Ralph Nader to Stephen Harper: What's Happening to Canada?

In the monstrous darkness of Harperland, and when I read a poll like this one.

There’s rarely been a bill before Parliament that was more popular. The public Conservatives’ new anti-terror legislation is filling a public demand for tough new measures aimed at a terrorism threat that Canadians believe is serious, and close to home, according to a new poll. 

More than four in five Canadians – 82 per cent – back the new legislation to expand the powers of intelligence agencies and police, according to the survey of 1,509 Canadians conducted by the Angus Reid Institute. Far from seeing it as too sweeping, they tend to want more: 36 per cent say it does not go far enough.

I wonder what's happening to my country. And how so many could surrender their freedoms so easily.

So I'm glad to see that a person like Ralph Nader is asking the same question in this open letter to Stephen Harper. 



Many Americans love Canada and the specific benefits that have come to our country from our northern neighbor’s many achievements (see Canada Firsts by Nader, Conacher and Milleron). Unfortunately, your latest proposed legislation—the new anti-terrorism act—is being described by leading Canadian civil liberties scholars as hazardous to Canadian democracy.

Because of course he's right, Stephen Harper is our Dick Cheney.

Particularly noticeable in your announcement were your exaggerated expressions that exceed the paranoia of Washington’s chief attack dog, former vice-president Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney periodically surfaces to update his pathological war mongering oblivious to facts—past and present—including his criminal war of aggression which devastated Iraq—a country that never threatened the U.S.

And our George Bush.

You are quoted as saying that “jihadi terrorism is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced” as a predicate for your gross over-reaction that “violent jihadism seeks to destroy” Canadian “rights.” Really? Pray tell, which rights rooted in Canadian law are “jihadis” fighting in the Middle East to obliterate? You talk like George W. Bush.

And he is leading us to a very dark place...



If passed, this act, piled on already stringent legal authority, will expand your national security bureaucracies and their jurisdictional disputes, further encourage dragnet snooping and roundups, fuel fear and suspicion among law-abiding Canadians, stifle free speech and civic action and drain billions of dollars from being used for the necessities of Canadian society.

But as that poll suggests, fear can make even normally sensible people lose their heads, and Stephen Harper does have that going for him.

And if we are going to defeat him we are going to have to fight him harder and smarter than we ever have before.

And the good news? There is still plenty of time for that fear to fade before the next election. As it always does.

Other issues like the economy will take its place, the desire for change can still trump all others.

And I'm still confident that we can defeat the Cons and their monstrous leader, and get our Canada back...



But right now we must deal with the new and brutal reality of these scary times.

We are in terrible danger.

And there is nothing we must fear more than fear itself...

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