Canadian politics thread

[mapoui2]

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael ... -pandering" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem for Trudeau when he says that he does not want to get into a "political fight" over the bill or let the Tories make "hay" is precisely that this Tory strategy is a political strategy and they are actively trying to make hay out of it.

It is, ultimately, inane for Trudeau to attack all of the premises, bigoted rhetoric and fear-mongering that the Tories are using to sell C-51 but then to commit to voting for it with-or-without amendments.

Doing so accepts fundamentally as a given that Harper is actually politically right about Canadians and admits that their "fear narrative" is a more powerful one than would be a strong and principled stance rejecting a bill that Trudeau knows to be wrong.

[mikesiva]

It does seem that bigotry and right-wing agendas are fast becoming the norm in Canada. What about this nonsense of making the boycotting of Israeli goods over the Palestinian situation a "hate crime"?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 56597.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'But in Canada – and I had to literally rub my eyes when I read this – the totally pro-Israeli Conservative government of Stephen Harper intends to list the boycotting of Israel as a “hate crime”. This is not only ludicrous, stupid, pointless and racist because it assumes that anyone opposed to Israel’s vicious and iniquitous policies of land-grabbing in the West Bank is an anti-Semite, but it is also anti-democratic. Those who believe in non-violence have always espoused boycott movements on the grounds that economic pressure rather than bombs is a moral way of putting pressure on a country that violates international law. Yet Harper, who would surely be elected to the Knesset if he were an Israeli, went so far as to suggest on a recent visit to Jerusalem that merely to criticise Israel can be a form of anti-Semitism. The newly retired Canadian Foreign minister John Baird (normally a fairly sane guy) has described Canada’s Boycott Israel movement as “the new face of anti-Semitism”. In January, he actually signed an official agreement with Israel to fight the Boycott Israel organisation, known locally as the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) group. Steven Blaney, who rejoices in the title of Canada’s “Minister of Public Safety”, says that boycotts of Israel cannot be separated from anti-Semitic hate speech and the recent attacks against Jews in France.'