Stephen Harper's long, nasty good-bye...

This past Remembrance Day when Stephen Harper made the crack about how the Royal Canadian Legion had decades to "perfect the technology" and still couldn't sell a poppy that wouldn't fall off your collar immediately, got caught and was subsequently attacked by concerned vets everywhere, I felt sorry for him. His point was valid (come on, who doesn't lose like 10 of those a year?) and the comment was really funny (I admit it, I laughed out loud). Had I been so blinded by his politics and his fish lips that I failed to see the humour and humanity in the "Conservative" leader?

I use quotes around Conservative because, let's face it, he AIN'T a Conservative. Stephen Harper is and always will be the leader of the Alliance Party. Call it what you want, it's still the Alliance. In Joe Clark's clothing.

Anyway, I got over my amusement pretty quickly when I opened the paper this morning and saw that on day two (day two!!!) of the campaign Harper was already promising to do away with gay marriage and restore "family values" to our fine land. Do I live in an urban bleeding heart bubble or is this not the way to try and get Canadians to vote for you?

Don't answer that.

Don't.

I've been thinking that perhaps we all need a little refresher on why Stephen Harper lost the last campaign and why he will lose this one.

He is, for one thing, the guy who published a letter in The Wall Street Journal last year denouncing Canada's decision to "stay neutral" in the Iraq war and assuring Americans that he spoke for the "silent majority" of Canadians who supported the war; Canadians that is, "outside of Quebec." Harper's affection for things American is not skin deep. In 2001 he wrote an article in favour of exchanging our system of government for a US presidential-style one with an appointed cabinet, saying "The difference between the calibre and experience of the Bush cabinet to any Canadian equivalent is embarrassing to us."

Now, I too have an affection for many things American. Growing up in Southern Ontario in many ways is like growing up in Western New York. I love the New York Yankees, jazz music, Irv Weinstein and Commander Tom, but DAMN IT I want my Prime Minister to be a proud Canadian Federalist who is not all about kissing the behinds of the neo-cons.

And it's not just gay rights and our differences from Americans that has Harper ranting. He denounces human rights commissions altogether as "totalitarianism" and an "attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society."

Yeah, OKAAAAAY.

At the fore of Harper's mind is "respect for religious traditions above all...and personal self-restraint reinforced by moral and legal sanctions on behaviour" in order to challenge "the social agenda of the modern Left. Its system of moral relativism, moral neutrality and moral equivalency..."

Anyone who values our heritage as a tolerant and moderate society and the seperation of church and state should think very seriously about preserving that heritage when they place their votes on January 23rd of next year. The day, I am convinced, Stephen Harper will put on his cowboy hat, stroll off into the sunset and finally get out of politics.