Has Maxime Bernier Been Ill? Was His Muzzle on Too Tight?

I know that Maxime Bernier is one of the caucus members Stephen Harper would prefer stay home, because lately his ramblings are puzzling to say the least. But his latest nonsense over the census long form is further proof that this government is running on fumes.

He wants to call a hearing into the census decisions. Good. Will they attend? Who cares?

But where Bernier starts to lose touch with reality is here:

The Tories also want to use the emergency committee hearings to put the opposition Liberals on the spot, said Bernier. "The opposition will have to explain to Canadians why they want the state and the government of Canada to know lots of details from their private lives. They will have to answer that
question."

Bernier said that when he was industry minister during the last census period in 2006, he received an average of 1,000 e-mail complaints a day while the survey was going on.

Now apparently Bernier doesn't read the papers or he would know that while yes, the opposition parties are opposing, it's other groups who are far more vocal. And when those groups became vocal, the opposition parties did what we and those groups pay them to do. They opposed.

And the list of those upset by this assinine decision is growing: Evangelical and Jewish communities, banks, Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty, the business community and economists, doctors and health care professionals, etc. etc. etc. Does he want them at the hearing to explain themselves?

Stephen Harper made this decision because he's now playing to his base. But when the "you know what" hit the fan, where is Harper? Probably another photo-op.

So Maxime, I think you need to find another biker chick, settle down, raise a brood and leave us alone, because frankly, you're starting to scare me.

1,000 a day. Give me a break. Tony Clement is the Industry Minister now, and he begged Stephen Harper not to axe it.

I think Vanity Press may have another reason to explain Steve's decision:

Stephen Harper has been PM for about five years. He became PM in 2006, the same year as the last census. The 2011 census will be the first national collection of data on the state of the population since then. There's now been plenty of time for the results of his government's policies to have statistical effect in the population. There is, in fact, no way that the results of a comprehensive 2011 census would not be interpreted as a means of judging his performance ... Harper wants to control his own reputation long-term, and the one thing he can't control is reliable, independently collected and analyzed data. Therefore, he's just going to prevent its collection in the first place.

He wants to hide his report card so we can't see his failing grade. Too late. We see it every day.