National day of honour for honouring Stephen Harper?
Stephen Harper has announced a National Day of Honour. Supposedly this is to honour those who fought and fell in Afghanistan. From various media reports it appears to be just another opportunity for prime minister Photo Op to appear to support the military without actually doing anything substantive. This is part of his pattern though. We have instances in the past where Harper has taken events intended to honour others and make them all about Harper. So we have Harper taking a salute meant for the Queen/Governor General; attempting to remove the national honours system from crown control and into the PMO; and wanting to receive a Victoria Cross (on behalf of someone else, of course). In all these Harper is wanting to act like the chief of state (which he is not) and have the cameras on him as opposed to those they should be on. So we should be wary about Harper's motives in this case as well.
Now the Conservative supporters out there will complain that anyone pointing this out are just trying to politicize a veterans' event and that Dear Imperious Leader would never do anything like this for sheer political gain (unlike the other times). They would be wrong of course because Harper has already turned the event political with his self aggrandizement. Harper is incapable of holding a national event that isn't about him. If it were truly just about honouring veterans, Harper couldn't be bothered to show up. But Harper, being down in the polls has decided on seven weeks notice that the veterans and serving members of the CF need to show up on his beck-and-call for a photo op to make him look good to the base.
It's so bad that veterans' organizations didn't even have details of the event until the last minute. A further sign that this isn't about honouring those who served but to honour Dear Leader, a man who was proud to announce in the House of Commons that his service consisted of paying his taxes. One wonders when Canada's veterans will figure out that they're being used.