who appears in the House of Commons for Question Period but refuses to answer questions on the matter.
Just recently, we had new revelations in regard to the government’s so-called integrity commissioner, the one who received 228 whistleblowing complaints and upheld not a single one. She left with a half-a-million-dollar severance package – and a gag order to go with it.
Just recently, we learned that the office of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney used ministerial letterhead to raise money for the Conservative Party. We’ve also seen a contempt of Parliament motion brought against the government for its refusal to disclose basic information on the costs of crime bills and on corporate profits. And we’ve seen the Conservatives release attack ads of such questionable quality that they were withdrawn.
Just recently, The Canadian Press reported that, in the tradition of l’état, c’est moi, the Prime Minister is insisting that “Government of Canada” nomenclature be changed to “the Harper government.” Some wag suggested the PM might want to change his own name – to Stephen Hubris.
Just recently, the PM appointed Tom Pentefountas as vice-chairman of the CRTC. Mr. Pentefountas comes equipped with two qualifications: his close friendship with the PM’s director of communications, and zero experience in telecommunications.
In this same time frame, we’ve seen what happens to those such as diplomat Richard Colvin and others who dare to speak out. At Veterans Affairs, whistleblower Sean Bruyea’s medical and psychiatric records were circulated in an obvious attempt to have him labelled a nutcase.
The recent math is eye-popping. But getting the full picture requires going a little further back. . . .
6:00 AM
nintendo
None would speak on the record for fear of retribution. It's a well-grounded concern given the treatment of a senior government scientist who was fired in 2006 after rebelling against a directive to use “Canada's New Government” in government communications.
Andrew Okulitch was subsequently reinstated after his story became public, and the Conservatives finally retired the “Canada's New Government” handle after 21 months in office.
The “Harper Government” moniker rose to prominence in 2009, when its use was noted in light of a controversy over Conservative MPs posing with giant, mock government cheques bearing the party logo and MPs' signatures. The mock cheques were consigned to the dust bin, and the “Harper Government” handle went into partial hibernation.
Since December, the “Harper Government” has returned with a vengeance, sprouting like mushrooms across departmental communications.
Indeed, journalists routinely use the “Harper government” to describe Conservative government actions. But the moniker's employment by the government itself is raising hackles among more than just some strait-laced civil servants.
“It is one thing for journalists or even the public to use the more partisan ‘Harper government,' but it is another thing for the state to equate the Government of Canada with the leader of the governing party,” said Jonathan Rose, a specialist in political communications at Queen's University.
He said such language is expressly forbidden under an Ontario law that prohibits partisanship in government messaging.
“The effect of this subtle framing just before an election is to equate government with Harper,” Prof. Rose said. “It creates a perception of a natural affinity between one party's leader and the act of governing.”
The Harper-centric messaging prompted Prof. Rose to recall French King Louis XIV and his 17th century divine right of kings: “L'État, c'est moi” (“The state is me”).
But Mel Cappe, a former clerk of the Privy Council, finds nothing amusing in the development.
“It is not the Harper Government,” Mr. Cappe said in an interview, tersely enunciating each word. “It is the Government of Canada.
“It's my government and it's your government.”
Mr. Cappe said the usage brings to mind Mr. Harper's own quip of last summer on the Arctic tundra: “I make the rules,” Mr. Harper told journalists after he disembarked from an all-terrain vehicle.
“What this shows is the hubris of this government's approach,” said Mr. Cappe, president of the Institute for Research in Public Policy in Montreal.
“We are governed by laws. Not by men. This is trying to change that.”
4:30 AM
nintendo
Tory transparency fails
In-and-out scheme smacks of sponsorship scandal. Where’s PM’s fury?
By David Akin
During the general election of 2006, candidate Lawrence Cannon, now our foreign affairs minister, authorized funds from his local campaign to be used to buy television advertising in the Quebec City market — nearly 500 km away.
