One last chance to expose Stephen Harper

January 17, 2006

Well, this is definitely the last kick at the election can. All is not lost (see polls) but a Harper minority, at least, seems all but a certainty. The goal is to stop a Harper majority - still a possibility.

We might still be able to make a few people think about the consequences of voting Conservative. In my view, the one thing that night do that - it seems to have gone beyond policies at this point - is to remind people that we are about to elect a man who is contemptuous of his own country to be our prime minister.

Here are a few quotes - use only one, obviously...and make the letter VERY SHORT.

• "Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status..." [ In a letter to the National Post in the year 2000]
  
  Point out that Canadian are, in fact, proud of Medicare and other things that we do together - but Harper thinks they make us second rate.
  
  
• “Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth..” [from a speech made by Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, to a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing U.S. think tank,
  
  Point out that this just shows contempt for Canada and Canadians. Worse - Harper ridicules Canada and Canadians to an American audience. Why didn’t he just stay there...?
  
  
• "Your country, and particularly your conservative movement is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world," [same speech as immediately above]
  
  You know what to do with this obnoxious pandering to the US right-wing - do you know anyone who is inspired by George Bush?.
  
  
• “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.” [same as above]
  
  This is classic Harper - not only unsympathetic to the poor but absolutely contemptuous.
  
  
• "There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress, or that's what you look to. [It’s a] kind of can't-do attitude ...” [reported comments in the media On May 31, 2002]
  
  This is what Harper thinks of efforts to even out the economic disparities across the country and achieve a measure of social and economic equality.

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