When Peter Van Loan admitted this week in the House that the Conservative Party had been behind a campaign to spread the rumour that Irwin Cotler was resigning, he did so without a hint of embarrassment. More than that, Bruce Anderson writes, " he took cynicism to an new jaw dropping level:"
No mumbling the normal apologies about “overzealous workers, blah, blah, blah, won’t happen again, etc.” Instead, Canadians were told that this kind of grime should be considered vital free speech – and must be protected, not prevented, by our laws. Efforts to rein it in would have worse consequences than letting it continue. This was the sound of a politician who had left home without an ethical or moral compass that morning.
It was yet another indication that the Harper government lives in an Orwellian world -- where War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength and Freedom is Slavery.
Anderson, however, pulls no punches. This was not some kind of clever political strategy:
this is wrong. Not clever, not amusing, not evidence of a more sophisticated political machine that works all the angles while others are asleep at the switch. Just wrong on every level.
Yet this government professes to be tough on crime. It stands for family values. Its base claims to be militantly Christian. But it admits telling lies and it calls them free speech.
"A man is but the product of his thoughts," Gandhi said. "What he thinks he becomes."
Behold Stephen Harper's party.
