Stephen Harper is the current Prime Minister of Canada. He is not God. He is not the King. He is the first minister of the government of the day and the leader of the party in power. Notwithstanding his “progresses” across Canada and around the world with an entourage that gives the appearance that there’s an imminent threat to his safety, along with an inflated sense of his own importance, Mr. Harper is in truth the point person among a group of men and women who occupy Ottawa’s seats of power and influence.

Maybe it’s our fault when we focus so much on the leaders of political parties and infuse them with egotism beyond what is the reality of the position. Stephen Harper doesn’t seem to mind the attention but the high profile he encourages puts him under a microscope…. just as do Trudeau, Mulcair and May.

In the case of our present prime minister, we could scan our files to come up with a litany of reasons why he shouldn’t be our next prime minister. But, it isn’t necessary for us to go any further than to point out that he supports the torture of teenagers as an acceptable practice in one instance, and feels there is no reason to be overly concerned about global warming in another.

This alone warrants his expulsion from Ottawa, taking his closest allies with him, and we’re proposing too a mandate to have these men and women removed from Canada. Perhaps Texas is a suitable destination….or wherever it is that Dick Chaney is hiding.

Pity the Harper supporter…..not knowing enough to be embarrassed.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
Edward R. Murrow
(Note:  Murrow died fifty years ago in 1965, but this quote is as timely and relevant today as it was in the middle of the last century.)

Well, okay, Ms. May delivered a different kind of address at Ottawa’s annual press gallery dinner on the weekend, but her apologies have been more effusive than necessary.
The media has focused on small parts of her unconventional attempt at humour, but included also her comment on Omar Khadr’s release from prison.
For us, there’s no such thing as going too far when it comes to talking about the government’s treatment of Khadr.
We sent Ms. May a short letter of support:-

May 12, 2015

Elizabeth May, MP,
518 Confederation Building,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Re: Omar Khadr

Dear MP May:

Congratulations!

Stephen Harper is a Machiavellian Neanderthal’s anus, bartering his humanity for the few votes his Omar rants may be worth among this country’s fascist zealots. He deserves to be tossed from office, and exiled from this country. And, if his sycophantic cabinet colleagues are going to stick their heads up his butt, they can join him in Texas.

You need to go without sleep more often.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen
cc The Honourable Lisa Raitt

We have two thick files on Omar Khadr, covering just the last five and a half years. The issue as we see it has nothing to do with liking or not liking who Omar Khadr was or is, or what he did or didn’t do.

It has to do with a Canadian citizen, a minor, railroaded through an American kangaroo court in support of the discredited agenda of a foreign power with the aid of his own country. It has to do with knowing that no civilian court in the United States or Canada would have permitted any charges against Omar Khadr to stand. It has to do with a Canadian government and a Canadian prime minister complicit in the torture, abuse and mistreatment of a child soldier for political purposes. It has to do with the shame that the likes of Stephen Harper, Vic Toews, Steven Blaney, Peter MacKay, et al, have brought upon us and our country. It has to do with how they’ve demeaned the value of citizenship in it.

It’s very possible Canada will one day have to write a large cheque to satisfy a judgment in Omar’s favour. Should that happen, we’d like to see Stephen Harper brought back from exile in Texas, made to get down on all fours, that cheque clenched in his teeth, have to crawl up to Khadr, present the money to him, and kiss him on the butt.

Those two files contain a number of letters to our politicians. The latest, published below, is in response to the Globe and Mail’s May 9th “PM has no apologies for Omar Khadr.”

May 12, 2015

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Office of the Prime Minister,
80 Wellington Street,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Re: Omar Khadr

Prime Minister:

Omar Khadr should never have been charged with any crime. You know that.

Omar Khadr’s U.S. appeal of his military tribunal conviction will succeed. You know that, too.

You are complicit in the torture, abuse and mistreatment of a child soldier. What do you think that makes you?

You got nothin’ but medieval Machiavellian motives for ragging on Khadr, selling your soul for a few bigoted votes.

How could you do that to yourself? How could you do that to your country?

Charles H. Klassen

In spite of protests to the contrary, our federal government has been using the Canada Revenue Agency to disrupt the activities of charities it considers “radical”, or in other words, organizations that do not agree with Stephen Harper’s world vision. Environmentalists, free-speech groups, and progressives are under scrutiny.

