Content of Secretly Recorded Tape used at Rally to Oppose Toppling Harper

Did I hear that right? I craned my neck over the crowd at the anti-coalition rally to see speaker Senator Jerry St. Germain, but all I could see was a black cowboy hat bobbing on the stage. I was at Saturday’s rally at Vancouver’s Library Square listening to people protest the new coaltioin of Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois to topple the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. What I heard St. Germain say surprised me.

He said NDP leader Jack Layton had made statements admitting that he had been planning a coalition of opposition parties to topple Harper for some time. This was the first I’d heard of Layton’s admission made during a conference call with MPs, a call secretly recorded by Conservatives in what a Liberal MP called “Nixonian” style. Layton was taped saying, “This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn’t been made with the Bloc a long time ago and locked them in early.”

Locked them in early. So the upcoming non-confidence vote to remove the Harper government was not a response to the recent fiscal update Harper presented, or it’s lack of an economic “stimulus package” in a time of global economic crisis. That was just spin.

That spin seemed obvious to Canadians who spoke at the rally, offering, “I’m not a politician”, as their credentials. One such person was Dave Prelazzi, introduced as an “ordinary person”. Prelazzi had been invited to speak at the rally after organizing Canadians Against Coalition Government on Facebook and collecting fifteen thousand names on a petition.

“I’m not a politician, I’m not a member of the party faithful” , Prelazzi told the crowd. But he pointed out that Harper hasn’t yet been given a chance to present his first budget. Harper was “not closing the door to a stimulus package”, just “proceeding cautiously”. This was no time for a no confidence vote, in Prelazzi’s view, with the last election barely over. “Our parliamentary system does accommodate these actions, but it’s too soon.”

Harper was governing with a “strengthened mandate” while the Liberals had just had their “worst election performance in history.” Prelazzi was starting to sound like a politician.

Elizabeth Patikan, another non-politician on the stage, called the coalition leaders “bandits, with their unscrupulous behaviour”. She came up with a Spanish label for the leaders which she explained combined the words trespass and bandits: “tres-banditas desperados”.

As both non-politicians and politicians spoke on stage, a few hundred people – the “severely normal” was how this crowd was described by tp of covenantzone.blogspot when I bumped into him there – stood in the intermittent rain listening, waving flags, and chanting “Harper! Harper! Harper!”

This No Coalition event was low tech compared to the Yes Coalition rally a few days earlier. No gigantic video panels on ballroom walls. Just a PA system, a small tent, and a flag. Even the speeches seemed less orchestrated. You didn’t hear speaker after speaker repeat the same catchy lines – “Harper is saving his job, not your job”– designed to push your buttons. Not that the No Coalition wasn’t pushing buttons:

“The separatist Jacques Parizeau is seeing his dream become a reality”, said Nina Grewal, a Conservative MP. “The Bloc will have veto power! Can you imagine that!?” exclaimed Grewal, who spoke in both English and Punjabi with a nod to French at the end: “Merci Beaucoup”.

Fears that the coalition would empower separatists was a recurring theme at the rally. Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day explained in his opening speech that the media’s persistent use of the label “Liberal-NDP Coalition” was misleading as this is in fact a "Liberal-NDP-separatist coalition and we will stand against this!" At the end of the rally, Day told the media, “The fact that this is a coalition driven by separatists has awakened people across the political spectrum.”

With or without separatists, there is nothing illegal about the formation of a coalition government in parliament. That fact was acknowledged by several speakers at the rally, including former constitutional lawyer John Weston, MP for “sea to sky highway country”. Weston told the crowd, “It is technically right to form a coalition, but what’s technically right doesn’t mean it’s right for the country.”

It was MP Randy Kamp who pointed to what so many Canadians are p.o.’d about, the fact that they had no idea when they cast their votes seven weeks ago that an alternate coalition system of government could be installed. “How many of you voted in the last election?, Kamp asked. Most people in the crowd put up their hand. I even put up mine. Many people here probably voted Conservative, some probably voted for other parties, he said. “I know that nobody here voted for the coalition.”

Supporters Chant "Harper! Harper! Harper!" at No Coalition Rally at Library Square

Today's rain didn't stop a few hundred people from showing up for an outdoor rally at Library Square to oppose the NDP-Liberal-Bloc coalition that could topple Prime Minister Stephen Harper. A number had traveled to the downtown Vancouver rally from outlying areas; the young couple standing next to me were from Abbotsford.

