Showing posts with label Dion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dion. Show all posts

Friday, December 05, 2008

Harpers Putsch


Since winning power in 2006, albeit as a minority government, Stephen Harper has been set on gaining a majority to keep HIM in power as PM. That first summer his reading included a biography of Stalin, the Man of Steel.

And like Stalin his recent political machinations reminded me of the intriques in the Bolshevik Party as Stalin played off alliances of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin, and other central committee and politburo members, against each other to maintain power.

In porouging parliment he saved his job and his government...for the moment.

And despite his protestations about saving demoracy, his actions are the opposite. Which is typical of the right wing, who use language to mean its opposite. For instance Freedom of Information acts passed by right wing governments are anything but that, they actually limit freedom of informantion and access. Just as the Harperocrites transperancy and accountability act is anything but.
And right wing parties manufacture political crisises in order to create the conditions to either take power or stay in power.

So when Harper talks about democracy he means something other than parlimentary democracy. Rather he looks south and want to create a PMO with the power of the U.S. Presidency.

"The Canadian government has always been chosen by the people," the prime minister declared in his mid-week televised address to the country.
But now, he told viewers, a coalition of opposition parties is trying to oust him through a backroom deal "without your say, without your consent and without your vote."
Just how valid is Harper's claim that changing governments without a new election would be undemocratic?
"It's politics, it's pure rhetoric," said Ned Franks, a retired Queen's University expert on parliamentary affairs. "Everything that's been happening is both legal and constitutional."
Other scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement. They say Harper's populist theory of democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, in which voters cast ballots directly for a national leader, than it is to Canadian parliamentary democracy.
"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University.
In Canada, there's no national vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a government holds power only as long as it has the support of a majority of those MPs.
"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general.
"I'm sorry, that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution."


If we are to understand the current political situation and how we got here we have to review Harpers rise to power. Firstly he left the Reform Party as a short lived MP, having been a former assistant to its first MP Deborah Grey. He had an ego that would not let him work with Preston Manning then Reform Party leader who is a prairie populist. Harper however comes from the Calgary School, a modern neo-con politick influenced by Reagan/Gingrich Republicanism, and the authoritarian ideology of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss. Several members of the Calgary School being ex-pat Americans.

The new conservative movement sled by Harper shed its populist appeal, and its base, while maintaining the language of reform to appeal to that base. Under the tutelage of Calgary School mandrin Tom Flanagan. the object was not Preston's agenda to reform Canadian politics, but to gain power and destroy their main opponent the Liberal Party. It was to hold power at all costs, first and foremost, democratic reform was abandoned for the politics of right wing political economic social engineering, to transform the state in Canada into a Republican lite government. In order to do this it was required to Unite the Right.

With the failure of the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance to do this, it was clear that a strong man, a man of steel, would be needed to bind the disparte right wing base together into a party capable of winning an election and begin the process of defeating and destroying the Liberal Party, Canada's Natural Governing Party, andultimately what these ex-American politicos hate most the liberal social democratic Canadian State.

This was the same agenda of the Gingrich Republicans and their Contract With America, to defeat forever the Democrats, who had been the Natural Governing Party in the United States.

With Harpers win of the leadership of the newly minted Conservative Party, which intigrated the Canadian Alliance with the old Progressive Conservative Party, purging the progressives and populist Reformers, the Republican Revolution model of politics was adapted to Canada.

The arrogance of the Liberals was finally met with an arrogant Conservative leader set with and agenda to seize power and destroy them once and for all. No other Canadian politician had ever been elected to parliment like Harper. None of the previous Conservative PM's had ever viewed taking power to mean destroying their political opposition.

This should have been clear to the Liberals, but in their arrogance as the Natural Ruling Party they chaose instead to view their defeat in 2006 as the fault of the internal clash between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. A clash that had led to Martin gaining a minority government bequethed with a Chretien era scandal. Even after Martin's defeat the party failed to realize how serious Harper was about his mission and political agenda to destroy them.

