Seriously folks, this Throne Speech marked a significant shift to the right by Harper, and we should not think otherwise.
He has totally adopted trickle-down, de-regulation Reaganomics to appeal to the business class, opened up telecommunications to foreign ownership (hello, Rupert Murdoch!) and he has embedded in the Speech all kinds of weird little edgy-wedgey issues designed to divide communities to his electoral benefit.
The stuff about opening up social programs to charities is an open invitation to the evangelicals to line up for cash, just as they were able to do under Bush. His intentions with respect to reducing the deficit will gut the federal government (that he leads but hates!) in ways Canadians cannot even imagine. Through budget cuts, administrative changes, and appointing ideologues to federal bodies there will be very little left of our national government when he is through, which is as he has always wanted it.
The media analysis that this Speech was business as usual, and didn't justify prorogation, is lame and lazy. Yes prorogation matters, it matters a lot, but analysing yesterdays Speech through a prorogation lens misses the point entirely. As for Iggy's response to the Speech, it is to weep.
With such a weak Opposition leader, with a Speaker who hasn't lifted a finger to protect the rights of MPs, with a GG who is a constitutional disaster, with a complacent corporate media corps, with a clever PM with a radical right-wing agenda (supported by about 20 per cent of the population) we are at serious risk of having this country stolen.
Me, I'm almost 60 years old, I've observed Canadian politics closely my entire life, I've participated in politics and I've read Canadian history, but I've never seen these kind of factors line up all at once. This is really bad stuff. We need an election, and we absolutely need strategic, non-partisan voting if we are to stop Harper who will otherwise get re-elected.
If Canadians do re-elect this guy either deliberately or because we can't figure out how to marshal our votes to defeat his candidates, then frankly, Canadians will deserve the government they will get, and one that none will ever forget.
On the upside, we know that 6 in 10 Canadians actually oppose Harper, and we also now have CAPP. As slender as this thread may be, 225 thousand Canadians have joined that group. That is about the most important and positive counter-point we now have to block Harper. I urge everyone who hasn't to go there now and join CAPP.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=260348091419&ref=nf