Wednesday, March 08, 2006

"Harp"ing on Stupidity

The Harp made a couple of stupid remarks today and everyone in the blogosphere has jumped on it. Now, I am all for kicking The Harp when he is down, but there are soooo many other reasons than his slip of the tongue. The Harp said in a statement today:
“March 8 is International Women’s Day—a time to reflect on the vital contributions made by women to the building of this country, and the prosperity and quality of life that have made Canada the envy of the world. And so today represents an excellent opportunity to salute Canadian women.
It is also a chance to reiterate my Government’s determination to provide Canadian women with the security and sense of opportunity to which they aspire, and to reiterate our commitment to working with them to ensure the economic security, timely health care and safe streets that are so vital for raising strong families."

Now, the part that has everyone up in arms is the last part of the second paragraph regarding families. Everyone is saying how The Harp is a chauvinistic pig with those comments but the comments themselves aren’t really sexist. People are just picking out words and creating so much spin that trailer homes are in danger. Now, I am a single male but my thought was that women who are part of a family do in fact care about that family. Since it is woman's rights day, the comment would obviously be directed towards women. Now if The Harp said "Dem's women folks should be chained to a stove and only have a break to birth children" then we can say he is a chauvinistic pig. The Harp has done, and will do, a lot of stupid things for everyone to scream at but this is not one of them.

The next one was in regards to Quebec. The Harp did some more grandstanding in La Bell Province today by visiting Jean Charest at the Legislative assembly. Now, I am probably going to get a lot of flak for this one but what the fuck is he thinking. Quebecers are screaming about equality but they are in fact the province with the most freedoms and perks and now you want to give them more. Now, Quebec does have a different culture than the rest of us, so does BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Labrador, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. Also, in each of those provinces/territories there are several separate and distinct cultures. Canada is a multi cultural nation where are differences were celebrated not shunned. Now The Harp wants to give them even more clout by getting them involved in UNESCO. Please, The Harp doesn't give a rats ass about Quebec aside from extra votes. Whenever a Prime Minister tries to deal with Quebec, the only thing they do is throw them more power. Here is a novel idea, ask Quebecers what there beef is with the rest of Canada and try to resolve it. Band-Aids do not work and will only repress the rage until another prominent separatist gets into power and calls another referendum. I invite anyone from Quebec to use my blog to express their concerns/rage/disgust about Canada and let’s try to find a way to resolve it.

I never thought that I would ever defend the douche, but I just did. I feel so dirty that I am going to scrub myself with steel wool and javex for the next hour.

10 comments:

Dan McKenzie said...

"Doesn't mean a goddamned thing. The distinct society clause, as I said to Clyde Wells, all it means is dick to me. Means dick."

-Brian Mulroney

I'd could hardly imagine Harper's opinion is much different

Unknown said...

Harper's opinion would have at least 2 praise Jesus's in there but aside from that yeah, you're right. The unfortunate thing is it is not just The Harp, but Prime Ministers for decades have had that opinion which is the reason federalism is so fucked up in Quebec.

audacious said...

from my persepctive as a woman, a mother, calling him what i did was almost a compliment; lol. seriously, look what other statements came from other officials; which reflects what 'international woman's day' stands for / represents.

no doubt women in canda are better off than many other countries; but we have issues in canada about women. look at the high violence against women, especially within the aboriginal.

take a close look at how many senior / women ... who can't live off that government pension; ... those ones from many years ago that stayed at home to raise thier families; many who's spouses were apart of that so called 'blue collar' worker ... before decent company pensions or rrsp's.

right / wrong, many one parent families are single parents; how are many expect to survive with this new child care change? or dual income parents who can't afford to have a parent stay home or daycare.

right / wrong ... if one parent decides to stay at home to raise a family; generally it is the woman. how many programs are out there to re-educate them to bring them up to speed to reenter the work force; or to resume careers?

earnings ... look at stats canada for numbers and you crunch them out.

i won't bring up abortion issues.

all in all, his statement regarding women was poor. and as you know, women are more than spawning children and families.

my intent isn't to hit back at you for your statement, just to explain where i come from; as a woman reading his statement. one woman's opinion. ... well no not really some other blogs i came across said worse things, lol ...

