Modeling Journey

Harper has beaten a hasty retreat on the issue of public funding of political parties, despite having flung down the gauntlet to the opposition parties. He has realized on that score that his hubris might possibly have made him overreach a bit, and slunk away, tail between his legs.

But let’s not forget two other issues which the mean-spirited new Tories still have on the table: the attack on pay equity, and the stated intention to strip public sector workers of their right to strike for the next few years.

Does any supporter of the NDP believe that the gutting of the right to strike is not the first step in the new Tory war on public sector workers? That the Tories will not use that period to hammer through other restrictions on unions?

And can you imagine if Harper had or does achieve a majority? What steps the Tories would take to gut the federal government’s funding and programs, and reduce Canada to a collection of provinces run as fiefdoms by ‘firewall’ premiers, with no voice speaking for Canada and Canadians?

I am sure that Jack Layton does not wish to go down in history as the man who allowed the Tories to gut the public sector unions; after all, if any party is supposed to be the protector of unions, the NDP is. Because this is what will happen if the Tories are not thrown out of power, and replaced by a more progressive government.

It is time now to give Canada the good government it needs in these troubled days. It is time for men and women of good will and progressive inclinations to reach out to each other, and work together while we fight the damage which the international recession is just starting to cause.