OTTAWA,CANADA(RushPRNews)12/02/08-Stephen Harper has crossed the line, and opposition parties are asking the Governor General to accept a new coalition government! Click here to sign the petition, send a message, make a phone call, and counter Harper’s PR blitz attacking the coalition:
Take Action Now
Acting if he had a majority government, Stephen Harper has tried to exploit the economic crisis to push through a series of aggressively partisan and ideological proposals while doing nothing to actually stimulate the economy.

Shocked into action, the opposition parties have finally decided to fight back together — using their majority of seats in the House of Commons to form a new government. Canada could finally see a Liberal-NDP (and Green supported) coalition that would reverse years of awful economic and environmental policies.

Harper calls this move ‘undemocratic’ and is using his huge cash reserves and high level media friends to manufacture a ‘backlash’ and launch an all out PR campaign to publicly discredit the coalition. His only hope is to persuade the Governor General to refuse a coalition government, or grant a request to close Parliament until next year.

We urgently need to show the media and and the Governor General where Canadians stand. Through a flood of petition signatures, phone calls to radio shows, letters to the editor, messages to the Governor General, and more, we can demonstrate that the 62% of us who didn’t vote for Harper are firmly behind a coalition to replace him. Click below to sign the petition and much more:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/coalition_for_canada

Harper claims a coalition government would be undemocratic, but that’s laughable – the opposition parties between them represent almost two thirds of Canadian voters – so a new coalition government would be a great victory for Canadian democracy. Canadians didn’t give Harper a majority government precisely because we were worried about his radical views. As he’s decided to push far right-wing policies, we expect our representatives in Parliament to fire him.

Harper also claims that the parties are just protecting their government funding, which he proposed eliminating. But Canada has public financing because we believe party funding should be based on how many votes a party gets, not just how many large donors it cultivates. The real issue is that instead of dealing with a global economic crisis, Harper used that crisis to bully the parties into swallowing this and other partisan or ideological proposals, such as banning strikes by public sector workers (who have already accepted a wage freeze). He has never acted like a Prime Minister for all Canadians, and our representatives have had enough.

Finally Harper claims a coalition would be traitorous, because it would require separatist support from the Bloc Quebecois. This is the most laughable claim, because Harper’s own minority government has continually relied on Bloc support to stay in power, as would any minority government.

Canada and the world are facing serious economic and climate crises, and we have the wrong government to face them. The world’s representatives are gathering now in Poland for a last ditch effort to fight climate change, and Canada is STILL a spoiler in their efforts. If ever there was a time to get active, it’s now. So let’s skip that TV show, cook a simpler meal, cancel that social thing we didn’t want to go to anyway, and make time this week to make our voices heard. If we do, we could finally have a government that represents us within days.

With hope,

Ricken and the Avaaz Canada team

PS – in a random online poll of Avaaz Canada members, over 84% of us supported a coalition government as the best way forward at this time. Only 4% of us favoured a new election. ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Call us at: +1 888 922 8229 or +55 21 2509 0368 Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns. Don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages!

To contact Avaaz, write to info@avaaz.org. You can also call us at +1-888-922-8229 (US) or +55 21 2509 0368 (Brazil) If you have technical problems, please go to http://www.avaaz.org