Sparky! Politics at dgiVista.org

Joe Clark was right to describe Stephen Harper as dangerous. He's a neocon who wishes to undermine Canadian political sovereignty for harmonization with the United States and asserting economic freedoms over political democracy, thereby turning citizens into consumers. He supports the Washington Consensus of economics over democracy, including the 4 Horsemen of Structural Adjustment: Free Trade, Privatization, Deregulation and Foreign Direct Investment. He will do to Canada what Gordon Campbell has done to BC and what Klein and Harris perpetrated on Alberta and Ontario. But he pretends to be Paul Martin-ish in his concern for communities and "Canada".

Paul Martin is no better. As a neocon finance minister for most of the last decade he cut social services, downloaded expenses to provinces and municipalities by reducing transfer payments and dropped the Red Book commitment to address child poverty. Being a sweatshop-steamship owning millionaire globalization advocate doesn't help his likelihood of being a true man of social and economic compassion. He dresses himself up as one concerned for social good, but his track record is more like Stephen Harper's plan than Jack Layton's. Likely, if it weren't for more social and economic centrists in the Liberal caucus, Martin would have gotten away with far more neocon bullshit. An election mandate for him would be as disasterous as for Harper. And while Martin tried to scare everyone during the English debate last week that Harper wouldn't solve hospital waiting lists, the rest of the candidates who stated that Martin himself created that problem were quite accurate.

NDP or Greens or any ideologically progressive party. They are the only sound alternative. That and pushing for proportional representation in provincial and federal legislatures in the next election are our only real hope.


Finis

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