Tag Archives: Conservatives

Girls, Guergis, Guns & Armageddon

Posted on by elizabeth
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UPDATED BELOW

Marci McDonald’s 2006 article in The Walrus, Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons, gave us the first systematic analysis of the hidden Christian fundamentalist agenda of Stephen Harper’s goals for Canada – the establishment of the conditions necessary for the Second Coming of you-know-who.  Who knows if Harper is such a fantastical fool that he really believes in all that anti-evolutionary, anti-woman, anti-gay, pro-Israel STFUness.  What matters is that a bunch of nutbars has such power in the corridors of Canadian political power.

Harper has cemented a partnership with people who have become astonishingly powerful in the US and whose religious ideology nicely parallels social conservatism.  Harper is known to be a fiscal conservative, but has needed the support of old-style Progressive Conservatives who haven’t necessarily had the ability to attract the support of the far right wing – if they had, they wouldn’t have lost their Party.  Each time Harper throws an anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-Israel, law and order dog biscuit to this crowd he wins votes that would not necessarily fall into his lap via fiscal conservatism alone.

Is all this becoming more clear to Canadians?

Antonia Zerbisias’ interview with McDonald, now the author of a book on these issues – The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada  – provides us with a startling (to some people) collection of issues that have come to the fore of late that certainly substantiate the writer’s painstaking research, from the cancellation of Paul Martin’s national daycare programme to the introduction of  private members’ bills that would limit women’s free reproductive choice to Harper and company’s otherwise inexplicably over-the-top support of Israeli policy towards Palestine and general opposition to same-sex marriage.

That’s a cartload of issues and each one deserves it’s own discussion.  I’m going to have a brief look at how acceptance of the Fundy Formula effects women or, for the sake of the almost alliteration – teh girls – and how “liberals” have failed to appreciate the significance of CON policy and legislation.

From the outset women and women’s advocacy groups have had no difficulty apprehending HarperCON’s anti-woman agenda.  As McDonald points out, he began with the cancellation of a national daycare programme, moved on to a systematic assault on women’s equality-seeking groups and from there to defunding NGOs with specific focusses on providing reproductive services to women in developing countries and anti-violence initiatives.  He has also engaged in a vicious public assault on his former Minister for the Status of Women, Helena Guergis, whose portfolio had been all but disabled anyway.

These issues share many common characteristics and some that are not so obvious.  For instance, though most of us here understand quite well that the lack of a national daycare programme hurts not only the children of Canada but also women who are still their primary caretakers, we were probably less aware that, as McDonald points out, Harper “was also pandering to social conservatives who don’t believe that the government should have any role in child-rearing, who believe that mothers should be at home bringing up their children or who send their children to religious daycares and schools.”

Speaking for myself, I got the “women at home” aspect but missed the part about the children of working mothers placed in religious daycares and schools and the concomitant threat to public education.  As McDonald concludes:

 It was one of those policies that cut across both of his constituencies, economic and social. That would characterize most of his policies.

But McDonald misses something – that the struggle for a national daycare programme is something that not even Liberals will take to the wall – making it much too easy for Harper to hand out gifts to his social conservative base.  Maybe libs and lefties will take daycare if they can get it but it’s certainly nothing to bring down a minority government over.  Few issues that are perceived to be or actually are those that effect primarily teh girls are that important.  Or none.  In fact, when these issues are raised what I hear most often from the libs and even the left, such as it is, is that these issues are “distractions”, diversions from primary purposes, that they might be worth a few jabs in question period and an opportunistic media punchline here or there, but they are really window-dressing issues, dog bones thrown out or removed with little political, social or economic meaning beyond the moment.

For instance.  When the cabal reconvened after prorogation, Harper threw one of his bright shiny things into the Throne Speech, promising to make our national anthem “gender neutral”.  Quite apart from the discussions about what that would take and the general hue and cry about history and national treasures, what interested me was the response from the centre and the left along the lines that language doesn’t matter, sons are “generic” and Harper is just trying to trick you stupid broads into accepting this bright shiny thing as if it’s something real.  Down the toilet went the respectable and now historical feminist argument that yes, language does matter and under the bus, ground into the ruts, went teh girls.  Of course Harper had no trouble dumping the proposal and looked like he was responding to the outrage from social conservatives and liberals all in one fell swoop.  How nice for him.

