bill C-51

Markham-Unionville Green party candidate on bill C-51 and the party whip

October 1, 2015 Incoherent ramblings , , ,

I wrote a quick note (see below) to Elvin Kao, our local Green party candidate.  His response was:

Hello Peeter,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. Unlike the other political parties, the Green party is the only party that does not whip votes. I am responsible to listening to my constituents first, and then the party second. This is what makes the Greens different and why we need government reform, so that Greens in all ridings are properly represented.

The Green party was the first party, with the help of Elizabeth May, to say that we would repeal Bill C-51. I agree with the party stance on this. The current bill as written has too much ambiguity in the definition of terrorism, has no oversight on CSIS, is an invasion on Canadian’s human rights to privacy and free speech. There has also been no proof over the existence of government monitoring, how effective it is in counter-acting terrorism and I would like to see conclusive data from CSIS before granting even more over-reaching powers.

If you have any other concern, feel free to contact me again.
I hope to have your support October 19, 2015.

Thanks,
Elvin Kao

He doesn’t touch my embedded question on “Canada’s increasing warmonger status”.  I don’t know if that means he’s not familiar with “our” role in world oppression, or if he just missed the question.

My side of the correspondence, including a previous note to the incumbant as context is below.

Hi Elvin,

As part of my investigation of current running candidates, I’d like to hear your stance on bill C-51, and Canada’s increasing warmonger status. I’d written the following to the previous incumbent for our riding, expressing my displeasure with the liberal party acceptance of the police state bill. I didn’t expect (nor ask for) a response, but he answered by voting for the bill.

Presuming the Green party ends up with a more significant membership in this election, does this party also plan, like the other parties, to also have the insane policy of enforcing voting the party line, or will members be allowed to vote according to what they perceive to be the desires of their constituents?

Peeter Joot
—

The Honourable John McCallum,

I’m writing to call on you to take a firm stand in support of the government’s carefully thought out, harmless, and effective Bill C-51. I’m asking you to side with Canadians and vote for this legislation.

I applaud the Canadian government initiative to exploit the fear-porn potential of the recent parliamentary shooting to its advantage.

The bill is prudent because it turns CSIS into a ‘secret police’ force with little oversight or accountability. Oversight and accountability are both highly overrated. History has proven that secret police forces have been important forces in many effective governments. Without a secret police force Stalin would not have been able to cull so many millions of the excess citizens of his country. Without a secret police force Hitler would not have been able to implement his death camps. In this day of omnipresent globalism Canada clearly needs its own secret police force to remain competitive.

The bill is useful because it opens the door for violations of our Charter Rights including censorship of free expression online. If people are able to express themselves openly, how can they be controlled?

The bill is effective because it will lead to dragnet surveillance and information sharing on innocent Canadians. Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau or any other current or future politician would love to have such powers available for blackmail and manipulation purposes.

I applaud the government for trying to push this law through parliament in record time without a proper debate. No Canadian wants to see meaningful discussion in government. Reruns of Jerry Springer is clearly sufficient debate for most people. Inhibiting discussion is prudent since questioning authority and the power elite just feeds uncertainty in these difficult times.

If this bill doesn’t pass, it would limit opportunities for the Canadian government to spy on anyone, at any time. No Canadian wants to know when such spying has occurred. We want to create a shadowy and unaccountable secret police force that will have such a critical role in removing the freedoms of a nation that cannot be allowed to question government and authority.

Please, side with the majority of Canadians who are clueless and have never heard of this bill. Please don’t talk about or vote against this important legislation. Assuming you decide to vote for this bill, I hope you also won’t have any part in educate Canadians about this bill. Nobody needs to know what government allows itself to do “in our names.”

I’m one of the millions of Canadians who are perfectly happy with the status quo, which includes politicians who will not represent us in any meaningful way. I am assuming that you will be towing the party line and will vote for this bill. I already know that free expression is not tolerated in government, so when I see an affirmative vote for this bill, I’ll know that the world as I know it is stable and cannot be changed by individual action.

