The constitutional crisis in Canada – the sitting minority Conservative government is close to being ousted by the opposition in a non-confidence vote that would see a provisional coalition government of three parties govern the nation – has brought out the worst in a lot of the people, but none more than the man who started this whole mess to begin with.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, realizing that the chaos he initiated when he tried to crush his opponents by stripping their public funding, is spewing things that are a toxic mixture of lies and breathtaking hypocrisy.
As he clings for his dear life, Harper is showing Canadians and people around the world just how full of shit he really is.
For starters, Harper’s been taunting the opposition for well over a year, daring them to bring a motion of non-confidence. Now that they are threatening to do exactly what he dared them to do, he is desperately trying to pull a parliamentary maneuver out of his ass that will block the opposition from being able to raise the non-confidence motion.
That’s pure cowardice, plain and simple.
Then there is his astounding hypocrisy. Harper has called the coalition “immoral,” “undemocratic” and “unpatriotic” despite the fact he tried doing the exact same thing a few years ago when he attempted to bring down the Martin government.
In true right wing fashion Harper is saying a non-confidence is immoral and unpatriotic when others do it but that it’s perfectly fine when he does it. What a crock of shit.
And then there is Harper’s demonizing of one of the parties involved in the coalition. It’s called the Bloc Quebecois and it’s a party devoted to breaking away from Canada and forming a separate nation of Quebec.
In his futile efforts to try and scare the Canadian public that a coalition government would spell the end of Canada because the coalition is being held together by a party bent on leaving Canada, Harper is either too stupid to remember or too arrogant to care that when he tried to bring down the Martin government, he too wanted to form a coalition with the Bloc.
Perfectly fine for him to work with the Bloc when it suited his needs, but it’s the end of civilization when others want to do it. What a load of crap.
But Harper’s astonishing hypocrisy doesn’t stop there. When Paul Martin tried blocking Harper’s non-confidence motion in 2005, Harper condemned Martin’s actions as “a violation of the fundamental constitutional principles of our democracy.”
So let’s see if I’ve got this straight. When Harper pulls parliamentary tricks to keep the coalition from bringing down the government in a non-confidence vote, he’s doing something noble and just for Canada.
But when others tried to use some of the same tactics that he now intends to use to save his government, it’s an abomination of democracy.
There is no other way to put it: Stephen Harper is completely full of shit.
(cross-posted at abcparty.org "anyone but conservatives")