Editor:
Re: Pushed to the Polls, Observer Editorial, April 1, 2011
Given the date and the fact that you suggested the Harper Conservatives had been brought down because of “relatively minor policy differences” I momentarily considered that your editorial might have been an April Fool’s joke, but after reading further and noting that you also stated, “...Canada’s government was functioning in stable fashion, and for the great majority of citizens, the so-called transgressions of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were hardly registering on the radar, if at all,” I quickly realized that it was no joke.
As one voter who has been following the disingenuous, hostile actions of the Harper Conservatives over the past five years I found these statements diametrically opposed to my own views and, contrary to your assessment, the views of close to 62.4 per cent of Canadians who voted against Harper’s extremist policies back in 2008.
Harper’s house has fallen for a number of valid reasons, least of which is the fact that his government was been found guilty of treating Parliament and the Canadian people with extreme contempt. Were his actions judged in a court of law he’d likely be in prison now rather than running for office again.
That alone is serious enough to warrant removing the Conservatives from power but I would also like to add some other good reasons for not voting Conservative May 2.
Harper has dragged Canada into needless imperialist wars, destroying our country’s long-standing reputation as a sovereign, peace-loving, neutral nation. The blood of 155 young Canadians is on his hands as well as the blood of innocent Afghan citizens and now the blood of the people of Libya who are being bombed with depleted uranium ordinance that will ensure the deaths of countless numbers over generations to come.
At a time when the global economy is melting down before our eyes like the reactors in Fukushima, Japan and Canadians are hard pressed to make ends meet Harper, rather than showing prudence and restraint, is taking Canada further into debt to the International financial fraud by borrowing $29 billion dollars for a fleet of F35 fighter jets designed for attacking other nations rather than defending our own air space from some bogus enemy. It’s all part of his “stable fashion” of fiscal management which, over the past five years, has saddled the nation with a whopping $122.3 billion dollar deficit, the largest in Canada’s history and much of it a result of needless military spending.
We must never forget that Harper’s Reform-Conservative coalition gained only 37.6 per cent of the votes in 2008 and to suggest that his party speaks for the majority of Canadians is misleading. Nowhere is this fact more blatantly obvious than in the Harper Conservative’s foreign policy initiatives which have shown supreme contempt for Canada by their unabashed kowtowing to the former Bush and current Obama administrations in the USA as well as their shameless subservience to the demands of the Jewish state of Israel; actions that openly reveal a Conservative penchant for following extremist, fundamentalist religious ideologies that draw upon a strong voter base of Zionist Christians for unflagging, zealous support for aggressive military actions abroad.
In terms of Canada’s natural resource the Harper Conservatives, like the B.C. Liberals, have displayed an abysmal record of selling out our industries to foreign ownership. The mining sector is a good example of this with Harper accelerating the process and rubber-stamping foreign takeovers of companies that once were Canadian. Coupled with Canada’s cultural resources which are also being offered to the highest foreign bidders it’s clear that this government is at odds with all that the majority of Canadians hold as sacrosanct in an era of growing threats to our national sovereignty.
These are but some of the issues that Canadians need to bear in mind before they vote May 2. I’m sure others will add to this list.
Arthur Topham
Cottonwood, B.C.