Stand up for hypocrisy

Well, the Conservative Party is back to their old tricks again. If you are living in the Kitchener-Waterloo or Guelph area, you probably got the new pamphlet from the ruling party this past week.

While I usually just sigh to myself, shake my head in disgust and throw these ill-fated pamphlets out before reading them, I decided to read this one. Why you ask? Well, as you know, government is currently prorogued. So I couldn’t quite get my head around which possible way the Conservatives were trying to spin my ideas now.

Standing up for Canada?

It turns out, according to our Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, MP for Whitby-Oshawa (from whom this pamphlet was written), the Liberals aren’t tough on crime like the Conservatives are. To be fair to the ruling party, the Conservatives have introduced a number of crime bills, which the Liberal Party has opposed.

What motivated me to sit down and write this was this gem, “Our government brought forward legislation to get tough on criminals… but Ignatieff’s Liberals delayed legislation…” (italics mine) Wow. I am almost driven to speechlessness by  this statement. Yes, the Liberals may have tried to delay the legislation that they did not agree with; that is their job. That is why they are the Official Opposition. The point of democracy, my Conservative Party friends, is to work together to build a consensus that is best for the majority, if not all, Canadians.

Though the Conservatives being upset that the Liberals don’t agree with them isn’t what filled me with contempt. What enraged me was the complete lack of hindsight that the Conservative Party seems to have. Delaying legislation? That’s not that bad. The Conservatives on the other hand, killed their own legislation, by proroguing parliament for ill-conceived and ill-received political aspirations.

To send out these pamphlets telling Canadians that the Liberals are the ones not trying to move this country forward is not only hypocritical but reeks of ignorance, contempt and an apparent belief that the average Canadian is not only completely absent-minded but can’t remember what happened just over a month ago.

I am not only absolutely tired of the Conservative campaigning when no election has been called, but I am beyond insulted by the fact that the Conservative Party killed their own legislation for political gain and are now trying to convince the Canadian public that the Liberals are the ones delaying legislation.

Mr. Harper, if you want my vote, stop campaigning when no election has been called, stop proroguing parliament, stop the political theatre that you have created and get to work. Rather than telling the voter to stand up for Canada and vote Conservative, you need stand up for Canada, Mr. Harper, and move this country forward.

A Study in Hypocrisy

From Canoe.ca

Once again, Stephen Harper has reneged on his campaign promises of reforming the Canadian Senate. I believe that most people recall the PM’s grand plans to reform the senate into an elected body, with Senators sitting for 6-year terms; a plan that was driven by his promises of accountability. Despite these grand overtures, Harper has once again named a number of partisan Conservatives to the country’s higher house in favour of developing (some form of) a majority. Claiming the upper house stood as a bulwark to the progress of his government (making no mention of his legislative minority in the House of Commons), Harper has re-affirmed his commitment to promoting accountability only when it suits his political interests.

If Harper is so determined to increase accountability and democracy in this country, as he claimed in his last two campaigns, should he be so apt to embrace patronage when it becomes available to him (as is the case with Senate appointments)? His theme here is that these five senators are “crime and punishment” conservatives. They are people who stand tough on crime and will provide moral leadership (as well as numeric superiority) in the upper house. He believes that since his government’s crime bills have been blocked on several occasions, he needs to develop a majority in one house which will allow them to push through this legislation. He seems to be oblivious to the fact that the majority of the House of Commons (the elected representatives of Canadians) have steadfastly denied this legislation because it is not the will of the majority of Canadians. So not only is he going against his campaign promises to reform an undemocratic institution, he is actively pushing through legislation which is widely viewed as being against the political will of the elected representatives of Canadians.

This man never ceases to amaze me with his smug and megalomaniac behaviour.  He has been a study in saying one thing and doing the opposite. By filling the Senate with men and women who have long bought into his “cult of personality” (Kool-Aid anyone?), Harper has managed to once again stomp on Canadian democracy. Add this to the most recent prorogation of parliament and I begin to worry that our PM has become exactly what he railed against during the years of Liberal government that he sat in opposition: a tyrant. He has become so comfortable in power that he neglects his responsibilities to Canadians. He neglects that we have a constitutional right to elect representatives, who in turn vote to do what we please. He neglects the checks on his power and acts as if it is absolute. Mr. Harper’s hyocrisy in claiming that he stands for accountability while pursuing these avenues is, to date, one of the most vile and devious acts of his time as PM.

~ Drew

(Note: What makes this entire situation even more devastating to me is the appointment of Bob Runciman, who has stood as the MPP in my riding since before my birth. The rest of Ontario (as he acted as leader of the Ontario opposition), and even Canadians, have probably heard of him through some of his “finer” moments, most notably his reference to Belinda Stronach as a Dipstick, and for his noted views on race and responsibility for crime in Toronto. I implore you to take a look at your newest Senator)

Politics as usual.

courtesy of the CBC

For those of you who don’t routinely visit the Conservative Party of Canada’s website, and considering it’s the Conservative Party’s website, I think it’s safe to assume not many of you do. They recently began advertising their “Ignatieff.Me” section in which they show Ignatieff saying “It’s your America, just as much as it is mine,” clearly as part of the ongoing attempt to paint Ignatieff red, white and blue…. or at least not the red and white  for which we stand on guard.

They also try to argue that Ignatieff is only politically active for his own elitist, selfish reasons. Well, that’s debatable.

Though I find it hard to believe that the Conservatives think they can bask in some divinely inspired selflessness.

Not after Proroguing government again.

I say that suspending parliament (at all, nevermind three times in four years) is selfish because it rips away open discussion in Parliament and strips criticism from the set of tools that the opposition parties have to keep the government in check. Without the ability to keep Prime Minister Harper and his Party in check the country is stripped of the very ideals that we hold dear.

Harper’s spokesperson, David Soudas, said that the move to prorogue parliament until after the Vancouver Olympics is, in fact, “routine.” While the Liberal Party, NDPs and Bloc Quebecois are all saying that Harper is only doing this to stop the investigation into Colvin’s allegations of torture, the Conservative Party states that they are suspending parliament in order to (from CBC):

to consult with Canadians, stakeholders and businesses as it moves into the “next phase” of its economic action plan amid signs of economic recovery.

This insults me and stinks of bullshit  for a number of reasons.

First of all, is the Conservative Party really that inept at governing that they can’t hold Parliamentary sessions and consult with Canadians at the same time?

Second. Shouldn’t the Government of Canada be continuously consulting with Canadians? Not just when it has time?

Lastly, and most importantly, this pisses me off because it seems as though the other parties hardly care. Looking through the Liberal Party website and the NDP website only one of the two have a press release about the suspension.  Gilles Duceppe, the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois, seemed to think that a simple 140 characters on Twitter would suffice.

The saddest thing about Duceppe’s twitter rant is that it required about 140 times as much action as the majority of Canadians citizens want to put forth. As lazy and ineffective as Facebook activism seems to me, only just over 7000 people put in the effort to join a group against proroguing government.

Harper gets away with this only because we let him. Write your MP, write the opposition MPs, write Conservatives! Write Stephen Harper! Hell, if you have more energy than the majority of people in the 21st century, pick up the phone and call the PMO!

What does it take to get people to protest injustice in this country?

~James