I want to take you on a journey, from past quotes to current actions of our one Stephen Harper. There are indeed discrepancies, but I want to trace the more radical Harper to the Harper we have now.
Refugee Reform
Well, I’ve always believed that we have to be a lot tougher with undocumented refugee claimants. Whether the best thing is to send them right out of the country or simply detain them until we get full information, we can look at either but, no this is a problem that does need to be fixed. Particularly post 9/11, we can’t these kinds of security risks.— June 3, 2004.
Let us reflect on an action taken in 2010…
…the Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, which would impose mandatory indefinite detention without judicial review for the first twelve months for arriving non-citizens designated part of an “irregular arrival.”
This bill was re-introduced in 2012, but later modified a bit to ensure the detention wouldn’t be indefinite. The original motivation can be seen, from his past views and ideals. He wants refugees to be detained, and if they’re a “risk” deported.
Pension Reform
Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan… Collect our own revenue from personal income tax… Resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts… [E]ach province should raise its own revenue for health… It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta…
— January 24th 2001.
Well, he hasn’t radically shifted our pension plan yet, but is planning to raise OAS (social security for seniors) requirement from 65 to 67. Considering nearly 25% of our senior population is poverty, I don’t quite consider this a good idea.
Low and middle income Canadians are the ones who fund the Canada Pension Plan now. They seem to have the money to do it. If they have the money to provide government with pensions, why don’t they have the money to invest it themselves? I think there’s a fundamental contradiction here.
–February 1997
Next, increasing taxes on every single working Canadian in order to pay more into their Canadian Pension Plan.
Electoral Fraud/Elections Canada
The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control.” Please excuse my language, but when I learned Elections Canada’s bureaucrats have pressed charges against a Canadian citizen, I just blew my cool. That is the exact language I used … This is not the first attack on freedom by Elections Canada. Its heavy-handed chief, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, has been an advocate of the most minute of controls and regulations – and stiff punishments – on every aspect of “free” elections.
—August 2001
This is so obvious. This is why the Harper Conservatives are cutting funding to Elections Canada, so they can’t do their job. This is why they were convicted of electoral fraud with the In and Out scandal back in 2006. This is why they refuse to establish a commission to investigate the robocall accusations (and confirmations). This is why they refuse to accept the latest electoral fraud they’re involved in, too.
They dislike accountability. Genuine accountability. Because that would implicate them in the numerous transgressions they’ve been involved in.
Canadian Wheat Board
On the prairies, we [NCC] demand marketing freedom for farmers. The Soviet-styled Canadian Wheat Board monopoly has suppressed free enterprise and value-added production for too long … Let’s unshackle western farmers from the CWB. That’s the only real “Farm Crisis” solution.
–February 2000
This one is also obvious. They would go so far as to break the law, and ignore a democratic plebiscite as the law mandates just to abolish the Wheat Board. Much like Soviet-style government, polls aren’t important.
Koyoto Accord/Environment
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
–2002
That is why he withdrew from it a year before it concluded. So we wouldn’t have to pay for failing to uphold its obligations.
His antipathy towards environmental regulation can been seen in the repealing of much regulation in the latest 2012 budget.