Please don’t respond to this letter. I do not want a response outlining the reasons that you will not be voting for this bill. Such a response would serve to destroy my worldview that assumes no politicians act for nor truly care for their constituents or Canadians in general. I want to continue to view politicians as pawns placed in positions of powerlessness and ineptitude, incapable of altering or even accurately observing the world around them.

Sincerely,

[signed]

Peeter Joot

Canada’s ministry of homeland security

May 14, 2015 Incoherent ramblings , , , ,

This last month, I’ve seen one name come up more than any others related to police-state actions and government overreach.  That name is Steven Blaney, the Minister of Public Safety.  He’s the one that sponsored bill C-51, he’s the one who has apparently attempting to arrange for US soldiers to police portions of Canada, and who has recently been caught proposing that groups that opt for BDS bans against Israeli-government actions be prosecuted under hate speech laws.  As Greenwald comments he and the government now both deny the latter.

So what is this Ministry of Public Safety?  That ministry is named in an Orwellian fashion, and contains a number of departments that have a large potential to abuse their power:

 

Basically, here under one roof is all the capability to spy on Canadians, restrict our rights, and then lock us up if we don’t comply.  It’s like the little sister of the United States Department of Homeland Security, with bits of the NSA and CIA tossed in.  The only thing missing is military power.  The total (declared) budget of this ministry is 6 billion dollars.  Compared to its United States counterparts this is an infinitesimal amount of operating cash, and they want more.

Understanding that “Minister of Public Safety” is a misnomer brings a lot of clarity when you consider that this politician is the one that tabled bill C-51.  Basically that bill is an attempt to grant the police state subset of the Canadian government, run by Blaney, more power.  It would be more accurate to have named this bill the “Please grant my Ministry more power” bill.  It now also makes sense how this bill appeared so quickly after the recent parliamentary shooting.  Blaney isn’t a lawyer, but a civil engineer by trade, so wouldn’t have written this himself.  I’d guess this was written by general-council in his ministry long before this shooting and was held in waiting for just this sort of perfect catalyzing event.  That is, of course, pure speculation.

Interesting news.

As a first look at this Ministry and its head, I did a bit of digging, and found a couple of interesting articles

 

The first and second are excellent examples of just the sort of overreach and abuse of power that people are concerned that Bill C-51 would allow.  The only disclaimer is that these are events that have already occurred.

This ministry is indirectly responsible for gun controls, the subject of that last article.  I don’t know a thing about guns nor that specific Swiss weapon, but am completely unsurprised that a politician has been caught playing the game of saying things in the press contrary to reality.

Bills tabled by Blaney

What else is the Ministry of Public Safety up to.  Here’s a list of bills tabled by their figurehead:

An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and to make a consequential amendment to the International Transfer of Offenders Act

An Act to enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act and the Secure Air Travel Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts

An Act to amend the Firearms Act and the Criminal Code and to make a related amendment and a consequential amendment to other Acts

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act

 

This ministry has been busy.

 

Letter to parliament (John McCallum), thank you for your positive Bill C-51 vote.

May 11, 2015 Incoherent ramblings , , , ,

 

From: <me, address, date>

Cc: peeterjoot.com/

 

 

To:

The Honourable John McCallum,

House of Commons

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada

K1A 0A6

 

The Honourable John McCallum,

 

I see at https://openparliament.ca/votes/41-2/395/ that you voted for bill C-51.  I asked for this in my letter dated April 15, 2015.  However, I thought I should now point out that my original letter was intended to be satire.

Satire has been used historically for political commentary.  This was true for example of Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984”.  Given your vote on bill C-51, it seems clear that the intent of the book “1984” was not clear.  This book was supposed to point out many dangerous trends in society of the time.  It was not supposed to be a manual.

I do not know if your vote for C-51 was due to a belief that this was what your constituents wanted this.  Perhaps you were looking at biased or old polls that indicated this was true?  There would have been a time when the media hype for the parliamentary shootings would have gotten just this sort of reactionary support.  However, once people started behaving rationally again, support for increased police state actions against Canadian citizens should have been a hard sell.

