Tony Clement : Under New Management

G&M  Aug. 26 2015 : Harper assured details of Saudi arms deal would stay under wraps

"Ottawa is contractually obliged to keep secret the details of a controversial $15-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia – a transaction that Stephen Harper personally assured the country’s monarch will be guaranteed by the Canadian government, documents say."

G&M Jan.11, 2016 : Tories press Liberal government to justify Saudi arms deal

"The Liberal government is facing increasing pressure to make public the most important deliberations on Canada’s $15-billion sale of combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia: precisely how the transaction is justified under this country’s strict weapons export control regime.

 Mr. [Tony] Clement acknowledges that the Conservatives are asking for information they refused to release while in office under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But he says the new leadership of the Conservative Party feels differently."

Dear Tony
Congratulations on "feeling differently". We eagerly look forward to the new management pressing for details of other secrets withheld by the former management. 
Here's a partial list to get you started : Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power
Best,
Alison
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Another *grassroots* industry-funded Con tank

Canadian Cynic wonders how the astroturf/fundraiser actiontank Conservative Voice, according to their own website, can manage to juggle :

"Conservative Voice believes that Canada needs an organized, non-profit voice financed by industry to ensure that the Canadian political landscape remains in balance"

with :

"Funded and supported by citizens who cherish individual freedom, free markets, and smaller government." 

Good question. They also declare :

"Conservative Voice is independent of all political parties."

The sole director for Conservative Voice listed at Industry Canada is Dan Hilton, who was personally hired on by Irving Gerstein as Executive Director of the Conservative Party of Canada in January 2009, a position Hilton held til October 2013. 
The Conservative Voice website was registered five months later in March 2014 and Hilton is still thumping up business for them.

(You'll perhaps recall Conservative Fund head Irving Gerstein told Hilton about Nigel Wright's $90K personal cheque to Duffy long before the rest of us heard about it.)

Political analyst Alise Mills, who divides her analyzing time between Ezra Levant's Rebel Media and CBC's Power and Politics, was named National Executive Director at Conservative Voice this past July by "Dan Hilton, Founder and Chair". 
Alise Mills' previously plumped for the astroturf pipelines booster site British Columbians for Prosperity, and apparently will continue to do so in her new gig at ConVoice : 

"On Monday November 9th, our Executive Director, Alise Mills, stands up for Canadian jobs, ethical oil and notes the hypocrisy of cancelling Keystone XL."

I'm not sure what Industry Canada means when it lists Conservative Voice as a "Non-Soliciting" Corporation, but ConVoice held a big fundraiser at the Marriott in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago on December 9 with guest speaker Tony Clement and Rebel Media's Brian Lilley.

Last year, Conservative Voice explained their fundraising objective : 

" ... the real battle takes place between elections."

“We need your corporate support now to build a campaign for the Conservative Voice .... This seed money should be considered a lobbying/activism expense as we promote your conservative corporate agenda. We are seeking funds to finance a national mail and telephone campaign to small and medium sized business owners to build our war chest ahead of the next election so that we can start to push our message in early 2015.”

Corps will get their tax receipt outside the writ period which imposes spending caps on PACs.

Their Mission Statement :

"To raise support and awareness for conservative ideals; and to keep Canada on the right track of Conservative principles and policies while keeping Canada’s political landscape balanced."

Big C in Conservative. Alrighty then.

Monday update : via Greg Fingus : How the Koch network rivals the GOP, overtaking political parties and candidates, infusing money and talent, and answerable to no one. 

This, Greg notes, underscores our need up here for counterbalancing citizens' movements  working across party lines. 
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Tony Clement, Deputy Chairman of the IDU

 CBC reports on Con interim leader Rona Ambrosia's top shadow cabinet jobs yesterday,

"Tony Clement, who has virtually no international experience, having served as minister of health and president of the Treasury Board under Harper, will be the critic for foreign affairs."

