Municipal McCarthyism
Victoria, British Columbia - Friday, June 25, 2010 by: Eugene Parks
The Harper Government claims that some municipal "politicians are under foreign sway", particularly Chinese influence.
A rather public and accepted fact is that many of our local governments across the country are run by centre-left to centre-right politicians.
We can safely interpret that to mean that Canadians generally trust them to take out our garbage, fill pot holes, and run the water system. We don't think that they are communists or treasonous. And we generally think some of them are competent at community service; and of course, we reserve the right to throw them out when we think they have messed up.
That is so, unless you are the Harper Government.
For the first time is half a century, the CBC reports that CSIS is now publicly accusing municipal politicians of treasonous sympathies.
Playing to the fear and hate crowd, Mr. Harper has now formally introduced McCarthyism to Canada.
But I say to municipal politicians: take out the garbage, fill those pot holes, manage the water supply. Do a good job (or we will fire you). Ignore Mr. Harper's McCarthyism. We will be the ones who punish or reward you based on the job you do. What the world learned from the US experience with McCarthyism is that the only ones to be feared were those practicing the dark art of malicious maligning and fear mongering.
Picture credits: The background image is of US Senator Joseph McCarthy in his investigation into Un-American Activities. The foreground image is of Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the telephone June 18, photo by Jill Popp