"To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another."
Very true, no?
But that is exactly what the Harpercons do, they imagine their facts.
Harpercon fact-tasy: CRIME! all da'time! The Law'n'order party tells all who will listen that crime has TRIPLED in the last 30 years! They like to scare the piss out of those who are too lazy to ask actual questions or look up the actual numbers......At election time.
Fact: Crime is down, and has been going down for years. When that news came out again last week, they just shifted their narrative to say that that is because no one reports crime, or that the police just simply do not lay charges. (Which of course is wrong, even according to the police.)
Again, with no proof. But as an interesting aside, what will the Harpercon apologists now do without any statscan information to twist and turn? Rely on Madame Flaherty's cracked crystal ball?
pale, 2009
Harpercon Fact-asy: There have been many complaints about the long census form (A grand total of 166 complaints out of 12 million households) which of course as we know probably had more to do with the fact that all of this confidential info was being handed to Lockheed Martin, one of the worlds largest arms dealers...They insist people will be sent to jail for non completion (Never has happened) and that the questions, goshdarnit, are intrusive.
Fact: Without key census statistics? The poor, women, those living with disabilities, visible minorities. LGBT and Aboriginal people will no longer appear in any data.
*poof* your a rabbit!For their next trick, they shall just make the charter disappear.
And since as we know the Harper conservatives only serve their own interests and thier own base, watch for all your tax dollars get allocated to the most "deserving" tory ridings.
Harpercon Fact-asy: The WAR on Drugs is a good thing. Programs like InSite encourage! drug use.
Fact: All data points to the miserable failure that the War on drugs is. (except for police budgets)The Data and facts also point out what a success even limited harm reduction programs are to communities and those suffering with addictions. Other countries have been doing this for years, and the results have been astounding. And BTW, look who is really dictating Harper drug policy.
Harpercon Fact-asy: Women's reproductive systems have nothing to do with "maternal health" and therefore contraception and abortion services are "ideological".
Fact: Read, Stephen Harper's maternal health disaster.
Harpercon Fact-asy: I saw SNOW at my house this year, therefore climate change does not exist. And all those who are trying to get climate change legislation passed are just after my stuff and my money!
Fact: Every single credible scientist and the latest data on the weather are a far better barometer than anecdotal dreck. Whenever you read anything by a so called skeptic? Look at who funds their phony baloney "studies". Who has more to gain? Scientists, or the oil companies?
Harpercon Fact-asy: Corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy!
Fact: Wrong. And has been a proven failure elsewhere.
One thing, to be said, Manufacturing is up in Canada.
Manufacturing facts.
"To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another."-John Burroughs, Naturalist.
Nice disection between fact and fiction!
Can this possibly (hopefully) be Stephen Harper's Waterloo moment?
My friend has put an excellent site together:
http://datalibre.ca/census-watch/
Anyway, the list of group against Harper's move versus those supporting him is heartening.
I know some progressives feel deflated that this issue would have so much legs when things like war and poverty and reproductive rights don't seem to matter. I understand that dismay but at the same time, I also think that this move, if Harper succeeds, will result in our country rolling over and letting totalitarian Steve take over. This move would undermine not only the civil services' (fed and provincial/territorial) ability to work but every other organization, both non-profit and private, to conduct their business effectively.
Sheesh, it's like turning the clock back to the Medieval Ages.
The statscan
Issue is part of the war against poverty and reproductive rights though....I think we can tie it together as a few have been doing. :)
To make us wimmens and po' people disappear, all he needs to do is remove us from the numbers.
Let's face it, I thought Canadians were reasonably smart, but there are a lot of teapartiers in our midst. Some of these people wouldn't know whether to shit or go blind. So they vote Con instead.
How the hell are ya BTW?
It's a fact: 100% of all the people who ate carrots in 1850, are dead.
Great Links!
Terrific links & connecting the dots (aka lies) together! Sharing!
Oh! And I love your Madame de Flaherty! Actually flatters her I think. ;-)
I'm good pale
I was at the end of my tether but a 5 week sojourn overseas was the best thing that could have happened. I feel very lucky that it could happen, something that I enjoyed with a modicum of guilt.
I definitely agree with you whole heartedly, pale. This does underpin any actions we can take on all other fronts. And I am glad that the tide is turning towards lambasting Harper for this purposely misguided shit.
The teapartiers in Canada are really alarming but I can see how they are being bouyed by their equivalents to the South. These are frankly dangerous times. That silent minority feels like they can finally be heard and understood by Harper and now that they have a pulpit, they will not stop their noise-making. The sad part is that who gives a rat's ass about their opinion EXCEPT when it serves to undermine everything we hold sacred in this country.