Showing posts with label Liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liberals. Show all posts

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Contempt

It was a motion whose time had come, perhaps not soon enough. The Harpercrites have been in contempt of Parliament since they first became a minority government in 2006, it just finally caught up with them. And they have not been scandal free since. Once in power they threw out the last vestiges of their Reform Party platform for the expediency of maintaining power at all costs.They had become the very Mulroney Conservatives that Reform had been formed against.

Canadian Government, Beset by Scandal, Collapses

C. E. S. Franks, an authority on Canadian parliamentary practice who is professor emeritus of political science at Queen’s University in Ontario, said it was the first time a Canadian government had been found in contempt of Parliament. Eight individuals have been found in contempt, he said.

Professor Franks said the Conservatives deserved credit for their economic record and for governing “reasonably competently,” but he was very critical of the government’s approach to politics.

“It’s treated Parliament like the enemy,” he said.

Walkom: Yes, contempt of Parliament does matter

But there is a bitterness to this prime minister that has infected his entire caucus. All politicians are partisan by definition. Harper’s partisanship is over the top. He not only disagrees with Canadians who are liberals and left-leaners. He seems to despise them.

All of this was manifest before he took over the merged Conservative Party. In those days, he disparaged what he called the moral failings of liberals, calling them nihilists bent on the destruction of western values.

In power, his rhetoric was often more restrained. But as former nuclear regulator Linda Keen found, those he believed tainted by Liberalism could expect no mercy. Keen was axed in 2007 because she insisted that Canadian nuclear plants have back-up power systems — systems we now know that Japan’s ill-fated Fukushima reactors famously lacked.

But her real sin was to have been appointed to by a previous Liberal government. That, Harper suggested, made her inherently untrustworthy.

Opposition MPs and others who had the temerity to disagree with the government were given equally short shrift. Canadians who questioned Ottawa’s handling of Afghan prisoners were treated as traitors. Richard Colvin, the veteran diplomat who testified to this mistreatment, was savagely and personally attacked.

At one point, when it looked like his government might be defeated, Harper simply shut down the Commons.

And while Harper flippantly dismisses the contempt charges against his governance and government, he continues to abuse his power by claiming as the outgoing PM that any form of Minority coalition government is 'illegitimate', in particular the one formed in 2008 after the fall election when he and his government refused to accept there was a recession and that they had to do something about it.

"Canadians need to understand clearly, without any ambiguity: unless Canadians elect a stable, national majority, Mr. Ignatieff will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois," Harper said. "They tried it before. It is clear they will try it again. And, next time, if given the chance, they will do it in a way that no one will be able to stop."

"Imagine a coalition of arch-centralists and Quebec sovereignists trying to work together," Harper said. "The only thing they'll be able to agree on is to spend more money and to raise taxes to pay for it. We've all got too much at stake. Now is not the time for political instability."


Of course that was 2008 and he was in power. In 2004 then Liberal PM Paul Martin had a minority government and a coalition was formed by Harper, Duceppe and Layton against the Martin government. It was legitimate and legal then but not now says Harper.

Harper wanted 2004 coalition: Duceppe

Duceppe says Harper lying

OTTAWA - Stephen Harper is warning that the Liberals will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois if the May 2 federal election results in a minority government. But when he was Opposition leader, Harper didn't seem to mind the idea of governing with the support of the NDP and Bloc. Here's the text of a letter Harper and his fellow opposition leaders sent to the Governor General in 2004:

September 9, 2004

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson,

C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D.

Governor General

Rideau Hall

1 Sussex Drive

Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1

Excellency,

As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government's program.

We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority.

Your attention to this matter is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.

Leader of the Opposition

Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

Gilles Duceppe, M.P.

Leader of the Bloc Quebecois

Jack Layton, M.P.

Leader of the New Democratic Party


Harper has always had contempt for Parliament, when he was a Reform MP and even more so as spokesman for the right wing business lobby NCC, but no more so than over the past five years in power when he acted like he had a majority not a minority.

Now he tries to run an election campaign to become King of Canada with a Conservative majority that does not reflect the values of the vast majority of Canadians.


Friday, March 25, 2011

1984 And Now Election 2011

Warren Kinsella who used to be a Liberal Party Insider, and of course therefore a HACK, now works for the right wing conservative mouthpiece; Quebecor/SUN media, so today he declares that the election campaign is over before it begins.

Nineteen Eighty-Four wasn’t just the title of a good book by George Orwell.

It’s also a useful reminder of what may be about to happen to the Liberals and NDP in the coming election campaign.

You remember: Sept. 4, 1984, and Brian Mulroney sweeps to a massive parliamentary majority. The once-great Liberal Party — the Natural Governing Party, no less — is reduced to a paltry 40 seats.

Conservatives, up to 43%. Liberals, down to 24%. NDP, unchanged at 16%.

