“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity” ... George Orwell

There’s an awful lot I don’t know.
I can’t tell you how many times a week the Lady Barbara asks me a question, and I say to her, “I don’t know.”
There seems to be so much going on that doesn’t make any sense.
Especially in politics.
Like, why is it that so many Americans are backing the looney and disgraced Newt Gingrinch as the Republican nominee to run against Barack Obama in the forthcoming presidential elections?
Or, why does the Ghiz government want to rip up acres and acres of peaceful PEI farmland so big trucks can drive faster to Charlottetown (when driving faster tends to provoke more accidents) just to save maybe 10 minutes of travel time?
Or, why does the Harper government insist on spending billions of dollars on a stupid crime bill to put more Canadians in more jails for longer periods of time, when all the available evidence from states which did the same thing, indicates the “Omnibus Bill” will reverse the declining crime rate in this country?
And why would Mr Harper expect the provinces to pay for the consequences of his futile enacting the punishment legislation, all without any form of consultation with provincial governments and provincial taxpayers? That’s where we will pay the price for the Harper government’s predilection towards punishment of criminals rather than prevention of crime.
Or what about the Harper government’s plans to spend $66 million of our money on a “party room” wherein political parties can party in Ottawa? You can bet not many of us will ever get invited to one of these back-slapping orgies.
Then there’s the billions more (nobody apparently know just how much) to be wasted on jet fighters when there is nobody to shoot at.
And here’s the latest cause of befuddlement in what’s left of my brain, why would the Prime Minister of Canada choose a gathering of bankers and politicians and rich guys gathered in Davos, Switzerland as his audience for a message on how he and his minions are going to “transform” Canada forever?
As if those rich guys and power brokers give a tinker’s damn.
This was an insult to parliament and to all Canadians. The venue suggests this man famed for his tight-assed control of every “message” transmitted to Canadians, didn’t have the guts to do it at home.
That is demeaning to us Canadians, and indicative of the character of the man.
Mr Harper wields his supposed “majority government” like a club. His every move sends a message to us that our own institutions, like parliament, are but minor impediments to be trashed at the first opportunity and worthy only of his contempt.
This, from a government elected by 39 per cent of the 59 per cent of Canadians who voted in the last election.
So anyway, Mr Harper got up on his two hind legs and scolded his betters with a fictional account of what a great job he personally has done in keeping Canada’s head above water during the recent financial gales, and strongly suggested the gathered nations could do no better than to follow his example.
He even bragged, “Indeed more Canadians are now working, than before the downturn.”
Tell that to any one of the nine Islanders chasing each job on PEI.
You can then figure out just how well this finger-waving lecture went down with the assembled multitude.
Especially when he came to the part where he claimed his government had done everything right, and everybody else in the room had it all wrong.
“As I look around the world,” said he, “as I look particularly at developed countries, I ask whether the creation of economic growth, and therefore jobs, really is the number one policy priority everywhere?”
And then came the zinger actually aimed at us poor sods back home, “... regardless of what direction other western nations may choose, under our government, Canada will make the transformations necessary to sustain economic growth, job creation and prosperity now and for the next generation.”
Whazzat? What in all the Saints is this man talking about? Canada dog paddling on by its lonesome self, in a sea of global economics without reference to anybody else? How can that be for one of the smaller swimmers in the global sea?
Well, according to our peerless leader that means ... “better economic choices now and preparing ourselves now for the demographic choices the Canadian economy faces.”
Which, as it turns out, is code for kicking all the old farts in their wrinkled old arses.
And, as it turns out, that also means putting the screws to those who are seen as boogey-men by Mr Harper and his lot, Canadians, like the whiners and radicals who champion such causes as Aboriginal Rights, and the preservation of the environment.
That was expressed in code words when he said “... we will soon take action to ensure that major energy and mining projects are not subject to unnecessary regulatory delays - that is delay merely for the sake of delay.”
Like the Aboriginal people, for instance, some of whose leaders have spent more than a century under the yoke of a racist Indian Act, and are still trying to negotiate a just settlement of land rights.
This, after a day spent with 400 First Nations Chiefs who must depend upon Canada’s natural resources to provide a life for their people.
The Great White Chief apparently does not listen well.
There is a suggestion here that Mr Harper is evoking that old line from some movie or other, that ... “White man speaks with forked tongue!”
Then our prime minister got to the most threatening economic villains of all ... “Canada’s aging population” (aka the old farts).
In the prime minister’s eyes, these villainous oldsters lurking in our midst could by themselves bring about Canada’s economic downfall, and he will have none of it.
“If not addressed promptly, this (the elder population) has the capacity to undermine Canada’s economic position, and for that matter, that of all western nations, well beyond the current economic crises.”
Mr Harper stopped short of recommending death panels and firing squads to rid him of these traitors to Canada’s economic growth. Instead he suggested that starvation could accomplish the task.
The code words were these, “For those elements (of the retirement income system) that are not funded, we will make the changes necessary to ensure sustainability for the next generation while not affecting current recipients.”
Parliament, it would seem, will be nothing more than a minor impediment clouding the Harper vision of what this country shall become.
The prime minister told the Davos meeting that, “Canada’s choice will be, with clarity and urgency, to seize and to master our future, to be a model of confidence, growth and prosperity in the 21st Century.”
Presumably, only if we do exactly what he tells us to do, without the niceties of debate and discussion or alternate ideas to determine whether the majority of Canadians who did not vote for him and his party, share his idea of economic Nirvana.
Mr Harper does not have the blessing of the majority of Canadians to “transform” our country according to his own ideological strait-jacket.
Nor, I suspect do most Canadians bless his intent to pay for useless jets and prisons and other ideological idiocies on the backs of elders, the poor, and the first inhabitants of this country.
That’s the view from here.