Darth Vader's Suit

I recently found myself watching Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in which Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader and is first given the infamous suit after his unfortunate butt-kicking at the hands of Obi-wan Kenobi, and I found myself wondering how it was that Palpatine happened to have the Vader suit conveniently ready.  I mean, the suit looks like a pretty impressive bit of technology so it wasn't something that was likely slapped together in a couple of hours, yet Vader couldn't really afford to wait a long time for the Imperial techs to design and build a life support system, so I have to assume that it was already available.

It's unlikely that Vader's suit was standard issue and that the Empire kept a supply of them ready in case of emergency because it appears to be very much one of a kind.  We never see any others like it, so it was almost certainly a prototype, and most likely a less than successful one at that, since it doesn't appear that any more of them were ever made.  Or maybe the other Sith Lords were just better lightsaber duelists than Vader, so only one was ever needed.

Which brings us back to the question of how it was that this one-of-a-kind prototype life-sustaining suit happened to be conveniently ready just when Vader needed it.  Maybe after seeing Darth Maul get bisected earlier (again by that troublesome Kenobi guy) Palpatine said to himself "I lose more apprentices that way.  I should really come up with some sort of life-sustaining suit for the next time this happens".  A nice bit of pro-active planning although, had he asked me, I might have suggested he simply try converting Kenobi over to the dark side in which case there might have been no need for the suit.

I wonder how long it took Vader to learn to use the suit.  I mean, look at all the buttons and lights on the chest panel and belt alone!  How do you know what they're all for?  Did the suit come with a user manual? If so, and if Imperial user manuals are anything like the ones we're familiar with, it might have read something like this:

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Congratulations on choosing the E-3778Q-1 mobile life-support system.  Please read this manual carefully and follow all instructions to ensure years of trouble-free life support, armor protection and physical enhancement.

CARE AND CLEANING

The E-3778Q-1 helmet and face mask are made from the finest durasteel, obsidian and plasteel components and are highly resistant to dents, scuffs, scratches and water spots.  To preserve the fine woodoo hide lustre, we recommend polishing the surface with a soft, lint-free, Wookie hair cloth treated with bantha oil as needed.

Caution: Avoid exposing the transparisteel eyepiece lenses to bantha oil, as this may cause them to become clouded, impairing vision.  Remove the helmet and face mask for cleaning only within the confines of a Qabbrat meditation chamber (available separately), as life support functions become inoperative when either is removed.

To remove burn or scar tissue from internal suit components, we suggest gently sponging soiled components with Jawa cloth moistened with warm water.  BE SURE TO DEACTIVATE ANY AND ALL ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS BEFORE APPLYING MOISTURE, AND THOROUGHLY DRY BEFORE REACTIVATING.

BATTERY CARE AND REPLACEMENT

Your E-3778Q-1 is powered by four rechargeable Kovordian battery packs.  The right eyepiece HUD includes an indicator showing the status of packs 1 and 3 and the left eyepiece HUD includes a similar indicator showing the status of packs 2 and 4.  When either battery bar falls to the RECHARGE indicator and changes from yellow to orange, it is time to recharge the batteries.

Caution:  Do not engage in combat or excessive physical activity when either battery indicator is RED.  If the indicators reaches this status, batteries should be recharged at the earliest opportunity; immediately if possible.

When the battery charge indicator no longer reaches FULL, even after hours of charging, it is time to replace the battery packs.  Replacement packs are available at your local Imperial supply depot.  DO NOT INCINERATE OR DISCARD USED BATTERY PACKS BY PLACING THEM IN A TRASH COMPACTOR.  Used battery packs should be returned to an authorized disposal facility.

PART 1 - OPERATION

A) BREATH MASK

The E-3778Q-1 breath mask is designed to deliver nominal oxygen flow while maintaining environmental integrity and comfort, even in extreme environmental conditions.  The two mandibular atmospheric sensors automatically analyze gases and micro particulates in the immediate vicinity, filtering out harmful emissions and purifying breathable gases. The olfactory sensors can be conveniently deactivated in proximity to bantha poodoo and similar harmless, but unpleasant, odors.

An enunciator linked to an electronic voice processor facilitates verbal communication.  Vocal timbre, pitch and inflection can be adjusted to achieve the desired cadence. VoicePak add-ins are also available, enabling you to emulate the voices of any of several popular Imperial celebrities including Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus, Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones.

