In an era in which circulation figures for most newspapers are falling faster than water over Niagara Falls, do newspaper endorsements in election campaigns still matter? At the risk of appropriating the language of click-bait, the answer may surprise you.

While the Canadian experience is less immediate and, even among the most politically engaged Canadians, less discussed than the recent American example, let us begin to by examining the situation at home.

There’s a growing concentration of media ownership: There are only two truly independent dailies publishing in English—The Whitehorse Star and the Fort Frances Daily Bulletin—and the same number in French—Montreal’s Le Devoir and L’Acadie Nouvelle, from Caraquet, N.B. Consequently, endorsement decisions are no longer made at the editor’s desk in each Canadian community, to the extent that they ever were.

During the 2015 federal election, every Postmedia daily that endorsed a party called for the re-election of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (some published an editorial credited to Postmedia and some wrote their own endorsement). That spate of endorsements was, surely, almost as predictable to their readers as the Toronto Star’s pro forma call on their readership to again back the Liberal Party.

Consider the fact that, in many Canadian communities, there simply is no longer a daily newspaper. Oshawa, Ont.—a city of 168,000 people—lost its daily in 1994 when it closed down in the midst of a labour dispute. Dailies serving Guelph, Ont. and Nanaimo, B.C., closed in 2016, while dailies in two other B.C. towns, Cranbrook and Kimberley, became weeklies in the same year.

The Guelph Mercury, a paper born in the same year as Confederation, struggled with declining circulation numbers for years. When its owners at Torstar finally pulled the plug on the paper, it had circulation of just over 11,000 (subscribers and individual sales), in a city of 120,000 people (not including surrounding townships). While some might argue that it’s difficult to lament the loss of an institution that was apparently so little valued in its own community, the truth is a little more nuanced.

The Mercury had for the last eighteen years of its existence been tied together with the Waterloo Region Record. For most of the time, it shared a publisher and an editor with the Record, and all copy editing, page layout and printing was farmed out to the Hamilton Spectator. With the remaining eight reporters doing their best to cover local news, sports, and entertainment, the real wonder is that the paper lasted as long as it did. It is hardly surprising that the longstanding indifference of its owner was met with the indifference of its target audience.

With daily newspapers suffering declining readership, does it even matter who they endorse? Certainly, the New Democratic Party, which received the endorsement of not a single daily newspaper in the 2015 federal election, would argue that it matters. Indeed, historically, the NDP has received support from a daily newspaper only twice in its history (the Toronto Star in both 1984 and 2011), and both of those were highly qualified, almost grudging endorsements that were widely assumed to have been brought on by the weakness of the Liberal Party at the time.

Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois can usually count on the support of Le Devoir, but other newspaper endorsements are split between the Liberals and Conservatives (as noted above, often predictably). For better or for worse, the prevailing “red door/blue door” narrative of Canadian politics is largely supported by a news media that assumes that there are no other choices, and—in the case of newspapers —makes that abundantly clear in its endorsements.

If endorsements didn’t matter, newspapers wouldn’t bother to publish them. Clearly, the owners of newspapers feel that they have influence over their readers and are not averse to using that influence. After all, television networks and radio stations in Canada don’t take editorial positions during election campaigns, although they are often accused of being too close to or to hostile to particular governments in their news coverage.

Even as their traditional readership declines, newspapers are part of a fierce competition for clicks, likes and shares. Published endorsements are spread widely on social media by partisans and others before the ink that printed them is even dry. In this way, they can be expected to have a much stronger impact now than when newspaper circulation was much higher.

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Even with the growth in the importance of Facebook and other online advertising, newspapers still hold more credibility than bloggers, Twitter trolls or Instagram users, which is presumably why so much of the “fake news” that dominated the American presidential election pretended to come from more legitimate sources (if you’ve ever clicked on, or worse yet shared, a link from the Denver Guardian, for example, you were supporting the burgeoning fake news industry).

If the U.S. presidential election taught us anything (other than to be very afraid of whatever lurks in the souls of American voters), it is that newspapers and their endorsements still matter a lot—although not always in the way that they were intended to matter. Take, for example, the case of the Arizona Republic, which endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. That might not seem like such a big deal until you consider the fact that the paper began publication in 1890 and had never endorsed a Democrat until 2016.

In a story written for National Public Radio, Meg Anderson argues that “newspaper endorsements matter most when they’re unexpected.” She cites a 2008 Pew Research Center survey, in which “nearly seven in 10 Americans participating said that their local newspaper’s endorsement had no effect on who they voted for, regardless of who the paper picked. The rest were split between saying it made them more likely and less likely to support a candidate.”

She also points to a separate study that found “one scenario where a newspaper editorial board may make a difference: when a newspaper bucks its own tradition”; that is, when a conservative-leaning publication cannot stomach their party’s nominee and endorses a Democrat, or simply denounce their party’s nominee without formally endorsing their opponent.

One suspects that endorsements or anti-endorsements from publications that don’t normally express an opinion at all would similarly carry more weight than one from publications that habitually endorse one party or another. Thus, when the USA Today broke with 38 years of traditional neutrality to scathingly denounce Donald Trump or when Vogue made its first presidential endorsement ever, it was much more surprising to readers than the endorsements from the New York Times or the Washington Post.

To be sure, certain supporters of Trump thought the Arizona Republic’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton mattered a lot. The paper was besieged with death threats and vitriol for weeks after publishing its endorsement. Its publisher responded with a very brave editorial speaking out against the backlash (reiterating the reasons for their endorsement and citing something called the First Amendment), which only led to further attacks against the paper and its staff.

