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TechnoratiBulking up Pentagon North
With the prospect of a Harper majority hanging menacingly over the country, the mind inevitably turns to the question: Just what is the "secret agenda" lurking behind the friendly sweater?
Actually, I don't believe there is one. The truth is that Stephen Harper has already laid out an agenda that would fundamentally change this country - in ways most Canadians would oppose.
While this agenda is not "secret," my guess is few Canadians know about it. That's because Harper, realizing it would be unpopular, unveiled it when Canadians weren't paying attention - in fact, we were sleeping. Sometime in the dark of night last June 20, the Harper government posted a plan on the Department of National Defence's website - called Canada First Defence Strategy - to spend an eye-popping $490 billion over the next 20 years on the military.
Given all the recent buzz about the size of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in the United States, it's striking to note that Ottawa quietly announced a plan to spend nearly half a trillion dollars on the military, almost in passing.
Steven Staples, a defence analyst with the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, says that Canada's military spending is already 27 per cent higher than in 2001.
"The focus of the defence lobby now is on getting contracts signed as quickly a possible," Staples said in an interview. "They want to make it impossible for future governments to get out of these spending commitments."
It's hard to imagine an agenda with more profound consequences for Canadians, beginning with a dramatic reordering of national priorities. Public health care? Child poverty? Fighting global warming? Fine causes, to be sure, but sadly the cupboard will be bare.
The Conservatives won't even have to look mean-spirited as they say no. There just won't be any money left. It will all be sucked into bulking up Pentagon North.
Harper knows Canadians would balk at this shift in priorities, if they got wind of it. In a 2008 pre-budget survey conducted for the finance department, Canadians were asked which of 18 different issues they considered a high priority. "Increasing spending on defence" ranked last.
There's a rich irony in this ramped-up military spending. In the election campaign, Harper has accused Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion of "reckless spending" for his plan to invest $70 billion in infrastructure over the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, Harper claims to be a thrifty economic manager, even as he quietly plans a massive spending spree on military hardware.
Clearly governments can rack up deficits just as quickly acquiring tanks and killing insurgents in Afghanistan, as they can building public transit or a clean energy grid here in Canada.
While the election campaign has focused on economic issues, the military and its combat role in Afghanistan have actually been the centrepieces of the Harper administration.
Harper has tried to reshape the way Canadians think about Canada, weaning us off our fondness for peacekeeping (and medicare, for that matter), and getting us excited about being a war-making nation, able to swagger on the world stage in the footsteps of the Americans.
In fact, the U.S. has shown where big military spending leads. As the "defence" sector expands, jobs and economic prosperity become linked to war preparation. A bulging defence sector becomes a built-in constituency for war.
Forget trying to figure out Harper's "secret agenda." The really frightening, far-reaching agenda Harper has in mind for us is already posted on the Internet.
19 Comments so far
Show All'Did you know that Canada was under attack?' at http://www.notmytribe.com/2008/did-you-know-that-canada-was-under-attack-85051.html This report got me to think about Canada for the first time in a Blue Moon. We need more articles about Canadian politics as well as more about Mexican politics, too.
Canadians who would like to avoid a Harper government might find this site useful:
http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/
It very important to keep this in mind.
There have been a lot of questions as to what is happening to Canada and why does it seem to be drifting towards the right?
While it true both the Liberals and Conservatives have supported Corporatism , the North American Union, Nafta and greater integration of the respective economies this is NOT IMHO what the people of Canada want.
The Conservatives might well win a slim majority but it will be with less then 40 percent of the vote. Indeed I would not be surprised if they got only 34 percent of the vote in the upcoming elections.
All the other major Political parties In Canada are to the left of the Conservatives. This includes the Socialist type NDP at 22 percent in the polls, the Liberals at 25 percent, the Greens now at 12 percent and even the Bloc at 8 percent.
The Conservative vote is united with the Old PC supporters joining the Reform. They really can not grow that much. They have sucked up next to all the votes they can get. There are not a whole lot of people who sit in the middle who will vote Conservative simply because the REFORM element of the Conservative party has taken them too far to the right.
Now some might say this a bad thing as it will allow the Conservatives to regain power. Some would suggest this splintering of the vote on the left dooms us to consecutive Conservative Governments. Some would suggest AS THEY do in America that by voting for Green or NDP said voter will help the Conservatives gain a majority.
Yes this might well happen short term but it for the GOOD of Canada in the long term. The Liberals already are shifting to the left as they see their supporters leave them to Vote NDP or green. The Liberals are finding it very hard to support a Corporatist agenda as they did under Chretien and martin.
They can not gain support there because the Conservatives are better then them on that score.
Well over 60 percent of Canadian Voters will support parties of the left in the next election. This is a good thing. It will serve to pull the Liberals further in that direction so that all those parties will fight one another to show they are the best protectors of the Enviroment or the Canadian worker.
"The Liberals are finding it very hard to support a Corporatist agenda as they did under Chretien and martin."
I'd have to disagree with you here. Martin sign on to the SPP in 2005, which has a corporate agenda design by corporate North America. Dion also supports Harper's corporate tax cuts.
>>I'd have to disagree with you here. Martin sign on to the SPP in 2005, which has a corporate agenda design by corporate North America. Dion also supports Harper's corporate tax cuts.
yes but this part of the reason they are bleeding votes and losing them to parties like the NDP.
Dions Carbon tax plan is all about trying to get those votes back.
It is a shift to the left. Dion is already taking the party away from the Martin?Chretien position IMHO. Not fast or far enough to be sure, but that is why I will continue to vote green.
PK
I'm just happy to see the decline in the Con numbers away from majority territory. I like the greens too and they're are against the SPP. Hope May wins against MacKay.
Love to see a green MP (or two).
Do you really feel its drifting Right? Right of center, Far Right or Neocon Right?
No we do not drift to the right. I think the left is growing stronger. The RIGHT has just unified their vote.
The traditional Liberals bleed votes to parties to the left of them.
The advantage the Conservatives have is no one is to the right of them to take votes and if you look at Canada as a whole throughout History the Conservative vote was in fact larger some 30 years back.
It is VERY possible that with vote splitting on the left, the Conservatives can win a majority with 35 percent of the popular vote.
That said the Conservative party, which is a joining of the Reform party and the old progressive Conservatives (which under the "red tories" was a much more centrist party) has been pulled to the right under due to the reform element.
I did in fact vote Progressive Conservative in my younger days. I can not vote for them again with that reform element in there.
I am going to keep parking my vote with Green until the liberals come even more to their side of the spectrum.
PK
Thanks. I have a better understanding. Most Americans, including me are woefully ignorant of what goes on in Canada.
Harper scares the hell out of me. And I'm afraid most Canadians are as uninformed (and hoodwinked) as Americans were when they voted Bush in (twice !unless the election was stolen)and the Canadians will vote him in and give him a majority government this time.
Most Canadians don't seem to know that Harper's political philosophy, economic philosophy, and even his religious philosophy are not the same as the values of the average Canadian. He comes across as a mild-mannered, stable, soft-talking, reasonable man as he speaks to Canadians in his political ads.
This extra military spending is an SPP initiative, as is our PM's sudden interest in the Arctic. SPP calls for the militarization of NA border.
Our current election was unleashed on us early so Harper could try and win a majority. Under his minority government it was harder for him to push the corporate SPP/NAU agenda.
"A bulging defence sector becomes a built-in constituency for war" describes the mentality of the US electorate better than any other single sentence ever could.
With so many US workers employed by the military industrial media complex and even more US citizens owning stocks or mutual funds invested in those companies, it doesn't take a very loud drumbeat for the US electorate to rally behind another war.
This is why only pro-war candidates can win in the US.
Then it would be a good idea to reduce the size of the military industrial complex , don't you think? Lets concentrate on that.
Linda the National Defense site has a link to your article posted on their website.
http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/spotnews_e.html
The CIA and their ilk are "predicting" these crises precisely because they are so much involved in actualy CREATING them, and have been hard at work for years, fomenting political unrest and wars abroad and at home.
Perhaps more interesting than the increase in Canada's military spending over a 20-year period, is the sigining of an agreement in February, 2008, between Candada's military and the US North Command regadring the utilization of troops.
It essentially says that Canada agrees to send it's troops into the US upon request to help "quell civil unrest." The US has agreed to do the same should Canada ask. Perhaps they already know that the CIA is planning a party?
Also, it was recent;y announced that an active duty US Army Infantry Brigade will be "deployed" as it were to Georgia - in the southeast USA. There they will train in techniques for, you guessed it, "quelling civil unrest." Used to be, because of the Posse Comitatus Act, the President was forbidden from activating regular army troops for duty inside the US, but that was recinded a couple years back (I think in the Military Commissions Act?). But, the Congress, seeing that as a problem, has since passed legislation reinstating the PC Act - unfortunately President Bush negated that with a signing statement.
So, the Army is posted and the Pres can use 'em. Looks like a fun time ahead.
Except for her anti-American BS, I thought this was an interesting article. I would think Canadians would resist a massuive increase in military spending surely. We need to cut ours down.
I also found the article interesting. What BS did you mean?
"swagger on the world stage in the footsteps of the Americans."
"A bulging defence sector becomes a built-in constituency for war."
This is what I referred to and on rereading it, I believe I was far to hypersensative. Had just finished reading aome other articles and posts that were filled with anti-military and anti-American rhetoric.
...I owe the lady an apology. Thanks for pointing that out with the question, I need to watch myself.
All countries are beefing up their military machines because the CIA and their ilk predict a near future of over-population, wars for evermore scarce resources, weather-created chaos, and a world of hate between those who have too much and those who have less and less.
Welcome to the party, Canada...