Elizabeth Renzetti’s op-ed in the April 20th Globe and Mail, “Silence of the charities”, is worth reading, with its insight into the work charities have done in the past to bring about positive changes in government policy and public thinking. One of her sources for this column pointed out that, “In the past, governments worked with charities to improve societies. It’s a problem when that stops happening.”

A few days before, on April 16, the Toronto Star ran Michelle Shephard’s “Ottawa seeking new prison watchdog”. Howard Sapers is the current Correctional Investigator for Canada. He’s been an ongoing critic of the government’s prison policies, including its treatment of aboriginals and the mentally ill.

Mr. Sapers has been fearless in pursuit of positive outcomes for offenders returning to the community, but in doing so keeps running afoul of the government’s medievalist mindset.

In this kind of company, I beg Mr. Harper to add
turnoverarocktoday to his “enemies” list.

100 MILLION CHINESE CAN’T BE WRONG!
About two weeks before the last federal election, a friend called, passionately angry. “I want to know who these people are who are voting for Stephen Harper? Who are they?”

I told him 100 million Chinese can’t be wrong.

There are millions of people in China, and probably many hundreds of millions, educated adult men and women, who believe they live in a democracy and their government is doing just fine.

Now, if there are 100 million Chinese who believe that, then finding a very few million Canadians who would vote for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives is not a stretch.

Remember Brigette DePape? She was the University of Ottawa graduate and Senate page who walked into the chamber during Governor-General David Johnston’s reading of the speech from the throne on Friday, June 3, 2011, in uniform, and holding a handmade red stop sign with the message “Stop Harper!”. She stood in the middle of the Senate chamber holding the sign in front of her for a few seconds before the sergeant-at-arms escorted her out of the room.

A few days later on June 9, the Toronto Star published an op-ed piece she wrote explaining her action. “As a page, I witnessed one irresponsible bill after another pass through the Senate.” And, this was in 2011! She started a fund to support peaceful direct action and civil disobedience against the Harper agenda. Brigette’s site, http://www.stopharperfund.ca will still take a reader to a plethora of anti-Harper results.

Turnoverarocktoday wrote to her family in Winnipeg a few days later on June 10 to congratulate her parents for their daughter’s idealism and courage.

So, what has changed?

Stephen Harper and his party’s blatant disregard for the best interests of every citizen in favour of policies marked by partisan politics, founded on medieval sensibilities appealing to sophists, a servile minority, and the mean-spirited is supported by a marginally and unfortunately justifiable belief that enough voters can be persuaded that  the emperor really is resplendent in new robes to tip the electoral scale in a preference for the status quo.

For all of us whose heads are not stuck in the sand, or lodged in a dark crevice at the rear of our body, it’s important to appreciate that a public servant is not above severe criticism, no matter how lofty the position. Canada may be ripe for both an Arab Spring and an Edward Snowden, but we have neither the equatorial climate conducive to the former, nor the world standing to attract the latter.

Let us therefore throw those little jabs which become increasingly uncomfortable with repetition, bruise before long, and wound in the end. Begin today!

If you don’t know what’s going on, you have a perfect excuse to do nothing.
The Toronto Star, Letter to the Editor, September, 2013

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.   Thoreau

“Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.”
Stephen Harper,
Montreal Gazette, 2005

Stephen Harper became Prime Minister in 2006, and since then he and his caucus have worked with diligence to drain that lifeblood. A most effective tool has been funding cuts to slow the flow of information, followed closely by looking the other way when government ministries, agencies, and anyone subject to information legislation simply refuse to comply with the law.

In a parliamentary system like ours, the Prime Minister is but one office, and culpability is shared among the many who form the government. Almost every day, our newspapers give us cause for alarm, and one can wonder just how long before the media itself becomes a target. Farfetched perhaps, but history tells us that far worse happens when people ignore what is in front of them.

What do we do about this? Unfortunately, too many Canadians align with a comment in a letter to the Toronto Star editor in September of 2013 which read, “If you don’t know what’s going on, you have a perfect excuse to do nothing.”

We hear too the talk of choice. If not what we have now, then what? Consider the “Ford Solution.” In the fall of 2014, David Soknacki was announcing his withdrawal from Toronto’s race for mayor. He wouldn’t endorse another candidate, but as he turned away from the microphones, very clearly all could hear him say, “My cat would make a better mayor than Rob Ford.” Does it really matter who the next Prime Minister is, as long as it’s not Stephen Harper?