Even by the standards of the monstrous Stephen Harper, whose many images reflect the many warring voices in his head, it's an amazing transformation.
Or mutation.
For nine years he was the Oily Messiah, the maniacal missionary who once told an audience in Britain that developing the oil sands was akin to building the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids.
The Father of Albertonia, and of course, Big Oil's favourite pimp...
But that was then, now is now, oil prices are tanking, the bloom is off the wild rose.
Economic activity in Alberta is projected to grind to a virtual standstill in 2015 due to depressed oil prices, says a new Provincial Economic Forecast by TD Economics.
A Great Economist Leader can't be associated with a disaster like that one, so now he's the Manufacturing Messiah.
The Conservative government is considering a strong focus on the manufacturing sector in the upcoming budget, part of a general shift in attention towards Ontario and its voters.
Because he does need those Ontario votes, and suddenly oil isn't THAT important.
“The oil industry isn’t remotely the entire Canadian economy,” Harper said at an event Thursday in St. Catharines, Ont., as he spoke about plummeting oil prices.
And the scary part is that he seems to believe that he can fool people into believing that he really cares about our manufacturing sector.
After spending the last nine years destroying it with his petro state policies...
Leaving a country littered with closed factories...
And hundreds of thousands of workers out in the cold...
Like these workers at the Electro Motive factory near London, Ontario.
While he rode off into the sunset.
Waving as he went, or giving the workers the one-finger salute...
Which makes me wonder, now that he's giving workers in Alberta the same kind of salute, how do they feel about that?
Do they understand that the only reason Harper can get away with turning his back on his Alberta base is because he thinks those suckers will vote for him no matter how he treats them?
You know, vote for a Con whether it's a man or a monkey...
As long as it makes the right noises and wears a cowboy hat..
And how do they feel about having been used by Stephen Harper and then abandoned?
Will they still vote for him in the same numbers as before?
Or will they, as I hope, show some self respect and join the rest of us in getting rid of him and his incompetent Con regime?
For surely it should be clear to them as it is to us, is that the Oily Messiah was no Great Economist Leader.
He is no Mr Manufacturing. Just a grubby Con artist.
And for the sake of this county's future.
The cowboy king must be toppled...
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"Will they still vote for him in the same numbers as before?"
ReplyDeleteYes, because Albertans live essentially in a one-party province anyway, and don't blame Harper for the drop in oil prices.
hi David...you may be right, but remember Alberta is changing. There are many people there from other parts of Canada, and they might not be as loyal to him, as the born and brainwashed in that province.,..
DeleteUp at 3AM.....wide awake.......coffee on......gotta get to laptop........read comments left overnight......then on to Simon's new post.......BEFORE THE STORM HITS......thinking may lose power! NS, by the way!
ReplyDeleteThe Transformation of Stephen Harper is Not Totally Unbelievable when you consider his words and actions for the past few months and have been educating yourself. There are sooooooooooooooo many resources that a person can access if they really wish to study said "material".
And, of course, I am always interested in what others are saying, whether I agree or not, I'm bound to learn something.
I'm soon to be turning 66, retired, but have never felt so alive! My mission is Simple.......motivate people to get out and VOTE! Brigette DePape has been a wonderful inspiration!
hi Kathleen...it's great to hear you've never felt so alive. I'd feel the same way if I wasn't so exhausted. ;) But yes, getting out the vote is our most urgent task, for if we do that we will crush the Cons...
DeleteRecall that the majority of Albertans were stupid enough to vote for a guy whose vision was to build a "firewall" around a landlocked province gushing with oil. Then they ranted against a fellow who had wanted to build pipelines from Alberta to eastern Canada, at taxpayers' expense too, in order to secure Canada from the ravages of the boom and bust cycle of the international oil market and, also, to ensure that Albertan oil had a ready market in its own country. Then they proudly drove cars with bumper stickers that said they wanted those eastern bastards to freeze in the dark. Then they sold their oil willingly to the Yanks at a double discount from the Brent price while refusing to sell their oil at a slightly lower price to their own fellow Canadians. Even though their fellow Canadians were subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $34B annually, a sum that is about equal to the federal health transfer to all the provinces.
ReplyDeleteYup, unfortunately, I still see the majority of Albertans voting for the same bunch who had robbed them of the appropriate royalties for their oil. In 2012, when the oil price averaged about $98, Alberta received only about $4 a barrel while Norway was receiving about $45 a barrel in royalties. No wonder the Norwegian Sovereign fund, which was started a good 17 years AFTER the Alberta Heritage Fund, now has about a trillion dollars while the AHF is supposedly worth only about $17B. And the latter has been eclipsed by the deficit that Alberta is currently carrying, estimated at about $20B.
And to top it all, apparently some 70% of Albertans do not agree with raising taxes to deal with their current fiscal problem. They actually want to cut spending. Will be very interesting to see what they think they can cut .... I suggest they should fire their teachers and their doctors, eh? Then they can go to BC for their healthcare or send their children to school there. Just like Sarah Palin admitted her dad used to bring them to Canada for treatment when they were sick because there was no public healthcare in Alaska. Same mentality as Albertans, apparently, the Tea Partiers.
Unfortunately, the rational thinking Albertans, who want to throw out the bums that got them into this oily mess, only seem to be in the minority.
hi anon...yup, I'm afraid you make a very good case. Albertans have been heading down a different road than the rest of us for a long time. And considering what they could have done with all those oil dollars, the state they find themselves in now really is pathetic. But I'm still hoping that our cowboys will show some self respect, and not vote for the Cons so blindly. That would be good for us, and good for them...
Deletethe manufacturing???? well it doesn't include office workers and Tim Hortons/Burger King is laying off over 2000 people. Nice going for harper and his corporate elite. Not so great for Canadians. Burger King came to Canada for lower corporate taxes and then just to help us along, is firing over 2000 Canadian workers. wonder what the cons and their friends are getting out of this?
ReplyDeletehi e.a.f...considering that Harper has made Tim Horton restaurants one of his favourite photo-op locations, I think the layoffs will hurt him, by reminding even more people that he is no economist and doesn't know what he is doing...
DeleteThe layoffs are at the HQ in Oakville, ON. Just so happens that it is a Cons held riding. This will be fun especially since I assume at least a few of those laid off would have voted Cons. They got the government they voted for. Don't blame us as we did not vote for this government, eh?
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