Stephen Harper’s Seven Years

Harper’s Seven Top Screw-Ups in Seven Years
January 23 marks seven years since Stephen Harper was first elected Prime Minister of Canada. The man once linked to the party of Reform and intolerant rednecks evolved to a French-speaking, cat-petting, ethnic-vote courting leader of a merged Conservative Party. As the PM took the opportunity to pat himself on the back in tweeting his self-assessed greatest accomplishments, perhaps the seven-year itch is the right time to recognize PM Harper’s biggest blunders.

1. G8/G20 financial fiasco: The billion-dollar boondoggle and the fake lake scandal that begat a youtube video “If I had a billion dollars” (Apologies to BNL). One wonders if the fake lake hath frozen over by now.
2. Death of science-based evidence: the heart of the census was carved out, the environmental scientists were muffled and/or turfed, and decisions based on ideology rather than facts have permeated public policy.
3. Refugee health: PM Harper froze healthcare services for refugees, despite objections of medical doctors and others who lean on logic and common sense. Even conservative Premiers have chided Harper for his lack of compassion!
4. Appointing unilingual supreme court judges: Harper’s faux-pas hat trick was half-acknowledged when he voted for an NDP-led resolution to require all top public servants be fluent in both official languages before applying for the job.
5. Federal deficit vs. fiscal prudence: Harper took office with a budget surplus. Now the feds carry a large deficit, compounding the national debt. So much for fiscal conservatism!
6. The F-35 jets: Harper said the cost would be frozen at $9B. That promise evaporated. The fuzzy math cleared up to reveal a $45B price tag. Oops!
7. The persistent Y-chromosome problem: the enduring discrepancies in the handling of MPs’ gaffes depending on their gender continues to baffle. Faint suspicion of wrong-doing got a female MP frozen out of caucus and turfed. Meanwhile, the latest in a long line of Teflon dons, Dean Del Maestro, remains Parliamentary Secretary while under dual investigations from Elections Canada and RCMP. Adding to that the abortion-restriction issue repeatedly brought back on the table and you have a backwards, misogynistic pattern.

Stephen Harper: It has been seven years since our Conservative Government was first elected. To mark the occasion, I’ve put together a few of my favourite photos, highlighting some of our most notable moments and achievements.

Stephen Harper humblebrags on Twitter about his seven years on the job
1. We ended the CWB monopoly, giving grain producers the freedom to sell their wheat & barley on the open market
2. Over the years, our gov’t has strengthened Canada’s northern sovereignty. In 2010 I visited Resolute, Nunavut
3. 4.7M Cdns have opened a #TFSA since we introduced them. This year, we doubled the amount Cdns can save each yr
4. Our Government followed through on our promise to cut the GST – from 7% to 6% in 2006, then to 5% in 2008
5. Our Government also followed through on our promise to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry
6. Our gov’t supports our Armed Forces & is committed to getting them the best tools & equipment to do their job
7. Our Economic Action Plan has helped Cda emerge as one of the world’s top-performing industrialized countries