We wanted to believe that finally a government would do the right thing and stop playing political games. But, of course, it wasn’t to be.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his fellow Conservatives campaigned hard on the need for, and their promise to go with, a Triple-E Senate: equal, elected and effective. But instead, now that he and his team have the power, he is following in the footsteps of those he scorned for years and went ahead with another round of Senate appointments under his leadership — all of them Conservatives.
What a surprise! Apparently there are no deserving people of other political stripes available at this point in time to serve on the Senate.
And forget about the idea of an equal, elected and effective Senate. Apparently that was just more political blustering.
It was a promise that was easily measurable. Politicians make lots of promises that political hacks can twist and turn to make them sound like they were fulfilled. They can twist this one into all kinds of knots but you will only fool those too Conservative to see reality that is anything but a promise kept.
It’s not that the public has a high opinion of politicians anyway. Basically, we expect them to lie. But Harper hammered on this one from Day 1 in his political career.
Stop playing the voters for fools. Or better yet, stop letting politicians of all stripes do this to us.
