Ed Broadbents warning

As a follow up to his television interview where he outright accused Harper of lying to the Canadians, Ed Broadbent has written a scathing article on Harper’s reckless power grab.

Excerpts from the Globe and Mail

Since first being elected to the House of Commons in 1968, at a time of great national unity, I have never witnessed a Canadian prime minister consciously decide to disunite the nation. Until now

Now, for the first time in our history, we have a prime minister prepared to set a fire that we may not be able to put out, for the paltry purpose of saving himself from a confidence vote on Monday.

In almost every sentence, paragraph and page coming from Mr. Harper, his ministers and Conservative MPs, we're getting distortions intended to delegitimize a democratically formed coalition, proposed in accordance with normal parliamentary practices, between the Liberals and the NDP.

Instead of focusing on accommodation, on the need for early action on the economy, Mr. Harper is launching hypocritical attacks that can lead to a national disaster, and, with the time prorogation has granted him, he will no doubt continue to promote disunity.

Instead of following constitutional precedent and allowing a democratic confidence vote to take place when it should, we have a power-hungry man who will be recorded as the first prime minister in Canada's history to deliberately create a political crisis and set the fire of national disunity.

Although there is much consternation among progressives, myself included, about yesterday’s proroguing of the legislature, rightly or wrongly granted by the governor general, it is also part of our parliamentary process and presumably an opportunity to refocus.

Our country needs leadership in preparation for the oncoming economic meltdown and personally I don’t care if it comes from the minority government working with the opposition or the majority coalition working despite the minority.

However all Canadians should take heed of Mr. Broadbent’s warning.

We now have a power hungry ideologue as prime minister who has been rebuked and similar to a wounded animal he will continue to attack regardless of the consequences.

Mr. Harper wants to turn this rebuke of his ill conceived, partisan, ideological, economic update into a referendum of parliamentary procedure, national unity and another untimely, wasteful election.

It is with little wonder at times like this that I have more in common with the sovereignists in Quebec than I do with the conservatives in Canada.