In their arrogance they held a six month leadership race complete with supposed party revitalization discussions. The latter ended up on the cutting room floor. The former was hotly contested, and included a front runner, Michael Ignatieff, brought from Harvard to battle the Calgary School boys. Unfortunately the race which got nasty ended in a lame duck choice; Stephane Dion, whom nobody really wanted, but appeared at th moment to unite the party as the best of a bad lot. Again the failures and foibles of all the leadership candidates were exposed for all Canadians to see, and their words used in the leadership debates would come back to haunt them.

In choosing Dion, they thought they would naturally regain power, they were unprepared for the total war that Harper was about to unleash on them.
With a minority government and buckets of money available the Harper government wasted no time in perparing for another election. And it began the day that the Liberals elected Dion as their leader.

Gone now were the catcalls about you had ten yearsto fix things, and accusations about the Quebec Ad Scam and being entitled to their entitlements. No the Liberals played into Harpers
hands, his strong leadership, his furherprinzpal, versus their milqutoast soft leader Dion.

They prepared for a spring election, spending on attack ads against Dion that left the broke Liberal party reeling. When that election did not happen they porogued parliment for the summer to return in the fall, blaming the Liberals for their failure to pass law and order legislation that was their stock in trade appeal to their right wing base.

By the end of 2007 they had wasted the surplus the Liberals had left them with GST cuts, tax cuts for big business and bloated military budgets for their war in Afghanistan. This was always a key element of the neo-con agenda, spend government money so that they had no alternative but to cut politically objectionable services and programs.

"I'm hopeful there will be some ideologically-driven, neo-conservative cuts to government," political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former chief of staff to Harper, said in an interview.
Such cuts, he added, would be consistent with Harper's long-term goal of reducing the size and scope of government.
"I think that's always been sort of the long-term plan, the way that Stephen was going about it of first depriving the government of surpluses through cutting taxes . . . You get rid of the surpluses and then it makes it easier to make some expenditure reductions."
At a minimum, Flanagan said: "I think there's certainly room for some incremental cuts to useless programs."
The government has already used the economic crisis to put off plans for a national portrait gallery, citing the need for fiscal restraint in uncertain times.
From Flanagan's perspective, the government would do well to scupper a host of grants, contracts and business subsidies and to pare a lot of what he considers wasteful spending on cultural and aboriginal programs.

Despite passing legislation for fixed date federal election, with the next one being the fall of 2009, Harper kept up the election style attacks on Dion and the Liberals. It was always about Harper versus the other guy, who was a wimp, not a leader, etc. etc. Canada was kept on election footing, the Conservatives showed off their new war room for the election, and then quietly closed shop six months later.

Durng the Fall of 2007 through the spring of this year the rudderless Liberals prop up the Harper government, unable and unwanting to bring down the government, unprepared to go to the polls, Dion allows his MP's to bow out of critical votes, including confidence votes, with only token opposition to Harper.

Come the summer of 2008 and again government is porugued for the summer to resume in the fall. Everyone is busy watching the U.S. Presidential race, and watching house prices drop as oil prices rise, and the loonie gains on the U.S. dollar. Then everything begins to fall apart. The recession comes, a recession that George Bush spends a year denying, saying the fundamentals of American Capitalism are strong. John McCain his replacement says the same thing on the campaign trail. Heck even our Economist In Chief, our PM Stephen Harper assures Canadians that our economic fundamentals are strong, and a recession and credit melt down won't hurt our financial system and the government surpluses.

But Harper see's the writing on the wall, a recession would bring down his minority government, so being the opportunist he is he gambled on an early election, before the meltdown got to bad. Despite fix election dates he threw that aside like his promise not to tax Income Trusts. Two years of election style campaigning had left the Liberals and Dion weakened, and the polls showed that in the early days of the recession he was risisng in the polls, Canadians were looking for secure leadership in this time of unease and uncertainty.

So he called an election in September for October. The Man of Steelwas now transformed into Uncle Steve, the sweater wearing, father of two, a serious listner at the kitchen tables of immigrant and ethnic Canadians as nmumerous TV ads showed us.

And then the sweater came off. Harper announced political cuts to Arts and Culture programs, and denounced artists and cultural workers as effette elitists (read Liberals) who criticise the government that feeds them. And he introduced tough Law and Order promises to put teenagers in adult prisons. Appealing to his right wing base in Western Canada. But it bombed in Quebec and we were to discover that the Conservatives had contracted out their campaign in Quebec leaving them with no one to effectively counter the BQ attacks on these policies.

