andyt andyt:
Amazing how it's personal for many people. You, Thanos. I can't really point to anything (except c51) that the Cons have done that's hurt me personally. Hell, I enjoy the GST cut as much as the next person. But I don't think they're good for the country, sending us down the wrong road, both socially and economically. And the civil liberties thing is just unforgivable.
It's probably personal for a lot of Canadians, including me, simply because they're disgusted with the mess Stephen Harper has made in so many areas, including ones that conservatives otherwise believe in, and are all too likely to hurt Canada in the long run.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that Harper's actually done some very good work on a lot of bread-and-butter stuff. The TFSAs, identity theft, arming our border guards, Arctic sovereignty, the tax credits for child care and disabled family members, fixing the holes in the Liberals' gay marriage law, repealing the ridiculous "faint hope" clause in the Criminal Code, all that is really good stuff I would be thrilled to stay in place even if Harper gets tossed out this fall.
However, this good work is overshadowed by the sheer number of issues that Harper has bungled...
He has run up over $150 billion in new debt without any apparent idea of how he's going to pay it off; He only managed to balance the budget by sucking on the EI teat as much as any Liberal government ever did; He lied about not balancing the budget on the backs of Canadians; Most of his major tax changes only result in Canadians getting their money back if they meet certain criteria set out by the government, which undermines the rhetoric of Canadians being able to spend their money better than the government; He has committed Canada to a conflict in the Middle East without any clue on how to pay for it without getting us back into deficit; The Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines are on life support in large part due to his facepalmingly stupid handling of the political sales jobs; His squirrelly back-and-forth stance on climate change has not only let the environmental movement depict Canada as the equivalent of a Captain Planet villain, but been incredibly inconsistent to the energy industry;
He has committed Canada to a census that is far more expensive and less expensive than the cheaper and better old one; He has turned military procurement into a fiasco; He treats many of our veterans like yesterday's garbage; His incompetent handling of Aboriginal relations has made it easier for more radical voices like Terry Nelson and Shawn Brant to gain credibility; He is threatening civil liberties with legislation that even has many conservatives alarmed; He has made a mockery of the Parliamentary process by ramming changes through in huge omnibus bills that do not let MPs review and debate them properly; He has muzzled federal scientists and prevented them from sharing their work; He has made a mess of the Senate with half-baked "reform" ideas that went nowhere and appointing the same kinds of hacks Conservatives used to give Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien for appointing.
The TL;DR summary of all the above is this: I am deeply disgusted by all of the myriad things Harper has screwed up. Harper is certainly not solely responsible for the way things have turned out, but even with the good work he's done over the years-
and it is good work-he has further entrenched many problems and made them worse. That's why it's personal for me-my generation is going to inherit this situation, and I'm not all that optimistic about the future.
I do not want this to be seen as an an anti-conservative rant. I have nothing but the highest respect and esteem for the likes of Preston Manning, Brent Rathgeber, Rex Murphy, Patrick Ross, Tasha Kheriddin, and James Rajotte. All of these people, and many more like them, are a credit to the Canadian conservative movement. If they were leading the Conservative party, it would be my pleasure to support them.
But not Stephen Harper.
Never Stephen Harper.
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