Thomas Mulcair rose in the Commons on Thursday and asked the prime minister, "Will he keep our troops in Afghanistan past 2014, yes or no?" Stephen Harper hasn't answered a question for quite while now. This time he responded with yet another slur:
"Unlike the NDP, we are not going to ideologically have a position regardless of circumstances,” Harper said. “The leader of the NDP, in 1939, did not even want to support war against Hitler.”
Never mind that the NDP didn't exist until 1961. Never mind that J.S. Woodsworth -- leader of the CCF and a Methodist minister -- had long been a committed pacifist. Never mind that Woodsworth was the only member of the CCF who did not vote to go to war with Germany.
Yet Harper's attack was continued the next day, when John Baird rose and proclaimed,
"The NDP don’t support sending troops abroad for anything. Let us look at what the former leader of the NDP-CCF when he said the following. ‘I would ask whether we are to risk the lives of our Canadian sons to prevent the actions of Hitler.’ You know who said that, it was the former leader of the NDP-CCF, J.S. Woodsworth.”
This kind of calumny has become standard fare from these folks, whose most reliable supporters are reportedly Christians. Yet, if anything, the Harperites appear to have a great deal of trouble with a number of the commandments -- particularly the one that deals with bearing false witness.
Those who tell tall tales become laughing stocks. Surely, Vic Toews can attest to that -- the social media skewers phoneys. And, thus, Twitter came alive:
"It is a fact that, at the time, the #ndp refused to support our troops during the war of 1812," wrote Pierre H. Vachon
"Damn you #NDP for not standing up to Genghis Khan!!" wrote Dan Speerin.
And Ravi Gurdial tweeted, "The NDP controls all of England's fruit, causing glasses of OJ to cost up to $16 in some instances." -- an allusion to that glass of orange juice which Bev Oda enjoyed on her recent trip to London.
You know a government is in trouble when anger gives way to mockery.
4 comments:
The government, particularly Harper appeared really stupid on this attack on the NDP. It is hard to understand that they let it be repeated by other members of their caucus. This looks like the kind of stupid, inaccurate, irrational attacks that infect so much of the American political "dialogue". Canadians need to demand better!
The Harper government is following the American model, Philip. If Canadians let them succeed, they will make Canadian politics as dysfunctional as American politics.
Let's not forget the NDP tried to nationalize fire as soon as it was discovered!
It's hard to tell if Harper's attempt to blunt the growing appeal of the NDP was a stupid remark, or if it was the first in a series of Conservative attempts to rewrite history to their advantage. The Republicans managed that very effectively during Bush's presidency, making Little George look like a war hero while John Kerry, the real war hero, was made to look like a traitor. It worked because too many Americans, in their ignorance, fell for the ruse.
Let's hope that Canadians fare better, showing they're at least capable of seeing the Conservative's phoninesslike those who lampooned it in their tweets, and then acting upon it.
If they can't, we're all in big trouble!
One hopes, Hopeful, that Canadians know a phoney when they see one.
However, Mr Harper -- the kid who grew up in Leaside -- has convinced a lot of people that he is a cowboy from Calgary.
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