Who needs parliament when you have Davos?

Mr. Harper no longer needs parliament to make grand-standing, vaguely unsettling political statements anymore. At a speech in Davos, Switzerland, he outlined his grand plan to transform Canada. Points on this plan are to aggressively pursue oil and gas exports to Asia, and to overhaul the pension system.

Mind you, it's early, and I haven't read through all of the talking points yet. And it's possible that anything this man could do would unsettle me. The press could announce that, say,  Stephen Harper has nipped out for a loaf of bread and some windex, and I'd find that A Reason To Be Worried.

Having admitted my prejudice here, I still find it oddly inappropriate the location he's chosen to announce it. You mean you couldn't unveil this before parliament, the institution that's supposed to represent us? Instead you're announcing it to a roomful of world leaders and powerful people, who probably don't give a toss, since it's Canada.

"I think he's saying something about Maple Syrup, maybe."

These are some sweeping changes he's mentioning, especially to those on the brink of retirement.  You think that the Canadian people should be addressed first.  I heard on the CBC this morning a reporter saying that the opposition was displeased by the venue he announced this at. One MP - can't remember the name, sorry - said that the proposed pension reform amounted to elder abuse. Since he's got this parliament in the bag, it's stopped being important to him at all - he has enough of a majority to rubber-stamp anything.

Don't despair, though. The conservatives still seem vulnerable to public pressure, if the Gay Marriage fiasco of two weeks ago proves anything. The problem is they now have parliament, and we can expect them to actually put these plans into practise. Which I think is a good Reason To Be Worried.

Can someone explain the government's response to Attawapiskat?

 Stephen Harper has just announced that Attawapiskat, the isolated first nations community whose housing crisis has put it into a state of emergency, will be placed under third party control.

I think I'm missing something here. This doesn't seem a good response to the crisis at all. Let me list the things that I don't understand here:
1. Why is the government putting a the reserve under third party control when First Nations affairs is the responsibility of the federal government? Specifically, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. It seems to me, in my ignorant and opinionated way, that if there is a housing crisis, the responsibility lies with the government to fix that.
2. Who is this third party they are appointing? A "third party" could be any person or any corporation other than the government and the reserve willing to step in the breach here, as far as I can tell. Are these going to be people appropriate to solving the housing problem? And is the federal government going to be absorbing the cost?
3. Why did it take them a month to respond to the state of emergency?
4. Why isn't the Prime Minister up there talking to the people of Attawapiskat himself? The leader of the opposition, Nycole Turmel just went up there. I remember Harper going up that town in Alberta devastated by wild fires in the spring, Slave Lake. Why is this community different?

Nycole Turmel, showing more leadership than a certain national leader. 

If someone can explain these things to me, I'd be grateful.

"The Harper Government" is now the official name of Government of Canada.

I'm satisfied to see tax dollars at work where it matters, building a cult of personality around the prime minister.




According to this article from the Globe and Mail, the government released a directive last night saying that the Government of Canada should be referred as "the Harper Government" in federal communications.

It's his government. He can wear what he likes.

This is a bit much. Technically, it's not his government at all. In a strictly constitutional sense, he's just running it for the Queen, who presumably has better things to do. And if he is running the government at the moment, it's not because of overwhelming support from the electorate. It's been five years since he took power, and only now are the conservatives "flirting with a majority."

While the whole thing has a certain arrogance to it, it's small change. If you really want to discuss cults of personalities, let's look at Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan. He was not content with having Turkmen schools, airports, streets and highways named after him. In 2002, Niyazov renamed months and days of the week after himself and his family members.

Now Niyazov could get things done. Crazy things. He banned dogs from the capital, lip syncing at concerts, and shut down the internet. He also made his people build a golden statue of himself which rotated to face the sun (which has since been dismantled). 

On a cloudy day it just spun in circles, presumably

Harper informally renaming the federal government pales in comparison. Until I find myself wondering what I'm doing Harper-day night, or planning to go skiing in Whistler next Harper-uary, or sewing my costume for Harper-ween, I'm just not impressed.