Why do the most right-wing politicians and corporate news outlets always use the term "union boss"? Because the worst thing they can think of is to say the leader of a labour organization acts like a capitalist? Strangely, one of the main reasons workers seek to unionize is to protect themselves from the arbitrary power of bosses.
Dear Mr. Poilièvre: Everyone knows how little empathy the government, including yourself, has towards unions. In reality, Bill C-377 is your way of attacking a workers freedom of association. As a Senator, I refuse to take advice from someone who is against a firearms registry but is in favour of creating a registry of union data.
This week, the debate raged on over the "root causes" of terrorism. On CBC's Power & Politics, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre took a literalist approach, declaring the root causes of terrorism to be terrorists. On HuffPost, the analysis ran a little deeper, with many suggested causes, including oppressive foreign policy. "The root cause [of terrorism] is only depravity," wrote one blogger, Lauryn Oates. "The line between seeking to understand this depravity, and seeking to justify it, is fine and must be tread upon with care." Whatever one's perspective, that's advice worth heeding.
The thrust of this Conservative campaign is to undermine union funding and silence workers' collective voice. In every case, they erect flimsy straw targets to disguise their agenda and the same is true of their attack on the Rand Formula -- the funding model for unions and a cornerstone of labour relations in Canada.
In a few days the "fiscal cliff" deadline will arrive and potentially bring massive automatic spending cuts and tax increases to the U.S. Even if Congress and the President agree to avoid the cliff, the next crisis awaits. It has long been said that when the U.S. sneezes, Canada catches a cold. So why have these debt-related ailments in the U.S. not afflicted the Canadian government? The answer is that Canada has been practicing what the U.S. always preached. That is why we Canucks are not jumping off cliffs or smashing into ceilings.
By digging deeply into our royal roots, we wouldn't achieve the "renewed patriotism" Harper, Poilievre and his other Tory cronies covet. Instead, an honest "renewal of historic memory" would expose the truth that modern Canada, like British North America, is a military power that drives civilization to collapse.