All along our esteemed Economist and PM insisted like his counterparts to the south that Canada's economic fundamentals were strong. And then the market crashed. And despite that crash Harper lied to the Canadian people saying that he would not have a deficit and that his government would still have a surplus. He insisted our financial market place could weather the storm, while promising $75 billion to bail out the banks.

An all the while the Liberals floundered about with a lacklustre leader whose complex Green Plan was obtuse except for one fact, it was a tax increase. Harper leaped on this from the earliest days of the Green Shift even before the election to call it a deficit plan and a tax grab. And the Liberals could not convince Canadians otherwise. The Natural Governing Party entered the election as the Natural Bumbling Party.

Jack Layton on the other hand finally abandoned the politcs of being the Opposition and ran for the PM's job. While Elizabeth May and the Green Party finally got into the leaders debates.
Still we all watched the U.S. election campaign between Obama and McCain.
And despite the pre-election polling, the defeat of the Liberals and their leader, Harper won a pyrichic victory, he ended up with more seats, as did Jack Layton and the NDP, but Harper remained with a minority government, in the midst of the biggest crisis capitalism has faced since the Great Depression.

Dion having blown it,by leading the Liberals to their worst historic defeat ever, mopped around Stornmount, spending several days before announcing his retirement as leader of the Liberals. Dion was always his own worst advisor. And his shock at losing as well as his hubris and arrogance that he could be defeated so badly, would siber him up.

Despite bailing out the banks Harper insisted that he would not run a deficit, that he could balance the budget, that his government would have a surplus, as the loonie crashed, the Big 3 Automakers called for bailouts, and the market crash created a recession in Canada.

And so we come to the last two weeks as Parliment resumed. Promising a fiscal update to address the economic crisis facing the country and the world Harper produced a political document that was aimed at his long range plan all along, to finally destroy the Liberal Party once and for all. There was no investment strategy, no bail out for the Big Three, no economic plan perser. Hower there was further cuts to government spending, the only thing neo-cons know how to do, wage controls and the end of the right to strike for federal public sector workers, and the end of public financing of political parties. It was this that was the final straw that broke the camels back.

The path to Conservative political dominance is to financially bankrupt your opponents.
So wrote Tom Flanagan, one of the deep thinkers of the conservative movement in Canada and a mentor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Flanagan's prescient op-ed piece from August appeared to come to fruition in Thursday's fiscal update when Harper's Conservatives moved to end public financing of federal political parties under the guise of austerity. "There will be no free ride for political parties," Flaherty told the House of Commons in his speech on the update. "Even during the best of economic times, parties should count primarily on the financial support of their own members and their own donors."

The irony is that public financing of political parties was a longstanding Reform Party demand, along with fixed election dates and Senate Reform. Even though it was introduced by Jean Chretien in his final days as PM, a legacy project, it passed the house unanimously. The Canadian Alliance, the former Reform Party, supported it becaue they saw it as a way of leveling the playing field, the Liberals had long benefited from Corporate and Union donations. For Harper now to eliminate it, without even having bothering to raise the matter during the election was simply another example that his agenda was to destroy the weakened Liberals. Finally Dion the doormouse woke up to the fact that the Harper agenda was not just power for its own sake, but the destruction of the Liberal Party. Indeed the entire Liberal cacus finally read the writing on the wall, which had been Conservative graffiti for a decade.

And the little professor saw a chance to be PM, in a coalition government playing right into the hands of Harper. The NDP and Bloc had begun coalition discussions and invited the Liberals in, as they fumed over the betrayl and attack by Harper. Their mistake was to allow Dion to remain in charge, thus playing into Harpers hands. Jack Layton had gotten more popular votes than Dion and indeed the NDP won more seats, and came in second in many regions including Alberta. The Liberals were decimated, and the little professor who would be PM was not seen by Canadians as worthy of the job. Even as leader of a coalition.

Harper played on that to his advantage, while lying about the whole way we had gotten into this mess. We had seen what was supposed to be a fiscal update, changed into a attack on other political parties, wage controls on the public sector, and cuts to government spending. No fiscal stimulaus, other than bailing out the banks, was proposed. No fiscal plan was offered, and still Harper and his ministers claimed they would have a surplus and would not go into deficit.