In the same campaign, Conservative candidate David Leskowski, running what would be a losing campaign in Thunder Bay, Ont., also allowed money from his local campaign to buy TV ads in the Toronto market — nearly 1,400 km away.
In fact, this happened more than 60 times in that election campaign. Local campaigns bought TV ads that were often never seen by potential voters.
This scheme was orchestrated by the national Conservative campaign. The national campaign had already hit its federally-mandated spending limit even though it still had buckets of cash the beavers in its back rooms were keen to use to help Stephen Harper beat Paul Martin.
So they came up with what we now call the in-and-out scheme: The national campaign would dump money in local campaign war chests. The local campaigns would send that money out to the national campaign to “buy” advertising.
The ad spending would count against the local campaigns even though the placement and design of the ads was controlled by the national campaign.
As icing on the cake, the local campaigns would qualify for hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer rebates for this extra spending.
The end result? The Conservatives had an extra million dollars to spend on advertising that their opponent didn’t have in what was a very tight race.
That extra advertising certainly could have changed the outcome in some ridings (one Quebec City riding was decided by less than 100 votes) and possibly even the election itself.
That was five years ago. Since then, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand has concluded this whole scheme amounted to cheating. He refused to pay the federal rebates. The party sued and won. Mayrand appealed. This week, Mayrand won, with a unanimous panel of three Federal Court of Appeal judges ruling in his favour.
Separately, the enforcement half of Elections Canada, led by Elections Commissioner William Corbett, was pursuing his own investigation of this scheme, complete with a raid by the RCMP on Conservative Party headquarters in 2008.
Last week, Corbett’s investigation wrapped up and the Conservative Party, two Tory senators and two former party officials were charged with violations of election finance law. They face fines and even a short jail term if convicted.
This is a serious matter, particularly for a government that found favour with many voters because it promised to conduct itself differently after the sham that was the Liberal sponsorship scandal.
And yet, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his MPs dismiss the flap, describing it as a minor “administrative matter.” The senators charged — former campaign boss Doug Finley and chief party fundraiser Irving Gerstein — are still in the Conservative caucus.
If Harper could punt Helena Guergis from cabinet and caucus for her never-proven misdeeds, surely the same standard requires him to ask Finley and Gerstein to step away from the caucus until this matter is resolved.
Harper’s failure to do so will disappoint those Canadians who voted for him in 2006 and in 2008 and who believed then in his promises of transparency and accountability.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is being called on to resign after his office sent out a letter to Conservative MPs asking for fundraising help to mount an ad campaign aimed at bolstering Conservative support among ethnic communities.
According to documents obtained by the NDP Thursday and released to the media, the Conservatives have hatched a media strategy that would specifically target South Asian and Chinese communities in the Greater Toronto Area.
The advertising plan is branded "Breaking Through: Building the Conservative Brand" and details of it were sent along with a letter on Kenney's letterhead seeking funds to support it. The materials ended up in the hands of NDP Linda Duncan but were more likely intended for Conservative MP John Duncan.
The NDP is accusing Kenney of abusing his privileges as an MP and minister to conduct partisan fundraising with his office staff and resources. Beyond using his own letterhead for fundraising purposes for the Conservative party, the documents show how keen the Tories are to lock in more of the ethnic vote the next time Canadians go to the polls.
Kenney has been leading the Conservatives' efforts over the last five years to improve his party's fortunes among ethnic voters.
"There are lots of ethnic voters," the media plan says. "There will be quite a few more soon. They live where we need to win." It notes that, "If GTA South Asians were to form a city, it would be the third largest city in the country."
The documents contain data showing voting patterns among Chinese and South Asian communities and highlight target ridings that are "very ethnic" in the Toronto area.
"Data proves hunch: we are losing. We are losing less badly now. Need to positively brand CPC in target communities," the PowerPoint presentation says.
. . .
The NDP is adamant that Kenney lose his job over the matter.
"In fact, this is resignation material right here. This might be the death rattle of Jason Kenney as the Minister of Immigration. It certainly should be," the NDP's Pat Martin told reporters following question period when the issue was first raised by the party's leader Jack Layton.
