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An Open Letter to Stephen Harper

Posted April 18, 2011 by blogbot in News | 228 Comments

18 April 2011

The Right Hon. Stephen Joseph Harper, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
Langevin Building
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing today, in the midst of what is quickly developing into the most exciting federal election this country has seen in months, to commend you for your own excellent campaign and to apologize for any slights that I or any of my fellow fiction writers might have directed against you in the past. Many of us fictionists had initially assumed that Mr. Ignatieff, as a novelist in his own right, would be our man in this election, but what your campaign has amply shown is that where fiction is concerned, the Harper Conservatives are without rivals.

Nowhere is your mastery of fiction more evident than in your decision to run on your economic record when you don’t actually have one. Smart of you to take credit for Canada’s financial stability in the current global recession when it was exactly neoconservative policies like yours that unraveled the economy south of the border, and shamefacedly socialist ones, put in place before your party even existed, that protected our own. (I don’t know if you remember, for instance, a certain Liberal decision back in 1998 to pull the plug on some major bank mergers.) Then, instead of decrying the blatantly Keynesian stimulus package your minority government was forced into passing, one that has racked up deficits not seen since the days of that notorious closet Trotskyite Brian Mulroney, you have brilliantly managed to embrace this left-wing travesty, one that betrayed every principle for which your party stands, as a triumph of neo-conservatism.

Perhaps I misspeak myself, however, when I talk about a betrayal of principle. That is to imply the existence of an actual principle to betray, and hence to overlook how deeply fiction informs every aspect of your political project. Your Keynesian flip on deficit spending, for instance—and this from a finance minister who once swore he would rather spend a month on a desert island with Jack Layton than run a deficit—takes on a Proustian elegance when seen in the light of the fiction of policy that has marked your party since its inception. We all remember your boldness in throwing out years of work on setting up a national childcare program of the sort they have in developed countries and instead offering families cash for their kiddies to let the grandparents look after them or the unlicensed pedophile down the street. “Family values,” you said, with your smile (okay, the smile still needs work), cleverly suggesting the fiction of social policy for what was actually vote-buying on a scale even Sir John A. Macdonald would have envied. And of course the great beauty of a fictional policy as opposed to a real one—a point the other parties do not seem to have cottoned onto—is that it requires absolutely no effort on the government’s part, and entails absolutely no risk. Instead, every year families send money into the government in the form of taxes, and every month the government sends a tiny bit of it back, the only cost being the massive bureaucracy required to keep all this machinery in motion.

Over the past five years you have employed strategies of this sort on every front. For vote-buying-masquerading-as-policy, nothing has beaten your GST reduction—why don’t the other parties think of these things? why are they always going on boring rants about health care and the environment and education as if these mattered more than extra cash for a new flat screen TV?—while your law and order campaign has taken fiction to heights even Dan Brown has not dreamed of, employing tax dollars you don’t have in amounts you don’t know to achieve results that are unproven against a threat that doesn’t exist.

A recent study into corporate tax cuts showed that, contrary to your party’s view, corporations tend to hoard tax savings rather than create jobs with them. Confronted with these facts, your finance minister, Mr. Flaherty, admitted they made your tax policy a “tough sell,” but said he would stick with it because corporations and the experts liked it, and, “most importantly, because it’s a confidence builder in Canada, and a way of branding Canada.” Clearly, Mr. Flaherty has studied the art of fiction at the feet of a master, showing, here, how even logic is no obstacle to the expert fictionist. Branding, indeed: I can almost feel the pleasant burn of those cuts in my flesh, along with the pride of knowing that in Canada, at least, fiction reigns, and what matters is not whether a policy works but only if people believe in it, or at least believe that they can make others believe.