Unknown said...

Just to clarify a little, I do believe that The Harp is a sexist bastard, and I do believe that women in Canada aren't yet at the same level of equality as men. My issue was people calling him a sexist over the brief statement he issued on Woman’s Day. I even hear you that it was a very brief statement, but then again, last month was black history month and does anyone remember him saying anything about that because I sure as hell don't. My statement is this, be thankful you are at least getting mentioned, because there are going to be a lot of others that never will.

One final thing, I wasn't trying to take any personal jabs at any of the bloggers that were criticizing him over the statement, just that you should pick your battles. If you cry wolf over every little thing, when it gets to something serious, people aren't going to be paying any attention. Just look at the Democrats, they complained about every little thing that Dubya did, now even more serious stuff is coming down the line, and nobody cares except for the Democrats. I just don't want this to happen in Canada and that is why I ask for everyone to heed a little discretion when you criticize him. He will be doing a lot of stupid things which we can call him on that are going to be a lot worse. We should stick to those so we can get the maximum impact from them.

Anonymous said...

I want to compliment you on your post. And not because I am a Conservative but because I agree that trying to find a slag in a simple letter is easy if you look hard enough. Lets now forget 1 thing. Please allow me to wear my Conservative hat for a moment. Paul Martin wasn't very kind to women during his reign. Dismissed Shiela Copps, canned Carolyn Parrish and Judy Sgro. While they might have deserved to be canned, the fact is his record will show that he did not treat his male counterparts the same way.

Dave said...

Anon: Paul Martin wasn't very kind to a lot of people during his reign. The allegation that he did not treat male members of the Liberal party the same way is blatently false. Look no further than Jean Chretien, whom he userped. He threw out several men during Gomery. While he threw out Carrolyn Parrish, rightly so, he did not "dismiss" Sheila Copps, his supporters pushed another candidate in her place for reasons that are pretty clear.

Judy Sgro Resigned of her own free will to combat charges of electoral fraud made by a man fighting a deportation. The allegation that Martin had anything to do with it is a blatent falsehood.

So none of the cases you presented were BECAUSE they were women. It was done because they were:
a. in the way
b. utterly insane
c. not done because they resigned over a seperate matter.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Dave. You proved my point. I didn't say this was done "because" they were women. I took a few isolated incidents and made Paul Martin into a woman hater. Just like the posts who are pissed at Stephen Harper because of a few words in a letter. My only point was that if you want to turn things around, it's very easy to do so. The reason people are pissed is because of the "percieved" idea that Harper wants to eat young children and put women into shackles. This is a lie fabricated by the Liberal war room during the election and had abosolutely no credibility or basis.

Unknown said...

Well, I just got back to my computer and saw that there have been some more responses so I will now add my 3 & 7/8 cents worth into the discussion. First off anon, your complementing me really doesn't help with the feeling dirty part. Also, The Harp is a baby eating, women chainer but he doesn't believe in video tapes so we will never get the proof. The Harp is a very bad man and thanks to the Con's spin room, it made him look almost human during the election campaign. Now there is proof that he believes that his religion is how the nation should be run. His religion also believes that women are secondary people and homosexuals are poster children for Satan even though priests are some of the biggest homosexuals on the earth but they don't want to mention that.

As for Dave, it's about time you came back, things here have gotten very busy and I need someone else to state my points while I am busy playing Onimusha 4.

Dave said...

1. Anon: I did not prove your point, I demonstrated that you are at worst a liar, and at best ignorant.

Milan: There's an Onimusha 4 now? Damn, I haven't even played through 3. I got "Sid Meier's Pirates" while I was in the states.

Unknown said...

Remember to post your review of it on our site:
http://northernvidiots.blogspot.com