Pierre Poilievre, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, shrugged off the controversy and the demand for Kenney's resignation when he appeared on CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon.
"The minister has said that it was a mistake for the letterhead to appear on this particular letter," Poilievre said, adding that Kenney has referred the matter to the Ethics commissioner.
Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc didn't go as far as calling for the minister's resignation but said Kenney has some questions to answer.
5:00 AM
nintendo
I find it shocking how this discussion in Canada focuses almost exclusively on working mothers. I was so accustomed to hearing "working parents" in the US that when I moved here, I was really taken aback by the difference. To me, this is akin to seeing the choice of "Miss" on Canadian forms, or "Dear Sir or Madam" instead of "To whom it may concern". But those phrases, although important, are largely symbolic. The unquestioned assumption that women choose between staying home or earning income, while men do not make similar choices, should have been retired at least 30 years ago.
The Universal Child Care Benefit is designed to help Canadian families, as they try to balance work and family life, by supporting their child care choices through direct financial support. The UCCB is for children under the age of 6 years and is paid in instalments of $100 per month per child.
...there is a presumption that when both a male and female parent live in the same home as the child, the female parent is considered to be primarily responsible (see the definition on page two of this information sheet) for the child and should apply. However, if the male parent is primarily responsible, he can apply if a signed note from the female parent is attached to the application...
Primarily responsible for the care and upbringing of a child means that you are responsible for such things as supervising the child's daily activities and needs, making sure the child's medical needs are met, and arranging for child care when necessary. If there is a female parent who lives with the child, we usually consider her to be this person. However, it could be the father, a grandparent or a guardian. [See Income Tax Act, Section 122.6(f)]
12:30 PM
nintendo
Join us on March 3rd in a national day of action to tell Stephen Harper and your Member of Parliament, “No Stealth Fighters!”
Ahead of the budget and possible elections, it’s more important than ever to be heard and voice your opposition to this multi-billion-dollar purchase.
The goal of the campaign is to send 5,000 messages to MPs. We need your help to achieve this goal!
Will you help us reach our goal of 5,000 messages to Harper?
4:45 AM
nintendo
Indeed, the broadcast regulator now says it never wanted the regulatory change in the first place and was only responding to orders from a parliamentary committee.
The committee last week quietly withdrew its request for regulatory amendments in the face of a public backlash.
With that, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission was only too happy to drop the idea altogether.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday that Ms. Oda has apologized and that should be the end of it. When pressed by The Canadian Press on whether that was enough after misleading the House of Commons, Mr. Kenney shot back: “The CBC lies all the time. What media are you with?”
Jason Kenney says: "the CBC lies all the time"
Canadians say: "Prove it or apologize!"
On February 15th, one of Prime Minister Harper's closest confidantes, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney let the cat out of the bag when he blurted out that "the CBC lies all the time".
He made his comment in French - you can see the original story as published in La Presse here. We have translated the story into English here.
More disturbing than Kenney’s actual words is what they represent – a sinister ideological antipathy towards public broadcasting.
If we don’t act now, Harper and company might come to the erroneous conclusion that they can get away with these outrageous allegations without consequence.
Please send a message demanding Kenney prove his shocking allegation, or apologize and withdraw it.
6:00 AM
nintendo
6:30 AM
nintendo
Nearly all opposition members stood up to cheer and applaud when the results were announced. While the entire NDP and Bloc caucuses voted for the bill, five Liberals abstained and seven voted against. Six Conservatives voted for the bill, including four cabinet ministers, while one minister abstained.Most of us watching this bill were pretty surprised to see six Conservative MPs - John Baird, Lawrence Cannon, Shelly Glover, Gerald Keddy, John Moore and Lisa Raitt - vote in favour. While everyone points out that Baird is an openly closeted gay man, I'm not sure that's ever caused him to do the right thing before.
“When I first ran in 1993, I ran on the issue of LGBT rights,” [MP Hedy] Fry says. “We just got sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act [back then], and now that ‘T’ that I said was missing got put in.”
