Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Is Harper Even Canadian?

From the Globe and Mail's editorial pages a day or so ago. {sadly it's behind their "pay to view" firewall, so you get to read a scanned copy - apologies}

Apparently, with the 400th anniversary of Quebec City's foundation coming next year, all sorts of heads of state are being invited - except our own head of state, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

According to the editorial, even the Governor General is being shut out of these celebrations.

While I've long suspected that Harper is at the very least anti-monarchy, I always thought he had at least a modicum of respect for the heritage and traditions that are part of Canada's history and present day reality.

Whether or not Prez Harper likes it, the Queen is still Canada's legal head of state, and she - or the her representative - should be present at celebrations of this nature. There is certainly no good reason not to invite the Queen, but of course the PMO is being suprisingly closed mouthed about the whole business - probably because it's not on Harper's script of "current issues" that he can talk about.

This isn't a big issue per se, except it demonstrates further that Harper's leadership has a cloud of ulterior motives over it. Claim as he will that there is "no hidden agenda", his actions and secrecy continue to suggest that the man is being less than up front with Canadians...and even less than respectful of the structures of our government.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do we let the pope into this country when we kept Fred Phelps out?

Don't they peddle the same hate messages?

Oh, I forgot, Ratzi wears the fancy dresses.

MgS said...

The pope's messages are usually a little more intelligibly worded than Phelps' spittle-flecked tirades.

I don't accuse this pope of "hate" per se so much as willful ignorance.

Alison said...

Doesn't that mean that Ratzi and his band of brothers are obstacles to peace as they are not in marriages between a man and a woman and are not producing offspring? The man's lack of logic is staggering.

Anonymous said...

I've been appalled many times by the behaviour of this government, and this is just the latest. When even the mayor of Quebec and the premier of the province want the Queen to come, what could they possibly be thinking in the PMO? Do they really think they can win nationalist votes?

Over and over, this government is an embarrassment to me. Bali was the worst, but this protocol snub is pretty bad too. Were they all brought up in a barn? What the heck kind of "conservatives" are they?

Anonymous said...

Well, Grog, I'm not quite so forgiving as you are.

I see the pope's messages as clearly hate. When he proclaims that a vulnerable group is "intrinsicly evil", he is peddling hate... And his underserved influence makes him far more dangerous.

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