10 Reasons Why Stephen Harper is Incompetent

Observations from the October 2nd English Debate on CBC:

#1. No Platform

There's a federal election in Canada and Canadians are going to the polls October 14th 2008, and its October 2nd already and Stephen Harper still hasn't released his political platform. He is making promises based on no actual platform for change.

#2. Plagiarizes Speeches

Stephen Harper can't even write his own speeches. His staff writes them and occasionally plagiarizes speeches from other politicians.

#3. Laissez-faire I Don't Care

Harper has fallen asleep on the Canadian economy. He hasn't done anything to prevent a recession, despite Canada's export driven economy and all the exports Canada sends to the United States. Harper's response to economics? Do nothing at all and hope nothing bad happens. Why do people think Harper will be "good" for the economy when his approach is to do nothing at all?

#4. No Investment in Canada

Harper has done nothing to invest in Canada's economy, education or health care. Instead he has cut funding to farmers, literacy programs, women's groups, arts funding and anything else Harper doesn't consider important. I ask you this? How is farming and literacy not important? We need food and food prices keep going up lately. And literacy helps people find jobs. Can you imagine being illiterate and trying to make a resume? How is this helping Canada?

#5. Ignores the Environment

By his own words, Harper believes that global warming and climate change is a scam and a hoax. He doesn't even believe his own scientists. When Harper's government commissioned a study into how they could cut carbon gases without hurting the economy a Conservative think-tank came up with the idea of taxing carbon gases (namely the coal industry and the oil industry)... however the oil industry in Alberta and the coal industry in Nova Scotia didn't like that idea and convinced Harper (through large political contributions) to scrap the idea. The Liberal plan to tax carbon gases is original a Conservative idea, but Harper is so corrupt he simply doesn't care.

#6. Harper doesn't promote Canada overseas

Remember how Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney went on trade missions to Europe, Asia and Russia? Since being in power Harper has gone on no trade missions to promote Canada's products or materials.

#7. Harper allowed bribery in his own party

The Conservative Party tried to bribe Chuck Cadman for his vote by offering him a million dollar insurance policy (Cadman was dying of cancer and the money would be paid to his wife). After Cadman died phone recordings came out proving that Harper not only knew his party wanted to bribe Cadman, but allowed the bribery attempt to continue.

#8. Prison & Punishment not a deterrent to crime

Harper's approach to crime is to increase the punishment: Longer prison sentences and more prison sentences for children. Criminals are NOT thinking about the prison sentences or how long the prison sentence is when they commit the crime. They're more worried about money. The real solution to preventing crime is to boost education levels and to boost the economy and crime will automatically go down when more people have jobs.

#9. Harper is a George W. Bush Clone

Harper essentially does whatever the Bush Administration tells him to do. Harper has pushed towards sending more troops to Afghanistan, keeping troops in Afghanistan longer and is looking forward to sending Canadian troops to Iran.

#10. Harper Flip Flops on issues

Harper has flip flopped on carbon taxes, on gay marriages, on the economy, on privatized health care, on lowering the Canadian national debt, on Afghanistan, on Quebec Separatism and many other issues.

Other Notes:

We have not decided whether to vote for the Liberals or the NDP. The Liberals seem like a lame duck, and the NDP seems like a viable choice. The Greens don't stand a chance. What Canada's leftwing really needs is a combined Liberal-NDP-Green party. It happened for the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives, its time the leftwing did it too.