Time for a change?

Last week Rick Mercer during his weekly rant on CBC mentioned that he had made a New Year's resolution to not get as angry at the Canadian Government; to at least make the attempt to look at both sides of the issue. It was a short lived resolution.

I never thought about making such a resolution. I am more of a realist than Mercer is both in terms of my ability to restrain myself and the government's apparent limitless capacity to make fools of themselves.

Keeping up with the disaster that is the Harper government can be exhausting. I am almost afraid to watch the 10:00 news on CBC. I know there will be at least one item that will cause me to, at one point during the night, lay awake and wonder what I can do. I keep on having this dream/nightmare that one day I will get to chat with Mr. Harper and then I can tell him how much I disagree with him. Of course I know that that would never happen and if it did there is nothing I can do to change his mind. We come from different planets. Or at least our perceptions of reality are profoundly different that we might as well.  I think I could live with those differences if he would acknowledge that not everyone agrees with him; that there is another point of view which has validity; and people who think differently are not terrorist, anti-Semitic or bad Canadians.

I am so tired of someone from the Harper Government starting a sentence with "all Canadians believe/think/feel or agree". I am tired of them making assumptions that they know what I think or believe (it is far more likely they just don't care how I think or feel). I am tired of them weakening our capacity to protect ourselves environmentally (by laying off or muzzling our scientists) and then saying that we have more protection than ever and that they are making decisions that are in best interests of all Canadians. I am beyond tired of their sanctimonious and condescending comments to other countries. We lecture them about human rights while denying the same rights to so many First Nation Canadians or to some Palestinians. We make big announcements about how wonderful we are, and then do nothing.

Take for example the issue of Syrian refuges. As noted by the CBC Sweden has welcomed approximately 14,000 refugees from that war torn country. Canada's commitment? To take a total of 1,300 individuals between 2012 and 2014. Sweden has a population of less than ten million but have already accepted ten times as many people as Canada has promised to do. Makes Canada look rather ungenerous. We have nothing to brag about. Similarly last week Harper made a big deal about money given to Palestine. From numbers available from The Globe and Mail it looks as if the aid package committed to that country is less than it was last year although quite frankly with the way the Harper Government makes numerous announcements about the same pot of money it is hard to tell.

Most of all I am tired at Harper's assumption that I don't care or that I am stupid. Neither is true. I am hoping there are millions of Canadians who can and will say the same thing.