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I have been educating myself about politics in the last few years, a process that has been painful for me. Anyone who reads this has probably had a similar experience. Recent years have been particularly painful as I have come to realise that the country that I love has completely given itself over to global Corporate interests. Canada has regressed as a nation from a Progressive Social Democracy to a Corporate Tax Haven. Our Government despises itself and is bent on self destruction. This is true federally, where we have a defacto coalition between the minority Government and the Official Opposition. And then we have the NDP. Across the country, the NDP seems to be percieved as a distant 3rd or 4th choice for voters, sometimes trailing the Bloc, who only runs in one province. I don’t understand why this is true.
Is it because we have changed as a collective? Do we no longer support greater equality? Did we decide somewhere along the way that social programs aren’t worth the money that security for the G20 is? Or have we, as a nation, become as stupid as Harper thinks we are? Do we somehow accept the fear and hate mongering as truth? When Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid a non-confidence vote, I seriously thought about voting Liberal. I have since changed my mind. Watching Ignatieff back Harper again and again, it strikes me that Mr. Ignatieff is not interested in public policy so much as he wants the power for himself. I came to the conclusion that a Liberal Government would behave in exactly the same way as the current regime. Power would not be redistributed more evenly, or wealth. The Lobbyists hold as much power with the Libs as the Cons. They fully support the war machine, indeed, they started us on that path. They fully support Free Trade over human rights and Free Markets over Universal Healthcare.
Maybe you progressive Liberal voters can explain this to me. I really want to know why you still trust this man and his party. Why does this country shrink away from the NDP, when they are closer to our vision of a progressive democracy, supposedly working across partisan lines for the betterment of the Canadian Public?
Which brings me to the Press. This is where our failure to communicate really comes in. The CRTC has failed completely in ensuring a healthy range of opinion in Canadian Newspapers and Television News entities. Concentration of ownership in this important democratic tool is complete, the CBC is silenced and afraid and the rest are blatant propaganda machines. Investigative journalism has gone the way of the dinosaur, pushed aside in favour of extreme right wing rhetoric and infotainment. Soon, the internet will follow and the end game will be upon us. By then, we will have to literally fight for freedom, or die trying. Or not. Maybe we’ll just change the channel and watch a shiny fairy tale royal wedding. That’s what we’re supposed to do and after all, we are very good sheep. More Kool-aid, anyone?
I couldn’t keep supporting the Libs for the reasons you’ve said. If they really start listening to voters, get rid of the small c members, back their words with actions, revise their platform, remember what they once claimed they stood for and act accordingly, put Canadians before their own political goals, ok, I’ll consider supporting them again, but I’d be very wary.
I think they really need to burn and rebuild as something new, something that understands current issues and grasps what you said about corporate interests and how that’s killing us.
ck Reply:
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:19 PM
Is all that worth risking a Harpercon majority though? Think about this one long and hard. you may not see it, but there are still differences between the Liberals and the Harpercons. For openers, I don’t think the Liberals will penalize me and my family and prevent us from having affordable health care due to our pre-existing conditions. Can’t say the same for Steve.
Despite that whole maternal aid kefuffle, I am more confident that our reproductive rights will remain in tact under the Liberals. Can’t say the same under a Harpercon majority.
Of course the Liberals want to be in power. What party or politician doesn’t? If they didn’t, they’d be civil servants or day labourers or something along those lines. But is that worth punishing ourselves with a Harpercon majority? I sure don’t think so.
Harper is a fascist dictator, has always had those tendencies, even as a young wide-eyed politico:
“Should never have been allowed to write that book!”? It’s one thing if he came up to Ms Crean and told her he disagreed with what she wrote, but it’s quite another to tell her she shouldn’t have been allowed to. He’s a socon theocrat who would burn books, just like in the US. I don’t see any other opposition politician telling the any author that.
That last line, was Boris who wrote that; I agree with him. The biggest priority should be the removal of Harper from office. There is no such thing is as greatness. Never was. But there’s really evil and less evil. To me, the choice is easy.
Read Boris’s post. There are other goodies he put in from DeBeauxOs.
Harper is going to keep playing divide and conquer, each opposition party will take turns propping him up for awhile. Today, it was the Bloc, they helped the Harpercons vote down the Liberal’s motion to cancel the F35 purchase; there might be something to this rumour.
The NDP, of course, has been known to congregate with the Harpercons on occasion as well, dating back to when Steve was opposition and Paul Martin was PM.
I’m just pointing out that no opposition party is better than another and if the last place parties polled better or were better fund raisers, they too would be caught in the same traps, being courted by lobbiests and such as the leading parties would. I’m also saying that Harper is a PM like no other we’ve seen in Canadian history and the most right winged; socially and ideologically and I’ll say economically in the sense that while he spends like a sailor, none of that money goes to the betterment of Canada like eradicating poverty, health care; but rather to gut the services we have to turn the public against them, cut jobs and social safety net.
Anon Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 3:17 PM
The Liberals are more akin to Harper Lite with Iggy.
When Iggy was appointed, this was all predicted. While I agree that Harper has been terrible for Canadian democracy, he’s been aided by Iggy.
It is easy to point a finger at the BQ, but to be honest, they are the most progressive party on the scene because they don’t have to pander as much as the other guys.
If the Liberals ever get their direction again, I may change my mind, but as it stands they are on the same level as the Harpercons…
ck Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 3:28 PM
same level as Harpercons? I said Harper is a junta-lite dictator of the worst kind. Among other dictator like deeds, he did say to an author that she should never have been allowed to write that book. Don’t think Iggy would’ve said that.
Harper is far more terrifying and if you think after he gets a majority, he will hold an election in 4 years time; think again. That’s the first thing he will change in parliament; no more elections; remember those by-election slogans in 2009 of action! no Election! He’s a fascist, just like the Koch brothers south of us.
