Diana1976

Diana1976

-1p

96 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - More ado about Oda · 0 replies · +7 points

Right. Great article. He really summed it up.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The Oda ado: overblown? · 0 replies · +5 points

The point is pretty simple.

A Minister can always overrule the advice he/she receives from experts in a Department of government. That's why her signature is required.

If he/she overrules, she takes responsibility.

The Minister does not lie about the Department's advice. Seems likely, in this case, she was acting on orders from the PM, because we know how tightly he controls the Ministers, right down to talking points. They sound like robots in Question Period.

The same thing happened in a Statistics Canada case not long ago. In that case the head of the Department resigned because this sneaky, lying government misrepresented his advice, and pretended they were acting on it. Good for him. Too bad all public servants didn't have the guts he did. So many of them, under this government, have just given in. But not them all. A lot of them have been fired, spoken out, and I think that will continue.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - More ado about Oda · 4 replies · +17 points

It will take a while before all Canadians, who are busy with their personal lives, to realize that this government is gradually eating away at our British Parliamentary system, the world's greatest democratic system ever invented.

But, in time they'll wake up.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - More ado about Oda · 0 replies · +21 points

I was thinking that too. That offiicial didn't have the guts of the Stats Can head who resigned because this rotten government lied about his professional advice, pretending they were acting on it when they weren't.

He was a hero in my eyes.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Where are they now? · 0 replies · +1 points

Andrew said people dont like the Conservatives' "style", slash and burn tactics with opponents (stupid and disgusting smear campagns), robotic repetition of party lines (just watch Question Period), dictatorial tendencies (proroguing, leaning on public servants), lack of a tone of civility (vicious attacks), lack of substantiveness (simplistic slogans), mindless partisanship (he said it!). The only thing he forgot was acting like they're trying to hide something and being generally obnoxious, but maybe that was implicit in the comments. Add to that Paul's comments about borrowing the infamous "Rovian" tactics from the US Republicans.

You can always find examples of other parties behaving this way on occasion, but for the Harper Party, it's a matter of policy.

But is all that just about "style"? I don't think so. People who act like that can't be trusted except by those who imagine it's about hiding an agenda they hope to see implemented if only this group can manipulate voters into giving them a majority.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Where are they now? · 0 replies · +1 points

Anglin's arguments in defence of the Harper government are made by snipping out sections of the "child soldier law" (Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict) and ignoring the obvious intent of the law.

Not even the judge at Guantanamo said Khadr wasn't qualified under the law, which he obviously was, based on its plain language.

By the time the issue came before the judge, years after Khadr's capture, he quoted a comment from a member of the committee who developed the law but he said the decision to prosecute was a government policy matter and not his decision, which is true, and he said, as far as jurisdiction was concerned, the Military Commissions Act superseded the treaty, and it had no lower age limit. In other words, under that infamous Act the US could charge 8 year olds if it wanted.

See the US Defence Department web site - Omar Khadr - two sections on Child Soldier Protocol - trial documents

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The Commons: These fle... · 0 replies · +1 points

Is that the same Conservative Party who mislead Canadians into thinking that Omar Khadr somehow didn't qualify under the international, and Canadian law, on minors involved in armed conflict?

....Contrary to the plain language of the law, the Gtmo judge who said no so thing (the law was superseded by the MCA passed years after he was captured and it has no lower age limit on who can be prosecuted) and the representative of the UN program on "child soldiers".

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The Commons: These fle... · 0 replies · +1 points

"Progressive" is the fashionable term for "liberal" in American politics. It must have been in style in Canada decades ago when the name Progressive Conservative was chosen. It's no accident the reactionary right wing Harper party dropped the word "progressive" from the party's name.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The Commons: These fle... · 0 replies · +1 points

“Mr. Speaker,” Rob Nicholson declared, ..... “no group of individuals has more respect for human rights in our country than the Conservative Party … "

Would that be the same "Justice" Minister who responded to the Supreme Court"s declaration that Canada was participating in the illegal treatment of a Canadian citizen, contrary to principles of fundamental justice, Canadian and international law, by sending a note to the US asking them not to use illegally obtained Canadian evidence in his trial, a tiny part of the evidence obtained illegally by Americans at their notorious prisons of Bagram and Gtmo?

Is that the same "Justice" Minister who announced publically his government didn't even care if they got a response to the note?

I sure hope they don't represent the best we can do on human rights.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Who is the real Omar K... · 0 replies · 0 points

If a 15 year old committed the crimes you mentioned, he would a) know they were crimes and b) know they were wrong, no matter who his parents were. Most 15 year olds don't commit those crimes in any circumstance.

Khadr "confessed" to charges that boil down to fighting the American military in a war in a foreign country of which he was a resident, while not being deemed by the US to be entitled to "prisoner of war" status under Geneva.

Even if Khadr read the international laws of war before deciding not to surrender to the American military he wouldn't have found that "war crime" and nor would he have found it defined anywhere as "terrorism". Legal experts have been arguing about that for 8 years.

It doesn't seem unreasonable that he thought his parents and the people he grew up around most of his life were right about the validity of the war cause. Most 15 year olds in that circumstance would.