National Security or Another Soap Opera

Perhaps George Orwell was right. Perhaps the State does have business in some people’s bedrooms. Maybe we should just accept Big Brother for all of us. One thing is for sure, and that is that any of those outcomes would be infinitely better than the one we’re dealing with now. Prime Minister Harper and his team are showing, yet again, their concern not for the average Canadian, but for the continued paychecks they receive as members of our government.

Obviously Mr. Bernier’s actions that caused this scandal are totally unacceptable. He resigned. Good. I would go so far as to contemplate criminal charges against him personally, but that isn’t really the issue here. The issue, as I see it, is the way our government is dealing with the fallout from the scandal, and the unsettling trend that this behavior points to. So far, neither Harper nor any of his inner circle have done anything to assuage the fears of Canadians that this kind of security breach has never happened before, and will never happen again. To the contrary, Harper has simply adopted his modus operandi of treating Canadians like we are children. The manner in which he consistently blows of questions with that ‘how dare you question me’ smirk on his face disgusts me. This is not some liberal scheme to discredit the government. This is not some loony-left journalist-with-a-vendetta

asking these questions. This is Canada, asking exactly the same kind of serious questions that became the twisted pretext for war, only this time we mean it. For once, it is actually possible to turn on the news and see scary stories about the now almost clichéd ‘national security threat’ and its TRUE! The really unsettling part is that, despite what most Caucasian, fifty-something man in fancy suits leading the country would have us believe, the threat is not hiding in some mosque or compound. It is not vaguely sinister bearded men driving taxicabs. We’re not talking about religious extremists, to be sure, but we are talking about extremists of a different nature. This threat has come to us via a very different sect, whose holy ground is located in Ottawa. One that believes, honestly if fool-heartedly, that they actually deserve to run the country above criticism from the average person, that they are somehow better than the rest of us. Here we have a legitimate threat to our security, and the government blows it off as a liberal busybody scandal. I call bullshit.

First of all, given that our being in Afghanistan was first justified as a matter of national security, you would think that any other matter of national security would be treated with the same kind of import and urgency…unless of course the concept was simply a pretext all along. How, Mr. Harper, do you justify the deaths of over 80 Canadian men and women, not to mention the countless aid workers, construction workers and untold thousands of Afghanis in the name of national security now? Would you care to explain to the family of, say, Anthony Boneca or the rest of the Thunder Bay community, why you allowed Mr. Boneca to be explosively dismembered beyond recognition? Surely it wasn’t for national security, since we now clearly see how seriously you treat that matter. 80+ Canadian soldiers dead, and yet your government allows sensitive documents to fall into the hands of a known organized crime sympathizer, with no investigation of how it happened or why? What this requires is a full public inquiry, not a smirk, a sly sidestep and a wink to your friends in the White House. We’re fighting a war for national security, and if you want us to believe that this war is as important as you say it is, prove it.

As I mentioned earlier, this individual scandal, though very serious, is all the more unsettling because of the trend it points to. If you look at Mr. Harper’s behavior, and that of his team since he assumed the PMO, you will notice an obvious pattern. I first noticed it when I watched Peter Mansbridge interview Harper on the even of 2007. Ever single question Mansbridge asked was greeted with a subtly frustrated intake of breath, a slight tightening around the eyes and an obviously rehearsed “I’m not going to give you an answer” answer. Fast-forward to questions about Harper’s proposed ‘intensity target’ plan to reduce industrial pollution and you have the same response. In question period, his standard mo is to stand up, look very self important, and demand that someone be taken to task for questioning his authority.

As his reign progresses however, we see this trend worsening. Take for example, the situation in Vancouver and the debate over the safe injection site Insite. This, for me at least, marked the first time that the Harper government has directly employed what I will refer to as DC tactics (short for Dubya-Chaney). It is not a difficult argument to make that the American government makes free with the facts more often that it’s truthful about anything (and that truth is even then subject to interpretation). When questioned about the utility and continued support of Insight, Health Minister Tony Clement fired back with questions about the data recovered in studies conducted on the project. He questioned the legitimacy of the study and slandered the reputations of those involved in the program instead of debating the facts. He was flat out denying scientific evidence on the grounds that his truth is stronger than anyone else’s because he’s part of the government and the rest of us aren’t. Its more of the same “how dare you” attitude that says these people are more concerned with their stay in power than with the lives of the Canadians they supposedly govern for. Whether its big business lobby groups dictating our legislation (as is the case with a recent bill to legislate caloric values onto restaurant menus), or our faltering superpower neighbor demanding that we toe the line, what is for sure is that every action the Conservative Party government makes is exactly NOT in our best interest.

Personally, I’m fed up with this. I’m fed up with watching our country be run by ‘holier than thou’ corporatists against my, and an increasing number of Canadians, wishes. Perhaps what bothers me most of all is that we put them there. When will we realize that we also have the power to remove them?