A Year Of "Achievements"

It is almost amusing watching some in the narrow corporate media turn themselves into intellectual pretzels to justify endorsing this government in the past election.  The transgressions are put into a neat little box, almost treated as marginal in importance, while elevating anything and everything that can be clung to, in an effort to laud all the achievements.  Truth be told, respect for our democratic institutions, transparency, ethics, this is where a government should be judged, everything else flows from these core assumptions, to gloss over is actually irresponsible and telling.  In other words, the days of objective analysis are gone, every entity has an predisposed bias and angle, Canada is lost within partisan bleed which has fundamentally poisoned any sense of "free" or objective media, it still exists, but to sporadic and parsed to be relevant.

Our Auditor General has concluded the Conservatives "misled" Parliament on the true costs of the most important military expenditure in our history.  Worse, this dishonest presentation was done with an eye towards electoral desire, the ruse was ultimately an attempt to fool voters.  Is there anything more offensive than a government intentionally misleading the citizens, in a self serving effort to maintain power?  I don't even think the above is in question, to argue otherwise one must take leave of their basic common senses.  This government savaged the Parliamentary Budget Officer even though we know they had similar numbers available at the time, they questioned the patriotism of anyone who dared questioned, they talked of contracts, fear mongered on job losses, stuck to outdated figures in a concerted effort to make it through an election.  That is patently despicable, serious and unsettling, to not give this "scandal" it's proper place in ultimate verdict, sad and quite telling.

This government has buried sweeping changes to multiple jurisdictions within the budget, going well beyond traditional precedents.  This government has gutted environmental reviews, undone decades of work in this regard, to the point former Progressive Conservative Environment Minister's have sounded the alarm bell, loud and clear.  This government has intimidated dissenters, made outlandish allegations, put the "chill" on charities, all congealing into a picture which doesn't represent any democratic debate I'm familiar with.  Alarming is kind, you pick you sector, how these Conservatives operate is akin to the type of bullying we see more with despots, rather than a modern, "envy of the world" democracy.  There is a clear pattern here, so brilliant in its simplistic symmetry to be blinding.

The Conservatives sanctioned lying to voters in a Liberal held riding, faced with robocall accusations coming from Elections Canada they react with baseless accusations of their own, their counter strategy a utter farce unbecoming of an actual government that represents this country.  Even on issues that one can support philosophically, like raising the retirement age, the Conservatives hid this thrust until they were free and clear of the electorate they claim to represent.  No matter where you look, this is a government that exudes questionable ethical standards, they live on "the line", a line which is nothing to be proud of, or aspire to replicate.

This government has lowered the discourse, created a poison atmosphere, made access to information harder, stifled dissenting opinion, put shackles on scientists, released a budget which made "austerity" really a laundry list of going after every foe they perceived, rather than a traditional "conservative" effort to tackle spending.  Oh sure, the Conservatives can point to cutback in the PMO, etc, but that narrow claim is obliterated when we put along side the previous high percentage increases, a net nothing, much different than real erosion's elsewhere.

I'm sorry, but partisanship aside, how anyone can condone the way this government operates, how they can simply ignore the overall flavour, simply confining their gaze to desirable policy expressions, represents a failure to act as any responsible observer.  It has been quite a year, and it has served to vindicate every single person who spoke of "scary Harper", not only was it NOT hyperbole, it was bang on.  This majority is Harper in his full glory.  The bully with no regard for democracy, the authoritarian right wing ideologue in the pocket of narrow economic interests, prone to low rent tactics that forever undermine any level of civil discourse, this is Canada under this "regime".   There is nothing to endorse here, an embarrassing episode in Canadian history which future generations will shake their heads at, so apparent the transgressions as is the wilfully ignorant "analysis" we must endure.