By Herb Kah
When I listen to the noise of what has led up to this federal election in Canada and the conditions that prevail, in our country and in the U.S.A. as we head to the polls, I am reminded of William Butler Yeats’ prescient words;
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Stephen Harper is fond of saying that this is an “unnecessary election”. I beg to differ and, perhaps, so do the more than two million citizens who have voted in the advanced polls and, thanks to Rick Mercer, the many young people who have attended the rallies urging their peers to vote. These are glimmers of hope that defy Yeats’ words, but the din of fanatical partisanship and fear mongering threatens to extinguish these little lights.
One need only witness the bitter partisanship, lies, deceptions and corruption that have poisoned the well of civil discourse and meaningful debate in our parliament. We are confronted daily with the corporate and right wing shills braying their mantras of tax cuts for the wealthy, denying the facts of climate change, fear mongering about crime or about a coalition government that would have to work for the good of the country rather than score partisan points with their various power bases, lobbyists and special interest groups that fund their party. The torrent of attack ads spewing disinformation and misinformation is unabated. The half-truths designed to demonize those who might disagree with the Harper agenda continue to be spread across the country.
Foreign policy is hijacked by one-issue groups. The excesses of the G20 boondoggle, with its attendant corrupt practices and citizen abuses, are denied and swept under the rug by the government. Myths about free trade and the virtues of globalization continue to serve the multinational corporate agendas while well-paying jobs for the working class bleed away to third world countries where minimum wage guarantees, safety and environmental standards do not exist in any meaningful way. Banks and oil companies are happy to rake in obscene profits while families struggle to make ends meet while the Conservatives continue to beat the drum for corporate tax cuts. The biggest deficit in Canada’s history mocks any serious attempt to get our economic house in order.
Hitching our wagon to the American permanent war economy, we are about to spend billions on jets that even some American experts say may not be the best suited for our needs. Yet our health care system, our schools and those institutions designed to protect the public good are underfunded and thus crippled, so that profiteering interests can say they are not sustainable and insist that the only solution is privatization. Government agencies that are there to protect the public interest are shut down if the facts they present are at odds with Harperite ideologies and those that would speak truth to power, experts and scientist among them, are silenced and fired for their efforts and bullied into staying quiet even after they have been dismissed. And so it goes…!
So, I would argue that this is indeed a necessary election and we must not be complacent or be distracted by royal weddings and sporting events. Let us participate and do our part to try to save democracy from the contempt it has been shown by this government and bring our country back to a moderate position that respects the citizen’s voice and rights, and balances them against the corporate powers and special interests that wield such overwhelming influence in the halls of our government.
It is up to us to inform ourselves with facts and not be duped by the fog of misinformation and fear mongering that has tainted this election. Let us take heart and vote for positive change and then stay alert and involved after the elections, lest we forget how easily the way of life and the democracy for which so many have given their lives can be subverted.
Herb Kah is a Niagara resident and retired high school teacher.
(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern residents in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
A lie, often told, is still a lie.
Truth, though not believed, is still the truth.
Now, more than ever, is the time for each Canadian to listen to the truth, denounce lies, and bring Canada back to the path of what it used to stand for.
Deny your vote and you deny yourself.
Deny yourself and you will have to live with that which you are handed.
Anyway, that’s what I think.
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Excellent article. Yes, we should fear for this country and for what it is becoming. Let’s hope we break records for high voter participation.
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Jack, You are right , Adolph Hitler used to say “If you tell a lie often enough people believe it” he won the election in Germany with only 33%of the vote and we all know what happened after that , 60 million people in Europe died in the camps and the battleground.Russia 30 million alone.
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An excellent and well written article! Well done and thank you!
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I appreciate this article, and let us hope that a large turn out of the voter base who has not yet voted turns out to turf the present government out of power. Please talk to your family and friends and educate them: Harper is telling people to give him a majority so we do not have elections ever two years. Perhaps, giving him this majority might be the end of all elections, given the way he has treated the democratic process in this country.
I have read the platforms of all the political parties. It is Harper’s that will continue to bury us into debt for years to come, if he truly believes he is going to continue to fund health care, social programs and pensions, as well as $30 billion jets, building new prisons, reducing corporate taxes to the bottom, and so forth. He can’t have it both ways …
I want you all to remember a presentation that Maxime Bernier gave to a business crowd in the fall. Remember: Harper has always restricted even his Cabinet members from making speeches or even speaking to the media without his express consent. However, Bernier suggested it would be a good idea for the federal government to cut $50m billion in transfer payments to the provinces in return for tax points. While he did not mention health care specifically, tax points removes the federal enforcement role and national standards for health care and with it, provinces will in turn get less money to pay for anything, unless they too hike their taxes or cut services. It is Harper’s wet dream to see health care be dismantled since the day he got involved in politics, and that is how he is going to do it. The provinces will say, sorry we can’t fund universal health care anymore, so we are now going to privatize parts of it or require people to carry insurance for extras.
Because Harper lives in a world where there is no poverty, no sickness and no disadvantage, he simply believes that all Canadians can just make do. He has his supporters parrot his mantra over and over about how only he can manage the economy, and failing that, a “reckless coalition” will take over and ruin it. By saying this to voters, it is not only dishonest, but horribly arrogant and presumptuous of him.
If there had been any coalitions threatened in the past against Harper, it was solely his decision as to why they formed. If he had governed in a democratic manner and listened to the people, including those that do not necessarily worship the ground he walks on, he would have been able to continue to manage under that minority for a longer period of time without any coalitions and perhaps, if he continued to do so, more Canadians might trust him with the majority he so seeks.
Use your vote on Monday and make it count. I am in the Welland riding, where many people, including those who have not voted NDP before, are now voting NDP, just to keep Harper out. In other ridings, vote for the candidate that can best beat the Harper MP.
