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Stephen Harper cloaks the real agenda on fixed election dates inclusive of "Senate reform"

by François Pelletier

  Stephen Harper

According to published accounts in Canada's mass-media, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seeks fixed election dates which include "Senate reform" for "democratic accountability". The neo-conservatives who own Canada's daily newspapers and other media outlets, would like Canadians to believe that this declared objective is the "sum total" of this prevailing "Conservative" minority government's interests. However the supposed pursuit of "democracy", is nothing but an apparent convenient cover story. Indeed, the promotion of democracy, is the last thing that the well-financed backers who pour money into the Conservative Party treasury actually seek.

Do you think that Mr. Harper's Conservative Party that did not even want parliamentary debate on Canada's involvement in the War in Afghanistan, and that also, for example, thwarted ethics reviews, is really interested in "democracy", as such? Do you think that corporate backers of the "Conservatives" who deplore worker rights in their own companies, and who also pursue commercial profit irrespective of human rights considerations, actually seek to strengthen Canada as a thriving democracy? Not at all. Democracy is viewed among diverse business interests to be bad for profit. Elite owners of Big Business view democracy as empowering people to demand regulations against the socially irresponsible commercial gain activities of elites, who pursue an essentially anti-democratic agenda.

Well then, you might be wondering, what is the apparent REAL agenda behind Mr. Harper's sought "reforms"?

Backgrounder: The legacy of Mr. Mulroney's "Free Trade" Agreement

In order to further appreciate the apparent REAL agenda, one needs to appreciate the former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, as a principal advisor to current Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Thanks to former Mr. Mulroney's "Free Trade" Agreement, much of the economic independence that former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau has secured for Canada by 1980, has been destroyed. Indeed. "Free Trade" was pursued the mid and late 1980's by a consortium of U.S. and Canadian neo-conservative and Big Business interests, as a mechanism to enable an American take-over of Canada. Mr. Mulroney continues to help coordinate the sought take-over by the consortium of these elite interests.

Mr. Harper seeks to resolve a "dilemma" in the pursuit of the U.S. take-over of Canada, and not 'democracy'

Pierre Elliot Trudeau

Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Mr. Harper sought fixed election dates, including so-called "Senate reform" is part of a strategy to resolve an apparent dilemma. The dilemma is, having already "achieved" the reversal of former Prime Minister Trudeau's Canadianization of the national economy, how to enable the political take-over of Canada when the Canadian and U.S. political systems are so different. In order to try to "resolve" this apparent dilemma Mr. Harper's reforms appear to be directed to seek the political conformity of Canada, with U.S. political norms which are far from being substantively democratic.

Mr. Harper's Bill C-16, has been created by the same minds who gave us the dubious "Free Trade" agreement. Bill C-16, appears to be a strategy to enable the sought political assimilation of Canada into the United States, in order to match an economic take-over by the United States which has been enabled by so-called "Free Trade".

Mr. Harper's Conservatives, appear to be pursuing Bill C-16, not because they are passionate defenders of democracy. Rather, Mr. Harper's Conservatives appear to be seeking to obliterate the political distinctions between Canadian and U.S. political systems, on a step-by-step process. The American-style review of Supreme Court judges, was a part of this overall process that Mr. Harper pursues. The other further step Mr. Harper took was to convert Canada's leadership as a well-respected independent humanitarian peacekeeping nation into a military which has become an apparent "branch plant" of questionable U.S. militaristic agendas.

Furthering step-by-step U.S. political assimilation as the substantive agenda of Bill C- 16 may still sound to some Canadians to be a far-fetched story until one also examines the current so-called "Atlantica" project article which is featured in The Canadian. This is an actual plan that has been reported to be backed by various neo-conservative corporate interests who seek the U.S. to take-over of Canada, in parts, starting with Atlantic Canada. The same interests behind the plan, own various media organizations, and have thwarted critical coverage on the so-called "Atlantica" project. But the 'Stop Atlantica' group along with related activist organizations have led the way to help promote vital public awareness on matters pertinent.