Stockwell Day, a Conservative cabinet minister, was the first to speak from a small stage under a white tent with a maple leaf on the roof. Then a number of MP's and three non-politicians spoke.
I'll post more on the rally later, but for now here are some photos.




"Don't Mess with Success" is the line at the bottom of this cut 'n paste poster.

Stockwell Day was accessible after the rally. People were walking up to the stage to offer a comment or a handshake.

But he soon had to give his attention to reporters.

Union Member Opposing Coalition Denied Access to Pro-Coalition Rally Organized by Unions

A union member showed up at the Vancouver rally organized by the ‘Yes Coalition’ on Thursday evening carrying a sign that said all the wrong things. He was denied entry to the ballroom where a rally was being held in support of a non-confidence vote planned for Canada’s parliament in January to oust Stephen Harper as Prime Minister. Unlike the roughly 1,000 people who jammed the ballroom in Canada Place, the dissident did not support the coalition between the NDP, the Liberals, and the Bloc Quebecois which would replace the Harper government.

The dissident stood in the lobby as people filed past him into the ballroom. He was incensed that he was being prevented from entering, explaining to members of the crowd that he is a member of the Public Service Alliance of B.C. which he said was an organizer of the rally.

People stopped to chat with dissident, including at least one reporter, as union security men kept a close watch. When I took a photo of the dissident’s sign, he asked in a friendly tone if I would like to see his other signs. “No”, the guy in the blue shirt and the red vest (far right of photo below) interjected firmly.

Did I mention that restricting democracy was what Stephen Harper was being accused of at the rally inside the ballroom?

Inside the ballroom one speaker after another accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of undermining democracy. Peter Julian, MP for Burnaby-New Westminster, said in a forceful speech: “Stephen Harper has usurped democracy. He has padlocked our Parliament.”

The obviously scripted line about locking the doors of parliament turned up repeatedly in speeches criticizing Stephen Harper for avoiding a non-confidence vote on Monday by requesting that the Governor General shut down parliament until late January. Harper got his wish and escaped a vote which would almost certainly have seen him toppled as Prime Minister. “Stephen Harper put the locks on the doors of parliament”, said NDP leader Jack Layton in a video-taped speech from a rally in Ottawa that afternoon.

Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. The need to invest in infrastructure as part of a “stimulus package” to fend off an “economic crisis” was a theme of the rally. Most speakers mentioned it. Infrastructure spending is, of course, code for union jobs.

“Out infrastructure is crumbling”, said Heather Deal of Vancouver’s center-left civic party, Vision Vancouver, adding that to get it, “We need another government in Ottawa.”

“We need to invest in infrastructure across this country,” said Herb Dhaliwal, former Liberal Minister of Fisheries & Oceans. But first he mentioned that Harper had “reached out and slapped the opposition in the face.”

Peter Julian said we need “to repair a sagging infrastructure that we see across the country.” And to do that, “We need an economic stimulus package.”

The event was heavy on symbolism. When I walked into the ballroom, the first thing I saw was a humongous Canadian flag hanging at the front of the room. There were three more huge flags, one on each of the gigantic video monitors at the sides and back of the room. Large Canadian flags hung from the railing that divided the seating area of the ballroom from the standing room only area at the back. At the beginning of the rally, people stood to sing the anthem, ‘Oh Canada’.

But the most striking symbolism was when the videotaped speech from Liberal leader Stephane Dion to this NDP-laden crowd malfunctioned. “Ohhhhh,” I could hear people seated around me saying in low tones. “It’s not cued up,” said the chair. When the video did come on a few minutes later, we could see Dion’s face but the sound didn’t initially work.

Dion said we are facing the worst economic crisis “since the great depression”. That left me wondering if he was telling the truth. I had just read Andrew Coyne’s column (hat tip to dag at covenantzone.blogspot) in MacLean’s making fun of the current panic about the Harper government not doing enough about the oncoming depression:

“How could the government be so blind? Can it not see that unemployment has soared to 6.2%? Why, that’s four-tenths of a percentage point above its recent, thirty-year low. And what about Canadians’ fears of losing their home, what with the proportion of mortgages more than 90 days in arrears standing at an all-time record 0.2%? Okay, it’s an all-time record low, but still. When will it realize there’s a Depression on?”