No international experience. Really, CBC? 

Here's Tony a couple of weeks ago at the International Democrat Union Committee on Foreign Affairs meetup in Marrakesh.  The IDU - an international alliance of some 80 centre-right and rightwing parties from around the world - has featured Tony as Deputy Chairman for a year now.

He's been Canada's representative as a vice chair at IDU, alongside now deceased Senator Doug Finley, Harper’s former bagman and in-and-out scheme campaign director, for years. 

Founding members of the IDU included Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, then US Vice-President George Bush Sr, President of France Jacques Chirac, and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Until quite recently their photos formed the IDU front page :

Australian Prime Minister John Howard was chair for 12 years. 

This might explain how Harper came to recite verbatim a speech in support of George Bush's war on Iraq delivered just two days before by PM Howard, and why Harper's former chief of staff and election war room strategist Patrick Muttart travelled to Australia to learn and refine Howard's micro-targeting election techniques for use in four successful Conservative Canadian elections and later returned to Australia to work on their 2011 election campaign. 

On March 28 to 30, 2012, the IDU Standing Committee on Elections and Campaigns was hosted by the Conservative Party in Ottawa - one of the IDU's regular election technology seminars. 

In August 2014 Tony Clement hosted Pierre Poilievre's address on 'Democratic Reform' to a meeting of the IDU Executive held in Ottawa after the passage of the Fair Elections Act.

Last year NZ President John Key was asked to assume the IDU chairmanship by the prime ministers of Canada, Britain and Australia. 

From the IDU History page : 

"Through the IDU, member Parties can exchange policy ideas, assist each other to win the political argument, and to win elections. The IDU plays an essential role in enabling like-minded, centre-right parties to share experiences in order to achieve electoral success.

A major event is also held every four years to coincide with the Republican Convention."

This might not be what you mean by "international experience", CBC, but it certainly is what the Cons and the IDU mean by it.  And it wouldn't hurt you and other promedia, Linda Diebel excepted, to mention this international cross-fertilizing agency of rightwing electioneering at least once sometime in your news broadcasting lifetime. 

Update on Con/IDU links : In 2013 the Harper government paid $8000 for former PM/IDU Chair John Howard to address the annual Manning Conference in Ottawa.

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"We've done this experiment successfully in Canada"

We don't often get to see into the minds of cross border American conservative political operatives working in Canada. Here is one such snapshot, but first ...

CBC reported today on "CIMS-to-Go" or C2G, a new mobile app for the Cons Constituent Information Management System that allows party canvassers to collect and sort voter information faster than ever before - smiley face, frowny face - while keeping close tabs on candidates' and canvassers' efficiency.

Someone in the Cons IT dept, who is presumably right now clearing out their desk, blabbed to CBC that some Con ridings are "approved" to use it while others have to pay $2500. 

"The app comes with a script to follow, to make sure canvassers know what to say at the door."

CBC then went to Georganne Burke, who they describe as "a former regional organizer and community relations manager for the Conservatives", for more info. Ms. Burke has been using the newly released C2G app in her work for an unnamed "local Conservative campaign for the upcoming election". 

Hopefully this campaign does not involve menorahs.

Last September, The Daily Caller, a conservative Washington DC news and opinion website founded by Tucker Carlson and former adviser to Dick Cheney Neil Patel, explained what Burke was doing in Washington :

"Burke, a 45 year veteran of grassroots campaigning, was in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 3 [2014]  to help train conservatives on effective efforts to expand the reach for their ideas. Her credentials include being part of the team that eventually brought about a conservative majority government in Canada by effective outreach to minorities, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper."

Dual citizen Burke, who has worked as a special assistant to Tony Clement and Tim Hudak and "as a political organizer for the Conservatives starting in 2004", describes herself in the interview :

"In my heart I will probably always be an American first and foremost. I'm a Yankee at heart and will be my while life. I'm truly an American."

