... a majority, but not enough, of people know they have to learn to swim or sink into the morass pushed by the left that they are entitled to a cradle to grave existence.
Legacy of 2009: a plateful of unsavoury leftovers
December 30, 2009
Carol Goar
While we were coping with the worst recession in 25 years, our elected officials were quietly dismantling pieces of our democratic heritage.
Unless we turn this trend around, our children will live in a diminished Canada.
Here's a brief look at the troubling legacy of 2009.
We have a Prime Minister who is systematically neutralizing the safeguards put in place to protect the public.
Since taking power in 2006, Stephen Harper has fired nuclear safety watchdog Linda Keen; terminated the mandates of military watchdog Peter Tinsley and RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy; challenged the authority of chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand; publicly attacked parliamentary budget watchdog Kevin Page and attempted to undermine any public official who disclosed embarrassing information.
He has marginalized the media, shut down parliamentary committees, silenced any MP or cabinet minister who departs from his script and chopped public funding to organizations that don't share his ideology.
The hapless Liberals made it easy. But we let it happen.
We have a nation of politicians – in Ottawa, the provinces and the municipalities – who are so afraid of looking soft on crime that no one dares question the harsh new laws Harper is implementing, despite clogged courts and overcrowded jails. How much this will cost the nation is a mystery. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan says he has a plan to build more prisons, but its details are subject to "cabinet confidence."
Any citizen who disputes the need for more jails when the crime rate is at a 30-year low is dismissed as naive and out of touch.
We have a military budget that is ballooning, leaving fewer resources for everything else.
Harper didn't initiate this buildup in defence spending. But it accelerated sharply on his watch. And his government projects a continued increase for the next 20 years.
Anyone who suggests that other priorities – the environment, safe drinking water on aboriginal reserves, poverty reduction – deserves a share of the $1.8 billion a year Canada is now pouring into the military, is branded by the Prime Minister and his acolytes as a friend of Al Qaeda.
We have an employment insurance system that leaves the majority of workers unprotected in hard times.
Harper did not create this problem. But he ignored entreaties to fix it when the first major recession of the 21st century hit.
As the job market contracted, hundreds of thousands of workers lost their livelihoods.
Those in the most precarious economic circumstances had no cushion to fall back on.
The government watched, tinkered with benefits available to qualified claimants and said the system was working as intended.
We have political parties that rely on personal attacks, negative advertising and throwaway promises to win power.
Harper fought the last election assuring Canadians there would be no recession, a balanced budget and modest federal spending. Within weeks, he unapologetically jettisoned all three commitments.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff spent his first year on the job threatening to topple the government, then pulling back when the polls turned against him. He was so determined not to give his rival a target that he left Canadians with no idea what he stands for.
New Democratic Leader Jack Layton, fighting to hold his ground, cheerfully shed policies and principles, assuring everyone he was making progress.
The very notion that elections are about setting national goals and discussing policy choices is now seen as passé.
We can let things go on this way. Our democratic institutions won't crumble overnight. They'll just get weaker, our governments will get more impregnable and we'll become more cynical.
Or we can reverse these trends before they do permanent damage.
Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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