More Tory Bullying

We now have Stephen Harper's "New" government, in the spirit of openness and accountability, bullying a doctor near Ft. MacMurray to keep him quiet about increased cancer rates in the area. Now from my understanding, the doctor hasn't claimed that tar sand development is the cause, just asked that government, in the best interests of it citizens, look into the matter. The Alberta government has and found that yes, there is an increase of some forms of cancer in the region. The government of Alberta, renowned for it's secrecy, is unwilling to look into the matter any further, lest there be a connection between the oil industry and the cancer. The Alberta Tories don't want anything to stop the big donations from the oil industry to stop. Which brings us to the actions of Canada's "New" Government (TM, Pat. Pend). It's starting to look a lot like the actions of the Alberta Provincial Government, meaning that the federal Tories are just as bad as their Alberta counterparts when it comes to dealing with the oil industry.

This means that our federal government is ready to act like performing seals for the oil industry, as its Albertan counterpart does and has for years. This means, apart from bullying doctors, that no real progress will be made on the reduction of greenhouse gases, as any real plan would have a negative impact on the oil industry. Given the predilection of our Prime Minister and his party to lie to parliament and Canadians any "plan" they will come up with in the next couple of months will be at best window dressing calculated to win the most votes in Ontario, while doing nothing real for the environment to keep the oil companies back home in Alberta happy.

This isn't even the first time that the Tories have used the machinery of government to silence critics through threats and intimidation. What we now have is a patter of behaviour where whistle blowers are systematically punished for speaking out. This is quite contrary to the Tories' stated intention of openness and accountability. What we have at the federal level is a government that is trying to put up a facade of openness and accountability, but in reality is trying to be as secretive as the Alberta government, the most closed and unaccountable provincial government in the country. Not only that, but Harper and his crew are willing to act like schoolyard bullies to ensure that people in the country conform to the Tory ideological view of the world. Just do as Stephen says, and nobody gets hurt.

The question is, of course, are these the kind of people we want running our government? In most democracies that have failed and become either authoritarian regimes or flat out dictatorships, it started with one ideologically driven party trying to force the population to it's will by bullying those who spoke out against it. I fear that unless we continue to speak out, this may happen here. The Conservatives have spoken of their contempt of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms over and over again. This means that they don't respect the right of people to disagree with them. There's a part of me that thinks that if Harper could get away with it with impunity, he'd start locking up people who don't agree with him, including opposition politicians. Now whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but given his actions as a bully, I wouldn't put it past him. Freedom is fragile and isn't free. If we don't speak out when our freedoms are being impinged upon then we don't deserve them. Through their actions Tories seem to only believe in the freedom to agree with them, or more specifically their Grand Illustrious Potentate and we as Canadians need to send a message to them telling them we don't agree and we won't stand for it.

Now admittedly it is unlikely that simply writing your local Tory MP is going to get you anywhere in this, since they seem to be taking a page from the Alberta Tory community relations handbook that seems to state "you can safely ignore people who don't agree with you" and are as responsive as a brick wall. Now I could just be jaded due to the fact I live in Alberta where a Tory will only write back to you if you have something negative to say about the opposition, so I don't know what kind of luck people in other parts of the Country will have writing them. This means we do have to speak out, talk to our friends and coworkers and inform them of the issues in an attempt to sway people away from the Tories to anyone else. Hurting the Tories at the ballot box is the only way they might listen, though given the Tories around these parts that's not guaranteed. Hopefully Canadians will begin to see the Conservatives for the power hungry bullies they really are. I'm still waiting for someone to explain how Harper and his cronies are better then the lot they replaced.