Modeling Journey

PM Harper has run from Ottawa, tail between his legs, seeking a break so that he can devise some plan – any plan – to save his do-nothing government. Every day, we hear news of layoffs in the US (more than half a million in Novemberalone) and in Canada (Ontario, our industrial heartland, in particular is getting pounded). We read about job losses on a massive scale in other industrialized nations. We read speculation that this time round, this vicious recession might result in Britain ending up with 3 million unemployed.

And we read about most nations of the world going into crisis-combat mode, preparing plans to boost their economies, protect workers, and implementing them.

We read about heads of state gathering at meetings, and agreeing on concerted action to bolster the financial sectors, and to pump support into local economies so as to do as much to let their economies have a soft landing as they can.

In the USA, the lame duck President Bush has been swept aside and ignored, because he had no plans to fight the recession, and the president-elect is now the de facto president, organizing policies, coordinating responses, and leading.

But in Canada we have a prime minister and a government who are out of step with the times.

PM Harper has underestimated the impact of the recession, and has no plans to help Canadians weather the storm.

His government’s economic update said it all: three items of mean-spirited ideological measures, but nothing about what the government of Canada should do to respond to the job losses, to the plunging economy, and the pain and suffering that many will experience.

Why?

Because this prime minister and this government are ideologically opposed to a proactive government, and are locked into a set of economic and political beliefs which rule out government intervention. Their focus is on maintaining a surplus, and avoiding a deficit. If avoiding a deficit means that Canadians lose jobs, face substantially reduced pensions, and suffer economic hardship, then in this government’s eyes, that is the way it should be. The free market – partially responsible for the appalling financial meltdown which has swept through all countries – is the force that the Conservatives believe in.

Harper’s government believes that Canadians should suffer in silence while the free market forces work their way through the system, no matter how much damage might be done to ordinary people.

But there is hope for Canada.

This past week, MPs representing 62% of the votes cast in our recent election, got together and agreed that not doing anything to help Canadians and Canada was not acceptable. They agreed that the Conservative approach of inaction, pontificating, and crossing fingers and hoping for the best, was not acceptable.

They decided that they should put their differences aside, as members of three parties, and unite for a period of at least 18 months, to fight the recession, to build Canada’s defences, and to help the ordinary Canadians who bear the brunt of economic downturns.

So the Coalition of the Liberal and NDP parties was signed, and the Bloc agreed to support the Coalition in confidence votes for at least 18 months.

And so hope was born for Canada.

The hope that from this platform, a government of the progressive centre would take the steps agreed upon in the Accord signed by the three parties, and help Canadians.

The hope that Canada would be made stronger; that the elderly would not have their pensions brutally reduced by out of date rules; that cities of all sizes would be able to build infrastructure which will last for decades and benefit their inhabitants; that people who were laid off would have a chance to be supported, by payments and training, so that they could find other kinds of work, and not lose their dignity, their livelihoods, and their homes; that monies would be spent to create jobs, and to build Canada for the future.

And the hope that in our Parliament, a new spirit of cooperation by these three parties would result in a renaissance of goodwill, civility, and effectiveness.

These hopes were put on hold on December 4, then PM Harper was allowed to lock the doors of our Parliament and keep the MPs out until January 26 next year.

But the next seven weeks is a critical time for Canada.

If the promise held out to our country by the cooperation of three parties representing 62% of all the voters is to be kept, then Canada needs fighters.

Fighters who will put aside partisan bickering and narrow partisan concerns during this period, and work together to ensure that the Coalition of hope succeeds in becoming the new government, based on the progressive centre.

Fighters who will fan out across the country, and talk to their neighbours, and to people in other towns and cities and provinces, and work together to help the Coalition of hope flesh out its programs as set out in the Accord.

Fighters who will speak out in defence of the democratic right of the MPs representing the 62% of voters to come together in the arrangement set out in the Accord, and who will speak truth to the falsehoods being spread by Harper’s government and party regarding their right to make that choice.

Canada does not need naysayers now; it does not need those who sow lies and distort events for narrow political gain; it does not need those who believe more in the market than in Canadians.

Canada needs fighters now.