Quiet Mike's Canadian Election 2011 - Day 29
I remember back in November of 2004 the headline on the cover of the Daily Mirror, the UK tabloid newspaper. It read “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?” referring to the number of people who voted to re-elect George W. Bush. I can’t wait to see the headline when we re-elect Stephen Harper for a third time.
In the Canadian election of 2008 there were 5 209 069 people who voted Conservative. This time around the Conservatives are in line to receive roughly the same amount if not more. Don’t worry though, I won’t be saying on Election Day how five or six million Canadians could be so dumb, but I will wonder how that many can be so blind.
Stephen Harper’s Conservative base is roughly 20% of the populace. These people will vote for him regardless of his record, they are the ones who share in Harper’s core values comparable to the Neo-Cons in the U.S. They are traditionally religious, pro-life and pro-war with reservations regarding gays and the poor. If Harper wins this election I won’t be blaming them however, I’ll be blaming the other 20% who vote against their own beliefs and without the knowledge that the Conservative Party under Harper is both dictatorial and corrupt.
I need more hands to count the number of controversies and political flaps that have dogged the Prime Minister in the last five years, but here is a list of the top ten I got from “Much Ado about Stupidity“. I could not independently confirm the facts of the whole list, but these ones I could:
- 1. Prorogued Parliament (twice!) to cover up/interrupt investigations into misconduct in his cabinet.
- 2. Refused to take responsibility for the detainment and torture of Taliban soldiers.
- 3. Ignored elections act legislation by “in-and-outing” large cash sums to individual ridings to defraud tax-payers and fund local candidates.
- 4. Used the RCMP to suppress free-speech during the G8/G20 summit (and spent 1 billion on that security)
- 5. Appointed a creationist as science minister (who refused to answer questions about evolution because “it was against his religious beliefs”).
- 6. Got Canada voted out of the UN Security Council for the first time in history.
- 7. Has been an ardent supporter of the oil-sands, and enemy of environmentalism. Since he was elected, Canada has had the worst environmental record of any of the G8 nations.
- 8. Used $50 million of a G8 legacy fund to pay for projects in Tony Clement’s riding of Muskoka/Parry Sound, despite the bulk of the projects having nothing to do with the G8/G20 and being, in some cases, 100 km away from any of the summit sites (all of this without the approval of parliament).
- 9. Did not investigate the “Bev Oda” scandal, in which one of his own ministers penciled in a “not” that denied federal funding to an international aid organization, and then lied about it.
- 10. Misrepresented a quote from auditor general Sheila Fraser to make it sound like she supported the Harper Government’s handling of the G8 money (she was in fact referring to the Liberal handling of the 9/11 relief fund).
I’m not sure what it will take to convince the 20% of rights, centrists and undecided voters to wake up and smell the Tim Horton’s coffee. The opposition parties have tried and done their best, it’s now time for the people to get informed. Some people say that a vote for a lesser party is a wasted vote; I think the only wasted vote is one that is uninformed. One thing is for certain, if nothing changes in the coming week we will have the blind once again being led by the blank.
Harper Mugshot courtesy of The Hammer