Please Note:  Owing to the face mask's life-sustaining respiratory functions, a certain amount of respiratory overlay with the vocal unit is unavoidable and normal.  Please do not call Technical Support regarding this issue.  Our Imperial designers are working to eliminate this artifact in future revisions of the suit.

B) CONTROL PANEL

The control panel positioned over the solar plexus contains controls for regulating respiratory, cardiopulmonary and neural functions.  Take time to learn the various controls and exercise caution so as not to confuse them as doing so can result in unpredictable behavior on the part of the suit and/or the wearer.

The blue switch activates the suit's auto control functions.  Use the red switch for manual override.  The rightmost switch, located at the bottom, is the system reset switch.  Avoid crowded spaces in order to prevent controls from being inadvertently tripped when brushing against others.

The data slots accept RepMed wafers for treating illness and injury, as well as delivering more recreational pharmaceutical substances, as desired.

The control panel also doubles as a universal remote control device, enabling you to activate and operate electronic components at a distance without expending valuable Force powers.

C) BELT

The belt contains secondary controls that provide redundancy for the control panel.  It also features a magnetic clasp which keeps the plastisteel briefs in place.

The EVAC 1 button causes the door in the codpiece to slide up in order to facilitate expulsion of urinary waste.  The EVAC 2 button serves a similar function for the rear door.  Be sure to remove the ornamental cape before activating the EVAC 2 button.

D) GLOVES

The gloves are made from a Micronized Mandalorian iron weave which is designed to protect against glancing lightsaber blows and, theoretically, can even deflect blaster bolts.  We highly discourage using them in this manner, however, as it requires unusual speed and dexterity to successfully intercept blaster fire with one's hands.

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There would be more, of course, but I won't bore you with the full manual.  Besides, let's be honest - nobody ever reads those things anyway; not even Darth Vader.

Canada: Land of the Rolling Rims

It's mid February in Canada, and that means that we Canadians are at the start of that special time of year that transcends the boundaries of race, creed and colour and unites us all by virtue of that one unbreakable bond that all Canadians share.  Yes, tomorrow marks the dawn of Canada's annual Roll Up the Rim season.

For any non-Canadians who may stumble upon this post and scratch their heads, wondering just what exactly a "Roll Up the Rim" season is, allow me to explain.  Roll Up the Rim is a contest, of sorts, held by Tim Horton's, a Canadian donut franchise, which begins every year around mid February (the contest, not the franchise).  It's affectionately known as "Rrrroll Up the Rrrrim", owing to a long-running advertising campaign in which some guy with a really bad fake Scottish accent makes a point of really rrrolling those "Rrrrr's" every time he says the contest name, although neither the contest, Tim Horton's nor Canada itself (excepting the province of Nova Scotia) are in any way Scot-related.

Roll Up the Rim gets its name from the paper cups in which Tim Horton's coffee is served.  Their rims are rolled up into a rounded lip.  During Roll Up the Rim, Tim Horton's patrons are given special cups which may or may not have a prize hidden under that rolled-up paper lip.  Roll Up the Rim cups are marked with a brightly-coloured arrow that indicates roughly what part of the paper lip the alleged prize may or may not be hiding under although, in my experience, the arrow is a wide approximation at best.  The contest runs until the end of April, or until the prize cups run out; whichever comes first.  In fact, around mid April, Canadians are known to drive hundreds of miles out of their way, looking for those last few Tim Horton's restaurants that still have Roll Up the Rim cups.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of eager Canadians, having finished their coffees or teas, eagerly roll up the paper rim of their cups in the place indicated by the arrow, hoping to find one of several fabulous prizes which could include an SUV, a gas grille, a laptop computer, money, Tim Horton's gift cards or, more likely, maybe a free coffee or donut or, the most prolific of the prizes, the ubiquitous "Please Play Again" (or, for those who didn't quite interpret the yellow arrow correctly, "...ay Again").  Just how Tim Horton's manages to hide an entire SUV inside a rolled-up paper rim is a carefully-guarded technology secret, right up there with how Cadbury gets the caramel inside their Caramilk bars.

Non-Canadians may understandably wonder why all the fuss over a silly contest.  To tell you the truth, I've often wondered myself.  I personally have never known anyone, even indirectly, who has won a prize of any significance and the paper rims aren't exactly easy to roll up with your thumbs.  A lot of people use their teeth and it's for this reason that Tim Horton's employees aren't even allowed to handle the prize-winning rims when customers redeems them.  Instead, they present a plastic container for the customer to drop (or possibly spit) the paper fragment into.

