Do You Feel United?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it’s been 40 years since Canada has been as united as it stands today [source]
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it’s been 40 years since Canada has been as united as it stands today [source]
Designed by Gabfire slightly modified by stageleft
For a guy who is supposedly really intelligent…he is beginning to sound like Bush more and more.
I cannot, in my brief lifetime, remember this country more divided.
What I’m learning, with a kind of horrified fascination, is that it doesn’t really matter to Harper’s followers what’s actually happening in the real world. All that matters is that you repeat, with increasing volume, anger and stridency, what you want the truth to be. As long as you can drown out dissenters, you win.
Or so they think. I’ve commented before that Harper’s external communications strategy is badly flawed, in that he plays primarily to his existing supporters. He is not winning ANY new support , and that will be his downfall.
I think you’re right, M. Balb. I can’t think of a better example than what aired on last night’s CTV National News. King Abdullah of Jordan arrives at Ottawa International to be greeted in Harper’s absence by… the Minister for International Relations, Peter McKay? Nope. John Baird, Minister of the Environment.
The reporter, Robert Fife, noted that we might deduce from this who’s really calling the shot’s in international relations – and it ain’t McKay.
Besides an apparent bitch-slap to McKay, the decision also shows a disdain for international protocol (Abdullah is a King) and a misreading on the importance of the visit (the Middle East, Israel and Palestinians). But it can’t play well with voters down east either. They sent a Conservative to Ottawa and got a Reform PM – which I’ll bet is not exactly what many of them bargained for.