Our regular Politics blogger, Alison@Creekside, is under the weather. While we eagerly await her return, we offer you posts from some of our other favourite Canadian political bloggers, beginning with:
Gawd. What an awful day. Work was hell. It was rainy and slushy. The brand new rink is melting. And then when I made it home on all fours and put on the TV, there was Stephen Harper having a chummy chat with Peter Mansbridge.
Great Ugly himself squatting on a chair, with his legs spread wide apart like he was about to give birth. Blowing smoke out of both ends.
Asked by Mansbridge what his “gut feeling” was on whether there will be a federal election in 2011, the prime minister insisted the Conservatives would be ready if the opposition parties trigger one.
“My gut tells me I don’t know,” Harper said. “It’s 50/50. We take the threats from the opposition very seriously. I don’t think it’s in the country’s interest, I don’t think it makes any sense to have one right now, but if we’re forced into one, we’ll be ready.”
Claiming he doesn’t want an election, he’s not interested in partisan politics, he just wants to make us rich, if that nasty coalition would let him. And of course he’s just a nice guy who loves hockey.
When in fact he wants an election and his precious majority so bad he can bite it. He’s just squatted over Canada and dumped a steamy load of some of the most disgusting attack ads this country has ever seen.
Where the leader of the Opposition is portrayed as a sinister foreigner.
Who hates Canada.
Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe are portrayed as traitors.
Plotting to destroy this country.
The only people getting richer in Harper’s Canada are the rich.
According to Toronto research agency Investor Economics, the richest 3.8 per cent of Canadian households controlled 66.6 per cent of all financial wealth (not counting real estate) by 2009, up from 60.6 per cent in 2005 just before the Conservatives came to power.
The federal government is being bled white even as an aging population prepares to swamp existing services.
And of course Stephen Harper is NOT a nice guy, he’s a power hungry right-wing ideologue who is leading us to a very dark place to satisfy his inner demons.
Gosh. It seems so obvious to me eh? But then I remembered what Lawrence Martin wrote on Tuesday.
With the release of the ads, Mr. Harper appears to be sticking with the tactics that helped get him here. He’s banking on the notion that, in the end, Canadians really don’t care whether their prime minister has any class or not.
And I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of country we are becoming? Are we being dumbed down or numbed into bovine complacency? Have five years of this foul regime ground down our values so much, that nothing shocks us anymore?
Or is it, as James Travers suggests, that the country itself is changing?
Federal politicians no longer debate the broad questions of justice, climate change or foreign policy. Instead, they dispute the details of law and order, ethical oil and how long to extend the Afghan mission.
And then I was forced to consider whether in that kind of Canada Stephen Harper COULD fool enough people to get his majority. And finish off what remains of this country.
Because in the Kingdom of the Dumb and the Numb ANYTHING is possible.
And then I felt dizzy. Like that other Simon in the Lord of the Flies did, when he stared at the pig’s head . . .
And realized the monster was US.
Oh boy. I’ll be back. We WILL win. Those ugly Cons WILL be defeated.
But right now I feel I’m drowning . . .
The Art of Drowning from Diego Maclean on Vimeo.
Actions speak louder than words, of course, but the words themselves were interesting. They indicated that he understands that Canadians want a centrist government. He’s a smart guy who understands us. Question is, is he smart enough to work around us to get what he wants.
I hope he’s right about the other parties forming a coalition next time if the alternative is a Conservative minority government. His concern that it’s undemocratic for a group with more votes than his party gets to form the government is bizarre.