Dear Conservative Party of Canada

Dear ‪Conservative Party of Canada

While you spend some time ‘studying what went wrong’, let me offer some insight. Canadians were tired. We were tired of the bullying that Stephen Harper had perfected, the behind-closed-door deals, the lying, the contempt of Parliament, and the contempt for democracy. While I absolutely believe you went to Ottawa with nothing but the best intentions to serve your country, you all allowed one man to control you, control your thoughts, control your message and sadly, to control your actions (or lack thereof). You not only turned a blind eye to the indifference that Mr. Harper showed for Canadians, you mirrored his behavior. You never once stood up for your constituents, the people who elected you – who were essentially your board of directors, who offered you a mandate to speak on their behalf – when Mr. Harper told you to toe the party line. You ignored the hypocrisy of a leader who was elected to be honest, transparent and accountable, who then broke every one of those promises daily. We saw it. I have absolutely no doubt that you saw it as well, but it was not in your best ‘political’ interests to call him on it.

Yours was a government that refused to be accountable. You refused to talk to the media. You refused to answer questions. You passed massive omnibus bills – something that Mr. Harper adamantly opposed when he was on the other side of the aisle – knowing what odious deals were contained within them and then you upped the ante by refusing to allow discussion or debate. You then even blatantly tried – yes, you tried – to destroy the integrity and equality of our electoral system with your 'Fair' Elections Acts and your gerrymandering.

You willfully participated in election fraud, among you were people who participated in criminal activity, yet your arrogance did not allow you to stand up to do the right thing. You were dishonest with Canadians continually, and when someone dared to attempt to hold you to account, you ignored, then you redirected – to issues that had the sole intention of creating hatred and fear.

Here is the saddest aspect of the last 10 years. You may well have had some good ideas. You may well have had good intentions, at least when you arrived in Ottawa, but with all of the arrogance, dismissiveness, divisiveness, patronage appointments, indifference and lies, not one of you could be trusted. You all sold out to one man who was, at best a megalomaniac, and who may well have been a sociopath... and YOU DID NOTHING TO STOP IT OR TO HOLD YOUR PRIME MINISTER ACCOUNTABLE. You were active, willing participants in the destruction of a once-proud, credible, honorable party. Shame on all of you.

This election was about morals, about standing up for those who need someone to stand up for them (yes, this would include all missing and murdered women), about honesty, and saying we are Canadians who are compassionate, involved, open, welcoming, peace-loving and proud – all things that you have spent the last 10 years proving you were not.

Take heart though. The effort to determine what went wrong should not take long. Start with the gutter-crawling you did in your campaign, and with the fact that you spent the last four years campaigning to keep power instead of doing what you were supposed to do with the authority you were given by the voting public. You forgot who you worked for, who you were to answer to, and it was NOT the Prime Minister or the PMO. You allowed Stephen Harper to be a party of one, so yes, this is on you. Hopefully, Canadians have now seen what can happen when elected politicians become too entitled. Hopefully it will never happen again. Stephen Harper and ‘His Conservative Government’ will be a stark reminder of this for many years.

PUTTING MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS

DATELINE: PUTTING ON MY POINTY SHOES – I did it. I said ‘enough’ today. I am not going to sit noisily on the sidelines, yelling and preaching from my armchair while letting others do the work. It’s time.

In the last few weeks, I have thought about my father, his brothers, his uncles, all of whom were prepared to, and did, put their lives on the line to allow me the right to vote in determining the direction my country takes. It was at huge expense for some of them, and their friends, brothers in arms, colleagues, but democracy and the right to make a little X on a piece of paper was absolutely important enough for them to want to give their all. It’s not really about love of country; it’s love of family and hope for a future. That’s what a soldier is – our vessel of hope. They deserve our respect and gratitude at the very least, so I can no longer sit idly back and listen to the reports and investigations into voter fraud committed by our current government in not one, but two, elections and again watch as they then impede the investigation progress more.

