Canadian Neo Cons a Chilling Echo of Bush

Shortly after Stephen Harper took power in the last Canadian election, this article hit the internet:

A Chilling Echo of Bush's Republicans
Canada's 2006 Elections
By JOHN RYAN

The 2006 federal election has set the stage for a possible dismantling of Canada's distinctive social and economic fabric. The newly evolved Conservative Party, in many respects a chilling echo of the USA's Republican Party, is poised for a two-stage attack to reshape Canada in line with its Canadian version of America's neoconservative ideology.

...(the RCMP has been exposed to be operating more like the Sopranos)

With slightly more than a third of the popular vote and only 40 percent of the seats in Parliament, the Conservatives will form a precarious minority government. From this it's obvious that the majority of Canadians opposed the Conservative platform and their philosophy, but the opposition was split amongst three parties, leaving the Conservatives with the largest number of seats. From this perspective, the Conservatives are in no position to claim that they have a "mandate" to try to enact any of their reactionary policies. And nor would they have a chance, given that all three opposition parties oppose the Conservative platform and objectives. But herein lies the danger.



Having learned through previous election defeats that the bulk of Canada's people are philosophically opposed to the radical right-wing objectives of the "new" Conservatives, Stephen Harper cleverly and successfully concealed the party's true agenda throughout the election campaign. And now in his shaky minority position, Harper will continue with his innocent-looking choir-boy persona, together with his awkward, artificial restraint of language. During this time, none of his hard-core objectives will be presented. Instead, he'll introduce some basically non-controversial matters, such as accountability legislation, the strengthening of powers for the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner, some amendments to the justice system to deal with violent crime, and other such measures. Unfortunately, he'll be able to put through some of his reactionary tax proposals, because a defeat on budget matters would immediately bring down his government. Basically, the Conservative Party's prime objective will be to survive a few months in a non-controversial manner so as to gain the respect and confidence of the public to give them a mandate for a majority in the next election. That will be Harper's fundamental agenda.


...Along with this approach, and before the Liberals can regroup themselves with a new leader, a further strategy for Harper might be to engineer a premature defeat of his government over some contrived matter in a way that would result in public sympathy for the "honest, moderate, hard-working Conservatives." This of course would be accompanied by a nearly unanimous massive barrage from the corporate mainstream media extolling the prospects and virtues of a Conservative majority. Such a strategy would fulfill the second stage of the Conservative agenda. If that should happen, Canada would quickly face some catastrophic changes.



There's no difficulty putting forth most of the Conservative objectives once they'd form a majority government. These have been amply detailed and documented over the years, although they haven't been incorporated in a single manifesto comparable to the Republican Party's Project for the New American Century. In the 2006 election most of the original Reform-Alliance agenda which is still the basis of the current Conservative Party was almost entirely removed from their election platform--but there is no reason to believe that the party has actually turned its back on its original raison d'etre.
Undoubtedly, first on their agenda would be Medicare. Medicare has already been sabotaged and undermined, indirectly, through the efforts of the earlier Reform Party. Ironically, it was Paul Martin, as the Liberal finance minister from 1993 to 2002, who carried out their reactionary policies. Over the years, the Reform Party and the Business Council on National Issues have badgered the federal government to reduce expenditures on social programs, especially Medicare. Martin obliged with his huge budget cuts during 1995-97. These cuts amounted to a 40 percent reduction in federal social spending, compared to Mulroney's overall 25 percent cut (for which he had been vilified!). This almost mortally wounded the Medicare system, and subsequent federal increases have not repaired the damage

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The complete article is at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/ryan01312006.html

And now what about the Liberals? In the Chretien government from 1993 to 2002 it was Paul Martin, as minister of finance, who was the de facto prime minister. During those years he dutifully "restructured" the country along the lines directed by Tom d'Aquino, the head of the Business Council on National Issues. This is what led to the 40 percent cut in federal social programs money and the reduction of the role of government back to where it was in 1951. In his first term as prime minister he assembled one of the most right-wing cabinets we had in decades. It was only when he was in a minority position that he suddenly showed a concern about social programs. Martin's disastrous 2006 election campaign has left the Liberals in a total state of disarray.

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The fact is that both parties have Neo Cons who are fighting to take Canada in a very fascist direction, along with the Bush Neo cons. The heartening news is that Stephane Dion, the new Liberal leader is an intellectual, a man of integrity and a man with empathy, emotions, and passion.
While the conservative clods hurl francophone slurs at Monsieur Dion, he has responded by slowly and methodically revealing the money trail of fraud to the fascist foils in office. We must realize that he will be fighting "the cons" from both the Liberal and Conservative party. So if they are struggling for unity in the Liberal party, ask in what way?
Let's help Dion out by listening. Hopefully you will see what I have - that he appears to be a man of his word, a man of integrity and lord only knows how long we have waited for that.

Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, has indicated that while he might not always agree with Mr. Dion, he respects him as man of integrity. I do not think we should turn our country over to anyone without integrity - ever again.