Hummingbird

I've put up two hummingbird feeders, which are visited regularly by two Anna's hummingbirds, one female and one male. This is the female.

Giving Up Politics (for a while)

I have been so dismayed and dispirited by the Governor-General's decision to allow the Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament, and I become so enraged when I hear Harper or his minions spouting their vicious, divisive lies, that I've decided to forego politics for the next few months. This means not listening to political talk shows, or news about politics in Canada, not writing letters-to-the-editor, and not writing anymore political blogs. Instead, I shall be posting poetry and pictures expressing a more positive outlook on life.

But I need to vent just a bit longer, to express it all, get it out, and let it go--or at least let it out on a long, long leash.

Since I was prepared to tell Stephen Harper that he must accept the Governor-General's decision, if it had gone against him, I must accept it myself. I do--at least, I accept it philosophically, in that I accept that the democratic process does not always produce what I consider is the best result; nor do I call for any change in our Parliamentary system because of it. But I accept it with a heavy, heavy heart. By her decision, the Governor-General has delivered the country into the hands of a man who borders on megalomania in his obsession with destroying all opposition; a man who is a liar, a coward, and a bully; a man who doesn't hesitate to write off Quebec and stir up the West because he thinks he will benefit thereby; a man who is very likely complicit, directly or indirectly, in criminal acts in the taping and publishing of an NDP caucus conference call.

This is a man who, after mouthing platitudes about working with the opposition, deliberately went out of his way to provoke them, and when it backfired, took the coward's way out by asking for prorogation. Some Tory supporters have referred to prorogation bringing about a 'cooling off' period. Nonsense; the Tories will go on spewing their attack ads, telling their lies, and stirring up hatred against Quebec, throughout Christmas and beyond because they think it will be to their advantage. Harper and the Tories don't care that they've introduced months of uncertainty into people's lives; uncertainty which will hang like a black cloud over the holiday season; Harper and the Tories care for nothing but themselves, and attaining greater power.

If Harper ever gets a majority, watch out. He will balkanize the country by downloading all federal spending on social and other programs to the provinces, leaving a gravely weakened federal government responsible mainly for defence and foreign affairs. The concept that Canadians have a right to the same level of health, education, and other public services wherever we live in the country, and that federal tax dollars should be invested to ensure that right is realized in practice from coast to coast to coast, is utterly foreign to 'firewall' Harper who, driven by his Alberta-bred, corporate-supporting ideology, and spurred on by his partisan zeal to avenge Trudeau's National Energy Program, would reduce the country to ten provincial fiefdoms.

It amazes, as well as appalls, me that anyone can believe Stephen Harper will provide stable government. Over and over again he's shown that his lust for power, his hair-trigger temper, his vanity, and his hubris, will always lead him to go one, or more, steps too far, and create havoc where none need exist, as he has so recently demonstrated. Encouraged by the Governor-General, he will become even more insufferable; he will lecture us in that dead, condescending voice of his, spinning truth and facts into a tangle to obscure his real intentions. And I predict that in the new year, he will find some way to stick it to the opposition again in order to either trigger an election (he must feel he has the Governor-General where he wants her; how can she refuse a request for dissolution when she wouldn't for prorogation?), or to achieve the complete domination of Parliament that he craves. The man can't help himself; he is addicted to power.

I loathe Stephen Harper from the bottom of my heart; I devoutly hope to eventually see him hoist by his own petard; and I wish him a long and miserable life in which to repent of his sins.

There, I feel better--lighter, more cheerful--already. The next blogs will be poetry or photos or perhaps both.

Boomerang: Harper's Lust for Power Hits Home

It is impossible not to ask: What was Harper thinking? For a man with an allegedly high IQ he has been behaving remarkably unintelligently of late, picking totally unnecessary fights. My supposition is that he thought the fear of precipitating another election would keep at least one opposition party, and probably the Liberals, on-side and the Tories in power. Which likely would have happened, if Harper, in a fit of hubris, had not only failed to offer an adequate financial plan (proposed spending cuts would have sucked $6 billion out of the economy at exactly the wrong time), but also attacked civil servants' right to strike, and proposed cutting off all public funding for federal parties.

The latter must have seemed a fiendishly clever ploy at the time--a measure which many Canadians might support (initially, at least) because they don't like money going to the Bloc. [However, that money keeps the Bloc in Parliament, and as long as the Bloc is in Parliament, Quebec has no need to separate. True, the Bloc looks out for Quebec's interests first; however, since they are a progressive party, what they consider good for Quebec is very often good for Canadians in other provinces as well; I'd certainly rather have them in Parliament than more Conservatives. And the irony of a separatist party helping to keep the country together delights me. But I digress.]

What Canadians don't need is a Prime Minister who plays political war games instead of (as Obama has been doing), consulting with the brightest and best from all sides, and bringing people together to address Canadians' concerns.

If the Tories had had the country's best interests at heart, they could have won the opposition parties' co-operation by bringing forward a package which showed real concern for laid-off and low income workers by including measures such as relaxing EI eligibility rules and expediting pay equity. Had they done so, (and had they omitted suspending civil servants' right to strike) the opposition would very likely have accepted it, and been willing to wait until next year for a major stimulus budget. And if the Tories had been sweetly reasonable about the economy, they might even have gotten away with cutting the subsidy to political parties, without eliminating it entirely.

But the Tories are incapable of being reasonable, sweetly, or otherwise. Instead, they had nothing positive to offer; attacked pay equity, and the right to strike, and then, in a blatant attempt to stifle all opposition, proposed to eliminate public funding for political parties. More recently, by taping and releasing an NDP caucus meeting (acts which are possibly criminal, and entirely unethical), Harper again demonstrated his fatal propensity to always go too far in his zeal to intensify his grip on power.

I'm amazed by how many people continue to support Harper and his colleagues. They should take a long, hard look at this man who never fails to take the meanest, most divisive course of action; a man who will say whatever he thinks will work at the moment, and blandly contradict positions he held not so long ago. For example, he found nothing wrong with being part of a coalition to topple Paul Martin; the process only becomes 'undemocratic' when Harper is the target.

Harper puts this pernicious spin on the actions of the opposition parties, when he knows perfectly well (if he doesn't, he's too ignorant to hold office) that they are operating in the finest of British and Canadian Parliamentary tradition--which is that the government is the party, or parties, which has the confidence of the House. Period. The Tories have squandered the confidence of the House with their crass partisanship, and now must pay the price.

Harper is a man who always puts personal expediency before his word, as when he decided to defy the spirit, if not the letter, of his own legislation fixing election dates (legislation which was expressly intended to prevent prime ministers from calling elections for their own political advantage) by calling a totally unnecessary election this fall because he thought he could get a majority.

Harper is a man who condones unethical, if not criminal acts, by allowing the release of an unauthorized taping of an NDP caucus meeting.

How can any self-respecting citizen want this man for Prime Minister?

Another viciously divisive ploy of the Tories is to foster the notion that the coalition is an eastern 'take-over'. As one who lives in British Columbia, I know it's nothing of the sort; there are members of the opposition parties in every part of the country, including Newfoundland and Labrador, and even Alberta.

The Conservatives are not competent to govern the country because they create trouble where none need exist; they divide Canadians instead of bringing us together; they are incapable of working with the other parties in a constructive and co-operative manner; they have no honour or ethics and they consistently put their lust for power ahead of the public good.