Ten Good Reasons Harper’S “Conservatives” Should Get The Boot!

Stephen Harper’s government has been described as laissez-faire conservatism but this is an understatement. It is in fact neo-conservative and Canadians have not been served well by Harper and his, lackluster, misanthropic wrecking crew.

Traditional conservatives believe in good government but neo-conservatives believe government is inherently bad- it is the enemy- and must be stripped of any real power and effectiveness; hence we hear the rallying cry of every neo-conservative-Deregulate, Privatize, Downsize and Denigrate.

In consequence we end up with the elimination of social democracy in favor of the corporate welfare state, where the corporate good becomes paramount over the public good.

Grover Norquist, one of the founding fathers of neo-conservatism in America is famous-or infamous if you prefer- for his comment:       

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

From this and other outrageous statements, Norquist, it is  apparent, suffers from misanthropy- contempt for mankind  lacking in any compassion. He also considered aid to the victims of hurricane Katrina  as “stealing”  money from others who pay taxes.

Harper and his cohorts have learned well at the knee of the master of selfishness for it appears they too want to take government to the bathroom.

Here are ten good reasons the Harper government should get the boot:

10.  In 2001 Stephen Harper was a signator to the Alberta Firewall Letter, a letter submitted to then Alberta premier Ralph Klein proposing a firewall be built around Alberta to make the province immune to federal initiatives. In other words it was a manifesto for provincial supremacy.

As prime minister, Harper has re-affirmed his commitment to provincial supremacy-aka-balkanization of the country by granting Quebec nation status.

He has also indicated that he is going to re-open the constitution should he gain a majority. Like Mulroney before him he is willing to pander to Quebec separatism by using the constitution for electoral advantage and milking Quebec for votes.

The erstwhile Reform Party where Harper has his political roots believed in the generous use of referenda. Now Harper as prime minister chooses to ignore that Canadians struck down the Charlottetown Accord, which was a gutting of federalism, decisively in a national referendum in 1992. But this isn’t good enough for the man with the axe.

9.  When the Alliance Party led by Stephen Harper wooed the Progressive Conservative party lead by the hapless Peter MacKay into unifying the right it achieved two major benefits. First, it reversed its declining fortunes as a dead-end Western based political rump.  Secondly, it gained respectability under the name “conservative.”

Once the right was unified Harper and his cronies made it perfectly clear Red Tories were not welcome in this new party. This was not to be a “big tent” coalition party welcoming all conservatives but a shack tent occupied by an ultra-rightist wrecking crew.

Consequently, when it came time to put a cabinet together Harper was hard pressed for suitable cabinet talent and an endless stream of greenhorns have served their ministerial apprenticeships at the expense of Canadians.

How the likes of Maxime Bernier ever got near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the most prized, prestigious and senior cabinet postings is a remarkable feat of incompetence! Then too, it speaks to the diminished importance of this portfolio under the Harper regime, lacking confidence in his neophyte ministers decision making was concentrated in the PMO.      

8. The listeria tragedy is Harper’s Walkerton.

 In the year 2000 seven people in the town of Walkerton Ontario died of contaminated water.  Then Ontario Premier Mike Harris was in the heat of his “common sense” revolution. Part of the revolution was to make drastic cuts to the province’s environment department and as a result there was a break down in water quality monitoring.  The Walkerton tragedy was later cited as one of the many reasons Harris could not run for the leadership of the fledgling Conservative Party of Canada.

The listeria tragedy has come about for the same reasons; government downsizing and deregulation. Instead of being in the meat plants doing hands-on inspections, Canada’s meat inspectors have been, as widely reported, reduced to over- worked paper pushers, “leaving the mice to play while the cat is away.”

Though the Harper government would like to bury this one, they must assume full responsibility and it is good reason for the minister in question to resign-but there is no honor among thieves.         

7. Harper has proposed fixed term elections-which isn’t a bad idea. But this idea has quickly been discarded in favor of some querulous need for a new mandate and dealing with a “dysfunctional” Parliament. When in fact the dysfunction begins in the PMO.  