Perhaps you voted for this because you felt obligated to?  Your political party requires consensus views and actions.  For reasons that I’ll never understand, the current figurehead of your political party mandated that you would not be able to vote your own view, let alone the views of your constituents.  I really can’t imagine how you can tolerate being part of such a system.  Did you realize that once elected you would be powerless, and not be given the opportunity to vote for your own views?

How a system where party consensus is required can be called democracy is beyond my understanding.  Perhaps this is because I have a 12-year old mentality.  When I took civics for the first time back in junior school, this concept was just as insane.  Perhaps I am the childish insane one to think that the forces that truly govern behind the curtain would allow things to be any other way.

You as a member of parliament, and I as a citizen of Canada, both know how much of a farce democracy in Canada is.  Once every few years the “people” get to exercise their “free will” electing a representative.  Even if our chosen representative is elected, as many as 49% percent (assuming the ideal of all voting) will be unrepresented.  Those who do get their selection of “representative” are probably compromising on a number of issues, and are really crossing their fingers hoping not to be screwed by the power elite.  Even assuming our representative makes it into their figurehead position, you have no more power to actually represent us than a stick floating upstream.  You have to fight the entrenched bureaucracy of the Federal government, surely an unmovable force.  For that I give you my deepest condolences.

It is my expectation that this positive C-51 vote is going to backfire strongly on both the Conservative and Liberal parties.  Canadians have been shown by the actions of both that they are indistinguishable.  For those that still believe in the concept of modern democracy, you will likely find that this will increase voter apathy.  This bill is just more of the same old crap.  The government is once again voting to give themselves more power.  If that is why you voted for this I guess it makes sense.  It’s sad and demoralizing, but it makes sense.  In essence a positive vote is like a positive vote for a pay raise for government.  Unfortunately, we all have to pay for that raise.  We all have to pay for our own enslavement.  This will probably mean that an NDP Federal figurehead will lead the next round of the show come election times.  I don’t personally believe that it will make any difference.  It may make a difference to you, since you might be forced to get a different job.

Presuming that you did read this or my previous correspondence, I doubt there is anything that you can say that will fight off the feelings of complete betrayal.  I doubt there is anything that you can write that would inspire non-existent believe in Canadian democracy.  I write this as if you will actually read what I say.  I don’t know if that is the case.  Perhaps I am corresponding again with Mr. Nicholson from your office?

Even if you do read this, and even if you do respond, I doubt there is any sort of justification that you can make that I will judge to be in good faith and to be well reasoned.  This is why people don’t want to know what our “leadership” is doing in our names, and do not want to be involved in the Canadian system of government.  It is too depressing to know come face to face with just how pointless and hopeless it is.  Thanks to your vote on bill C-51, perhaps I’ll go back to ignoring what I can’t change, and let myself and my kids become ever more enslaved.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Peeter Joot

Letter, re: Minister Blaney arranging for United States invasion of Canada

April 23, 2015 Incoherent ramblings , , , ,

From:

Peeter Joot

[address]

April 23, 2015

Cc: peeterjoot.com/

 

 

To:

The Honourable John McCallum,

House of Commons

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada

K1A 0A6

 

The Honourable John McCallum,

I’ve read a pair of very disturbing Toronto Star articles this last week:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/04/19/could-armed-us-border-guards-be-coming-to-union-station.html

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/08/01/surprise_stephen_harpers_us_border_deal_does_imperil_canadian_sovereignty_walkom.html

These both detail an agreement between Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney with United States Homeland security, to allow armed US soldiers to police Canadian locations.  I am not surprised to find that this action to attempt to make Canadians more fearful, imposing a police state and police presence that is not justified, is being pushed by Minister Blaney.  According to prior correspondence with your office, he was also responsible for tabling bill C-51 in the parliament.

This is objectionable for so many reasons that they are hard to enumerate.