More newspapers endorsed “not Trump” than endorsed Trump himself (although he did receive the endorsement of the National Enquirer and the Crusader, the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan). He received far fewer editorial endorsements than did Mitt Romney in 2012 or John McCain in 2008, and many staunchly Republican papers endorsed Clinton.

Of course, both Romney and McCain lost, while Trump pulled off an improbable victory. Some might see this as a clear indication that newspaper endorsements don’t matter, or at least didn’t matter this time. But, in fact, it can be reasonably argued that they mattered a great deal.

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One of Trump’s recurring narratives—and one that worked particularly well for him—was that the corrupt media elites were out to get him. As Time magazine noted during the campaign, “Trump has been laying out his theory for weeks, gradually expanding the list of institutions that are rigged against the American people…. Most of all, he blames the national media, which he claims is single-handedly keeping the Clinton campaign afloat. He said the Washington elite and national media existed for a single reason: ‘to protect and enrich itself.’”

If you believe Trump, and the election result is conclusive evidence that nearly half of the people who voted did, every newspaper endorsement (regardless of the source) was just further evidence that he was right about the media. There is something called “confirmation bias,” which Psychology Today explains as follows: “When people would like a certain idea [or] concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true.” It prevents climate change deniers and anti-vaccine campaigners from accepting facts that contradict their own deeply held beliefs. Similarly, the more the news media reported on outrageous things that Trump said, the more they became part of the grand conspiracy to keep him from becoming president.

In an interview with the CBC following the election, John Cruickshank (a former publisher of both the Toronto Star and the Chicago Sun-Times) responded to questions from host Diana Swain about the message that election results send to the media. “I think we’re part of the lives of about half of the population, and that was really proved out in the election in the United States. And we’ve seen it here, too, in Canada, where there is tremendous dissatisfaction among people who are of a more conservative bent, or more from the rural part of Canada, with the media…. The campaign was covered as if it were a plebiscite on the character of Donald Trump, but it wasn’t, really.”

Does this mean that the media should stop doing its job? Most assuredly not. But, they should recognize that all of their fact-checking and endorsements won’t change the minds of those who have already decided that the traditional media is the enemy.

Fact-checking and editorial endorsements will also do nothing to counter what has been called “the post-fact era,” in which uninformed opinion is given the same weight as evidence-based scientific studies and fake news and conspiracy theories get far more clicks than well-researched analysis. Countering that trend will take a much larger effort on behalf of citizens to demand better from both their politicians and their media and, in the case of the latter, to be willing to pay for it.

Trudeau volunteered at McGill University’s sexual assault centre. He notes in his interview that he was one of the only male facilitators there. His work there is what he credits for his response to two Liberal MPs who were proven to have sexually harassed multiple women. After the first report was made to Trudeau directly, he suspended Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, and eventually expelled the pair after an investigation. During his interview he says of the events, “When she came to the leader of a different party to talk about this, I realized that this was something that I wasn’t going to simply shrug and look away from.” Though he says in the same interview that any sort of violence against women is unacceptable, and that his party will strengthen the criminal code for repeat offenders, he could not offer a dollar figure for what was being put aside for places like women’s shelters: “The issue with the infrastructure program we’re putting forward is we’re being a partner to municipalities and provinces. I don’t think it’s up to the federal government to draw lines on a map or to tell a municipality what it needs and where.”

Trudeau often spoke of misogyny within the old boy’s club of politics, and in older generations. However, when asked about why it exists in younger generations, he mentioned misogyny in certain types of music and absent fathers in certain communities. “Is it a coincidence that two of the three factors Trudeau cited about violence against women are well-worn stereotypes about black people,” asked activist and writer Desmond Cole while tweeting about Trudeau’s interview last month. Trudeau responded to these questions regarding subtle racism when speaking with reporters in Montreal on September 22, “I wasn’t speaking of any community in particular. I was saying as leaders, as parents, as community leaders, we need to make sure we are combating misogyny in all its forms, wherever it’s found. Whether it’s in fashion magazines or popular music or popular culture, we all have to work together.” Still, this wasn’t what was initially said. His original comments were pretty specific and the dots were not hard to connect. Even the most well-intentioned rich, white dude is bound to be out of touch with the rest of us, but I hope he continues his education on the social factors he admits to playing a role in our society’s acceptance of misogyny.

The Liberals talked about improving childcare throughout their campaign. Something that is much needed, especially after being destroyed by the Conservative party. A national childcare plan has not been laid out. Instead, money will be given to each province to address their specific childcare needs. But as Up for Debate interviewer Fracine Pelletier says, this does not necessarily mean better childcare, “[Mulcair’s] saying, you get this money if you do a daycare. You’re saying we’ll give you money, we hope you do daycare.” This is a fair point, and it would certainly be more comfortable knowing there is a solid national childcare program in place.

Another fair point was that though Trudeau and his party are pro-abortion rights, Prince Edward Island, lead by a Liberal government, does not have access to abortions. Trudeau responded saying this needs to change and that he will have a conversation with any jurisdiction not living up to its responsibilities under the Canada Health Act, which includes reproductive rights.

When Harper said Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women were not radar-worthy, the Liberal party said a national inquiry is needed. The party’s Policy Resolution 110: A Resolution for Action for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women states the Liberals will reinstate the research funding the Tories took away from Sisters in Spirit, a research, education, and policy initiative run by Indigenous women researching and raising awareness about violence against Indigenous women and girls. The party also says they will align themselves with Indigenous advocacy groups.

