Comment Response to:
"One fact above all needs to be understood about the Harper government. Our Prime Minister is, first and foremost, a bully and his followers emulate him with enthusiasm. Closely allied with this bullying is an obsession with secrecy and stifling dissent.
Many people will remember Harper’s government kicking Canadian churches out foreign development programs because of the churches’ respect for human rights over profit. The Conservative government worships at the altar of profit and is vicious in its attacks on any church that dares to question its conduct. In short, for ‘Harper Conservatives’, churches that take the gospel seriously are ‘the enemy’.
The latest Tory assault on democratic rights combines an attempt to stifle free speech with an assault on another faith community. Today it is Mennonites who are being told not to proclaim the gospel, but to get on board with the celebration of warfare and profiteering or suffer the consequences.
This attempt to kill two birds (freedom of religion and freedom of speech) with one shot (financial punishment) is quite consistent with other Tory actions, including voter suppression and other electoral misconduct, that reveal a deep contempt for democracy on the Conservative benches in Parliament. Conservatives in Ottawa talk about the need for democracy in other countries while strangling it at home.
A great many of our grandparents and great grandparents came to Canada seeking religious freedom. Thousands of Canadians went overseas in World War I and World War II to defend democratic freedoms and human rights. Today we have the revolting spectacle of Conservatives trying to prop up their popularity by celebrating war while, at the same time, doing everything they can to cripple the religious and democratic freedoms so many of Canadian veterans have fought and died for.
This week I have been watching programs about both World Wars on television and wondering how many veterans are weeping in their graves. Thousands and thousands of Canadians from every part of Canada died to protect and preserve the religious, democratic, and other human rights we so cherish.
Today those rights are being cast aside and trampled under foot by politicians who seem to have more of an affinity for the evil governments our veterans fought to defeat than for our own democracy. All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good people to look the other way. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for people to decide profit or power or greed is more important than human rights.
I wonder how many dead veterans would say they gave their lives to create a country where making a profit takes priority over human life. One hopes Canadians will use their ballot in the next election to do more than send a bunch of bullies to Ottawa who, it seems, would feel right at home with book burnings and torchlight parades." ~ via dallas mcquarrie
THANK YOU Dallas McQuarrie!