Politics is nothing if not the art of making others believe. So kudos to you, Mr. Harper for sparing us in this campaign any view of the real Stephen Harper, in all his nakedness—and the mind balks at such a notion even as mere metaphor—and giving us the fictional one, infinitely more complex and convincing. In so doing you have given inspiration to all of us for whom fiction is a way of life. Let me end, then, with my own fiction, namely my hope that on May 2nd you get the majority we all believe you believe you deserve, and we can look forward to the spectacle of five more glorious years of the Harper Government (formerly known as the Government of Canada).

Sincerely,

Nino Ricci

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  1. Our Election - Page 2 - PPRuNe Forums says:
    May 8, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    [...] of controversial Harper quotes compiled by the Tories – The Globe and Mail Or, how about this: An Open Letter to Stephen Harper Or, if you need that with a little more levity: Shit Harper Did However, most of the parties do [...]

    Reply
  2. spacer DD says:
    May 3, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    The election is over. and the conservatives have their majority, we will now see the real Harper’s agenda. Within 5 years we will have a bigger deficit and you will wonder what ever happened to our country.

    Reply
  3. spacer trish says:
    May 1, 2011 at 1:10 am

    All voting is crap. Please do not allow your vote to speak for me as I am the sheep in the “2 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for supper “Thereore, learn the bank act and CANADIAN PAYMENTS ASSOCIATION
    Rule H6 which states that any bill or statement with a “96″ code on it, usually on the bottom, means that your utility bills and credit bills are all PRE-PAID because it is an “on-us: account which i will post at the end. learn about the fictional judicial system and the fictional taxation system with its “voluntary compliance” what an oxy moron. Read real stories like HOW I CLOBBERED EVERY BEURAUCRATIC CASH-CONFISCATORY AGENCY KNOWN TO MAN. then check out www.the7thfire.com explaining the phony banking system. Anyway, here is the act about code 96 the “on-us” account. please read it and look for the words “on-us”
    RULE H6
    RULES PERTAINING TO THE INTER FINANCIAL
    INSTITUTION EXCHANGE OF BILL PAYMENT REMITTANCES
    FOR THE PURPOSE OF CLEARING AND SETTLEMENT
    2.2 MICR ENCODING ON REMITTANCES
    Detailed diagrams of the placement of information to appear in the MICR reserved area appear in
    Appendices I and II of Part II of this Rule. All specifications contained in CPA Standard 006
    remain applicable; however layout changes are as follows:
    (a) Amount Field: Character positions 11-2 inclusive shall be reserved for
    the Remittance Amount.
    (b) On-Us Field:
    i) Transaction Code Section: Code 96, to indicate it is a Remittance, shall be
    located anywhere within the four positions of the
    Transaction Code Section. The remaining two
    positions shall be blank.

    Reply
  4. spacer maya g says:
    April 30, 2011 at 8:39 pm

    I really loved your letter and wish that every Canadian had a chance to read it. I believe Stephen Harper is a spin doctor and he is unwilling to honestly answer any question put to him. I am disappointed that the Liberals and NDP’s have not pushed him on the point of contempt of Parliament – the first ever to occur in our country. Harper keeps saying that the opposition brought about this election yet we all know that the “CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT” by Harper is what brought the house down. The most outrageous moment was when Harper and his conservatives were shown to be cheering, clapping and shouting in happiness when the government was brought down. I was ashamed to be a Canadian when the world was seeing our disgrace being celebrated by Harper and his cohorts. I truly do not understand how Harper can show his face in public, let along running for a majority. He should we ashamed of his behaviour – instead he refuses to answer to the people of Canada. I believe that if he gets in power again the distance between the rich and the poor will be even worse that it is now. Under him the corporations keep getting richer and the average Canadian gets more sunk in poverty. Please, please vote, don’t spoil your ballot to send a message as all that happens is a nonvote counted for Harper.

    Reply
  5. spacer BootHarper says:
    April 30, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Harper is twin to dumb Bush. Remember Harper wanted to deregulate the Banking system in Canada. Why has Flaherty hired Goldman Sachs employees to work in a Government of Canada Department?

    Reply
  6. spacer Terry says:
    April 30, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Your purpose is to…….show a smug, intellectual superiority to those who actually do something instead of pontificate and criticize ?

