To Wear or Not Wear A Niqab (or any piece of clothing) Should Be A Woman's Choice

Harper Government Loses Appeal.  Niqab Ban at Citizenship Ceremonies Found Unlawful AGAIN.

This should NOT be an election issue - Niqab women taking the citizenship oath are very small numbers; but the Bloc Québécois and the CPC are trying to appeal to the xenophobe in all of us.  

Even among progressives, there are a few rabid pro -'Ban the Niqab' advocates.   
       

A walk through the streets of cold Canadian cities reveals
citizens are very much in favor of face-covering.

They are few, but they're often the loudest and the most assertive, creating the illusion they are many, with their 'Ban the Niqab' opinions.  Most often, their opinions are based on a misunderstanding of the facts combined with the mainstream media's focus to 'sell' the news and reduce complex discussions to a few catchy headlines that stimulate the Amygdala part of our brains, the lizard fear center.

Rather than typing out the same argument in every social media discussion, I'm going to break the whole debate down into numbered sections easy to use as a quick go-to for referencing and getting people to examine their prejudices against the Niqab.

Overheard CPC Candidate:  "Damn, then leggy waitresses could sue so
they don't have to wear those awesome high heels. We can't allow that."

Turn OFF the Corporate Media & Turn On Alternative Media

 

Add caption

Alternative/Non-Corporate News Media Sources Focused on:

• Canada - English & French 
• US, UK, & International
• Radio

LPC History of Duplicity & Broken Promises

For those looking for more background on the history of Liberal duplicity and dishonesty and what they really are - neo-cons with a lighter social outlook - here's a partial list (it's a couple years old) of what they've done both in federal government and opposition, advancing the neo-liberal agenda or supporting the Conservatives.  




Let's not forget Liberal support for #C51, #CCFIPA, and #KXL.  In addition here is some of the legacy of Liberal-Conservative corporatist policies and contempt for the people of Canada:

148 years of Lib/Con governments - Time for Change.

Thomas Piketty: “Germany Has Never Repaid.” Pot Meet Kettle.

//One year after Tomas Piketty sold a record number of economic textbook paperweights which virtually nobody read past page 26, once again showing the power of constant media hype, the French economist and wealth redistributor is out and about, this time pouring more gasoline on the fire started by the IMF last week when it released the Greek debt sustainability analysis showing Greece needs a 30% haircut, only to be met with stern resistance by, who else, Germany who know very well that should Greece get a debt haircut it will unleash the European dominoes which not even all the bluster and rhetoric of the ECB can halt.
And while Piketty's book may have sold out in socialist France, it seems Germany did not leave a pleasant taste in the celebrity economist's mouth, and in an interview with Germany's Zeit magazine, translated into English, the Frenchman just made sure he will never sell another book east of the Rhine. Here is the reason why:

"When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.

... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice."

What he said is perfectly factual and accurate, but in the new normal, truth is not a welcome commodity, especially when it pulls the scab on the single biggest problem with the modern economy, namely the gargantuan debt overhang (see Greece) which nobody can possibly default on without triggering massive contagion around the globe and thus leaving (hyper)inflation as the only possible way out.
A good question is whether this philosophical contrast exposed by Piketty is also indicative of the fundamental schism that is appearing not only within the Troika, where the IMF effectively won Tsipras' referendum for him, but also within the Eurogroup, where Germany may soon find itself increasingly isolated as not only peripheral countries but soon France start clamoring for debt haircuts not only abroad but also back at home...

Senate Reform or Abolition: How Can it Be Done?

So Bottom Line...... 

• The Senate can be abolished. 
• We don't need the senate's vote to agree to abolition.
• Yes, abolition would require a constitutional amendment;
• which would need the House of Commons and all 10 Provinces to agree to the abolition amendment.
• All provinces are protected under the constitutions minimum representation guarantee.

Senate Reform and/or Abolition: How can it be done?

