Conservatives Fail on Economic Front

“Tories pledge protection for embattled oil sands - Coalition Threat”
The headline above appeared on Saturday, December 06, 2008 in the National Post. This commitment comes on the heels of the announcement last week, that the Canadian economy had lost 71,000 jobs in November. The bulk of the losses, 90% were incurred in Ontario. Of these, 38,000 were in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing job losses since 2002 have totalled 388,000, according to Statistics Canada . If there ever was an industry in need of attention during these tough economic times it is manufacturing. In the same report, Alberta got off fairly lightly with losses of 3,700 jobs. Yet, Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, has chosen to highlight the threat of damage to the Alberta Oil Sands industry should the Coalition gain power. This is the sort of direction from the Federal Government will only serve to accentuate the regional differences opened by Stephen Harper last week. It also highlights the need for Parliament to be in the House and dealing with the pressing issues that are laying waste to the economy of the country. Clearly, Harper's Conservatives are fixated on the need to hang onto power with their divide and conquer methods, and will not deal with the issues of ordinary Canadians even though our economy is headed for the ditch.

Parliamentary "Recess"

The Governor General, Michaelle Jean, has granted Stephen Harper a “stay of execution”, at the hands of a majority in the House of Commons. This decision means that Canada is now effectively governed by a group of Parliamentarians, who have managed to engineer a “coup”, and seize control of the Federal Government. I will grant that I am plagiarising the rhetoric of that same group, AKA, the Conservative Party of Canada. It is extremely unfortunate that Michaelle Jean has set a dangerous precedent in granting the PM his request, and thereby allowing him to avert certain defeat at the hands of the opposition. This potentially has opened the door to any future Prime Minister who, when faced with defeat, to exercise the option to prorogue Parliament. Now that Harper has succeeded in achieving this goal, and given his demonstated modus operandi, and the disregard he has shown for the Office of Prime Minister, He most certainly will once again try to “push the envelope” when next faced with a crisis. Where will he stop. What tactics would he consider to be crossing the ethical and moral lines. He is afterall, someone who is puportedly committed to serving the citizens of this country. He has indicated a willingness to use any weapon, or tactic at his disposal to hang onto power. Over the past few days he has shown that throwing Quebecers “under the wheels of the bus” of public opinion and starting the unity crisis anew was not too great a price to pay. What is next? Who is expendible in his quest to destroy all opposition in his quest to retain power?

Thus it is, that we now have a government that has no moral, or ethical right to continue in power. In reality, it matters little, that the voters appear, in recent polling, to be supportive of the Conservatives. It does not matter that the opposition was attempting to form a coalition, and that concept is new and somehow scary to Canadians. It doesn't matter which party or group think that they have gained an advantage. It is irrelevant that some do not like Stephan Dion. Canadian democracy has been diminished. Stephen Harper, when faced with imminent defeat in a motion of confidence, by abusing his power, delayed that vote for a week. He accomplished this by cancelling the opposition day in Parliament on Monday December 01. On national television He did commit to having the vote on the following Monday. He has renegged on his commitment. He has convinced the Governor General to prorogue Parliament until the end of January. It doesn't matter which party you might support. It doesn't matter where you live. The fact is Harper, used the office of Prime Minister to evade the wishes of Parliament and had managed to thwart the wishes of the House. He is now the master of an illegal government. This is the core detail of the entire sorry drama. All of the other details are nothing more than window dressing. Whether or not he manages to gain the confidence of Parliament in January 27th, is irrelevant. Had the constitution been followed he would have lost the vote of confidence over the Economic Statement. We then would have had the Governor General deciding whether to allow a coalition, or sending the voters back to the polls. That would have been a legal outcome.

Using the tactic of prorogation was unethical. This was an abuse of the highest office in the land and shows that the Prime Minister has no respect for the office he has gone to such lengths to hang onto. He has opened the unity debate again. He has engaged more Canadians than ever in the debate, but at the cost of deep divisions, and unprecedented levels of anger. He has openly exploited divisions for citizens of differing cultures or residing in different geographical regions opening wounds that may take years to heal. Stephen Harper has opened a pandora's box of unintended consequences that may harm Canada and its people for the forseeable future. Stephen Harper has poisoned Parliament and has no right to occupy the office of Prime Minsister.

Coalition is Needed

Harper is like a Republican petty and greedy

There is so little time and so much to do.