The Liberals opposed Bill C-36 and Trudeau has said they will be looking at the Nordic Model when reforming the law. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network quote the party saying it will “deliver on prostitution reforms laws formed in consultation with experts and civil society, including sex workers themselves, which includes rigorous examination of supporting facts and evidence.”

There are so many more questions regarding women’s rights that have yet to be answered. Unfortunately this is all a wait and see situation, one that we need to keep on top of whilst trying not to be distracted by a no-more-Harper afterglow. Seriously, though, that was a heck of a celebration.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Here’s a glimpse so far:

Up for Debate

Wouldn’t it be handy if there were a debate specifically about women’s issues? There hasn’t been one since 1984. That means there has not been a debate focused on women’s issues in my lifetime. Up for Debate, an alliance of over 175 national women’s organizations, invited Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, and Elizabeth May to debate such issues. Mulcair was proud of the fact that he was the first to accept the invitation. Trudeau and May also accepted, and Harper did not. When the time came, Mulcair backed out. If Harper wasn’t doing it, neither would he. As a result, because two men didn’t want to play, organizers canceled the event. Up for Debate went ahead with Plan B, where one-on-one interviews with the politicians were arranged. Mulcair—the guy who backed out of the debate last second—took this opportunity to identify as a feminist. Trudeau also says that he is a proud feminist. Harper did not participate in the interviews.

I was looking forward to this debate. Very disappointed it had to be cancelled. https://t.co/q2Awq4iQcX

—    Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 24, 2015

Where did our debate go, @ThomasMulcair? And @pmharper? #women #GPC http://t.co/iSLL9pN4Ue pic.twitter.com/m1cQArPhnZ

— Green Party Canada (@CanadianGreens) August 24, 2015

Transcripts of full interviews:

Mulcair

Trudeau

May

Munk debate

The Munk debate is a charitable initiative of the Aurea Foundation, a right-wing organization founded by Peter and Melanie Munk of Barrick Gold. The September debate was on Canada’s foreign policy. Unlike the women’s issues debate, RSVPs to to the invitation of right-wing millionaires were quickly accepted, disheartening to say the least. May was not allowed to attend. The Munk Debates reasoning is the Green Party does not have party status. However, as a charity they are not legally allowed to support or oppose a political party. So the reason is official, not because of the boys-only nature of the Munk Debates. In the end, May used Twitter to participate in the debate. Trudeau said May should have been able to attend. Yet, he still attended, as did Mulcair and Harper.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Harper has said there really isn’t an issue around the fact that Indigenous women are over-represented among Canada’s missing and murdered women. For him, it is a non-issue that does not rank high on the Conservative radar. Not all candidates agree with him. “”Do you think that if 1,200 women who had been murdered or had gone missing in Ottawa, we’d need the United Nations to tell us to have an inquiry?” Mulcair asked at an August rally. “It would have happened a long time ago. This is about racism, that’s what this is about.” The NDP leader says he will launch a national inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women. May has said the same and Trudeau has committed to support indigenous advocacy groups.

Childcare

Women today can work! Just for less money. Oh, and often only within daycare hours—which usually do not reflect the precarious shift work so many women undertake. Currently, Harper maintains he will slash all benefits for low-income earners, including childcare. Trudeau says he will end this trend and help families with lower incomes. Mulcair promises affordable childcare, saying, like healthcare, childcare is worth the money. May agrees that childcare is kind of a big deal.

Sex Work and Bill C-36

Harper passed Bill C-36 into law, further endangering the lives of women in sex work. But actually, he is saving them, because these women need to be saved by the morals of rich white men, as do we all. (Sarcasm intended.) May says the Green Party will repeal C-36, and Trudeau said, last year, that his party would be looking at the Nordic Model. More information about parties’ positions on sex work can be found here.

Domestic Violence

Those who participated in the Up for Debate interviews touched on this subject. Prior to the debate, the only thing the Green Party addressed in terms of domestic violence, according to a Toronto Metro article published August 26, was that “false allegations” were common. OK. At least, by the time the interviews were done May, a self-described feminist changed her tune, saying Canada needs a national strategy to confront domestic violence against women. Both Mulcair and Trudeau spoke about Parliament being a boys’ club and that they will lead by example there to make it less so.And money for shelters is a good idea, says Trudeau, but it isn’t up to the federal government to create them because municipalities, he believes, should do it. So, someone is going to do something, don’t worry about it.

Abortion

Pro-choice, anti-choice, reproductive rights. Light stuff, right? Harper doesn’t actually come out and say he is anti-abortion rights. Instead he says that abortion should not be discussed within politics because it is a matter of faith and morals. And although his own faith condemns these rights, he isn’t in the good books of anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition (CPL). The Conservative party is, though. At least there is someone out there ready to police women’s bodies. Phew. The CPL hates Trudeau, so that’s a good sign for the Liberals. Mulcair’s NDP is also pro-abortion rights: “A New Democrat government will increase funding for women’s organizations, particularly women’s rights organizations. Family planning, reproductive and sexual health, including access to abortion services, must be included in Canada’s approach to maternal and child health.” May is also on Team Abortion Rights.

The Niqab

Conservatives were getting attention for doing things like peeing in people’s mugs, and that was weird. So, a distraction—I mean, very important issue—was created by the Harper government. The niqab is a veil that covers part of the face and a sign of faith worn by some Muslim women. It is also being attacked for being anti-Canadian—as decided after settler colonialism. The argument goes something like this: “My white grandparents knew what it was to be Canadian (after white folk made what it is to be Canadian tailored to said grandparents) why can’t everyone else?!”

