Homegrown: a hotspot for Canada

Well I'm still in heartbreak over the recent loss of Brazil to rival France in the WC quarter finals. Unlike their previous game, in which Brazil had a brilliantly strong defensive core, France was able to penetrate and score, taking out the fan favourite Brazil. France is well on it's way now, they'll hit Portugal next week and probably Germany in the Final, and end up taking the tournament. The cup is brought back to Europe for another four years regardless.

But let's get on with the real news.

Recently Toronto has experienced its own brush with terrorism, and the "homegrown threat". The media had a field day with this too, and why shouldn't they? In the weeks that followed, the Harper Government has been reassuring everyone that the threat is contained, but has repeated this to the people so many times that they should be on edge now. I work in downtown toronto near Wellington and Bay and the people here seem to be unphased. I spoke to some of them recently and they said they're not going to be afraid of going to work in lieu of a possible attack as a result of these events. It seems that they just don't care enough about what this new government says, as if the credibility of the Canadian government was washed away with this last election.

And the government's response to this event is also worth mentioning. PM Harper can't be so blind to the fact that his actions closely mirror the policy of the US when it comes to detaining suspects. Media bans, lawyer/client restrictions, I mean people have connected the dots, have called him a stooge, a pawn, not to mention some other choice words. What's to be gained from this?

The fact of the matter is that this threat is homegrown, but so is the cause. People have blamed the hot tempered imam in a mississauga mosque, or the rise of islamic-extremism (this is not a compound word, it's an adjective and a noun, please remember that). These are children that are being detained, kids growing up in wartime, with the mainstream media telling them one thing, and their morals and values telling them another. The current government's continued program in Afghanistan is leading to these problems. It was the Americans who instigated this problem, why are we playing super nanny and cleaning it up? Will we also have to clean up the mess (and what a mess) they're making in Iraq? We're spending money on this operation, instead of spending money where it needs to be. Hospitals, schools, you name it and it's suffering. And then Harper does something even more outlandish. He goes and cuts the gst to 6%. This was one of his campaign promises, which I've learned recently doesn't even have to be upheld. Businesses will not be fined for not adhering to this and can still charge the regular 7%. Empty promises, Empty pockets, empty class rooms, more people on the streets - now we got some serious homegrown trouble, and it's sitting atop parliament hill.

I'd like to digress and tug at another matter here. Why is it that after Harper comes back from meeting with President Bush, after Toronto has its terrorist scare, why is it that the position on softwood lumber seems to be doing just that - softening. Seems like somebody made a deal. I wonder how the government will hide this from people. It just seems to be disappearing as if we never had a problem.

Just something to keep in mind.