There is a job for you at the end of this post. You can skip down there if you don't have time to enjoy my lavish metaphors.
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Since Mr. Harper and Peter MacKay pulled their MIB skin-change on the Reform and PC parties in 2004, Harper has leaped forward in power, chiefly by doing things no-one thought he would dare to do, often the opposite of things he declared he MUST do, or would NEVER do.
Shut down parliament? Sure, no big deal. When l'etat c'est moi, those other 307 MPs just clutter up the place. Juggle elections with unauthorized ad money zipping around like a Find The Lady card game? It's just a creative use of resources. Hire call centre staff to distribute differently-truthful information to voters? Hey, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Shut up StatsCan, water down science, accuse mice of attacking the cats while the mouse-bodies are still twitching... nothing, apparently, stands in his way for long.
And why has he gotten away with all this allegedness? Because he's the neutrino of Canadian politics, the fastest political particle in Canada. He looks as blinkingly placid as a Amblyrhynchus cristatus on the beach, but instead he has, in eight short years, dragged us rightward like a veritable Ctenosaura similis.
He has had to move fast, because the changes he wants to make are neither popular nor sensible, if you happen to be an ordinary Canadian.
Each time he pulls something new, like a Sarcophilus harrisii rampaging through a toddler's birthday party, we boggle at the unprecedented breach of custom, law, or fair play and talk for a few weeks about how naughty it was and how we might prevent it next time. But he's not listening to our tut-tutting. He's long gone. With the chunks of birthday cake still in the air he has already torn up all the presents, and is now out on the patio savaging Merlin the Great, the elderly rented magician.
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Still with me? Here's your job.
What next?
Obviously there is little or nothing he will balk at. He might try any damn thing. It behooves us to have some idea of what he might do next -- without putting any sort of restriction on it. We can't spend time boggling at the latest / next maneuver. We don't have time to play catch-up. What strategies is he likely, and unlikely, to deploy, and under what circumstances?
I mean, I would hate to be caught flat-footed when he tries to distract us by declaring war on Saint-Pierre & Miquelon.
What next? We want a big list. Go nuts.
Noni
A tail dragging romp through the swamps of the world
He's going to pillage Elections Canada. No doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteHe will couch it in the form of, "Out of date, non-functioning, needs a complete overhaul."
He has to have something in mind for Elections Canada given his going along with the non-binding NDP motion regarding EC. You can bet this is just more smoke and mirrors to distract Canadians from for what he is planning for the evisceration of EC.
ReplyDeleteWell put Noni!
ReplyDeleteThis is what I was getting at with my question about his nuclear option. His track record says he prefers to turn around and charge the attacking formation, deploying NBCs along the way, and doesn't blink when he directly violates the laws of political warfare. I've in the past called him an insurgent prime minister because he fights like the Taleban. He doesn't see himself beholden to any gentlemanly conventions of democratic governance, and will use the system as far at it will take him and then buggers it when he needs more. He will use crises, even those stimulate by his own wrongdoing, to consolidate power.
If he gets away with this by destroying EC, there'll be no easy or nice route to recovery. He'll have consummated his power over election outcomes, rendering your vote and mine meaningless.
Something will then be irrevocably broken. The problem will then be one of whether enough Canadians care enough to use other available means to solve the problem.
I can't tell you how many people I meet who have no idea what's happening in Canadian politics and don't want to. And that scares me more than anything about this.
Massive show trial for a minor functionary from another party for an even more minor infraction....Therefore, meme changes from 'Everybody does it!' to...
ReplyDelete'We had to do it to save democracy!'
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I can't tell you how many people I meet who have no idea what's happening in Canadian politics and don't want to. And that scares me more than anything about this.
ReplyDeleteOMG, that is sadly my experience too, Boris. That scares me just as much as having Harper at the helm. I can't believe how disengaged or woefully ignorant so many of our citizens are about how our government works or should work. They had no clue why proroguing government 2x was a problem or why being found in contempt of parliament was a big deal.
How can Canadians sit in front of their TVs and radios and nod in agreement that voting fraud is a reality in Haiti, Russia, Burma, Syria, etc without even blinking about electoral fraud in their own country?
What the Liberals did for 40 years was improve our social programs. Therefore, these are what Harper Cons will want to dismantle. They've already started on the social safety net by bringing in picayune tax credits instead of a national day care program. They'll dismantle OAS and turn medicare into a voucher program if they can.
ReplyDeleteIts going to take a long time for the Liberal-NDP coalition government of 2018 to turn this around.
People seem to be forgetting that during the last election Harper refused to say that he would abide by the GG's decision if she offered another party the opportunity to form government.
ReplyDeleteThat should tell people all they need to know. We have already experienced a silent coup and people don't realize it.
I have another one: Mandatory photo-ID cards for all Canadians. It will be disguised as "voter ID card".
ReplyDeleteThere will be a mandatory user fee.