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mousmeDear Mr. Harper,
You and I have never agreed on politics. I am way too far to the left of the political spectrum to ever see eye to eye with you on anything, except perhaps to agree that the CFRO is a ridiculous waste of time and taxpayers' money. Everything else, well, if you and I ever actually spoke, we'd have to agree to disagree.
In spite of our political differences, I've always thought you were a pretty canny politician. You've come a long way, and polished your image and improved your French by leaps and bounds, and for that you have, erm, something akin to my respect. At least, credit where credit is due.
That being said... this latest stunt? Not only is it stupid, it is criminally negligent. I must needs believe that you checked all your brainpower and wisdom at the door when you obtained your latest minority government, because instead of focussing on the crisis at hand, you went and spat in the eye of the opposition parties with a hair-brained scheme to try to weaken them because you thought they would never grow enough of a pair to oppose you on this.
Guess what? You were wrong. Not only were you wrong, but you may very well have scuttled this country for the next few years with your irresponsible power-mongering. I am amazed at how badly you underestimated your opponents. I am amazed that, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, you are still claiming that we are only going to have a "mild" recession (after trumpeting all through the election that we were "safe" and weren't going to have a recession at all, let me remind you!). Your actions are nothing short of jaw-droppingly stupid.
You have lost the confidence of the House, Mr. Prime Minister. The country never had all that much confidence in you to begin with (see: minority government), and now we're stuck with Dion and Layton having to dance with the devil for the next eighteen months. You are going to go down in ignominy as the man who tanked Canada when he should have been leading, and you are going to lose the leadership of this country in a way that will make Kim Campbell's defeat look dignified.
I hope you're proud of your legacy.
No love,
Me
I have no words to explain the current asshattery of Canadian politics to my non-Canadian LJ friends. It's so dumb, that I'm not sure it's even worth trying for an explanation. Instead I will link to my friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
forthright's explanation, which as usual is far clearer and more insightful than anything I could come up with.
To say that I am peeved would be an understatement. After one federal election in Canada this year, I am being forced once more to the polls by the most hair-brained, ill-conceived notion that we needed a provincial election (I live in Québec) right after.
On top of this, the Conservative Government has essentially led us into a giant clusterfuck by engaging in whatforthright rightly qualified as "political brinkmanship of the worst kind" and forcing the two left-of-center parties (the Liberals, who are pretty close to the center but still kind of leftish and the NDP, who are a little more tree-huggy but also have strong roots in the labour movements) to form a coalition government, with the addition of a weird-but-necessary agreement of the Bloc Québécois (whose presence in Parliament still mystifies me), who are left-leaning but also French-Canadian nationalists, to support the government on all confidence motions for the next eighteen months.
To say that this is both good news and extremely worrisome would again be an understatement. The Bloc is openly pro-Québécois, and makes no bones about wishing to cater to French-Canadian interests. As a resident of Québec, I'm pretty intensely conflicted about this. Sure, I'd like my province to do well, but it feels as though we'll be doing it at the expense of my country, and that price is too high as far as I'm concerned. I also don't like the idea of a party that's essentially dedicated to ripping my country apart to have so many strings to pull, strings which have not yet been revealed to the voting public, I might add.
Not to mention that this shiny new coalition is going to be running the country during what is likely to be the worst economic crisis of the last sixty or seventy years. I can't see that going well, can you?
That being said, Harper's tactic of "I-double-dog-dare-you" to Dion to take his coalition before the voters is self-serving and downright low, as far as I'm concerned. We just had an election. The last thing this country needs is another one: they are costly, and as we just saw, right now the country is in a political deadlock.
In short, things suck.
You and I have never agreed on politics. I am way too far to the left of the political spectrum to ever see eye to eye with you on anything, except perhaps to agree that the CFRO is a ridiculous waste of time and taxpayers' money. Everything else, well, if you and I ever actually spoke, we'd have to agree to disagree.
In spite of our political differences, I've always thought you were a pretty canny politician. You've come a long way, and polished your image and improved your French by leaps and bounds, and for that you have, erm, something akin to my respect. At least, credit where credit is due.
That being said... this latest stunt? Not only is it stupid, it is criminally negligent. I must needs believe that you checked all your brainpower and wisdom at the door when you obtained your latest minority government, because instead of focussing on the crisis at hand, you went and spat in the eye of the opposition parties with a hair-brained scheme to try to weaken them because you thought they would never grow enough of a pair to oppose you on this.
Guess what? You were wrong. Not only were you wrong, but you may very well have scuttled this country for the next few years with your irresponsible power-mongering. I am amazed at how badly you underestimated your opponents. I am amazed that, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, you are still claiming that we are only going to have a "mild" recession (after trumpeting all through the election that we were "safe" and weren't going to have a recession at all, let me remind you!). Your actions are nothing short of jaw-droppingly stupid.
You have lost the confidence of the House, Mr. Prime Minister. The country never had all that much confidence in you to begin with (see: minority government), and now we're stuck with Dion and Layton having to dance with the devil for the next eighteen months. You are going to go down in ignominy as the man who tanked Canada when he should have been leading, and you are going to lose the leadership of this country in a way that will make Kim Campbell's defeat look dignified.
I hope you're proud of your legacy.
No love,
Me
I have no words to explain the current asshattery of Canadian politics to my non-Canadian LJ friends. It's so dumb, that I'm not sure it's even worth trying for an explanation. Instead I will link to my friend
forthright's explanation, which as usual is far clearer and more insightful than anything I could come up with.To say that I am peeved would be an understatement. After one federal election in Canada this year, I am being forced once more to the polls by the most hair-brained, ill-conceived notion that we needed a provincial election (I live in Québec) right after.
On top of this, the Conservative Government has essentially led us into a giant clusterfuck by engaging in what
forthright rightly qualified as "political brinkmanship of the worst kind" and forcing the two left-of-center parties (the Liberals, who are pretty close to the center but still kind of leftish and the NDP, who are a little more tree-huggy but also have strong roots in the labour movements) to form a coalition government, with the addition of a weird-but-necessary agreement of the Bloc Québécois (whose presence in Parliament still mystifies me), who are left-leaning but also French-Canadian nationalists, to support the government on all confidence motions for the next eighteen months.To say that this is both good news and extremely worrisome would again be an understatement. The Bloc is openly pro-Québécois, and makes no bones about wishing to cater to French-Canadian interests. As a resident of Québec, I'm pretty intensely conflicted about this. Sure, I'd like my province to do well, but it feels as though we'll be doing it at the expense of my country, and that price is too high as far as I'm concerned. I also don't like the idea of a party that's essentially dedicated to ripping my country apart to have so many strings to pull, strings which have not yet been revealed to the voting public, I might add.
Not to mention that this shiny new coalition is going to be running the country during what is likely to be the worst economic crisis of the last sixty or seventy years. I can't see that going well, can you?
That being said, Harper's tactic of "I-double-dog-dare-you" to Dion to take his coalition before the voters is self-serving and downright low, as far as I'm concerned. We just had an election. The last thing this country needs is another one: they are costly, and as we just saw, right now the country is in a political deadlock.
In short, things suck.
