Thursday, April 28, 2005

A letter to Stephen Harper

Today I wrote a letter to Stephen Harper who, at the earliest opportunity, is going to bring down the government. Someone must stop him. I tried to be polite and not let my distrust (and okay, dislike) of the man show through. Did I succeed? You be the judge. (I'm not hopeful that it will do any good. The last time I wrote him about something, he never even acknowledged my email.) Here's the letter:


Dear Mr. Harper,

With the testimony coming out in the Gomery inquiry, it is evident that the political system in Canada is broken.
- Taxpayer's money is not accounted for.
- MP's and cabinet ministers curry favour with their friends using government (taxpayer's) money.
- Ordinary citizens become millionaires at the public trough (i.e. taxpayer's wallet).
- Campaign workers are rewarded with plum jobs at taxpayer's expense.
- All and sundry lie, cheat and steal at taxpayer's expense and there is no mechanism of checks and balances to prevent, uncover or punish this in a timely manner.
- The system that we trust to give us good government is at the mercy of political parties.

I could go on but you know all of these things already. And I am troubled.

I hear you saying that you want to force an election, possibly as early as next week. I hear you saying that this government doesn't deserve to be in power. I hear you saying that the Liberals need to be swept away.

What troubles me is that I have not heard you say anything about how you would fix the system, what you would to to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

What is needed now, Mr. Harper, is for a man of vision - you, perhaps - to come up with ideas on what can be done to fix the system. We need someone of vision to make parliament work. You are in a position to extract much from the government, to make things work as you think they ought and to do much good for Canada. It has long been my opinion that minority government is the best government for the country.

The people elected a minority government last year and that's what we still want. We want you to make it work. We want the people we elected to talk, to discuss, to negotiate, and to come up with the best plan for this country. We do not want you spending another half a billion dollars just so you can replace Paul Martin as the head of a broken system.

You have an opportunity here to effect real change, to be a man of vision that Canada needs more than anything right now. I am sorry to say that so far, Mr. Harper, all I see is another politician - and we have far too many of those already - who is eager to spend even more of the taxpayer's money to further his own political agenda.

Signed,
A sad taxpayer.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Is it better to know?

On the weekend, I got talking to a neighbour who said that he no longer listened to the news or read the newspaper. There was just too much negativity in the world and the media dwell on it. I agree with him.

We also talked about our little neighbourhood park which is currently under threat by a mega-grocery store being built nearby. I mentioned that while I like the park, I almost never go there, even as a shortcut because the few times I have done so, there have been older kids lurking there and I feel unsafe.

Now. If I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the news, I probably would not know about the swarmings that happened in this town last year, or about the fellow who has been exposing himself to young girls this last few weeks. I would not know about the man who was attacked for no apparent reason while walking home in broad daylight and left seriously hurt. So. If I didn't know these things, I might go to the park more often, in fact, I might even go and sit in the park by myself and read or watch the birds or something. It would not occur to me that the kids lighting the fire a few yards away might not want me to see what they are doing. I'd be a Pollyanna. Would it show on my face and keep me safe?

I've stopped reading newspapers before -- I particularly remember during the Gulf War. I had had it up to here with killing and death and resolved not to watch any more. Maybe it's time to stop again. The problem is, I'm already cynical (like you wouldn't believe), so I doubt it would make me a more trusting person. Certainly, everything I hear now only serves to reinforce what I believe about human nature. That it is inherently self-serving and destructive to anything and everything around it. But more about that another day.