This so-called “government” is such an embarrassment and its media propaganda machine is a discredit to journalism.

Citizenship is something that can just can “faked” for the cameras, eh, Jason Kenney?

Six federal bureaucrats were drafted to pose as new Canadians for a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony broadcast on the Sun News network, an event requested by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s office.

The bureaucrats smiled and held Canadian flags as the TV hosts referred to a group of 10 people as “new Canadians” that had “finally” received their citizenship.

Documents released under Access to Information legislation show that just a few weeks before Canada’s Citizenship Week last October, Mr. Kenney’s staff directed departmental officials to add a last-minute citizenship ceremony at the network to their list of scheduled events.

Bureaucrats scrambled to work out the logistics, suggesting to the minister’s office that Sun News could cover one of the 13 scheduled ceremonies in Ontario – four of them in Toronto, including one at the Air Canada Centre.

One senior bureaucrat at the registrar of Canadian citizenship expressed concern to Mr. Kenney’s office that Sun News seemed to want to feature “only” the oath, which might short-change new Canadians from the full ceremony experience.

“We have to keep in mind that the ceremony should first and foremost be a special (sic) for the new citizen, most of whom will want family and friends (sic) attend this very special day in their lives,” the bureaucrat wrote.

When a bureaucrat sent Sun News a list of possible citizenship ceremonies to cover in Ontario, a network employee suggested another scenario.

“Let’s do it. We can fake the Oath,” reads an email from a sunmedia.ca email address, the name blacked out of the document.

A Facebook friend puts it nicely:

Absolutely incredible… the disrespect and disdain for the meaning of Canadian citizenship, credible journalism, the independence of the bureaucracy and seperation of media from state control… this one is really too much and really shows the CPC hasn’t formed a government, its formed a propaganda machine with a majority of seats.

Sun News? Get out of the business! You are a shame to all honest media outlets! You are the Canadian version of Pravda! Cons complain about CBC bias but Sun Media is nothing but a propaganda machine – pure and simple.

Kenney? He should apologise! But we all know that the CPC folks NEVER apologise for anything… ever.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Thanks to Sister Sage’s Musings for this… hilarious example of how the Cons say one thing but but do another… yeah, yeah, (anticipating Squid and Ken) they all do this – but catching someone (especially JK) red-handed is especially satisfying!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Jason Kenney, who has fervently opposed same-sex marriage when it was debated in Parliament (I remember this clearly) has personally nixed the idea of having a text box in the study guide that includes a bullet on ‘equality rights’ under list of rights. His departmental officials had noted earlier that this bullet should be reinserted into the list as a means of noting the equality of all based on race, gender, sexual orientation etc.

He spoke against the Civil Marriage Act, or Bill C-38, when it was debated in the Commons in February 2005. And days earlier, Kenney told a session with Toronto-area Punjabi journalists that gays had every right to marry — as long as it wasn’t someone of the same sex.

The huge problem I have with this interference is that the government of the day has a duty to promote and support the laws of the land – even if they personally do not agree with them. ESPECIALLY in this case where new immigrants are being educated about Canadian values.

Equal rights regardless of sexual orientation is one of these values.

Such decisions should not have been placed in the hands of the Minister and should have remained the decision of his unbiased staff in CIC – decisions to be made on the basis of sound policy principles and strategic and operational considerations.

Mr. Kenney should resign.

I wonder what his colleague John Baird had to say about this.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Good ol’ Jason Kenney. Always the nice politico with kind words for little old ladies, soccer moms and anyone else eligible to vote. The “target audience”, one might say.

To Jason and the rest of the Harperites, the immigrant population is an important part of this group.  It is reckoned that by capturing the hearts and minds of Canada’s immigrant communities, then the Promised Land of Majority Government is within reach.

So it is no surprise to me that one of Harper’s chief lap dogs was in a Hogtown Chinatown grocery store yesterday to offer moral support to a grocer that is facing charges including kidnapping, forcible confinement and assault after he collared a shoplifter who came back to his Toronto store. The guy was pretty sick of losing a considerable amount of his inventory to those folks who advocate the 5 finger discount method of pricing, so he took matters into his own hands.

Whether or not you agree with taking the law into your own hands is moot. What is relevant is that a Minister of the Crown, in a blatant attempt to gain political brownie points, has broken one of the key tenets of our judicial system and interfered with a case that is before the courts.

Afterward, the minister said he didn’t want to interfere in a court case. But he offered sympathy to merchants of shoplifting. He said Mr. Chen, who arrived as a refugee in 1991, is an exemplary newcomer to Canada and a victim of crime.

But he HAS interfered. Just by showing up and expressing support for the shopkeeper, he has in essence thrown out the principal that politicos shall NOT interfere or APPEAR to have interfered.

Funny thing is that this is by no means the first time that JK has been accused of political interference. Reported in the Embassy Magazine on July 22, 2009;

Jason Kenney has compromised his position as immigration minister by repeatedly slamming the validity of various refugee claims and blatantly undermining the independence of Canada’s refugee tribunal, legal and immigration experts, including former IRB chairman Peter Showler, are charging. Over the past several months, Mr. Kenney has publicly declared asylum claims by U.S. war deserters to be “bogus,” accused would-be Mexican refugees of systematically abusing the system, and questioned the legitimacy of refugee claims by Roma from the Czech Republic.

As above, it matters not if you agree with the move to impose the added conditions to Czech refugee claimants; it’s not the point.

The Minister of the Crown is responsible for the way that his or her department carries out business and interprets and acts upon policy directives. It is therefore correct to reason that if the Minister is expressing a strong opinion about a particular issue that is relevant to the department, the department will likewise follow that course in its actions. An institutional bias is introduced.

Peter Showler, a former chairman of the IRB and director of the Refugee Forum at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa, said Mr. Kenney has absolutely introduced institutional bias into the refugee board’s decision-making. He said Mr. Kenney’s comments have caused a “significant amount of damage” to individual refugee claimants from Mexico and the Czech Republic, as well as to the judicial process.

“I am not aware of a single previous minister of immigration who has made such remarks, who has intruded on the judicial process in this way; not one,” Mr. Showler said. “This is extraordinary and I think he has overstepped the line, and I think the courts are going to tell him that he’s overstepped the line.”

This interference is unprecedented and must not continue if we Canadians hold an independent and non-political judiciary and immigration system to be an important part of our society.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario