Ominguff Bills

It had to happen, there is only so much you can bottle up for so long. The F-35 episode is so yesterday, there is a whole new bunch of Harper to consider today. But don't worry, it will all morph into a general diatribe against right wing politicians.

The penchant Mr Harper has discovered for omnibus bills is truly inspiring no? Remember a certain MP of the Reform persuasion from Alberta railing against a Liberal omnibus bill on the grounds that it prevented an MP from representing his constituents on each element of the bill because he/she had to vote on the bill in its entirety? Rightly (groan), he denounced the concept as besmirching the face of the body politic and attacking the very principles of democracy which form the foundations of this, the bestest place on earth. OK, he was not quite so eloquent, but you get the picture?

Now he has the levers of power in his hot and fevered hands and ominbus bills are all the rage, time limited ones even, just to conflate two previously pernicious means of negating the principles of democracy. His great and glorious government, premised on freedom of the individual, release from the shackles of the nanny state, every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Oops, sorry, got a tad carried away there. No socioengineering from Cap'n H and his honest crew as they go their merry way searching for beggars to rob. Here we are with a budget bill ostensibly intended to present where government money will flow in the coming year. At >600 pages, it is a heavy read but a few brave souls have delved headlong into its dpeths and there they find, amongst other things, and well scattered around, hiding amongst non-threatening phrases, a couple of items relating to fish. What has this to do with a budget? Let alone how to protect fish and the waters in which they have their simple little fishy lives? It seems that Herr H would like to simplify things - you (industry, mines, people who would like to use loads of water and return it to nature slightly shop soiled) only need to worry about these little fish if you do something which will kill them. Make them sick, make people who eat them turn blue, scare them away so they never come back, and everything is just fine and dandy, move along folks, no story here. Even allowing that I might be exagerating just a little for dramatic effect, why is this stuff in a budget bill? Can it be because His Excellency the Greatest H does not really want the matter to be discussed? He perhaps wants to hide it and hopefully slip it unnoticed into effect? Of what is he afraid? That somebody might think he was going just a little too far, a litte too fast? If he has a vision why cannot he stand up and proudly proclaim it from the hights of the Peace Tower? After all, it is a vision of a new Canada, home to burgeoning business, unfettered by the chains of Federal regulation, self controlled by the natural rules of commerce. Canada, a place where good capitalists can come to roam free, to gorge themselves on the riches of our fabulous natural resources, feed the gaping maw of Chinese industry. A country constructed on the model which exists in the head of Philosopher King Steve and which must only be gradually exposed to the light of day, released bit by bit in small phrases buried deep within seemingly innocuous pieces of boring Parliamentary business.

Again, we are forced to assume that Mr Harper has a master plan which is to our greater good, never mind that the steps along the way appear rough and painful. In this he is exactly the same as every other right wing despot, the stern patriarch who knows that a good thrashing every now and then did nobody any harm. The one with the true insight who will lead his sheep to the promised land of milk and honey (but no fish, and slightly dodgy smelling air), appart from the few weak, old, or sickly who fall by the wayside. Seems like the 'nanny state' is being replaced by the 'father state'. After all, it is only the visonary who can comprehend the compexity of the model and the strong man who has the authority to wrestle it into being. The normal person would be terrified at the enormity of the task and would fail to carry the idea through to its glorious fruition. The common man would be unmanned by the brilliance and the scope of the plan. Remember, he is doing it for us, for his children, even if we, as yet uneducated, cannot appreciate his wisdom. We will praise him in the end and shout his name to the heavens for he is great and he is kind. So trouble Him not with your questions and your doubts, sully not His Vision with unpure challenges, He is far ahead of you and has momentum, forging a path through the vines and thorns to a Brave New World of which only He Knows the location. We have but to follow.