Our country needs re-structuring, and not in the sense Mr. Harper wants.We don't need them to sell Canada to the Americans again or be lax in thought about the citizens of this country. We just bought Canada back and we had a surplus for our infrastructure. We don't want to punish the people we voted for, we want them to govern.

We need a coalition and it seems the right thing to do now.

The NDP and the Liberal party have great ideas and they can work well together. Along with the Bloc lets’ face it Quebec is doing things in health-care and childcare we just dream about. And just what is wrong with the Bloc being part of this, I'm sorry but I learned in school, that if a person is voted in during an election they are part of parliament, and that means they are Canadian last time I looked.Unless Harper changed the law and Quebec is no longer part of the country and he forgot to tell us about it.

Let us help rebuild our tired cities - green transit. And not just for cities; what is wrong with building a new and better rail service for people and products? Give Canadians the access of new jobs, to build a better Canada. We have suppliers going under and they can be used for our own needs. Be inventive think outside the box, build our own Hybrids. (We have the talent and we know how to do it all).

Harper is the emperor with no clothes.

Please listen to a Canadian that believes it can get better. This bullying by Mr. Harper has to stop. The pettiness is having a seriously negative effect on the people. He is on his way to splitting up the country. Next you will hear it is between us and them.

A Prime Minister is supposed to reassure people that he is taking care of the country's welfare. It is not to frighten them into his way of thinking. Or make us hate our neighbours because they think differently he does.

Fear and Loathing of the Bloc and a United Left

With a Coalition of the Liberals and New Democrats, now on the verge of forming a government, significant numbers of talking heads and assorted pundits in the media, are expressing concern, outrage, or suggesting that the support is tantamount to sedition. Further, there seems to be a fear of admitting that a significant portion of the Canadian electorate happy with the current turn of events. One of the issues used by pundits, is the inclusion of the Conservative talking point decrying the use of the Bloc to shore up support for this government in waiting. One particular point of view that I have not heard explored in any detail is why Gilles Duceppe, and his caucus would sign on to support the Coalition in the first place?

One possible explanation would center around the dismal state of the Party's finances. They, more than any other party in Parliament are dependant on the public funding, that the Harper Conservatives vowed to eliminate in last week's financial statement delivered by Jim Flaherty. Given the circumstances, it is in their interest to protect that funding, until such time as they are able to rebuild their finances from private contributions. Another alternative would be to eliminate the threat of bancrupcy by assisting the other members of the Coalition in eliminating the Conservative threat as much as possible.

Secondly, in polling by Leger Marketing, the Provincial Liberals, led by Jean Charest, are currently enjoying a comfortable lead over the PQ, and appear to be well on the road to forming a majority government after the Provincial Election to be held on December 8th. As a result, the Bloc may have chosen to use support of the coalition as a means of buying time, as it were, to rebuild the fortunes of the Separatist movement in Quebec. Support of the coalition in Ottawa, although it might outrage some hardcore separatists, is more likely to be advantageous than damaging to the party in the long run. In addition, the question of another referendum on Quebec separation any time in the near future remains moot, as there are clear signs that the younger generation of Francophones in the Province appear to regard the issue of independence as an issue of the older generation. Their are signs that the electorate is begining to tire of the entire issue of Quebec independence.

It is also worth noting that support of the coalition offers an unprecedented opportunity for the Bloc to influence the government of Canada without appearing to “Sell Out” to the forces of Federalism in Ottawa, and without actually appearing to be a part of the Government of the day. The prospect of advancing the interests of Quebec by holding the balance of power in a minority situation must have been attractive indeed. Further, they did not have to compromise their leftist ideals by supporting the decidedly right-wing agenda of the Conservatives. The fact that Stephan Dion's tenure as Prime Minister is time limited to next May would allow their base the opportunity to forget that they supported the architect of the last federalist campaign during the referendum in 1995.

Finally, although it flies in the face of the Harperites, perhaps, the Bloc, in light of the economic crisis, doing what they were elected to do, putting the needs of the electorate first and placing the more divisive portions of their platform on hold. To the cynical Conservatives, that would be unfathomable. To this writer, it is clear the only party in the House with no interest in addressing the needs of the Country, are the Conservatives. Their attempts at divide, and conquer politics, and demonization of the opposition, in the current crisis have been shameful.

In light of the happenings in Parliament, it is possible, that Harper in his efforts to destroy the Opposition, may have revived the flagging fortunes of Separatism in Quebec. His monumental arrogance is probably the most destructive force in politics in generations.