Stephen Harper must go..
If Stephen Harper stays around much longer I will have to make a politics category and I wasn’t really planning to. The man is an embarrassment.
Need I really say more? We are not used to these sorts of prime ministers. Let me show you what a real Canadian prime minister looks like.
I think they are working out the chorus on a new tune one of them wrote, not sure. Trudeau, a real Canadian prime minister, is the one on the right. In any picture with Stephen though he would be on the left. Stephen wouldn’t be caught dead like this. Or like this.
Again he’s the one on the right. But I am not being fair coupling the man with all these famous folks. Here he is alone.
But simple nostalgia aside, the man had guts and charisma. Hey, I’d take any of the four in this photo. Next to Pierre we have John Turner who opposed the Free Trade agreement. Next to him the irrepressible Jean Chretien who was basically a hockey player in Sunday duds, who took down a protester in a head lock (our PMs don’t need security) and then Lester who got the Nobel Peace Prize.
All these folks stood up strong. They were unique, provocative and thoughtful individuals. And now we have Stephen who is our bad joke, the parody of a Canadian. Except he doesn’t seem to be very typical at all. I have opined before that he may in fact be a Bush plant of some sort.
What really started me off on this rant was an item in the paper today. They are going to spend 260 million dollars on a new remand centre in our town. Why? Because the old one is overcrowded. Why? Is it because there is more crime? No. Everyone seems to be in agreement that crime is down. What’s happened is that they’ve made a few changes to introduce mandatory sentences for previously negotiable offences. Because if you are going to be TOUGH ON CRIME and crime is on the decline, you have to create some new criminals, and one way is to change the entry levels. We’re not talking about violence here folks but about drugs and those sorts of things. (For instance, having one marijuana plant now has a mandatory time attached; not passed yet but in the works).
So people who could have plead out or made a deal are now having to go to trial because otherwise its jail. One lawyer said that right now for a half day trial the wait is until June 08. So they are stuffing up the existing remand centre.
These tough on crime and punch them down on a first and trivial offence, do they not have children? Do they not understand the effect this has at the beginning of a life?
Trudeau was a little elitist but all in all he was inclusionary. We now that the embattled fortress government in place; the government that makes war on its own citizens. We used to be the good guys but Harper wants to change all that. And if I only implied it so far, he’s the most boring and pastiest fucker ever to gain the highest seat in the land. Insult to injury.
So true… everything you’ve said here about Harper, and about Trudeau — he was truly the epitome of what a Canadian prime minister should be, in my opinion.
Comment by pmousse — November 23, 2007 @ 10:04 am
I wish you hadn’t indentified your former PM as the one on the right. I was all set to ask if he was the one with the beard.
In both pictures.
This reminds me of OAS meetings attended by both Cuban and USA diplomats. Apparently, in the past the Cubans have had fun trying to sidle up to the Yanks for photo ops.
The American diplomats begin moving around the room to keep away.
It’s such an exasperating yet bemusing world. And we haven’t even gotten to the photo of Dick Nixon with Elivs, yet …
Comment by ombudsben — November 24, 2007 @ 12:21 am
Ombudsben, there used to be a number you could call in the States that would tell you in detail why Trudeau was a communist.
So he sort of was the one with the beard as well. By they way, always thought it was amusing that Kennedy smoked Cuban cigars despite his own embargo. Someday I might go on a rant on that man; actually I often have, just not in print.
Comment by aos — November 25, 2007 @ 8:06 pm
I don’t know him, but based on what you and Stevo are saying, I don’t like him.
Comment by amuirin — November 26, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
I agree wholeheartedly. Look for my email.
Comment by stevo — November 28, 2007 @ 6:21 pm
I like Stephen Harper and I think you are wrong.
“We used to be the good guys but Harper wants to change all that.”
Who’s “we” - I guess you mean Canadians in general. You need to realize that Liberals sold Canadians a “bill of goods” — this “good guys” crap was pretty much a self-serving illusion:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=127714
“And if I only implied it so far, he’s the most boring and pastiest fucker ever to gain the highest seat in the land.”
This comment is just silly.
I like Harper because he is honest (a rare breed in politics for sure) intelligent (relatively rare), decisive and clear. Harper has moved on a whole range of things that the Liberals neglected for years — small things, like the Sidney Tar pits, compensation for Chinese, etc.
I think you need to pay more attention to what Harper is attempting to do, rather than rejecting him on the basis of superficial things like “personal style” — boring, pasty, etc.
Well, really, I don’t expect you to change your mind, or even consider the way in which your view is dogmatic and ill-informed. I just wanted to let you know that some people do not agree with your perspective — and not because they are ignorant or do not follow the issues . . . just because it is possible to have similar values and goals and have diametrically opposed views on how to reach those goals.
