Why We Should Fear a Harper Majority

By Gary L Morton, April 1, 2011

The Canadian federal election campaign is underway and news reports are continually about whether Stephen Harper will get the majority government he says he needs. Our unenlightened media would have us believe this election was called because Harper needs a majority, and polls are continually released showing how honest Canadians believe Harper to be.

The truth is that this election was called because the Conservative Government was found in contempt of parliament and knocked out via a non confidence motion. Harper and his ministers couldn’t provide honest figures on the costs of things like fighter planes and crime bills. Big ticket items … and the simplest way to put this is that parliament, which represents Canadians, could not trust him and his MPs with our money. If that is the case and it is, why should anyone in media or elsewhere be talking about the need to grant Harper a majority government?

A majority for what, so he can continue with his manner of governing in secret and holding back nearly all information?

Most Canadians have no idea how harmful a Harper Majority Government will be. I remember the day Mike Harris won his majority in Ontario. I was reading the paper in a doughnut shop and had a sinking feeling that something really terrible was about to happen. And it did. It started with an omnibus bill that was followed by a long chain of further bills. All of them more than bad, all of them totally regressive, and all of them forced through by majority government no matter how many people protested. There were in fact protesters banging drums and even pots and pans at the legislature every day and one march was of 100,000 people.

A regressive majority government is the same as dictatorship as it listens to no one. Some of the same architects of the Harris bills, people like Jim Flaherty, are in Harper’s government.

Once the Harper Majority is in place the story will repeat itself on a national scale. There will be social unrest as Harper forces through rafts of bad legislation and knocks heads with nearly every organized group in society.

The first bill will contain the alteration to political party funding and election rules that will ensure no other party can run effectively against the Conservatives. Then more prisons, more people in jail, total government secrecy, a fortune spent on the military, cuts and cuts and cuts to social programs, Medicare privatized, our water sold off … the list goes on and on and the Harper majority will not forget anything. All will be targeted.

Of course he’ll have his supporters too, like those depots in the Middle East that have people waving colored flags and holding up giant photos of the leader. Who knows, maybe the name Government of Canada itself will be permanently replaced by the Harper Government logo.

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