1)  Some people believe that because Canada is a federation, there needs to be an Upper House, some kind of Senate, with representation based on membership in the federation. Germany, the US, Australia (and the list goes on) all have upper houses with equitable or equal representation of the sub-national units. ‘Canada has the only wholly appointed second chamber in the western world’ and that part, at the very least, needs to be eliminated if we are to keep the Senate.

The Green's Confusing Stance on Environmental Issues

Water Underneath a Sea of Petrochemical Plastics

1.  From the Green Party website: 

//The Green Party is the only party opposing any and all current bitumen pipeline plans. We will oppose any and all pipeline proposals committed to shipping raw bitumen out of Canada. We must move to a national energy policy with a strong climate plan.
We need to ensure that by 2100 Canada’s bitumen production is going to petrochemical products, not fuel. We need to recognize that *as a resource it is both too valuable* and too dangerous to burn.//

Click here to read it from the Green Party Blog.

So the Green plan is to give us the next 85 years to use bitumen for fuel, and then by 2100 have switched over to only petrochemical (plastics) production?

But Liz, You're not really breaking up with Bitumen:

http://elizabethmaymp.ca/news/blogs/2015/02/13/elizabeth-may-break-up-letter-to-bitumen/

Dear Ms. May,

Beaches of Plastic (PetroChemical) Waste Replace Sand

In response to your Break-up Letter to Bitumen:

You are not really breaking up with Bitumen or the tarsands are you, only changing the relationship dynamic, very very slowly over the next 85 years?  It doesn't really sound like a break-up to me. You still want to sell Bitumen, just to a different group of Big Corporate Bullies. 

Sure, out in public, petrochemicals are more fashionable than sticky dilbit; unless people take a closer look at what those petrochemicals are made of and what they do to our environment, our bodies, our food chain and our living oceans and water systems. 

Cancer Rates in Towns that Produce Petrochemicals http://www.chatelaine.com/health/canadas-toxic-town/ 

From your party website:  http://www.greenparty.ca/en/blog/2014-11-14/pipeline-politics

Sea Bird's Flesh and Bone Return
to Earth. Plastic that likely killed
the Bird, will remain for Decades.

 "The Green Party is the only party opposing any and all current bitumen pipeline plans.  We will oppose any and all pipeline proposals committed to shipping raw bitumen out of Canada. We must move to a national energy policy with a strong climate plan.
We need to ensure that by 2100 Canada’s bitumen production is going to petrochemical products, not fuel.  We need to recognize that as a resource it is both too valuable and too dangerous to burn."

So the Green plan is to give us the next 85 years to use bitumen for fuel, and then by 2100 switch over to petrochemical production? Isn’t that like going from one abusive relationship to another? 

Toxic chemicals in our air, land and oceans does not seem like a great long-term relationship either. Are you going to change the friends that you and Bitumen hang out with from Big Oil to Big Chemical like Dow, BASF, Formosa plastics, Dupont etc?  Does it really matter?  They are all Big Corporate Bullies and they are all TOXIC.  Did you know that some of them, like Exxon, Shell and Chevron, actually hang in both corporate gangs?

Don't make another bad relationship choice Liz.  Break the cycle, break up with OIL period.

With Love,
From the Earth Bubble and all it's Inhabitants  
p.s.:  Liz, If anyone else besides you reads this response tell them to Click here for more info on the Greens confusing stance on the environment.

Seal's Neck Grows Around
it's Plastic Choker

10 largest Petro Chemical Companies:
http://www.arabianoilandgas.com/article-6235-worlds_10_largest_petrochemicals_companies/ 

Plastics, Human Health & Environmental Impacts:

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/pollution-environment/plastics-environmental-health-literature-review

Garbage Island - An Ocean Full of Plastic:
Part I: https://youtu.be/D41rO7mL6zM
Part II: https://youtu.be/3GX-y1Z1w00
Part III:  https://youtu.be/X5ZKk11R56o

Through the Gyre the Great Ocean Garbage Patch: 
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/fit-for-the-future/pollution/trash-vortex/