While fostering xenophobia the Conservative party is saving women by oppressing women. Anti-Muslim propaganda is being circulated on social media and women are being attacked because of this federally accepted hatred of the “Other.”

Mulcair says this is wrong. Like, no one likes the niqab, he says, but we need to trust the authority of tribunal decisions. Trudeau is also opposed to Harper’s stance. At a Maclean’s sponsored debate the Liberal leader said:  “You can dislike the niqab. You can hold it up it is a symbol of oppression. You can try to convince your fellow citizens that it is a choice they ought not to make. This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn. It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot wear.” As for May, at a televised French debate she said, “It’s a false debate . . . What is the impact of the niqab on the economy, what is the impact of the niqab on climate change, what is the impact of the niqab on the unemployed?”

Fun Facts

• Trudeau addresses misogyny, in certain communities.
• May re-started a women’s caucus in Parliament.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

I’m here—I hope—to meet Anawa, a Cameroonian mother in indefinite detention, and her son, who was born in the facility. Alpha must stay with his mother at all times, even when she’s in the shower. While she carries his weight, she must also live knowing that her daughter, Tracy, not yet 10, is growing up without her in Nigeria. Anawa is imprisoned for a simple, all-too-common reason: coming here, to Canada. She hasn’t been charged with a crime and has not had a trial. She’s held because Cameroon won’t issue travel documents for deportation and Canada will not set her free for apparent fear she’ll disappear.

Anawa’s story is as much a national tragedy as it is the result of a decade of degradation in the manner in which Canada treats those people who flee oppressive circumstance in hope of refuge. A system that—over the past nine years under the federal Conservative government—has gone from bad to worse. It’s the result of policy that continually seeks to remove basic rights to those our federal government considers outsiders. It’s thanks to a persistent messaging campaign to brand people as undesirable—or worse, criminal. Today, the walls of detention centres like the one in Rexdale act to hide the mistreatment of the disenfranchised and promote a culture of fear. A culture that often prevents the mistreated from speaking about their experiences with the media, or anyone.

So I wait.

IT’S A STICKY DAY in early May, and I’m sitting in a slowlyfilling courtroom at the Ontario Court of Appeals. I’m here to watch as the End Immigration Detention Network (EIDN) and a team of lawyers appeal a ruling denying habeas corpus to immigrants in detention. Basically, they want the court to prove that indefinite detention is justified. Even for the experts, the legal framework proves difficult to navigate. “I don’t know every section [of immigration code] anymore,” one of Anawa’s lawyers tells the court. “I used to know it all, but it’s been amended so much I just can’t keep up.”

IF THERE’S BEEN one constant since Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party came to power, it’s change. Policy has changed rapidly and seemingly at random, with the consistent misdirection acting as an obstacle for immigration lawyers and experts. “Every month is a change,” says Loly Rico, the president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, “and every month is a cut.”

In nearly a decade of conservative power, Canada has gained an abysmal record in caring for those seeking asylum—the most egregious of which is arguably our country’s new and unusual habit of indefinitely detaining refugee and immigration claimants without providing any documentation as to why. In fact, in July the United Nations Human Rights Commission Report chastised Canada for this very practice.

Take Anawa’s case. Facing female genital mutilation, she fled Cameroon to Finland, then to the U.K. and, eventually, to Canada. By that time, she was pregnant with Alpha. Lacking official documentation and identification, upon arrival she was put in the detention centre where she and Alpha now live. She has no release date.

Laced through the policy upheaval is also a shift in the tone in which Canada speaks about refugees. This government is openly hostile, introducing terms like “bogus claimants” and “abusing our generosity” to the public lexicon. Rico, once a refugee herself, says “[Refugees] are not coming because of what we have. They’re coming because they need protection.” Syed Hussan of the EIDN echoes that statement: “The idea that Canada, or any international agency, gets to decide who is and who is not worthy of safety is absurd.”

Stripping a claimant’s humanity with such language allows abuses of power to slip by—and become a norm. Anawa’s lawyer, Swathi Sekhari, worries whenever a client speaks to the media. “The [Canadian Border Services Agency] can be quite subversive with their actions,” she says, “I would say even violent.” Guards can punish detainees for speaking out—either in the yard with verbal abuse or, at times, in detention reviews. “All of a sudden you can be declared as being uncooperative,” she adds.

MANY TYPES OF IMMIGRATION have felt the effects of structural decay—including migrant workers and caregivers. Hussan, who’s also with the organization No One Is Illegal, says that to focus on one stream or another is to confuse the problem. “People are just people trying to move,” he says. When people are fleeing oppression their only concern is getting out, and they will choose the path they think is most likely to help. Each stream has its own pitfalls. Migrant workers, for example, don’t have their housing covered under workplace safety laws even though they’re forced to live where they work.

I’M STARTING TO REALIZE I won’t get to speak to Anawa. It’s my third time visiting the detention centre—a place that, in anything but name, is a prison. While I sit on this side of the glass, she’s being herded back from lunch where Alpha may have been playing with a new friend. He has to make new friends a lot. Most of them move out eventually, into a world he doesn’t understand. Each time I’ve gone I’ve seen her warm, welcoming face and his unbridled pent-up energy as he bounds around the visitation area. She corrals him as she tells me she can’t talk. Not today. I’ve been waiting a while, but at least I get to drive home after. For the time being, she’s already there.

