It's now become acceptable in the House of Commons for the governing party to compare opponents to the most despicable people in history. We're talking Hitler, child rapists, terrorists - that type.
Inflammatory rhetoric like this leads us to wonder, what's really behind this party's hysteria?
This week, a Liberal critic was called a supporter of child pornography after questioning Conservative Public Safety Minister Vic Toews's proposed bill.
Last week, a Conservative MP compared supporters of the gun registry to Hitler.
The week before that, a new Conservative anti-terrorism strategy lumped in certain environmentalists with terrorists.
And shortly before that, Stephen Harper called pipeline protesters enemies of Canada.
When governing powers obscure real issues by calling out child rapists, terrorists and genocidal maniacs where no such threat exists, its population needs to sit up and take notice.
To recap, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry Miller last week used the tired old (false) argument that Hitler just loved gun registration.
Others have made the same argument, using as proof his (historically inaccurate) quote: "This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
Of course Miller intended for everyone to think: "Hitler = gun registration. Gun registration bad." It's idiotic, and we suspect it's the same depth of thinking Miller invested in the matter.
Nonetheless, Toews kept the simpleton ball rolling this week with a new twist on the old "you're either with us or against us" ploy by comparing opponents of his new online monitoring bill to "supporters" of child pornographers. (And who would "support" child pornographers other than users of child pornography?)
The merits of such a bill are obvious - it could shine a spotlight into the grimy corners where criminals of the worst kind live. But despite noble reasons on the surface, increasing government surveillance of a population has always been a double-edged sword with virtues and drawbacks, and that needs to be scrutinized.
And so Liberal public safety critic, MP Francis Scarpaleggia, asked: "How can we trust them not to use private information to intimidate law-abiding Canadians gathering, for example, to protest a pipeline?"
You know, like those pipeline protesters Harper just called "enemies of Canada" and were lumped in with terrorists in a new counter-terrorism strategy.
But Toews seems to believe governments don't need to be accountable, and anyone asking questions supports crime.
So while the government wants to increase its scrutiny of citizens, it wants to do so under an unquestioned cloak of righteousness.
But if this party truly is so righteous, why not debate proposed laws on their merits? Why stoop to flinging the most vile attacks against Canadian citizens and Parliamentary colleagues? Why this level of desperation?
All we can think of is maybe Scarpaleggia touched a nerve.
After all, it's quite tempting for ideological groups to adopt any measure it takes to expand powers for the sake of rooting out and bullying detractors. Kind of like China. Wait, didn't Harper just come back from China?
But of course, no one would ever be so low as to compare Honourable Members of Parliament to a bunch of oppressive human rights abusers.
-- Prince George Citizen
