This is Why I'm Not Voting for Mr. Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada

This is Why I'm Not Voting for Mr. Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada

1.              Because they're no longer "Progressive" Conservatives.  This is the Reform Party disguised as the old PC party.  This party is as regressive as anything we've seen in Canadian politics in my lifetime (since 1958).
2. .       Because Mr. Harper unilaterally decided he didn't like the long-form census and thus, killed it.
3. .       Because Mr. Harper likes climate change and global warming.  He thinks it's a joke because Canada will benefit from a melting Arctic and from a longer growing season and from warmer winters in Calgary, his home town.  And since he thinks it'll advantage Canada over the rest of the world, he thinks it's a game that Canada will win, in the short term, and because he doesn't care about the rest of the planet.
4.        Because Mr. Harper is a control freak and a bully who doesn't tolerate dissent within his own cabinet, his party, and within the federal civil service.
5. .       Because Mr. Harper favours the wealthy.  That's evidenced by tax cuts that favour the wealthy and the higher income earners in Canada; all, at the expense of the middle class and the poor.
6. .       Because Mr. Harper has overtly taken the side of Israel over the Palestinians.  Because Mr. Harper thinks Arabs may be terrorists.
7. .       Because Mr. Harper will not help Ontario administer its Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, even though it will not cost the federal government a penny to do so.  And just because he disagrees with Kathleen Wynne about it, ideologically.  So, like a child, he's not going to help her because he didn't get his way.  He didn't get her to back down.  Well, get out of the way, Mr. Harper.  Kathleen is going show you how it's done, with or without you.
8. .       Because Mr. Harper refused to take consultation from Chief Justice of the land, Beverley McLachlin, in 2013, during the consultation period on the potential appointment of Quebec justice Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court.  Because Mr. Harper went on to appoint Nadon, anyway.  Because the Supreme Court itself ruled that Nadon's appointment was unconstitutional because Nadon was not a sitting judge in Quebec and therefore ineligible to serve on the Supreme Court and had to suffer the indignity of being fired from the Supreme Court (or, rather, had to pretend that he had never been hired in the first place).  In other words, because Harper tried to stack the Court in his favour with judges that favoured Mr. Harper's ideology and, in the process, tried to hijack the Constitution.
9. .       Because Mr. Harper is making a mockery of democracy in Canada by using his 2011 majority win to stuff through legislation in a hurry, without debate, that is clearly against the wishes of the majority of Canadians, in some cases, via what is called "omnibus" bills, bills that are hundreds of pages long, that require lots of time for opposition parties to read and comprehend, and that contain all kinds of rule changes; but that get precious little time in Parliament and just get rammed through by the Conservatives.
10. .        Because Harper's Bill C-51 put into law power that allows Mr. Harper to eavesdrop on any Canadian he wants, in the name of fighting terrorism, and to jail any Canadian he wants, in the name of terrorism, and to arrest any journalist he wants, in the name of terrorism.  It seems to me the one terrorizing Canadians with laws like this one is Mr. Harper, himself.1
11.            Because Mr. Harper wants to ban travel by Canadians to foreign countries that Mr. Harper thinks are terrorist havens.  And because Mr. Harper won't say which countries those are, or when he will name them.  Meanwhile, businessmen, family members, journalists, anyone with a legitimate reason to travel abroad, all are left wondering how much further Mr. Harper will restrict and/or violate their human and constitutional rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada.
12. .         Because Mr. Harper has bet this country's future on the Alberta oil sands and because that bet is going badly, all of a sudden, and because there is no Plan B.  Because Mr. Harper said himself that, like any good financial adviser worth his salt, we don't alter course suddenly during times of market volatility and because Mr. Harper forgot another saying of financial advisers, namely, that one ought not to put one's eggs in one basket, in this case, oil.
13.           Because Mr. Harper has shamed Canada on the world stage, by not living up to his commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions like he said he would.
14. .         Because Mr. Harper refuses to take in Syrian refugees.
15. .          Because Mr. Harper has, in his nearly ten years as Prime Minister of Canada, refused to sit down with all ten premiers all but once.
16.             Because Mr. Harper is better suited perhaps to a time long past, and because Canada deserves better than this to lead it and the world in this 21st Century.
17. 7. Because Mr. Harper is using wedge issues like the niqab and women's rights to wear such coverings (or not) during citizenship ceremonies to divide Canadians and rally his supporters so that he can win the October 19 federal election.  Shame on you, Mr. Harper!