The Editor,

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to call an election, despite his prized legislation on fixed election dates, was “a roll of the dice” (if I may borrow from his erstwhile mentor, Brian Mulroney), a risk taken because the future looked worse without such a campaign.

America’s bad economic news arrived well before Canada’s election date, catching Harper and the Conservatives flatfooted in the debates while the rest of Canada fixated on the stock exchange with justified anxiety.

Can you remember a similar period of unease in Canada? Most of the previous episodes featured questions of national unity: Meech Lake, the almost failed referendum vote in Quebec, the FLQ crisis. Today’s crisis is one for homo economicus and it is a problem born of too much laissez-faire, Bush-style. The collapse of Communism in 1989 has met its match with the illogic of unregulated capitalism of 2008.

Harper is now on the defensive, as the polls now slide in support, yet he puts more on the block: Vote for me (for he is the party in the public’s eye) and the Senate shall be reborn elected. Here, Harper tries to shift attention away from the economy, just as he previously tried to shift attention to the economy in the debate and away from the problem of plagiarism, which goes to show, in a pathetic fashion, he has nothing new to say.

Copying Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s two-day-old speech to launch war and risk Canadian soldiers’ lives in Iraq is really quite an unprecedented affair, and it is indicative of the dearth of talent in the Conservative ranks today. It rings of inauthenticity.

Harper rolls the dice and gambles. Not all his risks are ethically sound nor are they all justified. And it just so happens that a lot of dice are rolling at the same time right now. Harper tells Canada to keep gambling with the stock market but not with his party. We see vertigo where he alleges opportunity.

Canadians are headed for another minority government and we have nobody to blame but Stephen Harper.

Joerge Dyrkton, Anmore

‘WHAT A WASTE’

The Editor,

I attended the Pleasantside Community Association’s all-candidates meeting in Port Moody last Sunday and realized that one of the significant differences between the parties was displayed on their campaign literature. Only the Conservatives used U.S.-style negative advertising. When I looked at the unflattering photo the Conservative brochure featured, I recalled the despicable ad the Conservatives used showing a puffin pooping on a political leader.

At Sunday’s well-organized forum, I challenged the incumbent to defend the Conservative leader’s choice of the reprehensible ad. Of course, he agreed it was “bad taste.”

But it is more than bad taste. As we watch John McCain attempting to slander Barack Obama, we see the parallel between Steven Harper and American dirty politics. I see the offensive cartoon as an indication of the type of leadership we will have in Canada — a lowering of our standards of decency.

In May 2008, Harper introduced legislation that would set fixed election dates, explaining to the Canadian public that the law would prevent politicians from calling snap elections for political expediency. When I questioned the Conservative incumbent about the fixed election promise proposed by the Conservatives, the audience received a convoluted and deceptive explanation that made so little sense to me, I can barely repeat it.

Canadians are not that dumb. We know the election was called because Harper saw the poll results and realized it was his only chance of staying in power before Canadians realized he could not maintain a strong economy.

On Oct. 14, we will vote in an unnecessary election, one that appears will once again deliver a minority government. This election will cost the public $300 million. That money could go to reduce homelessness, improve public transit, provide daycare spaces, train doctors and nurses, or fund programs for children at risk. What a waste this election is going to be.

Yvonne Harris, Port Moody