Well, Canada Post is back in operation again thanks to the government blunt instrument known as Back to Work legislation.

Let me get this straight, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers pulls a labor action and tries to do it this time with a delicate touch with rotating strikes in an effort to make their point without inconveniencing the citizenry too much and it's Canada Post is portrayed as the victim here even after they killed all service in a lockout, leaving the union to be punished for all this?

Granted, postal service usage is on the serious decline for at least a decade and CUPW is definitely not in a strong bargaining position considering the industry's long term prospects.  After all, the internet is a game changer so obvious that even mentioning it now feels redundant from the first syllable I put down on this matter. Furthermore, the argument that the strike is going to likely accelerate postal service's usage decline has merit as online methods become ever more dominate.  That said, if we want to make that transition as smooth as possible, we are going to have to do a major online connection initiative on the scale of South Korea's efforts, with twenty times the total land mass.  To say that would be expensive would the most obvious of understatements, unless WI-FI connection can gain the equivalent range of terrestrial radio broadcasts.  Until then, there are still rural areas, small businesses and people who want items shipped with a reasonable price with some appropriate patience which need a public postal service.

However, such hard realities do not excuse the Canadian government from blatantly interfering with specific bargaining terms and arbitration methods in the back to work order.  Doing this is the mark of an outrageous arrogance of Stephen Harper more fitting of a dictator.  Given that such tightfisted control of his cabinet is exactly his style of governing, it seems obvious that he now is giving his best shot to apply it to every element of the Canadian government.  Furthermore, big businesses will be emboldened  to really shaft workers with a reasonable shot of getting the same partiality from Harper with an appeal for the "greater good" of the economy while the corporate heads give themselves the mega-salaries they hardly deserve outside of their own minds.

As much as the New Democratic Party of Canada tried to do its best with its filibuster to delay this measure, it became a futile gesture when Canada Post and CUPW walked away from bargaining to try to head off the imposed settlement.  Still, it was at least a symbolic move that had to be made and it's more backbone on the left than I have seen in some time to fight for the working class. That's enough for me to say I am proud to be among their number for the rough times ahead.

Well, the Federal Canadian budget has been tabled and the false vague promises and real clear threats Harper and his cronies have made in the last election are coming to pass.

As threatened, they are abolishing the vote subsidy to parties, blatantly giving Tories the advantage in fund raising with a blatant tilt of the playing field and allowing big money to have that much more influence on the reins of power again. 

Furthermore, they want to speed up balancing the budget with obvious plans to eviscerate public services while they are still blindly determined to undermine their own revenues with their ideologically driven tax cuts.  Even worse, the F-35 fighters jets, bought without even a competitive bid and the prison boom they want are mooing all the louder as sacred cows. All the while, our environmental problems just something for them to deny completely while our economy's productivity problem is ignored altogether.

The sum total is the willful rightoid creation of our own social underclass with nothing sufficient for them but the prisons to hold them as the scapegoats they will be.

The biggest surprise, that's also a holdover from the original version, is the small budget boost for the CBC for "quality programming." That is surely a setup for saying later that the CBC failed to deliver and then slash it up using that pretext to say it is worthless.

All in all, Harper's real agenda is coming into sharper focus and Canada's soul as a livable caring nation is going to suffer along with the rest of us.