But I don't exaggerate when I say that Roll Up the Rim has become a cultural phenomenon.  Sure, lots of franchises have lots of different contests, offering lots of different prizes, but Roll Up the Rim is the only one I've seen that has people comparing their winnings around the office water cooler on a daily basis, and even has radio DJ's publicly keeping score on the air of who among them has won the most free coffees so far. The elated reactions I've seen coming from people who have managed to win a free coffee or donut are hardly justified by the prize.  The only comparable phenomenon that I can think of is the jubilation of lottery ticket purchasers who win nothing more than a free ticket; in other words, second opportunity not to win anything.

The Roll Up the Rim phenomenon seems to me an extension of that of the Tim Horton's franchise, which is a Canadian cultural icon in itself.  As a franchise, "Timmy's" enjoys a love affair with Canadians that simply can't be explained logically.  They make a good cup of coffee, although some of their competitors are offering serious contenders in the java department.  Their prices are more or less the same as those of their competitors, except for maybe Starbuck's which appears to cater to those who just don't feel right if they pay less than five bucks for a cup of coffee (Williams is the Canadian answer to that particular franchise). Tim Hortons' flat, plastic coffee lids have been criticized as being loose-fitting and prone to spills, yet they (Tim Horton's) steadfastly refuse to adopt a more spill-proof design.  Although the franchise has tried to expand into the United States, they've never been able to attract the kind of customer loyalty that they see in Canada even though the American franchises offer exactly the same product that the Canadian ones do, all of which reinforces my opinion that Canadians' loyalty to Tim Horton's is culturally driven.

Some years back, when the American donut franchise, Dunkin' Donuts, expanded into Canada, Tim Horton's actually worried enough about the new competition to adopt their box format. The low, wide Dunkin' Donuts box plagiarism that serves as the standard Tim Horton's twelve-donut container today was preceded by a shorter, deeper, shoe-box shaped compartment in which the donuts were lined up on their sides in two rows of six.  They needn't have worried.  The astoundingly apathetic Canadian reaction to the Dunkin' Donuts "invasion" resulted in most of the franchises being torn down as quickly as they were erected. I haven't seen that kind of American butt-kicking by Canadians since we went down there and set the White House on fire back in 1814.  It would be enough to bring a patriotic tear to my eye, if it weren't for the fact that, like most "Canadian" icons, the Tim Horton's franchise is owned by Americans anyway.  But let's not split hairs, eh?

Why I Hate Neil Pasricha

Ask anybody who knows me and they'll tell you; I'm a nice guy.  I have no enemies.  I give people the benefit of the doubt, almost to a fault, and I tend to assume the best about everybody.  So why should I hate Neil Pasricha; a man whom I've never met and who has certainly never bothered, inconvenienced, negatively affected, or even thought about me in any way?  I'll tell you why.  The Book of Awesome, that's why!

Some time ago, I was minding my own business, shopping for groceries, and I found myself in the section of the grocery store where they keep the books, magazines and greeting cards.  Not looking for anything in particular, I was just browsing the various covers and titles when suddenly this black, hard-cover book entitled The Book Of AWESOME in rainbow-colored lettering caught my attention.  I quickly scanned the write-up on the back cover and the inner cover jacket and discovered that this is apparently a book that celebrates the myriad of small, simple pleasures that we encounter almost every day but that most of us don't even notice; the smell of fresh baked goods, peeling that thin, transparent, protective cover off new electronic equipment such as a cell phone or a TV remote, pushing in the little bubbles that are supposed to identify what's inside those soft drink cups that you get from fast food places but which never seem to be pushed in ... stuff like that.  The idea of the book appealed to me because I love things which accentuate the positive; goodness knows we hear enough negativity day after day, so I bought a copy.

You have to like the style and format of the book.  Each "chapter", if you could call it that, begins with a title that celebrates some little pleasure, like putting on a warm pair of undies fresh from the dryer, or waking up and realizing it's Saturday, or remembering what movie "that guy" is from.  Then there's a short write-up explaining why the author, Neil Pasricha, thinks that the thing in question is so great (it's not always self-evident, such as the chapter about your colon), and it always ends with a single word; AWESOME! 