I’m beginning to see a similar modus in operation with respect to Helena Guergis.  She’s a young, childless woman married to a brown man in political difficulty (even though he’s no longer in office) who “managed” a portfolio that men, conservative and otherwise, don’t care much about.  She wasn’t and isn’t worth much to anybody it seems.  Any attempt to point out the rampant sexism of the attack on Guergis result in shouts from the left that Guergis is a loose cannon, mythically and powerfully destructive and possibly a blondly stupid disaster with whom we should not concern ourselves one teensy bit.  STFU girls.

I was never a Guergis supporter.  But did she ever have any supporters?  And is there a liberal or left dude that gives an elderberry fart about what happens to women in politics?

It’s also been clear in the past that the abolition of Canada’s long-gun registry is an issue used as a political football by left, right and centre in attempts to prevent the alienation of “rural voters”, all of whom are assumed to be men.  Both Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton failed to whip their parties before the vote on the abolition bill in the last session of Parliament, resulting in an easy “yea” result for the legislation.  It remains mighty unclear that anything has changed this time ’round, despite Ignatieff’s attempts to revise the legislation.  Will Jack Layton whip?  Who the hell knows.  So it’s not only girls under the bus on this one, it’s dead girls under the bus.

As for the progressive defunding of women’s equality-seeking groups and NGOs, Ignatieff is perfectly content to use this issue as a political chip – but where the f**k has he been for the last four years while it was happening?  Where was he in December 2009 and early 2010 when a Liberal/NDP coalition would have brought down this anti-democratic, anti-woman, homophobic, pro-Israel and the Rapture government and, for instance, its attempted assault on pay equity?  As for the Libs failed attempt to underscore the reproductive rights of women with their Parliamentary motion?  I actually will stfu on that one.

Women have allowed themselves to be used thus for too long, hoping to get bigger prizes in the end.  Or perhaps any prize at all.  I’m beginning to hear heartening rumbles from girlfriend-land that none of these hopeless pols ought to rest comfortably in the beds their wives and girlfriends have made for so long, and so patiently.

The Theocons so well described by Marci McDonald are the focus of renewed realizations, discussions and organizing among awakening and already fully conscious women – and a few pro-feminist men.  Take care liberal and left doodz.  Move out of the crosshairs of that metaphorical but very well-aimed long-gun.

 

UPDATE:

HarperCON whines: 

“Last night’s dominant CBC story … featured an attack on the religious affiliation of some government members and supporters,” the Tory missive says. “Apparently, the CBC thinks it newsworthy that some Conservative Ministers and MPs practice their faith. Even more scandalous, some members of the Prime Minister’s Office go to church!”

Pale is peeved.

And on the Helena Guergis story, there’s this from the PI who started it all:

“I have nothing — I have no evidence, or no information, with respect to the conduct of Ms. Guergis in my possession or knowledge,” he stated.

Instead, he said the mere threat of bad optics, coming after a string of embarrassing gaffes by Guergis, may have been enough to force Harper’s hand.

“This is an issue of optics,” Snowdy said.

IggyCon

Posted on by elizabeth
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From James Laxer:

In this life, there are times when you have to make fundamental choices. You go one way or you go the other. The Liberal Party had such a choice to make: between the formation of a progressive coalition government with the NDP, or propping up the Harper government. The first choice would have allowed for the presentation of a budget to parliament that really would have offered hope to Canadians in a dark time.

[…]

In the face of this, Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals have made the second choice. They have decided to prop up the Harper government. If I had to speculate about the reason for this, I’d conclude that they are more comfortable with the Conservatives and the business community than they are with social democrats, trade unionists and wage and salary earners.

So be it. This is not a personal matter. Although the media is trying to make it seem that social democrats are miffed because they have been jilted by Ignatieff who is now dating the Prime Minister, it’s really about whose basic interests a party chooses to serve. The Liberals have made things very clear. That’s sad, not for Jack Layton and the NDP, but for Canadians who deserved better.

