• Considering the significance of the Keystone and Enbridge
pipeline developments, and oil sands exploitation in general, why don’t the
mainstream media pay closer attention to increasingly more frequent oil
spills? Should this kind of news be relegated to the business section?
Really?
• If it’s so confident about ruling, and reshaping Canada,
why does the Harper government constantly fight
to the bitter end? Could it be because the Conservatives know Canadians
fundamentally disagree with them?
• If the Harper
government acquires high-altitude drones
for “Arctic surveillance”, what else will they us them for?
And finally, here’s a Question (and Answer) from David
McLaren:
• Is Joe McCarthy is
alive and well and living in the Finance Committee?
“Are you, or have you
ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”
With those words
Republican Senator Joe McCarthy set off a 10-year witch hunt in the US for just
about anyone whose political colour was a redder shade of pink. He was finally
censured by the Senate but not before he ruined a lot of lives and dealt a body
blow to democracy in the USofA.
Whenever I came across
the old news reels of that time, I thanked God I didn’t live in a country that
would permit that sort of bigoted, callow, scape-goating attack on its own
citizens.
I can’t say that
anymore. In the House Finance committee, a week or so ago, MPs were hearing
expert testimony on the impact of Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Bill.
Randy Hoback is a member. He’s the Conservative MP from Prince Albert
Saskatchewan, which is not far from Tommy Douglas’s old riding.
Hoback attacked the
credibility of United Steel Workers economist Erin Weir by demanding, “Have you
or have you ever been a member of the NDP party, or are you presently a member
of the NDP party?”
Clearly Hoback is not
as eloquent as Joe McCarthy was, and so he blunted his own attack. But his demand
resounds like a siren.
Was it a question of
his own making? Or was it one that the Prime Minister’s Office put in his
mouth?
Not that it really
matters ... for it begs another, more important question. What are we becoming
that a democratically elected Canadian can even ask such a thing, and in such a
manner, in the heart of our Parliament.