same same same

Recently, I was listening to CBC and they said a recent poll found that the environment and climate change were top concerns for Canadians. However, I just read this little article on the Green Party website http://clone.greenparty.ca/en/releases/30.01.2008

Is this right? Mr. Harper just eliminated the position of the scientific advisor? Among the other positions he has eliminated are the Ambassador to the Environment, the President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and the Ethics Commissioner. So basically, when the Harper government recieves information that is counter to his ideological agenda he eliminates the position? Now, the firing of the president of the Canadian Nuclear Comission made the news. The other ones, I didn't hear about. I watch the news, and I listen to the radio -- not all the time, but enough that I am pretty aware of the goings on in the world -- I didn't hear about this elimination of the scientific advisor position until I read the Green Party website. This information is very revealing. The Conservatives are a minority government and they are able to make these changes virtually unchallenged. This government has contempt for science and reason because it does not fit with their ideological agenda. I say this of the entire government. The Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, and even Greens are all to blame. No one is really challenging the neo-liberal agenda. In order to ensure information that contradicts or challenges the economic agenda of the conservatives does not leak out of the PM's office, they eliminate anyone who would provide the government with this information. Scientists, people representing the environment, safety advisors, and ethics advisors. Is this democracy and freedom? Or a government run on ideology and faith?

The neo-liberal rhetoric says shrink government, deregulate business, the market will solve problems. In this system of small government and deregulated business, they say, consumers/citizens will have more freedom. In order to persue this agenda, the government not only ignores, but subverts evidence to the contrary. I watched this movie the other night called Percepolis. A french animated film about a girl's coming of age story growing up in revolutionary and post revolutionary Iran. In the movie, when the Shah of Iran was ousted, the people voted 99.9% to elect an Islamic government. The girl's Marxist uncle explains the popularity of this government by saying "most people in Iran are illiterate, the only thing that unites them is ideology and nationalism". We may not be illiterate here in Canada. But our brains are sure being dumbed down by the ideological politics and e-television and news.