And if you just look at voting preferences of those absolutely certain to trek to polling stations, according to Ipsos, the Cons go up to 45%, and the Grits slide to 23%.

To put it in context, that gap is perilously close (or identical) to the 22 points that separated Mulroney and John Turner in 1984’s Gritterdammerung. Result: Tories, 211 seats, NDP 30 seats, and Grits the aforementioned 40.

So, is Michael Ignatieff this generation’s John Turner?

Of course he is but the political differences of the times are also significant. And Kinsella's prognosis is also questionable.

First in 1984 there was a great debate, a big issue that the election was to be fought over; nothing less than Free Trade.

There is no big issue in this election.


Second there was the appointment of Liberal hacks to the Senate just before the election call, which gave Mulroney his chance to defeat Turner in the debates when he challenged him to simply not appoint the Liberal hacks to the senate. "You had a choice Mr. Turner'. It was the zinger in the Leaders debate.

The NDP, the CLC trade unions and the Left had made Free Trade the issue for the election and had for two years prior. The Liberals seeing an issue which carried votes, opportunistically decided to become Anti-Free Trade hoping to get votes from the Left as the only Natural Governing Party.

In the Leaders Debate the NDP Leader Ed Broadbent carried the day as statesman, while Mulroney and Turner went at it hammer and tong. It was Mulrony who got in the election zinger.

What Kinsella fails to aknowledge is that in 1984 the NDP got enough seats, in fact increased their seats to 30, that had there been a minority government it would behoove them to ask for their support.

And even more importantly in 1984 there was NO Bloc Quebecois. In fact the BQ would originate out of the Mulroney Conservative government, a fact the current Conservative Government would like you to forget, even as they carry on in Mulroney's footsteps when it comes to gaining support in Quebec.

The Conservatives and Liberals want to have two party politics, ala the Republicans and Democrats in the US ,Conservatives and Labour in the UK.

Unlike the 1984 election this election is not about three parties but four parties. Three in English Canada and an additional Quebec based Party. By having four parties, with Quebec solidaly BQ,


The Harper Conservatives have decided to focus on the rural township votes, as they have in Western Canada, that is where their base is.

The urban cities is where the fight goes three ways, if not four. The NDP is currently more popular in Quebec than the Liberals, a historic first.


This election is about Leadership, and that is the only thing it has in common with 1984, Turner was weak, Mulroney was brash and Broadbent was conciliatory.

With the BQ there will be no repeat of 1984, we will once again have a minority government. But will it be Conservative or Liberal? The NDP is then the best place to park your vote, since Layton shows he is PM material, even more that his opponents, and if Harper has any chance so does Layton, even if it is as Leader of the Opposition.

The Liberals under Ignatieff, as they were under Turner, are toast and on that Kinsella and I agree.


Michael Ignatieff was once hailed in Liberal circles as the second coming of Pierre Trudeau. Now his challenge is to shake off the perception he's an outsider interested only in adding another ornament to his well-adorned resume.

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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Saturday, November 22, 2008

NDP the New Reform Party

Reasearch just published on the results of the October Federal election shows that the new party rising in the West to challenge the Ottawa power base is the NDP. Even in Alberta, where the NDP won a seat they came in second place across the province over all. After all the original reform party of the west was the CCF; the NDP's predecesor. With a seat in Quebec and Alberta the NDP is now a national party unlike the Liberals.

Liberals ran third behind the NDP in every last western province. While New Democrats came second in 46 western ridings, Liberals came second in only 24 ridings. And, again in 24 western seats, Liberals placed fourth behind the Greens and Independents. Of 42 seats up for grabs in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Liberals won just a single seat -- belonging to veteran Grit Ralph Goodale.

SEE:
Liberals Gain Third Party Status
Populism and Producerism


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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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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Spring Has Sprung 2

Well it is official spring has sprung earl. With the Liberals winning three of four by elections yesterday they are now gearing up for a spring election.

How do I know?

Well it could be that big honking
Claudette Roy Liberal Candidate for Edmonton Strathcona sign gracing the corner of 99th st. and Whyte Avenue over the launderette.

Or like pussy willows it could just be another sign of spring; the same sign was up last year too, same location.

Dion mum on election plans after byelection wins



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Sunday, March 02, 2008

It's Not A Leadership Race

Not since the ill fated Don Getty regime have the Tired Old Tories been in such a sorry state. Before Getty the Lougheed Team could do no wrong. After Getty the man of the people; King Ralph could do no wrong. The Tories would do well in the polls because of the Leader. The leaders polling numbers would often be stronger than the party's, and thus the party was buoyed by the popularity of its leader.

Now with wimpy Ed as leader the election comes down to hard fisted Realpolitiks. Despite polls saying Ed's Tired Old Tories are at 40% that is a serious crash in popularity, the direct result of Ed's mushy leadership.