When the Conservative government rushed to pass the bill into law last year, Justice Minister Peter MacKay repeatedly told media outlets that the government considers sex workers as victims in need of saving. Workers are not breaking any laws by selling sex, however it is illegal for someone to purchase it. Prohibitions are also against activities involved in the sex trade, like a client communicating with the intention of buying sex or advertising the sale of someone else’s sex trade services.

It is also illegal for establishments like massage parlours or escort services to sell sex. It is legal to be a sex worker, thought it is near impossible to legally work. The government believes it’s simply trying to deter people from entering sex work. But Johns scared of legal punishment are more likely to be anxious and, as a result, aggressive. This means sex workers have less time to clearly communicate terms; there is not enough time to adequately screen. It doesn’t help that it’s also illegal for sex workers to work together—further lessening safety. A year old in November, the new legislation has already done a lot of damage, particularly amongst those it is supposedly trying to save.

After raiding 20 Ottawa massage and body rub parlours late last April, police detained 11 women. These women will be deported, and this trend is likely to continue. If our federal government is so interested in saving sex workers, why would they put them through the trauma of Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) inspections, before sending them back to possibly more abusive situations? “Migrant sex workers are often the target of robbery and assault. They are afraid to report to police or seek help because they do not want to be deported,” Elene Lam of Butterfly—Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network told media in May. “Investigations under the guise of trafficking and police raids make the situation even worse. It makes people hide further underground, and makes them more vulnerable to violence and endangers their safety.”

Not that things are much safer in Stephen Harper’s Canada. Indigenous women in sex work operate in a nation where Indigenous people are over-represented in
prisons, and colonialism has normalized violence against Indigenous women. This oppression is only amplified when these women are in sex work, as is shown with the abductions and murders of Indigenous women, mostly sex workers, in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. This violence is so frequent British Columbia’s Highway 16 is called the Highway of Tears. “Native women are not afforded the same level of agency as everyone else,” Indigenous feminists and activists Naomi Sayers and Sarah Hunt wrote last January for The Globe and Mail. “They are merely passive bodies waiting to be violated.” Sayers and Hunt continue to say they have no faith that the Canadian justice system will protect them, when it is clear that they have a better chance of being arrested.

Take the recent case of Cindy Gladue, which has set a dismal, unfortunate precedent for dehumanizing court evidence. An Indigenous woman and a sex worker, she was killed four years ago in an Edmonton motel room. When her body was found, authorities discovered an 11 cm wound in the 36-year-old mother’s vagina. It appears to be caused by a sharp object, but Bradley Barton, Gladue’s alleged murderer, told the courts that his fingers caused the wounds during rough consensual sex. The victim’s actual vagina was brought to court as evidence. It was a move many see as a complete disregard for her life, as well as the female body.

This was also done before a jury that had only two women on it and did not include a single Indigenous person. Barton was initially found not guilty. Thankfully, protests arose across the country. It was announced during these rallies on April 2 that Barton’s acquittal was appealed. Good news, but the message had already been sent: In Canada, Indigenous women, especially those working as sex workers, are not seen as human. As Harper told Peter Mansbridge during a December 2014 interview on CBC, these women are not high on the Conservative radar.

The government is pushing their morals onto others, to the extent of endangering lives. Maybe, they should have attended the solidarity rally in June where the voices of sex workers could be heard loudly, demanding rights, not rescue. Certainly, I would have shared my markers.

What we have, largely, is a budget based in politics, not policy—more a campaign advertisement than an economic document. Thanks to a consistent and persistent PR campaign over the past decade, the government needed an operating surplus to uphold its claim of competent fiscal management—a necessity it deliberately created. Harper works tirelessly to convince Canadians the economy is simple. That spending is bad, taxes are bad, a balanced budget is good, and that no party understands that but his. If there’s any indication of Harper’s widereaching political success, it’s that today every party agrees a balanced budget is necessary; they only disagree on when they’ll get there.

Unfortunately, when a budget becomes a political answer, rather than an economic one, many Canadians lose. Let’s look at the document itself. It was never really balanced. With slumping oil prices and slow growth, a surplus wouldn’t come without consequences. The feds delayed the release of the budget by weeks so they could sell off $2.1 billion of its General Motors shares—a move Stanford, known for his past work with the Canadian Auto Worker’s Union, says will hurt future investment from GM. Then, it dipped into the Employment Insurance operating surplus for a cool $3.4 billion. (Meanwhile nearly 60 percent of unemployed Canadians are ineligible for EI.) Finally, the feds took $2 billion from the emergency contingency fund. And yet, we get headlines that boldly declare “balanced.”

In reality, the budget “bakes in growing income inequality” warns Armine Yalnizyan, a leading economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It’s low on meaningful investment. It barely nods to public transportation or infrastructure spending. There is nothing for Canada’s youth. What it does promise is a familiar pattern: tax breaks that disproportionately favour the wealthy, and new ways to reduce the abilities of government. And so we get a government that consistently seeks ways to reduce revenue streams, increasing dependence on a select few, such as Canada’s oil economy. “[The Conservatives] have no plan other than $100 a barrel oil,” says Yalnizyan. “That’s their economic action plan.”

In a way, it’s nothing new. Under Harper’s leadership, the Conservatives have been remarkably consistent in their messaging since the party’s victorious 2006 campaign. That platform declared “Canadians deserve to keep more of their own money,” which acted as a (often mis-) guiding principle for the government. Under Harper, the government slashed corporate tax rates, rolled back the (since renamed) goods and services tax, and introduced other boutique tax cuts. In doing so, the government deprived the treasury of over $300 billion, limiting the country’s resources during a tough economic recession.

