In her Canada Day Column in the Toronto Star - she talked about the things that Canada stands for in her mind and how they are being eroded, whether by changes in the media or legislation -
She says:
Collective bargaining floats all our boats. Without it, there would be no minimum wage, no paid sick leave, no health and pension benefits, no vacations. Do you honestly believe workers would still get a fair break if the bottom liners had nothing to keep them in check?
It's not workers who drove us into this economic mess. Workers weren't paying themselves multi-million-dollar bonuses for running companies into the ground. In fact, as executive salaries were rising, workers' wages were falling.
This isn't the time to get rid of unions. This is the time to be strengthening them.
She also says:Public Broadcasting: Fully funded public broadcasting is good for Canadian culture, which includes tens of thousands of workers who perform and produce programming. . .
I'm talking CBC.
I'm talking excellent original and thought-provoking programming on CBC Radio's Ideas.
I'm also talking The National, which is now riddled with commercials and no longer has the weight or authority it used to have.
That's because, to sell ads, it has to produce eyeballs. That means more Michael Jackson, less Stephen Harper.
And that's not good for Canada.
I hate to say it but The National is too often pre-occupied with trivia. And CBC no longer has the resources to do consistent hard-hitting investigative journalism that answers to no advertisers.
And She says:Freedom of Expression: Excuse me but since when did the interests of Zionist lobby groups determine who or what Canadians can see and hear?
In recent months, to list just three examples, there have been concerted campaigns against the staging of Caryl Churchill's controversial Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza and an academic conference at York University where the so-called "one-state solution'' was to be discussed. We also saw British MP George Galloway be denied entry to the country for a speaking tour, just because he brought aid to bombed-out Gaza.
Now comes word that the only way the respected Al-Jazeera English news service, currently applying for TV distribution in Canada, can win the support of these same Jewish groups is to have them become consultants.
Journalistically speaking, that is hardly kosher.
Hoo-boy, did I hear about this one. The usual slurs of anti-Semitism, etc.
My answer? What part of this isn't true?
And lastly she talks about:
Those kids were hoodwinked, both by their government and its lapdog media, into thinking they were joining up to protect their country from terrorism and Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Rather than welcome them, we send them back over the border and to certain prison sentences.
That's not my Canada.
Is it yours?
So, here's the thing.
When former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the man who won the Nobel prize for inventing UN peacekeeping, came up with the red and white maple leaf flag, he envisioned it as the sort of flag that would not be associated with war.
Kind of like the way the Norwegian flag is today.
It no longer is the case.
Here's the other thing.
When John Lennon and Yoko Ono chose Canada as the venue for their Give Peace a Chance bed-in in 1969, they did it in part because they considered this country as the embodiment of anti-war values.
It no longer is the case.
As I wrote on the wall at the Imagine exhibit at Montreal's Musee des Beaux-Arts, ''John Lennon would not recognize Stephen Harper's Canada.''
So you can see why I enjoyed it - I have edited it some for length but linked to the original at the top -- hope you enjoy her posts as much as I have. . .