Read the whole thing here

And make sure you read Broadsides

Ms Brand Speaks Out

Posted on by elizabeth
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From Dionne Brand, blogging at rabble.ca:

God help me I’ve been visiting the Conservative Party web site. Now being an atheist you know when I invoke god I’m truly in trouble, but the web site can generate a Women’s Studies course all on its own. It is a study in patriarchy. First, at the top of the web page there is an image of Stephen Harper, his wife and their two children, read wholesome family with good patriarch, meaning patriarch of good wholesome family makes good political patriarch, eh, I mean, leader.

Next under the tab “leader” are the names Stephen Harper and Laureen Harper, meaning we have a good father and a good mother and they are the mother and father of two children and this party and ultimately the nation; meaning the nation is a patriarchy and Stephen Harper is the father of this patriarchy and his helpmeet is Laureen Harper who, while she does not hold any political position in this party per se, by dint of this party and this nation being a patriarchy she is attached to the patriarch as mothering symbol of the patriarchy and therefore whatever… In case you want to know the web site says Laureen volunteers at an elementary school and ‘offers her home to the Ottawa SPCA as a foster home for kittens.’ My god, why do we need to know this, I ask. Because that is what good mothers do.

We have already seen Harper’s comforting patriarchal sweater, his Mr. Rogers imitation (Veronica Strong-Boag at UBC pointed this similarity out to me); the Mr.Rogers reassurance in his commercials where he sends ‘ordinary’ supporters out to say how reassuring he is. Harper’s replacement of the customary corporate suit with the sweater must be remarked on.  In these shaky economic times perhaps it would have been a terrible reminder of the corporate CEO patriarchy, which is experiencing a crisis in confidence at the moment. He had to pull us back to the hearth, the origin, and the father-knows-best paternalism. And in Harper’s commercial he has even graciously extended the patriarchal ambit to include one or two subjects who are not white – notably, at the conclusion of the commercial, a young woman of Asian descent enthusiastically says how much she is looking forward to voting for the patriarch in her first election. She sites no other political imperative, except her coming of age, so we are certain that it is his paternalism that is attractive.

I am now, it seems, besieged by Mr. Harper and his sweater. Here sitting in the Vancouver airport waiting for a flight to Toronto today, he appears on the front page of the British Columbia section of the Globe and Mail. He is seated at the kitchen table of a young  couple with their two children. In his grey sweater he is feeding the youngest, the baby. He has effectively replaced the father at the table in this family scene. The young father watches on at the left of the picture while Mr. Harper and his sweater occupy the patriarchal center of this tableau.

The words ‘leader’ or ‘leadership’ occur with bludgeon-like regularity on the Conservative Party web site. You cannot come away with any impression other than he is a leader and he stands for leadership. He is definitely a leader, with leadership. Which means he is a patriarch and a man and will lead. And if you are unconvinced, at the bottom of the home page is a picture of Stephane Dion, an obviously thinner man, caught in a gesture made to seem like uncertainty, emblazoned over this image are the words ‘notaleader.ca’. Because leaders are never uncertain, it is un-masculine to be uncertain, un-patriarchal to be caught in a rhetorical shrug. And Canadians need a leader, a man, and a patriarch. And Mr. Dion standing there at the bottom of the page, cutting his slight, studious figure is not a patriarch, the page says.

Elizabeth May notwithstanding, one cannot fail to see the positioning and arranging of masculinity in the efforts to take power in this election. Mr. Layton of the NDP has cut a commercial too, in which shirt sleeved and virile he invokes the ‘new strong’. In an obvious contestation of, I suppose, the ‘old strong’. Now I am far more partial to Mr. Layton ideologically but this bit of patriarchal ideology is bemusing. What on earth?

So I was really charmed during the english debate when prompted by a question about what was the first thing each was going to do when they became prime minister, leader of the country, Gilles Duceppe said, I don’t want to be leader, I don’t want to be prime minister – or words to that effect. Now I did not see his whole performance, riveted by scenes from the southern election, and I know of course that the Bloc only runs in Quebec, but it was refreshing to have someone say they did not want power. It made the others look craven somehow, set back. For about two seconds there was an interesting silence, the leaders round table felt deflated. Solely on the basis of that intervention I too, (like Margaret Atwood whom I also learned, this morning, waiting in the Vancouver airport, is of the same mind,) I too, would like to vote for Monsieur Duceppe. I want people in power who don’t want power; who find it a burden, who are nervous about it, who are scared of making a mistake and who are not offering me leadership.

