My Cabinet Predictions

Well here is what I predicted

Vic Toews Justice and Attorney General

Jim Prentice Indian Affairs

Monte Solberg Treasury Board

Rona Ambrose Foreign Affairs

Caroline Skelton Agriculture

Peter McKay Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Stockwell Day Water Sports

And here is what they got

Vic Toews, Justice

Jim Prentice Indian Affairs

Monte Solberg, Citizenship

Rona Ambrose, Environment

Carolyn Skelton National Revenue

Peter MacKay, Foreign Affairs

Stockwell Day, Public Safety

Public Safety? Wow I feel safer already. Yoiks. Watch for the return of secret trials and internment camps as Stockwell Day is rabidly Anti-Arab, Anti-Palestine and Israel and Zionism's 'best friend'. Here comes more racial profiling more secret arrests and trials.

Anyways got two right on, I may not have gotten the portfolios right but got the names right. And finally I was one of the few to predict Prentice in Cabinet and as Indian Affairs. And like most pundits I am shocked to see Diane Ablonczy not in Cabinet.

So what do I win?

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Harpers Accountable Government NOT

Stage Left makes this point about the appointment of MichaelFortier to Cabinet and the Senate, when he isn't elected, which further reinforces what I have said about the secretive government fetish Harper has.

Harper managed to reward a party campaign co-chair with a Ministerial appointment and ensure that his new Minister of Public Works and Government Services doesn’t have to answer questions in the House. Now that’s inventive.

So I guess they will have to question him in that 'other place',the Red House.

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Small C Liberal

That's what quizzling David Emerson told reporters in a media scrum after the swearing in of Harpers cabinet. " I have always been a small c liberal." Un huh, right. So what's that make Belinda Stronach a small l conservative?

Emerson did admit that there is no difference between the Conservatives and Liberals, and tooted his own horn saying his crossing the floor to join the Conservatives, at Harpers request, was a way of bringing the party to the Centre. Yep right.

The secrecy and paranoia has not left the Harper regime. They have always played close to their chest and the cabinet selection along with Emerson crossing the floor were well kept secrets. So much so that Emerson failed to tell Bill Graham leader of the Liberals. Or his own constituency, or well anyone.

Which bodes ill for 'open and accountable' government. We will have a much more closed lip, media unfriendly, secretive government as today showed.

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What took so long

For the Conservatives to sell out their base and become a real governing poltical party just like the Liberals. Beyond the anticipated and highly secret cabinet picks here is the REAL news for this first day of a new Conservative Government.

Emerson crosses floor
The most stunning move of the morning was the news that former Liberal Industry Minister David Emerson, a one-time lumber industry executive, has crossed the floor to join the Conservative government. The British Columbian won’t serve in his old post but as Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler OlympicsFor Paul Martin’s Liberals, who once considered Emerson one of their star candidates, his move across the floor of the House serves as very bad news.

Since he is corporate boss what would one expect. Capitalists love both the Liberals and Conservatives, either in power is fine with them. Oh yeah I guess his constitiuents could have expected that he would have run as a Conservative.

The NDP call for electoral reform, with an immediate by-election would have never allowed this to happen. It gives their policy more credence after this slick move.

The Star reports that it was Edmonton MP JamesRajotte, Harpers close pal and political Oberfuerher that swung Emerson, giving this more credence and saying alot about how the Conservatives in power will act. According to early reports, it appeared that James Rajotte (Edmonton-Leduc), the former Conservative industry critic, was key in convincing Emerson to cross the floor.

And what was the Tories were saying about Belinda after she crossed the floor and during this last election? Hmmm. Liberals, Tories same old story.

And then to add a cherry to the topping Harper decides to Americanize the cabinet in this surprize move.

Unelected aide named to cabinet
Michel Fortier, one of the co-chairs of the Conservative campaign will become the new Public Works minister. Fortier did not run in the election and is not a member of the Tory caucus. Fortier will be appointed to the Senate on the condition that he step down for the next election to run for a seat in the House of Commons.

Opps wait a minute wasn't that Senate seat supposed to go to Burt Brown from Alberta the only elected Senator in Canada? He has been waiting for years, since Harper was one of the young Turks in the new Reform party. So much for that Triple E Senate promise. That went out the window for the sake of Real Politicks.

Blogging Tories are in shock. Well they should be. They thought their party; the new Conservative Party was principled, and they believed their own propaganda. Tch tch. Really guys welcome to the world of Parlimentary Politics.

Angry in the Great White North Asks; Are the Conservatives up by one?

Not if they dump Pallister for running for leader of the Manitoba Conservative Party, and do it now. But will they? What have you not been reading what I have said, this is realpolitick, of course they won't.


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Conservatives

Frank and Gordon Have Bell Jobs

During the Super Bowl yesterday Bell Canada/ BCE, launched their new ad campaign which featured two talking beavers, Frank and Gordon applying for jobs as spokes-beavers for Bell just in time for the Olympics.

And they get hired cause the beaver is so Canadian. (though I will give them this they had a very funny line about being two Canadian males in an ambigous relationship)

They are using the latest in CGI bin technology and promoting all of their telecom and internet services, mobile phone etc. as one brand. With two talking beavers, which are not real. Meanwhile BCE has laid off 10, 000 real Canadians. And eliminated their real jobs.



The Frank and Gordon show
How Bell built its first national brand platform around a couple of talking beavers (sub needed)


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economy
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Dave and I

Ooh scary how close CTV reporter David Atkin and I get in our cabinet predicitions for today. Though he does not mention Rona Ambrose and I do. And he mentions Stephen Fletcher and I don't, but we agree he is not in. Nor is Stockewell Day. Yay.

