Stephen Harper is the last remnant of George W Bush in North America

I frequently tell my American friends, who know little about Canada, that Stephen Harper is the last remnant of the George W Bush administration in North America. The response I get is usually a mixture of dismay and pity. Bush’s worldview and politics of fear have been rejected by Americans in the last two elections, many of whom now lament his era as a period of folly and hubris.

My American friends are also confused. How could Canada, a country widely regarded as being full of socially-progressive and tolerant people, elect someone from a party so antithetical to that image?

Harper doesn’t represent the values my neighbors and I grew up believing in: collective responsibility, generosity, multiculturalism, multilateralism, the championing of peace and human rights and the importance of environmental stewardship. For ten years Harper has steered Canada away from these values, and many Americans, indeed many Canadians, don’t understand how far he has shifted the country.

And expatriates — who have witnessed the transformation of Canada under Harper with the benefit of distance — have seen Stephen Harper model his brand of conservatism on what Republicans have done in the United States, taking his cues from the same playbook.

Under Bush, the White House denied the existence of man-made climate change and gutted the ability of the US Environmental Protection Agency to go after polluters. Under Harper, the government took aim at Environment Canada, slashing its budget and restricted the ability of its own regulators to crack down on cancer-linked pollution. The Conservative Party silenced the government’s own scientists, who, for the first time ever, mounted a political campaign against Harper. Canada was also one of the first countries to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to address climate change and is the only country in the world to have withdrawn from a UN treaty to address desertification. And the list of environmental programs that Harper has slashed funding to is long and devastating.

Under the guise of cracking down on voter fraud — which doesn’t exist — Republicans in state capitals passed voter-ID laws across the United States. In reality, this was a blatant attempt to restrict the ability of working families and minorities — the majority of whom are likely Democrats — to vote. Similarly, Harper’s Fair Elections Act, passed in June 2014, attempts to address the non-existent problem of voter fraud. The result is that thousands of seniors, students and First Nations will find it much harder to cast a ballot in this election.

Growing up, I learned to describe Canada as a mosaic instead of the melting pot of the United States, where new immigrants were encouraged to adopt Canadian values while keeping their own traditions alive in order to make our society richer. I was proud of this, especially when I compared this tradition to the fraught history that many minorities experienced in the United States. But under Harper, this may be changing.

Recently, Harper has polarized Canada by attempting to ban anyone wearing the niqab from taking an oath of citizenship, or from working as a public servant. In a move designed to score cheap political points, he introduced identity politics into the federal debates by pledging to launch a hotline for reporting “barbaric cultural practices.” The open door to intolerance has possibly led to an increase of street harassment and violence against Muslims across Canada.

Two weeks ago, I witnessed this myself. While visiting my parents in the suburbs of Montreal, I stood on a street corner as a man heckled a woman in a niqab, shouting bible verses at her. This type of behavior seems not only to be permissible, but encouraged in Stephen Harper’s Canada.

And there’s more. While the US is learning from its past and addressing the issue of mass incarceration, under Harper, Canada has recently undertaken the largest expansion of prisons since the 1930s, despite a record-low crime rate. Echoing the doctrine of Republicans in the States, he cut funding to the arts, cut funding to Canada’s public broadcaster and destroyed the national gun registry, which experts say had historically contributed to Canada’s low rates of gun violence.

Internationally, Harper’s foreign policy has been focused on promoting Canadian oil, but little else, and that has damaged our strategic position in the world. Since the founding of the United Nations 70 years ago, Canada has worked diligently to earn a reputation as an honest broker and constructive problem solver. Under Harper, Canada has become known for avoiding international summits and for obstruction. A report chaired by Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated that Canada, with Australia, “appear to have withdrawn entirely from constructive international engagement on climate.”

Thanks to a recent decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal, which declared that the right of Canadian citizens to vote does not apply to Canadians who have lived overseas for more than five years, expatriates no longer have a voice in shaping Canada’s future. The move to restrict non-residents from voting assumes that we have cut ties, loyalty, and allegiance to Canada. But this is not true. Being Canadian is core to my identity in the US and I continue to represent Canada as a resident abroad. Many expatriates agree.

When the time is right, I plan to return home to begin a family and educate my children in the country that I love. I want them to learn those values that I still call Canadian. Values that Harper doesn’t represent.

Original Article
Source: theguardian.com/
Author: Marie-Marguerite Sabongui