Tuesday, June 2, 2009

A Dark Day in Canadian Politics

So today bill c-15 (mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes) is set to pass.

The worst part about this? I am a member of the party that helped prop this terrible bill up. I don't know what I am going to do about this. If the Liberal party wants to sacrifice the lives of some of our citizens in order to look "tough" in preparation for the upcoming election, then they are no better than the Conservatives.

This bill escalates the civil war we have been struggling against for a century. I don't know how they can justify this. Previously, decriminalization of cannabis was taken off the agenda as a result of direct pressure and coercion from the American government. However, I figured that with Obama in office, a more reasonable and compassionate man appointed as drug czar, and the Liberals about to take power back from the neo-cons, the climate would change and we could start to do the right thing.

One of the issues that I am going to put forth to Langley's candidates in the upcoming election is that of Canadian sovereignty. Mr.Harper has allowed Canadians to die on death row in the US, despite the fact that we have no death penalty here. That is a despicable, dangerous, and shameful precedent to have set. He also has followed blindly whatever the US has done. He is throwing our money at the auto bail-out nightmare. As well as allowing a Canadian citizen to be extradited to the US for a crime the Canadian authorities deemed too benign to bring someone up on charges for.

We've got to kick the DEA out of Canada, protect our citizens, and remove Washington influence from Ottawa. If the financial crisis can show us anything, it is that we should not let the US pull us down with them, and we need to start looking at how we can be a self sustaining, steady state economy, free of outside influence.

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