She is very concerned about the "politics of division that is practiced on the left" in Canada - dividing people into various ethnic groups - and offers this advice about "connecting with the various cultural communities in the US" : 

"Why I actually came down here is because we've done this experiment successfully in Canada. It took us eleven years of hard work and I came down to tell people that this is a long game we have to play here, that this is not something that happens overnight ... It's about marketing ... You have to get out and create relationships with people that you want to be your customers."

Quite. 

G&M Oct 16 2007 : Tories target specific ethnic voters :

"Getting more votes from Jews and specific ethnic groups ..."

"Conservative community relations manager Georganne Burke told Conservatives that outreach calls on them to work beyond their traditional base, even if it means "to look outside your normal comfort zone."

Ms. Burke urged Conservative candidates and organizers to break down each riding's ethnic and religious composition, and directly target potential voters.

She said that Conservatives should use all available opportunities to "build the database" of ethnic voters, by renting or buying lists of names from third parties and by attending events where they can gather business cards and guest lists."

That's just so friggin' Conthink - inveigh against the dividing of people into ethnic minority groups and then do it.  

Update : Georganne Burke is senior VP at Pathway Group, recently in the news for ousting a pair of their lobbyists over their involvement with a company under investigation with the Ontario Securities Commission. 
One of those ousted, Pathway Group co-founder Kelly Mitchell, founded the voter contact firm Picea Partners in March 2010 with former CIMS Direct Voter Contact manager Andrew Harris. Picea handled Fantino's by-election teleconference with Mike Duffy in November 2010 - the one that didn't show up in Fantino's campaign expenses.

Meanwhile, Steve is overseas with yet another select group of MPs doing his ethnic voting diaspora thing.

Which brings me back to CBC's CIMS-to-Go article :

"The app comes with a script to follow, to make sure canvassers know what to say at the door."

Are the smiley/frowny faces ethnic colour-coded now?

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Lux Leaks in Canada

I thought we'd have a look at a few of the 35 Canadian corps mentioned by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in their Luxembourg foreign tax fiddling leaks but first ...

On Monday, Minister of National Revenue Kerry-Lynne Findlay proclaimed in the House: 

"One of our government's key areas of concern is the issue of international tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance."

By Wednesday, courtesy of CBC, NDP Megan Leslie shot back : 

"An international investigation has revealed a Canadian crown corporation uses phony Luxembourg shell companies to avoid paying foreign taxes. So how are Canadians supposed to trust the Conservatives to crack down on aggressive tax avoidance when they're busy setting up shell companies of their own?" 

Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, responded that the Public Sector Pension Investment Board is "at arms length, arms length from the federal government." 
And just in case that wasn't clear enough, Joe Oliver leaned into the mike to crossly repeat "arms length". You can watch this above exchange in Montreal Simon's excellent account.

ShamWow Tony is trying to be at arms length from his own job here.
From the Public Sector Pension Investment Board website :

"Directors are appointed ... on the recommendation of the President of the Treasury Board.   Candidates for directorships are selected from a list of qualified Canadian residents proposed by an external nominating committee established by the President of the Treasury Board.   The Chair of the Board is designated from among the Directors ... on the recommendation of the President of the Treasury Board."

The board seem like a highly qualified and capable bunch, all appointed since 2006 for four year terms and variously coming from backgrounds in banking, insurance, and Vampire Squid Canada. 
It must get tricky though - one of them is on the board of Husky Energy Inc., a company 70% owned by Li Ka-shing and one of the companies profiled in the ICIJ leak. 

Here's a three minute primer on how these Luxembourg tax loopholes work : 



OK, on to a few of the Canadian companies mentioned in the ICIJ leaks, as written up by PricewaterhoseCoopers.

United Technologies Corporation (UTC) - multinational billionaire owner of Sikorsky Helicopters, Otis Elevators, Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines, etc etc - uses a Canadian company so small it's housed inside Pratt & Whitney to set up shell companies in Luxembourg and funnel money to them :

"HAMILTON STANDARD CANADA, INC., a company incorporated under the laws of Quebec (Canada) , with offices c/o Pratt & Whitney Canada ...

