The Conservatives are up in arms, we learn this afternoon, because Michael Ignatieff had the pure audacity to claim that employment equity "doesn't hurt anyone. It reinforces national unity and the quality of the Public Service."
You see, claiming that something "reinforces national unity" is a pure no-no to the Harperites. You just don't use the term "national unity" frivolously -- you can't do it. In their words doing so is "playing with fire" and "reckless".
As with most policies, however, there are exceptions.
One obvious exception was during the last election campaign when Stephen Harper claimed -- over and over and over again -- that the Green Shift threatened national unity. I mean, duh, obviously that just doesn't count and was almost a public service by Harper to point it out to concerned Canadians.
Then there was the coalition, again, obviously a threat to national unity per Harper.
Peter Van Loan claimed that the Liberals opposing Senate term limits was a " constitutional crisis," which in some circles would be considered as bad as a national unity crisis but I'm not sure where it ranks to Harper so let's give anything Senate-related a full exemption to the national unity rule (the Senate being so core to who we are as a nation and all).
Oh ya, and when the House passed the resolution recognizing the Quebecois as a nation, Harper did claim that "In politics you take risks. That's what we did, but national unity, national reconciliation are more important than any one party or than any one individual" but after fighting his entire life to recognize the Quebecois as a nation, you have to forgive Harper for that (obvious) slip-up.
But ya, other than those few, obvious exceptions, one really should never use the lexicon of national unity to describe any policy issue.