The War is on : The battle for Canada's soul.

Steven Harper or the problem with Canada.

Today, as the morning shines throughout Canada, as it enlightens the majestic lakes, the great green forest that flourish far and near, in every possible corner in this great white north. From the snowy tops of the rockies to the sandy shores of British Colombia, from British Colombia's thousand islands to Lake Ontario thousand islands, from the great bay of Hudson to the bay of Halifax, as the proud polar bear dashes all through the white ice fields of the polar gap. As people awake today, as almost everyday in this country people awake and are crushed by this nature, this impressive nature that surounds us everywhere we go. People awake and rejoice in this fact, for always has Canada been a leader in the defence of our environment for we take it as part of our and every future Canadian's right. We also rejoice in the fact that we live in a Multicultural society, some might fear diversity we embrace it, just to say so 35% of us were born outside of the federation's boarders. We take pride in this because we believe that diversity isn't a bad thing that it actually something essential to the conception of our entire perception of ourselves and of our Canadian Federation. We take pride in that fact, that we are a caring nation, because we believe that society in general can only be judged by the way it treats the less well-over. Or do we?
Since 2006 (the coming to power of our honourable prime-minister Harper) the Conservative majority has started to chip away the fundamental pillars of the Canadian democratic edifice and of Canadian society in general, a fight has been enhanced for the soul of Canada. Because everything basically does come down to that simple question do we still believe in the values that once made us unique? Do we still cling to the idea that a better world is possible through virtue, solidarity and compassion? Throughout this country's history we have took our stands even when we knew very well that it wasn't in the best of our interests (the decision to not participate in blockade against Cuba, at the time Canada was the only "Nation" in the America's to do so). And today, after the bittersweet symphony that were the 2011 elections and 2011 in general. In 2011 we partially reunited ourselves with that "antique" Canadian soul. Jack Layton brought out the best in us, he really was maybe one of the last great politicians of his generation and in his last words recorded in his letter, he even in front of death set the way for millions of Canadians to build a great and more perfect union and society.
But Jack Layton's death left a vacuum in the middle of the Canadian political spectrum, and it's such a shame that Jack didn't have the time to fully finish he's campaign to take back Canada's soul. And it's probably one of the moments of greater sadness in this young life of mine, for with Jack Layton's death I put everything under questioning again. Are we capable of really continuing Jack's fight?
Because since 2006, the front-lines have become so foggy, so blurry, because the real factor that keeps Harper in power is fear, he was elected by fear, by two kinds of fear, the fear of the external threat, and the fear that is generated between distinct parts of our society because of the incomprehension. The truth is that this government is a government of fear, from fear and for fear. Harper's regime wants to divide Canadian society into divergent "opposing sections". It's the oldest trick in the book devision makes absolute power possible. And since 2006 he's seceded in doing look back at 2006, at  Canadian society back then and take a look, a good one at Canadian society nowadays, and you'll see that he has succeeded in dividing a country, a federation that seemed indivisible. But who do we have to blame but ourselves?
One the most shocking things that came out of the 2011 elections, was "the hurray we won't have to go back to the polls until 2014", where's my Canada? The majority of these same people haven't any notion of the luck that they have to live in country were elections actually exist. Were they aren't cut down like bad grass just because they pronounced an opinion whatever it is. And worst then that was the so-called left and specially the liberal and more specifically Bob Rae that all made it clear that 4 more years of Harper would kill us ,but then took more shots at the NDP and Jack Layton then at the Conservatives and the "Harper regime". The only thing that is worst then a Conservative is a Conservative in disguise, and there are thousands of them in the NDP and in Liberal Party, those people that are just part of the political system to be part of it , those opportunists that just believe in one thing "making money" off the back of their constituents.

