Harper Will Continue to Dismantle Canada Until Voters Are Given Hope

Ralph Surette has another excellent column in the Chronicle Herald, but I do have one criticism. Until the media, even those well intentioned, stop suggesting that Michael Ignatieff is weak, or that we have no opposition, Harper will continue his reign of terror until there is nothing left.

Other than that, everything Mr. Surette says is true.

One thing the vast majority of us are distinctly not waiting for is for the Harper government to actually improve anything, especially not to advance the cause of a properly functioning democracy. On the contrary, the drift is ominous: towards a tyrannical control from the Prime Minister’s Office aimed at dismantling large parts of the Canadian state, punishing anyone who questions its aims, manipulating information, and turning the society into an alloy of right-wing religion and big money.

The truly ill-omened part is that Stephen Harper can do this while in a minority. That is, even if the Conservatives do shoot themselves in the head — and they came close by destroying the census long form as a useful public instrument — they’ll keep governing in zombie form if the opposition remains as fractured as it is. And even more ominously, it’s not just us.

South of the border, the undead detritus of the Bush/Cheney devastation still stalks the land and, amazingly, may well capture control of the Congress this fall, their main hope being to prevent the Bush tax cuts for the rich from coming to an end on schedule, which would have devastating consequences for national finances in the
long run.

It just seems that no matter what these guys do, and as horrible as most people know they are, they are almost untouchable. But I swear if Jack Layton goes after the Liberals next election, instead of working to dethrone the dictator, I will never, ever, ever, have anything to do with the NDP again.

In 2008, they actually attacked the carbon tax, instead of going after the person they knew had no intention of ever addressing climate change. They handed Harper the election.