As Harper slowly turns Canada into the Soviet Union

As well as any other one party state you can think of. The re-branding of the government from the Government of Canada to Harper Government is moving along quite well. As evidence I present the website of one Bruce Stanton (www.brucestanton.ca). It has the same layout as any of the official Government of Canada websites.

Now the header of Mr. Stanton's web site looks like this:

and now some Government of Canada sites:
Main Government Site:

Transport Canada

Environment Canada

Canada Revenue Agency

Very similar looking websites... same style of maple leaf, same basic layout and when you go deeper into the websites, the same Harper idolatry. It is important to note that Mr. Stanton's web site is linked off of his parliamentary bio on the official parliament web site. It is also important to note that sometimes the title of his web site (as shown in the browser title bar) says Conservative party of Canada.

It is interesting to note that it is not just Mr. Stanton who has his website looking like this, but at least 10 other Harper MP's have virtually identical sites (I didn't have a chance to go through all the MP's so I just sampled some). All are hosted at the same web hosting company in Vancouver at the same IP address. This is a different IP block than the Conservative Party website (which as of last night didn't look like a Government of Canada website) as well as a different netblock from the official Government of Canada websites. So these sites are not official Government websites, but merely the official site of these particular MP's. To be fair, not all Conservative MP's seem to have this style of web site, but have struck out on their own and have different styles but there seems to be a good number of Conservative MP's with what could be best described as government look alike websites.

Now I can hear the war-room Con-bots now, that the sites aren't exactly identical or that since the MP's are currently sitting on the government side of the House that they're entitled. Both arguments aren't the point. The first argument is nullified as the sites appear to be a deliberate attempt to mimic the official Government of Canada websites and thus imply that the members, the Conservative Party and the Government of Canada are one and inseparable. The second argument I imagine will come after the first and goes to show that Harper and his Conservative Party are trying to create a one-party state similar to the former Soviet Union where there's only one party on the ballot at "election" time.

Which is the point of this post. It would seem that the Harper government is desperate to set up a one-party state. The re-branding of the Government of Canada to Harper government is a step in this direction. The complete contempt of parliament and the desire to destroy opposition parties so that they no longer exist are another sign. These websites, which given Harper's propensity for control, must have been approved by the PMO are another sign and what amazes me is that all Harper MP's haven't been forced to have them. Perhaps that is by design to prevent the appearance of impropriety, but the end result is the same. A political party and leader hell bent to be the controlling party in a dictatorship. The end result is an attempt to make Canadians believe that the Government of Canada and the Harper Conservatives are one in the same and inseparable - just like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet State.

This isn't the only sign that Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party are on the road to despotism. We have the Harper Tories calling anyone who opposes them traitors, a common thread amongst the worlds dictators. Further there is the demonization of the opposition parties, again a standard totalitarian tactic. Heavy propaganda, much of it at taxpayer expense is a hallmark of Harper's regime and would be familiar to dictators past and present. Combine this with attempts to control and sensor the media and you've got a government that looks more like Libya and not Canada.

Add to this the cult of personality that Harper and his Conservatives have been nursing since he assumed office, another classic dictator trait. Combine this with Harper's need to usurp the Queen and we have a classic megalomaniacal dictator. What else can we add? Well there's the most secretive government in history. One that promised accountability, but has avoided that accountability at every turn. In line with this we have Harper and his party not just ignoring the law, but even their own laws. This lack of respect for the rule of law is also a classic hallmark of the dictator.

Coupled with the complete contempt of parliament that Harper and his supporters have and you have a group of people that would welcome a Harper dictatorship. If some of the Harper supporters commenting over at the National Post had their way, they'd welcome such a dictatorship with parties and parades. It is interesting to note that the war-room Con-bots, who's job is to correct misinformation on the web, haven't bothered to correct these commenters as to the true goals of the Harper government. This tacit approval of this kind of support speaks volumes as to how much Harper and his supporters want to be a dictatorship.

So when the Harper Tories lose either the budget or non-confidence vote later this week, let us hope that an election will actually be called and that Harper doesn't call a "state of emergency" and ignore the vote. If that were the case, for certain he'd have the RCMP round up the opposition MP's and lock them up (no doubt a dream of his). Given that uniformed RCMP officers are used to campaign for the Harper Tories, the RCMP would have no problem doing this. We could definitely be heading into a dark time for Canada.