The knives are out in the House of Rogues in Ottawa. The political elite watch their backs as the Canadian people may actually enjoy a whiff of democracy. People policies may actually make it.

Did you hear that sound? It was the sound of knives being drawn from their
sheaths by the snake oil salesmen and women in the House of Commons. They
are all watching each other. Any sudden move may result in a bloodbath.

It stacks up like this. The NDP and the Liberals have 152 seats while the
Conservatives and the Bloc have 153 between them. With the support of one
independent, the Conservatives can bring the government down if they manage
to get ALL the Bloc MPs to vote against the Liberals. Suddenly those with
only a cheap facade of power have lots of it. All the knives are drawn and
everybody is smiling at each other. There wouldn't be this much tension in a
back ally dope deal between the mafia and the Hell's Angels.

The Conservatives have a chance to base an election campaign on the Liberals
corruption in the sponsership scandal. That way they may dodge and deflect
attention away from their own extreme right wing and unpopular agenda; an
agenda that includes playing footsie with Bush over Iraq. Remember Harper's
bawling because the liberals didn't send young Canadians into the Iraqi meat
grinder. He even apologized for it like a quisling out of some medieval
fairy tale.

Harper and the Conservatives also want to slash taxes for large corporations
and the very rich. We will the race to bottom is their rationale. We will
have lower wages, fewer standards and regulations and more socialism for the
very rich, they argue, in their efforts to win popular votes from the
workers of Canada. They will also experiment with privatization schemes in
heath care so investors may benefit financially from the sickness and
misfortune of poor and middle class Canadians. But this isn't sadism per se; this is a chance for capitalists to profit from the misfortune of others.
They will also spend a fortune in tax dollars on the military, which we may
need once the Conservatives help Bush stir up some more hornet’s nests in the
Middle East.

Stephen Harper is much more a right wing ideologue than even Brian Mulroney
was. And he will screw this country up more than Mulroney did. He has
lobbied tirelessly in the past for de-regulation and tax breaks for the
extremely wealthy. He has waged war on whacky communist and liberal ideals
like social and economic equality. He is very conservative on both social
and economic issues as we have seen with his statements on gay marriage as
well as the recent Liberal/NDP plan to take back the tax breaks for the
ultra wealthy.

Harper and the Conservatives hate Canada and for that reason, they will
cautiously slip into bed with the relatively left wing Bloc. They hate
Canadian federalism and they advocate devolution of federal power to the
provinces. This will give corporations more power in relation to governments
and as a result, will give the wealthy more power in society over the rest
of us. They will be able to package this country up and open a large flea
market.

The Bloc is game because they would benefit from having the Conservatives in
power. The people of Quebec would be even further alienated from the rest of
Canada. Right wing cowboys from the west and the far more sophisticated
Quebecois have next to nothing in common, especially when it comes to
politics. The cry for separation from Canada from the people of Quebec would
be deafening to the pleasure of the anti-Francophone crowd, many of whom are supporters of Harper.

The NDP has forced the Liberals to take away billions of dollars in tax cuts
to the super-wealthy and use the money instead to benefit the ordinary
people of Canada. Harper's head is now spinning like a scene from The
Exorcist. Socialism is only supposed to be for the rich.

The deal with the NDP will drive the Conservatives into bed with the Bloc
and with the way the seats are stacked in the House of Rogues, it looks like
the Conservatives will have their election. The liberals are banking on
their alliance with the NDP and this progressive pro-people deal to wash out
all the dirt the sponsership scandal has on them. Completely unprincipled,
they will go as far to the left as they were to the right over the past
decade to hold onto power; so far to the right that they slashed social
spending over the past decade more than was ever done before. In the
mid-90's they cut medicare to the point of crippling it and then join the
right wing ideologues in criticizing the wisdom of socialist medicine. They
shamelessly gave billions of dollars to the rich in tax breaks and now take
on the sheen of Robin Hood after having their hand forced by the NDP -
another political party in Canada that is no stranger to attacking unions
and cutting benefits to the poor when they believe it is politically useful
for them to do so.

Politics in Canada has just gotten very interesting. In the coming months we
wills see the most treacherous class in the country (the politicians)
slicing each other to pieces in a bloody knife fight.

It should be quite a show.