He could not help himself, he was true to his long term goal of destroying the Liberals, and he saw them severly weakened and he took advantage. He did not expect that the opposition would coalesce into a united front coalition that could offer an alternative to his government.

Which they did.

He quickly backtracked, withdrawing the offending proposals to remove public financing and the right to strike, though wage controls were not off the table. However the damage was done.

And he insisted the next election would be fought over public financing which he couched in the old language of the 2006 election, that the opposition wanted their entitlements.

Faced with a united opposition, a coalition prepared to govern in his stead, who had already let the Govenor General know that, he began another election campaign. With coffers full of donations, he launched his so called defense of democracy, note well not defense of Parliment, but of that American abstract notion of democracy, one person one vote.

Not willing to face the wrath of the house he approached the GG to porouge parliment, to live to fight another day. While he accused the opposition of courting a coup with their coalition, he in fact conducted a parlimentary putsch yesterday to stay in power for another seven weeks.And he did so not for the good of Canada, or the Canadian people, nor even for the good of his own party. He has no plan to deal with the recession and its spiral into depression, rather he will use the seven weeks to run yet another election campaign against the Liberals.

The Liberals mistake and the cracks are showing now with dissident MP's denoucning Dion, was to not have demanded Dion step down and appoint an interm leader to be the PM in a coalition government.

That option remains open. Or they could make Jack PM. Not likely.

So let us recap the Harper government is a minority, the majority of Canadians voted for the opposition. They don't want another election, only Harper does because he has the money to run one. He wants an election not to govern but to finally kill the Liberal party, to run a stake thrrough its heart so it will not rise again.

And that is all his political agenda was ever about. So lets not hear anymore about defending democracy, or being best suited to solve the economic crisis, which he denied we were in and still has not offered any solutions for.Or that he is fighting for Canadian unity against nasty seperatists that he was willing to join with to defeat the Liberal minority government of Paul Martin.

Let us understand that Harper and his cronies seek power for its own sake, to mold Canada in their neo-con image. He has pulled off a parlimentary putsch to stay in power. We need a strong coalition to defeat him and replace him in January.

SEE:


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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Monday, December 01, 2008

Shades of Grenwal Tory Dirty Tricks

Hey remember the last time there was a minority government and the Harpocrites secretly recorded a meeting. At the time the minoritiy government was the Paul Martin Liberals, and the taping was done by Tory MP Gurmeet Grewal who claimed he was being bribed to cross the floor. Well the Harpocrites are at it again releasing secret illegal tape recordings in hopes to shore up their minority government during this crisis of confidence. A Law and Order government secretly and illegally taping the opposition the hypocrisy is only matched by their desperation.

The Tories also unveiled a surreptitiously recorded tape of a New Democratic Party caucus meeting, alleging it showed a long-existing cabal with the Bloc Québécois to defeat the government — and there were rumours that as a last resort, Mr. Harper might seek to prorogue Parliament, ending the session to avoid defeat in the Commons
The Prime Minister's Office released a secretly taped recording of a conference call of the NDP caucus in which Leader Jack Layton refers to having "locked in" the support of the Bloc early.
Mr. Harper's aides argued it showed a pre-existing NDP-Bloc agreement to look for an excuse to defeat the Tories that had nothing to do with last week's economic statement.
In the recording, Mr. Layton is heard telling his MPs they have plans to cope if the Bloc goes "offside" during the coalition.
"I actually believe they're the least of our problems, but in case I'm wrong, let's just say we have strategies. This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't have been made with the Bloc to lock them in early, because you couldn't put three people together in one, in three hours. The first part was done a long time ago, I won't go into details …," Mr. Layton said.
Mr. Mulcair insisted that while the two parties have spoken about co-operation on issues like employment insurance, the first NDP-Bloc talks about a coalition took place only after elements of the government's economic update were revealed last week.
He said the party mistakenly sent the conference-call number to a Conservative MP, who dialled in and recorded the meeting. He said the NDP plans to raise the action as a violation of parliamentary ethics and will consider pressing charges.
Mr. Mulcair said the Tories "illegally" recorded a private meeting, and called it "scandalous."
"It shows the desperation of the Conservatives," he said.

