DIARY
Harper went to the polls and was exorcised
by Robert LaFrance
Good morning. I
deliberately waited until the day after election day before starting to write
this column.
Yesterday morning voters were streaming
into the polls in numbers I had never seen. I had voted in the 4-day advance
poll which had a vastly larger number than any previous one. Glad to help.
How I voted is
none of your business, but I am sure that Stephen Harper and many of his merry
band of attack ad mavens (which does not include retiring MP Mike Allen, who
was our government member for many years and served with integrity and class)
were baffled as to why they are now on the Opposition benches.
The word ‘nasty’
was one I have often used to describe the Stephen Harper campaign. It turned
out that Justin Trudeau had 78 days to get ‘ready’ and it turned out that
Canadians responded to his non-nasty message with their votes.
At the age of 67, I have voted in
many election campaigns and have never endured one as nasty and unprincipled as
Stephen Harper’s. That niqab issue was deliberately set afoot in Quebec, which
over the years has proved itself over the top as an ‘anti-furriner’ province.
Show them a race or a religion to hate and they will go for it. Muslim women
endured curses and worse after Harper brought up the niqab issue as a desperate
attempt to drain votes that might have gone Liberal. It turned out that his
nastiness dragged votes from the NDP in Quebec and sent them TO the Liberals.
On election day, October 19,
(at last!) I was interested in reading some of the Facebook posts by people
around here: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the time has come to give Harper his
walking ticket! He's disconnected from reality, he's done nothing more than
create division among Canadians and his fear-mongering tactics are comparable
to every political tyrant we've ever learned of in History class. And
furthermore, I'm sick of seeing his ignorant and benighted commercials.”
Another comment from a local guy:
“Get out there and vote people, don’t make no difference who you vote for as
long as Harper goes down the road.”
And this one that was the best
written of them all: “Today is the day...and let’s just say we got rid of
Harper with a moccasin print on his ass. lol...VOTE!!!”
That pretty much covers it.
***********************
As I write this, the Toronto Blue
Jays – said to be ‘Canada’s team’ – just lost last evening 14-2 to Kansas City,
putting them behind three games to one in the American League Championship
series. Later news reports made a big deal of the fact that athletes are
superstitious and maybe that was a reason for the loss. No kidding.
One of the Blue Jays didn’t want one
of his former coaches to attend the game because every time he did the Jays
lost. So the former coach went to a dingy bar and watched the game from a
corner. Seriously.
Wayne Gretzky used to have a certain
way to tuck in his jersey but he apparently didn’t have it tucked in on October
19, because he supported Stephen Harper who went from that endorsement to one
from crack-smoking Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto.
When, as a teenager, I attempted to
play hockey for the Currie Road Ramblers, I noticed that a couple of the
players, when they had laced on their skates, always skated over to the net on
the north side of the rink and tapped it with their left hand. One of them
tapped it twice, and one tapped it three times. So silly. I tapped the south
side net THREE times and we always won, but only when I didn’t play.
*************************
We don’t get a lot of Palestinians
here in New Brunswick, and certainly Victoria County, but one has to sympathize
with their plight in the Middle East. For several weeks young Palestinians have
been attacking Israelis, especially around Jerusalem because of something they
think the Israelis had done.
So the Israelis are equally to be
pitied because just walking down the street can get them killed. It’s a killing
field to be sure and there are even ‘suicide bombers’, some of them female,
which I have not noticed before. The males who do this are supposed to enjoy
the favours of eighty virgins, so one wonders about the females.
Another weird aspect of this little
war - and big wars have been started for less – is that some Palestinian
mothers are proud of their sons who blow themselves all the way to Berlin.
One mother interviewed by CBC-TV said she’d be happy to supply her other
son for the glory of the struggle. In the background was the other son and I
could see him saying to her: “Come on ma, can’t we find a cousin or something?”
-end-
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