DATELINE: LOOKING AT MY WATCH AND THINKING THAT DIDN’T TAKE VERY LONG: They have had a majority government for one month, and already the evidence again of the assholed arrogance of the Harper Government is smashed into our faces. These paragons of virtue who campaigned again on transparency, openness, honesty, integrity have very quickly shown their true colors again. Of course, that anyone believed that bullshit the last time around is astounding. We shook our heads when our neighbours to the south elected George Dubya for a second term. ‘Can they not see that he is so totally focused on one thing that he is letting everything else go to hell in a handbag?’ we asked. ‘The man has the brains of a cumquat and the diplomacy of a fungus gnat’ we raged. ‘What about foreign policy? Do they not see the trouble they are walking into with no foreign policy even on the table? He led them into a war that even the people paying the bills don’t understand.’ Yes, we knew it all... about the United States and how they should vote. Aren’t we the erudite assholes of the world.
I tried compiling a list of the ‘issues’ regarding the Harper government while it had a minority government for five years... at two pages I stopped because it was depressing as hell. These were not little slip ups, human errors that can happen. No, they may have started at that, but then were compounded exponentially by the lies, the deceit, the in-your-face bullying when asked to account for them. Maxine Bernier committed a HUGE fucking breach of security, leaving secret government documents at his boinkette’s house when they broke up... the boinkette who had a history of being involved with criminal members of biker gangs. Ooops. In any other world, his ass would have been canned for such a breach of protocol but where is he today? Why, he is a cabinet member.
Bev Ota changed the words on a signed government document, totally reversing the meaning and intent of the piece of paper. It was not an issue of her right to refuse funding... no one argued that she had that right in her cabinet position, but it was the fact that the paper, a paper signed and attested to by other people, was changed without their knowledge of consent. That could have been a slip-up, but no, then she lied about it, saying she had no idea about it or who did it, then she admitted she did do it, but only when she was finally confronted with being accused of contempt.
Harper himself has the issue of proroguing parliament twice to save his fat sorry ass from being booted out of office – anything to maintain power. He promised to not stack the senate, but he did it anyways. He wanted set election dates, then called an election. He promised open honest government, then put gags on all his party members, forbidding them to talk because he couldn’t take the chance of them not adhering one hundred percent to the party line. He sent troops to war, then demanded that when one of them comes home in a coffin, that their repatriation ceremony must not be shown and flags must not be lowered.
He said senate reform could not take place because there was no agreement among the parties of how to do that. So, what the fuck did he actually propose? He didn’t bother because why do that? It’s just so much more his style to steamroll whatever the hell he wants through, masked in whatever guise, as long as it serves one purpose and one purpose only... to keep him where he is.
So am I surprised at the results of the Auditor General’s report today? Hell no. None of us should be. Was I sickened at their arrogant offhanded reaction to it as a government? Hell yes. We all should be. That they do not in any way feel the need to be held accountable for what they did and how they did it is reprehensible, but predictable. After five fucking years in office they cannot argue that they did not know how to create a paper-trail regarding the selection and financing of the many projects undertaken for the G8 and G20 summits... They knew, but it was not convenient to do it properly, accountably, honestly, because they don’t have to; they are the Harper Government. There was no protocol followed for this, and their response to one of the most scathing reports issued by the Auditor General? It was the public service’s fault and besides, we didn’t use all the money we had set aside for it. Well, whoop-de-fucking-do, pin a medal on you, John Baird. For starters, in issues of spending money, it is NOT ever the public service’s fault. You are the ones elected to deal with it; that’s why you get the big bucks, and to blame it on anyone else is just fucking childish. That you didn’t spend all the money budgeted is nice; that you can’t account for how you selected the projects you did spend money on borders on criminal, but again, rather than answering for your actions, you redirect, throw out a totally irrelevant reply and carry on because, well, you can because you are the Harper Government. You are the government that wants to deport a boy back to Korea after his family has been here for years, making a very valuable contribution to their community and our country, but because the boy is autistic, you want to kick him out. The Maeng family has more than enough to deal with; they did not need federal goverment thugs telling them they had to leave because their son's medical expenses cost the government too much money (here's the fun part; the boy's medical expenses for the last four years have cost the government $1000, far below the $5935/year benchmark the government set before the person's situation is reviewed for possible deportation, and he is home schooled so there is no financial burden placed on the education system either), so let's send him back to Korea and to hell being being humaine in any way, shape or form. There are fucking Canadian values for you... quintessential Harper; if it ain’t big corporation, either fuck it or remove it (that’s also his plan for the middle class here too, just so you know).
So begins the next five years of watching our country being brought to its knees, our values being eroded, democracy snubbed until it is snuffed out. Did Harper really want senate reform? Hell no, he wants them gone because they are one more thing that might interfere with his plans for absolute power. If he wanted to maintain the Senate, something that could and should happen, he would have done it by now. Killing our ‘chamber of sober second thought’ and the bicameral process that makes the Canadian Parliamentary system accountable is not even on the table. It’s diseased, yes, but rather than cure it, we shall kill it.
(The cure, by the way, is very simple. To balance out the fact that the commons is population-based, as it should be, the senate should be regionally based, with ten senators from each province and territory. They are elected, with absolutely NO party connections or funding. The province votes on their senators every five years from a roster of up to twenty names of people who want to apply for the job, and the ten with the most votes throughout the province go to the red chamber, do their job, account for themselves and stand for re-election and approval in four years time. It’s pretty fucking easy to make a senate that is elected, accountable, responsible and effective... but of no value to the current government. God forbid they have another entity in Ottawa that is not totally under their control.)
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