April 5th, 2007

I’ve pretty much decided to pass on putting my name into the ring for the pending federal election. I think Canada is about to get a taste of what it’s like to live under the thumb of a right wing majority government, and when the pendulum swings back, as no doubt it will, I’ll be there. Democracies tend to get the government the voters deserve, and voters need to get kicked in the teeth once in a while just to remind them how much better off they are under social democracies. I just hope the damage Harper does is reversible. Much of what Bush did south of the border is not.

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(Since I originaly wrote this, and thanks to the hard work of NDP members of Parliament, Harper changed his mind and signed this Convention. I doubt if he would have in a majority government situation.)

The Stephen Harper Conservative government, in yet another display of uncaring and unthinking arrogance, is refusing to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. (http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/) The signing ceremony for the Convention is on March 30th, in New York, and the current Conservative government is so far refusing to even attend. In doing so, this government has turned its back on 30 years of Canadian leadership championing the rights of people with disabilities internationally. It’s public excuse? The typical rhetoric of a conservative government stuck with a shallow minded and blinkered leadership; it has to consult with the provinces and territories first – as if those consultations haven’t been going on all along. Outrageous.

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