An economy, however, needs an engine, argues Stanford—when the public isn’t spending money, it falls to the government to open its wallet. Instead, it cut off its source of revenue. When asked for the government’s guiding economic principle then and now, Yalnizyan answers quickly: “To write themselves out of a job description.”

Which brings us to today. In place of a truly thriving economy, we get policy made for politics. Canada’s economy is fragile. The oil slump is real, and the country’s dependence on the energy sector has been exposed. People aren’t spending money. Economists say the economy shrunk in the first quarter of 2015, and that will likely continue. We have a budget that isn’t made to govern and an economy that isn’t made for the majority of Canadians. For Stanford, an evaluation of this government is easy. “The economy,” he says, “has performed worse under the Harper Conservatives than any other government in Canada’s post-war history.” Well, in every way but politics, that is.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, meanwhile, announced that the government’s operative budget will— based on overly-optimistic projections—actually sit in deficit at the end of this year. But that never really mattered to the Conservatives. It was the headlines they were after.

Yet, at the same time, rights on paper don’t always translate into lived rights. And, despite our reputation as a supposed LGBTQ leader, Canada itself is still missing important on-paper rights. Over the past nine years, our federal government’s actions when it comes to LBGTQ rights have been inconsistent—even confounding.

Here in Canada, for instance, queer youth are grossly misrepresented amongst the homeless population, accounting for 25–40 percent. Members of the federal Conservative Party have also actively blocked the advancement of trans rights at home with endless delays of Bill C-279, which seeks to give transgender people basic Charter protections. The back-and-forth doesn’t stop there: The feds cut funding to gay organizations, such as the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network in 2012 and Pride Toronto in 2010—yet a 600-person gay Conservative party called Fabulous Blue Tent was thrown in 2011 to bring gay Conservatives together during the Party’s convention. That same weekend, the Tories passed a resolution supporting religious organizations’ refusal to perform same-sex marriages. Previously, in 2005, Harper had campaigned on the promise to repeal same-sex marriage.

And, it doesn’t stop there. Here, we examine the Conservatives sad, confusing track record:

TRANS RIGHTS
Within the Conservative Party, there are LGBTQsupportive caucus members, but they are in the minority, despite the now-biennial Fabulous Blue Tent party. When Bill C-279—to grant transgender Canadians equal protection under the law—passed through the House of Commons, only 18 of 155 Tory MPs voted in favour. Conservative MP Rob Anders called it a “bathroom bill,” insisting its goal was to give creepy men access to women’s washrooms. All other party MPs who voted were unanimously in support of C-279.

The bill is currently sitting in the Conservative-dominated Senate, and will almost surely be killed at election time—having to retrace its process through the House again. Now more than 10 years in the making, this would be the second time the bill was forced back to square one. Yet, if passed, it will give trans people legal recourse against things such as being fired and being denied housing, and will also make sky-high rates of violence punishable as hate crimes.

HARPER TRIES TO MOVE BACKWARDS
Opposing queer rights is nothing new for Harper. Early on in 1994, he fought plans to introduce same-sex spousal benefits in Canada. In 2005, after same-sex marriage was legalized, he promised to bring legislation defining marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” When this plan was defeated shortly after his election, he decided to leave the issue alone, saying, “I don’t see reopening this question [of marriage] in the future.”

FUNDING CUTS
After more than 20 years of federal funding, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network faced cuts in 2012 because it “may have used the funds for advocacy.” After receiving a “significant portion of its funding from Ottawa” over its entire existence, the organization sought renewal of the same funding but the Public Health Agency of Canada rejected 16 of its 20 proposals.

In 2006, shortly after taking power, the Conservative Party also cut the entire budget of a program called Court Challenges, which had made public funds available for individuals launching human rights challenges in court. Used by those making challenges on the basis of sexual orientation and more, the fund had helped homosexual couples secure spousal benefits and achieve equality protection. Harper’s chief of staff from 2005-2008, Ian Brodie, used his PhD to argue the program unfairly empowered homosexuals and other minority groups. The Conservatives had killed the program in 1992 originally, only to have it revived by the Liberals. Now the Cons have resuscitated it, but with a narrowed focus on only linguistic minorities.

PROGRESS, PR, OR SOMETHING ELSE?
Canada’s immigration office under Harper worked with Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees to fast-track 100 gay Iranians into Canada, saving them from possible execution. Harper also personally lobbied Uganda’s president in 2009 over a law that would imprison gay people for life. Canada even gave $200,000 to Ugandan groups to fight the law. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has made repeated international public statements condemning countries that criminalize homosexuality, and during the 2014 Olympics Baird and Harper spoke out against the Russian “gay propaganda” law that makes it illegal for anyone to distribute gay rights materials.

Yet, speaking against the criminalization of LGBTQ people is not the same as active support. In regards to Russia in particular, Ontario Conservative MP Scott Reid, who chairs the Commons’ subcommittee on international human rights, said it’s an issue of freedom of speech. Saskatchewan Conservative backbencher Maurice Vellacott said he believes LGBTQ folks should have basic protections, but that he wouldn’t want his kids exposed to “homosexual propaganda.” These attitudes offer insight into the mixed messages of the Conservative Party when it comes to queer rights. Whatever its motives are for this dissonance, the fact remains there’s a lot of work to be done in this country before queer liberation becomes a reality.

