To the Editor:
There are scores of reasons to vote Stephen Harper out of office. The most compelling reason is that this is as close to a dictatorship as Canada has had since Duplessis. When first elected, he promised we would not recognize Canada when he was finished; he plans to make his changes permanent. The Orwellian-named “Harper Government’s” changes have included an unprecedented level of secrecy and control by the Prime Minister’s Office, the muzzling of our civil servants and scientists, attacks on our independent judiciary and the undermining of our privacy. His re-election will likely mean perpetual foreign wars with blow-back attacks on our soil, the slow financial strangling of our health system, the loss of Canadian jobs and sovereignty to secret trade deals, the incarceration of Canadians acting to protect their land, water and air. We cannot allow these changes to become permanent. Mr. Harper has inspired me to re-read George Orwell’s 1984, which now seems to be arriving. Big Brother had three main slogans:
War is peace. Harper would have us believe that dropping bombs in the Middle East will make us safer at home. The recent terrible attacks on our soil happened on his watch, perhaps inspired by his aggressive policies. He bombed Libya into chaos and did not stick around to help put that society back together. He has said that Canada will go through “fire and water” for Israel. Are you interested in going through that fire for the extremist Netanyahu government with which the people of Israel are saddled? We were once the pre-eminent moral super power in the world; now we just bomb along with the big boys. Chauvinism is “boastful, war-like patriotism”; that is all he offers us.
Freedom is slavery. Rather than provide a reassuring perspective on terrorist threats, Mr. Harper has worked hard to make Canadians timid and fearful, to believe that we cannot be protected by laws already on the books and our dedicated police forces. We have been asked to surrender our privacy and civil rights — slavery in exchange for freedom from a vague threat. Perspective: The greatest terror attack on Canadians happened at Lac-Mégantic due to the sort of deregulation this government promotes.
Ignorance is strength. Whether it is environmental science or issues like census data, safe injection sites and criminal justice, the Harper government invariably takes a partisan, ideological, “we know better than all those people who tried these things before” approach. There are too many examples to list; I suggest you read “Vanishing Canada: Why We’re all Losers in Ottawa’s War on Data” on the Maclean’s website.
Another aspect of Big Brother’s regime was Newspeak, which is frequently used in government of Canada propaganda ads, which have cost us close to $1 billion in the last nine years. Two wonderful examples of many are the Veteran’s Charter, which ended long-term pensions to wounded vets, and the Fair Elections Act, designed to make it more difficult for people to vote. Another example is the fake “balanced budget”, which was contrived by selling assets (Chevrolet, for one), cutting important services (Health Canada, for one) and delaying important spending, especially on the military. If elected, he will add to his previous string of deficits, a really big one.
Vote for change.
Erickson
