Honestly, I don't know what was more offensive about Stephen Harper singing with Canada's newest youtube sensation, 10 year old Maria Aragon, she of Lady Gaga fame: riding on her skirt tails for naked political engineering, or singing John Lennon's "Imagine" a song that is the very antithesis of everything Harper believes in. I'm surprised that the  heavily lefty, peacenik lyrics didn't cause smoke to rise from his tongue, like Satan being doused with Holy Water: "Maybe I'm just a dreamer...Ah, it burns, it buuuurns!!"

In fact, the move seemed so wildly over-the-top, even for Harper, that it seemed closely akin to him Jumping the Shark: the beginning of the end of even trying to be creative. Considering that his lead in the polls continues, one can only take the move as a royal 'fuck you' to the electorate. I mean, I'll say this for the man: he has an impressive base which seems to staunchly refuse to vote any other way despite the betrayal and trampling of anything that could be construed as a "Canadian Value," that is, of course, all except for one: polite apathy. 

After every year that goes by, the litany of abuses mount: it has nothing to do with whether or not you agree with his policies - he seems to be getting a free pass on treating parliament, and by extension, Canadians, with a contempt that would be laughably cartoonish, if it weren't oh-so-real.

People watching from the outside can hardly believe what is acceptable to Canadians. Australia's national newspaper, The Australian, ran an article that read like someone shaking their head in utter disbelief: On Bev Oda lying to parliament: Lying to parliament, a cardinal sin of Westminster-style democracy, has become a political tactic. On Harper's appointee as Integrity Commissioner: The Integrity Commissioner was so inept that she failed to uphold a single one of more than 200 whistle-blowing complaints. On accountability: Having come into office on campaign promises of greater transparency and accountability, Harper has silenced civil servants and diplomats, cynically published guidelines on how to disrupt hostile parliamentary committees, and suppressed research that contradicts ideologically-driven policy, for example data that show crime rates to be falling. 

It goes on and on. But why should Harper care? He can fiddle (or play the piano) with a sweet ten year old girl, and he expects we'll overlook the fire that rages. But let me translate Harper's message again, in case you missed it: FUCK YOU. Care to respond at the polls?
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