What Are We Trying To Do?

Every day the papers and television are covering stories coming out of Ottawa that must make people very confused. The government use at every turn of the road  the excuse that they are empowered to do as they wish because they won the election.They claim that because they made promises to change things that proper debate needs not to take place because they have the power. Several promises they made were supported by some thirty five percent of the folks that supported the Conservatives.

My concern became close to outrage when the changes to the criminal code were announced without proper consultation. The next move was to build more prisons to hold the new found criminals. The sentences were to be longer with less opportunity for parole. The gun legislation followed with less restrictions on lethal weapons such as machine guns and self loading long guns.

The resulting actions would result in the closing of the long gun registration against the wishes of a majority of Canadians. This move will make the NRA very happy and the criminal element feeling safer from precaution. Law enforcement agencies used this registration on numerous occasions to carry out their duties every day.

The table is now set for laws to incarcerate more people longer, more jails to keep these people under lock and key all at a huge cost to the Canadian taxpayers. This in spite of the fact that crimes have decreased every year in Canada for the last ten years. It boggles my mind that this government was elected to try to solve our problem of unemployment. I suppose we an assume that this is their program to solve the serious issue of jobs, jobs and jobs.

The right wing conservative  movement is sweeping the Northern Hemisphere. It is very dangerous as it is aggressive and seems to walk over reasonable thinking. Ideology takes precedence over facts and a more liberal approach. Canada has been a country of reasonable, conservative law abiding citizens. We do not need to have the right wingers moving our perceptions too far to the right.

Hopefully parliament will bring some balance to the scene and hold the powers of the Prime Minister in check and put democracy back into the system. My faith is with the people but there has been less emphasis on the House of Commons and more on the shoulders of the PM and his cronies. What are we trying to do?