Thursday, April 26, 2007

Of blackouts and bluster



Stephen Harper has a new mantra: speak loudly and cary a big black pen. The shouting is to prove what a strong leader he is. The black pen is for all the embarassing documents he doesn't want you to see.

First it was the Dept of Finance and their "redacted" documents that supposedly proved tax leakage.

Now it's reports of Afghan prisoner abuse with all the information about torture hidden by the now familiar black markings.

Anything, it seems, with bad optics is fair game for government censors.

The problem is, the blacking-out is itself bad optics. It speaks of Soviet-style state censorship and doesn't play very well to those who still believe in democracy and pesky things like the Access to Information Act, or the Geneva Convention, or Canadian-owned companies.

Well, Mr Harper, despite all the blacking out -- your true colours are beginning to show through.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harper here.

I'm reading in the Star tonight that Canadians lost $14.5 Billion gambling last year.

Thats nothing! Canadians lost $35 Billion believing I was telling the truth on trusts.

All I can say is whoops. Sorry 'bout that.

I'd show you the evidence on why it was necessary but it's a big government secret.

I hope you understand.

Kephalos said...

Where can a concerned citizen find out about whether and how this government censorship can be challenged?

If Canada is in breach of international law, we need to know that now--not five years from now when the legal actions are started for crimes permitted by Canadian government officials even as the officials know that Canada has obligations under international law.

In the case of the trust censorship, how can information that is already in the public domain at Sedar constitute a state secret? Is this censorship intended to deny Canadian the due process of a democratic government? We deserve at least this much of an answer. Tell us: who would harm Canada and how would they harm our great country, if they had the secret trust information from Finance?

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, Canada's New Liars in action. Lie, deny, cover-up. The old Nixon strategy.

Too bad we don't have any investigative journalists in Canada, or an independent newspaper or TV network. Instead of fixing the problem quickly, we have to wait for an election.

The Harpercrite seats in Alberta are barely sitting on three legs after the energy community got a glimpse of their 'green' plan. They were down to a solid three legs after this one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=U9mibZYpVPY

More lies:
http://trustbreaker.blogspot.com/
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/170781

... and it goes on and one.