Steve Harper wins the Canadian Association of Journalist secrecy award and it apparently the easiest decision the judges have ever made. Is anyone who follows politics in Canada surprised?
Open, accountable, transparent government be damned...this man is all about raw power. A Cabinet shuffle is in the offing...heads will roll. Intimidation dominates caucus and the principle of representative government will take another body blow from this Prime Minister. Expect he will move to further gather and centralize all the political power he can muster - in himself.
Wasn't it Plato who suggest the best way to govern was with a benevolent dictatorship? Harper is half way there but benevolence is not within his character qualities. What we see now is a "good" as Harper's statemanship can get.
Canadians belief in Harper has moved in 18 months. It has gone to lets give him a chance, to ok he is a message manager but not a governor, to why is he such a bully, to is that all there is, to I wonder what is going on with this guy, to oh oh - he is not very trustworthy to...ok enough is enough, what the hell is really going on here?.
Time to make a change Canada and give someone with a better sense of the country as a whole, who has proven intellectual integrity and with principles moral courage, like Stephane Dion, a chance to govern. However, lets wait for an election in late 2009 - for events to unfold for Dion and to unravel for Harper.
Why are you so hard on Harper? He's only following other great democratic leaders such as Mugabe and Putin.
ReplyDeleteOuch! Do you think it is that bad? I don't.
ReplyDeleteWe'll just have to wait and see the results of an election. According to the polls, only 10% of Canadians are satisfied with Dion's leadership! Being a weak leader and proposing idiot policies such as the carbon tax does not equate to a leader who is principled. In addition, wanting to pull out of Afghanistan purely for political purposes is not principled. Dion surely knows that it is the Afghan women and children who will be most hurt by our troops leaving the country. Yet Dion wanted to leave. Shame.
ReplyDeleteMulroney served 9 years. So will Harper. Clark served 9 months. Oops.
ReplyDeleteMulroney went from the largest majority in the history of the country to distroying the PC Party of Canada and then left Campbell out to dry with the PCs winning only 2 seats after Mulroney left. Quite an acccomplishment all right.
ReplyDeleteClark was the youngest PM in the history of the country and made a mistake thinking the opposition would act rationally to curb inflation and conserve energy.
Liberals of those days were as power driven as Harper is today.
Clark was the only Conservative to beat Trudeau. Harper could not do that and only stays in power due to a weakened Liberal party and an unknown leader.
Harper will not last 9 years but he will last 4 years. It will seem to Canadians like 9 years because he has such a shallow policy agenda and with personal hubris he will do 9 years worth of harm in the next 18 months.
Liberals have always been driven merely by power and, as such, have been very successful in election. Consider for example the sponsorship scandal - what kind of Liberal principles resulted in that?
ReplyDelete"Harper will not last 9 years but he will last 4 years. It will seem to Canadians like 9 years because he has such a shallow policy agenda and with personal hubris he will do 9 years worth of harm in the next 18 months."
What a bold prediction? Put your money where your mouth is - say a friendly $20 bet?
The old style politics of power and authority exercised in a command and control model is ineffective in a networked Web 2.0world.
ReplyDeleteAll old line parties are grounded in the old style political tradition...Trudeau and Chrétien Liberals were masters at it. Harper is good at it too and seems to be even more ruthless than Trudeau was.
But that old style politics does not justify a current government trying to perfect yesterday's political model with the population no longer trusts it or those who run it...regardless of party affiliation.
As for your $20 bet - it might be nice to know who you are first...I have so many anonymous Cons commenting on this site it would be foolhardy - and potentially very expensive ;~) to take a bet with an anonymous commenter.
So comment in your real name from now on and send me an email - check my profile for my email address. And let’s consider the bet once we know each other.
Check this out....(You can bet the Star ain't gonna get any access to any Tory any time soon. Oh wait, how would that be any different from current practice? Never mind!)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/429906
Joe Clark accomplished absolutely nothing except single handedly dividing the conservative movement. Look at his policies - constantly left of the liberals. Hardly the conservative we need.
ReplyDeleteHarper Cons as politically attention deficit and ethically disabled.
ReplyDeleteA Joe Clark PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE is nothing close the a Harper REPUBLICAN Conservative.
To assume they have anything in common illustrates a lack of capacity to differentiate at the most elementary Sesame Street level. Not the stuff of good government but only typical purile bile Mr. ANON!
Well put, Ken. I would refer the earlier anonymous blogger to my comments below, which I've previously posted in response to another matter.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
You know, it really bugs me when some people today can only equate conservatism only with the neo-conservative, Republican variety that we've seen crash and burn in the US and Australia.
We too quickly forget that traditional Toryism in Canada and the UK was not about the bottom line. Tory values have long been social harmony, concern over the welfare of the entire body social and body politic, uplift of the impoverished, community engagement, and respect for culture and heritage - these are classical Tory values.
Penny pinching, marginalizing opposition groups, overzealous tax cuts, making money for the sake of making money, allowing the elite to consolidate power without regard for greater society – this is neo-conservatism at its worst.
Rt. Hon. Clark is a quintessential Canadian Progressive Conservative. He's a man of great integrity and intelligence with a sharp mind for compassionate governance and sound public policy. He may not be the slickest guy or the most conniving politician, but that's exactly Ken's point! We need fewer politicians and backroom players in this country and more statesmen and legislators of character.
Taking pot shots at Dion; waffling on Middle Eastern foreign policy; alienating China; and cutting funding to culture, status of women, and the court challenges program is not good governance, and is absolutely antithetical to moderate progressive conservative values and policy.
Sean