Exposed! Undercover at a Meeting of Harper's Base

So after learning that Harper is now playing strictly to his base, the only thing he has left to lose; I've been tracking them as they move about, roaring now and then, sometime growling and always drooling.

When I heard that they were meeting this weekend, I hid in the bushes and taped the whole thing. These are the transcribed notes:

"Ugh" ... "Ugh, ugh, bah!" ... "Schlipm, mig, boo" ... "Ugh, ugh!" ... "Bah ..."

This nonsense over wanting to put an end to affirmative action is as old as the Reform Party, and after years of trying to convince us that they are not racist, I suppose they no longer care.

"... the notion that some Reform members may have strong Anglo-Saxon nativist inclinations is supported by more than merely the background profiles of its leaders, members and supporters. It is supported also by the words of many of its ideological mentors who depict Canada as not only historically an Anglo-Saxon country but also part of a wider Anglo-Saxon culture that is in need of recognizing and re-establishing its heritage." (Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 170)

This also parallels a similar movement in the U.S. with Harper's colleagues, like Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute. According to Marci McDonald in the Armageddon Factor, 700 conservatives have graduated from Blackwell's school, including Harper MP Rob Anders.

Blackwell is currently backing a group called Youth for Western Civilisation, who have been doing things like selling muffins, where the price is dependant on race, in protest of affirmative action.

These guys are so transparent.

A column in the Toronto Star this weekend: Job equity has old Tory roots, gives the reasons for this initiative and that it began with the Tory party of John Diefenbaker, (which is not the same as the current "Tory" party which began with William Aberhart. Diefenbaker's party folded in 2003).

The affirmative action program is clumsy, to say the least, when it refuses to even consider worthy applicants of other backgrounds. The question is what Day and his voluble ally, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, are really up to here. The targeting of specific groups — such as aboriginals, the disabled, visible minorities and women — to the exclusion of other applicants is hardly rampant: of the 5,000 public service jobs posted last year, only 91 were designated for one group, such as aboriginals.

A maladroit web application process can be modified, but that does not mean that the rest of the employment equity philosophy should be discarded, throwing minorities out with the bathwater. If the Tories were to follow up by tweaking the offending measure, fair enough. But look at what Kenney is saying: “All positions should be on the basis of equality of opportunity and merit.”

Actually, that’s what the Bill of Rights attempted in 1960, and it did almost nothing to right the wrongs of exclusion in employment. That’s why the landmark report of a royal commission headed by Rosie Abella (now a Supreme Court justice) argued persuasively that affirmative action was needed to redress the imbalances — with recruitment and targeting of under-represented groups.

Gotta go. I hear that Harper's base is having a burping contest and I don't want to miss it. They were originally going to have the burp the alphabet, until it was discovered that only a few actually knew the alphabet, so instead they are burping "How, dry I am"

Can't wait.