In the past few days alone they’ve clubbed a Cree community in crisis, dissed the Federal Court of Canada and shrugged off a dirty tricks campaign. This arrogance may come back to bite them.
Consider the Attawapiskat fiasco.
When Chief Theresa Spence declared an emergency in the remote James Bay community because families with young children were facing the winter ice-up in rotting sheds and flimsy tents, many Canadians reacted with shock, shame and compassion. Not the Harper government. It held the band council responsible. Harper told Parliament that Ottawa had pumped millions into the town, and promptly put its finances in the hands of a federal manager. He’ll be paid $1,300 a day … with band money.
“Their solution is to blame the victim,” Spence and the band council said. They accused Ottawa of colonialism, bullying and sheer ignorance. One resident called Harper “a schoolyard bully.”
Far from chilling in their comfortable majority role, the Conservatives seem to be driven by some Cartman-like inner demon to show the nation who’s boss. At the same time their sense of entitlement is breathtaking, and their response to criticism is a surly shrug.
Consider Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz’s reaction when Justice Douglas Campbell of the Federal Court ruled that he had broken the law by kneecapping the Canadian Wheat Board without first getting the consent of grain producers. “Nothing has changed” despite the ruling, Ritz declared. Whatever the court may say the Tories intend to push their changes through by year’s end. So much for Harper’s law-and-order agenda.
Then there’s the case of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler. The Conservatives have been phoning people in his Montreal riding, trying to identify Tory-friendly voters by leaving the bogus impression that he’s quitting politics and they should be looking for a new MP. Fact is, Cotler isn’t going anywhere. Pollster Bruce Anderson calls the campaign “a sad, cynical moment in Canadian politics.”
So what was Government House Leader Peter Van Loan’s response when his party was caught out? Shame? Contrition? No way. In his mind the Tories have a sweeping Charter right to resort to dirty tricks. “To say that one cannot speculate on his future, that that form of freedom of speech should forever be suppressed, is to me an overreach that is far too great,” he harrumphed. He might as well have howled Respect mah authoritah!
It doesn’t end there. Parliament has been redolent this week with reminders of other Tory abuses. Harper was under fire for his needlessly secret Canada/U.S. border talks. Treasury Board President Tony Clement was ridiculed for giving the nation’s taxpayers a one-finger salute with his $50 million gazebo and toilet splurge. And Defence Minister Peter MacKay took caught flak for expecting military search-and-rescuers to run a taxi service for him.
In opposition the Conservatives routinely raged at Liberal arrogance, unaccountability, pork-barrelling and abuse of office. But their own South Park style suggests they were also taking notes.
Origin
Source: Star
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