Wacking the Piñata. With updates!

C36 — the Harper government, with its usual doublespeak flair, titles it the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act — is just one MASSIVE piñata of a Bill.  And when it is whacked, all sorts of goodies come tumbling out. Like Don the Plumber's John School™ - but more on that, later.

No no no.  This piñata  is NOT what you think it is.  Get your mind OUT of the gutter.

This piñata was previously a commemorative War of 1812™ genuine papier mâché artillery cannon replica produced for its never-ending celebrations and now recycled by the ever-so thrifty Harper government. It was spray-painted Barbie™ pink to please the ladies. 

"What's in the C36 piñata ?" you may ask.  Although it was thoroughly wacked at the House of Commons Justice Committee proceedings, it appears that more goodies are popping out for the Senate committee studying the bill.

MacKay, speaking to reporters, said the Conservative government decided to take a calculated risk that any Charter challenge would ultimately fail.

That’s largely because, he said, the law is a legal shift towards outlawing the purchase of sex and viewing prostitution as the exploitation of “vulnerable” women, not the nuisance targeted under the now-unconstitutional laws against street prostitution or bawdy houses. 

The bill doesn’t “enable prostitution” but it will still allow those who “claim to freely choose” prostitution to do so safely, work indoors or hire body guards, said MacKay. It gives “legal immunity” to prostitutes, and so directly “responds to” the Supreme Court of Canada’s concerns in its Bedford ruling in December, MacKay told a Senate committee studying the amended bill. [...]

MacKay said he made his own assessment after discussions with “other lawyers and judges.” He shrugged off the prospect of more court battles.

“I’ve been around this place a while,” MacKay said. “I’ve practiced law, I’ve argued both for and against certain Charter submissions. But I don’t suffer from Charter constipation.”

So. The unCONstipated Minister for Lady Parts and Weaponry Peter MacKay claims that sexworkers will get "legal immunity". 

Some senators, who are also lawyers, are not so sure how that "legal immunity" would apply.  

Wait!!! Here's a thought. Why can't the C36 pinãta offer "legal immunity" to ALL women and girls who suffer any form of sexualized violence? Most harassment and rape isn't perpetrated by clients or johns. Shouldn't every woman and every girl be *rescued* from daily sexualized violence too?

One man speaking to senators was adamant that clients should all attend John School; his contention was that "fathers and grandfathers" who buy sex services are completely transformed by the program.  Presumably none of them ever sexually harass or violate ANY woman EVER again.

(Hell, why not send every Tom, Dick or Harry to John School?  That's the ticket; compel all boys and men to complete this program; those who actually don't coerce women (or pay them) to have sex can mentor the ones who do.  Surely that's the logical outcome to C36, if the premise is actually what the Cons pretend it is.... Aaaaand, make sure CPC MP Bob Dechert is sitting in a desk at the front.)

Then there's senator Plett — so thoroughly repulsed and disgusted by sexwork that he would deprive sexworkers, specially those who have chosen this work, of legal protection and their right to safety. 

Employees in high-injury-risk occupations as varied as firefighters, healthcare professionals, cops, stunt performers, soldiers and pro athletes choose their work because of the high income, the benefits and the opportunities they derive from it.  But Plett doesn't see any of that; he is affronted that defiant women won't be shamed nor called victims, thus he wants them to be threatened, endangered and harmed.

Sour grapes! Bitter candy! Mouldy sweets! Senator Donald Plett wants those BAD women who don't want want to be rescued, PUNISHED!

My co-blogger fern hill looked into Plett's background. Hint: he's no lawyer but some of his best Con friends are...

The biggest, sparkliest, juiciest goody in the C36 piñata is that mythical whopping 20 Million $$$ that would ostensibly fund "rescue" programs that Evangelicals and Prohibitionists who support the bill would be awarded.  And Con MP Joy Smith's Foundation would get a chunk of that money too, with no pesky CRA audits I bet!

My suggestion: 

The Senate committee continues to hears presentations today.

In case you've missed it, go read @kwetoday's brief to the Senate standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs, here.  It exposes what a hollow, empty sham C36 really is. 

UPDATE: Plett the Plumber continues to blurt out loud the malevolent, sexist, gynophobic premise at the core of C36:

From this account of the second day of the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee hearings on C36:

Here's another report from that day from Star journalist Tonda MacCharles. It was lively!

CONtempt™: it's the Harper CONservative party brand.

Another day, another cpc Senator in the news.

