Greg Perry/Toronto Star Oh boy. I should have figured it out. I should have known the real reason Peter MacKay decided to resign just a few months before an election. Suddenly decided to ride off gently, or clatter off noisily into the sunset. He may have wanted to spend more time with his young family, or spend more time fishing. But I bet this reason was foremost in his mind, or his wallet.
Well I finally got to screen Stephen Harper's year end interview with Global TV, and it was one of the weirdest interviews I've ever seen. And one of the most chilling. For there was Harper sitting in what looked like a set from A Christmas Story. But sounding like a character out of the Nightmare Before Christmas.
I have to admit that I have always disliked Pierre Poilievre. Something about him rubs me the wrong way. He's abrasive, he's yappy, he's arrogant. He looks and acts like a weird old young guy trapped in the Cold War era. And his recent comment that the "root cause of terrorism is terrorism" only reinforced my belief that he is a brutish right-wing ideologue. As well as an absolute idiot.
Oh.My.Gnome. I see that little Jimbo Flaherty has been totally HUMILIATED. Again. Just the other day he was telling Canadians don't worry about your pensions if you're over fifty-seven.
But then the sinister operatives in the PMO heard what he said. And they were not pleased.
Well even by Jimbo Flaherty's ghastly standards it was a bizarre and ugly sight. There he was late this afternoon, looking like he wanted to hide under a chair, or in his case a small stool.
Sweating profusely, talking in a hoarse whisper, and promising you don't have to worry about your pension or your Old Age Security if you're older than fifty-seven.
"This is not for tomorrow morning," Flaherty said in Oshawa, Ont., at an event with Conservative MP Colin Carrie.
"This is for 2020, 2025, so that people who are middle-aged and younger today, like Colin and not me, can be assured that they will have the social programs, properly funded, fiscally responsible. They will be here for them in the future."
While at other times turning red in the face and looking like he wanted to strangle Kevin Page, the heroic Parliamentary Budget Officer, for making him look like an idiot.
I used to roar with laughter when Peter Van Loan got so agitated during Question Period, he'd regularly spill his glass of water all over Stephen Harper, and would be seen frantically hovering over Great Ugly Leader, dabbing his crotch with a paper towel.
Having finally found his station in life. Until Harper fired him, and made him the Minister of Something or Other. Which also suited him fine. Because he's an idiot and he knows it.
But of course now Tubby's back as Con House Leader, he's going after the Canada Pension Plan, and he's acting like Big Bubbah.
If you want to survive Canada's Summer of Anger, there are two subjects you absolutely must NOT discuss with your fellow hosers.
One...who is to blame for the Vancouver riot? Because chances are you'll have to listen to some deranged rant about how young people are inherently dumb and dangerous. How they HUMILIATED Canada. And how they should be shamed, jailed, whipped, and their lives ruined FOREVER.
Because then you might have to listen to a lengthy and foamy diatribe about how those unionized workers are lazy, greedy, PARASITES, who are giving themselves juicy pensions with OUR tax dollars. And how DARE they have a pension when I don't ???!!!
When in fact:
(1) The postal service workers make millions and millions of dollars in PROFIT for the government. They don't depend on the largesse of taxpayers, and the only people that do are the ones with the best performing pensions in the country.
(2) The attempt to create two kinds of workers at Canada Post is part of a larger campaign to do away with pensions altogether, and an all out assault on the rights of young Canadians.
The CEOs have decided. The value of young people is lower than the value of people from my generation. You don’t deserve the same salary, even if you are better educated. You don’t deserve the same vacation time or health benefits. And you certainly don’t deserve to have the same kind of secure retirement. It’s just not in the business plan.
(3) Stephen Harper and his Cons are out to destroy public pensions, and what's left of the union movement in Canada. Because for them and the big business porkers, pensions are SOCIALISM. And unions are The Enemy.
And they know that if young Canadians are barely able to support themselves, they'll be less likely to join a union, and less able or willing to support the elderly.
So we'll ALL suffer, the race to the bottom will continue, and people will end up gnawing on each other in the darkness of a capitalist jungle. While the fat cats look down on us from their fortresses or their executive jets, rattle their jewels, swill their champagne, and laugh their porky asses off.
Which is when I start thinking of what happened in Vancouver. And wonder what might happen when young Canadians realize that their future has been stolen, their planet has been torched. And find a REAL reason to riot...
But for Godzilla's sake, whatever you do, don't mention that to anyone you don't know really well eh? Or you might be attacked or publicly SHAMED.
Even though that won't change the truth: Or there will be justice, or there will be trouble.
And this too is true:
If you are under the age of 35, pay close attention. Your standard of living, and that of your children, is being decided right now in the boardroom, the workplace and even on the picket line. Sooner rather than later, you will need to pick a side.
We are heading for an ideological and generational struggle the likes of which most Canadians can't even IMAGINE.
The Cons and their corporate masters are preparing to wage war on young and old Canadians.
