General

Megapundit Extra: Yes, we know the drill

Heather Mallick explains Canadian politics to Guardian readers, whom she apparently deems too stupid to appreciate the manifest differences between various nations’ politics or too incurious to be interested by them.

There are three wings to Canadian political life. Harper, the Conservative PM, is a rightwing extremist, although he doesn’t suck up like Cameron. He is an anti-choice, pro-prison, poverty-ignoring, food-safety-privatising, arts-ridiculing, Afghanistan war-loving, cowboy hat-wearing guy.

The Liberals, the nation’s natural rulers, are in the middle of the road like an expiring woodchuck. They are sensible people without passion; they own just the one house; they’re New Labour without the ratlike cunning, without the Cherie, shall we say. The New Democratic party is old Labour.

Harper began passing laws making Canada more like the States. His most complimentary adjective was “CEO-like”. He wants life sentences for 14-year-old murderers, of whom we have maybe three in a nation of 33 million citizens. He wants to build more prisons, ban safe-injection sites for heroin addicts, privatise universal healthcare, make the foetus not just a person, but someone who can dress for success – you know the drill.

Ah, the simple life.

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