How many times have I mentioned some variation of the word patriarchy here? Not enough.

And not as many times as it is being invoked in the election.

Come on Canada, stop the Conservatives!

Hand Guns Bah! (That’s “Ban”)

Posted on by elizabeth
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From CANOE:

A shooting outside a Scarborough school yesterday should turn the attention of federal politicians on the campaign trail toward a ban on handguns, Toronto’s mayor said.

Calling the shooting at Bendale Business and Technical Institute “unacceptable,” Mayor David Miller said the city, police and school board were not to blame.

“Why should Torontonians, children in this case, be faced with the kind of threats they’re seeing when the federal government could take real action?” Miller asked. “That’s why we’re calling for a national handgun ban. It’s about preventing crime by getting the guns out of the hands of the thugs who use them.

From Global – Report:

Federal party leaders also reacted to the shootings — which killed two in Toronto and one in Calgary and put three others in hospital — as gun violence threatened to explode as an election issue.

NDP leader Jack Layton pledged to introduce a comprehensive program to empower cities to eliminate handguns, except for those in the hands of law enforcement officials. “We’ve got to make sure the funding is there for the police officers that are required,” he said.

He added a new NDP campaign promise to invest $1.45 billion in child-care would also tackle the root of the problems that lead to gun-related crimes.

The Conservatives released a new TV ad yesterday featuring leader Stephen Harper saying he was “determined to crack down on crime.”

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has not made a handgun ban an election pledge, but has vowed to ban military assault weapons from civilian use.

From James Laxer’s blog:

Everyone who has thought about the issue knows that a complete ban on hand guns will not end gang violence in Toronto and in other large Canadian cities.

But it’s an essential step to take.

Both Toronto Mayor David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty are calling for such a ban. They have the support of NDP leader Jack Layton who wants the cities to have the power to enact such a ban.

Read the rest here

What does Stephen Harper say?  He says tougher sentences for crimes involving guns.  He scores in the negative integers for intelligence.  We’ve known for years that sentence length has little deterrant effect (At best, results are mixed.  See this [download pdf]).  Or none.  Can’t C/conservatives read?  Geez.  One study even noted a 3% rise in recidivism rates for offenders who were given longer sentences.

Then, there’s always this:

Crowded maximum- and medium-security facilities are holding inmates who are more violent, more addicted to drugs and more likely to suffer from mental illness than in the past. Yet fewer are getting the rehabilitation programs they need.

“Some of them leave more violent and more addicted to drugs than when they walked in the place,” says Jason Godin, Ontario president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. “That’s pretty scary for the Canadian public.”

Recidivism rates, perhaps the best measure of the prison system’s effectiveness, show at least 40 per cent of inmates are convicted of a new offence within two years of leaving jail.

The Conservative government is considering a major reform of the system, but hasn’t announced its plans. What it has done is push through new “tough on crime” legislation most criminal justice experts warn will further strain the prison system without reducing crime.

The Tackling Violent Crime Act increases the number of gun-related crimes that automatically result in mandatory minimum sentences, increases the jail time to be served for those crimes and designates as a dangerous offender anyone convicted of three violent or sexual offences, jailing them for as long as they’re considered to be an unacceptable risk to society.

Legislative committees studying incarnations of the act repeatedly heard experts comparing these provisions to U.S. laws that resulted in spiralling costs and rates of incarceration, with little impact on crime.

Officials at Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) acknowledge the changes will increase costs and further crowd prisons.

Read the rest here

Oh C/conservatives can probably read.  They just don’t want to believe what they’re reading.

NDP Surge?

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From the Angus Reid Global Monitor:

Many adults in Canada would be satisfied with the New Democratic Party (NDP) becoming the largest opposition party in the country, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 62 per cent of respondents think the NDP would do a good job as the official opposition in Ottawa.

Conversely, 51 per cent of respondents think the NDP would not do a good job as the next federal government.