Jack Layton 

And then Justin Trudeau speaks out and has to apologize (why?), because just like so many of us he's just fed-up with all this undemocratic stance and rigged political system. A rigged political system in which the Conservatives can design (in drawing the electoral ridings and in adding in some) their "holding" on the grips of power for the next 10 years, and even if they're kicked-out they've got enough power Supreme Court wise to hold the barbarians at the gate. And then more and more "insane" measures are taken by the "Harper regime" the criminal bill that is (excuse my french) a piece of bullshit, probably the biggest piece of bullshit that has even been presented to parliament in it's history. It's sure in a country alike the one we live in, one of the safest in the world we really need prisons popping out of our ears and that the big problem in Canada is kids smoking dope? All this is ridiculous, it's just part of the strategy to maintain us in fear and keep us part and in doing so maintaining power. This strategy of course has some side effects, the probability that it will alienate part of our society, it has already started alienating the Native communities but are we natives? no so of course we don't care. And then one day it will hit us, the wall that we've been running into for so long and we'll fall flat on our faces and ask ourselves how did we get here?
And we'll feel like Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise, and then it will be too late. Our grand Canadian society will be lost, we'll be segregated into this and that box and we won't even recognize it anymore, we'll just think its normal.
So Canada before that happens we better take a stand shouldn't we? Before our Canada becomes the paradise of the grand old Banks and the no tax-paying millionaires, before Canada becomes the home of "the" rising social inequality, a country in which we think universal heath-care is a communist idea, before we have a two-party system and no democracy expect for the oligarchy that from time to time permits elections but the results are already known and everything is controlled. Does this ring any bell?
So I declare war.  I declare war on all of this system of Democracy Only In Name. I declare war on the conservative and the plan for the 'Americanization" of this our Canada. I declare a war on Harper and his hidden racism. I declare war on that hidden racism and by doing so I declare war on the ignorance that breads that hidden racism. I declare war on the broken schools, on the broken families, I declare war on all of this "Harper regime' and on all of its sources, on all of the things that bread fear in Canada. Because fear is the main supporter of this "Harper regime" and more then that I declare war on the phoniness that is the main essence of this political system we live in, only a "real" democratic system, a direct form of democracy that gives back dignity to the median Canadian and puts the power back into the people's hands and out of the spectrum of an elite.
So Canadians it's time to get fed-up, it's time to change this rigged system, to tear down the walls of fear that keep us separated and distinct. It will be a long battle and this is only the beginning, but our great white north is worth it. So get mad Canadians, get very mad...

Canada we stand on guard for thee


Sky

The Reformist Revolution: the redesigning of the Canadian political landscape that lead to Harper's Majority

How did Haper get here?

Monday morning the whole of Canada awoke to the news of the new Harper majority with 167 seats in parliament out of 308 total seats it appeared to be really a strong conservative mandate that would be instated in Ottawa. It's been a long trend since 2006 and the first Harper government, since then Canada, Canadian values have metamorphosed into something unrecognizable, unthinkable for Canadians merely 5 years back. But what really does this Harper majority mean for Canada? What does this election of 167 MPs teach us about the changing nature of Canadian politics?

The logo of the Reform Party of Canada

First of all without any doubt a "polarization" of politics is coming into effect in the Canadian political landscape, what Canadians have to remember is that the Conservative Party of Canada under the leadership of the Right Hon. Harper changed radically. The Conservative Party of Canada today isn't at all the Progressive Conservatives that existed before. That "race" of politicians and that political conception of Canada seems to be extinct at least inside the new Conservative Party of Canada. Throughout the political history of Canada the Tories as we call them where the party of fellows like John Diefenbaker and John A. Macdonald, they had very different perception of what Canada's place should be. Today it's seems like we are assisting to an "Americanization" of Canadian politics through the policies implemented by the consecutive Harper administrations, through the loosening-up of gun registry and soon enough the move by the evangelistic wing of the new Harper majority to push for more regulation of abortion and so on. Since the ascension of Harper to PM and even before since his election as leader of the new Conservative Party the old Canadian "social-democratic" ideals, the heritage of Tommy Douglas and Pierre Elliot Trudeau have been seen as the "enemy'. In fact Harper has a hit-list and as we have seen throughout his previous mandates he will not stop until the Canadian social state is on it's knees. But how did things get so tangled-up how did Canada the idyllic north started becoming little by little the 51st State?