Most of the chapters are pretty short, often just a page or less.  The shortest I've encountered was entitled "When you push the button for the elevator and it's already there".  This chapter was exactly two words long:

Ding!

     AWESOME!

The reason why I put quotes around the word "chapter" before is because the book itself was inspired by a blog, also by Neil Pasricha, called 1000awesomethings.com, so each "chapter" is really more of a "post", actually.  According to Wikipedia, the blog was born on June 20, 2008; just about 4 months before I started this blog.  In that time, 1000awesomethings.com has pulled in ... well, just a few more visitors than The Halmanator.  And it lead to not just one, but two book deals!  Yes, there is now a second book called The Book Of (Even More) Awesome. My daughter, who apparently delights in rubbing her father's nose in his inadequacies, made a point of getting me the second book last Father's Day.  I think the accompanying card said something like "You're okay too, for an unimportant nobody" (Okay,  it didn't actually say that, but I'm sure it was there between the lines!) 

The Book of Awesome was a New York Times bestseller and was the number one international best seller for over 140 weeks and was translated into Dutch, Korean, German, French and Portuguese (what, not Swahili???)  Nobody ever offered me a book deal!  Harrumph!

And that's why I hate Neil Pasricha; because he has accomplished what I can only dream of accomplishing, and he probably never even had any such ambitions.  Heck, he probably started the whole thing just as a lark.  The only thing worse than people who realize your own wildest ambitions are those who do it without even trying!  He`s like the Mozart to my Salieri!  Every time I either read The Book Of Awesome or visit 1000awesomethings.com I get a severe case of "Warumistmirsoetwasnichteingefallen".  That's a German word (that I just made up), something along the lines of "Schadenfreude", except it means "Why didn't I think of that???"

I've toyed with the idea of maybe cashing in by spoofing Pasricha's work.  I could start a blog of my own called 1000bogusthings.com.  Every day I could write about something that sucks.  How about this:

When you're tying your shoes and you`re already late and your shoelace busts

Snap!

     BOGUS! 

Eh???  Eh???  Maybe it could catch on!  Maybe I could write a book of my own called The Book Of BOGUS.

Nah, it wouldn`t work.  See, the reason why Pasricha's blog caught on so big is precisely because it's so positive.  It gently opens an umbrella over the reader to shield them from the torrent of negativity that seems to rain down upon us from the commercial media every single day and it urges us to take pleasure in the little things.  It's precisely the kind of light-hearted, "feel good" writing to which The Halmanator aspires, only with money and success attached to it. 

And I have to admire the writing style too.  Pasricha comes across as one of those easy-going, down-to-earth, "I'm okay, you're okay" kind of guys. When writing about those drink cup lids, he explains that "we..." (meaning he and his sister, when they were kids) "...thought there was a big Garbage Survey at the end of the day and every customer had to punch their button to send in feedback.  We figured some poor sap stuck his arm shoulder-deep in that bag of lettuce scraps drenched in Big Mac sauce, hollow ice cream cone bottoms, and greasy French fry containers and pulled out all the cup lids.  We imagined he arranged them in tipsy, drippy piles and counted how many sold that day, adding the results up on a clipboard and calling them into the head office so they knew how many batches to make for tomorrow.

You see what I mean?  That paragraph right there probably brought a bigger smile to your face than anything I've written in this post so far, didn't it?  DIDN'T IT???  You probably even chuckled knowingly, didn't you?

But, all kidding aside, I don't really hate you Neil.  Actually, I think you're kind of...

AWESOME! (c) (R) (tm)

Hands Off Bruce Willis!

This is Bruce Willis...

...and this is Bruce Willis...

...and so is this...

Bruce Willis is one of those fundamental constants in life that we guys can depend upon.  He's tough.  He's macho.  He's cool.  He's witty.  He's like Sylvester Stallone with the ability to enunciate.  When the boss has been riding your ass all day, when the wife has booked your weekend looking at paint swatches and visiting with her parents, when the kids insist you take them on a road trip to the local Chuck E. Cheese's, when you're feeling more emasculated than Michael Keaton as Mr. Mom, you can always count on a Bruce Willis flick to man you back up with an invigorating shot of testosterone.  "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf....!"

So what on God's green earth is this abomination???

Imagine my dismay upon finding this affront to manhood in a DVD bargain bin recently!  Bruce Willis in a chick flick?  Really?  Is nothing sacred anymore?