In the past few weeks, I have thought about journalists and news reporting, watching stories from North Korea and Syria, Iran and China, and yes, those from the United States. We see the two extremes in both, one where the only news is what the government allows to be news, spun to their advantage, the other where the only news is corporate driven, allowing the same partisan diatribes that are based on commercial spin, one where the only news is what the corporations want you to know because it progresses their agenda. We have seen what happens in the fallout. Canada has never fallen into that quagmire. The standards of the press should be sacred, not bought and paid for. Without freedom of the press – free from both corporate AND political influence – democracy dies. Stephen Harper made early steps to muzzle the press. Now he is taking steps to control it, spin it, use it to his own purposes, and in fact has created a bully pulpit unlike any ever seen in this country before. At this point, news is no longer news, and he is no longer the leader of a democratic country; he has now taken another huge step towards dictatorship, and the people of Canada be damned.

Our parliamentary system is long-rooted in tradition... for a reason. It is meant to provide balance in judgment, consideration for all sides of a position, an opportunity to provide informed guidance and principles for our country. That is achieved through debate and dialogue – not the creation of pork-barrel bills filled with a multitude of little laws that have nothing to do with a budget but that cannot be debated or discussed. In true American style, this is done to pass bills that even the Prime Minister knows should not be passed because of their detriment to the public and the nation, but they cater to the needs of the 1%. Stephen Harper doesn’t need, or want, debate or discussion though. As so eloquently by from one of his puppets, ‘you’re either with us or against us’ and they make sure you know that. There is no balance in Parliament. There is, however, Contempt of Parliament, a historical first, and one that he again was able to sweep under the carpet through the abuse of procedure and authority.

The litany of offences... criminal, moral and ethical... is growing daily. I have other blogs that include detailed lists of years of criminal mismanagement by this current government. How does one ‘misplace’ $3.1Billion dollars so well that the Auditor General can’t find it? I suppose there are explanations that are plausible. The problem is that Stephen Harper and his band of thugs and bullies have lied so many times, always for the sole purpose of maintaining power, that whatever explanation he offers, if he deigns to offer any at all, will not be credible. Usually, his tact is to deride anyone for questioning him, refusing to give an account. As long as it helps corporate Canada, he feels justified, and presents it as him ‘curing’ our economy. (Actually, Mr. Harper, had it not been for Paul Martin and his financial foresight, we would have been destroyed in the last recession. You don’t get to take ANY credit for the shape of our financial structure, and we’re all pretty well intelligent enough to know that.) Apparently Mr. Harper’s definition of his repeatedly promised transparency and honesty in leadership doesn’t come from the same dictionary the rest of us use.

Fascism, however, is defined as ‘a system of extreme right-wing and/or authoritarian views’ in the Oxford Dictionary. Wikipedia further describes it as being ‘hostile to liberal democracy, socialism, and communism, fascist movements share certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism, ethnocentrism, and militarism.’ It was this that my father, uncles and their uncles fought. It was to keep this sort of government off our shores that 45,000 Canadian men sacrificed their lives in Dieppe, Normandy, Arezzo and many more battles of World War II. It was to stop fascism from spreading that another 54,000 men were wounded. These men were prepared to walk through the gates of hell on earth to protect the principles of democracy in Canada. Perhaps the question we should be asking is ‘why, then, are we prepared to sit back and watch it eat us up from within?’

Today I am going to put on the pointiest shoes I can find. I am not doing it because of ‘patriotism,’ but out of respect for the sacrifices of my family before me, and for the future of my children. I am doing because I am a daughter, a niece, a mother... a member of many communities, all of home have suffered and will suffer more under this current regime. I will not be an army of one. I don’t need to be. In the meltdown of the government of the day over the last few weeks (yes, it was a Harper meltdown of Chernobyl proportions), hope has emerged. I am not putting on pompoms, intending to crown a king, or claim that Justin Trudeau is the savior of us all, but he is an option, a viable, hopeful option that the ideals we were raised with, that the Canada we knew as a humble, loving, supporting, thoughtful, democratic bastion to the world might still be in our grasp, and you’re damned right I can get on that train. Why are you NOT putting on some pointy shoes and joining me?

