After a a few weeks
reflection I have concluded that the fight to protect our democracy
must continue without my weekly posts for a while. As have many
others, I have found recent events both depressing and disconcerting
and must take some time to absorb the ramifications of the Harper
regimes majority. I therefore will be only posting an occasional
article here in the coming months whilst we all see if our fears come
true. In my previous
post I made some predictions which turned out to be
mostly wrong, in the hope that I will this time be totally wrong here
then are my predictions for for Canadian politics in the next few
years.
The 'New' Harper Regime
will increasingly restrict access
to information and control what and when Ministers,
MPs and Civil Servants can say to the press and the public. The
Parliamentary Budget Office will, with the non renewal of Kevin
Page's contract, turn into a mouthpiece for the
governments latest budget spin, the existing staff will all resign.
Numerous reports
and inquiries will simply die a slow and quiet death
in committee having been blocked by the conservative majority, the
few that make it through will be so gutted as to be meaningless.
Election financing will, as promised, go through major changes, the
per
vote funding will be gone, corporate donations will be
reinstated and limits for individuals will be raised, the taxpayers
will continue to 'subsidize' both individual and corporate funding
to partys far in excess of the amount previously designated to the
per vote funding. We will all be subject to mail-outs, television
advertising and newspaper articles telling us how great the Harper
regime is doing on an ongoing and regular basis all paid for out of
general revenue, the conservative party war fund will be built to the
point that during the next election they can 'buy' enough publicity
to totally overwhelm any other partys attempt to get their point of
view before the public.
In there efforts to ensure that they, and only they, will be heard
rules will be put in place for future debates which will eliminate
all but the largest partys by seat count from such public
discussions. Harper will build his new media
center, will not
answer questions either there or in the HoC lobby, or
anywhere else for that matter, but simply issue pre recorded
propaganda from his control center. The press will continue to print
or broadcast this spin for lack of any other information available.
The PMOs
budget and staff will continue to expand whist all
other departments will see drastic cuts, watchdog departments and
committees will be particularly hard hit. Auditor-General Sheila
Fraser's replacement will not be nearly as open &
outspoken and will take most of the next 4 years struggling to get
accurate information and fighting for authority to investigate
various government agencys.
Harper will be returned
for a second majority before enough of the voting public wake up to
get
out and vote him out. Electoral reform choices will
NOT be put before the public in 2015 despite an ever increasing call
for such a referendum by both the public and most political partys.
It will be at least a decade before such changes take place.
There – 100%
wrong, I really hope so, but I fear all too many of these things will
come to pass and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it short of
taking to the streets, which of course will give Mr Harper the excuse
to bring in more draconian police powers and justify his expanded
U.S. Style prison system.
And that my friends is
why I will be ceasing to produce further articles on this blog for
the foreseeable future, I simply see no point in flogging a dead
horse. I may pop back from time to time to point out a particularly
egregious hit against our democracy but there are a number
of bloggers far more active and informed than I doing
a fine job of doing that, I hope that, unlike I, they have the
fortitude to continue to use the internet to spread the word
....until that too becomes 'government'
controlled!
Thank you for your
time, I'm done for now.
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
3 comments:
While you may choose to limit your blogging, I hope that you will put your democratic energies elsewhere.
I do hope that Canadians will become passionate about democracy as citizens in countries such as Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and Iran have--some successfully; some not. I don't think academic discussions on electoral reform will get Canadians anywhere.
If we Canadians want structural changes to our political institutions, let us hope that Harper will give Canadians a doozy of a reason to become street-active. Then, we can demand electoral reform; we can demand democracy!
Sadly I agree, We are now looking at ten years of Harper's Canada. I have no words of solace or wisdom to deliver and doubt that any delivered via this medium has any effect.
Maybe we will all have to meet at the barricades.
I've gone through the same array of emotions. Unfortunately, the only conclusion I've come to so far is that I don't have a lot of respect for the morons that bought into the Harper lies. By 2015, I don't think we'll have a viable option when it comes to an integrated and cohesive challenge to the Harper regime. This will play into their hands and ensure a much longer stint that anyone will be bold enough to predict.
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