PHOTOS: Former Canadian Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, now leader of the Conintern. (Photo: Remy Steinegger, Wikimedia Commons.) Below: Margaret Thatcher, just another moderate leader of the “centre right.” Dig those pointy collars! Mr. Harper’s former lieutenant Jason Kenney, who is now the leader of Alberta’s “centre right.”
Stephen Harper was chosen yesterday as leader of the Conservative International, or as I prefer to think of it, the Conintern.
OK, supporters of the former Conservative Party prime minister of Canada would no doubt prefer we called the group by its legal name, the International Democrat Union, but the secretive and well-funded organization calls itself the Freedom International, so its members are obviously thinking along the same conspiratorial internationalist lines.
The Conintern benignly says it plays “an essential role in enabling like-minded, centre-right parties to share experiences in order to achieve electoral success.” In other words, it’s set up to interfere in other countries’ elections, only with more money and more operatives than the typical troll farm in Leningrad, or whatever they’re calling that place nowadays. And it does.
If Mr. Harper’s recent appointment, or the appearance of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher on the roll of honoured founders, doesn’t get the penny to drop, consider this notation on the group’s website: “A major event is also held every four years to coincide with the Republican Convention.”
While Canadian Conservatives were screaming in outrage about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s trip to India, his Conservative predecessor’s elevation to leader of the International Right was taking place in Salamanca, Spain.
In Spain, the pain, falls after the campaign. Or, to put that another way, today’s bad economic idea in one place is tomorrow’s horrible policy in another … and yesterday’s bad prime minister, God help us all, is apparently today’s international ideological beacon.
This story has nothing whatsoever to do with the Comintern, which was something completely different.
I’m not making this up either: Rebel Media to offer investment advice
While we’re catching up on stories about “centre right” organizations, I’m sure readers will share my interest in the news Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media has created a financial investment arm.
Press Progress noticed yesterday that Mr. Levant’s far-right online vlog channel is marketing something called the “Rebel Freedom Fund,” which is “directed at investors seeking to save for retirement.”
The man who made the phrase “ethical oil” famous, called the fund an “ethical investment” in a promotional video, Press Progress reported.
Well, you just can’t make this stuff up, can you? As Progress Alberta’s Duncan Kinney (no relation to anyone with a similar but different name) observed in a Tweet last night, what could possibly go wrong?
Teach those kids a little respect – blame a teacher!
Postmedia columnist Rick Bell, whose stenographic skills are nowadays mostly devoted to jotting down what United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney has to say and putting it on Alberta’s Website o’ Record, has devoted an entire column to Mr. Kenney’s extended social media tantrum about how the Alberta Teachers Association invited environmentalist and scientist David Suzuki to speak at a meeting.
According to Mr. Bell, Mr. Kenney “has heard a parent say their kid came home from school accusing them of killing the planet because they work in the oilpatch.”
So I guess that’s it then. There’s obviously a conspiracy between the ATA and Dr. Suzuki! After all, it’s not like Mr. Kenney would just make something up!
Next up: Time to make home schooling mandatory in Alberta!
Bad ideas from the past like huge $10b deficits and bans on secret ballots for union votes are bad ideas from the past yes, but they are here with us today thanks to extreme leftist governments like we have in Alberta. For shame!
Extreme leftist? If only.
Pfft!!!
An interesting and entertaining potpourri of stories this morning.
Myself, I was taken with Calgary Sun scribbler Rick Bell’s piece on Jason Kenney’s puerile chastisement of the Alberta Teachers Association for parachuting David Suzuki into their AGM. Bell has become the party’s resident hero worshiper, an unabashed sycophant who shamelessly promotes Kenney and the UCP at every opportunity — mostly to change the channel from the bad UCP press coverage occurring way too often these days. Bell continually exhibits tendentious conservative journalistic ramblings favouring all things Jason Kenney, as Climenhaga aptly points out. Maybe, someday Rick Bell will discover the other opposition parties in Alberta and expand his anti-NDP and anti-union rants beyond his biased conservative dogma. I’m not holding my breath on that though — once a Rick, always a Rick.
Interesting bit about Rebel Media soliciting investment from its readers. Given Rebel’s devoted followers, I suspect it will have some decent success, at least initially. After all, the people willing to believe Ezra’s ‘news’ are already showing a pretty significant level of gullibility. What remains to be seen is what will happen when they learn the hard way what the word ‘target’ means in the phrase ‘TARGET rate of return of 4%’. What will investors do when they don’t get the 4%?
Silly me. At first I had read the magic word as “comintern”, another haywire outfit that tried to rule folks lives with a flawed ideology. Thanks for the clarification. As for Harper running this group, I”m hoping it will be so secretive that I’ll never have to look at that neo-fascist’s portrait again.
I am sure just as the rehabilitation of Mr. Mulroney started after he left office, so to has Mr. Harper’s. Hopefully Mr. Harper will be clever enough not to accept bags of cash from shady German businessmen, so that might make the task easier. However, unlike Mr. Mulroney, he seems inclined to say or do things that are a bit off message, such as some of his recent comments on NAFTA, so maybe the rehabilitation may not be so easy. I’m not sure Canadians care much if his has taken up a position in some international conservative organization and if they do, I expect it will not necessarily be seen as positive.
We often focus on the day to day, but there is also a longer term perspective in politics. Over the years the pendulum swings back and forth and Ms. Thatcher is a good example of that. She took the UK quickly quite far to the right and the pendulum has been going back the other way ever since she left. If Corbyn becomes PM of the UK, which is not unlikely at in the near future, it will continue that swing. So too, a few years ago in Canada it seemed like the right was in ascendancy, with Mr. Harper as PM and career conservative politicians like Mr. Kenney serving as cabinet ministers. Now, Mr. Kenney is no longer in Ottawa being driven around as a minister in a government car or limousine, and was reduced to getting corporate donations for his big blue truck to drive around Alberta, presumably without funds for a driver.
I don’t know how far the pendulum will swing in Canada, but Federally it does not look promising for the Conservatives that they will regain power soon. Also, Alberta is no longer the neo Conservative one party state that Mr. Kenney left in the 1990’s in his quest for power Federally, although Kenney is trying to doing his best to make himself look like the second coming of Ralph from the early 1990’s, however apparently without the folksy charm.
Currently, only two out of 10 Provinces have a Premier that could be described as Conservative and neither big city Mayor in Alberta could be described as Conservative. There may be more of an uphill battle for Conservatives in Canada than they think or like to portray. I suppose trying to rehabilitate Mr. Harper gives them a little project to work on, while they struggle on trying to regain power.
Ugh! So Harper is still at it eh? Here is some more info on another iffy alt-right group to which Harper was a founding member, ‘The Northern Foundation’:
http://www.facebook.com/Project.Democracy/Canada/posts/695334127166690
Racism, anti-medicare, pro-apartheid…..are some of the issues involved.
There is plenty more info on ‘The Northern Foundation,’ and the folks involved, who try to present the ‘ultra right’ as “non-threatening moderately conservative politics.”
We should not be fooled.
It’s interesting that Harper has doubled down, ideologically. Most people who carried a political banner, regardless of which side, tend to mellow out somewhat as they age…life experience and other priorities having softened their hard lines. That Harper is still at it says something interesting about his personality and lack of intellectual growth. Then again, perhaps he just couldn’t get a nice quiet teaching job at the U of C (too many campus radicals, no doubt).
Well, at least now he no longer needs to pretend that he is a moderate conservative…..