DAILY NEWS – February 22, 2011

DAILY NEWS – February 22, 2011

DATELINE: SOON TO BE AT THE END OF HIS ROPE (HOPEFULLY) – It can’t be long now before that asshole Dick Cheney comes on television to remind us what a great guy and loyal friend Moammar has been… at least to Halliburton. How the hell can anyone say otherwise about Gadhafi? Last week, the Libyan leader urged Palestinians to follow the model set by Egypt and rise in protest against oppression and government abuse. Hmmm, bet he would love to fucking take those words back, now that his own people have also taken this advice. God forbid they want a better life than what they were offered under Gadhafi Duck. The ‘flaky’ ‘mad dog of the Middle East’ (love him or hate, old Rocket Ronnie had a way with a phrase) has responded by having his fighter planes and helicopters open up on the people gathered to kick his ass out of Tripoli. He has his military charge in and beat and shoot people, he cuts off all communication for his people and disallows media to enter the country. Someone needs to take care of this fucking asshole – perhaps some wonderful hollow points headed in his direction rather than at protestors might give him some perspective. He has given new meaning to fucking nuts, and his people and countless others have suffered because of him. In his hour-long babblefest, he accused the protestors of being on drugs and working for the devil, he stated, in the third person, no less, that Moammar Gadhafi cannot step down because he is not a government leader but rather the leader of a revolution… funny how many times he can change his title, his form of government and his mind in a few seconds. He said he would not resort to violence, then called on the people of Libya who supported him to go and kill the protestors where they sleep, then screamed that he would fight to the death. I think someone should fucking accommodate him in that wish, and soon, because a future of incredible violence awaits masses of people as long as he is there. He is a war criminal, he has committed unspeakable crimes against humanity… and any other leader (this would be that other nucking fut-case Chavez) who aids or harbors him should face the same damned charges. Perhaps some pressure from the developed world (other than idiot-face lame ass Harper) could help to shut him down? Of course, with the oil they have there (they are the eighth largest producer in the world), no one wants to shit in that nest.

DATELINE: ON PARLIAMENT HILL HAVING ANOTHER ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ MOMENT – Last week we heard how Bev Oda had changes the entire meaning and content of a signed report with the addition of one word… ‘NOT’… after the fact, then using that document as the basis of a decision regarding funding. The people who had signed the report were not aware of the change to their text, did not sign or initial the change, were not consulted about the change. No matter how you look at it, she illegally altered legal, signed documents. That’s the bottom fucking line. (NOTE TO JACK LAYTON: She did not forge anything… she falsified, she altered, but she did not forge. If you want to make a legal fucking argument in a legislative chamber at least please get the word right). On Friday, the Harper government conceded that perhaps the decision and the subsequent cover-up were not ‘a work of art’. What the fuck is that?? Someone needs to do some major ass-kicking to that arrogant supercilious fucking government. Someone also needs to kick some opposition ass as well, because even though Parliament is not sitting… why the hell not take off the whole week when just the Monday is a fuckin holiday… they should be in the media taking this and the other issues with this government to task. They should be doing this every fucking day, not for an hour one week, then letting the issues go. Do your fucking job, people! What the fuck are you being paid for?

DATELINE: AIN’T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD – Yesterday, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Peter Hourihan went to talk to Buddy Tavares. You remember Buddy Tavares, the guy who took an RCMP boot to the face while he was kneeling on the ground? You remember watching that nice video footage of Constable Geoff Mantler walking up to Tavares and letting fly with a kick that lifted Buddy right off the ground, that broke teeth and caused a concussion? Oh, and remember that they put Buddy in cells for the weekend on some bullshit trumped –up charges about domestic violence and careless use of a firearm? Yeah, the Crown Prosecutor announced yesterday that those charges would be stayed because of a lack of evidence. Now there is one hell of a shocking development.* The Assistant Commission took the opportunity to officially apologize to Buddy Tavares… well whoop-de-fucking-do! He did not mention compensation, and God knows that we have heard nothing about the charges that should and must be laid against Mantler. I have to say, I am so god damned fucking tired of politicians and police fucking the dog long enough that we lose track of the shit they don’t account for. We need to start holding these overpaid over-privileged assholes to account, and we have to start doing it now.




(*that was done in sarcastic font, in case you didn’t catch it*)