Harper involved in helping shield files of multimillionaires with offshore accounts from CRA. The Harper government forged a partnership with a major Canadian accounting association, formalizing it as an adviser to the Canada Revenue Agency, at the same time as the group was fighting the CRA in court to shield the files of multimillionaires who had stashed money offshore. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/har...y-group-fighting-cra-over-kpmg-case-1.3257994[1]
The courts have confirmed that the robocalls were election fraud,and that these crimes were committed using the Conservative Party of Canada’s database, CIMS. http://leadnow.ca/robocall-fraud[3]
Senator Irving Gerstein was charged in relation to the “in-and-out” scheme, in which the Conservative Party broke election spending rules in the 2006 election.
Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau charged with breach of trust and fraud.
Their new Conservative slogan, "Protect Our Economy", is classic dog-whistle politics, synthesizing security and the economy and subtly introducing racism into any discussion of our economic performance (We must protect ourselves from refugees and immigrants, who will bankrupt our economy and steal our jobs).https://www.facebook.com/richie.assaly/posts/10100696059678825[18]
Keep in mind previous point, Canada Revenue Agency under the current Conservative Party government looking to cut auditors despite rise in tax-haven cases. The Canada Revenue Agency is planning to cut auditors at the same time it acknowledges difficulty in tracking and collecting billions of dollars in unreported income from domestic and international tax evasion. http://business.financialpost.com/p...-cut-auditors-despite-rise-in-tax-haven-cases[21]
As Canadians dutifully file personal income tax returns during the coming weeks, consider this: many profitable companies pay little or no tax. “There’s been a proliferation of tax havens,” Howlett explains to host Michael Enright. “Now, a quarter of all direct Canadian foreign investment going abroad is going to tax haven countries. That’s about $170 billion sitting in tax havens, so it’s become a huge problem.” http://www.cbc.ca/news/corporate-tax-avoidance-scheme-hurting-canada-expert-says-1.2572712[22]
Canada has lowest corporate tax rate in G8 and yet corporations are abusing Canada and evading taxes. Meanwhile, Conservative Party does nothing and cuts back on auditors - the people tasked with finding tax cheats. This while ordinary Canadians pay significant amount of income tax, corporations get away many times with paying almost nothing. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-business-tax-rate-among-world-s-lowest-1.1173662[23]
Ottawa is spending $13.4 million so its tax auditors can descend, locust-like, on charitable groups not in lockstep with Stephen Harper’s world view, searching for real or imagined evidence they’re devoting more than 10 per cent of their resources to political advocacy. http://www.metronews.ca/views/halif...13-4-million-to-attack-charitable-groups.html[31]
There is disturbing news about the Harper government's attack on charitable public interest organizations. The federal Finance Minister has allocated $8 million to monitoring the spending of environmental and human rights organizations, and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is conducting extensive audits of these groups.http://canadians.org/blog/harper-attacks-charitable-public-interest-organizations[34]
Harper is cutting the "jugular of public health care,". To date, the Harper government has refused to meet with premiers to negotiate a new accord. Instead, the federal government plans to cut $36 billion over 10 years from public health care and walk away from its responsibilities to ensure equal access to all Canadians, which could lead to mass privatization. http://canadians.org/media/harper-cutting-jugular-public-health-care-says-barlow[41]
Stephen Harper’s hands-off stance could signal end to national health-care system. “It will mean more privatization in more provinces, or some combination of private and public. It will be a very much weakened fabric of national unity without Mr. Harper’s direct involvement" http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...al-end-to-national-health-care-system-romanow[44]
Harper government derailed the national pharmaceutical strategy contained in the 2004 Health Accord. As the Health Council pointed out, the national pharmaceutical strategy was integral to the renewal and sustainability of the entire health care system.http://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...n_harper_is_abandoning_national_medicare.html[46]
Canadian Medical Association Journal - Harper government has dithered on public health measures of glaringly obvious benefit, such as tobacco control and asbestos elimination; ignored and disbanded expert advisory panels on health issues; weakened the authority of the public health agency; muzzled scientists; eliminated the long form census, the best source of information on regional disparities relevant to health; and eroded research support, while increasingly tying what remains to business interests rather than health benefits. By all appearances, the federal government seems to be trying to get itself out of the health care business. It cannot. Many essential aspects of health care are a federal responsibility, and our biggest, most complex problems in the health care system cannot be solved without federal leadership. Without such leadership, Canadians will continue to suffer.http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2015/08/17/cmaj.150896.full.pdf[47]
After 2017, Canada Health Transfers to be much lower than previously paid, putting real struggle on provincial health care across Canada. After 2017, minimum three percent rate is below the funding increases of the last 10 years. What this means is that the growth of transfer payments will not likely keep up with the possible continued growth in healthcare costs. In other words, provinces and territories will see funding from the federal government grow at a slower rate than previously. Increases above three percent will also be less predictable and less stable, as they will be tied to increases in GDP above three percent. The bottom line: Given population growth and inflation, federal health cash transfer growth of only three percent after 2017 essentially means a freeze in real per capita health transfers. http://umanitoba.ca/outreach/evidencenetwork/archives/26746[48]
Two tiered citizenship now in Canada
As a result of this new law, dual citizens and people who have immigrated to Canada can have their citizenship taken away while other Canadians cannot. Bill C-24 could easily be used against non-terrorists—for example, a journalist who is convicted of a “terrorism offence” in another country for reporting on human rights violations by the government. https://bccla.org/2015/06/its-official-second-class-citizenship-goes-into-effect/[49]