Mulcair added that the NDP were also pursuing legal action against the Tories for listening in and broadcasting a private discussion.
"We're already in contact with senior lawyers in that regard," he said.


And the reason to release this tape despite the possibility of facing legal charges let alone jeopradizing their declining public support?

There were also rumours that Mr. Harper might prorogue Parliament, ending the current session so he cannot be defeated in the Commons — although some said that was a last-resort option that would look desperate.

They know full well that the majority of Canadians, heck the majority of Albertans, did not vote for them.Hence the desperation to stay in power at any cost. So of course the Harpocrites are feigning outrage about a pending coalition government made up of the opposition parties, not because it is an undemocratic power grab as they spent the weekend messaging to the media, but rather because they have used the tactic in the past and know that it can be done.

Only a day earlier, Mr. Harper's chief of staff Guy Giorno sent out an e-mail that included talking points, scripts for Tory partisans to use on radio phone-in shows and a template for letters to newspaper editors. Party faithful were encouraged to "use every single tool and medium at our disposal" to spread the word that opposition parties are trying to usurp the government in a crass bid to protect their political "entitlements."

Text of PMO e-mail to Tory MPs on key talking points
Note to all Conservative members of Parliament:
As you are aware, the Opposition parties are currently discussing a plan to topple our government and replace it with a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition.
While we believe such an arrangement would be an affront to the democratic will of Canadians when they afforded us a strengthened mandate on October 14th, we must nonetheless take this threat very seriously.


The Conservative party asked its members to make "emergency" donations to help prevent the NDP and Liberals from forming a coalition government, the latest step undertaken by Tory officials to rally supporters. Irving Gerstein, the Conservative Fund Canada's chairman, sent an e-mail appeal to supporters over the weekend, asking them to "protect Canada's future and protect Canada's democracy from being hijacked by politicians who care about nothing more than power and entitlements."The message asks recipients to make a donation of "$200 or $100 -- whatever you can afford" and states "time is of the essence."
"The Liberals are holding secret negotiations with the socialist NDP and separatist Bloc Quebecois to overturn the wishes of Canadian voters and take power," Mr. Gerstein wrote. "They want to take power and impose on Canadians a prime minister without a personal mandate, a Liberal-NDP coalition not one voter has ever endorsed and have it all backstopped by the separatist Bloc Quebecois who simply want to destroy the country."


Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said the tape proves the NDP has been plotting to usurp results of the election. "The mask has been lifted off -- the separatists and the NDP have been having these backroom talks for months," he said. "Their goal is to reverse the election results and seize power. Now their scheme is exposed ... it's incumbent upon the Liberal Party to ... no longer participate in the secret discussions."
Poilievre said he doesn't know who made the tape and declined to comment on its ethical implications.


But roll back the tape to September 2004, just a little more than two months after Canadians elected a minority Liberal government. Then-opposition leader Harper appeared at a news conference with Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe -- you know, the guy who wants to destroy the country -- and NDP leader Jack Layton to announce that the three of them had conspired -- sorry, agreed -- on a list of demands that would give them a larger role in governing.
"The agreement that we are announcing today will profoundly alter the operation of the House of Commons in ways that opposition parties have been demanding for years," Harper told reporters.
The three opposition leaders also wrote to then governor-general Adrienne Clarkson urging her to "consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority" in the event the Martin government lost a confidence vote.
The opposition leaders said the letter was an attempt to head off any attempt by Martin to hold a snap election in the hope of coming back with a majority.
"I would not want the prime minister to think that he could simply fail in the House of Commons as a route to another general election. That's not the way our system works," Harper said.


