It's Time For De-Unification of the Right

It is clear that since the merger of the Canadian Alliance Party and the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003, there has been one voice and only one voice in Canada for those  who tend to inhabit the territory to the right of the political centre. That voice is Stephen Harper's. 

Actually, the transaction that brought the two right-leaning parties together was less of a merger and more of a hostile take-over. It was a carefully orchestrated maneuver that involved equal amounts of manipulation and treachery. The main goal was not so much a meeting of Conservative minds but the acquisition of the Conservative name. You see, the only way Stephen Harper, Tom Flanagan and their cadre of Straussian ideologues could gain credibility east of Manitoba and hence, any hope of ever forming a government was through the annexation of an existing political party.  The Progressive Conservative Party was severely wounded and directionless since the Mulroney years and thus, ripe for plunder. 

Once he had his hands on the Conservative name, Harper wasted no time in dropping the "progressive" label. For the first few years of this shot-gun marriage, Harper had to keep the old progressives happy in order to continue the existence of his new creation. This included keeping co-conspirator Peter MacKay well placed in the Conservative hierarchy. Despite having become a political liability as a result of his numerous blunders, MacKay remains as deputy leader of the party. But as time passed and his core of hard-right disciples became stronger and stronger, the old P.C.s in the Harper caucus have had less and less of a voice in managing party or governmental affairs. In fact, all power with in the party rests with Harper himself and his collection of Harper-Youth within the PMO. 

No room for Red-Tories in Harper's Caucus

At first, this "new Conservative deal" seemed like a good idea. Harper had the grit, the smarts and the ruthlessness to finally lead right-leaning Canadians out of the shadows and into government, thus supplanting the age old Liberal party and their attitude of entitlement. The problem that has eventually come to light though, is that while Harper has finally formed a majority government (however credible it may be), he has stepped on a lot of toes along the way and forced the majority of his caucus into the rather embarrassing role of cheerleader. No one dares contradict "His Harperness". Any MP who inadvertently expresses an independent thought is quickly swarmed by the Harper-Youth and immediately "reprogrammed". As a result, all the old "progressive" voices with in the party have been effectively neutered, cut off by the hard-right cohort who sit at Harper's right hand. 

Many of the old P.C.s saw the hand writing on the wall from the outset. Ex-Prime Minister Joe Clark would have nothing to do with Harper's Hooligans and sat out his remaining days in Parliament as a P.C. Some Senators continued to do likewise. Former Mulroney Cabinet Minister Sinclair Stevens went so far as to form a new political entity, the Progressive Canadian Party (thereby retaining the old P.C. moniker). But Canadians, as Harper had calculated, are traditionalists by nature and have stuck with the party that still retains the Conservative name. Slowly however- ever so slowly - voters are beginning to wake up to the fact that the CPC is NOT the Conservative Party of Joe Clark, Robert Stanfield, John Diefenbaker or their grand daddies. Harper's party (and make no mistake about it, it is most definitely HIS party)is nothing more than the Tea Party on steroids. It has no room for "Red-Tories" or progressives. Various Harper minions such as Jim Prentice awoke to this fact and have since "retired" from politics. 

History will show that Richardson
backed the right horse.

One of the most telling departures from Harper's caucus of late was Lee Richardson from Calgary Centre who took his leave round about the time Parliament was having C-38 shoved down it's throat and various glassy-eyed CPC MPs were forced to applaud and shake their blue pom-poms on cue. While the timing of his departure is certainly suspect, the most interesting aspect of it is that he left the Harper-fold to work for Provincial P.C. leader Alison Redford. It's no secret that The Government of Harper supported the radically ideological Wildrose Party over the Progressive Conservative Party in the last Alberta election. This made Richardson's move all the more interesting, and telling.

 Harper likes to think of himself as overlord of the Provincial P.C. parties, simply because he stole the Federal Party out from underneath everyone's noses, but the Alberta scenario has proven that the Machiavellian Harper will squash any P.C. who disagrees with him and he'll prop up any Premier, regardless of Party, who he can manipulate. Harper is no friend of nor has he any loyalty to any provincial Progressive Conservative Party anywhere in the Country. Just ask Danny Williams. 

So moderate right-leaning voters are presented with very few options. Either support the radical ideologues who have stolen their party or look to the fractured left of the political spectrum. Not an easy choice. One that probably leaves many Canadian voters shaking their heads and deeply regretting the "Unite The Right" movement that at one time, shone like a beacon of hope and now burns them like an interrogator's lamp. It is time then according to this writer, for all good Red-Tories (and some disgruntled Blue Liberals) to reclaim their turf - to "Take Back the Right" from the autocratic Harper. To do this, they must undo the mischief wrought by Harper's Henchmen. They must untie the knot that bound their fortunes to a second rate Banana Republic dictator. The marriage born of treachery must be annulled.  It is time for the Re-birth of the Federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. 

