A call went out across Canada for people to gather in every city, on September 17th, 2012, the opening day of Parliament – to stand up and voice our collective disapproval for the direction “the Harper government” is driving our Canada. We gathered, here in Winnipeg at the Provincial Legislature, wearing our “Stop Harper” t-shirts, printed with Occupy Winnipeg donations.
We walked, as we have walked many times, because we care, because we want to help wake people out of their slumber, because it’s what we know how to do, because we like to feel each other’s real presence and build our precious friendships. Now, most pressingly, we combine our efforts rising up to “Stop Harper.”
Some of us are thinking, wishing, hoping that Premier Selinger will become empowered, perhaps through our efforts, to “Stop” Harper. This time last year, a Selinger “Stop” to Bill C-10 would have distinctly marked Manitoba as a caring and just province, looking for social and not punitive solutions to crime. A Selinger “Stop” the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is still yet possible and could catapult Harper’s fragile house of international trading cards to a smoky wasteland. Except that now we’re really sweating bullets, needing a “Sudden-Death Selinger Stop” for the Canada-China treaty.
Many of us are watching Québec – the empowerment of the students’ manifestations, the swift decision-making of Parti Québecois Pauline Marois toturn their ship around and the voice of Québec political activist and writer Yves Engler.
Premier Selinger would be wise to check out Yves Engler’s recent blog posting “Québec Proves Activism Works”. It contains quite an impressive list of provincial decisions brought about by the Marois Government. A Premier can make a difference in a short time, when party politics and public activism join hands to focus on results.
Yves Engler is stopping in Winnipeg October 28th on a pan-Canadian tour to launch his new book “The Ugly Canadian – Steven Harper’s Foreign Policy”. Words like those of Engler’s, carry us away from our defunct city in chronic mayoral developer dis-ease, away from our socialist province trying to placate the corporate bosses and steer clear of the Harper axe, away from our nation aggressively driving in the fast lane of the worst crime against humanity: organized greed. But instead, Engler transports us across oceans and seas to the end of the petroleum-era playing itself out in a nasty war-game where there are no heroes, only senseless victims. Our collective inability to plan for the future is strikingly plain to see.
And in the face of a possible sudden and massive escalation of World War III… Never have we more needed unity of strategy and action by like-minded, careful folks like us – the Council of Canadians and every organization, group, club, individual with sympathetic aims to aid in the r-evolution of human-kindness. We can plan our r-evolution.
Contributor: Louise May – Council of Canadians Winnipeg Chapter Member