Dear editor,
I’m sure Michael Ignatieff would have to have a healthy ego if he thought it caused the current election, as Reg Williams recently proposed.
But in fact, this current election (which I’m sure the people of Egypt and Libya would find anything but unnecessary, by the way) was caused for one reason and one reason alone: Stephen Harper’s contempt of Parliament.
We don’t elect presidents in this country, we elect Members of Parliament, and we send them to Ottawa to work for us and to hold the government to account. So Harper’s contempt isn’t really of Parliament, but of the people of Canada.
He refused to tell Canadians how much his mega-prisons would cost. His ministers lied to parliamentary committees. And he regularly shut down Parliament and took his ball home whenever he couldn’t get his way. Harper’s behaviour is truly frightening, controlling and manipulative.
We’re having an election because the Conservatives failed to work with the Parliament that Canadians elected. And now, having himself made Parliament dysfunctional, Harper thinks he deserves a majority government and to be unleashed to do whatever he wants, without checks?
Now that’s ego, Reg Williams — Harper’s ego!
Betty-Anne Juba,
Comox