Fry says she is proud to have been in the House for votes on issues of sexual orientation, same-sex marriage and now trans rights, which she hopes will get swift passage in the Senate.
“Hopefully we’ll see things change in society,” Fry says. “When something becomes normalized and legal in a country, society begins to change its attitude toward those persons, and hopefully we’ll see some of those suicide rates dropping for transgendered persons.”
Bloc MP Nicole Demers, who spoke in support of the bill during second reading, expressed a mixture of joy and disappointment after the vote.
“I’m always shocked when I see people getting up and voting against human rights,” Demers says. “That shocks me. That angers me – I don’t know how, in 2011, we still have to teach people about those things, and when I see people from Quebec, like Christian Paradis and Jacques Gourde, getting up and voting against that – I’m saying to myself, my God, where have we gone wrong?”
8:00 AM
nintendo
Canada's conscience 'in limbo'
by Jeff Schutts
Old news: American soldiers living in Canada seek sanctuary from the Iraq War.
When you heard this news several years ago you probably responded with confusion; unlike during the Vietnam War, the United States now has a volunteer military. And, like most Canadians (64 per cent in a 2008 poll), once you considered the war's controversies, chances are you thought that Canada should allow them to stay.
It hardly seems right that someone should go to jail for refusing to take part in activities like those at Abu Ghraib prison, or otherwise fight in what the United Nations (UN) general secretary deemed an "illegal war." After all, the lack of a UN sanction for the U.S. invasion of Iraq was why the Liberal government of the day declined to participate.
Surely, all that is resolved by now. Barack Obama is president and, as he declared last August, "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended."
From court martials over the illegal use of sniper "bait" to WikiLeaks documentation of needless civilian deaths, the reasons given for soldiers fleeing to Canada have been clearly corroborated. Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who wanted Canada to help invade Iraq in 2003, changed his mind five years later and admitted the war "was absolutely an error."
Nonetheless, one American Iraq War veteran turned war resister, Rodney Watson, has been trapped inside a Vancouver church for more than a year, living in sanctuary, his only alternative to avoid being arrested by the RCMP, deported by our government and imprisoned by the U.S. Army.
Jeremy Hinzman, the first American soldier of his generation to seek refuge in Canada, has been living in Toronto for seven years, almost a quarter of his life. He has a steady job and his second child was born here, yet he lives knowing that any day he, too, could be taken across the border to a military prison.
There are about three dozen such Americans living in Canada who have formally applied to be granted refugee status. Realistic estimates suggest a couple hundred others are living here underground. For them, the Iraq War is far from over.
Each of them has their own story of why they joined and then quit the military. Their plight is personal, yet their decision to come to Canada has entangled them in the loftiest dimensions of international law: their right to claim conscientious objection, even as soldiers, is guaranteed by the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights, while refugee conventions support their claim to asylum.
They are in limbo today because Canada's conscience appears to lie dormant behind pretensions of upholding international justice.
While lower courts sometimes rule that the refugee and immigration bureaucracies need to judge cases on their merits, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to consider the issue in 2007. And while Parliament twice, in 2008 and 2009, passed resolutions asking that the Conservative government make provisions for them to stay, a similar but binding bill failed last September by seven votes.
After two deportations in 2008, it seems that such high-profile political controversy has stayed the Harper government's policy of sending the war resisters back.
Until a new election results in either a Harper majority or a new coalition government, it seems both the war resisters and Canada's conscience will remain in limbo.
On Tuesday, Feb. 22, Douglas College's Institute for Ethics and Global Justice will host a brown bag lunch forum about these issues at its Coquitlam campus, at 1250 Pinetree Way. For more information, contact Jeff Schutts at schuttsj@douglascollege.ca.
Jeff Schutts is a Douglas College history instructor, as well as a former U.S. Army officer and peace activist.
1:30 PM
nintendo
As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.
As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.
While millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment and declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all but completely commandeered by the financial and corporate elite. It doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the tune, and the politicians dance.
