Wednesday, June 09, 2004

What you see is what you get

So much for the "hidden" agenda.
If Canadians elect Harper as Prime Minister, it won't be because they don't know what he will do. Council of Canadians chair Marg Barlow quote from several recent Harper speeches in Harper, a Bush in Tory clothing and concudes "Stephen Harper is a pro-American hawk . . . Under a Harper government, Canada would lose the right to set its own labour, environmental and security standards. Most disturbing is his proposal to negotiate international trade agreements with the very superpower whose corporations want to come to Canada and deliver our public services on a for-profit basis. Stephen Harper has also called for a continental energy strategy . . "
So lets add it up:
1. Harper supports aligning our security, military, and immigration standards with the Bush administration (the ones who think the president can ignore US laws if he thinks there is a bogeyman under his bed.)
2. Harper wouldn't stop his caucus from making it more difficult for women to have abortions
3. He will let his caucus change the law so that discrimination based on sexual orientation is OK
4. He will withdraw the gay marriage law from the Supreme Court and possibly end up using the notwitstanding clause to outlaw gay marriage
5. Again, if his caucus pushes it, he would allow changes to the Official Languages Act,which will alienate Quebec.
All of this is now quite clear, thanks to the verbal slip-ups of Conservative MPs and Harper's own speeches.
And, as is also quite clear, he's not much of a leader -- he cannot or will not control his caucus no matter what outrageous, hurtful, divisive things they say.
So if Canadians vote for him now, they know exactly what they will get.
The tragedy is, maybe this is what they want.

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