Respect mah authoritah!

[CHIMO]

Like Eric Cartman, the obnoxious 8-year-old traffic cop on a tricycle in the classic South Park cartoon, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives seem to be hollering Respect mah authoritah! at every turn and hauling out the billy club to make their point.

In the past few days alone they’ve clubbed a Cree community in crisis, dissed the Federal Court of Canada and shrugged off a dirty tricks campaign. This arrogance may come back to bite them.

Consider the Attawapiskat fiasco.

When Chief Theresa Spence declared an emergency in the remote James Bay community because families with young children were facing the winter ice-up in rotting sheds and flimsy tents, many Canadians reacted with shock, shame and compassion. Not the Harper government. It held the band council responsible. Harper told Parliament that Ottawa had pumped millions into the town, and promptly put its finances in the hands of a federal manager. He’ll be paid $1,300 a day … with band money.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1099281--respect-mah-authoritah