The Tyranny of a Dedicated Minority
by C. L. Cook
 After
dramatically breaking his own law of fixed election dates, and as the
count continues, it seems Stephen Harper will remain Canada's minority
prime minister. Harper's Conservatives garnered a few more seats, but
the next parliament will look largely like the one dissolved six weeks
ago.
Harper let slip last week his opinion that a returned
minority would be a victory for the Tories, so a slightly enlarged
minority must seem a landslide.
And, perhaps he's right.
For the last
two years, Harper has ably levered the message an election-weary
Canadian polity would punish the party they believed forced them to
polls for a fourth time in less than eight years to push through the
radical Conservative agenda. With a greater share of the House, though
still a minority, Harper can be confident there's no imminent threat of
opposition to his "mandate" that might force another election.
So, what does it mean for Canada?
Last June, the Harper government quietly slipped through an ambitious twenty year plan to devote to Canada's military $450 billion additional dollars. It's a plan that would tie Canadian society more inextricably to America's perpetual war economy. A continuance of the Harper agenda means too a Canadian judiciary coming more to resemble the throw-away-the-key, three strikes and your into the prison-industrial complex model of the American Justice.
And, it means the final abandonment of the other accoutrements attendant the idea of Canada as a liberal democracy: Bye, bye child care; so long health care; adios labour, environment, and social justice standards.
If we're to experience more of the same of what we've seen so far of Stephen Harper's "New Government," then we can expect an ever more desperate campaign to maintain a dying economic, political, and social paradigm, delaying Canada's necessary transition into the 21st Century.
Dinosaurs: Life's the Pits for a Fossil
As is George Bush, Harper is intimately tied to the oil industry. Calgary, right! Many of Harper's supporters may not be aware of the role oil plays in the life of this country. I'm sure most aren't aware Canada is the single biggest supplier of energy to the United States; not Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Venezuela, it is Canada that greases the skids of American industry.
Alberta is the biggest component of that supply chain, and most of Alberta's energy output is controlled by offshore interests with deep pockets. Growing international outrage aimed at the greatest single CO2 source point pollution emitter on the planet is just one of the problems Alberta's Tar Sands face. Harper's political philosophy denies questioning the Tar Sands' survival.
Under Harper, the brakes are unlikely to be applied to Harper's plan to quintuple Tar Sands production over the next five years. Even as boycott campaigns gear up against the Tar Sands and Canada, Harper will here too buck world trends, doggedly adhering to the policies of another age.
In sum: Canada Stands Pat.
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