You have to assume that with 70 per cent or so of the electorate hostile, what we’re seeing is the end of the Harper regime, whether it’s done cleanly in the upcoming election or in a second one after a period of chaotic minority government.
And when Stephen Harper does go down, it will be a shame if if he does so merely because the economy took a downward turn, because it’s “time for a change,” because of scandal in the Senate, or any of the other more or less conventional reasons pollsters and pundits carry on about.
If so, the country will have avoided facing the larger reality. This is not an election like any other. What’s at stake is nothing less than the integrity of Canada’s most fundamental features — the justice system, the electoral system, the public service, the tax system and Parliament itself — all of which Harper has relentlessly assaulted and would complete the job of reducing to his personal playthings if only enough people could be kept deep enough in the dark to give him one more majority.
It has been a mark of Harper’s manipulative genius to keep all this under the radar. It has also been the signal failure of the opposition parties to raise their sights and crystallize these crucial arguments against him. (Thursday’s leaders’ debate brushed past all this — a segment on “democracy” dealt mainly with electoral reform, the Senate, the role of MPs and so on).
READ MORE: http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1303862-surette-harper-banks-on-the-distracted-to-pursue-destructive-spree
No comments:
Post a Comment