To the Editor:
In the early days of the Harper regime, many Canadians were taken aback by that "new" government's determination not just to change policy directions (as would be expected of any new administration), but also to obliterate all vestiges of what previous governments had been working on.
A prime example from 2005/06 was the Kelowna Accord which, based on 20 months of respectful negotiations, had laid out a comprehensive game-plan for narrowing the "life gaps" between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. With the explicit support of the Government of Canada, all 10 provinces and three territories, and the five national Aboriginal organizations, Kelowna was truly an historic achievement.
But the Harper Conservatives hated it and utterly destroyed it. Then they even denied it ever existed. And nothing meaningful has been accomplished in this field of public policy ever since.
At first, such destructive attitudes were attributed to excessive ideological exuberance which would likely mellow a bit over time, but they still persist largely unabated today.
Fed-Prov agreements to help provide sufficient high-quality early learning and child care spaces is another example of a useful prior initiative that was hacked to bits. Concrete action to deal with global warming and to improve student access to all forms of post-secondary education are two more victims.
You can add to the hit-list Mr. Harper's destruction of Income Trusts which, quite literally overnight, sliced the savings of some 2-million ordinary Canadians by about $25-billion. Then there was the destruction of the long-form census which has resulted in data so unreliable that Statistics Canada won't even publish census numbers for many communities, including nearly half of Saskatchewan.
The Harper Conservatives have also walked away from any serious role for the Government of Canada in finding and sharing the new innovations in healthcare that will be needed to sustain medicare - it seems they truly want an ad hoc patchwork of systems across the country. Their changes to Old Age Security, while phased-in over a few years, will have the perverse effect of taking $30,000 from the incomes of Canada's least wealthy and most vulnerable seniors - the exact opposite of what OAS was originally intended to do.
Environmental protection has been muzzled, mangled and left for dead. Pure public-interest scientific research across the federal government has been abandoned. Community pastures serving livestock producers equitably, while safeguarding 32 endangered species are being sold.
An historic prairie tree farm with 112 years of extraordinary value and proven success is being dismembered.
The examples just keep on coming. They don't add-up to thoughtful policy change, but rather something akin to state-sponsored vandalism.
Those who think that doing such gratuitous damage is okay, would also no doubt think it's okay for Stephen Harper's right-hand man to cut a secret $90,000 deal with Mike Duffy. It's the same scorched-earth mentality.
Ralph Goodale, MP, Wascana, SK.