Ooops!

Canadians are taking the Harper vs. Coalition fight in Ottawa seriously, even though it’s eating into their Christmas holiday time. Heather Deal got surprisingly few laughs from the crowd when she asked, “Why aren’t you shopping?”

Even Santa, who was walking around the Canada Place lobby greeting people, wasn’t finding it so easy to get laughs. When two men who appeared to be rally organizers spotted a couple of young children sitting behind a pillar with their mother, they walked Santa over to greet them. “Ho, ho, ho!” Santa asked in a jolly tone, “So do you support the Coalition?” The young mother responded in a less than festive tone, “No.” Santa responded, “Neither do I.” Oh, Oh, Oh. Santa instantly moved on and the children, like most Canadians, were left asking questions about what exactly was going on.

Dan Tetrault Lied

Dan Tetrault lied. A few months ago, a Downtown Eastside resident asked Carnegie Assistant Director Dan Tetrault and Security Co-ordinator Skip Everall if she would face retaliation if she made her story public by telling it to bloggers. Hers was yet another story of civil liberties abuses under Carnegie Security boss Skip Everall, Director Ethel Whitty, and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault.

Like other Carnegie members, this woman knew how Carnegie member William Simpson had been treated when suspected of chatting with bloggers. On two occasions, he was chased across the gallery on the third floor of Carnegie into the stairwell by Board member, Bob Sarti, who repeatedly yelled, "Tattletale Queen of the Carnegie!" This happened twice. Then Simpson was banned from Carnegie entirely under pretenses that involved fraud. If she was going to be subjected to this type of backlash, she wanted to know in advance.

Everall resisted giving the woman assurances that she would not face retaliation. Tetrault was reluctant at first but when she pressed him on it, he told her, "No", she would not face retaliation.

Guess what the woman is now experiencing? Retaliation. She says the retaliation began shortly after her story was published on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

Under the Whitty administration, staff, volunteers, Board members, and a number of regular users of Carnegie have been told not to speak to her. One longtime friend told the woman that she had been warned twice by two different people not to talk to her as anything said "will end up on the blog." The two friends still talk, but trust has been eroded.

The woman has been chased into the stairwell at Carnegie and yelled at -- sound familiar? -- by a guy who writes plays, according to witnesses who were having dinner at Carnegie this month. Witnesses say the playwright, whom they identify as one of Whitty's "pets", lives outside the Downtown Eastside but is paid to write plays in which he provides a 'voice' for Downtown Eastsiders. Like Whitty, he apparently has little tolerance for Downtown Eastsiders providing their own 'voice' by speaking to bloggers. According to witnesses, this playwright chased the woman into the stairwell and yelled "Blogger! Blogger! Blogger!" after her as she climbed the stairs.

I asked the woman to corroborate witnesses' account when I saw her at Quest food store last week. She remembers the incident and she remembers that the playwright seemed "wound up" But she couldn't make out what he was saying, recalling only that, "He was shouting one word over and over. It could have been 'blogger....I was almost at the top of the stairs before I stopped to see who he was yelling at." There was nobody else on the stairs or in the stairwell at the time, but she didn't know what was going on so she continued up the stairs.

The woman feels most harassed, she told me at Quest on Saturday, by the brazen breaches of confidentiality involved in the "leaks" from the Whitty regime that she was the focus of a "security" report. When you're banned from an area of Carnegie for alleged misconduct, the ban is supposed to be confidential, she explained. Only staff with access to the Carnegie Security log book and computer database are supposed to know about it. (It hasn't been bloggers who have breached confidentiality, as we did not publish this latest victim's name to avoid extending the defamation she had already been subjected to by Whitty, Tetrault, and Everall.) Come to think of it, the Carnegie Security log book and data base would be covered under BC's confidentiality legislation.

Whitty is blatantly classist in her breaches of confidentiality. She vigorously upholds the right to confidentiality of staff accused of misconduct, but she allows the names of low income people barred for alleged misconduct to be spread far and wide. This woman estimates that 50 people have now been told of her banning and that she is somebody to be wary of as she talks to bloggers. This information spread to povertarians as far away as the Learning Exchange in Chinatown. (More will be written on Whitty's breach of confidentiality as we collect more information on it.)

