I rarely talk about Canadian politics here, it's just not as fun as American, more complicated, in two languages and our pundits suck! Tomorrow's State of the Union Address is a big event in my house, there will be cocktails and pizza, I've watched most of them since the Reagan years, I wish our Prime Ministers (PM's) had to do them. Apparently we have suffered 5 long years under the Stephen Harper regime, if this were America we would be watching clips galore and the talkosphere would be non stop, are you any better off? If I were to write an actual serious article about Harper I would have needed at least a week of reading to prepare. Where I live, in a colder version of Texas, criticizing Harper is tantamount to treason, the right-wing here just can't get enough of the secretive, yet sinister, overweight gopher-like PM we call Right Honourable. For my American friends "Right Honourable" is a British term that predates right-left ideology, from a time when Parliamentarians were considered to have more rights than anyone and honourable because they were related to the Royal Family which also had the same rights as God. We Canadians come from a proud and polite tradition, raise my taxes? Thank you! Would you like that in 50's or 100's?
There were little pieces on our News about Harper, mostly showing how he can play piano and mangle Classic Rock songs, he is the kind of asshole who knowingly cannot sing yet just like Vladimir Putin destroying Blueberry Hill recently, this ain't gonna stop him. While shoring up the Classic Rock vote this also apparently makes Canadians forget just what a truly mean spirited anti-Canadian he really is. I went thru some quotes of Harper's today, I remember when they were in the news that day but I think many of my countrymen forget all about them. My favourite is when he said "...West of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada: people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian Society." -The Report, January 2001. Wow, and you thought Obama's clinging to "religion and guns" thing was bad? So, in one sentence Harper insulted the West, Asians, Liberals, Eastern Canadians, and ghettos. Actually we don't really have ghettos in the West, not by US standards anyway, we have areas that that fat white guys might stand out like a sore thumb but they are by no means ghettos. Downtown Vancouver is a ghetto?, a gay ghetto maybe. I didn't see him complaining about Vancouver ghettos during all the patriotism displayed by him during the Winter Olympics. There are many quotes available online if you'd like to take a walk a down memory lane, too many to list here but I think he's insulted pretty much everyone except straight white men yet still gets elected, he even said bilingualism was a failure and the Quebecois did not declare war?
Harper says a lot of things he doesn't mean though, remember when he said he wouldn't tax Income Trust funds? and then he did! A 34% tax on (mostly) seniors savings, I remember when one of my more wealthy friends who voted Conservative for years wrote his MP an angry letter and probably still casts a vote for the Green Party in protest. Then there was the get rid of the Senate talk, it was once the most destructive and money wasting ventures in Canadian History according to Harper, until he started filling vacancies with every friend and agreeable personality from CTV News, like Mike Duffy could afford to gain more weight! I guess a new Senate seat will be coming up soon? Maybe he can peruse his Rolodex for Corporate Heads or Religious leaders? Those are two of my favourites, one could fill a book with this stuff, send me yours!
Flip-flopping politics aside, the most telling and chilling aspect of the PM is his relationship to Darell Reid, Deputy Chief of Staff and longtime associate of The Reform Party. This Darell Reid, who is never talked about in our media, has very close associations to American radical-religious leader James Dobson and was former President of Focus On The Family Canada. Please look them up. In a nutshell this group is dead set against Abortion in any form, Gay Rights, and Activist Judges, they believe it is up to every Christian to change laws to reflect the views of the Bible, yet we are at war against the Taliban because their view of religion is "too dark" for us? I think this explains pretty much everything Harper is really trying to accomplish, don't let the tone deaf rendition of Lennon's Imagine lead you astray. This explains the defunding of family planning programs for the Third World recently, the KAIROS program, the defunding of the Court Challenges program, the failed vote on rescinding Gay Marriage, the defunding of Toronto's Gay Pride Parade, the largest in the World and huge cash generator for Toronto, I'm going to add trying to roll back gun control in here too; I know from the religious right in the states that we can't have God without Guns for some reason that I cannot find in my Bible. Let's also add the funding of several Christian groups and Christian Youth Centres while ignoring the need for Native Youth Centres, or anyone else for that matter. I'm sorry, I thought Churches already had tax exempt status? Why am I funding such "Special Interests" with my tax dollars? Yes, darlings, it goes both ways, especially in the secular world I thought we lived in!?!? All this after Harper said to the National Post in 2004 "I don't believe in imposing values in people." Oh OK! I think we have many words and expressions for what that is!
Don't even get me started on the 5.96 Billion $ debt, after the budget was balanced in 1997, hmmm, there was a lot of that going on in the 90's! The Helena Guergis prostitute cocaine fueled lobbyist influencing scandal. The Billion dollar G20 BS, where Conservative ridings got fancy new toilets in Public Parks, yet they say they hate gay cruising (I'm looking at you Tony Clement). Or the largest mass arrest of Canadian citizens in our history when thousands were rounded up because they might be protesting while carrying Macy's bags. There are just so many examples of right-wing ideology creeping into our once nice little country that even the UN didn't vote for Canada having a Security Council seat for the first time in it's history. It's got to be pretty bad if the world community thinks Portugal deserves a seat over Canada!
By the by Mr. Harper, since you've made such a show of worshiping our Canadian Forces fighting for freedom in Afghanistan, it's only one more year until you can send your son.
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