Good, old-fashioned grassroots action leads to arrest

Written by tinfoil on Friday, 11 May 2007 10:18

Well, this isn't typical tinfoil.music fare, but it involves a guy who's a drummer in a political punk band, so that counts right? Sure it does.

A document from the Conservative government here in Canada was leaked last week, which isn't terribly unusual. It contained parts of a speach to be given by the Minister of the Environment, a fellow by the name of John Baird. The document was an advanced copy of Baird's upcoming plans on dealing with climate change, which many Canadians were actively looking forward to hearing. See, the environment has become quite a hot topic in Canada and the current governments lack of action with regards to it has been a sticking point for much of the country.

Indeed, the person who previously held Baird's post was essentially laughed/booed out of her office. Her plan was just that bad.

You see, Canada is a member of the Kyoto Accord and was instrumental in writing it up. So, it looks pretty bad when we ignore it, as we are doing now.

Right about now you're saying "Ya, and? This and a buck thirty-five will get you a large double-double." A fellow by the name of Jefferey Monaghan is being accused of leaking the documents. This kid of 27 held an entry-level temp job with Environment Canada in a capacity that *may* have given him access to the document as he was working in a publicity capacity. However, the person that hired this bloke certainly didn't perform any due-dillagence. Jefferey is pretty much 100% against Harper and the Conservatives and is a known environmentalist who may or may not have links with Earth First. He's also helped setup an "anarchist" book store in Ottawa, though your definition of anarchist is likely different from mine, Jeffereys and the media, natch. Oh ya, and he's the drummer for a band that's about as anti-Harper and anti-right as you can get.

How did this guy get hired on for a government position that is dealing with the media?

What is getting my goat, however, is that this fellow was lead out of his office, in a pair of cuffs, by some of the country's finest RCMP officers? That seems a little excessive to me. Give him his two weeks notice and invite him to "not let the door hit your ass on the way out" would be the reasonable thing to do.

Right, this is Harper's government. Baby-Bush, as he's been nicknamed, hates the media, hates publicity and thinks he can control what the populace knows and doesn't know about the day-to-day activities of his office. It seems his motto is something to the effect of "Hey, we're doing our job so leave us the hell alone." Well, unfortunatly that doesn't work in a public position. The people who pay the salaries and posh pensions have a pesky habbit of wanting to know if they are getting a good product for their money. Right, like they've ever gotten that, but Harper's government is taking the public disinformation campaign to levels never seen in Canadian politics. We're not used to this up here. Our government is almot kind of reasonably transparent up here, not like other North American countries which will go unnamed.

Thankfully the opposition parties have taken up the side of Jefferey. While some are calling what he did as not his brightest move, they can all agree that Harper is overreacting in a big way.

You can find more about Jefferey's band on his MySpace page . The music ain't my thing, but atleast their page isn't the typical MySpace puking of HTML.

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