Preston Manning the influential leader of 

the Reform Party

To understand really this metamorphose of Canadian politics we have to go some what back in time, to the 1990's Canada was hit but a very severe economic crisis, Mulroney at the head of the Progressive Conservatives lead a series of economic reforms that would help put Canada back on track. During this period of economic stagnation, voices on the right would rise up to ask for reform. The link between the crisis of the 1990's and the birth of a new bread of right-leaning groups in Canada is doubtless. The Reform Party of Canada was without any doubt the spearhead of this right-wing "renaissance". Under the leadership of  Preston Manning they would destroy literally the Progressive Conservatives, robbing them of the Prairie and their western Canadian basis. In the 1993 election the Progressive Conservatives would drop to an unknown bottomless bottom. What was the appeal of the Reform Party? It was a populist movement that had for source of it's political capital the discontent of the ordinary folk against rising taxation. But the main factor driving this "Reform" movement to Ottawa was based on a western prairie movement (that then after extended to British Colombia) calling for a stronger representation of the west in Canadian politics. It called for lesser rights for the gay, lesbian and transexual communities, to give the first nations lesser importance, and to rebuke the idea of Quebec's autonomy. It was an evangelistic, populist, enraged movement against federal power (expect in the case of Quebec of course).  With it's electoral victories in 1993 and 1997  the "Reform" party forever divided Canadian politics. The Reform Party created the fault lines on which now the Conservative Party has gained a majority. Now the next question resides in the death of the Reform Party, the birth of the Canadian Alliance and all that mashed-up into gumbo gave us the new "Conservative Canada".

Canadian federal election of 1997 (In Green the Provinces that voted Reform)

Even with the impressive electoral performances in 1993 and 1997 that was the death sentence of the Progressive Conservatives, the Reform Party just couldn't get elected into governing. Yes back then Canada still was a "Liberal Nation" and the Canadians during that time input their trust in Chretien's Liberal Party with three majority governments (from the 1993 federal election through the 1997 election and finally with the 2000 election). So the option was rather simple it was the merger of the various political groups of the right in one strong Conservative Party. But before that happened the Canadian Alliance emerged replacing the Reform Party and tried harder and harder to "break the ice" in the eastern provinces of Ontario and of Quebec, without success. Like today with the NDP and the Liberal splintering up the vote and impeding the Canadian left a real chance to govern, back in the day it was the same old ball game the Progressive Conservatives won seats in Ontario and Quebec and the Canadian Alliance would take seats in the prairie provinces. And so was born the Unite the Right movement and through it's impulsion finally the two united to create the actual Conservative Party of Canada. This being the union wasn't an easy thing the Progressive Conservative electors were radically opposed to the idea of the merge, they preferred to vote Liberal then to vote for a Canadian Alliance candidate, and so when the union was finally formulated it seemed that it wouldn't last. And that's when the "Reformists" (a very iconoclastic bunch, made-up of tax haters/neo-liberals, social conservatives and western patriots) hijacked the conservative movement.

One of the consequences of the "Reformist Revolution" the 1995 Quebec referendum

I guess that if John Diefenbaker or MacDonald (maybe we should ask Mulroney) were they still alive, they would probably not recognize their party. Today the Conservative Party is not even the shadow of it's former self. We always look south of the border and  to the American political disarray to comfort ourselves. The problem is that we are heading down the same trend in little time, Ms. Sarah Palin could very well find a new home in Canada. The rapid ascension of Stephen Harper was only possible due to the grassroots movement that was already existent. The "Reformist Revolution" was the centrepiece of his political career, the front page story of the last two decades. The vision of Canada, of what Canada should be, the "Reformists" changed forever the Canadian political landscape, and that "change" has started to change Canadian society. The "Reformist" vision of a Conservative Canada in America's image has little by little has lingered into Canadian society, poverty is up on the rise, ever more perturbing is the rise of poverty among immigrant communities, they become more and more ghettoized shoved into a corner. The "Reformist Revolution" brought neo-liberalism and social conservatism into the mainstream of Canadian politics, the particular consequence of the appearance of these new ideologies in the Canadian political landscape was: the reduction of social programs, the liberalization of the Canadian market (that means through the efforts of Globalization a bigger share of the Canadian economy to American companies), the dismantlement of heath care and the reduction of funding for federal education. But one other flaw of the "Reformist Revolution" was the birth of a sort of Culture War inside Canadian politics, between the Canadian west that was the "stronghold" of this new born movement and Ontario and Quebec, specially Quebec. The Culture War would push Quebec into the hands of the sovereignist Bloc Quebec and put Quebec on the edge of the oblivion of independence during the referendum of 1995. The Conservative movement has played on this fault line of provincial division to assure their reign. The question that stands out is will the party of Diefenbaker (once champion of a Canadian conservatism), his ideological stance re-find it's place in Canadian politics?

