Stephen Harper: FAIL

For many students, failing a course is a fate worse than any other while at school. Within this realm, there are two kinds of failure: failure due to lack of understanding and failure due to cheating.

In many ways, it is failure by cheating that is worse. Those who do it don't think they'll be caught and are able to enjoy the lull between cheating and getting caught.

Cheating is an especially timely issue for students at Ryerson having just witnessed the largest story on cheating and plagiarism last year in Canada.

However, this is probably not what folks at the Canadian Federation of Students were thinking when they developed their party platform report card, released today. They were judging platforms issue by issue, not based on plagiarism. As such, the F earned by the Conservatives was because of performance on tuition fee policy, not plagiarism.

Failure due to both performance and plagiarism can be an indication that you may want to reconsider your choices to study a particular programme or at a particular institution. Getting an F in politics due to both performance and, on the same day, being accused of plagiarism may be an indication that there is something seriously wrong with your party.

In a video released today by the Liberal party, it is clear that Harper borrowed parts of a speech about the war in Iraq from one delivered by John Howard, then-Prime Minister of Australia. Owen Lippert, a former foreign policy adviser and campaign worker has been canned for the gaffe.

A video of Harper, superimposed on a video of Howard has been uploaded to the Liberal party website. It shows the parts of the two speeches that are the exact same.

Stealing from yourself is one thing, but it is indeed plagiarism when it's taken from someone else. The originality report from turnitin.com would likely result in a zero in the assignment and an F in the course, if he were a student in a class.

But he isn't, and really, Harper and his Conservatives should get many Fs for a number of their policies and public statements: tax cuts over social spending, refusing to do university debates, the war in Afghanistan, racial slurs against First Nations peoples, the list could go on for days.

Grading the Harper Conservatives, and the other parties, is a useful tool to get a message across. But things should be placed in perspective: how embarrassing it is for us Canadians to have such a leader, and how difficult it will be for university administrators to prosecute students who are found to have cheated.

Imagine the new defence: if Stephen Harper did it and got elected to be Prime Minister, why can't I?

Who will be able to argue against this logic with a straight face?

Canadian Death Toll in Afghanistan Nearing 100 as Federal Election Looms

Today, the 97th Canadian solider was killed in Afghanistan. This would otherwise be top news on most Canadian news sites, if it had not been for the fact that the writ dropped this morning, launching the Canadian political scene into a federal election.

With 2,500 Canadian troops in Afghanistan right now, Canada’s role in the occupation of Afghanistan should be a major theme in the October 14 Federal election. But be sure that both the Liberals and the Conservatives will do everything possible to keep this issue out of the media. The Liberals slyly committed Canadian troops to the NATO-led occupation of Afghanistan after tens of thousands of Canadians demonstrated vigorously to keep Canada out of Iraq. By 2006, under the Conservatives, Canadian troops were leading offensive operations in Southern Afghanistan where some of the fiercest fighting was taking place.

To put Canada’s role in perspective consider the following numbers. It costs Canadians on average $1.3 million per day to keep soldiers and military equipment fighting in Afghanistan. By February 2009, the planned end of the mission, it is estimated that the bill will reach about $4.3 billion. This includes over $1 million spent in funeral services.

Despite these numbers, the continued unpopularity of Harper’s direction in Afghanistan and the growing Canadian anti-war lobby, it is expected that a Conservative government will keep troops there beyond the planned pull-out date. In fact, they are getting help from Former Liberal Cabinet Minister John Manley, whose panel looking into the matter, not only called for an extension to Canada’s involvement in the war, but for the troop commitment to increase by another 50% and for more high-tech equipment to be committed.

With the Americans planning to play an increased role in the Afghanistan war, insiders are bracing for the situation to become much more “nasty”. It is highly likely that the number of troops dead will reach 100 before Canadians go to the polls on October 14. The only real uncertainty is what kind of backlash the Conservatives and Liberals will face in the federal election for getting Canada into this situation.

War Resister's case sent back to Immigration and Refugee Board by Federal Court

It had just been reported that a Federal Court has ruled that the Immigration and Refugee Board must rehear the case of Joshua Key, a war resister.

Key had spent eight months in Iraq and witnessed “savage acts committed against civilians” by US soldiers. He fled to Canada after deciding not to return while home on leave.

This is good news for the hundreds of American war resisters who are in Canada either in hiding, waiting to hear about their own refugee case, or facing deportation. Corey Glass, a resister who could face redeployment to Iraq if he were to return to the United States, faces deportation on July 10. This is despite Parliament voting in favour of letting Glass and other resisters to stay.

According to an Angus Reid poll conducted online, out of 1001 Canadians asked, 64 percent do not want Glass to be deported.

The War Resister campaign has had a lot of support from students’ unions across Canada. For students’ unions, links are often made between aggressive recruitment on campuses in the US to the high cost of post-secondary education. In both Canada and the US, it doesn’t take too long to hear a recruiter use the notion of free tuition to lure low- or middle-income students towards a “career” in the armed forces.

Isn’t it time for the Conservatives to listen to the will of the people they’re supposed to represent? If parliament has already voted in favour of letting Glass and other resisters to stay, the Conservative government has a responsibility to listen to the majority.

Of course, that’s only if they actually believe in democracy.