    Reply
  7. spacer LT says:
    April 29, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    why is nobody talking about the fact that anyone that the Illuminati wants voted in, will be voted in. You can all vote, but it’s a mute point. Of course Harper sucks and doesn’t have our best interests in mind, and neither will the next prime minister. Voting is a guise.

    Reply
  8. spacer Kevin Hancey says:
    April 29, 2011 at 10:01 am

    Absolutely Nino … so why can’t the majority of Canadians realize this.

    Reply
  9. spacer leon says:
    April 28, 2011 at 6:08 pm

    the most telling indictment, for me, of the past 5 years of how the rest of the world views the ‘harper government’ is the choice of portugal, a failing state, over canada for a place on the security council of the u.n. shame on us on how far we have fallen in world stature in such a short period of time.

    Reply
  10. spacer DD says:
    April 28, 2011 at 11:40 am

    EXCELLENT … RIGHT ON … I WISH I HAD WRITTEN IT MYSELF

    Reply
  11. spacer Jess says:
    April 27, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    Loki:

    Someone doesn’t hold the same opinion as you, so it’s drivel? And they’re a paid poly flake? This is your idea of a healthy debate?

    For your information, I work in the non-profit industry, raising money for charitable groups underfunded by various governments, provincial and federal, for decades.

    And I pay attention to the world around me, not just the parts I agree with.

    Reply
  12. spacer dean says:
    April 27, 2011 at 10:37 am

    Mr. Ricci,
    Thank you for this brilliant letter!
    We as Canadians need to rise up and make a stand.
    This letter highlights the years of nonsense that we continually put up with and unfortunately have learned to tolerate.
    As Canadian, we need to make politicians accountable for their actions…Mr. Harper is a prime example of someone a “leader” for himself and NOT for the people.
    Thank you again.
    D

    Reply
  13. spacer Nicholas Jennings says:
    April 27, 2011 at 7:59 am

    Well put and well done. Where politically astute fictionists are concerned, you are without rival.

    Reply
  14. spacer Cathie says:
    April 26, 2011 at 9:31 am

    Brilliant analysis and satire! Maybe a political novel in the making?…

    Reply
  15. spacer Loki in Toronto says:
    April 26, 2011 at 12:17 am

    By the way Jess – based on your post I would hazard a guess that you are a paid poly flake. Go ahead and deny – but I don’t think anyone will believe you.

    Reply
  16. spacer Tim Murphy says:
    April 25, 2011 at 11:47 pm

    I fear that such literary metaphor is lost on a man who admits that his favorite book is The Guiness Book of Word Records.

    Reply
  17. spacer Loki in Toronto says:
    April 25, 2011 at 11:02 pm

    And you know what – before you whiners from Quebec can chime in, get lost! I say it is time for the rest of Canada to have a vote and decide if we actually want you in this country any longer. I say that if we can have a say (and we should absolutely have the right) – most of us would say goodbye to your divisive politics and your constant “me, me, me” crap. We need people who want to build a great country – not people who hold the rest of the country up for ransom to see what they can get for themselves. If Canada has treated you so badly, and your future is so much better without us (see how you do with French Language protection without a country of 34 million to assist you) – get the hell out. But to be certain – we will take back all the lands that were given to Quebec as part of joining the Confederation. My vote is “Be gone”. And take the party of treason (the Blockheads) with you.

    Reply
  18. spacer Loki in Toronto says:
    April 25, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    Jess – boo hoo hoo. What the hell is your point? Talk about drivel.

    Sean and TACP – excellent comments.

    Let’s face it Canada – this is all about big government that takes care of you cradle to grave and will ultimately take more than 50 cents of every dollar you earn or bankrupt the country if they don’t – or governement that tries to live within our means and take care of the carefully selected things that are most necessary in which to have government involved. It’s time for Canadians to make a choice and I say less government is better. Get out of charity – get out of my pocket as much as possible. Let me as an individual decid

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