"In view of facilitating the cash redeployment out of Hamilton Standard Canada Inc., UTC envisages the use of a Luxembourg-based finance company.

Hamilton Standard Canada Inc. ("HSC"), a Canadian incorporated entity, acting as Limited Partner, will set up Arlington Luxembourg SCA ("Arlington") together with Berkeley Luxembourg S.a r.l. ("Berkeley"), acting as an Unlimited Partner.

Subsequently, Hamilton will transfer funds to Arlington in exchange for issuance of Mandatory Redeemable Preference Shares ("MRPS"). Arlington would then finance in its turn various subsidiaries of the group, as necessary.

Such entities will therefore be considered as Luxembourg tax residents.

Sinopec - 

"TIPTOP Energy Limited, a Hong Kong company, is a fully-owned subsidiary of SIPC. 

TIPTOP Luxembourg Sari, created on 10 October 2008, has incorporated a fully owned Canadian subsidiary (hereinafter referred to as "Bidco"). Bidco has launched a public takeover of Tanganyiak Oil, a Canadian listed and incorporated company. TIPTOP Luxembourg Sari's existing share capital is EUR 12,500. To fund the Canadian acquisition, TIPTOP Energy Limited plans to increase TIPTOP Luxembourg Sarl's equity from EUR 12,500 to about EUR 1 million and to change the denomination of the share capital at the same time to CAD. For the additional financing of its participation in Bidco, TIPTOP EnergyLimited will grant TIPTOP Luxembourg Sari an interest free loan in an amount of about CAD 2.1billion.

In case it is necessary, for dividends and net wealth tax, the double tax treaty concluded between Luxembourg and Canada also applies, should TIPTOP Luxembourg Sari hold at least a participation of 10% in the capital of Bidco since the beginning of its fiscal year (particularly, there is no requirement for a minimum taxation)."

UK's Doughty Hanson set up a Luxembourg shell, Luxco, loaned itself $3M and bought preferred shares in a Canadian solar inverter tech company. 

Only interesting because one of DH's former principals, who focused on Benelux markets, made the jump from DH last December to do private equity in the Toronto office of our other pension board, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Li Family Trusts   Mr Li Ka-Shing, who owns a good deal of Vancouver, loaned its Husky Energy shares to a Luxembourg shell through two of its Barbados companies. The shell was entitled to all Husky dividends for the period of the loan : "The securities lending agreement for [the shell] will be neutral both from an accounting and tax perspective." 

Meanwhile it was almost exactly one year ago that 270 unionized welders and pipefitters contracted to the Husky tarsands project were laid off and replaced by cheaper temporary foreign workers.

 
These are the corporate legal loopholes and tax avoidance schemes feeding the 1% and fueling growing wealth disparity and austerity bullshit - and there's no evidence any of it is illegal!

CNN Money : 

"Luxembourg is like a corporate version of extraordinary rendition, a place where companies can do their dirty work that would not be permitted at home," said Crawford Spence, professor of accounting at Warwick Business School.

 

The Tax Free Tour is an excellent doc on this.  To see what holding corps to account for their foreign tax fiddling actually looks like, skip to the 33:33 minute mark.

Dec 11 2014 Update : Bombardier among companies exposed for controversial Luxembourg tax plan

"Drafted for the company by consultants Ernst & Young, the proposal involved a complicated restructuring that would send $500 million from Bombardier's U.S. unit to a Luxembourg subsidiary in exchange for mandatory redeemable preferred shares, which are treated as debt.All payments made by the Luxembourg-based company are treated as interest payments and thus deductible and subject to low tax rates in the grand duchy.Bombardier can then repatriate the money to Canada in the form of dividends, which are not taxable under a tax deal between Canada and Luxembourg.

