Proroguing Parliament four times, shutting it down for a total of 181 days.
In 2008, Harper prorogued Parliament after opposition parties
threatened to bring down his minority government. He did it twice more
in 2009 when Harper claimed he wanted to keep Parliament in recess
during the Winter Olympics (while opposition members felt it was to
avoid investigations into the Afghan detainee affair)— and the fourth
time was in 2013 after the opposition said he was avoiding questions
over the Senate spending scandal.
Omnibus bills. Starting in 2010, Harper tabled a
bill with 883 pages that included changes to Canada Post and
environmental assessments. Since then, Harper has passed 10 more omnibus
bills to circumvent debate in parliament, often making sweeping changes
to laws and regulations. “All have been an abuse of process and shown
contempt for Parliament by subverting its role,” editorialized The Globe and Mail
last fall. “Major changes to policy and law that should have been
examined by MPs have been pushed through with almost no debate,
sometimes with disastrous results.” One bill attempted to appoint
Justice Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court, although he was not eligible.
In 2012, one of the omnibus bills, C-38, completely gutted Canada’s
environmental laws, cut $36-billion from health care funding, weakened
Canada’s food inspectors through job cuts, and made it harder to qualify
for EI benefits.
Robocalling during the 2011 election. Michael Harris, in his book Party of One,
calls it “Canada’s worst election scandal.” Just prior to election day,
some voters across Canada received recorded calls that either told them
to go to the wrong polling station, or were of a harassing nature,
purportedly made by opposition parties. The targeted voters didn't
support the Conservatives. Investigations revealed the involvement of
RackNine Inc., a political consulting firm the Conservatives hired, and
Michael Sona, a low-level Conservative party staffer who was sentenced
last year to nine months in prison for his role. Two judges found that
it was likely other senior Tories were involved.
Fair Elections Act. Last year the Harper
government overhauled Canada’s election laws to deal with electoral
fraud. But its critics soon labeled it the “Unfair Elections Act”
because it weakened the power of Elections Canada, effectively muzzling
the chief electoral officer from communicating with the public and MPs
about investigations, and cut off the agency’s investigations arm, while
polling supervisors were now to be appointed by the incumbent party’s
candidate or party. (Elections Canada used to appoint them.)
Gagging scientists from speaking freely about their research.
Numerous scientists have been prevented from speaking to the media,
especially those researching the environment. The government has also
been accused of sending “minders” when some scientists have attended
international conferences, along with speaking points, to ensure they
stay on message.
In 2013, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
(PIPSC), which represents 20,000 federal scientists, found that hundreds
of their members said they had been asked to exclude or alter technical
information in government documents for non-scientific reasons, and
thousands said they had been prevented from responding to the media or
the public.
Spying on environmental and aboriginal activists.
Jeffrey Monaghan, a criminologist at Carleton University, has obtained
documents from CSIS and RCMP through access to information laws that
reveal how these agencies are spying on the environmental movement,
especially those opposed to pipelines or who participate in National
Energy Board (NEB) hearings.
These groups include Idle No More, Leadnow, ForestEthics Advocacy,
the Council of Canadians, the Dogwood Initiative, EcoSociety, and the
Sierra Club of British Columbia. The documents show how information on
various groups is shared among the intelligence agencies and the NEB.
They also revealed that twice a year, at the CSIS headquarters in
Ottawa, top-ranking members of the RCMP, CSIS and the CSEC meet with oil
industry representatives to brief them on the “threat” from
environmental and aboriginal groups.
Auditing environmental and civil society groups.
In the 2012 budget, the government announced it was going to earmark
$8-million so that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) could begin auditing
selected charities. Seven environmental groups were soon targeted. This
sum has since been increased to $13-million a year and expanded to
anti-poverty, foreign aid and human rights groups, such as Amnesty
International, as well as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
and United Church of Canada. Last fall, the Broadbent Institute issued a
report that said these audits were politically motivated – because no
conservative think tanks or groups had been targeted.
Taxpayer-funded political ads. This spring, Finance Canada is planning to spend $13.5-million on ads to boast about the government’s budget. The Toronto Star estimates
that $500-million has been spent by the Harper government since 2009
promoting its programs – $75-million in 2014 alone. Finance spent
$7.5-million on Economic Action Plan ads, Employment and Social
Development spent $7-million on a skills initiative campaign, and the
CRA spent $6-million on ads about new tax measures. Queen’s University
political science professor Jonathan Rose told The Globe and Mail recently: “What’s so egregious is the blatant way that they’re priming the electorate before an election.”
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