To the prime minister of Canada, Steven Harper
The Idle No More movement is about our responsibility to First Nations people and much more.
It is about ensuring they and we have a healthy environment in our lifetime and in our children’s children.
The clock is ticking for climate change and it is time for you to front up to your responsibility as our country’s leader to take strong initiatives to convert to a green economy. Instead, what do we see?
A sell-out to China in our dirty oil and gas sector, then sealing it with trade deals that insure they can expand and pollute land and waters and send as much C02 as the please.
The only criteria is they must not be hindered in any way with making profit. Future governments who may not be as ideology driven as yours of profit for the corporations will have their hands tied.
The Canadian taxpayer will have to foot the bill to see any progress on environmental issues.
All of this behind closed doors. All this imposed without debate in Parliament, all while posing as good arbitrators of democratic principles.
Never have Canadians been treated so shabbily.
Omnibus bills instead of parliamentary debate, campaigns against all who might not follow your doctrine, and this includes anyone with an education whether they be civil servants, scientists, opposition members, labour leaders, and gutting of responsible government as seen with the long-gun registry, the long-form census, the Canadian Wheat Board, and the years of social and environmental checks and balances that past governments have deemed essential for a civil society.
I am tired of being manipulated into thinking the most essential criteria for a good Canadian is hockey, knowing about the War of 1812, and the failed Franklin mission.
We are much more than that. We used to have an enviable reputation abroad for peacemaking and our stand for global justice.
Our standing has slipped so much in the eyes of the world so that we can not hope to regain our seat on the Security Council, hopefully just while the Harper government reigns.
Idle no more, may we rise up together and restore our Canadian government before your government topples us like lemmings over the edge.
Judy Stockdale
