Chicken Little's Last Gasp
Mindful of the words of Robert Musil's "Man Without Qualities" that "a man can't be angry at his own time without suffering some damage", I have trained myself to be saddened and not angered by the maliciousness of the Liberal attempts to smear Mr. Harper and his supporters, and by the apparent gullibility of a sector of the Canadian public that fails to recognize the lies for what they are.
Led by Prime Minister Chicken Little's cries of alarm that Stephen Harper would politicize the courts, and that Canada would become an extreme right wing country under his leadership, a cacophony of chatter erupts that would be laughable were the implications not so serious for our country.
Mr. Harper did not stray off message, he merely stated the obvious that even if granted a majority, the Conservatives would be subject to the checks and balances of a judiciary, a civil service and a Senate, each of which have been populated almost exclusively by Liberal governments. He made no attack against the independence of the judiciary, but merely affirmed what any right thinking person knows, that Liberal governments appoint senior judges who more closely share their values.
Liberals like to delude themselves and others into believing that since Liberals have dominated government, their values are those of the majority of Canadians. Since Liberals have historically been elected to majorities in parliament with as little as 38% of the popular vote, this is a hollow and dangerous assumption to make.
Surely, it would be a sign of health for Canada if the next Supreme Court judicial appointment was given to a qualified jurist who saw his or her role to be one of interpreting and not making law. Such a jurist would have experience prior to appointment consisting of years of service on the bench, and not that of a quasi-bureaucrat such as the recent appointee Rosie Abella who spent more time off the bench than on it after her first appointment as a Family Court judge in Ontario.
But like so many topics in the state of our nation during these times, they cannot even be raised without the level of debate sinking to the lowest common denominator and too often the cheerleader for the gutter quality of the debate has been our own Prime Minister. The Conservative policy platform would position the party to the left of the Democrats in the US, yet P.M. Chicken Little shrieks from his perch that a Harper led Conservative party would be the most extreme right-wing government Canada has ever seen, and he approves fear-mongering ads about soldiers with guns in the streets of Canadian cities.
This is a sad spectacle of a man and a party so desperate to cling to power and privilege as to willingly spread falsehood and malicious innuendo in the hopes of frightening Canadians to cast their votes out of fear and prejudice and not out of reasoned consideration of the facts. It was sad to see him on television today, pausing, his face constricting suggesting an inner struggle of conscience, but ultimately unable to resist the temptation he spread the lie that under Stephen Harper “women would lose their right to choose.”
After a campaign in which the national press for the first time in decades displayed a relatively unbiased and even disposition toward the policies and candidates of the Conservatives, we now begin to see the rot underlying some of the attitudes of the 5th column, creep into its reporting.
Musil also wrote "the problem of civilization can be solved only by the heart." Canada needs a change and polls suggest that roughly 2/3rd of Canadians accept that premise. A change of heart must precede a change of government, and one can only hope, for the good of the country, that enough Canadians will see through the lies and fear-mongering of the frenzied last 48 hours of campaigning by the Liberals, and elect a Conservative government that has promised positive change and accountability.
To fail to do so will be a sad day for Canadians. We will have failed to prune and tend to our garden and the unsightly mess we are left to live in will not be healthy or pleasing to the senses.
Led by Prime Minister Chicken Little's cries of alarm that Stephen Harper would politicize the courts, and that Canada would become an extreme right wing country under his leadership, a cacophony of chatter erupts that would be laughable were the implications not so serious for our country.
Mr. Harper did not stray off message, he merely stated the obvious that even if granted a majority, the Conservatives would be subject to the checks and balances of a judiciary, a civil service and a Senate, each of which have been populated almost exclusively by Liberal governments. He made no attack against the independence of the judiciary, but merely affirmed what any right thinking person knows, that Liberal governments appoint senior judges who more closely share their values.
Liberals like to delude themselves and others into believing that since Liberals have dominated government, their values are those of the majority of Canadians. Since Liberals have historically been elected to majorities in parliament with as little as 38% of the popular vote, this is a hollow and dangerous assumption to make.
Surely, it would be a sign of health for Canada if the next Supreme Court judicial appointment was given to a qualified jurist who saw his or her role to be one of interpreting and not making law. Such a jurist would have experience prior to appointment consisting of years of service on the bench, and not that of a quasi-bureaucrat such as the recent appointee Rosie Abella who spent more time off the bench than on it after her first appointment as a Family Court judge in Ontario.
But like so many topics in the state of our nation during these times, they cannot even be raised without the level of debate sinking to the lowest common denominator and too often the cheerleader for the gutter quality of the debate has been our own Prime Minister. The Conservative policy platform would position the party to the left of the Democrats in the US, yet P.M. Chicken Little shrieks from his perch that a Harper led Conservative party would be the most extreme right-wing government Canada has ever seen, and he approves fear-mongering ads about soldiers with guns in the streets of Canadian cities.
This is a sad spectacle of a man and a party so desperate to cling to power and privilege as to willingly spread falsehood and malicious innuendo in the hopes of frightening Canadians to cast their votes out of fear and prejudice and not out of reasoned consideration of the facts. It was sad to see him on television today, pausing, his face constricting suggesting an inner struggle of conscience, but ultimately unable to resist the temptation he spread the lie that under Stephen Harper “women would lose their right to choose.”
After a campaign in which the national press for the first time in decades displayed a relatively unbiased and even disposition toward the policies and candidates of the Conservatives, we now begin to see the rot underlying some of the attitudes of the 5th column, creep into its reporting.
Musil also wrote "the problem of civilization can be solved only by the heart." Canada needs a change and polls suggest that roughly 2/3rd of Canadians accept that premise. A change of heart must precede a change of government, and one can only hope, for the good of the country, that enough Canadians will see through the lies and fear-mongering of the frenzied last 48 hours of campaigning by the Liberals, and elect a Conservative government that has promised positive change and accountability.
To fail to do so will be a sad day for Canadians. We will have failed to prune and tend to our garden and the unsightly mess we are left to live in will not be healthy or pleasing to the senses.
posted by Ben Buan | 2:27 p.m.
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