open letter to Stephen Harper

Dear sir,

Please stop presuming to tell me, as a Canadian, what I want or think. No, I do not think you have a stronger mandate this time around. No, I do not want you for my Prime Minister. I wanted Stephan Dion, who appears to be the last politician left with a sense of respect and any class at all. I have been listening to your sly verbal mooning of the opposition now that you have your way and have seven more weeks to continue to break apart the country along geographical lines. You appear to confuse "classy" with "slimy" and listening to your speech made me want to take a shower.

I do not want our children criminalized and I do support the arts, galas and all. I do not think that the Bloc is "the devil" and I frankly give the separatists my blessing. I would also like to separate and am thinking of cleaning up my French so that Quebec'll let me in. I am embarrassed to be Canadian right now. How can we tell the rest of the world that we support democracy? We're a bunch of hypocrites, with you at the helm.

Let me tell you, instead of having you tell me, what I think: I think you are a smug bully. I think you are a liar. I think you are authoritarian, if not downright dictatorial. I think you will stop at nothing to stay in power, including being viciously divisive in the name of "loving our country." Mr. Harper, the country you love is Alberta, and you seem to have forgotten about the rest of us. Even those Albertans who don't agree with you.

Democratic leaders don't desperately avoid votes that might actually be in the interests of the majority. As many have mentioned, your math is a little off: the majority of Canadians did not vote for you. The majority voted for anyone but you -- 63% of us voted for the opposition, Mr. Harper, so a coalition government that uses the tools given to them by the democratic process to take power, is actually a more democratic government than the government we have now.

If I had the confidence in you and the rest of your cabal to actually listen to the 63% of us who don't want you there, I would hope that the opposition would give you guys a chance because the country is completely dysfunctional at this point. However, I don't trust you. You have repeatedly proven that you do not have the desire to share power with anyone, and your policies are designed to keep you in power, sir, not for the good of the country. I've been trying to reconcile this avoidance of the vote with the good of the country, and I just can't. And perhaps that is what will eventually make Canadians wake up to the fact that our democracy, under your watch, is falling apart. The problem with being an autocrat is that it is very, very clear who is primarily to blame when things go horribly wrong.

Enjoy your holidays, Mr. Harper.