Canada, Politics and Theft in Plain Sight
Jun. 5th, 2013 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineSo I'm reading this thing on globalnews.ca, the results of an interview with Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's Green Party and currently its sole elected member of Parliament.
The thing's been pointed out to me on Facebook, by a science-fiction author out of Edmonton name of Minister Faust. We disagree on a few things here and there, but he's a solid guy.
Anyway. There's a couple of standout parts to this piece by Laura Stone, which I hope Global's lawyers will forgive me the quotation of.
First off:
“You can no longer count on government information, from the civil-servant side, being evidence-based,” she says. “For some reason Stephen Harper has decided to make everything a fight to the death.”
I ask her if this is coming straight from the prime minister himself.
“It’s Stephen Harper personally,” she says.
“He’s not Canadian.”
It’s an interesting thing for May to say – she was, after all, born in the United States. But she doesn’t mean by birth.
“His political identity was forged with young Republican camps south of the border in the U.S. where Tom Flanagan used to take them,” she says, referring to Harper’s former adviser.
In Westminster Parliamentary tradition, says May, people with power learned to control themselves.
“And I think Stephen Harper looked at a system like that and thought, what a bunch of chumps. Wouldn’t take long to run the whole thing out of PMO, and nobody will know because it’s a theft in plain sight,” she says.
What he didn't count on, and I'm not quite sure Ms. May's convinced of yet, is that a theft in plain sight means everyone sees. Everyone knows. Considering how the vote went back in 2011, a majority of those who voted saw how Harper had been doing things while running a minority government and decided they wanted no more of it.
The trouble was - and possibly remains - that we couldn't all agree on what we actually wanted instead in sufficient numbers. This is one of the perils of first-past-the-post election rules, which is what previous generations of Canadians (and Britons) of Influence saw fit to leave to us. And so all it took was that 24 % of those eligible to vote in Canada voting for the New Conservatives, and the 40 % of the voting-eligible who stayed away...or were deceived into going to the wrong places depending on how much influence you think the fraudulent "robocall" tactics have actually had.
We've noticed, we're complaining. We're not all "screaming" because we're not sure of exactly where and when to apply the tactic to best effect. We're divided on that point, as we've been on who and what we want in place of Harper's New Conservatives.
But this much is certain:
Everyone sees.
Everyone knows.
Update June 7, 2013: Elizabeth May does her own follow-up on that interview, with ten reasons for her Concern re: Mr. Harper's conduct as PM.
The thing's been pointed out to me on Facebook, by a science-fiction author out of Edmonton name of Minister Faust. We disagree on a few things here and there, but he's a solid guy.
Anyway. There's a couple of standout parts to this piece by Laura Stone, which I hope Global's lawyers will forgive me the quotation of.
First off:
“You can no longer count on government information, from the civil-servant side, being evidence-based,” she says. “For some reason Stephen Harper has decided to make everything a fight to the death.”
I ask her if this is coming straight from the prime minister himself.
“It’s Stephen Harper personally,” she says.
“He’s not Canadian.”
It’s an interesting thing for May to say – she was, after all, born in the United States. But she doesn’t mean by birth.
“His political identity was forged with young Republican camps south of the border in the U.S. where Tom Flanagan used to take them,” she says, referring to Harper’s former adviser.
In Westminster Parliamentary tradition, says May, people with power learned to control themselves.
“And I think Stephen Harper looked at a system like that and thought, what a bunch of chumps. Wouldn’t take long to run the whole thing out of PMO, and nobody will know because it’s a theft in plain sight,” she says.
What he didn't count on, and I'm not quite sure Ms. May's convinced of yet, is that a theft in plain sight means everyone sees. Everyone knows. Considering how the vote went back in 2011, a majority of those who voted saw how Harper had been doing things while running a minority government and decided they wanted no more of it.
The trouble was - and possibly remains - that we couldn't all agree on what we actually wanted instead in sufficient numbers. This is one of the perils of first-past-the-post election rules, which is what previous generations of Canadians (and Britons) of Influence saw fit to leave to us. And so all it took was that 24 % of those eligible to vote in Canada voting for the New Conservatives, and the 40 % of the voting-eligible who stayed away...or were deceived into going to the wrong places depending on how much influence you think the fraudulent "robocall" tactics have actually had.
We've noticed, we're complaining. We're not all "screaming" because we're not sure of exactly where and when to apply the tactic to best effect. We're divided on that point, as we've been on who and what we want in place of Harper's New Conservatives.
But this much is certain:
Everyone sees.
Everyone knows.
Update June 7, 2013: Elizabeth May does her own follow-up on that interview, with ten reasons for her Concern re: Mr. Harper's conduct as PM.
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-06 09:46 pm (UTC)Dude, as Canadian voters, we're screwed... :-(
no subject
Date: 2013-06-06 09:50 pm (UTC)I intend to do as best I can along similar lines hereabouts.