It is January 26th and earlier today Canadians heard an insipid and uninspired throne speech as parliament returned to sitting after Stephen Harper’s behaviour and attitude united the opposition parties against him.

One would have thought/hoped that Stephen Harper would have learned something during his mad scramble to hold onto power by proroguing Parliament. Unfortunately Mr. Harper gives every evidence of continuing to believe that being elected Prime Minister, even with a minority, grants him the right to rule with the Divine Right of Kings and impose whatever whim takes his fancy on Canadians.

Lamentably it sounds as if Stephen Harper has learned nothing. Worse it is clear that not only has Harper not listened to Canadians but he does not understand Canada or the economic realities the majority of Canadians face.

Parliament has just returned to sitting; Stephen Harper heads a minority government; Canada is facing economic turmoil – perhaps even crisis; Canada and Canadians need a budget to address the economy and what is Stephen Harpers’s response?

Attack ads. At a time when cooperation and compromise are crucial to the economic health of the country Stephen Harper is playing political games and launching Conservative attack ads.

One has no way of knowing if this is a result of Stephen Harper being so egocentric that he cannot or will not hear what others and Canadians are telling him or whether Harper is incapable of paying attention to the needs of any other Canadian(s) but his own.

Which would be good news if, as these attack ads seem to suggest, Stephen Harper is so egomaniacal as to be willing to ignore the expressed wishes of Canadians and the economic welfare of Canada in order to provoke an election in hopes of achieving the majority government he lusts after.

Whatever the reason, these attack ads make clear that Canadians do need to speak with their MPs – their Conservative MPs.

We need to tell our Conservative MPs to stop pandering and knuckling under to Stephen Harper. It is past time that they started acting in the best interests of their constituents, Canadians and Canada.

The Conservative caucus needs to replace Stephen Harper with a leader strong enough to compromise and cooperate; a leader more concerned about Canada and Canadians that himself and his Divine Right to Rule.

You’re the federal Finance Minister; the world economy is in meltdown mode; the Canadian economy is in reverse, showing no inclination to stop edging closer and closer to the precipice where recession plunges into depression; you have come to the west coast for consultation and input on the economy and you go to … West Vancouver?

The only way he could have held his consultation somewhere less in touch with the economic reality that 80 – 90% of Canadians face in their daily lives in the actual working world would have been to hold it on Jimmy Patterson’s yacht. However, that would have left no room for the press and thus press coverage.

Why is it that when politicians want to consult on or discuss the economy they never seek the advice or opinion of the people who are most affected by the economic policies of governments? Probably because they will be given advice and opinions they do not want to hear, much less have to act on it.

For instance Employment Insurance. You currently have to wait 45 days to start collecting EI. With so many working Canadians living pay cheque to pay cheque as a result of the government policies that continue to swell the ranks of the working poor how are you expected to survive 45 days?

With the economy in free fall and shedding jobs by the tens of thousands how are the unemployed to find employment before their EI benefits run out? Add in those trapped on Welfare because there are no jobs for them in this economy plus the fact that welfare payments are not sufficient to pay rent or live on and the country is facing the possibility of a tidal wave of homeless.

That is not what the government wants to hear or to have to act on. No our governments abhor having to spend money on the welfare of the poor, those who have or will lose their jobs and the working poor; preferring to spend nothing to insure the welfare of these citizens. No welfare spending should be reserved for corporations and the wealthy.

The federal government has for years been abandoning its duty of care to address the welfare of the ordinary citizen; but let big corporations like the automobile industry need welfare and the feds happily rush to hand over billions – on top of the billions of dollars of corporate welfare paid to the car companies over prior decades.

We have already started to hear the hue and cry for tax cuts to stimulate the economy, a course of action that has been a favourite of governments over the years. Yes we will cut taxes to make the rich richer; but put money into the hands of the poor or ordinary income earner – can’t do that – even if these are the groups that will spend the money and stimulate the economy.

Listening and watching Mr. Harper and his finance minister Mr. Flaherty it is looking more and more as though the fact Canadian voters denied the Conservatives a majority and Mr. Harper having been forced to prorogue parliament is a massive stroke of luck for ordinary Canadians.

Not only is Mr. Harper required to work with the other parties, but the events leading up to the Governor General proroguing parliament rudely and extremely effectively reminded Mr. Harper of the need to consult and work with the other parties in parliament.

One of the things that Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Harper don’t want to hear but need to actually pay attention to in deciding on policy is that the economic disaster we find ourselves teetering on is a result of the actions and policies of governments over past 2 – 3 decades.

Continuing to operate in the same way is only going to continue to give rise to more of the same economic problems; in other words if government keeps on doing what it has been doing we are going to continue to get what we have been getting.

Personally I have no desire to keep on getting the economic outcomes that we are facing currently, do you?

It is time to tell Mr. Harper we have had enough of the insanity of doing the same thing over and over, basing policy on the same operating philosophies, hoping that one of these times the outcome will be different.

No more corporate welfare; no more welfare for the rich; it is time that government paid attention to the welfare of ordinary Canadians.