The polling data:

Polling Data

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

  Agree Disagree Not sure
The NDP would do a good job as the official opposition in Ottawa 62% 29% 10%
The NDP would do a good job as the next federal government 38% 51% 11%

Source: Angus Reid Strategies
Methodology: Online interviews with 1,007 Canadian adults, conducted on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9, 2008. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

Complete poll (download pdf)

It surprises me little that the Liberals aren’t looking strong.  Stéphane Dion has been compromising Liberal politics for years now, giving in to Harper policy and legislation in order to avoid going to the polls.  As has been mentioned on this blog before, Dion’s inability to forge a respectable opposition to the Conservative government has not led to confidence in his own leadership abilities or in the party itself.  Can he change that in a month’s time?  Who knows, but my prediction is, no he can’t.

It’s very early days yet, but when larger numbers of people head over to the NDP, even seeing them as providing a more effective opposition rather than a government, it has to be a terrible sign for Stephen Harper – a sign of a profound lack of confidence in his abilities.  And if that keeps up, I’ll be a happy political camper.  Layton’s NDP by no means embodies my political aspirations, but it comes a helluva lot closer than anything else.

At Accidental Deliberations, you’ll find a post covering the possibility that the NDP may pick up more seats than its hoping for in la belle province.

I’m also one of those who is pleased that Layton is running for Prime Minister, rather than as Leader of the Opposition.  Go for gold!  I think his confidence inspires confidence in the voters and allows Layton to engage with the issues against the man he really wants to get.  The decision to run against the Liberals in the last campaign drove me nuts.

A View from Hippieland

Posted on by elizabeth
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Just talked to my wonderful son who lives and works with the hippies out in B.C.  – about the federal election.  Here’s what he had to say about ads being run by the Conservative Harpies and the denizens of Liberal-land:

On Harper’s attempt to woo the public with his “family man”image:  “Can’t people see what a lizard he is?  Maybe his tongue doesnt come far enough out of his mouth fror people to see the fork.”

“Are the Liberals just too embarassed of their own existence to try to define themselves?

And finally, on Harper’s attempts to shut down the pot economy in British Columbia:

“Out here they’re trying to seize peoples’ houses and children for marijuana-related offences.”

I wish he could get a job doing political commentary.  No worries – he’d never accept!  BTW, my son’s pseudonym is Eliot Rosewater.

Liberals, Conservatives & Music

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From “The ‘Mash of Myriad Sounds’” by Martin Kimmelman:

“The automatic equation of radical style with liberal politics and of conservative style with reactionary politics is a historical myth that does little justice to an agonizingly ambiguous historical reality,” Ross points out. Just so. Webern, he notes, idolized Hitler although the Nazis banned his atonal music. Shostakovich was Stalin’s favorite composer but he suffered notorious humiliation under the dictator’s thumb. Historians who have tried to reduce music’s meaning to certain political or social ideas have ignored music’s own essential ambiguity.

How then to hear this music? Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, first performed in 1934, was received at the time in Moscow as an exemplary model of Soviet culture, but Ross prefers to interpret it now as a “darker kind of monument to Stalin’s world.” Perhaps it is. During the 1950s at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the Soviet bloc’s answer to the West’s avant-garde hothouse in Darmstadt, Germany, Krzysztof Penderecki’s 8´37—”an affair of shrieking cluster chords, sputtering streams of pizzicato, siren-like glissandos, and other Xenakis-like sounds,” as Ross writes—was embraced by Communist officials who should have loathed its atonality, after someone proposed the work be retitled Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.

“Music may not be inviolable, but it is infinitely variable, acquiring a new identity in the mind of every new listener,” as Ross acknowledges. “It is always in the world, neither guilty nor innocent, subject to the ever-changing human landscape in which it moves.” That’s as good a definition as any for modern art in general.

Read the whole thing at NYRB

via 3 quarks daily

Let May Debate

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Elizabeth May answers questions on the Election Debates

From the Green Party of Canada website:

The Green Party of Canada is going to the courts to seek a fair hearing and opportunity to participate in the leaders’ debate in this election. This action is prompted by the announcement of the major television networks to exclude Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from the television debates. In the interim the Party is urging all Canadians who believe in democracy and fairness to contact the leaders of the Conservative Party, the NDP and the Bloc to demand they respect democracy.