Unite the Right campaign poster

The preexisting divisions between the basis of the now defunct Progressive Conservative Party, still hide under the sink of the actual Conservative Party, it's just a question of remembering those Red Tories that the political stance that Diefenbaker certainly deferred form the nowadays Canadian left, but that in the end the objective of a true north strong and free is not going to happen through the continuation of Harper's  rule. The "Diefenbaker ideology" is of course not a left-leaning ideology, but it has for base social-justice, the belief in meritocracy (opposed to capitalist oligarchy, the American model, that Harper tries to implement with so much zeal) and equal opportunities. This perception of Canada is completely opposed to the "Reformist" perception of the ideal Canadian society. In the end the Red Tories of Ontario and Quebec can find a home in the "grand" left of the political spectrum. A formation that would confederate the liberals, and the centre-left, the socialists and social-democrats on the left and to the centre the Red Tories. It's time to learn from the history of the "Reformist Revolution". Without any doubt the "Reformist Revolution" was the motor of the political surge that swept Canada and that today lead Harper to Ottawa at head of one of the greatest Conservative majorities in history. To save our Canada, the non-neoliberal nation, the home of Greenpeace, a nation of equal opportunities and a meritocracy based on equity and moral principals and not uncontrolled, wild capitalism, we have to fight the "Reformist Revolution" with a "Righteous Revolution" to reinstate the Canadian ideal.

Canada we stand on guard for thee.

Sky

Beware the socialists are coming to Ottawa!!!

As this blockbuster of an election, hastily enters it's last days of campaign only one thing pops out above all others... the NDP and the personality of Jack Layton. It's hard to believe that some weeks ago the NDP were down below their 2008 poll levels and out of the blue tonight the NDP is looking towards it's biggest electoral victory yet.

Now what are the ingredients of such an amazing success? it's a 6 letter name HARPER. Harper is the source of this NDP surge. It's now been 5 almost 6 that Mr. Harper controls the ways and customs of power in Ottawa, this goes without saying that PM Harper has done a good job to keep Canada on it's toes during this financial downturn. We have to credit him for the achievement of enabling us with the strongest and fastest recovery of all of the industrialized nations. That being it's not because his economic "bilan" is clear cut that Canada must without any hesitation reelect him.

The meaning of Harper's 5 years are not as clear cut as the economic heritage he leaves us. In a time when Canada needed a uniting figure, Harper has been a polarizing figure. At first he seemed to finally be asking the questions, of which all Canadians were awaiting answers, he seemed to tackle the question of Quebec sovereignty, he was in some sorts cleaning up Canadian society and protecting the interest of the everyday Canadian at least that's what filtered through the mainstream media. And now 5 and a half down the road where are we? The NDP surge is something I consider essential for the political heath of our democratic system. Day in and day out throughout Harper's "mandate" the conservative government has ridiculed and stampeded Canada's values. Once champion of human rights Amnesty International rebuked Canada. The most important issue is the inhumane detainment of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, for as much as I know with my little knowledge is that Omar is a Canadian citizen and by that being should be judged by a Canadian court and detained if such is needed in Canada not in a American prison. Second of all Omar was minor when he was criminally abducted and taken to Guantanamo to be tortured and interrogated by American agents. Even a more powerful argument for a Canadian intervention against the illegal detention of Omar is that the pieces conviction against him are nonexistent. Second of all one thing that has always characterized the "Canadian ideal" is that Canada has always been a world leader in ecological defence terms and well let's just say it like this the Copenhagen conference wrecked that record.

So this election and probably the next election because even thought I hope with all my heart that Jack Layton/ the NDP and the Liberals of Micheal Ignatieff with find common ground and lead a coalition to Ottawa come May 3th, it seems like Harper with regain a minority government. But this election has been prove that after the catastrophic 2008 legislative campaign that we still stand on guard for Canada, for the ideals, the values that have been past down form generation to generation. And so this election is just the start I guess of a Canadian renaissance. We might be sick and tired of the same old broken politics of Ottawa but instead of giving in to radicalism and nationalism (something that happens commonly when citizens are deceived by the political situation of their country), on May 2nd a new political spectrum will be born. In the end this election has been the nirvana of Jack Layton's political career he has proven throughout the length of this election that form time to time citizens like you and me, without any foreseeing form the so called "pundits" can rise up and change forever the political game. We are the guardians of our democracies, we still stand on guard for thee.

Sky



Omar Khadr we haven't forgotten.