6. When Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was fatally tasered at Vancouver there was massive public outrage and   several inquiries were quickly empanelled.

Even though there were taser death’s prior to Dziekanski’s and   subsequent deaths there has never been even a temporary moratorium on taser use.

The United Nations and Amnesty International both consider tasering a form of torture and rightly so, especially when it is used indiscriminately, not against hardcore criminals but mainly against the mentally ill, the disenfranchised, minor offenders and the pensioner in Kelowna BC delivering newspapers, zapped for a minor parking infraction.

It doesn’t matter that the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs has accepted a 100,000 dollar “contribution” from Taser International Inc., the sole manufacturers of tasers.

In the corporate welfare state there is no such thing as bribery, a conflict on interest, or influence peddling.

It is a dead-certainty the taser issue is going to get a generous coat of whitewash as the Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, slumbers on in utter abandonment of his responsibilities.       

5. Harper’s deception is twofold.  He leads a party of neoconservatives hiding under the cloak of being conservatives but it is also a unionist party in waiting. The roots of his party are American rather than Canadian with strong connections to the Republican Party and the American Christian Right.

Like American neoconservatives Harper’s neo-conservatives worship at the shrine of Straussian philosophy. Leo Strauss taught philosophy at the University of Chicago and was the founding father of neoconservatism.  His central ideal was that government could only be effective as an oligarchy- government by a small elite and by deception. For Strauss social democracy was not an option. The problem with Straussian philosophy of course is that it is both misanthropic and fascist.

Since becoming prime minister, Harper has become another practitioner of poodle politics in the tradition of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When Washington says jump the reply is: “How high?”

If Harper gains a majority he could drop both deceptions. He could openly practice his neoconservatism and undertake union with the US openly rather than by stealth.  

4.  Harper is ever so good at uttering lofty sentiments on human rights and lecturing the likes of China on its obligations. For the Harper government human rights are a discretionary issue and Omar Khadr is one such case.  All other Western countries, including Australia and Britain, have repatriated their citizens held in the infamous gulag at Quantanamo.

Our prime minister is willing to leave Khadr to American justice. These tribunals though are not American justice. They are military tribunals run by the Pentagon and it is abundantly clear to any casual observer they are kangaroo courts.

In spite of the repeated pleas by Khadr’s courageous American defense lawyers Ottawa’ s indifference is a deafening silence.  Khadr’s lawyers know there will be only one verdict.       

3.  Part of the disassembly of Canada is to cede the last vestiges of our sovereignty through North American Union. Deep Integration and the Security and Prosperity Partnership can never be allowed to become a matter of public debate let alone an election issue.  

2. Harper’s Ottawa has been an all too willing accomplice in the fatuous War on Terror. Yes, those pesky Liberals first sent troops over to Afghanistan but this government got them locked into what is going to be a very long and costly commitment.  It would never occur to official Ottawa that NATO is the Trojan horse of American imperialism or that Russia’s action against Georgia was somewhat justified or that Missile Defense is an underlying cause of an increasingly dangerous instability in that part of the world.   

1. Annnnnd!  The number one reason the Harper government should get the boot is trying to pass the economy off as the central issue in this election when there are nine very good issues above begging to be addressed. In these heavenly days of the corporate welfare state governments have little say in economic issues. The free market economy, deregulation, privatization, downsizing and the denigration of good government prevail. Political parties are either lucky enough to come into office in boom times or unlucky and arrive in the middle of a recession.

The economy is the obligatory cliché issue for governments in trouble. It is the Straussian deception, the political red herring they run under the public’s nose hoping we will follow the diversion instead of the real issues that should be addressed.

 Harper’s misanthropic neo-conservatives have been well tutored. They don’t believe in peace, order, and good government, only the dismantling of it.  They are the new nihilists.  

Harper has given significant indicators where he will take the country if given a majority and we are foolhardy to ignore them.