Shorter Harper: "At least you're not Haitian!"

[bcholmes]

Harper, in turn, assured a large partisan crowd that he feels for people making the transition from one job to another. "We know that some Canadian workers are transitioning between jobs. that's never easy and I don't want to minimize it, but we should never lose sight of how solid our fundamentals are and more importantly how fortunate we are to live in this country," he said.

He then talked about how he travelled to a desperately impoverished slum in Haiti and how the people there looked hopeless, in stark contrast to Canada, which he described as "a land of above all else, boundless hope."

— Canadian Press

What are these "fundamentals"? Is that language to obfuscate "our oil companies are doing well"?

Comments

[suitablyemoname.livejournal.com]

What the fuck?

It takes a real idiot to take such a dump on an otherwise-friendly foreign country.

Re: Shorter Harper: "At least you're not Haitian!"

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

he just oozes unacknowledged privilege out of every gross white pore he has, doesn't he.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

He sounds like he's parroting John McCain. I'd love for the opposition parties up there to take to pointing out that he's going to try and continue the policies that have been failing us on this side of the border, and drive Canada into ruin. Maybe he'll have to sell off government healthcare to help keep the likes of BMO or ScotiaBank afloat. After all, he wants to be just like the US.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Maybe he'll have to sell off government healthcare to help keep the likes of BMO or ScotiaBank afloat.

Our banks didn't make the foolish mistake of offering $250,000 mortgages to people with minimum wage jobs (or no job at all), though, which is what's at the root of the current financial crisis in the US.

In fact, I'd say our fundamentals are more sound than the Americans'. Yes, there may be some fallout here because, well, that's what happens when the U.S. economy tanks. However, our financial system is not built on nearly as flimsy a house of cards as the American one is. We have debt, but we're reducing it (unlike the Americans). Our exports - not just energy, though that's a large part of it - seem to still be doing reasonably well.

As evil as you may think the oil companies are (and I would agree with you to an extent), like it or not, the Americans are going to get it from somewhere, and why not let our economy benefit from their large appetite for energy, and then turn around and invest that income in researching cleaner energy sources?

Overall, I'd say our economy is in pretty good shape. Could it be better? Of course. I'm not happy with several things the Conservatives have done (the GST cut instead of income tax cuts being a major one), and would never vote for them based on that. But we're nowhere near as desperate as the Americans.

[the_axel]

He's saying that we have roads & sewers.

The point of countries like Haiti is to remind the working class of 1st world countries how good they've got it so they won't complain about how much more the ruling classes have.