Canada's Stephen Harper Is Bush's Bitch

The Canadian Parliament will hold a 6-our debate beginning at 3:00 PM this afternoon, following which they will hold a vote on extending Canada's mission in Afghanistan until 2009.  Opposition MPs are furious, as the move seems designed to force them to go on the record as for or against the mission, without any meaningful debate, with no criteria for success or even a well-defined purpose for the mission, certainly with no exit strategy, and no chance to talk to their constituents before the vote.  Furthermore, there is no real advantage to be gained by extending the mission for such a long time, outside of Mr. Harper's radical political agenda.

Link (Reuters)

And this is not the only Harper move that is copied, word-for-word, from Bush and Rove's play-book.

More below the fold.

The Canadian Parliament voted last night on the Kyoto Protocol, the vote calls for Canada to have a Kyoto compliance plan in place by October 15 of this year.  In a stunning Bushian move, Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims that he is not bound by the vote!  Mr. Harper says "The Bloc Québécois motion is not an action plan. This government intends to bring in an action plan." What action plan?  None, according to Greenpeace Quebec's director Steven Guilbeault: "Mr. Harper does not have a Kyoto plan or a plan B, and he is trying to destroy the only plan that we do have."  In another article in the French Montreal daily Métro (a Transcontinental Media publication, not online, in French, my translation below), Mr. Guilbeault outlines the extent of Mr. Harper's reliance on the American neoconservative agenda:

Harper Follows in Bush's Footsteps (op-ed)

A few days ago, we learned what many have long suspected: the new Canadian strategy on Kyoto is inspired by the strategy Bush is using in the USA for some years now.

At the heart of this strategy is an American expert in communications, Mr. Frank Luntz.  Mr. Luntz has developed over the years a media approach which consists of simplifying politicians' message to the max, so as to actually say as little as possible.

Mr. Luntz is close to the GOP in the USA and the CPC in Canada.  He collaborated often with the now-defunct Reform Party and Canadian Alliance Party, and he collaborates closely with several of Harpers inner circle.

Mr. Luntz is known for having published a communications guide for the North American Right which deals with the environment, among other subjects: The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America.

Here is where things get interesting, since an analysis f the new Harper government's declarations and comments shows that mr. Harper has decided to follow to the letter the recommendations of Mr. Luntz, as has done Bush and the GOP.  The following are a few examples:

He recommends first and foremost to "make scientific uncertainty [about global warming] a key element of your strategy (loosely translated -in original)."  So what does Mr. Harper do?  He says that the science is "emerging," while most countries on this planet accept the UN's conclusions on climate change.  Furthermore, a friend and colleague of Mr. Harper, Barry Cooper, started the group Friends of Science, which disputes global warming.

As for the necessity for action, Mr. Lunts suggests using the following language: "We shouldn't be precipitous with our decisions without having all the facts in hand."  What says Canada's Minister for the Environmnent, Rona Ambrose? "There are problems with Kyoto, all international agreements have problems."  Mr. Luntz recommends placing national interests before international interests.  Ms. Ambrose declares: "We will invest in a plan made in Canada, where Canadian interests come first."

The reality is that Canada already had a plan 'made in Canada,' inherited from the previous government, which would have allowed us to attain, or at the very least come close to, the objectives of the Kyoto accord.  Instead of working with this plan, or improving on it, Mr. Harper would rather scrap it and promise us something better some time in the future (another of Mr. Luntz's recommendations).

As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two (in the) bush(es) (my play on words, it doesn't work in the original French).

Editorials in Western Canada are jumping with joy at the direction Harper is taking Canada (Example: Paul Jackson in The Calgary Sun), and they promise us a majority Conservative government come the next elections.  'Poof', with a magic wand, they say, our relations with the USA are repaired, the softwood lumber dispute is resolved, and everything is hunky-dory.  All that's missing is a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and Harper is working on that too, they hint.

However, there's a reason the previous Canadian gov't didn't go along with Bush's illegal oil wars and many other Rovian moves like disregarding Congress/Parliament, and that is that the overwhelming majority of Canadians do not support these moves.  We do not support doubling the size of our military, miring our troops in unwinnable oil and opium wars, ignoring the laws of our country or the traditions of our Parliament, militarizing or arming our border security, scrapping Kyoto, or any of the moves Mr. Harper is taking for that matter.

A question for Mr. Harper: since Mr. Bush, your foreign overlord and possibly your gay lover, is polling in the toilets just now, what makes you think that a much more liberal and left-leaning Canada will gladly follow the same dead-end path?