Because yesterday's Throne Speech is being covered abundantly both in the mainstream press and in the blogosphere, I will keep this post brief to make but a few observations.
Unbelievably lacking in anything that could be called vision, the speech, it seems to me, is predicated on the totally false notion that all is well in our country, and a little bit of tinkering around the edges, via more 'get tough on crime' promises and the liberation of consumers from enslavement to bundled television packages, are all that is needed to carry the Harper cabal to election victory in 2015.
Singularly uninspiring, it has the soul of the penny-pinching accountant at its core, and an attempt at the magician's capacity for misdirection from the many challenges we face as a country.
Not a word about measures to ameliorate the environmental catastrophe towards which the world is lurching ever closer daily.
Nothing about the persistently high unemployment rate faced by Canadians.
No measure to increase retirement security for the majority who have no workplace pensions.
Nothing for what is becoming our lost generation of young people.
No word on measures to curb the government's abuse of the democratic process and the rampant corruption which the Harper regime has excelled at and reveled in.
I could go on, but I trust I have made my point.
Perhaps there is method to Harper's madness here. Does he believe that after seven years in power, he has convinced Canadians to expect little from government, and that the true arbiters of their fates are market forces beyond government control? Has he, like his evil provincial predecessor, Ontario's former premier Mike Harris, tacitly arranged things so that his government is in the business of eliminating most government?
The throne speech had been billed as a 'reset' for the regime. Seems to me it is simply more of the same blatant contempt for the country the Conservatives have shown since they were elected in 2006.
