Well I have to admit it couldn't have been a more perfect long weekend.
It finally feels like summer in The Great White North. The breeze on the lake is warm and sexy. The island boys have World Cup fever, and so do I.
The massive World Pride party ended with the most amazing rainbow I've ever seen.
Today was Canada Day. Another excuse to party like CRAZY !!!!
And all I can say after finally collapsing this evening is, I wouldn't want to live in any other country in the whole wide world. And how lucky I am.
But of course even the beauty of our land and its people couldn't make me forget that our poor Canada is in terrible trouble.
Dying the death of a thousand cuts, in the hands of a criminal regime, and its depraved leader, who today was trying to claim credit for its enduring Canadian values.
"I think the country's best days are ahead of it," Harper told CBC's Rosemary Barton after greeting a number of people attending the Parliament Hill events. "I think we look around, it's a troubled world, and I hope Canada will continue to be looked at in the future as a model.”
Even though no Prime Minister in Canadian history has done so much to destroy those precious values. Or make this young country appear like a reactionary pariah nation in the eyes of the world.
Not a model for ANYONE. Just a grubby Harperland, with a planet burning maniac for a leader, who celebrates war.
A presentation by the Canadian Armed Forces of photos from the last 100 days of the mission in Afghanistan. The 100th anniversary of the First World War and the 75th anniversary of the Second World War were also highlighted at the Ottawa event.
While betraying veterans most miserably.
The number of homeless people identified by Veterans Affairs Canada has skyrocketed over the last five years, jumping from just 35 in 2009-2010 to 236 last year.
Or most SHAMEFULLY.
A battered and bleeding democracy, with a neutered Parliament, where the Supreme Court is the REAL Opposition.
Like most prime ministers, Mr. Harper seeks to impose his biases. His ideology runs stronger than others, however, and he is up against a court that tends to reflect Canadians’ centrist traditions. This has led to more contrast – and more conflict.
“The court clearly understands what Canada is about,” one judge told me, “and they will not let this government cut its heart out.
With a sleazy Prime Minister who would even try to smear the decent Chief Justice...
Because in a addition to all his other hideous flaws, he is also a disgusting BULLY.
And a Con Heritage Minister like Shelley Glover, who could introduce Great Divide and Conquer Leader today, as some kind of unifying Father of the Nation...
After cutting the throat of the CBC, which exists to draw us closer, and leaving it to choke in its own BLOOD.
And the good news?
The Chief Justice can't be intimidated, and our precious Supreme Court won't be bullied into submission.
In his years in power, he’s been able to bring many of Ottawa’s other institutions to heel. The big exception is the Supreme Court. It is the chief negator of his agenda.
Or muzzled like so many others.
This country is too big, and its people fundamentally too Canadian for a nasty thoroughly un-Canadian leader like Stephen Harper...
And judging by the recent bye-election results, more and more Canadians feel that he's good to go.
And that it's time to defeat his filthy Con regime.
And send it where it belongs...
All of which made me think of something wonderful eh?
if Harper decides to go with an early Spring election, as many think he will, could this be the last Canada Day in Harperland?
The next time we celebrate our country's birthday, could we really be able to give it one of the best birthday presents it has ever received?
Because if so, the party, and the fireworks, will be even bigger and louder than they were in my neighbourhood this weekend.
As you can see in this video I made...
Yup, even louder and even more spectacular, and from coast to coast to coast. The biggest and most joyous party this country has seen, since the end of the Second World War.
Oh boy. I live for that day when the tyrant is toppled, and I can shout out for all the world to hear. Or at least everyone in my neighbourhood eh?
And those who read this blog.
The Con regime has fallen !!!!!
Happy Free Canada Day everybody !!!!!!
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The job of the Supreme Court is not to oppose any government, its to uphold the laws, including the ones passed by Harper.
ReplyDeleteYes Harper has lost a bunch of times at the Supreme Court, but that is because they write laws that violate previous laws, if Harper learned how to move forward his agenda without breaking previously existing laws he and the Supreme Court would not be in conflict no matter how rightwing or extreme his adgenda.
If the Supreme Court opposed any government it would be a national crisis as that is not the role it is given in the constitution.
The Real Opposition to Harper is Tom Mulcair, and the only Tom Mulcair and his NDP.
He's grilled Harper with skill in QP, he's forced changes to the unfair election act, to rail safety, save passenger rail to Atlantic Canada, forced them to cancel the iPod tax, and to make changes to the temporary foreign workers program.
Tom did such a great job, your buddy Justin Trudeau, ran to his buddies in the CPC and together the Libs and the CPC abused the Board of Internal Economy to set up a McCarthian Court of serects, where the NDP wasn't allowed to present evidence.
And where they are now trying to steal money from the NDP, first 36,000 and later via Canada Post 1.17 million dollars.
And if that not enough your friend Trudeau is now launching attack ads against the NDP in Quebec about this issue. Trudeau who would not fire back attack ads against Harper, is firing then at the NDP who did not send attack ads against Trudeau.
So for now the NDP's real opposition to the Harper Adgenda has been derailed, temporarily by Harper Minister, er, I mean Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
Simon I love your blog, but its time to admit the Justin Trudeau is not a progressive, and Harperland will not end with a Justin victory it will just get a new paint job.