Could Redford be the one to lead a
reserected Progressive Conservatve Party?

It says here that in the end, Lee Richardson has backed the right horse. If anyone is to lead the New Progressive Conservative Party, Alison Redford is a good fit for the job. She is proving to be a skilled tactician, in overcoming the manipulation of the CPC in the last Provincial election, certainly Harper's equal. But she is also a good politician who has demonstrated the willingness and ability to work with the other Premiers all for the greater good of the Federation. And in standing firm with the show-boating Christie Clark, she demonstrates the  ability to make the "tough decisions" when necessary.   And Redford's collaborative approach is gaining her supporters outside of Alberta's borders as well. So she is well equipped to lead the re-birth of a proud Canadian tradition. Hence, she is well placed to restore the Progressive voice to Canadian democracy and to pull the rug out from underneath his Harperness. 

It's Time For the Rebirth of the Federal Progressive Conservative Party.

We Have Ourselves to Blame for Our Corrupt Government

As the title implies, we only have ourselves to blame for our current ultra-corrupt majority government. They have stolen our government and our democracy right out from under our very noses. The Robo-call scandal is only the latest in a long line of scams, misdeeds, frauds and outright illegal and anti-democratic behaviour. Consider the following:

Stevie, the Evangelical Reformist

-The Reform Party of Canada was formed by the Evangelical Preston Manning in 1987 (yes THE Preston Manning of the Manning Centre who just recently had the reporter who broke the Robo-call story turfed out of his soiree). Another Evangelical, "Steve" Harper joined this bizarre collection of extremists in 1988 and became it's Chief Policy Officer. But these Western-Centric radicals  could gain no credibility east of Manitoba and the Reform Party was rife with unprofessional, partisan and unethical behaviour. They were too far out into right field, even for Blue Tories and were dismissed out of hand by the majority of the country.

- The Reform Party re-branded it self as the Alliance party and was led temporarily by a Jet-Skiing Evangelical, Stockwell Day,  who believes the earth is only 5,000 years old and that men walked with dinosaurs. But they were still a half-assed bunch of extremists that no one took seriously.

"Et Tu Peter"?

- In 2003, Peter MacKay became the last leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada based on the promise he would NEVER negotiate an amalgamation deal with The Reform/ Alliance bunch. A promise he promptly broke once elected leader. Whether he conspired with "Steve" Harper before hand we might never know. But we do know that MacKay went  from being the leader of a toothless non-party at the time, to a position of power and influence in the Harper Government, complete with models hanging off his arm and a brief "tryst" with the lovely  automobile heiress, Belinda Stronach.  And we watched this all happen.

-The treachery that allowed the merger of the Reform/Alliance party and the near-dead Progressive Conservative Party gave Harper and his Reform cronies control of the "Conservative" moniker which  they quickly adopted, dropping the "Progressive" label in the process, which suited their Ultra-right wing Neo-Conservative purposes. This gave the Reform Party the instant credibility they had long sought even though they were nothing more than carnivorous,  ideological wolves in Conservative apparel. And we watched and the main-stream media blithely and erroneously referred to this new party as "Tories" thus giving them even more undeserved credence.

- We watched as this new party, riding on the momentum of the Liberal's own in-house scandal (aided greatly by the RCMP who chose to make public, damning accusations about the Liberals  at the height of the 2006 campaign) managed to grasp a minority government for the first time.

- We watched as the "Reform/Conservatives" Prorogued Parliament not once, but twice. First to avoid the will of the people (which would have seen a majority coalition  govern us, at least temporarily) and again to avoid having to account for the Afghan detainee scandal (which they have never accounted for, despite the prospect of MacKay and Harper being seen as potential war criminals)

15 year old Omar Khadr, wounded by American soldiers

- We watched as Harper spent over three million dollars of tax payers money on legal fees to deny Omar Khadr his constitutional and international rights as a child soldier and keep him penned up in Guantanamo Bay .The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Harper Government was denying the boy his Charter Rights but stopped short of ordering them to repatriate him. Khadr was 15 when he was shot by American soldiers. He is now 23 years old and continues to be held on what can best be described as circumstantial evidence while the Harper Government continues to thumb it's nose at the Supreme Court.