Bombardier has been the recipient of millions of dollars in federal and provincial subsidies to boost the aerospace industry."

Upperdate : 28 year old Antoine Deltour, LuxLeaks leaker and former PwC auditor, is being prosecuted by Luxembourg for theft, violating secrecy laws, and violation of trade secrets.
Fuck you, Luxembourg.
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Nigel Wright & Linda Frum in the Republican wayback machine

In a week that has featured ...

1) Nigel Wright let off the hook by the RCMP for bribing sitting legislator Senator Mike Duffy in spite of weeks of PMO discussions involving over a dozen senior party officials re buying Duffy's silence,    and 

2) Senator Linda Frum making the most idiotic and widely-mocked attack on Elections Canada over the Fair Elections Act to date, ie  that it is a conflict of interest for Elections Canada to both administer the vote during elections and encourage people to vote between elections, 

... it is fitting that Jay Watts III should dig up a piece of Canadian history that includes both Frum and Wright, as blogged by Brian Busby in a brilliant pair of blogposts that really should be savoured in their own right.

Seems in 1984, a rightwing Republican foundation confirmed it was funding several start-up campus publications in Canada among its 69 across North America. The Institute of Educational Affairs was set up by Irving Kristol, godfather of the US neoconservative movement, his fellow founding PNACer William Bennett, and William Simon, Reaganite, Richard Nixon's treasury secretary and board director of Halliburton Canada. It bankrolled : 

~ University of Toronto Magazine, founded by Nigel Wright - already working in Muldoon's PMO - and his friend and classmate Tony "Gazebo" Clement, and
~ McGill Magazine and editor Linda Frum, daughter of CBC's Barbara Frum and sister to David "Axis of Evil" Frum
~ Libertas at Queens, run by the son of the CEO at the Bank of Montreal. 
The original Canadian University Press article says 7 other clones of Libertas appeared across Canadian campuses that month, including articles of *unusual access* for campus papers - like an interview with George Bush.

Nigel Wright told the Montreal Gazette at the time that he had "no misgivings about applying for and accepting money from the Republican foundation".

The only advice he could recall receiving from the foundation was a circular "suggesting we publish nothing to do with the John Birch Society."

 Right-wing paper covertly funded from US , also published as Republicans fund Ontario & Quebec right wing newspaper :

"We were happy to have help and advice from the Americans," said Nigel Wright. 

In 1982 the IEA and American Spectator, a prominent conservative newspaper, held a seminar for college students interested in starting or maintaining conservative newspapers. More than 40 students attended to hear speakers such as the Spectator's R. Emett Tyrell Jr lecture on taste and strategy. 

"Don't print Klu Klux Klan literature," Tyrell advised. 

IEA Executive Director Phillip Marcus suggested: "If someone accuses you of being racist or sexist, accuse them back of McCarthy tactics." 

One person contacted who attended that conference but asked not to be identified said: "They told me that when I was ready to go ahead publishing, I shouldn't worry about the money. They said they'd take care of that."

From such smug little acorns are whole governments sprouted, along with their bent senators and chiefs of staff and covert bribes and Republican-style voter suppression bills.
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Ap27 Update : While we don't know whether Linda Frum attended the 1982 RepucliCon newspaper start-up seminar that advised accusing opponents of McCarthy tactics, Jay Watts III discovered her doing exactly that in the Montreal Gazette in 1984.
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Another reason to fight the Fair Elections Act

Duff Conacher, Founder of Democracy Watch, on the Fair Elections Act. 
Democracy Watch has a list of "10 really unfair measures in the so-called 'Fair Elections Act' " and a letter you can send to federal leaders here. C'mon, guys, surely we can do better than just 36,000 letters.  

