Sad episode for Canada

I suppose my partisan views are showing in my comments on this political fiasco. In that sense, Harper is succeeding is his divisive, fear-mongering ways to make canadians forget about the economic crisis, by creating a constitutional one! Until last week, I would have described myself as borderline apolitical.
Let me add a few more thoughts here since my comments to the Globe & Mail blogs are being blocked by the editors. Perhaps I should stop ending my posts with "that fascist pig Harper!"

It is blatantly clear this series of events was triggered by the ending of political subsidies. What a gift and a huge blunder by Harper. If he had not, he would have taken away the public servants' right to collective bargaining; he would have taking away women's rights to pay equity. I wouldn't call myself a feminist or a union sympathizer, but they are entitled to basic rights in a civilized society. I doubt that the opposition would have had the balls to force Harper to do anything about these neo-con hobby horses had they not been so outraged by the subsidies. So, he could have quietly made canada a little bit more right-wing, but thankfully he's a loud bully.

So what's so wrong with ending political subsidies? Well, it's changing the rules of the game mid-race. You don't start a marathon, then at the 10K mark you find you're in the lead and then say, unilaterally, OK now it's a 12K race. That's beyond absurd or childish or despicable; pathological is maybe the best term.

As our blog readers know, I'm an amateur student of political history, and in particular fascism. (Bear with me!) As absurd as it sounds, fascism always starts with a small lie that an angry public accepts as truth. Then that lie is used as building blocks to propagate bigger lies; ie. well, if you believed the first lie, then you have to accept this lie. That's why I'm so leary of the lies from politicians. Hey, Hilter, Mussolini, Fujimori were all democratically elected first, and no one thought they would become fascists. And if you think this could never happen in Canada, would you have predicted this fiasco, or the worst stock market drop in a century? (Well, we know you didn't because if you did, you would be very rich!)

Now, let's fast forward to Harper's attempts to spread lies about the illegitimacy of a "separatist" coalition. The Constitutional laws of a parliamentary democracy are very clear; the G&M does a good job of explaining this.
Yes, Dion is a lame-duck PM, Layton is a opportunistic socialist, and the Bloc is a separatist party, but as representatives of their constituents, there is nothing in the constitution that says their votes are worth less than a Conservative vote in a parliament. In fact, Harper's threat to prorogue parliament is possibly the most illegitimate tactic a canadian PM (or premier) has ever proposed to do. As I saw on the CBC news, "democracy delayed is a democracy denied".