Canada Wikileaks Releases: Tories & Liberals Lie All The Time

Lies on wheels: Harper on "Arctic sovereignty"... and everything else

Our government lies to us, they do it constantly and they do it without blinking. That's the only conclusion that can be drawn from the revelations contained in the U.S. diplomatic memos leaked by Wikileaks in April and May.

During the election campaign it was easy to overlook these nuggets of insight into how our government works - and how it is thought of by U.S. diplomats and state department officials. But it's a good lesson is in what we ought to expect from both the Liberals and the Tories.

Revealed in these memos is the honest truth about the fact that back in 2003, on the same day that Chretien was accepting kudos for supposedly refusing to join the US invasion of Iraq, the highest level Canadian officials were meeting with their U.S. counterparts. They were offering Canadian military assistance in whatever "discreet" way was possible.

As the briefing note describes the message coming from the Liberals:

"Following the meeting, political director Jim Wright emphasized that, despite public statements that the Canadian assets in the Straits of Hormuz will remain in the region exclusively to support Enduring Freedom, they will also be available to provide escort services in the Straits and will otherwise be discreetly useful to the military effort.

"The two ships in the Straits now are being augmented by two more en route, and there are patrol and supply aircraft in the U.A.E. [United Arab Emirates] which are also prepared to 'be useful.'"

And the double-dealing methods of the Liberals were inherited gleefully by the Stephen Harper Conservatives. Harper made a name for himself as the defender of the Canadian Arctic, promising increased defence spending to maintain Canadian interests. This chest-thumping is part of a wider "cold war" in the Arctic in response to the fact that climate change is creating the potential to not only access massive suspected reserves of oil but also the possible Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia, dreamed of at least since John Cabot made an effort to find it in 1497. Control of the passage would be of massive strategic and commercial value.

But while Harper talked big, he has done little, a fact that didn't go unnoticed to U.S. Ambassador at the time, David Jacobson. He joked that while Harper said "the issue has never been more important to our country... one could paraphrase to state 'the North has never been more important to our party" since it helped the Tories win the 2006 election. However, while Harper talked big in public, he did nothing in private leading a diplomatic memo to state:

"That the PM's public stance on the Arctic may not reflect his private, perhaps more pragmatic, priorities, however, was evident in the fact that during several hours together with Ambassador Jacobson on January 7 and 8, which featured wide-ranging conversations, the PM did not once mention the Arctic."

And in a move strongly reminiscent of Jean Chretien's on Iraq, Harper has worked behind the scenes to try and find a way to extend the mission in Afghanistan beyond the promised end date of 2011. The documents state that as far back as March, 2009 the Tories were "putting all options back on the table" with regards to extending the mission. A senior advisor to Harper, in a meeting with U.S. officials asked for patience while "public rhetoric" caught up with reality.

And, during a meeting with NATO chief, General Rasmussen, in January 2010, Harper promised to consider the option of keeping troops on, only noting that America's withdrawal was "unhelpful" to him making the case for extension. He also noted that they needed to "manage" the public message and, from Harper's perspective deal with the political difficulties generated by the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. By the end of 2010 Harper had agreed to extend the "non-combat" mission, though there will still be Canadian soldiers on the ground.

Lastly, the Wikileaks memos note that Harper did an "about face" on the question of an elected senate. The Tories and before them the Reform Party have had a strong position of support for senate reform, to make the body elected. Yet, even though the Tories have been in power for five years they have made no moves to implement this platform. In fact, the first thing that Harper did upon receiving a majority in the recent election was to appoint three Conservatives who lost to the Senate. Back in 2008, a U.S. diplomat noted wryly:

"[The appointment of 18 senators is] a major about-face for a PM and a party that long campaigned for an elected upper chamber. The cost of the eighteen new senators also conflicts with political messaging about the need for official belt tightening."

What all this reveals is that from the point of view of the Wikileaks memos, the Tories and the Liberals are harder and harder to tell apart. In fact, with the revelation that CSIS continues to secretly and illegally deliver the names of "terror suspects" to U.S. authorities - a process exposed by the plight of Maher Arar - it is clear that our elected politicians are in good company in engaging in dirty politics, unaccountability and a lack of transparency.

Take This Poll. Please.

Who the hell is answering political surveys these days? With three polls out in the last two weeks and all three showing different results, I have to wonder what’s going on. As dishonest as I think polling is, fundamentally, I don’t think they’d outright lie. But something is up.
See, I got up this morning and read in the Globe & Mail that the Tories were rising again in popular support such that they were in “majority government territory” at 39 percent. Well, you can imagine that pretty much ruined my day. I considered climbing back into bed until spring with a plan to renounce my citizenship and move to somewhere warmer, somewhere where I don’t speak the language and can maybe even forget that my fellow humans are dumb as posts.
But then it seems that the Grope & Wail poll is contradicted by a Harris-Decima poll, which shows the Conservatives and the Liberals running neck and neck, 35 to 33 percent, respectively.
And just last week, an Ipsos-Reid poll had the Tories dropping from 37 to 36 percent with the Liberals stuck at 29 percent.
As for the NDP, well, let’s just not talk about that because it’s ugly.
Anyway, what I really wanted to know is my original question: who is taking surveys? I have a theory that the only people who take surveys are the kind of people who call up talk radio to rant about immigrants. The rest of us with caller display don’t answer. Hell, is it just me who gets at least three phone calls per day from telephone solicitors? I’m not even polite enough to say “no thanks” any more – I just hang up right away.
I’m sure not all of those phone calls are from people who want to clean our carpet (don’t have any) or offer us a “free vacation” if we just go to a time-share condo seminar. Some of them must be from Ms. (or Mr.) Ipsos-Reid herself calling for my highly valued opinion. So, the only way to get included into one of these so-called “scientific” polls is to listen to every solicitor who calls. And who does that? Not the kind of people we want to be shaping our government or our national political discourse.
I don’t have any answers to how to solve this other than banning telephone soliciting (please, God). While we’re at it maybe we could ban stickers on fruit.
However, I do have some advice for the sad sack Liberals: Hey dummies, if what you’re doing isn’t helping you succeed, maybe you want to think about what you’re doing wrong. The Martin-Chretien civil war certainly took its toll but you know, when you end up on the same side of the political fence as the Tories on every important question of the day… well, let’s just say that people prefer the devil they know. And people just don’t know Stephane Dion because the guy doesn’t have a personality. What’s to know. Even Michael Ignatieff’s torture-is-ok-when-it-doesn't-leave-marks line at least makes him memorable – ghoulish, yes, but memorable.
As for Bob Rae – did I mention the NDP’s poll numbers? When was the last time they were really respectable in the polls? That’s right, before Bob Rae was premier of Ontario. I’d think twice before taking his advice on anything other than a legal career.
But here’s the crown jewel of my suggestions to save the Liberals from themselves: kick out John Manley – not for being a turncoat, after all his views on Afghanistan are in line with the Liberals views, it just so happens that the Liberals views are in line with the Tories. No, kick him out because he’s an ass-kissing weasel who was too lazy to even work for this promotion to UN special envoy to Afghanistan for which the Tories are apparently mooting him. After all, he plagiarized most of the so-called Manley Commission report directly from an earlier article he wrote. But more importantly, kick him out to show that the Liberals are going to take a radically different position than the Tories on Afghanistan – one that is in line with the views of the vast majority of Canadians. Of course, I only know that because of polling, which is to say, I don’t know anything. But I do have a suspicion that Canadians would thank you for offering them a choice other than Tory lite. It can't be any worse than what you've got right now, whichi is Stephane Dion listening to Bob Rae listening to the polls. Need I say more?