There are many things that the conservative Harper government is
currently doing that get on my nerves. The introduction of the word
Royal ahead of the term Canadian Forces, now known as the Royal Canadian
Forces, was a bit of a stretch, but hey, we can let this one slide as
just a waste of money. The replacing of Quebec artist Alfred Pellan’s
modern artwork with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd in the lobby
of the Department of Foreign Affairs was a slap in the face of course,
more so for Quebeccers than English speaking Canadians. The attempt
introduce a private member’s bill to make impeding someone to fly the
Canadian Flag illegal, a non-problem in Canadian society but nonetheless
a problem in the conservative mind, was a waste of our time and
resources as a country. And finally a plump 28 million in spending for
Canada’s bicentennial and remembrance of the war of 1812, is in my
opinion kind of OK. After all the war of 1812 is part of our heritage,
regardless whose side we were fighting on.
All of
these patriotic initiatives seem to just take into account our British
heritage, leaving out our French and multicultural history. But to tell
you the truth, I think Harper is just doing what he’s doing for two most
important reasons:
First, I think he’s tired of speaking
French in the House of Commons, constantly switching back and forth
between English and our other official language, in my opinion, leaves
Harper kind of wanting to cut what he thinks is the dead weight of
those pansies in Quebec. Oh long have Albertans loathed the attention
the Liberals gave Quebec, and after feeling left out for so long, now
they are finally taking their revenge.
Second, Harper seems
to despise not just individual liberals themselves, but everything
liberalism stands for, including but not limited to liberal achievements
in Canada. If he could wave a magic wand and make it all go away like a
bad dream, he would do it in the blink of an eye.
Unfortunately
for him, he cannot wash away all of these things from our history books
all at once, instead, what he is hoping to achieve is
a measured increase in the conservative blood cell level in our systems.
In other words, make us more conservative in such a way that he hopes
we won’t notice until it’s too late. Unyielding patriotism, unflinching
allegiance to a near dead monarch and an old and decrepit institution,
aggressive military initiatives over peacekeeping, loathing of things
deviating from moralistic and societal norms, loathing of others because
they are different and ass kissing are conservative traits after all.
It is in my opinion that conservatism of the Tea Party
flavor, the Canadian Harper version being a bit more decaffeinated of
course, is a dying kind of conservatism simply because it’s self
destructive in nature. As time advances, old societal norms are
inevitably superseded and forgotten and any attempt at reviving them is
usually met with failure.
Thus the two reasons I
mentioned above I think are accurate descriptors of why Harper and his
conservatives are doing what they’re doing. This loathing of liberalism
is a sentiment shared by most of Harper’s conservative caucus, including
the female ministers.
Unfortunately,
we cannot change how Mr. Harper feels about Canada and what he thinks
is right for our country, but neither can he do the same thing to us. So
lets not let him solely set the tone for how Canada should be and what
it should represent on the world stage anymore.
For more on this story check out this article in the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/10/12/canada-bicentennial-tories_n_1007877.html and this older article in the Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadian-embassies-have-till-sept-15-to-hang-the-queens-portrait/article2156792/