I’d first like to point out that the United States has a long history of military and covert interference in other countries, and frankly, has not demonstrated a historical record of integrity that is sufficient to be trusted with the role of policing other countries.  A concise but thorough synopsis of that disgusting history of interference can be found in William Blum’s book “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”.

In particular, note that this book also details military actions against Canada and Canadian citizens by psychopaths in the United States establishment that would be called terrorism if they were to occur in this day and age.

In my struggle to attempt to comprehend a claimed rationale for this action against Canada, I can come up with only one real possible justification, but it is only good for the United States, and is no good for Canadians in any way.  That justification is a guess that not only have Blaney has negotiated for Canadians to be vassals of United States overlords, but that we will also pay for this privilege.  With so much of the United States industrial base now destroyed by globalism made possible by agreements like NAFTA, one of the only remaining exports that they have available is military force and their armaments industry.

How much will Canadians pay for the privilege to be policed by United States military?  To station United States military personal in Canada, there will be salary cost, equipment cost, berthing cost, plus costs for expenses such as food.  In my opinion, all of these costs provide no conceivable benefit to Canadians in exchange.  This role, if it was really required, could also support Canadians instead of the United States military establishment.  I would like to know how much of each of these respective costs are Canadians expected to pay for?  Are there other expenses that Canadians will be picking up the tab for to facilitate this invasion?  How many Canadians will have to be paid to act as liaison between these US soldiers?  The cost of the law suits that will occur when one of these soldiers shoots a Canadian without justification are hard for me to imagine.  Has there been an estimate made for how much legal expense the Canadian government, and implicitly the Canadian taxpayers, will have to absorb if such an event occurs?

 

Sincerely,

 

[signed]

 

Peeter Joot

A parliamentary office response from first C-51 letter.

April 16, 2015 Incoherent ramblings , , ,

Eating crow.

Rather unexpectedly, I’ve received a response from the office of my parliamentary representative John McCallum for my questions about supporters and financiers of Bill C-51. This is the government’s terrorize-Canadians bill that’s milking the fear-porn from the recent shooting at the parliament to increase it’s secret policing and domestic spying infrastructure.

When I wrote Why you should support Canada’s bill C-51 terrorism bill, I also assumed that I’d receive no response.  With that assumption I wrote that I was sending a paper letter so that the civil servant who had to press the delete key for my first letter would have to file a union grievance against me.  Not only was that incorrect, but Mr Nicholson has done an admirable job answering those questions.

That said, it’s hard not to laugh a statement like “corporate donations are prohibited at the federal level.”

The response.

Dear Mr. Joot,

Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to you. We receive a great deal of correspondence, and do our best to reply in as timely a manner as possible.

I will do my best to answer each of your questions in turn. With respect to the authorship of C-51, it would have been written by officials in the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Justice. The bill was sponsored in the House by Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney. There is no way of knowing precisely who provided the impetus for the bill in cabinet, nor how those discussions progressed.

With respect to financial backing, as I am sure you know, corporate donations are prohibited at the federal level. As such, Members of Parliament may only receive donations from individual Canadians. Elections Canada has a detailed donor database that allows one to search through the donation records of MPs and federal candidates. I have included a link to their robust search tool: http://elections.ca/WPAPPS/WPF/EN/CCS?returntype=1

As far as we know, there are no previous versions of this bill that existed prior to the events of October 22, 2014.

Thank you for writing Mr. McCallum. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns.

Kyle W. Nicholson

Parliamentary Assistant

Office of the Hon. John McCallum, P.C., M.P.

Member of Parliament for Markham-Unionville

 

 Followup Q&A

In response to the additional question:

“Is there any public database of past corporate affiliations and employment history of politicians that are currently in office?”
Mr Nicholson writes:
“Unfortunately, there isn’t a central database. The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner posts the disclosures every member of parliament must make, which includes an external income and assets – see https://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/EN/PublicRegistries/Pages/CodePublicRegistry.aspx. As far as employment history is concerned, you’re pretty much limited to Google.”