Coming soon to a city near you

Ottawa Citizen : Military wants more troops in cities

"The Harper government plans to increase the Canadian Forces presence across the country with new units in 14 cities ....Between now and 2016, the army will establish "territorial response battalions" in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Niagara-Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Saint John, Halifax and St. John's. The units would be designed to react to domestic emergencies such as natural disasters or a terrorist attack."

A year ago January prior to the last election, we had an all-candidates meeting at the Legion. Gory details here. All the candidates were asked to answer : "What are the most important issues to this riding?" and they each took a turn at it : the environment, daycare, green collar jobs, affordable housing, the poverty gap, social justice.
Last to go was Conservative John Weston, who answered, "The 2010 Games and increasing police and military presence on the streets."

There was a momentary silence while we absorbed this, caused in no small part by the fact that his audience was living on a small island where 1) we don't have many streets and 2) when a crime is committed we mostly just call the perp's mom.
Now in fairness to John Weston, Bowen Island is just a small part of the largest riding in Canada and he was merely putting forward the generic Con agenda. An increased police and military presence on the street was always on it from the beginning. The environment, daycare, green collar jobs, affordable housing, the poverty gap, and social justice were not.

The outrage here is not the addition of troops to the streets; it's the missing programs they are replacing.

Red Tory : Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. Heh.

Thanks to Marcus for the great graphic from the brilliant Banksy.
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