“Harper says this election is about strong leadership. It’s about strong arm leadership. We are a national party with a point of view supported by Canadians. This decision is undemocratic and we have no choice by to challenge it,” said Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The networks said in a press release (they have not contacted the Green Party of Canada) that the threats of the Conservatives, NDP and the Bloc to boycott a leaders debate caused them to refuse to allow Ms. May to participate.

“I think it’s appalling that the media consortium is submitting to Stephen Harper and Jack Layton’s threats,” commented Ms. May.

“Stephen Harper knows disenchanted former Progress Conservatives, Reform and Alliance supporters are turning to the Green Party as the best alternative to represent their values.”

The debates are the most important events in a federal election and the arbitrary decision to bar the Green Party will jeopardize the fairness of this election. A complaint will be filed with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and legal proceedings to overturn the decision will commence shortly.

“I said in my campaign launch, this election for me, is about democracy about involving more people in the political process. For Stephen Harper is about excluding people, exclude ideas and excluding women,” said Ms. May.

Canadians are urged to join the 80,000 who have already registered their support for Elizabeth May’s inclusion in the debates at www.Demanddemocraticdebates.ca

If Jack Layton doesn’t go to bat for Elizabeth May and the Greens debating, I’m gonna be switching parties.

Canada Goes To The Polls (sigh)

Posted on by elizabeth
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I don’t sense an abundance of excitement about the federal elections.  The most I can say is, at least we’ll be done before the US.  It feels as though their election has been going on for decades rather than years.  Look away for a moment and we’ll either have a new Prime Minister or we’ll be stuck with Stephen Harper for another 2 – 5 years. 

If Harper gets a majority, we’re in deep doo.  If he comes up with another minority government, it’s doubtful that much will change until the Liberals get a new leader who’s up to challenging the Conserve.  That is, unless the NDP come up with a larger share of the seats and can work out a coalition with the Libs that actually works the way coalition politics ought to work.  But, if the Liberals are all caught up in a leadership campaign, it’s unlikely they’ll have time for governing.  Sigh.

Of course, there’s the possibility that Dion comes up with a minority, but only the campaign will tell us something about the chances of that.  It’s not looking good just now.  Dion just hasn’t acted like a leader.  As well, he has the “problems” of his francophone background, his unskilled English and his hearing difficulties to overcome.  Rather large hurdles, unfortunately.

For the moment, it would appear that Harper and, to a certain extent,  Jack Layton are trying to push Canadians into an American style election, based on personality and “values”, with Harper coming out as the “family man” and Layton as the Canadian version of Barack Obama.  I don’t think it’s gonna work and frankly, I hope it’s not gonna work.  We’re not in quite the hole the US is in, but these are important and dangerous times everywhere.

I just don’t think the “politician as ‘family man'” meme works in Canada because people with families aren’t identified solely with the conservative electorate, as has been pointed out in the Globe and Mail:

Yesterday, Mr. Dion appeared surprised to hear that Mr. Harper had been somewhat dismissive of his family. Mr. Dion and his wife, Janine Krieber, have a daughter, whom they adopted from Peru in 1989 after they were unable to conceive. “Did he say that?” Mr. Dion asked.

But instead of taking the opportunity to present his own compelling family narrative, Mr. Dion stressed the importance of privacy.

“Well, we’ll speak about me. I’m a Liberal … and we believe in this beautiful word we don’t have in French, which is privacy, which is more than private life. It’s the distinction between public and private life,” he said, before finally allowing, “But I’m a family man. I love my mother, I love my wife. I love my daughter and my brothers, even my brothers.”

The role of the family in Canadian politics is starkly different than in the United States, where when conservative politicians start talking about family, it’s a safe bet they are trying to fire up their base and undermine the competition.

Christopher Waddell, associate director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism, said he believes the Conservatives are making family a campaign issue as a way to define Mr. Harper against Mr. Dion. But he does not think they intended to insult the Liberal Leader.

Most Canadians know Mr. Dion is a staunch environmentalist, Mr. Waddell said, an issue that the Liberals are likely to make central to their campaign.

