Monday, February 03, 2014

Veterans are outraged. Now they need to do what they once did best. Lead. Part 1.

There is no doubt Canadian veterans have been treated in the most vile way possible by one of the most ignorant people in the Harper government. Julian Fantino has demonstrated, quite clearly, that he feels a greater duty to his benefactor, Harper, than he does to the armed services veterans his department is mandated to assist. In fact, his recent behaviour demonstrates a total disdain for veterans. He believed he could appear at a time of his choosing and start issuing orders. This to a group who, now no longer in uniform, would loudly tell a serving general where to go if they didn't like what was being said. Fantino forgot, (or perhaps has never understood) who it is he actually works for. Not surprising, actually. Fantino has a long and documented history of being a dangerously stupid person with too much power which he felt was his to abuse and then to attack anyone who shone a light on his activities.

Some people are giving Fantino credit for "sincerely apologizing" to veterans for the spectacle he created. Except that it wasn't a sincere apology and accepting any part of it would be a huge mistake. Professor Stephen Kimber explains why.
Sincerely? In the next breath, Fantino was bitching to his stenographers at the Toronto Sun that the multi-medalled, wheel-chaired vets had been “duped… jacked up” by the union representing public servants who will lose their jobs and who had paid the veterans’ airfare to Ottawa.
When those mindless-dupe vets failed to show Fantino the due deference he required, he told the Sun, “I wasn’t just going to play dead.”
Keeping in mind, of course, that on one of Fantino's previous yap-sessions with those same stenographers he tried to paint himself into the same frame as a combat veteran. That should have told the veterans who attempted to meet with him that such endeavours were likely to fail. Fantino, who does not know how to control his authoritarian impulses, views himself as a hero. A self-styled hero who brooks no protest without his explicit permission.

Fantino clearly does not understand veterans. Worse though, is that he expects veterans to kneel before him and then be grateful for his very existence. His style is to issue orders; not to listen. And he further insults veterans by telling them they have been "duped" by the public service union, PSAC.

Really? Duped by the very union veterans watched like hawks when they were serving? The same union whose collective wage and benefit package formed the basis for the Canadian Forces compensation and benefit negotiations with the Treasury Board? Ya think?!!

If there's been any "duping" going on it's been by Harper and company, Fantino included. They have made a point of positioning themselves as "friends of the forces" and the "protectors of veterans", all without having done much except make loud noises about it. While the Harperites have been diligent in making certain they applied a nice shiny surface paint job, they have been hacking away at personnel, cutting pay and benefits, cancelling equipment acquisition and fighting against veterans attempting to hang on to disability benefits.

Not to mention the biggest duping of all. Harper, on Sunday, 1 March 2009, on CNN in the U.S., (he never says this kind of thing where a Canadian can get at him), told Fareed Zakaria that the war in Afghanistan was futile. And rather than call the Chief of Defence Staff and require that all Canadian troops be withdrawn to a safe area, he continued to knowingly send Canadian kids to their death. That made them cannon fodder and it highlighted Harper as a dangerous sociopath. Fantino too, is a sociopath but with perhaps a more lingering aroma of corruption.

And here ends part 1. 

6 comments:

Purple library guy said...

Absolutely with you, almost 100%. Just one thing I'd have to qualify--"one of the most ignorant people in the Harper government."
Fantino is certainly an extremely, nay incredibly ignorant person. But you're talking about some stupendously tough competition here. Baird, Clement, Ambrose, Raitt, Flaherty, van Loan, James Moore, Joe Oliver, Aglukkaq, del Mastro, the list goes on . . . can we really be confident Fantino outshines their ignorance?

Dave said...

Nope. He falls right in with them.

Lorne said...

An excellent and incisive evisceration of Fantino and company. I look forward to Part 2.

Owen Gray said...

An excellent analysis, Dave. Under Harper, Canadian soldiers have been treated like lambs to lions.

e.a.f. said...

Fantino forgets he was elected to office to "serve". He conveys the impression he thinks he is some sort of crown prince of an absolute monarchy. the guys an idiot. His manner of speaking to the Veterans could have gotten a kid sent to his room for a month.

Fantino, if he had an honour, would have apologized and resigned. Of course that is not the Con way. Now we need to send Fantino and his, on their way. Come election time we can only hope the Veterans use their leadership skills and remind all citizens of how the Cons have treated them.

Boris said...

Reminds of Don Cherry, this Fantino. Both fancy themselves hard men of violence, which they confuse with being colossal assholes. Neither of them have done anything particularly trying or violent in decades, yet regard others who do with disdain for mentioning something about what that life style has done to them. Both are stupidly overpaid.