Shorter Stephen Harper
That was then, this is now, suck it up
Mr. Layton remembers when Mr. Harper, as leader of the Official Opposition, lambasting the Chrétien government’s plans to prorogue Parliament back in 2003, to prevent the Auditor-General from reporting on possible abuse of the sponsorship program in Quebec.
“The government will prorogue the House so that it will not be held accountable for its shameful record,” Mr. Harper thundered.
Hypocrisy – the one thing all politicians, and the majority of the party faithful, share.
Yabbut, will Canadians reward him with a New Conservative majority government in the spring? Or will the New Conservatives be decimated at the polls, as they deserve to be?
And how will we punish the Canadian media when it helps him win the former?
According to @Kady O’Malley
It’s transparent (and if you recall he did promise transparency didn’t he?) and hypocritical to be sure, but given that the LPoC has lost their spine and is not willing to fight an election it is politically shrewd .
shorter shorter stephen harper: suck it.
Shorter Iggy: OK
Shorter Jack: “I’m so angry about this destruction of democracy I could just spit, but Canadians don’t want an election.”
Yeah, I guess we all just better shut up. After all, Iggy’s kinda weird and Jack is arrogant. No real alternative. Might as well just …. zzzzzzzz……..
Harper’s arrogant AND weird, though.
balb, in case you haven’t heard, the country is about to have a very big party., and you’re invited. Sure, parliamentary democracy is important, but Canada opens against Norway on Feb 2nd and I’m not sure your concerns about committee independance are going to get a lot of traction until it is over. Maybe it’s best to just pray he doesn’t do a Reichstag burning before March and come back then with a flurry of posts about how ordinary Canadians are fed up and aren’t going to take it anymore.
We open WHAT against Norway?
Maybe we should just let dictatorships host the Olympics from now on to ensure the rest of us retain our democratic institutions.
And how will we punish the Canadian media when it helps him win the former?
We seemed to be locked in an abusive relationship with our mainstream media. We can’t stop paying attention to their products (although we have definitely stopped paying for them) and they can’t stop either heaping abuse on us or providing us with useless distractions that no longer permit anyone to figure out what is an issue of substantive common import. This seems to have brought about the situation where a sizable demographic don’t know (and thus don’t care) about practically everything that doesn’t concern them personally, are confident that nothing else really matters and are rather self-assured about that. The pollsters poll that opinion, the media reports that, and the impression is reinforced that a state of ignorance and complacency is now normal and desirable.
It’s probably always been that way to a great extent, but as I’m fond of saying, the opinions of ignorant people simply do not matter. And it’s not “elitist” to say that, it’s just science; there’s just no way to make ignorance matter (not in any positive way, that is), just as there is no way to use a pail that has no water to put out a fire. What concerns me the most is that most journalists (or the publishers and editors at least) believe this state is a reflection of freedom and democracy, when it’s actually a manifestation of the decay of both those things.
A quick scan of the punditry this morning reveals some rather bizarre analyses of what this prorogation is all about. That it’s in the interest of an autocrat like Harper and his bunch really doesn’t require much argument and shouldn’t even have to be explained. The interest of substantive import is whether its the interest of the country and our system of government.
balb, in case you haven’t heard, the country is about to have a very big party., and you’re invited.
What Peter means is that we’re invited to watch teevee. Not my idea of a party exactly, butt there you are.
@balbulican – Hey, didn’t you get the memo, nihilism has no place place in the blogosphere!