'To do soft power, you need hard power,' Prime Minister says of Canada's relief efforts
Apart from bringing up (no pun intended) all kinds of Freudian connections with that particular quote, we could investigate why military resources are used at all for civilian relief efforts.
But this whole thing is a shameless photo-op for Harper. After closing down parliament and telling everyone to go to the Olympics (does this remind you of Bush telling everyone to go shopping after September 11th?), and making an appearance there himself, now he has to strain the infrastructure by making an "official visit" to Haiti to show us his deeply caring heart. Give me a break already!
I might believe it if he flew there on his own dime. After all, he said he bought his own Olympic tickets. Where exactly does he think his salary comes from, I wonder?
Some of our aboriginal communities are in as bad a state as Haiti - poor water, poor roads, poor schools and health care - but I don't see him making too many visits there. The Kelowna accords, carved out with Canada's aboriginal groups by our last Prime Minister but not completed because of an election and cancelled by Harper's Wreckers when he got into power, could have made a terrific difference to some of Canada's poorest people.
And the Olympics themselves are staged on contested aboriginal lands, never surrendered or ceded by treaties.
Harper's last photo op in Haiti was at a school in Cité Soleil a few years ago. The little girls he had his picture taken with weren't smiling either, just like the poor kids in the article above.
As for your "hard power", Harper, keep it at home (or wherever) behind closed curtains, will you? Some of us are trying to hold on to our last meal.
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