In 2015, there is no doubt Stephen Harper is gong to try his hardest to make you forget about all the horrible things heâs done in his time as PM. In order to avoid that, letâs try to keep this list circulating.
In no way am I telling you who to vote for. I just hope you take a minute and read just a few of the many reasons why you shouldnât vote for him.
Heâs homophobic. Harper was one of the few to oppose same-sex marriage becoming legal in 2003. The question is, is he still? Considering he refuses to acknowledge it, we can only assume. That, and on February 16, 2005, he claimed same sex marriage is not a human right.
On May 6, 2001 in Calgary, he was quoted saying that he is against Canadaâs bilingualism. âIt has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.â Maybe there would be more unity if people like him actually took it seriously? And of all the things we pay taxes for, that should be filed under a necessity.
You want to talk about taxes? How about the fact that he had (has?) his own personal hair stylist to follow him around, that we pay for. No other PM has ever done this.
Heâs done a lot to set women back a few years. Harper has cut funding for womenâs advocacy by 43 per cent, shut down 12 out of 16 Status of Women offices in Canada and eliminated funding of legal voices for women and minority groups. Just like his control over the media, I suppose he figures they wonât be a threat to him if they donât have a voice?
Do I even need to begin with his treatment to the First Nations? The Harper government refused to sign the UN Declaration of the Rights United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that was adopted by 144 other countries. He scrapped the  Kelowna Accord. I will remind you he claimed the outrageous amounts of dead and missing aboriginal women is a sociological phenomenon, but not crimes, and refuses an inquiry. There is written proof he doesnât care about aboriginal education. He chose to meet with a couple of pandas over the Idle no More peaceful protesters that walked 1,600 km to Parliament Hill, then gets on his high horse when their frustration leads to more drastic measures. Excuse me mister PM, but that tends to happen when people are ignored.
Yes, he made that famous apology. But has he actually done anything to make matters improve? No. In fact, it looks like he does his damned hardest to quiet our voices.
Ugh. I better move on from this one, or Iâll be here all day.
He blindly follows America. Seriously. On March 25, 2002, he was quoted in Report Newsmagazine, âI donât know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.â Now, thank god we did end up dodging that bullet, but he admits it himself that he doesnât bother to check facts. How can we expect him to deal with the current war on terrorism?Â
Atlantic Canada, I want you to think long and hard about when the last time it was he even acknowledged our existence, outside of a newsworthy travesty. One of his biggest angles is how heâs supposedly responsible for creating many job opportunities, (which we will get to in a minute.) That falls on deaf ears here, as we have the highest unemployment rates in the country. As you surely know, there are just not enough jobs to go around, and instead of creating more, he encourages us to move out West. My generation canât afford to stay, and that is awful. Especially considering we have untapped resources! Oil is out there! The very thing weâre all chasing after in Alberta!
Surely youâve seen the pseudo âEconomic Action Planâ commercials. How the Conservatives have blessed our country with wondrous employment opportunities. But have you ever actually investigated them? Rick Mercer has, and he beautifully explained what BS it is. The only people who actually benefited was the already extremely wealthy.
He cheated his way through the 2006 election, violating the election spending limit.
The total mess that was the new Census, that we are still suffering from.
Heâs tainted our foreign reputation, shutting down our aid to impoverished countries, refused to sign the UNâs declaration that clean water is a human right, wasted G20 money on an artificial lake, (may I remind you that we already have over 3 million natural ones,) and of course, the stupidity of our actions in Afghanistan. Richard Colvin admitted we were responsible for six times the amount of captured and tortured prisoners than the British, most of whom were just local, innocent people. Remember a time when Canada was known as the leading peacekeeping nation?
Need I remind anyone of the recent Veteranâs Affairs scandal? Of all the people we should be looking out for, they should be at the top.
He has eliminated or weakened almost every environmental law we had/have. He destroyed the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, got rid of the Environmental Assessment Act, withdrew from the Kyoto agreement, (making us the only country that originally signed it to do so,) and 3,000 other acts. 500 in BC alone. And to top it off, he refuses to acknowledge the serious threat global warming posses to those of us in the North.
Canada has an unimaginable amount of natural resources that should be protected, not extorted. Otherwise we wonât have any left to use. (Those of us in the Atlantic know all to well what happened when we over-fished. Are we really going to stand back and let it happen with the rest of our country?)
You may be asking, why hasnât this been circulated already? Probably because Harper controls the media like a dictator, picking the questions that are asked, and ignoring the ones that are against his favour. In fact, he limits freedom of speech all together. This is something the US does. Perhaps Harper has forgotten, but we are not the US. We donât want to be the US.
As I said, this is just a very short list. For more articles to read, I suggest taking a look at this website.
If anyone has anything to add, please do so! Make this list grow.
Also, if there is anyone who is willing to take the time to translate this to any other language, (because despite with Harper believes, we are bilingual,) you have my permission to do so.
Vote. Just donât vote Conservative.