Genuine electoral reform which is NOT aimed at the apparent cynical assimilation of Canadian political institutions into a U.S. republican system, would have sought, for example, proportional representation. Diverse progressive and substantively democratic political systems, use proportional representation, which better expresses party political representative views in society. Genuine electoral reform of the Senate of Canada, for example, would have sought to examine the forward-thinking relatively recent reforms of the British House of Lords that had originally inspired our Senate's creation. However, that type of parliamentary adoption would have made the Canadian political system more unlike the American one, and that is NOT what Mr. Harper seeks, in his apparent quest for assimilation by the U.S.

The Senate of Canada, like the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, was meant to be a collection of learned 'wise people' above the fray of electoral politics. The Upper Chamber was created to be a political milieu of sober reflection, that could conserve the national consciousness of the society. The architects of Confederation viewed that the Senate would be sheltered from the kind of political caprice and influence by materialistic Big Business interests, which has corrupted the "elected" U.S. Senate. The "elected" U.S. Senate indeed, represents, the American people superficially, in name only, and is no model for "democratic reform".

Mr. Harper and his so-called "Conservative" colleagues pursue continentalistic agenda against Canada. Within the context of that agenda, Mr. Harper is simply trying to sloganize and manipulate the lack of popular appreciation for the distinctive role of the Senate of Canada in the Canadian Constitution.

So, before one assumes that the Harper minority government's goal is to "strengthen Canada" as a democratic society, one may wish to examine the Conservative Party interests that actively seek to dismantle Canada, as a sovereign nation. Apparently the politicians in Canada who seek to dismantle Canada, if successful, hope that they will get the patronage positions which they seek in the various corporations they currently serve.

Mr. Harper's Tory impostors: Actual Tories would not support sabotage of the cultural integrity of our political institutions

The "Tory" label had been used by neo-conservatives who own Canada's mass-media, to legitimate the substantive ultra-right fringe tendencies of Conservative Party elites. The Conservative Party of Canada along with media outlets refers to its organization as "Tories". However, the apparent pro-U.S. assimilation strategies of the "Conservatives" shows that Mr. Harper does not represent a "Tory" political party. The Conservative Party is essentially ideologically transplanted American style "Conservatives" who use Tory as a marketable "branding" for public relations purposes. Coming right out calling themselves "Republicans" would not be as "marketable" in Canada. Mr. Harper with the cooperation of Big Business interests, sought to take-over and destroy the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, so that he could mischievously adopt the label "Tory" for his anti-Tory initiatives.

While Canadian Tories sought to defend the cultural integrity of Canadian political institutions and economic control, Mr. Harper's Tory impostors seek to destroy the Canadian identity

  Sir John A. Macdonald
 

Sir John A. Macdonald.

Former Prime Ministers Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker symbolized in part, the spirit of the Canadian Tory tradition. The comparatively noble Canadian Tory tradition, as its "prime directive", sought to 'conserve' and to defend the cultural integrity of Canadian political institutions, with particular reference to the Canadian Parliament. The maintenance of these institutions help safeguard the collective memory of Canada as a society, as being distinct from the United States. The Loyalists who fled the culture of violence and political hypocrisies of the American Revolution, sought to help galvanize Canada, as a comparatively progressive society with distinct institutions relative to the United States.

Mr. Harper's Conservative Party's efforts are apparently aimed not toward democracy, which is a foreign word to the anti-democratic cliquish politics that has characterized the inception of that political party. Instead, Mr. Harper's efforts appears to be aimed at trying to now destroy the Canadian collective memory of itself as manifested in the cultural norms of Canada relative to the U.S. It is apparent that Mr. Harper seeks Bill C-16, in order to further initiate a political take-over effort that can match an on-going economic take-over. In essence, Mr. Harper and his ultra-right colleagues hope to break down the political will for Canadians to want to maintain their independence from the U.S. imperial domain, which is the objective that is being sought by neo-conservatives south of the Border. Mr. Harper and his colleagues who campaigned on a hypocritical Orwellian-like "news-speak" mantra of "Standing up for Canada" hopes that by obliterating political distinctions between Canada and the U.S., (along with economic control that Canadians have of their own society) that destroys the collective memory that Canadians have of themselves. After that, a critical mass of Canadians will then say, well, why don't we just join the U.S.... there is no reason to be a country anymore.

Opposition to, and defeat of Bill C-16 is vital to help safeguard a vital Canadian national identity from such apparent "Quisling"-like efforts and disingenuous schemes to further undermine Canadian sovereignty.


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