Well that didn’t take long. After campaigning on a slogan of “Vote for change” and railing against Liberal corruption, it took the new Harper government less than 24 hours to signal it will be business as usual in Ottawa. I’m referring to the press release announcing the selection of Derek H. Burney as the man who will lead the team helping the Conservatives make the transition between governments.
So who is Derek H. Burney? I’m glad you asked. Derek H. Burney served as ambassador to the US during the Mulroney government and is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Trade Policy and Law. He is currently the Director of Quebecor World and Shell Canada Ltd. Oh, and more to the point, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of CAE Inc. from October 1999 until August 2004 and is an influential executive member of both the CCCE and the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.
Now why are those last two parts important? Again, I’m glad you asked. You see, CAE’s former CEO, Derek H. Burney, along with other lobbyists for the afformentioned CCCE and Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, are amongst a small but elite group of Canadians who are the driving political force behind getting Canada to sign onto George W. Bush’s Ballistic Missile Defence program. And on top of that, CAE is the recipient of subcontract work from Boeing on the BMD program.
Now considering Stephen Harper signalled his intent to reopen the issue of Canada’s participation in the BMD program, is it a sign of government accountablility when his first act as PM is to hire a man who has an interest in seeing Canada sign on to that very program and will most likely be lobbying him about it in the future? I think not and it just goes to show the only change Canadians got on January 23rd was which party’s special interest groups would now be the recipient of governmental largesse. Clearly Mr. Harper’s idea of cleaning up the government is no different than that of the last occupant of 24 Sussex Drive.
Isn’t the BMD a GIANT waste of money?
To say that people who do bad things don’t seem so bad is to say something we already know: no one flaunts bad behaviour, everyone tries to hide it, every villain wears a mask of goodness. The concept of the psychopath is, in fact, an admission of failure to solve the mystery of evil – it is merely a restatement of the mystery – and only offers an escape valve for the frustration felt by psychiatrists, social workers, and police officers, who daily encounter its force.
– Janet Malcolm
Excellent work Robert. I hope the media big 6 picks up on this. I posted a bit of this at SDA just to see how they’d react.
New government…new lobbyists/masters and new bills to pay.
Speaking of SDA, I wandered over there just now. Kate’s sounding positively post-coital. *bleah*. She’s got some lamoid post up about God and O Canada and God blessing Canada. I hope He smites her for being such an annoying pest.
LOL
Pool?
They self-destruct this summer when Bush needs a coalition for Iran.
Rubert, you didn’t listen closely enough to Harper’s speeches. He repeatedly denounced Liberal corruption. Conservative corruption is just fine.
Paladiea Said:
“Isn’t the BMD a GIANT waste of money? ”
It’s another tawdry method of shoveling tax dollars into the pockets of the war machine corporations.
Like Robert has said - more business as usual.
If this is the conservative’s first move, it looks like we’re going to be forced into taking the gloves off sooner than I thought.
Harper does NOT have the mandate to do these things.
They’ll run into crisis at the budget, then they’ll run into crisis when they try and pull out of kyoto, then they’ll run into crisis once Harper decides to ben SSM..
So… contant crisis for the Connies.
welcome to the machine, resistance is futile. ye shall be incorporated, the borg is us, and so on… here we go, boondoogle street, and every man/woman for him/herself at near minimum wage (unless “God” smiles on you if you know what I mean…)
I wish to say right now that I am not responsible for any suffering, death, and/or destruction resulting from Conservative domestic and/or foreign policy. I didn’t vote for them, I knew they were an assortment of crooks and liars and soul-less two-faced opportunist thugs from the start.
Isn’t the BMD a GIANT waste of money?
It’s a ridiculous concept even if you convince yourself it will do what its supporters are supporting it for…and that’s a huge if right there.
Imagine a scenario where it works as planned: Some nation or rogue element launches one or multiple nuclear weapons at North America. This is the world we’re supposed to imagine in which BMD will be useful. If we don’t imagine that world, then BMD is a collossal waste of time and money.
We are also not allowed to assume that BMD will not be rendered obsolete by some other technology…because, then it’s really, really pointless. We are also not supposed to assume that even if BMD fails moderately, the destruction of a city or cities on a scale larger than Hiroshima-Nagasaki is somehow acceptable.
It’s fucking insane. I’d rather be dead. Seriously….I rather be vapourised in an instant at ground zero rather than imagining living in a world like that, or having to imagine that I might actually survive a nuclear attack long enough to witness the aftermath.