Let's get something straight, ladies, Bruce Willis is off-limits!  He belongs to us guys!  We don't mess with your chick flick favourites.  You don't see titles like Fists of Fury starring Kate Hudson.  You'll never see Drew Barrymore in a car chase, steering with one hand while firing a 9mm Glock out the window with the other.  Anne Hathaway doesn't dress up in black tights and lay out bad ass thugs with roundhouse kicks...   oh, wait...

Okay, so Hathaway was Catwoman and Bruce Willis did a chick flick.  Let's call it even.  But from here on, ladies, HANDS OFF BRUCE WILLIS!

And, yes, I realize that Michelle Pfeiffer also played Catwoman, but she doesn't count.  She still did "girl" stuff like sew her own costume and use her whip as a jump rope for crying out loud!

 

A Bargoon!

Graphic borrowed from the Illegally Blonde
blog, because I can't draw this well

Like many people, I occasionally "Google" myself, just to see what's out there about me or what people or things might exist that are completely unrelated to me but happen to share my name, or a similar name.  But I don't just "Google" my real name.  I also sometimes "Google" the word "Halmanator".  Of course, this invariably leads to lots of links right back to this blog, but sometimes it also shows me interesting references. 

That's how I learned that there's another Halmanator out there who has nothing whatsoever to do with me or this blog.  I've also been flattered to occasionally find other web pages and blogs that reference or link to this blog.  One, for example, provided a link to my post about courtroom sketch artists along with a comment that they had often wondered why courtrooms use sketch artists as opposed to photographers, and that my post provided a fresh and unusual take on the subject.  Well, as I commented in my inaugural post, fresh and unusual takes is what this blog is all about.

A recent "Google" on the word "Halmanator" turned up a reference to this blog that somewhat amused me.  It lead me to a site called URLmetrics, which apparently catalogues web sites, compiles statistics about them and attaches a dollar value to them.

According to URLmetrics, this blog is ranked number 8,268,383^* in the United States (WOO-HOO!!!  I'm in the top ten million!)  Less than 300 people per month visit or view this blog (but you're definitely a part of an intellectually enlightened minority, my friend). 

What amused me most, though, is that URLmetrics values this blog at $569.13^*.  Doing a little math, this blog currently consists of 160 posts (including this one).  569.13 ÷ 160 = $3.56 so each and every post is worth exactly $3.56 and ... here's the cool part ... you get to read each and every one of them absolutely for free!  And, as I have categorically stated before, there never have been, nor will there ever be, any ads on this blog.  My purpose is to entertain and enlighten, not to shill.  It's just a little service that I selflessly provide, because that's just the kind of community-minded guy I am.

^* At the time that I viewed the site.  Remember that these are stats, and therefore prone to change.

Early Mornings and Empty Rooms

I'm a morning person.  The early morning is my favorite time of the day.  It has to do with the quiet.  I get a feeling of peacefulness when most of the world (at least in my immediate vicinity) is still asleep and those who, like myself, are awake, are walking their dogs or puttering about in their gardens or enjoying a quiet cup of coffee on their patios.  Or heading to work.  I should qualify this by explaining that I especially enjoy weekend and holiday mornings.  Weekday mornings, by their nature, are busier and noisier as most of us our in our cars, tackling the morning commute as we head to the office or the factory or the restaurant or the store, which tends to negate the tranquility factor.

In my early teens, I delivered the morning paper, so I'd be out there from about 6 am until 7 or 7:30 (my route covered a fairly large area), leaving the morning paper for people to peruse as they sipped their coffee.  Being so early, it was still quiet, even on weekdays, and I enjoyed it, so much so that I would get up early on weekends, even after I had moved on from newspaper delivery, and ride my bicycle through the empty streets of the surrounding neighborhoods.  Gliding by the rows of quiet houses with their darkened windows and their still-slumbering occupants gave me a quiet pleasure and, if I'm honest, a slight thrill of smug superiority.  Those poor sleepyheads were missing the best part of the day and didn't even realize it.

