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Let us join the hallelujahs arising from the capitals of the Western world and beyond, celebrating the disappearance of a nasty troublemaker from the global stage -- a Canadian, embarrassingly -- and thank our lucky stars that our flawed democracy still works, and that we could get rid of a budding despot.
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It's election day and, at last, hope that what has to happen if this country is to recapture its integrity is actually about to happen: that Stephen Harper and his scurrilous despotism are about to get the heave.
If so, it will be just in time. The world is suddenly paying attention, and what it sees is not pretty -- one of the rocks of democracy and human rights in the world coming unstuck.
In a rare acknowledgement that Atlantic Canada actually exists, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Truro recently to buck up support for his candidate against Bill Casey, the Liberal standard-bearer for Cumberland-Colchester.
Casey's the former Tory MP who got booted out of the Conservative party in 2007 for a principled act of opposition to one of his party's early acts of duplicity: obliterating a signed agreement with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland on offshore revenues called the Atlantic Accord.
Premier Stephen McNeil grumbled about a few little things but declared himself generally satisfied with the federal budget. My heart sank. Sometimes I think we're out to prove Stephen Harper right: that we do have a "culture of defeat" on the East Coast.
The proof of it would be our official acquiescence to Harperism, one of the tenets of which is that Atlantic Canada is of no account and can be safely chucked to the sharks, but also that Maritimers in particular have a residual innocence and can still be bought.
It's getting worse.
Stephen Harper is now serving notice that he's willing to tear the social fabric of the country apart if that's what it takes to get his party re-elected. That is, if torquing democratic process, the rule of law, election rules, the tax system etc., etc., to make them conform to Harperism isn't enough, he'll throw stink bombs in the public place in the expectation that, amid the chaos, he'll be seen as the strong hand who can straighten things out.
Does it ever feel like you've just woken up and found yourself living in a country you don't recognize? How did Canada get to where it is today -- a more militaristic, nationalistic, free-market-at-all-costs place that seems to have shed its world-renowned reputation as a land of peacekeepers, multiculturalism, social responsibility and scientific advancement?
It hasn't been by accident. In fact, as Donald Gutstein points out in the opening phrase of his book, Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his Think Tank Colleagues Have Transformed Canada, this is exactly what Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised he'd do.
And he did it with a little bit of help from his friends.
It's getting difficult to remember a time when the Canadian Parliament actually tried to make principled decisions regarding foreign policy and our place in the community of nations. But we should try. Perhaps a first step in returning to such a time was the decision of the NDP and Liberal Party to oppose Stephen Harper's most recent ill-considered and cynical march to war with his decision to join the bombing of Iraq.
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