It looks like Harper and Co. will be bringing Halloween early this year first by bringing the fear,  and if history is a lesson, giving out pre-election goodies.  First comes the fear. Of course it can be dressed up all kinds of ways, but why make your own costume when you can get a decent cheap used one?  No surprise Harper likes the one Bush used when he used to bellow “Stay the Course” for Iraq and then in the 2004 Presidential campaign “don’t change the horse midstream!” (points to Bill Clinton for observing if we don’t change horses we will drown).

So already Harper is dressed up and has trotted out on the Conservative Party website “Ignatieff will try to make us forget that he’s forcing Canadians into an unnecessary election that puts our economic recovery at risk.”  This is their meme, their costume of fear.  You will hear it time and again, like from Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas who said “An election right now would be detrimental to the Canadian economy and to the recovery that we are starting to see.”

It’s a funny idea (aren’t costumes great?) that if you screw something up (Iraq, an economy, a country) it’s best that you get to keep screwing it up if you seem to be screwing it up a bit more slowly. 

The treat helps with that.  Last time it was over 60 million dollars worth of pre-election yummies.  Don’t worry, they are coming.  Canadians have been tricked and treated.  Me? I’m already afraid.

Matthew Adams

Matt moved to Toronto from the U.S just in time for Mike Harris to take power in Ontario and has been stunned ever since. Matthew Adams is a co-founder of the Catalyst Centre (a social justice popular...