The leadership debate showed that this is not a race about who will be premier, but rather which party will govern and which one is the opposition. While Taft and Stelmach vied for Premiership, Brian Mason showed himself as the leader of the Opposition.

And even then party politics and labels are not as important as the local campaigns. Because there is a lack of political process that involves us as citizens.

Election forums becoming a rare event in Alberta CBC.ca


Liberals have called for strategic voting, and Albertans will. But it won't necessarily be for the Liberals. Sure they will gain seats, as will the NDP.
Hinman and his right wing rump party are destined for the dustbin of history, splitting the vote on the right. Hinman is fighting for his political life just to retain his own seat.

Instead of venturing into Calgary, Wildrose Alliance Leader Paul Hinman campaigned in his home riding of Cardston-Taber-Warner, knocking on doors and attending a barbecue with supporters.


And who knows the Green Party may even have a chance, with their appeal to rural Tory voters disenchanted that Farmer Ed has become Alberta CEO and the mouthpiece for Big Oil.

Farmers join forces with 'tree huggers' to protest Tories' lax environmental record


Tomorrow there will be a sea change in Alberta. A record number of folks are voting in advanced polls. There are hundreds of thousands of new Albertans and consequently undecided voters.
Conservative party supports will stay home in droves unsatisfied with Stelmach's regime.


Barely 5 per cent of the electorate could be bothered tuning in to the only leaders' debate of the campaign.

And voter turnout, which hit historic lows last time with a meagre 44-per-cent turnout, could well drop even lower on Monday.

“The turnout's going to be brutal,” says Arnie Hansen, an Onoway-area cattle rancher and oil driller who has come in to the fertilizer supplier this sunny afternoon.

“That's the way it works in Alberta. They stay home. They don't vote for someone else. They just stay home.”



All in all it looks like perhaps we will have a minority government. Or at least as close a semblance to a minority government after 76 years of the One Party State. Who will lead this new government is anybodies guess.

Polls have repeatedly projected an 11th consecutive Tory majority on Monday, but they also reveal a persistently large number of undecided voters - even this late in the campaign. Meanwhile, a surprising number of voters are calling for a change in government, are unhappy with Progressive Conservative Leader Ed Stelmach and are willing to switch their vote.

"There's definitely a lot of fluidity yet in the voter commitment," said Harold Jansen, a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge. "Voters are ready for a change. They're ready for something different, but none of the opposition parties have done a good job inspiring it."

The undecided segment has all parties - especially the Tories - in a knot.



But it ain't about leaders or party labels. It is about issues though. And voters will decide what issues are important and vote for their issues, which leaves Stelmach's Tired Old Tories in a very weak position.

And in the final analysis this election is about who has the hard slogging political machine in each riding. Who can get out the vote. It's the closest thing to real election this province has seen since 1971.

And I would remind folks who say the opposition parties are weak, that back in 1971 the Lougheed Team that came to power had only 6 sitting MLA's.

And when all is said and done its not just about who gets to govern but who is the opposition. That is the understated part of this election. And surprise, surprise guess which party looks good for that job.

During the campaign, Brian Mason's New Democrats have shown they have the policies and philosophy to provide effective and consistent opposition.

Neil Waugh, Edmonton Sun, Sunday March, 2, 2008


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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Alberta Election Debate

Watching the leaders debate tonight ...Mason hits Taft with a zinger over the issue of capping greenhouse gas, the NDP brought a motion into the legislature that would cap greenhouse gases but both the Liberals and PC's voted against it. Zingo, bang, direct hit. Taft stumbles backtracks doesn't answer the question. Mason hits back and says the legislature is where laws are made not election campaigns. So Kevin why did you and the Liberals not support the NDP motion on greenhouse caps. Waiting Waiting.

The debate formate is counter productive, far to short a time for answers. CBC is doing online polling of viewers and it is not realistic at all. The whole format is counter productive.

Watching CBC, though this is a joint CBC, CTV, CPAC, Global production, it is amtuer hour.

The Media running this are acting like they have never moderated or organized an election debate before. Paul McGloughlin pundit extrodinare just said there was no defining moment, but again I would say Masons counter attack on Taft over greenhouse gases was just such a defining moment. He praised Paul Hinman of the Wild Rose Party as doing a good job. As what a discombobulated disorganized rambling babbler? Hinman did the worst job.He wandered was unprepared and never made any other point except that he was the voice of Big Oil interests in the province and the PC's weren't.

The CBC ran an online poll, which was skewed by the fact that it had all of three people responding to it.

Over all it was amateur hour, not for the leaders but the media who sponsored this whole debacle. By keeping it to short answers they failed the public in allowing for any substantial debate. They had an hour and a half, and they decided that the whole thing should be run as if it was a WWE closed ring match for two minutes a round.

If the debate was supposed to be the event that would decide this election, it failed miserably. Better to have changed channels and watched the Obama Clinton debate.


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