Prime Minister Harper's speech in front of Rideau Hall this morning offered Canadians a glimpse into what makes him tick. He completely ignored the non-confidence vote -- claiming that it was an under the Peace Tower game which doesn't impress Canadians. That's been his position for the last five years.
Instead of "confidence" Mr. Harper wanted to talk -- repeatedly -- about "coalition." It got him out of the hole he dug for himself three years ago -- and he believes it will work for him again. Never mind that he proposed exactly the same kind of arrangement in 2004 with the same leaders of the same parties. All of that has gone down the memory hole.
His budget is empty. And he knows that if he costs out the prisons, the jets and the tax cuts, it will blow a huge hole in his deficit reduction targets. Like the second President Bush -- who kept two wars off budget -- he believes that citizens are lousy mathematicians and frightened children. Both men have followed the Wall Street Model. We have been living, despite the rosy picture Mr. Harper paints, with the consequences.
We shall see if we the people have learned anything over the last three years.
This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.
2 comments:
I agree completely but I don't think that Canadian people will change much. Mr. Harper has been a liar and a fear monger from the very beginning. People in Saskatchewan have forgotten the big lie of not including non renewable resources in the calculation of equalization. This has cost Saskatchewan Billions!!
My fear is that Canadians will be complacent -- and that they will buy Mr. Harper's line that what happens in Parliament is not important; all that matters is the contents of their wallets.
In the end, as Peter C. Newman wrote in The Canadian Revolution -- a book about Brian Mulroney -- "we get the politicians we deserve." My hope is that Canadians believe they deserve better than Mr. Harper.
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