Also problematic: In 2010, when the Conservatives cut the long-form census, they also nixed the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, better known by its acronym, PALS—those who received the survey were the same people who, on their census form, said they had a disability. PALS was used to track the needs of Canadians with disabilities, and looked at everything from rates of poverty, violence and abuse, to quality of housing, education and employment, and participation in community and civic activities. From there, government, but also more importantly advocacy groups, could use the data to better determine needed supports. The government has since introduced the Canadian Survey on Disability, but acknowledges that its data sets can’t be compared to PALS because of different questions and, notably, a different definition of the actual term “disability”—stunting a body of research. The new survey also received fewer responses, which advocates feared.

Perhaps that data could have been used to help the government figure out how to spend the near $40-million budget for the Opportunities Fund, a fund designed to help those prepare for, maintain or find employment. Unfortunately, in 2013-2014, the government failed to allocate one-quarter of its funding—undermining yet another promising initiative for those with disabilities.

Since that first speech, Canada’s international environmental reputation has shifted quickly under the Harper Conservatives. We were once considered an influential environmental leader, but now are what famed environmentalist Bill McKibben calls, “an obstacle to international climate concerns.” That’s thanks to several major changes, the breadth of which we’ll review here.

INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT
After signing the Kyoto Protocol on carbon pollution in 1997, Canada withdrew 14 years later in late 2011. It’s the only country to have done so. Then in 2013, the government pulled out of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification—and again has done so solo. Established in 1994, the convention is a key legally-binding international agreement addressing environment, development, and sustainability. Listen: you can hear Canada’s diplomatic credibility crumbling.

DEMOLISHING LAWS
In 1992, the Government of Canada enacted the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, created to evaluate and mitigate negative environmental effects possibly caused by industrial projects. In 2012 the entire act was repealed and replaced with “CEAA 2012.” The new version applies to a much smaller scope of projects, expands ministerial discretion, and narrows the scope of assessments. The Canadian Environmental Law Association called this “an unjustified and ill-conceived rollback of federal environmental law.”

After the change, nearly 3,000 environmental project assessments were cancelled. As a result, environmentally- harmful projects will face less red tape in gaining approval. “It’s streamlining the review process for our pipelines,” quips Peter Louwe, communications officer for Greenpeace Vancouver.

RUINING PROTECTIONS
Besides weakening The Fisheries Act to the point where it doesn’t protect most fish, the Cons have also rewritten The Navigable Waters Protection Act so that it no longer protects most lakes and rivers. “There is no environmental protection for our waters unless there’s a commercial aspect to it,” says Louwe. Since Canada contains 20 percent of the world’s fresh water as well as the world’s longest coastline, changes to these acts are of worldwide concern.

SILENCING SCIENCE
After Environment Canada senior research scientist David Tarasick published on one of the biggest ozone holes ever found over the Arctic in 2011, he was forbidden to speak with media for nearly three weeks. Once given permission, his calls were supervised by Environment Canada officials. In speaking of the incident, he wrote to a reporter, “My apologies for the strange behaviour of EC [Environment Canada],” adding if it were up to him, he’d grant the interview.

All federal scientists now face regulations from Ottawa deciding if they can talk, how, and when. Approved interviews are taped, and often approval is not forthcoming until after deadlines have passed. When this happens, journalists receive government-approved written answers. Between 2008-2014, the federal government cut the jobs of more than 2,000 scientists. In 2014, it announced plans to close seven of its 11 Fisheries and Oceans Canada libraries.

HIT ’EM WHERE IT HURTS
Environment Canada, the government department charged with protecting the environment, is quickly having its capacity drained. Between 2010- 2012, the federal government cut 20 percent of its budget (made official right after the Cons became a majority), and from 2014– 2017 another 28 percent will be cut. This translates to hundreds of job losses and lost programs.

Environment Canada’s ozone-monitoring program, host to the world’s archive of ozone data and relied upon by scientists worldwide, several monitoring stations closed due to lack of funding, and the lone person running the archives was laid off.

The list goes on: the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which has provided research on sustainable development since 1988, and was established by a previous Conservative government, is no more. Also included in the cuts: Monitoring for heavy metals and toxic contaminants, the Climate Action Network, Sierra Club of B.C., The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, and many other organizations.

AUDITS
Meanwhile the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is auditing charities. In 2012 the government tightened rules and created a special budget so the CRA could check on charities’ political activities. EthicalOil.org, founded by Harper’s aide Alykhan Velshi, made a series of complaints to the CRA about environmental groups. The David Suzuki Foundation, Tides Canada, Equiterre, and Environmental Defence, three of those EthicalOil.org targeted in its complaints, were audited—though the government denies any link with CRA’s activities.

THE KICKER
“I think C-51 should just be repealed because of the way it targets First Nations and environmentalists,” says U of T’s Stewart. This piece of legislation, adopted in June, adds power to security agencies collecting information on anything that “undermines the security of Canada,” including interfering with economic stability or “critical infrastructure.” It also gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service power to react to these perceived threats. Many environmentalists and activists believe this means them. An RCMP document obtained by Greenpeace labels the “anti-petroleum movement” as a growing and violent threat.“There’s not much more damage that one person would be able to do to the environment of a country,” says Vancouver’s Louwe, referring to Harper.

