NOW Toronto: Take Canada back!

[marmar]

Take Canada back
Support the new coalition

Michael Hollett


Barack Obama told Americans that they were better than the last eight years of Bush rule, and they responded historically. A majority of Canadians think we can do better than the governments Stephen Harper has been offering this country since his first minority victory in 2004 and we too have a chance to make history.

The Liberal-New Democratic Coalition, with the support of the Bloc Quebecois – and Mr. Harper, Quebecers are Canadians too – represent the overwhelmingly progressive aspirations of a majority of Canadians. Harper has tried soft peddling his party’s Reform-based radicalism for years but, the Conservative’s radical agenda reveals itself no matter how hard he tries to cover it up. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s gaff-loaded economic message last week betrayed again their destructive, ideologue tendencies.

Harper’s helpers feature the same hacks who almost destroyed Ontario during Mike Harris’ repugnant 1990s rule. They left this province a poorer and crueler place from which it has yet to recover and now they are fumbling at the controls as this country slides into the grasp of a global economic meltdown.

With arrogance based on believing Canada had lost its short term appetite for elections, Harper gave us a look at his unfiltered rule. We saw the promise of service slashing, sell offs, punitive policies for the poor and fantasy-land financial strategies based on the bizarre belief that the recession will be over by April 2009.

Harper’s right, Canadians don’t want another election, and we don’t need one. Canada just voted and the majority of Canadians voted for a better world than the one Harper is offering. If the kind of imagination mustered to create this remarkable coalition can now be used by this progressive pack to govern, it truly is possible to imagine “politics done differently”.

It’s democracy done differently, an exercise in non-partisan nation building that could surprise us all by actually giving us the government that we have always wanted.

Be heard if you want this to happen. Download, print and display the We Support the Coalition (PDF) poster, also available in a paper version in this week’s NOW.

A stronger, greener Canada is within our reach, let's make sure it happens.


http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=166237

[JFKfanforever]

1. May the NDP-Liberal-Bloc Coalition prevail!

Harper's Tory minority represents 37% of the electorate's recent vote. On the other hand, the Coalition enjoys the support of at least 54% of the voting electorate, maybe even higher if the 3 Independents in the House join them. Bravo! Their agenda and Barack Obama's are complimentary. Dion, who may well be Canada's next Prime Minister, wants to stimulate the economic by investing in green infrastructure and shielding the poor and the unemployed from the effects of the current economic downturn.