As I've said before: We get letters!
Will it be a Happy New Year for Canadians?
Let's just watch on January 27th for Stephen Harper to roll out a massive spending spree in Quebec in an attempt to "persuade" the Bloc Quebecois to prop up the absolute failure that is Harper's government.
This won't be the first time that Stephen Harper has tried to use "incentives" in order to gain political support. . . . Can anyone say Chuck Cadman?
What exactly will Canada get out of a disproportionate glut of money that will undoubtedly be transferred to Quebec? At least the sponsorship program was aimed at stemming the separatist agenda in Quebec. And if you didn't notice, something seemed to work for a while.
By the way, what was the total cost of the sponsorship program? My guess is that the Bloc Quebecois' portion of Harper's budget will make the entire expenditure for the sponsorship program pale in comparison.
Again, what will Canada get out the billions of dollars that will be spent in Quebec other than prolonging Harper's malignant and politically vicious reign and giving renewed life to the Bloc Quebecois?
Sure, the stimulus money should be distributed fairly in all provinces to help with the economy of the country, but the real focus should be on how Harper will budget the billions of dollars in order to pry the Bloc away from a potential coalition.
Hear it now, the Harper/Bloc budget will have two direct effects, it will keep Harper in the Prime Minister's seat for a while longer and more unfortunately, it will work to rebuild the failing Bloc Quebecois by re-establishing them as a potent political force for Quebec.
Maybe Sheila Fraser will come back from her two year vacation to actually scrutinize Harper's programs and expenditures and expose the real price of Harper's politics of panic.
Working with the Bloc is always going to come with certain drawbacks. This was the danger that would have confronted Stephane Dion, had he been able to go forward with a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc. The Bloc would have been able to hold a knife against the throat of the coalition for the benefit of only Quebec.
It is ironic that the Bloc don't even have to put a knife against Harper's throat in order to achieve their objectives. Harper is doing it all on his own to save his ass from certain political doom.
Will Canadians hold Harper's feet to the fire when the Bloc or let's say maybe just 20 members of the Bloc vote to support Harper's January 27 budget? Will Harper then continue to cry about working with the "Separatists"???
What this most recent set of events should be showing Canadians is that the real problem afflicting our political system is that of regional-based federal political parties that serve only a narrow set of interests. Both the Bloc and the Reform/Conservatives are regional-based parties who are only able to succeed by using divide and conquer tactics.
Why in Canada's 141 year history did it take a western-based Reform/Conservative government under the rule of someone like Stephen Harper (who, by the way, has made a career of hating the federal government) to push Ontario into HAVE NOT STATUS?????
Ontario . . . A HAVE NOT PROVINCE!!!!!
Shouldn't Harper have some explaining to do?
Maybe this is part of Harper's plan to break apart Canada? Why else has he pushed the backbone of the country into have not status, divided east and west, recklessly inflamed anti-Quebec anger, relentlessly brutalized his opposition with infantile attack ads, degraded political discourse, and attacked respected national institutions like Elections Canada, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Courts, the Governor General, Parliamentary procedure, committees and rules?
I am beginning to think that Stephen Harper really doesn't know what he is doing.
Perhaps Harper is just simply filled with anger and is bent on destroying our system of government and his opposition for no purpose other than to satisfy his own unquenchable hatred.
His pet project of Americanizing our system of GOVERNMENT by attempting to change the Senate appointment process, by bringing in legislation to "fix" election dates and having consultation on the appointment of judges have all fallen by the wayside.
Harper has ended up doing exactly what he has railed against for over a decade, appointing 18 senators, appointing judges without consultation, breaking his own "fixed" election law, etc . . .
What Harper HAS succeeded in doing is Americanizing Canada's POLITICAL system with his wholesale adoption of Karl Rove's play book, including aggressive attacks on opponents, employing wedge issues, exploiting ignorance, employing biased media organizations to funnel the Reform/Conservative messages, and by outright lying to the Canadian people.
What is most stupefying about Harper is that he has not yet realized or appreciated that our system has developed customary laws to set out the processes and procedures to deal with these very issues over the course of the past 141 years and in reality over the past 800 years based on the history and development of the British Parliamentary system.
What Harper is obviously failing to understand is that our system has functioned extremely well when the people running the country understand why and how it actually works. We were doing just fine before Harper, in fact, we were the envy of the world for a long time before Harper set out to rip it apart.
This brings me back to my point about the buying of the Bloc to prop up his budget and what would otherwise be a vote of non-confidence. What THIS unholy alliance represents is a group of western separatists collaborating with a group of Quebec "separatists" to control the country at the expense of our broad national interests.
Only in Harper's delusional world of Hobbesian state-of-nature politics can he even think to say that anyone is "better off with Harper".
Have a great New Year!!
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3 comments:
James, I don't think Duceppe is fooled at all by Harper and any possibility of wooing here is dreaming. The Bloc had no knife anywhere, and they had agreed to support the lib/ndp coalition in the terms they agreed to. It was a contractual agreement.
It's the ring-leaning libs the harperites are after.
In fact, the Bloc have already said they would vote against the budget.
I doubt very much that Harper is going to try & get the Bloc to support the budget by giving billions to Quebec. He knows he's lost Quebec now & my thought is that he will try & work with Layton to prop up his budget - &/or Ignatieff. Whether he's successful on either of those fronts remains to be seen.
He may be successful with the budget IF it's a good one & is supported by, most likely, the Libs. But I sincerely hope the coalition remains a viable one for the future, if not sooner.
Jan, I think you miss the point with respect to the Bloc. The coalition is no longer a done deal. The Bloc are therefore free to do what they please, which typically means trying to extort the most beneficial deal for Quebec as possible. This is what they would have done with Dion and Jack Layton and this is what they will do with Harper and this is why regionally based parties are dangerous to our national interests.
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