The Cons' contention that the universally negative response to their Bill C-23 is uninformed and hysterical took a big hit today when former AG Sheila Fraser weighed in : 

Ex-watchdog Sheila Fraser slams bill as attack on democracy

'It's just astounding to me,' former auditor-general says of Tories' proposed election law overhaul

"Elections are the base of our democracy and if we do not have truly a fair electoral process and one that can be managed well by a truly independent body, it really is an attack on our democracy..."

Ok, on to my point ...

Fraser has a similar list of complaints to Conacher and also mentions another shortcoming I haven't seen much discussed - that the chief electoral officer will now have to seek prior Treasury Board approval to enter into contracts with people with specialized or technical knowledge.

In June 2011, EC investigator Alan Mathews was looking for Pierre Poutine among VOIPs and proxy servers - a field he knew nothing about. As he said in his ITO : "I relied upon [Simon] Rowland, a subject matter expert in the area of call center systems, telemessaging and telecom product development and network engineering." 

That subject matter expert was the one who provided this analysis : 

"So it's not just what was reported so far -- that the Poutine account and Prescott account were accessed by the same IP within 4 minutes of each other during the middle of this night. It's also that on three separate occasions, someone with both the Prescott and Poutine account passwords used the same browser window to log into both accounts."

I'm guessing if Elections Canada had had to go cap in hand to Tony Gazebo at the Treasury Board for permission to hire that guy and his "specialized or technical knowledge", it never would have been approved and we never would have heard anything about it.

‘Pierre Poutine’ robocalls case: Prescott has given evidence about Michael Sona, Ken Morgan 

and it ain't pretty but catch the explosive end of the McMaher piece :

A national investigation into allegations of dirty political calls has been under way for more than a year. Elections Canada had planned to wrap up that investigation by March 31. On Thursday, spokeswoman Diane Benson declined to say whether it is ongoing.

That report has been postponed until after the 2015 election because of the introduction of the Conservatives’ election bill.
The agency would not say when if ever it will report on the national robocalls investigation.

Friday 11am update : This morning the above McMaher story was changed in the two slightly different versions previously posted at NaPo and canada.com. and is only slightly less explosive.
The NaPo one, listing only Maher, now currently reads :

A national investigation into allegations of dirty political calls has been under way for more than a year. Elections Canada had planned to wrap up that investigation by March 31. On Thursday, spokeswoman Diane Benson declined to say whether it is ongoing.

The agency was expected to include information about that investigation in a “compliance and enforcement mechanisms” report to Parliament this spring.

Benson said the agency has decided not to report until after the next election.
“In light of the government’s announcement in the fall that it would introduce comprehensive legislative reform, Elections Canada decided to postpone the general enforcement report until after the next general election,” she said. “This was necessary not only to focus our attention and resources on the announced reform, but also of the difficulty of engaging stakeholders simultaneously on a parallel initiative.”

while the McMaher one on canada.com goes : 

An Elections Canada report on “compliance and enforcement mechanisms” that was scheduled for this spring has been postponed until after the 2015 election because of the introduction of the Conservatives’ election bill.

That report had been expected to include information on the national robocalls investigation. On Thursday, a spokesman for the agency would not say when any report on that investigation would be released.

 

with thanks to Salamander in comments for the updated version.

As deBeauxOs says : It's #Harper's Fraudulent Voting Reform Act, another #CON!

Friday update :From yesterday: Trapped in a Whirlpool : Parliamentary Civil Disobedience. 

To the Opposition : Go big or go home, stand up for Canadians or be judged harshly by history.

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Lockheed Martin : "We never forget who we're working for"

That famous LM motto ... which in the main of course refers to their $47.2 billion client, the US government. 

Not just an arms manufacturer anymore, LM builds spy satellites for the NSA, plus surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the NSA, the Pentagon, the Postal Service, and the US Census Bureau.

Lockheed Martin - counting some people, blowing other people up.

Rather infamously up here in Canada, Lockheed Martin developed and supplied the data-analyzing software to Statistics Canada that scanned the 2006 census forms using “optic recognition” software and helped rework the program for the 2011 count - sparking fears that famous motto meant census info about Canadians would be funnelled to their biggest client via the Patriot Act.

