Here in Canada, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is joyfully ramming through a massive omnibus bill (C‑38). The specific content of the bill is not the real issue, it is the arrogant contempt for democracy, for Canadian traditions, and the Canadian people, that is inherent in such a huge, catch-all omnibus bill. Such things have long been seen in the American system, but they are foreign to our parliamentary traditions. But Harper’s contempt for Canada and Canadians is already well attested, so it should come as no surprise. Harper is by a long shot the most arrogant person to hold high office in Canada in this generation, and his Conservative Party is arrogance incarnate. One need only talk to any Conservative MP or party functionary to quickly glean how far above us lowly serfs these lordlings see themselves, and the derisive contempt they hold for us, as they pursue their divine ideological mission. For Harper’s Conservatism is an ideological zealotry that is closely akin to Communism, where morality, freedom, and human decency are disposable, trumped by the demands of crackpot economic nostrums and dialectic mysticism.
The opposition is actually not fighting it. It is merely going through ritual motions. The stunt of moving for 800 amendments cannot accomplish anything, and Harper can easily portray it as mere filibustering to a gullible Canadian public. The items in the bill that the opposition parties have focused on are, predictably, not the ones that matter. I’m most frightened by Harper’s desire to build a Communist-style gulag of prisons ― and not just because of its potential bonanza of waste and corruption ― but the opposition has barely raised the issue. The same goes for the ideologically-driven scale-up of the “war” against marijuana smokers. Instead, they focus on trivia. The Canadian public is never allowed to grasp the profoundly anti-Canadian nature of Harper’s ideological drive. He is never called to account for his insufferable arrogance. We need some genuine, principled opposition to this kind of arrogant despotism.
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