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Harper’s $3,000,000,000 to basically foreign (Own the tar sands)oil companies supposedly for research while their profits soar and our own energy prices (Costs) follow suit….wow great management
A Peace keeping military that was once the pride of Canada has become under “Emperor”Harper the pawn for American warmongering (Follow McCain) under the guise of aiding.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to the very rich corporate elite while we have already the lowest corporate taxes among the G20
The Billions of dollars Harper is prepared to spend for aircraft that we do “not” need and without TENDERS???
A Harper who hates the Liberals so much he lies with no remorse shows total contempt for parliament which by the way was before Harper (“The People’s Forum”) and laughs at being the only PM ever so charged.
Claims credit where he has no right for if any economic restraints were ever put in place it was previous governments who regulated the banks.
This individual (Harper) is completely lacking when trust enters the equation so I ask the electorate do you truly want to expand this Dictatorial “Emperor’s realm and lose all the social safety put in place by your parents and grandparents over the years..If you still do…… Then God Help you…… and in retrospect “Bless us” the peoples who are attempting to bring back to Canada the respect it once had throughout the world..
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It’s a race to the bottom with the current P.C government of Harper, to the detriment of the vast majority of Canadians. Support for Harper will also be to the detriment of the International Community.
Absolutely more people need access to Independent Media sources such as this. Papers, including SUN Media’s the Welland Tribune, continue to publish propoganda-style editorials that have no sound basis in science. A recent editorial was published under the guise of “the alternate opinion” but its foundation was “crank science”.
The Harper government also does its best to mute the dessemination of sound scientific research.
The Liberals and P.C’s also endorse privatised health care, and such a system, anathema to Universal Health Care, is the most inefficient system
available (I wrote an article about this.). Again, such an endorsement is to the detriment of most Canadians. Shame.
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“Climate-Change Scientists Feel Muzzled By Ottawa”
By Mike DeSouza, Canwest News Service, March 15, 2010
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All well stated. We will soon belong to the US at this rate, both in mean spiritedness and in reality. They want our resources for financial gain. Insurance companies want a grip on the money from privatized health care for another 35 million people. They want our oil and lumber. They want our water. They want our market for their crappy, unproven planes. Harper in negotiating on the QT for a North American defense perimeter. Defense from whom? For what? They want the Arctic Ocean and, for all intents and purposes, already use it like their own. There goes our independence.
Has ANYONE mentioned the environment to any degree in this election? We’re following the US in that as well by abrogating past promises like the Kyoto Accord, to our shame. It just goes on and on.
Why don’t we just tie ourselves to the anchor that is the US in it’s current freefall to the bottom. It’s going down faster than a fat guy on a bungee chord in every possible way.
Ralph Nader’s recent article in the Star summed it up very succinctly. Of course he has been purposely mocked and discredited by US politicians. Why? He is smart enough to see and tell the truth, yet, as a consumer advocate, look what he has accomplished for the public over the years! We need more Naders, Suzukis and Kuciniches in the world and fewer bullying Bushes and Trumps (the latest American big mouthed joke).
I know of very few who aren’t struggling to make ends meet right now. That makes me think we’re not on the right track.
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Some interesting sites:
avaaz.ca
http://www.projectdemocracy.ca
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Well folks I guess Harpers mud slinging worked in the last few days of his campaign. I hope all of these individuals who fell for his lies and mistruths have very deep pockets, because we are in the ride of our lives. I lived through the Dieffenbaker years and they were not good years for the average person or for people on welfare.
We had no healthcare it was fee for service, but if you were on social assistance they took the cost out of your welfare cheques. I unfortunately took ill in that time period and was hospitalized, and did not realize that they had taken monies off of my fathers welfare and winter works programs for years to pay for my hospitalization. I found out after his death in 1983 after going through his papers. I sat and cried and still today I feel the guilt of finding out what my illness had cost my family.
If Harper gets his way, with his universal healthcare we will be in worse shape because we will then have a fee for service program like the states .
Wait and see what this pomp and pious bunch of hypocrits cut first and with no way to stop him, I am now more fearful than ever for the future of our country. Quebec won’t have to separate they will become a part of the United states as the rest of Canada will and we will no longer be a nation. My goodness, I am afraid to guess what what my citizenship will read then ? U.S. Canadian?
Well I am probably going overboard but it could happen people.
Congratulations to all who did go and vote and tried to stop him.We have a long four years ahead of us.
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My Gal, Elizabeth May was elected, but Beelzebub Harper got his majority , when George W Bush was elected the first time (selected) by the Supreme Court, my wife who is American went into a deep funk for weeks, I didn’t think one man could do so much damage to his own country. but it turned out he was worse than any President in US history, he brought the country down to it’s knees. I am very afraid for our great country under Harper.
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I am a terribly embarrassed Canadian.
The ‘non-elected’ leader of Canada, as pointed out by even mainstream media, is given to lies and deception.
Take the example of “The Globe’s election endorsement: Facing up to our challenges”, April 30th, wherein the Globe and Mail endorsed Stephen Harper and the Conservatives” as being the best positioned to “help propel [guide?] Canada into a fresh period of innovation, government reform and global ambition” while mildly pointing out “the great strike against the Conservatives: a disrespect for Parliament, the abuse of prorogation, the repeated attempts (including during this campaign) to stanch debate and free expression. It is a disappointing failing in a leader who previously emerged from a populist movement that fought so valiantly for democratic reforms.”
Does anyone know of any editorial, anywhere, that attempts to vindicate or glorify Bernie Madoff or Earl Jones and their ponzi schemes? Could someone please enlighten me as to the differences between the two?
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