Today, 89-year-old WW2 war veteran and peace activist Audrey Tobias is in court for refusing to fill in her 2006 and 2011 census. If convicted, Tobias will refuse to accept a fine or community service on the grounds that either would be an admission of guilt. It's jail for her or nothing. 
Her refusal is based on her dislike of LM and their cluster bombs :

“Giving it to a foreign military company sends a message to the Canadian people from our prime minister and cabinet that he supports military solutions. I didn’t like that,” she said.

She doesn't care about the possible invasion of her privacy by the NSA via Lockheed Martin but her lawyer will. 


Lockheed Martin press release, April 2013 :

"Lockheed Martin is a leading provider of cyber security technology and services to the NSA and a number of defense and intelligence agencies."

From 2008 : 

"American officials are pressuring the federal government to supply them with more information on Canadians, says an influential analyst on Canada-U.S. relations."Not only about routine individuals, but also about people that you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge," Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute told a security intelligence conference."

Back in 2006, President of Lockheed Martin’s Americas Region and former Pentagon advisor to Dick Cheney, Ron Covais, was succinct on the subject of integrating corporations like his into the US and Canadian governments :

"We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says Covais. "Because we won't get anywhere."

A LM presser on its relationship to Canada refers to "the development of a North American defense industrial base" :

"Beyond our defence partnerships, Lockheed Martin Corporation stands ready to continue and grow our support to Canada's Census, health care management, information technology, as well as infrastructure and border security to ensure the safe, secure and efficient transit of people, goods and services between Canada and the US."

Health care management? Yeah, they do that too. 

And didn't you guys just get hacked by China a couple of years ago?

In 2010, Tony Clement announced he would "introduce legislation this fall to remove threats of jail time for persons refusing to fill out the census and all mandatory surveys administered by the federal government." But then he didn't.

Fun juxtaposition  : The witness for the Crown against Tobias -Yves Beland, operations director at Statistics Canada - says he has never heard of Edward Snowden and testified that all Canadian census data is completely safe from Lockheed Martin.

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Wed. Oct 9 Update : Tobias acquitted!

"The judge also described the Justice Department's decision to prosecute Tobias, a Second World War veteran, as a "PR disaster."

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Fakers and Cons

Still adding to the list of Con fakery below, if you have more suggestions.
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Fakers

Fake F-35 mock up cockpit from Lockheed Martin for DefMin Peter Airshow MacKay to hold $47,000 presser in to announce purchase of 65 Lockheed Martin stealth fighters in 2010.
Tony Gazebo and Rona Ambrose attending.



Fake citizenship ceremony in which half of the participants were actually Citizenship and Immigration Canada staff passed off as new Canadians on Sun News Network





Fake lake, the $57,000 part of a $1.9 million display for the 2010 G8/20 summit, concerning which I asked some more questions earlier today.

Fake G8 border infrastructure slush fund that splashed $50M around Tony Gazebo's riding for gazebos and flower pots miles away from the border, and incidentally increased his vote margin win from 26 votes in 2006 to almost 11,000 in 2010.

Fake protesters made up of Conservative party interns and staff sent out by the PMO to heckle Justin Trudeau on the lawn of the House of Commons as he gave a presser announcing "new measures to increase transparency in the HoC." 

Fake apology to First Nations

Fake election phone calls, live and automated, presumably originating from the Cons' CIMS data base, either being obnoxious while pretending to be from an opposing party or advising voters their polling station had moved or closed.

Fake Jobs Grant from the same people who thought it was a super idea to grant businesses a 15% wage reduction pass NOT to hire Canadians. This new idea, which doesn't exist yet despite a recent Hockey Night in Canada ad blitz at $95,000 a pop, would again subsidize business while rolling back $300M from the provinces should they agree to hell freezing over.

