Stephen Harper and the Enemies of the State

He has always been a bully. They say it gives him pleasure to see fear in the eyes of others. He has always treated his opponents like enemies to be destroyed.

Now as he turns this country into a sinister prison state, anyone who opposes him is an Enemy of Canada.

In a sworn affidavit released Tuesday to The Canadian Press, Andrew Frank says he was told by his supervisor at ForestEthics that a PMO official had referred to their organization as an "enemy of the state." The affidavit describes how staff were told their jobs were at risk after the official told Tides Canada, which supports the work of ForestEthics, that the government would "take down" all of the agency's projects unless it cut ForestEthics loose.

The masters of the Big Lie deny it. But who would believe anything they say, when their record speaks for itself? 

The Harper government has cut funding for critics before. In December 2010, the Canadian International Development Agency turned down a funding application by the relief organization Kairos.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney initially told an Israeli audience the group had been cut off due to its anti-Israel stance — an assertion Kairos said was patently untrue. International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda contradicted Kenney, saying the group simply no longer met the criteria for CIDA's foreign aid priorities. But an internal memo later surfaced, signed by Oda and CIDA's top two officials, indicating that the agency had actually recommended Kairos's application be approved.

Remember Kairos. Remember how they savaged women's groups. Remember what they did to Rights and Democracy and its president poor decent Rémy Beauregard...

Who died of a heart attack after the Cons went after him like a pack of rabid wolves.

Rémy was my hero, and now so is Andrew Frank.

The events of the last month have ensured that I will never take my rights as a Canadian citizen for granted again. That is both sad and encouraging. Sad that I ever had to question them, and encouraging because I have been reminded of another lesson taught to me by my parents: the best way to stop a bully is to stand up to him.

Because those are the Canadians who fight for us ALL.

The pipeline process is now fatally flawed, and must be delayed until a full judicial inquiry can be held. For who knows how many groups are being blackmailed, but are too afraid to speak out?

But even more importantly, our democratic freedoms are now in mortal danger. For if these sinister prison Cons can declare their or Big Oil's opponents to be enemies of the state NOBODY is safe.

"When a government calls its own citizens enemies, you've lost your moral authority to govern."

I call on the NDP, the Liberals, the Greens, and all other progressives to join forces in a Coalition of National Salvation to fight and eventually defeat this foul regime.

You know, I wish I lived at a better time in Canadian history, so I would never have to write about Stephen Harper, because it depresses me so much. 

But I know a bully when I see one. And I am haunted by this question.

They say it couldn't happen in Canada.

But what if it did?