I also have a thing for empty rooms; especially ones that are normally bustling and full of people.  When I need to put in extra time at the office, I prefer to go in early rather than stay late.  This is partially because I have more energy at the start of the day rather than at the end, being a morning person, but also because I take a certain pleasure in opening the place up, turning on the lights, putting on a pot of coffee and settling in for some quiet, uninterrupted "focus" time with no phones ringing and no-one around to distract me.  Sometimes, before flipping that light switch, I take a moment just to relish the dim corridors and offices with their occasional barred patterns of alternating light and shadow thrown across the floors and onto the walls by streams of early morning sunlight filtering in through the blinds of the windows on the eastern wall of the building.

By the same token, I enjoy the sight of empty malls and parking lots on those universal holidays that apply to almost everyone, like Christmas and Easter.  I think it's good that people take a break from work, shopping and general commerce every once in a while and just chill out at home.  I silently lament for those hotel and restaurant workers who are required to work even on holidays such as these.  I realize that it's not practical, but wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just shut everything down for a day or two every so often?

Just Canada

On June 10, 1968, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau gave a speech in which he made the following declaration:

"No one in the society should be entitled to superfluous or luxury goods until the essentials of life are made available to everyone ... Thanks to (Canada's) abundant natural wealth and to the techniques of the industrial era, it no longer seems necessary to trample on one another in the scramble for riches."

Then he went on to expound upon how he felt that a "Just Society", which shares its wealth and its opportunities equally, should operate.

"The Just Society will be one in which all of our people will have the means and the motivation to participate. The Just Society will be one in which personal and political freedom will be more securely ensured than it has ever been in the past. The Just Society will be one in which the rights of
minorities will be safe from the whims of intolerant majorities. The Just Society will one in which those regions and groups which have not fully shared in the country’s affluence will be given a better opportunity. The Just Society will be one where such urban problems as housing and pollution will be attacked through the application of new knowledge and new techniques. The Just Society will be one in which our Indian and Inuit population will be encouraged to assume the full rights of citizenship through policies which will give them both greater responsibility for their own future and more meaningful equality of opportunity. The Just Society will be a united Canada, united because all of its citizens will be actively involved in the development of a country where equality of opportunity is ensured and individuals are permitted to fulfill themselves in the fashion they judge best…

…On the never-ending road to perfect justice we will, in other words, succeed in creating the most humane and compassionate society possible."

I hate to be a Negative Nellie but on this, Canada`s 146th birthday, I fear that, if Mr. Trudeau could see what the country that he lead for 15 years has become today, a mere 13 years after his death, he would turn in his grave.   The present Conservative government has arguably done much to regress Canada, and move it farther away from being the Just Society that Trudeau envisioned.  Let's compare some of the highlights from Mr. Trudeau's vision to today's realities.

"No one in the society should be entitled to superfluous or luxury goods until the essentials of life are made available to everyone."  Proponents of free market capitalism, like the Stephen Harper government, propose that, if they cater to the interest of big business, the wealth generated by that business will "trickle down" to the citizenry in the form of jobs, wages and benefits.  Sadly, this has not been proven in practice.  For over 3 decades, Canada's wealthiest families have been getting wealthier, while the quality of life for the middle class and the poverty-stricken has stagnated or even deteriorated.  And the problem has only worsened since the 2008/2009 financial crisis which was itself triggered by the greed of corporate America.  Thousands are homeless and have to rely on food bank hampers to survive, while the richest among us enjoy extravagant luxuries undreamed of by most.  According to a UNICEF report, Canada ranked only 17th out of 29 of the world's wealthiest nations in combating child poverty and promoting general well-being for children.

"The Just Society will be one in which all of our people will have the means and the motivation to participate."  Voting is, arguably, the most basic and fundamental means of participating for the average citizen.  It is now a matter of record that thousands of would-be voters, most of whom had expressed their intention not to support the Conservative party during pre-election interviews and polls, were misdirected by automated "robocalls" which falsely told them that their polling stations had been changed.  As a result, these people went to the wrong locations to vote and, in many cases, missed their chance to cast their ballots as a result.

One would think that a responsible government, upon learning that this sort of election fraud had been perpetrated, would do everything within its power to find out who had perpetrated the fraud, bring them to justice and put in place measures to ensure that such a thing could not happen again.  Not the Harper government, however.  At first, they attempted to casually dismiss the entire issue, suggesting that the calls were isolated and affected only one or two communities.  When it became evident, upon further investigation, that the problem was much larger and more wide-spread than the Conservatives would have the population believe and six individuals who had received misleading calls went to court asking that the election results in their ridings be overturned as a result, the Harper government and its lawyers employed every tactic at their disposal to block the proceedings and discredit the complainants.

