Making the Country Safe for Private Exploitation, uh, "Enterprise"

The Canadian government... oops, I forgot, it is now officially "The Harper Government"... has decided that providing troops in an emergency is wrong because it would inhibit the chance of "private enterprise" to profit from misery and suffering with the Quebec floods.

From the Globe and Mail:

At a time when distressed flood victims in Quebec’s Richelieu Valley were urging the federal government for more troops to help deal with the crisis, Ottawa refused to send in additional soldiers, saying it would put them “in competition with the private sector.”

In a letter sent to the Quebec government last Friday, federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews explained that the Canadian Forces were too busy with “defence activities” to respond to their demands and denied the province’s request for more troops.

It is good to see that Stephen Harper knows his priorities. When there is a choice between helping the victims of a natural disaster or giving his private enterprise buddies a chance to gouge desperate people by selling them "assistance" during the disaster, Harper has picked his ideological favourite: the rights of business over the rights of the people.

I'm guessing this isn't just Harper letting his greedy buddies exploit the suffering. I'm guessing this is Harper being vindictive about the fact that the Quebeckers aren't sufficiently enamoured with his government to vote in more Conservative MPs. This is the way Harper punishes them for not voting "correctly". It is a new concept in government services: you get service if you vote for the government party, otherwise you twist slowly in the wind hung by your recalcitrance and refusal to understand the proper mechanics of Canadian "democracy".