So what we get in this democracy of ours are astounding and increasingly obscene tax breaks and other windfall benefits for the wealthiest, while the bought-and-paid-for politicians hack away at essential public services and the social safety net, saying we can’t afford them. One state after another is reporting that it cannot pay its bills. Public employees across the country are walking the plank by the tens of thousands. Camden, N.J., a stricken city with a serious crime problem, laid off nearly half of its police force. Medicaid, the program that provides health benefits to the poor, is under savage assault from nearly all quarters.
The poor, who are suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from. In terms of their clout, they might as well not exist. The Obama forces reportedly want to raise a billion dollars or more for the president’s re-election bid. Politicians in search of that kind of cash won’t be talking much about the wants and needs of the poor. They’ll be genuflecting before the very rich.
In an Op-Ed article in The Times at the end of January, Senator John Kerry said that the Egyptian people “have made clear they will settle for nothing less than greater democracy and more economic opportunities.” Americans are being asked to swallow exactly the opposite. In the mad rush to privatization over the past few decades, democracy itself was put up for sale, and the rich were the only ones who could afford it.
. . . .
I had lunch with the historian Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves.”
I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.
As tens of millions of Egyptians celebrated their victory over a brutal dictator and began the task of creating democracy, the story from Canada was of democracy going backwards. For five years under Stephen Harper, Canada has been subjected to a systematic erosion of democracy (as I document here). Canada is not Egypt and Harper is no Mubarak, but he is nonetheless a ruthless autocrat in the Canadian context, too often showing contempt for democracy and the aspirations of the people he governs.
It can hardly be surprising that almost alone among western leaders, Stephen Harper was so grudging in his response to the wonderful victory of the Egyptian people. Rather than praise the millions in the street, Harper actually praised Mubarak: “Canada respects President Mubarak’s decision to step down in order to promote peace and stability in the country.” Damning by faint praise?
The day that Mubarak finally resigned to the deafening cheers of a million people in Tahrir (liberation) Square was also the day that another repugnant example of the Harper government’s casual abuse of power was highlighted. This time, it was a scathing ruling against the government from the Speaker of the House, related to Harper’s decision to eliminate funding to the ecumenical development group, KAIROS. It was a fitting coincidence: KAIROS’s funding was cut due to its alleged anti-Israel bias. Harper’s barely disguised opposition to the revolution in Egypt is linked to his blind support of Israel and the recognition that democracy in Egypt is seen as a threat in the Jewish state.
. . . .
Is it simply that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone? In Egypt, years of oppression, brutality, humiliation and the simple lack of any semblance of real government drove the massive support for democracy in the streets. Maybe only the promise of democracy can motivate people in this profound way.
Or have Canadians simply lost faith in democracy as they increasingly lower their expectations of what government can or will do for them? Ultimately we judge democracy by what it delivers — and it used to deliver, and promise, a lot more. Are Canadians more and more just circling the wagons around their individual or family lives, looking for individualist solutions? With wages flat since 1980, 92 per cent of private pension funds in deficit (total $350 billion, almost double the 2003 figure) and holding record levels of debt, this solution must surely look just as bleak as hoping for political change.
Or could it simply be that there are too few venues and opportunities for Canadians to express their dismay at the loss of democracy? After Harper’s second prorogation of Parliament (over the Afghan detainee issue), virtually every political pundit and analyst in the country predicted that no one cared and most couldn’t even pronounce the word. Yet almost overnight (in organizing terms), over 220,000 people signed on to a Facebook page opposing prorogation, and within a few weeks there were simultaneous demonstrations in 61 cities across the country featuring 25,000 people. These were not organized by existing social justice groups or unions (though they came to help) and were as spontaneous as reserved Canadians get. They did care about democracy. They knew — or took the time to find out — what prorogation meant, and they were angry.