Mr. Harper, by contrast, is understood as a proponent of tax cuts and smaller government, topics that do not exactly translate into sexy fodder for a general election campaign. Instead, he is being painted as a father and a patriot.

“It’s giving him some kind of personality and saying this is an issue that defines him like the environment defines Dion,” Mr. Waddell said.

Playing up his image as a dad will also play well in suburban areas where Mr. Harper needs to make electoral gains if he is to win a majority government.

But the problem with the strategy, Mr. Waddell said, is that having a family is not Mr. Harper’s exclusive domain, which Mr. Dion could have easily pointed out.

“He couldn’t say that Mr. Dion isn’t a family man,” Mr. Waddell said of Mr. Harper’s comments yesterday. “But if he said he was, that undercuts the whole image he’s trying to establish for himself.”

Ah Canada, where that “privacy” word still seems to mean something.  Being a dad will play well in the suburbs?  Yeah, right, city and rural people don’t have children.  If this works I’ll eat my dad’s frosted socks!  I think it’s just as well that Dion continue to ignore Harper’s attempt to play politics American style, just as he laughs at Layton doing an Obama.  Come on Jack, keep us on the issues!  Canadians are in a different political situation than Americans.  If we think we’re boring, perhaps that’s something to celebrate.  See how Waddell points out how Harper can’t play family man because Dion’s a dad too?  Well, guess what?  So is Barack Obama, as was plainly hyped up at the DNC.  But it doesn’t seem to be working for the guy, now that Sarah Palin’s on the scene.  And thank gawd that Elizabeth May is not our Sarah Palin:

Elizabeth has one daughter, Victoria Cate May Burton, born in July 1991. As well, she remains close to her three older stepchildren from Victoria Cate’s dad, their spouses, and loves spending time with her six step-grandchildren! Although she is a single mother, Elizabeth has worked hard to keep all the family links intact.

Woops!  They’d have a field day with this bio in the States!

And here’s Rick Mercer’s take (mind you, Mercer seems to think it’s Dion who’s trying to be Obama, who may be going over better here than in the US:

The race in Canada is not that much different. We can compete.

Sure, Stephen Harper wasn’t tortured for six years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp the way John McCain was, but he’s angry enough that he could have been. In fact, on a good day the Prime Minister seems way more angry than Mr. McCain ever does. Like the Republican candidate, he, too, has pain and anguish in his eyes.

Mr. McCain suffered at the hands of a hostile enemy bent on breaking his body and soul, and he survived and triumphed. Mr. Harper, the story goes, suffered from adolescent-onset asthma and so was often picked last for team sports. This helps to explain his dislike for people in general. He also was startled quite badly by a clown at the age of 6, which explains his lifetime commitment to destroying arts organizations.

In America, presidential candidates spend a lot of time boring voters by telling them what they will do to improve their lives. Mr. Harper’s message will be far more exciting. He will spend his time telling people, “Don’t worry – no matter what happens, I can’t win a majority, so I won’t be able to do all the things I want to do that clearly scare you.”

This is an “only-in-Canada” scenario.

InSite Must Stay Open

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Watch Stephen Harper shut this service down because we’re not watching:

Harm-reduction advocates have long worried that the conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper would shut down Vancouver’s safe-injection site for drug users, and a new report is unlikely to do much to assuage those fears.

The National Post reported May 7 that a new government report on the InSite program offered a mixed review, according to Health Minister Tony Clement, even though others had characterized the report’s findings as favorable to InSite. Clement refused to say whether the government would keep the program open but reiterated his stance that prevention, treatment and enforcement — and not harm reduction — are the cornerstones of Canada’s drug policy.

“Our harm reduction is accomplished through enforcement, our harm reduction is accomplished through prevention, our harm reduction is accomplished through treatment,” said Clement. “The best way to reduce harm is to get addicts off drugs and to provide the supports for that addict.”

Past studies have shown that InSite has helped prevent overdose deaths and needle sharing and encourages addicts to seek treatment. The program operates under an exemption to Canada’s Criminal Code that expires June 30.

The Portland Hotel Society is working to keep InSite alive.  Get the word out!