Steve is off to meet commies and socialists

Harper gave his views on the upcoming Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad in an exclusive Canwest interview. Possibly a personal attempt on his part to increase the listenership and readership of the beleaguered conservative broadcaster and publisher.

From the report of the interview here, it sounds like Steve is quite excited about coming face to face with Venezuela's socialist leader Hugo Chavez and Boliva's Evo Morales or as the Post claims two of the strongest left-wing political leaders Harper has ever encountered on the international stage, I guess Harper and the Post think China, Saudi Arabia, Putin’s Russia are flourishing democracies.

Harper and the Post are positioning our prime ministers role at the Summit as the defender of the North American free enterprise system.

Mr. Harper noted he is prepared to hear plenty of rhetoric at the summit about how the global financial crisis has discredited the free-market economic system.

But he said Canada, which he said shares none of the blame for the current global downturn, is a shining example of well regulated capitalism, with social safety nets, stable open markets, coupled with well-run regulatory systems that can prevent fraud.

Of course to most Canadian progressives and socialists this just Harper continuing to take credit for the financial infrastructure of former Liberal governments, combined with the social security net forced upon them by the NDP.

The Post then continues quoting Harper in what I assume is a shot at Chavez, but what could be considered the most ironic statement made by Harper, in the last three years. Ironic and possibly Freudian in nature.

What the last 10 years and various financial crises show is it's our kind of model that will succeed, Mr. Harper said. There's nothing out here that says that running an authoritarian state on petro dollars is not going to get you very far.

For a government that has focussed solely on the oil industry and the protection of the tar sands, delaying environmental protection, redefining immigration to provide temporary workers specifically for that industry, basically turning our environmental ministry into a shill for the Alberta oil industry, while at the same time cutting back on access to freedom of information, reducing funding to women’s support groups, the arts, science and research, not to mention the obstruction of parliamentary committees and our democratic process in general, this sounds absolutely ludicrous.

To this struggling and despondent socialist, Harper's main objective has always been to turn Canada into an authoritarian state backed by petro dollars and if wasn’t for the inherent corruption and final collapse of the US neoconservative version of free enterprise he would have already succeeded.



JAWL