Stephen Harper

True Tory Colours

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Immigration Minister pulled gay rights from citizenship guide, documents show – The Globe and Mail.

It’s not just that Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration pulled a section of the study guide for immigrants that details Canada’s gay rights legislation. He did that, according to the Globe article over the objections of senior staff memebers. That’s what we expect from him.

It’s not just that now people who immigrate from countries where homosexuality is a crime, will have no idea that they are coming, or could come to a country where “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”.

It’s far worse than that, in my opinion. It points to a continuing, under the radar,  fundamentalist religious agenda in this government.

It’s far wore than that. Jason Kenney has tried to change who we are by ministerial decree, without  regard for the wishes of Parliament, the decisions of the Supreme Court, or the decent behaviour of most Canadians.

Through the actions of this minister and by his own prorogation of Parliament, Stephen Harper is showing Canadians his contempt for our institutions, for all he wrapped himself in the flag in Vancouver.

Revision

/ ginny200 / 2 Comments

The revision of a novel can take years, as it did for my first one, or fewer years, as it has for the one under review now. Somehow, I’ve managed to have one published, one being revised, and one sitting in my computer, percolating.
Revision is mainly rewriting, in my hands anyway. The worst is deleting a big chunk of prose, as I did this morning, because I felt it was telling, not showing. I replaced it with a much shorter piece of dialogue. If I keep cutting, i’m going to end up with a novella!

This proroguing of Parliament has irritated me more than almost anything Harper has done, and he has done a lot that I objected to. I think he has shown a contempt for the people that is astounding. And I’m not the only one. True blue conservatives, of the non-Reform Party variety, are also taken aback by this abuse of power. There was no real need, after all, except that he didn’t want to answer the questions in the House. Or maybe he and his minions just wanted a long winter vacation. The rest of us are at work, and want to see the M.P.s at it as well. Besides that, we want him to answer the questions, about Afghanistan and the budget, and whatever else comes up, and answer them in the House, where the people we elected to ask him questions, can do so.
Oh, and don’t tell me he needs the time to consult about the budget. I don’t believe for one minute that anything the people say affects him one whit. Again, that’s what we pay the opposition M.P.s for.