Harper’s Canada : Remembering what the Harper Conservatives have done to Canada since 2006

John Trent

Programs and agencies such as the Status of Women and Court Challenges programs, Canada Mortgage and Housing, the Law Commission, the Long-arms Registry, the Long-form Census, Experimental Lakes Area program, the Arctic Institute, and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (amongst dozens of others) have been eliminated or seriously curtailed. [...] The ferocious partisanship, the excessive secrecy, the negative television ads, the lying directed at opponents, the overwhelming sense that enemies abound (including most of the media, of course), the most manic preoccupation with spin and image, and now little scandals from the Senate have created the impression… of a government that has ideology and agenda but not much heart, empathy, feeling o [...] If applied to most of the major laws and policies of the Harper government over the past eight years, it would reveal that the beneficiaries have overwhelmingly been the top executives, investors, and shareholders of the largest corporations. [...] Thus transparency and availability of information is critical to hold the government accountable.” Social Watch E-Newsletter,sw-news- bounces@listas.item.org.uy There has been the willingness to attack the core elements of our democratic society, especially the two most fundamental: the courts and the management of our electoral process. [...] For instance, in the Conservative’s latest omnibus bill in the spring of 2015, supposedly dealing with the budget, the government gave itself the power to override the labour law and impose a contentious new sick-leave and disability regime for public servants.