Fake Commander-in-Chief shtick while surveying Alberta flood damage, and good lord, he's wearing fucking wings.
Unsurprisingly reminiscent of Bush photo op surveying Katrina.  Mr. Dress Up's spox explained it was "in tribute to the military".  
See Boris : last paragraph.

Fake CIDA "not", crayoled in at Bev Oda's request above the signatures of CIDA dept heads, making it look as if they, not she, had gutted KAIROS' funding from CIDA. After initially fudging about it, eventually she fessed up.
Meanwhile over in Israel, Jason Kenney told the Israelis he'd done it for them, then retracted it when he got back to Canada.

Fake security at the G20. $1-billion and 19,000 police unable to prevent a few black bloc from rioting but as protests wind down on the last day, kettling without first giving the crowd a chance to disperse nets many shoppers, media, and people returning home from work in the largest police bust in Canadian history. Public Safety Min refuses to divulge origin of command for police state crowd control exercise.

Fake 'red menace' scare. 
Steve, Airshow, MacKay, and PMO staffers make ridiculous remarks about bravely staring down Russian bombers in the Arctic. Meanwhile Canadian Forces are participating with those same Russian bombers in a Canada/US/Russia exercise in joint air traffic coordination in the Arctic. 
aka Fake justification for purchase of 65 F-35s.

 Fake "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act", which made no mention at all of child pornography because up to an hour earlier this bid to require internet service providers to give police your name, unlisted phone #, and IP address without a warrant was called the Lawful Access Act.

Steve's fake outrage at Lib/NDP/Bloc coalition proposal - with separatists! and socialists! - following the 2011 election.
Following the 2004 election, Harper himself proposed a Con/NDP/Bloc 'cooperation' with those same separatists and socialists to unseat the minority Libs.
In 2000, a proposed coalition of the Bloc, Alliance, and PC parties sought to make Stockwell Day Prime Minister of Canada.

Fake 'grassroots' website Ethical Oil
Alykhan Velshi left a six figure job with Steve's gov to relaunch Ezra Levant's Ethical Oil  -"mooching off free Wi-Fi at coffeehouses and wearing flip-flops” - after which he returned to the PMO fold. Con Resource Bureau-connected webserver Go New Clear hosts Ethical Oil, Jason Kenney, Joe Oliver, Kathryn Marshall, etc.

Faked support for abolishing StatsCan long census. 
MP Maxime Bernier claimed "thousands" of complaint emails per day during 2006 census, all unfortunately deleted, vs. the 22 recorded "expressions of concern" sent to StatsCan. 
When Tony Gazebo falsely claimed StatsCan support for abolishing long census, StatsCan chief Munir Sheikh at left resigned in protest.

Fake smaller government

The Cons' 2012 budget proposed slashing 19,000 positions from the federal public service over five years, but added more than 34,000 between 2006 and 2012 - a 14% increase.                                                                                            Additionally, a 2011 CCPA study discovered a shadow public service: "Over the past five years, federal personnel outsourcing costs have risen 79% ... and remain above $1 billion a year."

Fake emergency preparedness
"It's really just posing," Alberta Fire Chiefs Assoc. Pres. said, singling out fed politicians like SafetyMin Vic Toews showing up to "help out" Alberta flood victims after Cons' 2012 budget slashed federal funding for the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program. "They can just stay in Ottawa. They got in the way."

Fake "cooperation" with Elections Canada, including stonewalling on EC reports of election fraud 3 days before election,  'reviewing' Poutine logs at Responsive Marketing Group before EC, cutting their budget, taking 3 months to not provide EC with witnesses, delaying promised election reforms, and in the words of Judge Richard Mosley : generally engaging in "trench warfare". 


Dr. Dawg sees much of this as Conservative theatre.

I think they're just fakers always hoping not to get caught.

Feel free to add your own "faker" suggestions and links in comments - updating as they come in.

Video version on Youtube 
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