What Scares Me

What scares me is that my current Conservative MP is a nice guy, a good man about the constituency, and the odds-on favorite to win the next election. This scares me, because in our current political system in Canada, our government is a dictatorship run by one man: the Prime Minister. Our MP has really no function in Ottawa except to vote for anything our Prime Minister decides to do and to take part in the insane screaming matches that seem to be the other main business of the House.

The Prime Minister is put into office, not by direct vote, but by virtue of how many MPs in his party are elected. So if our constituents are shortsighted enough to elect good old Guy Lauzon, they are de facto electing a Prime Minister with an extremely negative narrow focus that ignores our massive environmental problems, our massive cultural industry, our pacifist history, our sane foreign policies—in favor of kissing up to the USA by subsidizing big industry, the exploiting the oil sands, hyperextending our ill-equipped armed forces into war instead of peacekeeping, and enlarging the globalization of everybody else, to the detriment of us and our jobs.

What scares me is that Harper has indicated that anything that does not interest him in his limited purview is a possible subject for cuts. That could include anything cultural, apparently, as he seems to have no sense of humour, no sense of grace, no sense of culture outside his narrow sphere, which may not extend much beyond the Calgary Stampede. I foresee cuts to the CBC, Canada Council, Foreign Affairs, education, arts, language. I see us massively losing jobs to the East and Middle East, exploiting and exporting more and more raw materials and resources to the USA, until we join them as a poor cousin.

What scares me even more is that anyone will be elected Prime Minister. Our system of government is totally screwed. We need checks and balances.

What happened in Ontario, when Mike Harris was Premier can very easily happen to Canada: healthcare, education, culture, Indian relations were all systematically destroyed by that stupid, stupid man and his cabal, some of whom have significant power with Stephen Harper.

God help us all.

About riverwriter

Poet, playwright, duplicate bridge player, website designer, cottager, husband, father, grandfather, former athlete, carpenter, computer helper for my friends, theatre designer, backstage polymath, retired teacher of highschool English, drama, art, a baritone singer in a barbershop quartet, who knows what else? wordcurrents is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wordcurrents/ Doug also has a Facebook page, "Incognitio", related to his novels.
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5 Responses to What Scares Me

  1. riverwriter says:

    I can’t resist this: you should read Margaret Atwood’s letter published in the Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080924.wcoarts25/BNStory/politics

    In it, she says that creativity comes naturally to Canadians, and a lot more. Thanks to Steph for pointing it out to me.

    • stephanie says:

      Hey Poppa: could you please post this (you original prose)on the facebook group “Canadians do support the Arts Mr. Harper, you are dead wrong”. There are 40,000+ members now, and this would be an extremely thoughtful and concise thing to add to the discussion!

  2. riverwriter says:

    Thanks for the suggestion, Steph. I posted it there as a new discussion because it is too long for a wall post.

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