And yet, the Harper government hasn’t managed to build any pipelines. In the face of such blatant injustice, Canadian people have risen up, building a stronger environmental movement that is not only more resolved, but broader, including people from a wider range of backgrounds and interests than before. And Stewart points out that although this government has done a lot for industry, the more obvious it becomes to the public that its government is acting as a cheerleader for big oil, the less social licence industry has in people’s minds. And this means that whatever the legacy of the Harper government leaves us, it also leaves a more politicized, involved, and activated country of people who will do what it takes to protect what matters.

After nine years of Stephen Harper’s federal Conservative government, Canadians know less than ever about how their government is governing. We have now seen an onslaught of legislation, media protocols, and funding cuts designed to keep information hidden and people silent. Scientists, academics and librarians are all subject to The Media Relations Protocol, an Orwellian piece of legislation implemented in 2007, that was once meant for climate change researchers, but has now bled into all areas. It states that government employees should have one unified voice and stipulates that if government scientists and academics are approached by media or concerned citizens, that they respond to inquiries with “approved lines.”

But of the various changes we have seen throughout the nearly, decade-long leadership of Mr. Harper, Bill C-51 offers perhaps the most nefarious implications to democracy in Canada. Under Bill C-51 confidential information can be disclosed “to any person, for any purpose.” Canadians’ tax information, health and passport applications are just some of the information now freely shared between government departments. Private conversations can be interpreted as terrorism and result in the detention of Canadians for up to five years. Online posts will be censored under C-51 and internet service providers and telecom providers can be directed to remove any content deemed as terrorist propaganda. If a you teach political science, and want your students to see a video from a group like ISIS or Boko Haram, as well as material condemning them, the material could be forcibly taken down from your web and social media sites. C-51 would also allow for you to be identified and located for posting such materials, says Turk.

Any group activities that are considered to challenge the security of Canada, including those that affect the economic stability of Canada, such as a strike of auto workers or oil workers, are offences under Bill C-51. Protests and strikes that lack the proper permits will also become causalities of this new legislation—something that could, for instance, negatively affect protests to defend aboriginal land claims or to oppose pipelines. A protest can be deemed “unlawful,” adds Turk, for reasons as trivial as violating a noise by-law by using a megaphone.

To add to the list of various civil rights violations, Canadians’ ability to move freely across borders may be limited under C-51. The bill extends the Passenger Protect Program so the government has the ability to add anyone to the no-fly list. People on the list could be denied boarding passes. No transparency will be offered—a person can be denied a boarding pass without being given a reason. Bill C-51 will also empower Canadian customs officers with the increased ability to search through people’s possessions and confiscate anything they consider to be terrorist propaganda, including “writings, signs, visible representations or audio recordings.” This newfound authority could include computer and phone searches, and would give border officials full discretion to choose which materials to seize. “The bigger threat than terrorists is a government that tries to take away our democracy,” says Turk, “in order to try and fight to save democracy.”

A recent analysis conducted by the Toronto Star, spanning from June 2013–July 2014, reveals the disturbing lack of transparency offered by the Canadian Government when it comes to the public’s right to know. Of the 28,000 requests made for government records, for instance, a mere 21 percent were returned redaction-free. The report also found the government was unable to find records 18 percent of the time. Only 26 percent of information requests directed to Environment Canada were left uncensored.

Such trends have deeply disturbed Mark Bourrie, Carleton University professor, political activist, and author. His latest book, Kill the Messengers, is a 400-page investigation into the Harper government’s unofficial mandate of muzzling. Bourrie describes the Harper-imposed media protocol documents as a “willful blindness.” If the federal government convinces itself that it does not see issues such as climate change, for instance, he says, it can believe they don’t exist. In that case, the media relations protocol controls information so that a specific narrative on history, science, and public policy can be set, he adds. “It’s like going into a card game with a deck of cards up your sleeve,” says Bourrie. “Because you can’t argue science with people if you don’t know the science.”

In Kill The Messengers, Bourrie reveals that between 2007–2012, media coverage on climate change issues fell by 80 percent. In his research, Bourrie found that the Harper government held meetings on ways to cut Environment Canada’s budget by $60 million in the 2012 federal budget and made sure that media and communications specialists were present in the room to weave a Harper-friendly narrative. These trends have put many people in the academic community on alert. Organizations such as Scientists For The Right to Know have formed with a mission to educate Canadians on the dismantling of freedom of speech and to advocate for more transparency surrounding government research. “Canadians are paying for this research,” says Chloe Shantz-Hilkes, executive director of Scientists for the Right to Know. “These are tax-funded studies that we don’t get to hear about because of the communication protocols. That is an absolute violation of our right to know about ourselves, the world around us, our environment, and how it’s changing.”

Not only is the Canadian government keeping publicly-funded research under wraps, it also eliminated the long-form census in 2010—a chief method of collecting data needed to research issues such as poverty, income inequality, and transportation. And it has done so in spite of the protests of its citizens. Killing the long-form census, says Turk, stripped Canadians of the ability to bring evidence to bear on these issues. To illustrate the overwhelming opposition to the government’s decision Turk lists a lengthy catalogue of organizations of Canadians who fought to keep the census, including such disparate groups as the Vancouver Board of Trades, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. “The government could find no organization that supported its position,” says Turk, who testified at several parliamentary hearings on the subject. “Labour unions, chambers of commerce—everybody was saying, ‘You can’t do this.’ But they did it anyway.”

Through media protocols, legislation and funding cuts a government has become all-powerful and all-seeing—yet it’s left a society that is conversely uninformed and because of this, ultimately, powerless. “The government has an ideological agenda and is absolutely single minded about imposing it,” says Turk. “And that’s what is really frightening.”