The woman says that Whitty has been breaching her confidentiality from late 2006 to the present, approaching one of her male neighbors on two occasions to discuss her, fish for information, ask him leading questions, and encourage him to "turn me in for things I didn't do." All of this was done on regular City work hours.

"Incitement of hatred" is what an advocate she spoke to calls this.

Royal Bank Hired Gunman Orders, "GET MOVING!!"

It was almost 10 p.m. on Sunday night when I rushed to the cash machine at the TD Bank in Chinatown. The TD now locks the cash machine at 10 p.m. to prevent the homeless from sleeping in there. I was too late, the door was locked. Another customer arrived also to discover that he was too late.

A homeless guy -- I didn't ask him if he was homeless but he looked frail and had lots of missing teeth so I assumed he was homeless -- was standing there and said, "Don't worry, I'll open it for you." He pulled a card out of his wallet, stuck it in the door and flicked the lock open.

I knew he would hit us up for spare change, and he did. But he wasn't aggressive. As I walked north on Main St., he walked alongside me, chatting.

Suddenly, three armed men came toward us. One said "Excuse me, GET MOVING!!" I realized then that these guys had pulled up in an armoured car (on the right of photo above) and were entering the Royal Bank, presumably to pick up money. Now they owned the sidewalk.

We had been sauntering along and it would have been obvious to the guard that we would be past the Royal Bank in less than a minute.

I told the homelss guy that I felt like telling that guard that this sidewalk was public space. The homeless guy told me not to say anything, "They've got guns." I retorted, "I'm going to go back and take their picture when they come out." "NOOO!", he responded, "They've got guns!" I took a picture of their vehicle, but I stayed well back. They came out of the building about five minutes after verbally abusing us.

Churchill Armoured Car service passes Carnegie Center after picking up bags at RBC across the street.

I thought of the Pivot Legal Society report, "Security before Justice", that has just come out on the problem of homeless people being removed from public spaces by private security. Pivot's Laura Track told the media "They're limiting people's access to public space and relocating the homeless..." I also recall Track telling the media that this discrimination is often based on a person having the 'appearance' of being poor.

Although I would like to see Pivot criticize civil liberties abuses by publicly-funded security guards as much as they do private security, I can see what they mean about, "Security before Justice" in public spaces.

My mood was wrecked for an hour after being told to "GET MOVING!!".

Giving the White Man Black Lung

There was a native smudge today in the Carnegie theater. Something was being burned, sage or sweet grass or something, but ventilation had clearly not been taken into consideration in the planning.

The 'cultural sharing' programme is run by a white woman, Diane, and a native man, at least the last time I looked.

When I dropped into the building at 11:50 a.m., the air was filled with smoke. I thought the smoke would just be on the first floor where the theater is located. But as I walked up the stairs, I couldn't breathe normally; it was like I couldn't get enough oxygen. I was trying to decide whether I should go back downstairs or keep going up. I got to the back of the third floor where the air was better, probably because the computer room nearby has it's own ventilation system. My lungs are normal, but there are occasionally people in Carnegie who are on ventilators or have health problems.

But you can't say anything about not being able to breathe because political correctness is as thick as smoke in the air. You're supposed to be grateful that you're even allowed into Carnegie as it is on "Coast Salish land". At the All Candidates meeting held at Carnegie prior to the civic election this month, an organizer from the Downtown Eastside Neighborhood House thanked the Coast Salish people as this even was taking place on their land. And candidate Andrea Reimer piped up to say she was glad that fact was acknowledged.

A further note on cultural sharing: natives who have made their way into the establishment at Carnegie, like Stephen Lytton and Marlene Trick George, are 'thick as thieves' with the white people operating it as a site where the poor are routinely denigrated and denied basic civil liberties. Some of the worst abuses have taken place in the Seniors Center where the supervisor is native activist and Carnegie staff person Marlene George. Stephen Lytton is a Carnegie Board member and after listening to public concerns about an elected Board member being blocked from entering the building for Board meetings, he suggested they allow "the man" back in. Other Board members ignored Lytton and he has never spoken out again on the issue.