DON'T LOOK NOW BUT,

Canada will dramatically INCREASE it's greenhouse gas emissions for the next 15 years.
-

Your Conservative government was all over interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel for her former ties to separatist parties last week. Now that Harper's Transport Minister Denis Lebel, who represents the riding of Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean and also serves as the minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency for Quebec, has confirmed he was a member of the Bloc Québécois for eight years, from July 23, 1993 to April 28, 2001, the conservative finger pointing amounts to 'not so much.'

SIDESHOW STEVE

Many Canadians have worried for years about the possibility of a Harper majority. Now we have five years to see how it actually works out.

One fear has been that he will slash the social fabric of this country - privatize, deregulate, and facilitate an ever greater level of corporate governance than that which already exists. I wager that will be true.

"Everything else that also gets so much attention from you former media colleagues, these are sideshows. The economy is what matters." - Prime Minister Steven Harper, May 17 2010, speaking to students.

Mr. Harper believes that. " The economy is what matters." But he doesn't believe Pulitzer Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who, ten years ago, warned the IMF and the US Treasury that unless they began a dialogue with their critics "things will continue to go very, very wrong". He doesn't believe Pulitzer Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who was also prescient about the global financial meltdown, both of whom continue to show that it is deregulation and corporate governance that have things royally messed up, and continues to make things worse.

Mr Harper is of the 'other school,' the 'Chicago school' of economics, a man with a steadfast belief that deregulated 'free markets' and ever-lower corporate taxes are the way to go.

For a head of state, Mr. Harper is a very quiet man. It seems fair to say he rarely actually says very much of anything at all. Millions of Canadians feel his track record on 'sideshow' social and environmental issues leaves a lot to be desired, while he shows no interest in discussing those kinds of things openly. But he will talk about the economy, and clearly reveres the simple 'invisible hand' mechanisms that did work very well in the world of 100 years ago.

So, yes, I share the fears of those who expect him now to increasingly pull at the threads of governance that have kept this country fairly prosperous, livable, and peaceful. I expect him to treat critically important matters as if they were an irrelevant sideshow. I expect him to tweak systems and regulations in ways that produce an ever-accelerating transfer of wealth and power from the middle class to the parasitical elite on Wall Street and Bay Street.

I hope he proves me wrong