Let’s not make the same mistake that many in the US made the past mid-term elections by staying home from voting. There is no such thing as greatness. Harper isn’t worth the wait and our priority should be to get Harper out of office. Whatever changes you seek in parliament or wherever are certainly not going to happen under Harper.
Anon Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 4:11 PM
I have no illusions about Harper, nor do I about the Liberal party.
I view Harpercons supporters as either being imbeciles or people who are in it for the graft.
Yes, they have made political discourse in Canada much more moronic.
But not once have the LIberals taken Harper to task. Asking for progressive to support the Liberals under Iggy is asking for the same level of disconnect seen by the BT with Harper.
Many Liberal supporters have left since Iggy took power.
Now, as much as you dislike Harper and many see him for what he is, why can’t the Liberals do any better in the polls under Iggy?
ck Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 5:01 PM
Harper owns the message media tells folks; Media knows how to convince folks that fascism is really warm and fuzzy while avoiding the word.
No one, I mean no one would be more terrifying than Harper. He makes the Rethuglicans look like raging socialists. Give him a majority and we’ll see. Actually, let’s not do it.
Yes, I agree ck that Harper must be stopped altogether, but I can’t vote Liberal if Ignatieff supports prolonging the war in Afghanistan, CETA, corporate tax cuts and indiscriminate mining activities. I can’t vote for a party that wants to continue the concentration of power to the PMO and can’t be bothered to stand for anything substantive.
What I really want to know from you Liberal supporters is, what is wrong with the NDP that they don’t have any support back east? Is it the bad press they get? Because the right wing media likes to scoff at them as poor fiscal managers, yet they have never have the chance to screw it up like the Cons, or had scandals like the Libs. I’m just curious, what did they ever do to discredit themselves? Yet Tommy Douglas is Canada’s most beloved historical figure.
You love universal healthcare, but hate socialism!?!
ck Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 7:24 AM
I don’t hate socialism. Just that most of Canada does just like the US.
I personally don’t find anything wrong with socialism. Most of Canada does though. That’s not something that can be changed so easily. They’ve bought into the US Tea-baggin’ battle cry.
In Quebec, the Bloc still rules and will continue to so as long as Gilles Duceppe is their leader or how far these right winged movements will go. The Reseau Liberte Quebecois is getting a lot of attention these days in the media, including Radio Canada, which is supposedly a more centered network. Then there’s Francois Legault’s Force Quebec which could become a right winged provincial party. This, to say the Liberals don’t rule in this province, by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah, I would say it’s the bad press. The media, in the end, is what tells the stories that people listen to and/or read. If enough tell the same story, they’ll believe it. Media makes electoral campaigns. I wrote a paper about it years ago when I was at Concordia and my father, when he was teaching mass communications at the private school made it a theme for his students to study.
The media hasn’t been kind to the Liberals neither. Whenever they attempt to get even remotely oppositional it’s headlines like:
- Arrogant Liberals believe they deserve power
- Liberals still have not rebuilt
- Liberals misguided
- Liberal leadership woes
- Lib’s still think they are the natural governing party
- Lib’s haven’t cleaned house
Then their polling numbers come tumbling down. Yeesh! It’s like the media is saying to Jane and Joe “How Dare they get uppity toward Master STeve!”
The other thing is that Canada, as a whole, has never been a progressive country. It’s always been center. Look back in the 80s when the Liberals tanked under John Turner. If Canada were that progressive as many would like to think, the NDP under Ed Broadbent, a much stronger leader, would have been able to win back then, wouldn’t he? No, instead, Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives came in with two massive majorities and NDP were still the third place party despite the tanking of the Liberals. The two largest provinces in Central Canada; one separatist on and off, and the other Ontario, had mostly Tory provincial governments until the mid 80s.
The NDP has centered themselves over time, as they’ve understood that’s how most of the population is and yet, the media still has them pegged as “tax and spend” “evul soshalists”; labels they can’t shake off. That’s part of it, certainly.
As for me, nothing is more frightening than a Harpercon majority and preventing that outta be the first priority.
I have my own issues with the NDP which I have posted at length; namely, I wonder if they would prefer to see the liberals or Harper in power. I don’t really trust them. That said, Harper is so terrifying, that I don’t really have a party loyalty; I’ll vote for any party I think is the best route to get Harper out of office. I’m not willing to sacrifice anything for a Harpercon majority and to think that a Harpercon majority is impossible is naive, particularly if we keep ignoring Jane and JOe.
Thanks for clarifying ck, I have a better understanding now, I think. Harper has succeeded in splitting the progressive vote. As a result, the leadership of the so-called left and centrist parties have resorted to ripping pieces out of eachother’s hide in a desperate race for second. They are essentially taking turns propping up the Neo-Cons out of fear. My conclusion, none of them can be trusted.
So, in light of that fact, perhaps progressive bloggers should be pushing in concert for electoral reform. Let’s abolish parties and vote in Independants. With the condition that they must work together to change the way government works.
First, we need to repeal the status of Corporations as Persons under the Law. Corporate taxes must be reinstated at the average OECD level. They may not donate to candidates for Public Office. They may not sue. They may not vote. They may not lobby. They may not advertise in political campaigns.
Secondly, we need to reinvigorate the Bank of Canada and it’s capacity to print and loan money at a nominal rate to the governments of Canada and its Provinces. This borrowing from Bay Street has got to stop. Now.
Third, the flow of information has got to be restored. The concentration of media ownership in this country has throttled freedom of speech and turned it into propaganda. CBC must be restored to its non-partisan operation. This also encompasses Freedom of Information from Ministries. The civil service must be exempt from political appointments.
I could go on and on, but do you see these measures as a reasonable platform for change?