Death of the Silly Season in Canada? New Media and Politics

I'm expectantly waiting for summertime to bring an end to political wrangling of all sorts but maybe I'm being naive. Maybe it's just not possible in an era where the media operates under the rules of 'there must be constant frenzy' so as to continuously keep the readers titillated. Does this signal the death of the silly season in Canada?

 

Witness today's opening story about interview with CSIS director Richard Fadden that happened months ago and wasn't released until just this week. I didn't cover it immediately because it sounded like some mad crank. He said that a number of politicians were being directly influenced by foreign states. Sounds like crazy conspiracy talk to me. Turns out he actually said it, and the CBC which aired the interview on Tuesday sat on this explosive information for a considerable time. Maybe to ease the pain of quiet summers? What the hell were they thinking? 

He backtracked a bit later saying, “I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC,” and added “CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities.”

The Summits are about to get under way starting with the G-20 in Toronto, which is under lockdown.  The world has noticed Harper's egregious spending on "security" and the fake lake making fools of us all. There will be an anti-war rally on the 26th outside the US consulate. At Massey Hall on Saturday there will be at the Council of Canadians, Shout Out for Global Justice with prominent social and environmental justice leaders from around the world including Amy Goodman from Democracy Now.

Oh by the way, in case you missed it, the Tories prison bill to cost Canadian taxpayers one billion dollars a year. Conservatives all over the world suck at actually being fiscal conservatives - they just talk about it endlessly.

Lastly, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore labels critics of Bill C-32 (the Canadian version of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act) "radical extremists" and urged confrontation against those who argue for fair copyright, and then tries to cover it up. Here's Cory Doctrow, a Canadian author who also who blogs over at boingboing.net who do an extraordinary job of keeping on top of this issue.