Big Steve, Working Stiff

Stephen Harper, plump and soft as a double roll of Cottonelle. A man who has spent his entire adult life, after leaving school with a degree in economics, either as a spoiled politician or as a spoiled ideologue in the loving embrace of a right wing think tank. Stephen Harper. A man who is unlikely to ever develop a callus on his hands unless it comes from clutching pennies. This twee, over-fed poofter has the little salted nuts to look into the lens of the camera and portray himself as one of the "ordinary, working people". And that would be opposed to the "ivory tower" justice experts. Well lets just tell the truth Steve, you haven't much in common with the justice experts because you're trying to make your career by skirting the law. But you sure do know the ivory tower, it's your every aspiration. You fancy yourself the philosopher king, the grand leader of men.

After all the bitching about the dirty old Liberals and their crooked ways, the simple fact is that the Liberals set up the Gomery commission and at least made a show of accepting responsibility for their bad acts. You sir, you petulant shit, have made every effort to snow the people of this nation, stonewall committees, stall and evade inquiries into your own party's malfeasance. You have presided over a house of lies since you accepted the responsibility as leader of Her Majesty's government. You whined and kvetched and allowed your caucus to hurl base insults at Belinda Stronach when she crossed the floor. Yet you opened wide your arms and kissed Mr Emerson on his ample posterior when he did the same, rewarding him with a seat in your cabinet. That cabinet also populated by a man that you had to spring into the senate with a sleazy little maneuver that ran counter to your campaign of holier than thou, anti-patronage rhetoric. You fancy yourself tough on crime. Yet your party has engaged in electoral finance fraud and twisted and turned, contorted and lied making every effort to cover up your deeds and evade the law. You sued the leader of the opposition to silence him and now that he appears to have been correct in assessing your character, you've begged the court to quell your own suit. Quite the example.

And what is your solution to crime? The prison industrial complex north. Life for 14 year olds, longer terms, stiffer penalties. After all, look how well crime has been reduced down south using the very model you hope to import. But then preventing crime isn't really the issue, is it? It really comes down to plain old meanness. You don't give a tinkers damn about preventing crime, or resolving the social issues that cause crime. Nope. You just want to play the big tough guy and punish folks you look down upon. That's why we hear this bullshit line about the Liberals coddling prisoners from you and your twittering cohorts. Well I've gone through the gates of a federal pen to write a magazine article and there wasn't much of anything I'd characterize as coddling, most frightening place I've ever been. Where do you intend to put all of the thousands of your newly minted prisoners Steve? Who's going to staff and and train and service the new prisons your tough guy stance will require? Who gets to pay for all of that caged housing? Yeah, us ordinary folk. But the truth of it is that you get off on punishment Steve. It makes you feel strong and important and you like that feeling because there isn't much else going on in that sweater vest of yours. That's why you need to control every message and you lash out at scientists, artists, civil servants and anyone that you perceive to be weaker and worst of all, defiant. You like to lord it over those whom you can control, those people you like to berate and abuse, those actual, ordinary people. You're busily living out the little bit of power in your corruption.

"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough..."

Hey Steve, ever wonder who makes all the stuff on the TV? Still, that fucking top 1% of the arts community that have achieved a modicum of success by mastering their craft and bringing joy, laughter and entertainment to the country, how dare they celebrate their achievements. Have they no honour? Who do they think they are, trying to preserve funding for the larger arts community across the country? Fucking artists.

Canadian heritage minister Bev Oda has been forced to cancel a fundraising dinner next week after it was revealed a key industry lobbyist was helping organize the event.

Chisolm Pothier, a spokesman for Oda, on Thursday confirmed that Charlotte Bell, the vp of regulatory affairs, TV and radio for domestic broadcaster CanWest MediaWorks, had been among five organizers of the Nov. 15 dinner.

Why, the very nerve of those snooty elitists. Hey, here's some more of those gala gobbling, elitist bastards.

Americans living in Calgary are being asked to help fund Republican efforts to elect John McCain through the visit of an influential Republican senator who doubles as one of Mr. McCain's campaign co-chairs.

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is being invited to the city in August by a well-known Tory supporter and lawyer, Gerry Chipeur, who also has significant links to the U.S. Republican Party...

Possibly the best part is that the proceeds from the proposed $1000 a plate Brownback dinner will go to Friends of Science, Tim Ball's oil industry-funded anti-Kyoto "charity", whose funding was laundered through the University of Calgary by Harper's buddy, Prof. Barry Cooper, before the U of C put a stop to it.

Again, Mr Harper, you say one thing for one set of ears but you do an entirely different thing for your own glory. My friend Ron is a talented, dedicated guy who lives and breathes his craft. He's producing my new album. We've worked together for years and I know for a solid fact that he keeps working long after the bell goes and the hours paid are done because he wants things to sound good when they leave his hands. His clients get far more than their moneys worth. And like the vast majority of working artists he leads a modest existence. By every right he should qualify as one of your elites, except by the measure of compensation. Last year one of the records he produced and performed on was nominated for a Juno Award. That's one of those gala occasions you seem so troubled by. Ask Bev Oda what they're all about, she spent about $5,500 on limos at the Juno gala in 2006. Anyway, my friend Ron, he couldn't afford to go and join the festivities because it would have meant time off from the studio, travel and accommodation. That's the reality for the cultural elite you have chosen to flick your snot at, you over compensated lump.

Fuck you Mr Harper, fuck you and your think tank elite, fuck you and your ideological elite, fuck you and your party elite. On behalf of more than 616 thousand ordinary, working Canadians, fuck you.

The Conference Board estimates Canada's cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's GDP, in 2007. The sector's total impact including "indirect and induced effects" on other sectors leaves an economic footprint of $84.6-billion, or 7.4 per cent of GDP, the report states. Those revelations paint a picture of industry stability: Statistics Canada reported culture accounting for an identical 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2006.

The report put 2003 employment in the cultural sector at 616,000 jobs.