- We watched as the Reform/Conservative back room boys, using American-style smear tactics, systematically destroyed the political career of one of the few remaining good men in Ottawa, Stephan Dion.

-We watched as Stephen Harper and his then director of communications, Kory Teneycke  secretly met with the heads of the ultra right-wing Fox News in the states. We subsequently .watched as the Prime Ministers Office pressured the CRTC to grant a bid led by Teneycke to licence  Sun TV News. We watched as Teneycke resigned over tampering with an Avvaz petition to stop the licensing of Sun TV news (alias Fox News North). We watched as Teneycke was quietly rehired. We watched Sun TV news become a reality.

- We watched as Kory Teneycke told delegates at a Manning Centre Conference (remember Preston the Evangelical?) that he would love to have the names of Left-leaning College professors and teachers so he could "make them famous" (meaning he would love to start a smear campaign against them and otherwise, silence them)

- We watched as the Reform/Conservatives, who campaigned with promises of more transparency in Government became the most closed and secretive Government in our history.

- We watched as Stephen Harper promised Senate Reform, then proceeded to stack the Senate with partisan cronies, mostly defeated Conservative candidates, so that no matter which bills were passed by Parliament, they would either be passed or defeated at the whim of the hyper-partisan Reform/Conservative Senate . Harper has appointed more partisan Senators than any other Prime Minister in our history.

- We watched as Dmitri Soudas, another Harper Director of Communication, put pressure on the Montreal Port Authority to hire as it's new Board President, a man sympathetic to the Reform/Conservative cause.

- We watched as the Government of Harper  systematically fired, silenced and otherwise ruined the careers of any pubic service whistle blower who spoke out against  the Reform/Conservative agenda.

- We watched as The Government of Harper sought to invest BILLIONS of dollars in a new fighter Aircraft, who's need is questionable, with out first tendering a contract or asking for proposals, all at the behest of our neighbors to the south.

- We watched as Stephen Harper ruled his party with an iron "my way or the highway" fist. We watched him silence his own party members. We watched as he forbade candidates from participating in  open campaign debates, we watched as he kicked people out of his campaign rallies on the basis of the content of their Facebook  accounts (who did these internet searches was never revealed) and we then watched as he stacked these rallies with rabid partisans who shouted down legitimate questions from the media. We watched as Harper limited questioning of any kind from the media at his campaign rallies.

- We are still watching Harper's attempts at dismantlement the CBC as he views them as being "Anti-Government". And we are still watching to see what he intends to do with the "war-chest" he is amassing in order to combat the main stream media, ALL of whom he feels, are too left leaning.

-  We watched as the Harper Government (as the Government of Canada is now officially called) was found guilty of Contempt of Parliament. No other government in the history of parliamentary democracy has ever been guilty of such an infraction. Neither Harper nor any of his Reform/Conservative cronies have ever been held accountable for this.

-We watched, silently dumbfounded, when it was revealed that the Reform/Conservatives had produced a 200 page manual on how to stone-wall Parliamentary committees in which the opposition held a majority of members, thus suppressing and otherwise, impeding the democratic process once again.

- We watched as the Government of Harper was found guilty of election fraud around the "in and out" scandal that occurred in the 2006 election. We watched as the party was given a slap on the wrist, a $52,000 fine. And we watched as the Harper-led Reform/Conservatives spun this guilty finding into a "victory"!

- We continue to watch as the Government of Harper refuses to answer or admit to any of it's indiscretions. Instead, it denies, deflects, minimizes or instead, sets out to attack and defame it's opponents rather than proving them wrong or taking responsibility for it's actions. The standard operating procedure is for them to tell the same lie so often that the electorate will come to accept it as truth eg:" Coalition governments are un-democratic".

And the above list of Reform/Conservative indiscretions is far from complete. We have watched for six long years as the Government of Harper has systematically engaged in unethical, undemocratic behaviour and blown us way off course using rhetoric and fear tactics. They have lied, cheated and  stolen from the Canadian people. They have ruined careers and lives and eroded the rights of Canadian citizens. And we have given this all, passing notice and shaken our heads at the deteriorating state of our democracy and done nothing but given them cart-blanch to rule as they see fit.  We have accepted it as the "new normal" and moved on with our lives- until now that the Robo-call scandal has come to light. We are finally waking up. We are finally beginning to take action. We are finally realizing that our very democracy is in grave peril. And we have no one but ourselves to blame as we watched passively, this dreadful progression and rise to absolute power of an idealistic, power-hungry mad-man. We should have seen this coming. Any political party that is born of treachery and deceit is destined to govern in the same manner.