SEE:
Flaherty's Fiscal Failure
NDP the New Reform Party


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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Green Shift Tax=GST

The green PM Brian Mulroney gave us the GST a tax on consumers, a regressive tax, one the Liberals promised to abolish but never got around to doing so. Stephne Dion and his Liberals now offer their of the GST with their Green Shift Tax. Again the average Canadian faces another Gouge and Screw Tax aimed at consumption rather than producers/production.
The Liberals new Green Shift is not green but it certainly is a shift, from taxing producers of greenhouse gases to those who consume the products.
In other words same old same old.
Brought to you by the folks who signed Kyoto but who had no plan to deal with it.
The Conservatives have no plan period, so this election anything they do is sheer opportunism; hence their diesel tax reduction. Which will not bring down the prices of your vegetables, furniture, or tropical fish, or anything else transported by truck.
The only party that is actually proposing a Green plan that meets the needs of capitalism is the NDP. New Zealand this week adopted a carbon cap and trade plan, Chicago has a cap and trade commodities market in place, Quebec supports cap and trade, and is creating its own market for it as well, hoping to use its hydro power as a carbon offset against the greenhouse gases produced by more inefficient coal powered utilities in Ontario and of course against the greenhouse gases produced in Alberta and the Wests rapidly expanding oil and gas fields.
Cap and Trade is the Kyoto solution for capitalism to address the climate crisis. Create a market place for trading emissions, make it a cost of doing business but market it based on an investment model.
Why the Liberals and Conservatives don't get this is simple because they fare old party's of the aristocracy and as much as they have adapted to bourgeoisie parlimentarism they fail to understand how capitalism functions. It sees a problem and it sees an investment opportunity. The Liberals and Conservatives being the old party's of the state only understand taxation not investment. They are lousy capitalists. Ironically for the libertarian ideologues of the free market it is the statist socialists who understand real world capitalism best.
The Whigs and Tories of old understood only taxation, they inherited their titles and their title to capital. With the rise of the workers movement there came the call to universal sufferage in Europe and these two old parties of the ruling classes of their day adapted. However what they did not adapt to was capitalism.
The new workers parties of Social Democracy on the other hand educated by Marx's Kapital knew of the the new world being born by their labour.
After 100 years of battle inthe parilments of capitalist democracy, honed through booms and busts and failed revolutions, they came to an post-modernist understanding in the ninties, in order to pose an alternative to the neo-con agenda of revival of 19th Century lazzie faire Austrian School economics
they needed a different social agenda. So they added eco to eco-nomics.
The Kyoto accord is not some socialist agenda to overthrow capitalism, despite its characterization as such by such neo-con mouthpieces as Stephen Harper, rather it is very much a 'market' solution to overproduction of emissions. And capitalists like it, they understand it, they endorse it which is why in states in the U.S. across Europe and around the world cap and trade is their prefered choice over carbon taxes.
But because business and its mouthpiece political party, the Conservatives, of all lands oppose carbon taxes does not mean that we as workers should support them. They are after all the most regressive form of tax that on consumption rather than production.
Nor should we be fooled that creating new stock markets based on cap and trade will actually have any real impact on the environment.
Rather we need to pose the one alternative to the crisis of capitalism and it's impact on our world, workers control of production. Nothing less will halt capitalisms ultimate entropy which is the climate crisis.




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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Mr. Dithers II

It's clear that dithering is now an official Liberal leadership trait.

Dion did not respond specifically when asked if Liberals are prepared to defeat the government over Afghanistan, should Harper make extension of the mission a matter of confidence.





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SEE

Liberals Gain Third Party Status



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Friday, December 21, 2007

Person of the Year

Time wimped out and made Putin their Person Of The Year. All the right wing media in the U.S. is whining that it should have been Petraeus. But good old Bill O'Riley on Fox last night let the cat out of the bag. The real reason for Time's choice was that they made a choice of the lesser of two evils the real POTY should have been; Al Gore. But that would have driven the American rightwhingnuts even battier.

And Time's Canadian 'Person of the Year' was not a person but a coin; the Loonie. And again that was the lesser of two evils because their real POTY should have been Dion. After all they gave it to Harper last year. And because it has been annus horribulus for the Liberal Leader in Waiting, he should have made Times cover. After all the Liberals adopted a bird as their symbol this year.



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Monday, November 05, 2007

Liberals Gain Third Party Status

The Liberals are not effective as Her Majesty's Official Opposition due to their failed fund raising .

The latest party financial returns published by Elections Canada show the Liberals raised $793,835 from June through to October, less even than the party's third-quarter donations last year.

The legendary "natural governing party" almost fell behind the NDP, which raised just $38,000 less than the Liberals during the same nine-month period.

