Tory Dog and Pony Show

When Stephen Harper prorogued parliament a few weeks ago, I thought we were all going to get a break from the dog and pony show in Ottawa, not.
You all know what a dog and pony show is, don't you? That's where someone tries to sell you a dog dressed up as a pony. The seller claims its a pony, and though it appears a little small, it is quite capable of plowing the fields and giving the kids a ride across the barnyard! Then, when you get it home, you find out its good for little more than snapping at the postal worker's heals, eating food scraps, and leaving little piles all over the lawn.
Since the Governor General granted Mr. Harper's Christmas present, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, he has trotted out his finally dressed up dogs. The pooches are hybrids, Great Danes of sorts, but more akin to Greyhounds, busses not breeds.
These mongrels have been trotted out in two separate bands. One constitutes his "Economic Advisory" committee, their resemblance to real ponies so poor he is letting his good bud, Finance Flaherty, walk them down the kennel path, and his new "Senators", who are fearless, yet once anti-senate leader says will restore the balance in the "upper" house.
All mutt analogies aside, lets look at what the PM has done. In the midst of an economic crisis, perpetrated by billionaire financiers, chubby bankers and land developers, he has marched out a bunch of billionaires, bankers and land developers to save us all!
Then there's the senators. Does anyone out there remember Harper's old plan to do away with the unelected senate? Now he claims this bunch are reformers! Well, if they're really reformers, then why are they accepting appointment and not demanding they be elected?
Is anybody else getting this?
Now, to switch metaphors in mid stream, it appears Mr. Harper is going to stop the bank robbers by putting them in charge of security at the bank! Or, so to speak, throwing our countries economic future to the dogs! On top of that, he's appointing people to the senate who don't believe in the senate. Its like the Vatican appointing a Muslim pope!
Then there's the critters themselves.
First we have Mike Duffy, a St. Bernard of sorts, with a healthy girth, who made his living since I was a teeny bopper, presenting "unbiased" reportage of the goings on in parliament to the Canadian public. This is a guy, who since the days of Mulroney, has told the Canadian people that Ottawa has done right by them. He's been there, in the scrum, since Mulroney sold out the railway deal, opened the borders to "free" trade, and drove this country into debt deeper than his own esophagus. And Duffy has been faithful, like any good dog, the Man's best friend, all along, lapping up the table scraps tossed to him by successive governments for so long, his waistline has earned him the new name, Stuffy. He looks like a big old gelding, but really, he's nothing more than an aging, overfed, corporate mutt.
Then there is Nancy Greene Raine. Once a hero to us all, for propelling herself down a mountainside in France at break neck speed back in the '60s. She claims to have been a "Liberal" in her youth. A liberal recipient of great fanfare. Now she says, because she's older, she's become more "Conservative." Fact is, since she's become a billionaire ski hill developer, she's become more attached to governments that disregard things like "environmental policy" and favour development despite the long term cost. That's the trouble with aging Liberals, they lose their balance while sitting on the fence, and depending how much gold they have stuffed in their pockets, tend to fall off the fence on the right hand side! To be fair, perhaps Mr. Harper misunderstood what the Canadian people were telling him when they said they wanted him to be more "green." Once sleek and fast, Ms. Greene-Raine, has become an aging giant poodle, with failing insight.
Then there's Jimmy Pattison, the billboard king of the Coquihalla. A bulldog in his youth, Pattison is best remembered for two things. One, in true Social Credit pedigree, as a used car salesman who used to fire his least productive salesmen at the end of each month. His other claim to fame was as the CEO for EXPO '86, that big corporate orgy that cost the BC taxpayer nearly 10 years of economic hardship. Yup folks, he's the one who sold us the big beef bone that turned out to be a tainted chicken wing. While he barks a good howl, old Jimmy really is nothing more than a yappy Chihuahua, allowed to tear the stuffing out of the pillows because, when he's busy doing that, at least he's quiet.
The list continues. There are French Poodles, hairless pointers, some pinchers, a Shepherd or two, even a big web footed Newfoundlander, along with the odd mutt, but the point is, while Mr. Harper, and his kennel man Flaherty, want us to believe he's showing us around the stable, but his ponies are not ponies. They're dogs, Conservative lap dogs dressed up in fine saddles with blinders on their eyes. They will, like good pooches, go where directed, fetch what is tossed to them, and sit when instructed to sit.
In short, Mr. Harper's ponies, like all well fed dogs, are out to please only their master. And to anyone who thinks they will do anything but please their master, I have one things to say to you.
"Congratulations, you've just bought a pony! Careful it don't bite you!"