The devil in Stephen Harper

Anti-gay

• Has vigorously and actively opposed gay marriage. And would use the Notwithstanding Clause to override the Supreme Court’s definition of marriage.
• Has called “vile” any comparison between civil rights and gay rights, and voted against including sexual orientation in hate propaganda laws.
• Hired a former Winnipeg radio jock fired for saying that “diesel dykes (are) running the school board” to be his media spokesperson in his 2002 Alliance leadership bid.

Anti-immigration

• Conservatives’ interim policy document refers darkly to focusing on attracting immigrants who can best integrate into the “Canadian fabric” (read mostly white, mostly Europeans).
• Refused to revoke the nomination of Markham
• Unionville Conservative candidate Joe Li for referring to immigrants as “garbage.”
• In his own words: “West of Winnipeg, the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada: people who live in ghettos, and who are not integrated into western Canadian society.”

Artful flip-flopper

• Originally voted for gun control registry, saying he was for it in principle, but changed his mind and voted against. Now says he will abolish it entirely.
• Originally supported abortion rights for women, but nowadays characterizes himself as “pro-life,” but pledged not to change the law.

Health care profiteer

• Supports privatization, but is loath to admit it, even though the Conservative platform talks about offering Canadians only “reasonable access” to health care services.
• Said in a 1997 interview with CBC
• TV that a parallel private health care system in Canada “would be a good idea.”
• The National Citizens Coalition of which Harper was president was originally founded with the aim of killing publicly funded health care altogether.

Shill for big business

Magnet for racists

• According to the neo-Nazi National Alliance Web site, several of its “activists” attended the Canadian Alliance convention and “found convention attendees open to discussing the issues of race, immigration, Zionism and the control of the media.” Harper issued a press release claiming he “would not allow his party to be a haven for any persons who harbour these views.”
• Architect of all those anti-immigrant policies that attracted members of the white rights Heritage Front to Reform.

Human rights violator

• Favours abolishing human rights commissions, calling them “an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society…. It is in fact totalitarianism.”

Native nightmare

• Made no effort to apologize directly to the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres when he erroneously sent the group a letter congratulating it on a holiday celebrating India’s independence from Britain. Like Columbus, Harper got the wrong Indians – the federation represents native Canadians.

Quebec hater

• Opposes recognizing special status for Quebec.
• Though he’s changed his tune recently, also opposes official bilingualism. Told the Calgary Sun in 2001 that “Canada is not a bilingual country. As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed.”

Yankee lover

• Supported U.S. war in Iraq.
• Counts among his youth influences U.S. éminence grise of the right Peter Brimelow, whose books include Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster and The Worm In The Apple: How The Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education.

Western separatist

• Has suggested that Albertans “should build firewalls around Alberta,” including replacing RCMP with its own provincial police.
• In his own words: “Alberta has opted for the best of Canada’s heritage – a combination of American enterprise and individualism…. Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialist country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status.”

Eco terrorist

• Calls Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions a “boondoggle.” He’s not convinced that global warming is the consequence of human activity – a little like Stockwell Day believing humans once walked the earth with dinosaurs.