This particularly repulsive Con — Jean-Guy Dagenais — has also been a useful idiot for the Harper regime. As a former cop and past president of the police officers' association of Québec, Dagenais was a keen supporter of the federal long-gun registry.  Once tactically appointed to the Senate by PMSHithead, he CONveniently started spewing the anti-registry propaganda and speaking points supplied by the PMO.

Il a changé son fusil d'épaule.  And now, this:

In a letter sent to all parliamentarians, Dagenais referred to Charmaine Borg’s flyer as “a rag” and suggested she’s a whiny, ignorant, powerless Quebec MP who was elected by fluke and stands little chance of being re-elected.

NDP House leader Nathan Cullen said sending such a “offensive” missive to a 23-year-old female rookie MP is “paternalistic, childish, condescending and frankly misogynistic.” He served notice that he will ask the Speaker of the House of Commons next week to condemn Dagenais.

“The letter in question attacks the very legitimacy of a sitting member of Parliament,” Cullen told the Commons.

Stephen Taylor, the weathervane director of some astroturf Reformatory organization, and a self-selected arbiter on misogyny, equivocated and perorated about Cullen's observations.

What's Dagenais' next volley against the NDP elected member of Parliament?  To demand that Borg's home address and phone number be publicized, the better to incite his fellow bullies who share his views to hunt her down and sexually assault her, and finish the job that his impotent, CONvoluted p0rn-infused fantasies would want to see executed?

The collective recoil expressed by the female MPs in the NDP caucus should be noted, and respected.  Each of them knows how violence against women manifests itself in numerous and insidious ways; it is present in the truculent bellowing and lip-smacking self-indulgence of reactionary old white men who suffer from delusional entitlement syndrome.

Jean-Guy Dagenais is a prime specimen of the Reformatory plutocrats who are degrading Parliament.

Afterword: A point I raised, with regard to Dagenais' accusation that riding residents allegedly complained to him that Borg could do nothing for them: how can an individual MP redress or fix all the services and programs destroyed by the Harper governement: Employment Insurance, Veterans Affairs, Health, Environment, etc. etc.?

Update: More media pundits, all male so far, pooh-pooh the characterization of Dagenais' attack upon Borg as misogynistic.  It means women-hating, not the same as sexist.  I wonder who will be the first to label the reaction of female MPs as "hysterical".  Might be one of the anti-feminists: Wente, Lakritz or Kay-mère, perhaps Blatchford?

More update: I went looking for a useful and helpful perspective on systemic misogyny that included the vile tactics that the Harper dirty tricks handbook promote, when directed at women and launched by an Attack Parrot™ like Dagenais.

Misogyny is also – because of the very nature of its deep-seated, psychological hatred – a linking factor among the various [...] hate groups and militias. That means that people who hate women may also exhibit authoritarian, violent and bigoted behavior towards minorities.

From here.

So prophetic, so appropriate.

"Once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's going to be very hard to get it back in." - H.R."Bob" Haldeman

That is a Watergate reference.

Stephen Harper - ever the opportunist and at times, plagiarizer - deployed that quote when describing the political situation in Egypt during the Arab Spring when Mubarak stepped down, throwing his authoritarian regime into a tailspin.

We are reminded these days by the spectacle unfolding in the Senate and in the House of Commons, with regard to allegations of criminal fraud, corruption, collusion and subversion of the Parliamentary process, how perfectly appropriate that analogy is.

And we salute Corporal Greg Horton, one brave individual RCMP officer who has rigorously pursued this criminal investigation, interviewing many hostile or fearful people, and finally, sifting through hundreds of documents and an ocean-sized cesspool of obfuscations to shine the light of justice upon some very ugly CPC machinations.

At this point, some in the media are playing it coy, aware that the teflon-coated Harper may yet walk away unbesmirched by the volcanic eruption of shit his Con government has produced.

Liar? Idiot? In either case, unfit

Twitter is having a ball with the Puffster's admission that he 'misunderstood' the rules for primary residence.

It’s “extremely complicated.”

It’s “antiquated.”

It’s “very, very fuzzy.”

In the cold grip of an Ottawa winter, the “it” topic is the suddenly hot definition of residency for senators.

Sen. Mike Duffy, in a mea culpa performance, declared Friday that he misunderstood what is meant by primary residence when he filled out Senate expense forms, and may have wrongly claimed about $42,000 in living expenses as a result. He’ll pay back the money, but Duffy insisted he owns a residence — a cottage — in PEI and so is qualified to sit in the Senate.

Here's the form.






Of course, tweeps are joking that maybe the Puffster should have had Senator Jacques Demers read it to him.


Image via Paul MacNeill.