Back before the first Conservative Party electoral sort-of victory, we lefties were convinced that the Harperite wing of the party was driven by a secret program for Canada, a list of priorities antithetical to what we thought our country was all about. No-one ever set out their “secret Conservative Agenda” fears too specifically, but if they had, I imaging it would have looked something like this.

a) The Conservatives will dismantle or choke off funding to the organizations they perceive as “feminist”.

b) They’ll start quietly trying to reverse the growing trend toward social acceptance of gays and lesbians.

c) They’ll dump the Kelowna Accord, promise an alternative and never produce one, ignore their obligations under Canada’s treaties and land claims, and covertly advance an agenda of urbanization and assimilation for Aboriginal peoples.

d) They’ll do what they can to dismantle Canada’s concept of itself as a multicultural country.

e) They’ll renege on Kyoto, dismantle environmental programs without notice or evaluation, and stall on any meaningful alternative.

f) They’ll either privatize CBC, or strangle it to death with funding cuts.

g) They’ll cut arts funding, with a special kick for programs that fund edgier or more experimental work.

h) They’ll swap Liberal pork recipients for Conservative pork recipients. No surprise there.

We missed a few things, I think – I’m not sure I would have expected sanctioning the murder of brown Canadians overseas or reversing years of Liberal surpluses to quite the degree they’ve achieved – but by and large, I’d say we got it right – I could add a dozen links for each of those bulllets.

So when Iggy finally finds his balls and decides to finally sink this ship of fools and knaves, at least the Conservatives will have one rock-solid campaign slogan.

“Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. No Hidden Agenda. Not Any Longer.”

Stageleft: life on the left side. July 22, 2009. Used by permission