Toxic Harper killing everything that is Canadian.

Possibly the only truly honest statement Harper has ever uttered was his 2006 threat to reconfigure Canada: “You won’t recognize Canada when I’m through with it”.

More here.  And here.

An article in the Winnipeg Free Press deconstructs the Harper government communications strategy that stamps PMSHithead's brand on every media event.

Internal documents show the prime minister's department micro-managed a media event staged by Parks Canada, trying to erase the venerable agency from a public announcement while promoting the Harper government.

The incident is a case study in communications control from the centre, a signal feature of the governing Conservatives since they first came to power in 2006.

The event was an Oct. 17, 2011, news conference in Halifax to announce an agreement to transform Sable Island, a fabled sand crescent 290 kilometres off Nova Scotia, into a national park reserve.

The deal had been meticulously negotiated by Parks Canada with the Nova Scotia government over the course of a year, and proud officials wanted a splashy announcement as a way to celebrate Parks Canada's 100th birthday in 2011.[...]

Alas for Parks Canada, the carefully wrought plan started to unravel days before the event when a vetting team at the Privy Council Office began to pick apart the agenda, the news release and two background documents, demanding changes. The office is the central organ of the federal government, under the control of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.[...]

When the Privy Council Office finally responded, officials demanded a raft of changes, many of them designed to quash Parks Canada's identity at the event.

A so-called "backgrounder" for handout to news media, for example, erased the agency's name altogether.

"I note the only change was that Parks Canada was 'disappeared,'" an agency official noted. "I have never seen our name completely eliminated in this manner before."

The stage backdrops for the news conference in Halifax were to have included a Parks Canada banner celebrating the agency's centennial in 2011. PCO told officials to get rid of it.

"No Parks Canada banner — the brown and yellow is ugly. Please stop using this," an unidentified official demanded in a note.

Remember, the Harper government has slashed and burned essential, front line services as well as exemplary best practices and performance achievements in world-respected programs, such as the Experimental Lakes Areas, "the one-of-a-kind outdoor laboratory that has informed the world about the effects of contaminants such as mercury, acid rain and phosphorus".  

But it has hired hundreds of communications hacks to crank out propaganda in line with the PMO aka Harper's Politburo's tactical campaign of disinformation through speaking points regurgitated by Attack™ MPs. 

And then, there's the millions of $$$ spent advertising Harper's brand of conservatism.

Update: More calculated BS from the Corruption Party government: 

Canada’s longstanding shortage of skilled workers has apparently made Prime Minister Stephen Harper mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.

Sources tell [DJ! emphasis] CBC News that, for the past year, the prime minister has been banging heads in his government to come up with new ways to help Canadians get the right skills for the right jobs — namely, thousands of vacancies that companies are begging to fill.

This is a classic message-framing tactic, straight from the Karl Rove / Tom Flanagan play-book on media manipulation.  Next step: Diane Findley will be wringing her hands over the *fact* that non-union, cheap imported indentured workers have to be imported from China and other authoritarian regimes to fill those jobs in the tarsands and other raw-resource extraction industries.

Hamilton Caves to Lying Liars' Propaganda

The City of Hamilton has been forced to accept abortion criminalizers' propaganda on their transit advertising spots. The text of the banned ads, as with the ones that have now been deemed to meet the guidelines set by the Advertising Standards Canada imply that no medical reason is needed for third trimester abortions to be performed by health care practitioners in hospitals and clinics. This is a lie. Case histories are taken, discussions take place between patients and physicians. Medical interventions are documented, health care regulations are observed. Contrary to what is suggested by the adverts, the termination of a pregnancy in its third trimester is taken quite seriously.

After receiving complaints last year, the industry council ruled that Right to Life ads denouncing abortions in the third trimester, which ran nationally, were misleading. Slaman said three new versions of the ads have all been approved by the industry council.

He said the city and Hamilton Right to Life were in mediation with the human rights commission a couple of months ago, but the group did not want to drop its complaint until satisfied that its posters would not be yanked down again.

"We would have liked an apology or, perhaps, a bit of an acknowledgement from the city that it was wrong ... but nobody has been willing to this point to do nything like that," Slaman said.

Awww. How about a Pope-styled apology, something like the City of Hamilton experienced sorrow about the anguish its refusal to run the adverts caused. Or something like that.

LOL cuz U R bay-beez haz bay-beez!

"becuz the dad’s name on the birth certificate is going to be I live in a house with four guys. It could have been any one of them."

When I first saw this site, words failed me. What is the purpose of whythefuckdoyouhaveakid.com?

Was it created in a moment of spite, a vile opportunity for adolescents to post pix of their peers ? Do these teens loathe and mock other teens for reasons beyond the fact they are kids having kids? Are they using this website to settle a score?

Though it's certainly been demonstrated that the failure of abstinence-only programs in the US was spectacular, it would seem unlikely that advocates for comprehensive Sex-Ed would use this tactic to promote their own programs. Fear and hate-mongering is not known to be an approach they advocate.

There's something deeply nasty and contemptuous, misogynist, classist and racist about this website, in spite of the disclaimer that all photos were obtained from public image hosting. For example, the jeering caption under that photo at the top of the post - does this young woman deserve to be tagged this way? No, she doesn't.

When I started paying attention to the background - generic birth control pills and Durex condoms - something clicked. Of course. The advertising consultants who designed this website are hoping that it goes viral. Because misery, tragedy and mean-spirited laughs are powerful tools for attracting people and selling them your product.

This website is not the new LOL CATZ. It's just a despicable advertising gimmick.

RIP-OUT ARTIST

It was intoxicating, addictive even, to stumble upon a completely unsanctioned creative activity that could be practised publicly, especially in an airport.

It all started when I was tempted by a glossy magazine, the April issue of Vanity Fair to be more precise. As I walked past the variety kiosk, its cover caught my attention – Three Female Comics done up as neo-classic contemporary (a)Muse(r)s – what’s not to like? I purchased the VF then lugged its heavy load to my boarding gate. I was suddenly inspired, by Tina et al, to lighten up.

I started flipping through the first pages of the publication. Advertisements for Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Estée Lauder, Prada, Clinique, Armani, Hugo Boss – those heavyweights of the luxe consumer food chain. More flipping. I’m looking for the content page. Flip. Flip. Flip, flipflipflipflip fer fucksake! At page number 51 I hit what I want and what I need: the table of content. I am furious.

Flipping through all this advertisement was a tedious and wasteful use of my time. Then a small thought wiggled its way into my consciousness. What if I ripped out every single non editorial content page? What if I only kept what I wanted to see, and read and tossed the rest in the recycling bin?

I started ripping. Rip, rip, rip. Some of those damn pages were quite thick. I discovered about midway that the editors snuck text that I wanted to read on the reverse side of adverts. I left those in.

Nonetheless, by the time that I had rigorously removed all the publicity, the magazine was surely 50% lighter. Less paper to travel with me across the country! Less stuff to look at!

I examined the pages that I ripped out. Heavy stock, dense with glossy colours. I wondered what the cost of each of these could be, if one factored in the photographer and her/his entourage, the model, the set and all other production expense including the print job.

No surprise that these baubles and various odds and sods of disposable trinkets, perfumes, accessories and such command a hefty price – and yet are manufactured in China, just like the low-rent consumer crap is.