Comment by Linda Lucas — November 30, 2007 @ 11:49 pm
Hi Linda, and welcome. Don’t agree with your politics but yours comments are welcome. I agree there was some flippancy in this piece but search my blog for harper and you will see that its not always. I attack his personal style because its fun but really only because I truly believe he threatens the traditional Canadian style of caring about your neighbors. He wants to imprison more people, deny more people the help they need, and in general move us to a colder harsher government.
Lately you may have noticed that the Conservatives are catching up to the Liberals in the patronage costs so if we call them even why don’t we support the party that believes in individual rights and humanitarianism. Its not just silopsism; Harper scares those of us who care about the less fortunate.
Comment by aos — December 1, 2007 @ 8:27 am
Thank you for that warm welcome.
Re: “Harper scares those of us who care about the less fortunate.” O.K., this is where the thinking of those on the left starts to get twisted. I CARE ABOUT THE LESS FORTUNATE, as do MOST of the other people I know who favour conservatives at this point. This isn’t at all about who “cares” the most (Liberal, NDP or Conservatives) – we all care, it is more a matter of how they approach the solution to specific problems.
The patronage issue is not my main issue with the Liberals, it is rather hypocrisy and dishonesty – one need go no further than to point out Kyoto as a classic example . . . but there are many others. The Liberals were NOT going to set up a National Day Care – since, among other things, education and social services are Provincial responsibilities (something many Harper critics frequently fail to take into account) – but also because the money they were putting on the table was about 1/10th what would be needed, and indeed less than the amount being put on the table for child care by Conservatives. The Liberals were going to address the homelessness issue a couple of years ago. I live in Ottawa and I can tell you that one year after allocating funds, not a dime had gone to any municipality for this initiative. Instead, Ottawa was busy setting up their offices, trying to figure out how they could set up a database to track homeless people going from one hostel to the next. I think that social issues are best managed and addressed at a local level and that I feel is the direction in which the Conservatives are headed. By contrast, the Liberals characteristically come up with “motherhood”- type issues, make a lot of noise but have no intention of actually doing anything on these issues. I consider this approach to be manipulative and hypocritical. I like the clarity of recognizing the distinction between Federal responsibilities and Provincial responsibilities.
“Why don’t we support the party that believes in individual rights and humanitarianism.” Which party would this be then? I know which party you probably think it is, but I would say that that very much depends on which “individual rights” you are thinking of: sexual rights? religious rights? freedom of speech? freedom from government harassment? property rights? rights of am 8-month old fetus? Right to obtain heath care in a timely fashion? Tricky issue for sure. And “humanitarianism” as an issue is similarly complex. Is it a humanitarian gesture to donate to corrupt African regmines – or not? Is it in the interests of humanitarianism to speak out about human rights abuses in China . . . or is it better to soft peddle criticism on this issue? In general I think that the only safe thing to do is to judge governments on the basis of trustworthyness and on their actions.
Comment by Linda Lucas — December 2, 2007 @ 12:39 am
I know you are not keen on the “more jail time” approach to crime. (You didn’t say where you live, so I don’t know if the bigger remand centre in your community is a Federal or a Provincial thing.) Well – with respect to the crime thing, I think it is a question of balance – and a hard one to get right. I know that many people say prison does not work . . . well, it must work at some point, otherwise, why have prisons at all? Also, I understand that in Singapore, no one spits their gum out on the sidewalk because they could land in jail for 10 years. So – yes, punishment does work, but we are looking for a reasonable balance between seriousness of the crime and appropriate punishment. Some people think we have moved a bit too far away from fair punishments – including a certain percentage of police who are favouring the somewhat harsher punishments and mandatory sentences put forward by the Conservatives. Quite frankly, I don’t think it really will solve the problem of drugs, etc., but I think it will be a useful change. (I believe that our sentences for some crimes are more lenient than in Britain, for example.) That’s how society works – you try to strike a balance. Sometimes the pendulum moves too far in one direction (e.g. leniency . . .and then it needs to swing back. You should read some of Michael Harris’s work. He knows the prison system and he is a real champion of victims rights. Ultimately, I don’t think we will get this one exactly right regardless of which party is in power. The Conservative’s position at this point is just about the pendulum swinging.
Comment by Linda Lucas — December 2, 2007 @ 12:40 am
Thanks Linda…always up for the debate. This is too much to deal with simply in comments so I’ll have to do another post. Its my blog so that does give me the home advantage but it really is for purposes of being to more fully explain my side.
Stay tuned.
Comment by aos — December 2, 2007 @ 12:16 pm