[Big Papa Goat]

The funny thing is is that the parliment is ridiculously divided, with all the politicians hating each other with a fervent passion. The way some of the opposition leaders talk about Harper is really almost frightening, Bob Rae was saying that he's as bad as Nixon and the worst prime minister ever and that he absolutely can never be trusted. The fact of the matter is that the effort to topple government has little if anything to do with policy and everything to do with a hatred and fear of Harper himself. I mean, they won't even talk to him about changing the governments economic plan by January, which is ostensibly the policy issue they have an issue with. But the thing is, unlike in the US (as I can see it), there really doesn't seem to be much actual division in the population. I mean, the opposition is acting kind of like Harper is the same as Bush, but he's clearly not nearly as hated as Bush is in the states. He just doesn't do anything that contreversial. I mean, his economic plan was not that right wing, the only right wing things he did that were upsetting were a couple of sharp old reform party planks that he used to poke the opposition in the eye and get all this started. And even they were only upsetting to political parties, I don't think most people in the country cared that much at all.
It's like the arts funding debacle in the last election. Harper cut like 2 programs and actually increased total arts funding, and it got turned into this big ole political bugaboo.