Pass the Proroguies
I’ll bet a dollar that the picketing crowds of people who had just discovered the word prorogue, shared an unspoken guilt about their comfortable public dependency. When I saw my first anti-prorogue crowd, on the weekend, I was in an Ontario town reputed for its artsy industry. This is not about the town, so I have left out the name. To me it is significant that such a reaction was bred in that town, because the people who took part in these protests across the country, are the real message. It should come as no surprise that the artsy crowd has yet to find a conservative they like, or that the rest of the aggrieved were likely the usual suspects. I’ll make that two dollars if the picketers were not overrepresented by members of the teaching cartel, unions, public services of all kinds, and so on. All of whom have been nervous for four years, since the Conservatives formed a minority government.
It was certainly not about something they previously thought was a Slavic dish - proroguies. It was about the natural fear that any well-remunerated public dependent has about a Conservative government. The fear that someone in that government might notice how grotesque the settlements garnered by this segment of the population are, compared to the survival act being put on by everyone else. That fear will intensify when rumours of belt-tightening are being heard. It will always make you a potential, anti-conservative picketer behind any false front, hoping that the latest whim may gather the legs to bring down the enemy. It will drive you easily to the bosom of the Liberal opposition which has bought you for life, however inane their accusations.
So is there no justification at all for the outrage - that which has motivated the country’s professorial ranks to reams of rhetoric on the undermining of our democracy? Sure, they have a point, if a bit belaboured. I just wonder how many of the same crowd considered our constitution and democracy to be in peril when a previous administration saw fit to hide its illegal use of taxpayers’ funds by dispersing it through clandestine exchanges of brown envelopes. I don’t seem to recall professorial outrage or picketing public servants then.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Rick I argree with your article, but Mr. Harper has to ask himself this question.
Who advises him on strategy…………………….???
During the last election he tossed a majority away by alienating the Quebecor’s by reducing their cultural funding. This time around he is tossing a majority out the window by suspending Parliament…who is giving him this brilliant advise…?
February 10th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Burk
First, I think the reaction has been exaggerated by the usual media suspects. The big cross-country demonstration turned out about 15,000 people, according to Lorne Gunter of the National Post. I passed my opinion on to him, that most of those people were government employees who have been nervous of a Conservative government since they took power, and are now even more so because of the $50 billion deficit. He agreed with me.
More importantly, it was worth the political damage, to seize power in the Senate, which has been giving the Liberals legislative leverage and has stonewalled some overdue legislation (justice) from the Conservatives.