Yes, he has been sooo successful in opposing Harper he has accomplished stopping Harper in doing what again? Looking prosecutorial in QP? For a lawyer, hardly the most challenging casting. Showing Harper was corrupt on the Senate and Duffy with his Chief of Staff? Only an idiot or a Harper/CPC partisan (or alas the RCMP these days, I honestly cannot believe that refusal to lay charges with everything in the public domain, unless the one defence Nigel Wright had was shown to be true, namely that it was at the orders of his boss, which means down the road Harper could be the one getting charged, a nice thought but one I am not counting on given the climate these days) did not see that for the bribery it was, and aside from beating hm down on the Senate scandal last year Mulcair has not appeared to make much impression with Canadians who are not already predisposed to favour him aka NDP partisans.
DeleteIf Mulcrair was doing such a wonderful job of opposing Harper as you say, why then is his personal popularity rating continuously in third and if anything lately shrinking, not gaining, as is the NDP's in third for choice to govern? Why is it the Libs and Trudeau (who lack all the exposure/questioning power advantages in the House that comes from being the Official Opposition) who not only are majorly ahead of both the party and the leader of the Official Opposition since Trudeau was the clear favourite to win the Lib leadership and since his victory? Just in case you haven't been counting that is roughly a year and a half now, long past the usual honeymoon period in politics for any new leader. If Mulcair was so successful in doing what clearly the clear majority of Canadians want, opposing Harper, then why is it not reflected in any objective measures?
Sorry Gyor, Mulcair does not appear to be catching fire with Canadians (personally, I thought he was a mistake form the outset, I thought Cullen was a much better option for the NDP to be credible with), nor does the NDP, they appear to be both returning to their usual third party place with the wider electorate, and the Libs seem to be resurging despite all that both the Harper CPC and Layton/Mulcair NDP have done to try and exterminate them over the last decade. The problem too many Dippers have is that they still mistake 2011 as a wave election for them, the so called Orange Crush, which I always called the Jack Layton crush, because it was clear it was more about him than the party all along, combined with two other factors, the collapse of the Quebec nationalist vote federally AND the collapse of the Lib vote thanks to what was almost the perfect Lib anti-leader in Ignatief. Well Ignatief is long gone, the Libs have gotten their infrastructure issues well repaired at the Constituency and electoral levels, and they have finally managed to learn to fundraise in the environment that was created to make it as hard as possible for them by the current government.
to be concluded...
Conclusion:
DeleteAdd to that the Trudeau factor (yes, he isn't his father in intellect, but then who is, not the easiest of standard for most human beings to meet, let alone politicians), who has replaced Layton as the leader everyone is comfortable with as a person and wants to trust/believe in for the positive love for Canada and Mulcair and the NDP are in deep trouble. As for your whine about them focusing on campaigning against them in Quebec, given all the snark and such about Trudeau that comes from Dippers as well as the CPC that has a particularly unpleasant ring, besides, what do you expect after your party tried so hard to not just defeat but destroy them, hugs and kisses? Really, grow up.
As to Simon's point that I think you missed, it is not that Harper does not know how to write laws to advance his agenda that would pass Constitutional and precedent muster, it is that so much of what he actually wants to do does not by its very nature meet those tests. THAT is why the courts have been the real opposition to Harper, because his true agenda is not one that is in keeping with traditional Canadian values and laws. Harper clearly thought he could bring the courts to heel as he has the other federal institutions, but he failed to recognize just how powerful the difference and the firewalling is between the federal institutions he has control over as a majority PM and that of the courts which are a separate branch of government and not just another institution that falls under the control of the combined executive/legislative branch that is Parliament. BTW, if you are a regular reader of Simon, I would have thought you'd have noticed he tends to favour the NDP more than the Libs himself, I've had more than a few disputes with him about that over the years, and as to your complaint that Trudeau is not a progressive, well now that depends on how you define the term and by what relative measure you use, and to say Harperland will just be getting a new paint job with a Trudeau win is to show just how clearly you do not understand the true horror of what Harper has done and to what extent it is anathema to all traditional Canadian political philosophies, including not just Lib but traditional PC as well.
Really, this "not a progressive" crap feels like the old "no true Scotsman" crap to me, and I suspect to many centrists like myself, who btw happen to make up the largest pluraility of unaligned voters out there, and who tend to be the ones who decide who is going to govern, so maybe you might want to think on that for a change. The biggest problem the NDP "real progressives" have is that most voters are not, neither are they right wingers, they are centrists with feet in both camps which means they feel like they are both somewhat conservative AND somewhat progressive depending on which policy is in question and therefore to clam they and those like them are not insults them. Such a wonderful way to get their votes you know, and this purity or bust refrain that comes from so many Dipper voices is one of the greatest reasons why the NDP cannot manage to gain government, and why the Liberals were able to rebound despite what was their worst decade ever being ganged up on by both Harper's CPC and the Layton/Mulcair NDP. You might also think on THAT too.
Canada is a beautiful person. In many ways flawless. Harper has tried with all his tea petty friends to turn us into a prostitute, but still we resist, 2015 we lose our virginity.
ReplyDeleteI wish I was as optimistic, but I don't see much to be optimistic about. Even if the Liberals defeat the Cons, and Trudeau becomes PM, that's still a man that supports all of Harper's fossil fuel initiatives, and I have no hope at all that any of those horrible omnibus bills would be repealed.
ReplyDeleteWe will still have Harperland, but with a pretty face to sell us on it. Is as I've been saying for a while, with Harper vs Trudeau - No matter who wins, we all lose.
The only good decisions Harper has ever made were to appoint those 5 judges to the Supreme Court, who keep rejecting Con policy and appointments on constitutional grounds. I guess Harper thought they would just rubber stamp anything he submitted.
ReplyDeleteHarper’s Anti Demo Cratic Band
Published in The Daily Courier, July 1, 2014 p. A9
http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/opinion/letters_to_editor/article_d1273bf0-00ae-11e4-a410-001a4bcf6878.html