"I wish my country were a little better."

So do I.  So does any Canadian who sees: the growing divide between rich and poor; the undermining of what once were independent oversight agencies put in place to protect public interests; the biggest deficit our country has ever had; decline in education; aboriginal rights still sorely trounced; growing reports of police brutality; access to information increasingly denied; failure to address poverty; a Parliament that ignores policy for politics; a Parliament that engages in vicious, personal attacks rather than intelligent debate; a country being fed the propaganda of fear more and more; a paranoid government that constantly seeks ways to invade our privacy and limit our right to protest...

It's a good thing for a leader to point out his or her country could use some improvement, and quite another to bash it as harper did for the entertainment of American businessmen, stating as fact that "Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it," and that "(i)n terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance." 

The title of this blog is a quote by Ignatieff, inserted into harper's latest attack ads in which stevie is trying to say that Ignatieff does not support his country.

The latest harper attack ads (but remember, these can't possibly be election ads because stevie says he's not in election mode) are nothing more than a worn out ensemble of the same old garbage harper has been saying for the past two years.

But lying sociopath that harper and his idiot servants are, they really missfire with this latest batch of immature nose-thumbing.

I want a leader who aspires to making our country better than it is.  I want a Prime Minister who can publicly acknowledge that not all is perfect and that change is needed, sometimes unpopular measures as well.

Most reasonalbe Canadians know that tax money is needed to provide services, security, government, education health care, and most know that if you cut taxes, some of those things will have to be cut.  Honestly addressing the reality of taxes despite how unpopular that topic may be is showing respect for voters.

The harper attacks ads tell us more about harper than about Ignatieff, Layton, or Duceppe.  Not only do they show stevie to be unimaginative and prone to adolescent taunts, they show he has little grasp of what a leader should be by attacking some of those very qualities in other leaders.

Something else I think really fails the CPC in these ads: the graphics.  Ignatieff actually looks pretty good - warm, friendly, human.  And the very bizarre choice of background, the hazy images heavily toned in red...I can only specualte as to why stevie approved that - supposed to represent hell-fire?  It sure isn't Liberal red, but maybe that's what they were aiming for.  It's more of a burgundy which is pleasant to the eye.

And predictably, not a thing from harper in any of the ads on what he will do to make Canada better.