Thanks to funding and support from a non-profit citizens advocacy group known as the Council of Canadians, the case was finally heard in court.  Although the judge who heard the case found no conclusive evidence that any member of the Conservative party was involved in the robocall scandal, he did state the entire affair "strikes at the integrity of the electoral process" and noted that whoever did orchestrate the calls must have "had access to a database of voter information maintained by a political party", the Conservative party of Canada.  So thousands of voters who had indicated that they would not vote Conservative were duped out of casting their ballots by someone who had access to the Conservative party`s voter information database.  Draw your own conclusions.

Incredibly, the Conservative party see these findings as some sort of vindication and, as a result seven Conservative MPs are now seeking $355,000 from the complainants who brought the case to court to cover their legal costs.  Far from encouraging and assisting these citizens in exercising their right to participate in the democratic process, the Harper government has done everything in its power to impede and to undermine them at every turn.

"The Just Society will be one in which personal and political freedom will be more securely ensured than it has ever been in the past."  Although the Harper government seems unwilling to spend any time or money investigating attacks on its citizens' democratic right to vote, it was happy to commit an extra two billion dollars over five years to build and expand prisons so that more people could be thrown in jail, even as statistics showed that the crime rate across the country is falling.  Further, they have imposed draconian minimum sentences for relatively minor offenses such as possession of marijuana and they have proposed legislation to keep those found not criminally responsible for violent crimes due to reasons of mental defect locked up in prisons as opposed to detaining them in institutions where their mental health problems can be more effectively addressed, despite objections from psychiatrists and other mental health experts.  As for citizens abroad, the Conservatives have shown a consistent indifference to the pleas of Canadians who have been imprisoned in foreign countries, the Omar Khadr case being the most high-profile example of this.

"The Just Society will be one in which the rights of minorities will be safe from the whims of intolerant majorities."    The Harper government introduced Bill C-31 which targets refugee claimants, giving the Immigration Minister the power to imprison them, deny them the ability to reunite with family members and strip them of secure legal status.  Refugees have also been made ineligible for receiving basic health care benefits.  Harper's Conservatives also scrapped the Court Challenges Program, which granted legal and financial assistance to minority groups who wanted to challenge government actions that violated their constitutional rights.  Canadian minorities have found the Conservative government to be completely unsympathetic to their needs and concerns.

"The Just Society will be one in which our Indian and Inuit population will be encouraged to assume the full rights of citizenship through policies which will give them both greater responsibility for their own future and more meaningful equality of opportunity".  The Harper government abandoned the 2006 Kelowna Accord which included programs to address aboriginal issues including health, addiction, and youth suicide, among others.  Their C-45 omnibus bill circumvented the Indian Act which was created to protect aboriginal rights, as well as weakening environmental controls, especially with regard to industrial access to waterways.  This lead to the creation of the Idle No More movement.

Under Stephen Harper, Canada has abandoned any pretence at environmental stewardship.  She has focused on punishing, rather than rehabilitating those convicted of breaking the law.  She has closed her doors to refugees seeking asylum and respite from other, less prosperous and/or democratic  countries, and denied basic health care to those who have already taken refuge inside of her borders.  Her government, contrary to its original promise of increased  openness and transparency, has become the most secretive, clandestine government in Canada`s history, hiding policy changes that affect every single Canadian inside of massive "omnibus" budgets, making deals and passing bills with minimal consultation with either Canadian citizens or even Parliament, and gutting institutions like Statistics Canada, so that Canadians find it harder than ever to understand what kind of quality of life they enjoy and how that quality of life compares with those of other nations.  When uncomfortable questions were asked, they prorogued Parliament, shutting down any further discussion.  When Canadians' democratic right to vote was undermined, they first dismissed the issue, then tried to obstruct those who would investigate what happened and, finally, punished ordinary citizens who came forward in defence of their rights.

Canadians spent 141 years building a society that was world renowned for its tolerance, fairness, compassion, generosity, environmental responsibility and commitment to peace.  In just six years, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have eroded many of the rights and freedoms that Canadians hold dear and soiled Canada`s reputation and status on the international stage.  I can only cling to my belief that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives do not, in fact, represent the majority of Canadians and to the hope that, come the next federal election, my fellow citizens will take back their country and set her back on the path to once again becoming a Just Society.