The figures were released by Elections Canada only this week, but the Liberals were aware of their financial state well before Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean opened the new session of Parliament with a speech from the throne in mid-October.

Add to that any funds they do raise they have to use to pay off their Leadership convention debt. They have no election war chest. They are now just another third party in the House.

And as those of us on the left know politics is all about economics. And economically the Liberals cannot afford an election. Which determines their political praxis. It really doesn't matter whether they want an election or not, they can't afford it.

So they will shut up and sit on their bums fearful of challenging the Stephen Harper Party. And they will continue to claim it's all because the people of Canada don't want an election. When in fact it is because they are politically and financially bankrupt.

While the Tories awash in cash launch another attack ad campaign, we are in the midst of a protracted election campaign whether the Liberals want it or not.
Tories launch fifth negative ad campaign targeting Stephane Dion


Which Garth Turner notes on his blog. H/T to Take Off,eh for the Turner link.

When I spoke with a top dog in the OLO (Office of the Leader of the Opposition) Friday night, he said they were debating what to do about the new attack ad.

The Liberals cannot respond because they lack the moola. Also it doesn't help when your leader sticks his foot in his mouth and mumbles about increasing the GST.

Stephane Dion's
suggestion that he might one day increase the goods and services tax had some of his Liberal troops shaking their heads yesterday.

One Liberal MP actually buried his head in his hands when told of his leader's public musings.

Another simply cursed.

Yep trust the Liberals to blow it. They are not on autopilot they are on auto destruct. And they will end up a third party come the next election.


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SEE:

Harper the Mad Dog

Liberals Favorite Tax Cut

Poll Spin

A Reply To Northern Liberal

Jack Layton PM?

LiberalTory Surplus Story

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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Harper the Mad Dog


‘‘We will choose our time when we will decide to put this government down -- it will not be tomorrow,’’ Dion said to reporters.

Oops I think he meant 'bring down the government', unless he is ticked off about what they have done to poor Kyoto, his pet cause...Or maybe he actually meant it, perhaps he thinks the government is a Mad Dog....but then why let it suffer if that's the case.

Asks the Toronto Star Liberaltorial;

At what point does Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion take a stand and say: "No More! It is time to change this government"?

That's a question well worth asking after Dion and his Liberal MPs abstained yesterday from voting in the House of Commons on the minority Conservative government's tax-slashing mini-budget. And it is one worth considering in light of Dion's earlier willingness to give tacit approval to the Conservative throne speech and other measures, such as a get-tough-on-crime agenda and a weak environmental plan, while at the same time the Liberals insist they oppose much of what Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposes to do.

Is there a line across which Harper cannot go without the Liberals bringing down this government?

Nope apparently not.


The Liberals are a party in defeat and disintegration. Not even in the dark days of Trudeau as opposition leader or the days of exile under Chretien has the Natural Ruling Party been a house as badly divided as it is today. They smell defeat at every turn. They dread an election. And so they will prop up the Harper government and take their lumps.

Waiting, waiting, for an issue on which to take a stand. And what issue will that be they have retreated on Afghanistan, Kyoto, Childcare, Income Trusts. They have no principles left on which to take that valiant last stand. Each time the Harpocrites toss an issue out the Liberals will lead the charge of the light brigade.

And even if they did find 'the' issue to defeat the government, Dion will find himself alone then in the field of battle, as the party continues it's internal night of the long knives.

The Liberals have no platform, no agenda, no policies that the Harpocrites cannot steal and use against them and they have the cash to do it.

Finance watchers say it's likely Ottawa is sitting on more surplus cash than it's admitting and, if the economy stays hot, it will be able to offer more goodies, including a tax cut in a spring budget expected to set the stage for the next federal election.

TheLiberals elected a leader while failing to conclude Party Renewal leaving them to abandon the ship of state for the life boats. And now the various factions paddle in different directions.

Which of course is good for Jack Layton and the NDP who are now the Official Opposition.


The image “http://www.ndp.ca/xfer/html/2007-10-12/LiberalWarningHeader-en.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.



SEE:

Liberals Favorite Tax Cut


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Monday, October 22, 2007

Facebook Politicians

Here is the Facebook listing for Canadian politicians.

