Prime Minister Stephen Harper now uses every opportunity he gets to remind us that “Conservative values are Canadian values”. Even: “Conservative values are Canadian values”. But how does Harper relate this tired propaganda to Canada’s recent sales of billions worth of military hardware?

In its last six years in power, the Conservative government sold guns, bombs and munnitions to some of the worst human rights abusers in the world: China, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Libya. Or, yes, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya! Weren’t these rogue regimes persecuting their own people? Aren’t they now?