Harper turns 863,000 Canadians into second-class citizens. "Say you were born in the United Kingdom, like me and 126,000 other Canadians, and have dual citizenship. Even if you’ve never lived and never intend to live in the U.K., you can now be deported if government thinks it has cause. In fact, the new rules say that all you have to do to merit the asterisk is have a claim to citizenship elsewhere, so anybody with a grandparent born in the U.K. likely falls into this category. Overnight, we have some Canadians discovering they suddenly have fewer rights as citizens than, say, native-born career criminals."http://www.vancouversun.com/stephen...+citizens/11410121/story.html?__lsa=a606-1c0d[50]
I always knew I wasn’t an “old-stock” Canadian. But I was very shocked when one day I woke up and discovered that thanks to Bill C-24 I had somehow become a second-class Canadian. Old age security. All you have to do is look at the application form and you will see that for non-Canadian born citizens proof of our arrival and citizenship is not enough to qualify. Canadians born here are not asked to document every address they have ever lived at in order to get OAS. Are we assumed to be cheats? http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/10/01/how-i-became-a-second-class-canadian.html[51]
It means that government would reward them citizenship for “good behavior” and could take it away for “bad behavior”. This is a form of “punishment,” and in fact, an unnecessary punishment, especially when there are other avenues to deal with the so-called “bad behavior”. The introduction of citizenship as merely a privilege, and not a right comes from the negative perception that immigrants are cheaters. It constructs the idea that immigrants, refugees, foreign workers, and naturalized citizens are terrorists or criminals and need to be deported to their “home countries.” http://www.sfu.ca/education/cels/bilingual/bilingual-corner/bill-c-24.html[52]
On muzzled scientists and anti-science
"This is more than an attack on academic freedom. It is an attempt to guarantee public ignorance." Over the last few years, the government of Canada — led by Stephen Harper — has made it harder and harder for publicly financed scientists to communicate with the public and with other scientists. It began badly enough in 2008 when scientists working for Environment Canada, the federal agency, were told to refer all queries to departmental communications officers. Now the government is doing all it can to monitor and restrict the flow of scientific information, especially concerning research into climate change, fisheries and anything to do with the Alberta tar sands — source of the diluted bitumen that would flow through the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Journalists find themselves unable to reach government scientists; the scientists themselves have organized public protests.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/silencing-scientists.html?_r=0[53]
"The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life," writes Stephen Marche, a Canadian who has regular columns in both Esquire and the National Post. [...] The darkness has resulted, organically, in one of the most scandal-plagued administrations in Canadian history. [...] Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education," says Marche. "But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively."http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html[54]
Ms. Keen was fired as chair of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission because she had held her ground against political pressure to restart the Chalk River nuclear reactor in Ontario, a reactor that had been shut down for routine maintenance on Nov. 18 and was found to be missing important safety equipment.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/linda-keens-stand/article1324188/[55]
In a letter published online Thursday in the journal "Science," the scientists from Simon Fraser University criticize cutbacks at eco-toxicology labs and an aquatic research facility and changes to the act itself, saying the government's rationale for making the changes is not supported by fact. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fisheries-changes-attacked-in-prestigious-science-journal-1.1275448[56]
Harper govt closes lab that discovered that phosphates in detergents and household products were causing lakes to turn green with algae. It led to international changes in ingredients for those products. This lab also discovered affects of acid rain among many other scientific discoveries. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/budget-cuts-claim-famed-freshwater-research-facility-1.1155136[57]
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is casting doubt on climate change science. "I think that people aren’t as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees,” Oliver said in an editorial board interview with Montreal daily newspaper, La Presse. “Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated.” Meantime, a newly-published peer-reviewed study shows linked fossil fuels to rising temperatures in China. http://o.canada.com/news/national/b...ubt-on-climate-science-in-defence-of-oilsands[60]
Canada’s Minister for Agriculture, Gerry Ritz commentary is bizarre, scientifically flawed and ridiculous. For someone with the political responsibility of overseeing Canada’s agricultural sector to lack a basic understanding of climate science, one of the greatest threats to food security, is beyond bad politics — it’s dangerous.http://climateactionnetwork.ca/2014/02/19/when-will-harpers-people-stop-denying-climate-change/[62]
Harper wanted to join the war in Iraq despite there being no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. This war would later take the country into turmoil after US contracted military firm Blackwater slaughtered innocent Iraqi's in the street, turning a huge portion of the country against US/UK coalition. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michael-d-nicula/canada-iraq-war_b_2912798.html[69]
Harper doesn't believe that crime has sociological explanations, and instead only seeks to address crime by increasing the punishment for offenders. This obviously won't prevent crime, but only seeks to punish wrongdoers
On Foreign Affairs
Security Council rejection a deep embarrassment for Harper. [...] imposed on a country that no longer plays its traditional role of peacekeeper and champion of human rights on the international stage. [...] Canada will now have to wait a decade or more before it can expect to mount another campaign for a Security Council seat.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...deep-embarrassment-for-harper/article1370239/[78]
Joe Clark, bemoaned in his 2013 book, How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change that Harper isolated Canada by badmouthing and boycotting multilateral forums, “hectoring and leaving.” [...] hijacked foreign policy to help the Conservative Party win votes in carefully targeted ethnic communities.http://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...-stephen-harpers-foreign-policy-siddiqui.html[81]
Canada was one of only four countries not to vote for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the only Western country that refused to repatriate its citizen from Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr; and the only one to pull out the Kyoto environmental accord to reduce emissions.http://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...-stephen-harpers-foreign-policy-siddiqui.html[82]