It appears that Dion is more popular here than in Quebec. Jack Layton is in second place while our PM places third.

Poor Gilles Duceppe has the least support
and he has no pic. And he can't blame Facebook for being Anglo it has hundreds of thousands of members in Montreal, QC and Quebec City, QC .


Name:
Stéphane Dion
Supporters:
11,557
Name:
Jack Layton
Supporters:
9,137
Name:
Stephen Harper
Supporters:
6,815
Name:
Gilles Duceppe
Supporters:
377
While the guy who wants Dion's job may have a lot of friends in high places and the back rooms of the party but not on Facebook. He has a ways to go to catch up with Dion, Layton and Harper.

Name:
Michael Ignatieff
Supporters:
3,969
Lucky for him the other contender for Dion's job, unelected, Bob Rae doesn't have a profile on Facebook. Come to think of it neither does Gerard Kennedy.






In Toronto Liberal Martha Hall Finlay, unelected, is in a race with Dipper Peggy Nash, elected.

Name:
Martha Hall Findlay
Supporters:
259

Name:
Peggy Nash
Supporters:
289
While Olivia Chow of the NDP is in a neck and neck race with Belinda Stronach who is no longer a MP.

Name:
Olivia Chow
Supporters:
2,486

Name:
Belinda Stronach
Supporters:
2,455
There are 166 politicians listed and the majority are men. However women politicians on Facebook are more popular than the majority of their male counterparts.

And of these three are openly gay, Brison, Davis, and Siskay.

Scott Brison, Carolyn Bennet and Dr. Hedy Fry were all wannabe Liberal leader. Maybe Ruby will try next time.




Name:
Scott Brison
Supporters:
1,819
Name:
Ruby Dhalla
Supporters:
1,812

Name:
Libby Davies
Supporters:
1,237
Name:
Carolyn Bennett
Supporters:
987

Name:
Dr. Hedy Fry
Supporters:
745
Name:
Todd Russell
Supporters:
685

Name:
Irene Mathyssen
Supporters:
517
Name:
Tina Keeper
Supporters:
428
Name:
Maria Minna
Supporters:
405

Name:
Bill Siksay
Supporters:
363

Another neck and neck race is between these two, and McGuinty has more name recognition.

Name:
Rebecca Coad
Supporters:
354
Name:
David McGuinty
Supporters:
353
File this under Geekiest photo.

Name:
Gord Zeilstra
Supporters:
395
Poor Paul Martin remains the forgotten PM. Heck the other Martin is more popular.


Name:
Paul Martin
Supporters:
55

Name:
Pat Martin
Supporters:
156
The NDP, Liberals and even the BQ outnumber the Conservatives. In fact it's hard to find any Conservatives outside of the boss in Facebook. Must be the long arm of the PMO. Somebody forgot to send the memo to this guy though.

Name:
Bev Shipley M.P.
Supporters:
278
Of course there is always the possibility that being on Facebook could be embarrassing.

FRENCH government ministers have faced embarrassment from their own children whose entries on Facebook were aired to the public.

Francois Fillon / File

Embarrassed ... French PM Francois Fillon's son Antoine has revealed some of his favourite pastimes on Facebook / File

French Prime Minister François Fillon's son, Antoine, 22, is a member of several “high-brow” chat groups including "I am too proud of my poo" which has 93 members who discuss the "16 different types of turd", Telegraph.co.uk reporte


You even find wannabe politicians here. This guy is running against right-whingnut Calgary West Conservative Rob Anders.

Name:
Kirk Schmidt
Supporters:
311
Heck even a wannabe B.C. Green candidate has a profile.

Name:
Dan Grice
Supporters:
312
While this would be B.C. NDP MP is driving a solar car.

Name:
Julian West
Supporters:
245
Being the NDP Defense spokesperson who has taken the lead on opposing Harpers War has not hurt Dawn Black's popularity.

Name:
Dawn Black
Supporters:
221
Despite his efforts to be the Blogging MP Garth Turner seems to have overlooked Facebook.

Name:
Garth Turner
Supporters:
241
And there is even one Senator listed from Alberta no less. And no it's not Bert Brown. Rather it is former leader of the Alberta Liberal Party.