If you were hoping that Stephen Harper was re-evaluating his approach to people -- particularly Barack Obama -- yesterday should have dashed that hope. Speaking before the Canadian American Business Council, the prime minister said that, on the Keystone Pipeline file, he wouldn't take no for an answer:
The logic in support of the project going ahead is "overwhelming," and governments at all levels on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are endorsing it, Harper told a high-powered business audience in New York.
"My view is that you don't take no for an answer," Harper said. "We haven't had that. If we were to get that, that won't be final. This won't be final until it's approved and we will keep pushing forward."
That must have sent shivers down Barack Obama's spine. The prime minister made his statement in the wake of a New York Times editorial which lambasted Harper for trying to promote public ignorance by muzzling scientists:
"This is more than an attack on academic freedom. It is an attempt to guarantee public ignorance.
"It is also designed to make sure that nothing gets in the way of the northern resource rush — the feverish effort to mine the earth and the ocean with little regard for environmental consequences. The Harper policy seems designed to make sure that the tar sands project proceeds quietly, with no surprises, no bad news, no alarms from government scientists. To all the other kinds of pollution the tar sands will yield, we must now add another: the degradation of vital streams of research and information."
Our prime minister is a master of diplomacy. That is why he goes to New York as the United Nations begins its new session and skips it. One wonders what planet he is living on. Like St. Exupery's little prince, it's his own planet. And it's very small.
This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.
6 comments:
Perhaps Mr. Harper's world will continue to shrink and shrink, becoming so small - smaller than a dime, smaller than a dot - that it will disappear altogether, taking him with it. Given the public reactions of the American President and the New York Times, I'd say it just might be in the works.
The difference is that The Little Prince had learned much about how to look after his planet and the mutual pain that he and his rose had inflicted on each other, and, unlike our august representative, the Little Prince used his time on Earth to reflect on human interactions and to gather some wisdom about the conduct of his life. Harper's narrative stands in horrifyingly stark contrast to the wistful sagacity of St.-Exupéry's creation.
A renewed thank you for the daily dose of perspective, concise and incisive.
And the sad part is, Hopeful, that Mr. Harper isn't aware enough to see that the planet is shifting under his feet.
The little prince -- and St. Exupery -- were much wiser than Stephen Harper, Danneau.
And they keep telling us Harper's a smart man.
Harper demonstrates how almost anything can make perfect sense provided you're willing to ignore almost everything else.
What mastery of logic can a person have who finds truth in belief rather than fact? Harper is a belief-driven, faith-based thinker who simply rejects logic and yet maintains to hold it in his pudgy fingers.
It was this very narrowness of intellect that left our economist prime minister utterly incapable of seeing the 2008 fiscal tsunami bearing down on us. The man is a buffoon.
It's amazing that a man who has such an aversion to facts could obtain a Master's degree in Economics, Mound.
But perhaps that outcome is testimony to what has become of economics in some university faculties.
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