Diane Finley, the Queen of Immigration, has the full powers of a monarch - and all in the name of expediting. Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, who introduced liberal and humanitarian immigration policies, must have turned in their graves a few times over this.
What will the Harper government do next now? Annul the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Thankfully, at least, that would be very hard to do.
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If you feel so strongly about this why are you not criticizing the liberals and Dion. They could have defeated this bill but chose not too.
ReplyDeleteKevin, I did in my previous blogs when the bill was first introduced. I believe it was in May. I agree with you that Liberals should have defeated it. When I refer to Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Pearson I am hitting on Liberals.
ReplyDeleteYeah. What gives the democratically elected government of Canada the right to decide who comes into... Canada.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiousity, do you have any reason to suspect the government of making immigration decisions based on ethnicity? Or is making slanderous and unfounded accusations an idle hobby of yours?
The way Chinese, Japanese were treated in the past, and Sikhs in early 1900’s were treated by Canada gives us some glimpse into our past. To certain extent even Irish. Checks and balances were put in place to counterbalance such policies especially by Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. Harper government wants to undo all that. To give absolute power to a minister, who stays and who leaves, is a backward move. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mr. Harper himself has been moving in that direction by giving so much power to PMO.
ReplyDeleteSupport for checks and balances is a fine position to have - though I would argue that the watchful eyes of the media, the opposition parties and the voting public fills this role nicely. If any Canadian government tried to bring in a rascist immigration policy today they would be crushed in an election.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, that's not the point. The image you posted was not designed to spark an intelligent debate. Falsely depicting a Cabinet minister as a flagrant rascist is in extreme poor taste. It is childish and spitful behaviour such as this that gives political blogs a bad name and hinders any meaningful discussion on the important issues of our time.
I think I made my point very well as you felt strongly enough to leave comments. Your reaction tells me that I did a very good job in depicting the trend.
ReplyDeleteBy the way when Chinese, Japanese, Sikh and Irish were mistreated we had democratically elected governments at that time too. Some elected government take us forward and some take us backward and Harper government is taking us backward. I think it is Harper government and his supporters who believe that public is too naïve and childlike that they will not catch on. Trust me they are catching on and it might just happen that it is wiped out come next election. Have a good day.
Well, I guess that's the trick isn't it? Posting some thoughtful critique on the Conservative's immigration reforms doesn't get many comments. It's way easier to drag an hourable parliamentarian's name through the mud by accusing her of being a rascist for no reason whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteWord of advice: if you want even more comments on your crummy blog, you should make another oh-so-clever image depicting Diane Finley as a child molester. Really, who cares about the woman's reputation? What's she done for us, besides dedicate her career towards pursuing the public good for the people of Canada?
Your pitiful, tasteless attempt at humour betrays you as the shameless partisan bottomfeeder you are. You disgust me.
Have a good day yourself.
And then you say one of the check and balances will be opposition. Then you put down the opposition and call them names. I understand your game. Typical way Harpoes operate. These tactics do not help Stephen Harper and Diane Finley. It is clear like day that Refomist self of Harper is coming out and if people point that out then call them names, insult them and intimidate them hoping that they will go away. You are not helping your cause at all.
ReplyDeleteTechnically, I said opposition "parties". And yes, they are tremendously important as a check and balance, particularily in a minority government situation. The critical oppositon being put forth by intelligent and principled parliamentarians like Stephan Dion is indespensible.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, there are some excellent journalists and bloggers out there who hold the government accountable with integrity and thoughtful criticisms. Your spectacularly lame and offensive picture hardly qualifies.
People know how Harper treats opposition - the guy whose role model is Stalin. He is constantly in campaign mode. Numerous ads were used to belittle the leader of the Official Opposition and same is extended to others who disagree with Harper and toadies like you.
ReplyDeleteAs far as media is concerned Harper hardly holds any press conferences and if on rare occasions he does only those media people are allowed to ask questions who are friendly. It is a well-know fact and repeatedly reported by the media about such constraints. So I am not sure what are you talking about?
You may consider to read following article:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/comment/article/447680
Goodness gracious me! Harper often behaves more like an opposition leader than a Prime Minister? He resorts to negative campaign advertsing to score cheap political points? He treats decent and forthright opposition MPs with contempt and generally turns every question period into a farse?
ReplyDeleteGuess what? I know. I agree. It's not the point.
Despite what you may think, not everyone who disagrees with you is an ardent Steven Harper cheerleader. And if some second rate blog posted a poorly made image declaring that a Liberal or NDP politican was a rascist merely for supporting immigration reform, I would not hesitate to take them to task.
Oh, and oddly enough, I never really thought of Stalin's defining characteristic as being "constantly in campaign mode." Partially because he was never elected, but mostly because he was a genocidal maniac who killed 30 million men, women and children in purges, executions and engineered famines. Your lack of perspective is staggering if you would compare him to any current Canadian politican.
You took my statement out of context. When I said his role model is Stalin, I meant that Harper bullies his opposition, nothing more. I might find that particular reference and I will leave the link here.
ReplyDeleteI am liberal in thinking but I do not belong to any political party as such. I praised Harper when he apologized for brutalities carried out against Native children through Residential Schools. Although a lot more needs to be done. He should have not betrayed the Kelowna Accord.
Also, I criticized Mr. Dion when he voted with Harper on the Afghanistan mission extension. I believe we are going nowhere with that war except that we are losing more soldiers and more Afghanis are being killed. It is Bush’s war, let him fight it. If Bush would not have invaded Iraq, the situation would not be that dire in Afghanistan and we might not have sent any soldiers there.
Whenever you give absolute power to a Minister, as has been given to the Immigration Minister, it is a serious blunder and it opens up the potential for abuse of power. If Liberals would have done that, then I would have criticized them the same.
Good for you. But I'm not faulting you for holding views that I disagree with. It's important to have a spirited debate on matters like immigration reform.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm criticizing is the way you went about expressing your point of view. I think it's wrong to accuse individuals of rascism when they are not, in fact, rascists. The only thing the above image does is make you appear juvinile and petty.
It is a political satire. The idea is to point out the flaws in the legislation. Nothing more nothing less. You're reading too much into it.
ReplyDeleteThe legislation opens up doors for abuse and I do not care if the Minister was a man, black or yellow the biases start entering the decision-making with those kind of powers.