Scumbag Harper lauds press freedom in speech, doesn't take questions from reporters

 Harper lauds press freedom in speech, doesn't take questions from reporters

Prime minister yet to comment on explosive allegations that top government officials knew about torture of Afghans taken prisoner by Canadian soldiers

Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged journalists to “shine light into dark corners” of government affairs during a speech late Saturday, but wouldn't take questions from reporters covering the event.

Mr. Harper, who is known for his sometimes prickly relationship with parliamentary reporters, made the comments during an ethnic media awards dinner in Markham, north of Toronto.

Freedom for Canadians goes hand-in-hand with journalistic freedom, he told the dinner guests gathered at Seneca College in Markham, home to thriving Asian communities.

Members of the ethnic press and their readers understand what it's like in countries where “truth is only what the state says it is” and journalists are co-opted as government mouthpieces or threatened with their lives, Mr. Harper said.

Things couldn't be more different here in Canada, he added.

“Our government does not tell journalists what to say, or attempt to intimidate those with whom it disagrees,” he said.

“Instead we believe strongly that Canadians' freedom is enhanced when journalists are free to pursue the truth, to shine light into dark corners, and to assist the process of holding governments accountable.”

But shortly after making the speech and handing out awards, Mr. Harper was whisked through the black curtains behind the stage without taking questions from reporters.

The Prime Minister's staff said before the event, which was open to the media, that Mr. Harper would not be taking questions from reporters covering the event, which was organized by the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada.

He has yet to comment on explosive allegations that top government officials knew about the torture of Afghans taken prisoner by Canadian soldiers and handed off to Afghan forces.

Since Mr. Harper came to power, the schedule for cabinet meetings became shrouded in mystery, requests for routine information can take days or sometimes ignored altogether and delays in processing freedom-of-information requests has grown markedly.

His office also imposed new rules that allow Mr. Harper's staff to choose which reporter is allowed to ask him a question — a practice more commonly used in Washington by U.S. presidents.

The federal Conservatives have long courted ethnic voters through the newspapers and other media that serve them, a tactic used by the Liberal party for decades.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-lauds-press-freedom-in-speech-doesnt-take-questions-from-reporters/article1373034/

What's the secret of Stephen Harper's success? Assume voters are stupid

Here are six examples over the past week in which Mencken's comment appears to be guiding Conservative actions:

* Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice refused to acknowledge the urgency of global warming on the eve of important climate-change negotiations inCopenhagen next month. They didn't seem too bothered by a new report from the Global Carbon Project. Based on the latest study on carbon-dioxide emissions, the report suggested that global temperatures could rise by an average of 6 ° C by the end of the century.

* Harper's defence minister, Peter MacKay, smeared senior diplomat Richard Colvinfor telling a special Commons committee on Afghanistan that he sent a blizzard of e-mails warning about the torture of Afghan detainees after they were turned over to Afghan captors in 2006 and 2007. On November 20, Foreign Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence stated that future witnesses "will provide important context and information about this issue". NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewarcorrectly interpreted these messages as an attempt to intimidate witnesses to toe the government's line as well as a way to subvert Commons hearings. Harper probably thinks the masses won't pay sufficient attention to this issue to recognize the magnitude of his government's outrageous conduct.

* Harper met an Indian movie star, Akshay Kumar, on a trip to Mumbai in a cheap attempt to win South Asian votes at the same time as Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is cutting the number of refugees by more than half next year.

* The Conservatives had the gall to distribute a pamphlet in ridings with large numbers of Jewish voters claiming that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was no friend of Israel even though a former Liberal government listed Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations over the objections of many Canadians of Arab descent.

* Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released a draft code of conduct for the credit and debit card industry that did not include any controls over interest rates charged by the issuers of these cards. It's hard to see how these proposed rules would have any impact on the amount of interest that consumers fork over to the banks, but it gives the Conservatives a chance to claim that they're doing something about credit cards.

* Flaherty gave another speech about the $50-billion-plus budget deficit in which he failed to acknowledge that Conservative military policies will have a tremendously negative long-term effect on government finances. Estimates of the cost of the Afghan war have exceeded $20 billion (including the cost of rehabilitation for veterans of the conflict).

In all of the examples listed above, Harper appears to be assuming that most voters are stupid or, at the very least, that they're not paying attention.

Clearly, the prime minister is, in the words of Mencken, not under the impression that he will lose his public office by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if one day, the great masses of the plain people proved Harper wrong.

http://www.straight.com/article-271598/vancouver/whats-secret-stephen-harpers-success-assume-voters-are-stupid