This should have been the signal for the Opposition parties to take up the cause, but it wasn’t enough to cut through the cynicism of the political operatives who run the Liberals and the NDP. By their pusillanimous calculations, if an issue doesn’t affect the pocket book (home heating oil), people don’t care. Would hundreds of thousands of people come into the streets if these parties called on them to defend democracy? Probably not. But they might come to the polling booths and rid the country of its own autocrat.
6:00 AM
nintendo
Harper signs new security perimeter deal without consulting Canadians or Parliament
Late Friday afternoon, Prime Minster Stephen Harper announced he had unilaterally signed a deal with the United States government that some pundits have said is larger in scope than NAFTA.
The security perimeter deal, which Harper touted as being needed to further ease trade restrictions between the two countries, states that Canadian and U.S. governments will work “together within, at, and away from the borders of our two countries” to toughen security and promote trade.
In his comments following the announcement, Prime Minister Harper said the border plan is intended to “keep out terrorists and criminals,” “simplify regulations that hinder trade,” create “consistent inspection measures,” and to have “better management of our border” but not eliminate it.
The Council of Canadians has spoken out against this deal, which was reportedly negotiated in secret for six months with involvement from business groups, but not Parliament or public interest groups. While concrete details about the deal have been sparse, many concerns have already been raised about the implications of sharing security information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the loss of sovereignty and trade-offs made to come to this agreement, and the degree to which any of the common measures being discussed will address the so-called “thickening” of the border.
"We've gone down this road before – it was called the Security and Prosperity Partnership – and North Americans rejected it," said Stuart Trew, Trade Justice Campaigner with the Council of Canadians. "The Harper government must disclose what terms it is negotiating with the Americans and open it to public and parliamentary scrutiny."
Please Uncle Sam, May We Enter Your Airspace?
We knew it was coming, but the way it’s being done is upsetting opposition politicians – not to mention raising a few ethical questions. As Canwest News Service reported this week, the federal government has quietly presented a bill in the House of Commons that would give U.S. officials final say over who can board aircraft in Canada if they are to fly through United States airspace – even though they are not landing in the U.S.
Bill C-42 allows airlines to pass on passenger information to “a foreign state” for flights over that country. The legislation is needed so that Canadian airlines comply with U.S. Homeland Security’s Secure Flight program, which requires airlines to submit personal information about passengers 72 hours before a flight’s departure. If the bill passes, passengers leaving Canada on one of the many flights that travel over U.S. airspace will have their name, birth date and gender subject to screening by U.S. officials. If you have the same name as someone on a no-fly list, you may be questioned, delayed or even barred from the flight. If your name doesn’t show up, you get your boarding pass.
Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe said Bill C-42 was introduced with no warning and no discussion with the opposition. Together, the opposition parties could vote down the legislation – a situation that could cause turmoil for air travel. “Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window,” Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe told the Montreal Gazette in a recent interview. “You are going to be subject to American law.” NDP transport critic Dennis Bevington told Canwest that “We’re doing this without understanding what the threat assessment is. There’s no way that this is going to get an easy ride.”
10:00 AM
nintendo
“It’s the Liberals who wanted to ensure that parents are forced to have other people raise their children. We do not believe in that,” Finley said in the Commons Thursday, the same day that Liberals were promising to revive the national program scrapped by the Conservatives five years ago this week.
Liberals are calling Finley’s remark an insult to working Canadian mothers and fathers and a clear declaration of bias in favour of stay-at-home parents — a rarity in Canada, where most mothers with children work.
“For decades we’ve realized that women are working, men are working and the second thing we’ve realized is that there’s a great benefit to children from working and playing with others and learning with others,” said Liberal MP Bob Rae. “The notion somehow that child care is some form of alien abduction is just completely preposterous.”
New Democrats, who have put forward their own national child-care legislation in the Commons, were also outraged by Finley’s characterization of child-care programs.
“Finley insulted all teachers, all early childhood educators, child-care workers, organizers of parents’ resource centres and even babysitters. She is trying to inflict guilt on all working parents — a truly shameful, divisive behaviour,” said NDP MP Olivia Chow.
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