- Giving Harper a majority will only bring on more of the same damage, but to a much greater extreme and much quicker

submitted: 8:07am PST, 4 Jan.'10
2010: The year of the Harper majority, By Dan Leger, Jan 4, '10,
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1160594.html Tab 4

All those who have grave concerns about Harper, MacKay, Flaherty, Baird, O'Connor and the Con government, and that is about 2/3rd's of us, should take what Dan Leger has to say very seriously.

Personally I think there is a good chance Harper will put a poison pill or two in the budget in order to force a non-confidence vote.

This is not Harper's Canada, it is not the Liberal's Canada.

This is our Canada, each and every one of us. It is up to us to stand up and be counted. If we shirk this duty, we lose, and our children lose and our children's children will suffer.

Harper has already done an exception amount of damage not only to the country's finances but also to its International reputation, the social, economic and political fabric that holds Canada together, and the future of our children and our children's children.

Giving Harper a majority will only bring on more of the same damage, but to a much greater extreme and much quicker and everyone who dares to stand up to him will be well advised to take cover - if you think the viscous character attacks now are bad, just wait.

We must all keep in mind when reflecting on this, it is not Harper that must pay. I am sure that when he 'retires' he will go to the US and get a great paying position with some ultra-right conservative group.

We are the ones, each and every one of us to a man, woman and child, that will have to pay. But, worse, it is also our children and our children's children that will be left to pay the crippling financial debt as well as the impacts of Harper's policies regarding just about everything, not the least of which is Global Warming, but also includes their "tough on Crime"; their "2 points off the GST"; their dismantling Federalism and shirking responsibility in many areas, leaving a vacuum that the Provinces must fill; their abandonment of national childcare; their abandonment of the Arts, Sciences and education; their policies on Immigration with their roots in "old ways" of Manning, Day, Harper and the right wing extremists of the Reform Party; their 'in-your-face" international diplomacy; their contempt for our democratic institutions; their putting our men and women in uniform in harms way by their handling of the Afghan prisoner transfers in the first instance and their pursuant cover-up, etc.

There are many people who are in a position to know, who are predicting a second wave of recession, globally, much worse than the first in the next year.

The Bank of Canada has already come out and warned people that interest rates will increase in June and that our finances are not in order. Harper last time called the election on the precipice of the recession and for the first 2 - 3 weeks of the election even denied that there was an kind of financial difficulties.

Job losses from the current recession will start having a negative and domino effect on our economy in 2010 and people will start to see just to what extent Harper and the Con's have mis-managed the stimulus spending, Canada's finances and there will be the mega-deficit.

Combine this with a perception that Ignatieff and the Liberals are weak (and if the Liberals don't think this is so, they just have to go out and talk to people) and Harper will, in the New Year, start changing his tune to "Oh, and by the way, did I mention that Canadians do want an election" and perhaps poison the budget to force an election - yah, like he's ever done that before.

Lloyd MacIlquham cicblog.com/comments.html