This is to update my earlier letter regarding Stephen Harper’s refusal to participate in a debate on women’s issues. There was a forum held on this issue and the members of the other parties contributed via pre taped statements. But not Stephen Harper. If you plan to vote conservative in this election, quite simply, your head is deep in the sand. This is a Prime Minister who, time and again, has demonstrated that he is in no way beholden to our country’s legacy or citizenry, but rather is consumed with power and self-interest. And pursuing this power and self interest through criminal means, be it a robocall, misuse of election or government funds, breaking parliamentary rules, or one of many PMO cover-ups, which are snidely and condescendingly explained away as if it is none of our business as the people he has been elected to serve. Or most despicably, tossing an intoxicated young woman out of the PM’s residence in the winter, least an underage house party reflect poorly.
Furthermore, by muzzling federal scientists, scrapping the census, auditing charities, and by passing a bill that suppresses and criminalizes differing opinions, he has imposed his own ideology unilaterally. He says he speaks for Canadians. Well if Canadians have suddenly become xenophobic, self-interested paranoids who are determined to pillage our wilderness, then the situation is grave indeed. The Canada I was brought up to think I was part of, an inclusive, peaceful nation that values its natural beauty coast to coast to coast, where intelligent and civil debate is encouraged and valued and where we are all quick to lend a hand, has been turned into an empty promise. This is because the Conservatives under Stephen Harper have pushed an ugly, divisive agenda on the country. People who stand to protect our gorgeous landscapes and iconic species are branded foreign radicals. Those who want to welcome victims of violence to our country are terrorist sympathizers. And Native Canadians are coldly and calculatingly being denied basic human rights. There is nothing in the Conservative platform that negates those atrocities. We are being promised more of the same. The attitude and mandate frankly are insulting to our collective intelligence, we deserve, and we should demand better. And don’t be fooled…a vote for a local Conservative candidate is merely a vote for a warm body, one who is expected to toe the party line and woe be to those who stray from the talking points.
Andrea Tangney