Stephen Harper does not get my vote

Under the Harper regime, the poor lost a voice and workers lost rights. He cut cultural programs to the bone, reduced environmental protections for unbridled resource extraction, gutted our water protection laws, muzzled independent scientists, betrayed Canada’s First Nations, and weakened our human rights.

On the international scene, he abandoned our human rights obligations, weakened our opposition to torture, slashed foreign aid, abandoned our role as peacekeepers, and gave immense powers to foreign corporations to the point of jeopardizing our sovereignty.

All of this has been accomplished with convoluted omnibus bills, a disregard for our Supreme Court, the shut down of parliament, withholding vital information from the public and crushing dissent.

Small wonder that his lieutenants have left him, many of his MPs are not pursuing re-election and those who are now his candidates are told to avoid the media and public debate.

This Canadian will be voting for Canada and its citizens. This Canadian will be voting for honesty and integrity, fairness and justice. Mr. Harper can have that one vote. He is welcome to it. But that one vote is all he deserves.

Anthony Chezzi
Sudbury