The country is no different position POLITICALLY then it was when the Liberals had a stranglehold on power and the Conservatives were split between CPC CA and those who defected to the Bloc.
Of course it is, when the Liberals received their majority government the official opposition was a party dedicated to dividing and possibly ending the country. The adversarial relationship in that House was largely due to the fact that had the Separatists won it might have been the end of the House. The conservatives under Harper are taking the same approach to the opposition that the Liberals did with none of the justification.
We have a majority government. Majority governments push through their own agendas . Chretien's government pushed through a number of policies with virtually no opposition. The Conservatives had to do a lot of rebuilding before they even made it into minority status.
The Liberals basic problem here is arrogance and self entitlement. Had they been humbled by the voter revolt over a number of scandals they would not be in the position they are. Even the PM (Paul Martin) who was Finance Minister claimed ignorance of the scandal which took place when he was Finance Minister. By the way it was Martin's Government that used the whole. "STEPHEN HARPER IS GOING TO PUT SOLDIERS IN THE STREETS OF MAJOR CITIES. WE DIDN'T MAKE THIS UP." video that I keep referencing.
Sure there was arrogance, there was also a lot of relief that we still had a country after the referendum. A lot of the bad behaviour that went on was a result of the Liberals still preparing to fight off another separatist movement in Quebec. It was two conservative majorities that led directly to the chaos that almost took Canada down.
As to your accusation that the Harper Government is keeping opposition down. Well buddy that's the nature of politics, always has been -- always will be. If JT became PM in the next election (with a sweeping majority) he would conduct himself no differently and I can guarantee you that all his promises of Utopia would be quickly forgotten. The usual is to say, we can't do this or do that because the previous government has left us such a mess. So much for the Liberal Utopian Dream.
No it's not, the whole point of a democratic system isn't to make it possible for a very narrow interest group to hijack the system, it's to represent as broad a cross section of the population in the interests of building as strong a nation as possible. What we have under Mr. Harper is a control freak concentrating as much power as he can in one office no matter what the long term consequences to the country, even MPs in his own caucus are getting sick of it.
Spending millions of dollars and flooding the airwaves and mailboxes of Canadians with highly partisan attacks on
opposition leaders may meet the limited agenda of Mr. Harper, it weakens an already damaged political sphere in this country. Just like after Mulroney, the chances are better after this conservative mandate that Canadian divisions will once again play a dominant role.
I'll say it one last time. If the Liberals want to take power in this Country they need to focus on policies that will entice the voting public. I haven't seen any of that as of yet.
Oh and by the way. I voted for Chretien in his first term.
I have, front and center is the democratic deficit issue, Mr. Harper has spent a lot of time weakening the system we all depend on to hold our government accountable, Justin Trudeau has already brought forth proposals to reverse this trend...and probably not coincidentally Harper immediately began attacking him. If his only real agenda is taking and holding power in Canada then he can't afford to allow anyone to gain support, this isn't a good thing for any country, Canada is no exception.