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Forget Dingwall Let's Talk Pallister

Blogging Tory BBS is fuming mad. Bonehead The new government has not even been sworn in yet and Brian Pallister has given Stephen Harper his first "entitlement" moment. Federal taxpayers are paying Pallister's salary to respresent the constituents of Portage-Lisgar, not tour the Province of Manitoba seeking a new constituency.

So is BT Lunch Pale; Memo to Brian Pallister

Newly elected Conservative MP Brian Pallister is embarassing the crap out of the Harper government which claims that it is doing things in a new way. Ha!

Barely was the election night euphoria disapated and Pallister announced he was looking for greener pastures; the leadership of the Provincial Tories in Manitoba.
Now he is touring the province with his federally funded aides lobbying for a Provincial political position. Outrageous.

And I give credit to these two Blogging Tories who see this for the political opportunism it is. But the from the rest of the BT universe, the silence is deafening. Shame! As they say in the house.

At Progressive Bloggers ,which also includes some Red Tories from BT, we have these postings about le affaire Pallister.

Pallister's Federally Funded Aide Helps Leadership Race

CONSERVATIVE CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT

Brian Pallister: Conservative MP to Manitoba PC Leader?

A half-million dollar Conservative boondoggle in the making

The more things stay the same

They?re All The Same

Thats eight articles on Pallister at PB versus two at BT. Instead of worrying about le affaire Dingwall they should be worried about the scandal in their own backyard.


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Canadian Election
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Pissing Off Kinsella

Well I got a nice e-mail from Warren Kinsella in response to my blog article yesterday;All that is Whyte With The World

Once again he cannot accept that Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism. So he wrote to tell me I am a 'Jew Hating, Anti-Semite", sigh.

Hey Warren read this: Jewish Anti-Zionism and this Conspiracy Theory or Ruling Class Studies and then tell me I am a Jew hating Anti-Semite.



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Unite the Left

Lots of talk about uniting the Left, as if it was severed, by media pundits and joyful Conservatives. Actually all that talk is about merging the centrist NDP with the left wing of the Liberals. Well the solution would be for the Liberals to join the NDP and leave their right wing to go Tory.

Slow down, turn left: Axworthy on Liberal leadership

Beginning of the end for Liberals, hopes NDP

But the real movement to Unite the Left is outside of the NDP. And the creation of a provincial Socialist Party in Quebec is step in that direction. New party's name is a call for solidarity

It even got the support of Judy Rebick who criticized the NDP for going right wing in this election.

New left-wing party hopes to change the face of Quebec politics ...

In fact, the party received the unlikely support of social activist Judy Rebick, former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and an avowed federalist. "I agree with the people in this room on everything else," she said when asked about the separatist leanings of Quebec Solidaire.

If we are to reconstruct Canada as a real confederation then Quebec independenace has to be recognized. And yet it this is the same Rebick who said that the real indication of the NDP going right, not centrist but right, was Jack Laytons failure to disavow the Clarity act.

When Jack Layton announced out of the blue at the beginning of the campaign that he actually supported the Clarity Act, any chance of unity with the left in Quebec flew out the window. Most progressives in Quebec that I've talked to voted NDP in the last federal election because they believed that Jack was the first leader who really supported Quebec's right to self-determination. This time they voted Bloc Québécois.

So which is it Judy? Do you only support Self Determination in principle or in practice as well. And in fact I agree that Jack sold out over the Clarity Act. He also screwed up early on in the campaign saying that the NDP could do nothing about private clinics under Medicare. NDP's Duh'Oh

Yet the NDP as a federalist party made real gains in Quebec running in fact in second place in many Montreal ridings. Which will only bouy their Ontario Leadership to see themselves as born again Federalists.

So now there is a new left party in Quebec one focusing NOT on seperatism, that Quebecs right to self determination is a given, but on social issues of the left. This is good, despite the press coverage claiming them as a new independiste party.

New party in Quebec to focus on PQ's left

"We are giving birth to a party whose first objective is not sovereignty but rather a Quebec that is green, ecological and that promotes social justice. For us, sovereignty is one of the tools to achieve this. There are thousands of Quebeckers who are hungry for a party that reflects these values," Ms. David said yesterday.

It will face a challenge, that the PQ wants State Power, and will move to the right to get it. This has already occured. All parties that want State power by their inherent nature in a parlimentary system move to the centre. They can never be Left wing. Equally now this New Left can also challenge the Bouchard and ADQ agenda's.

But while this party is still provincial only it needs to look at also building opposition to the BQ which has declared itself an electoral only party and one that runs from the Centre as well while appealing to the Left.

Now in the ROC it is time to build a new broad based Socialist Organization seperate from parlimentaty politics, one that is broad based and part of the social movements that Judy is concerned have no place to go. One that could then unite on a basis of principles with the Quebec Left to give a common vision for a New Canadian/Quebec/Aboriginal Federation and a New Canadian Politics.

The Left in Canada needs to build a movement based mass political organization that is not focused soley on elections or parlimentarianism. But it needs to be done from the bottom up and not by self appointed spokespersons.

Rebick and Jim Stanford like to claim they started the New Politics Inititative NPI which looked building such a movement organization as an alternative to the NDP. But it ended up just being a pink rump in the party, less effective than the old Waffle.

They closed up that little campaign after Layton got elected, they in fact endorsed Laytons campaign unlike the Socialist Caucus in the NDP which ran their own leadership candidate. So anything Rebick or Stanford have to say about the NDP has to be seen in this light.

As for Stanford he was in effect Buzz's Brain as his article in Rabble shows. That's cause Buzz's original brain Sam Gidden retired and is teaching at York Universtiy. Well Buzz's brain sure screwed up with his campaign of strategic voting.

And while he tries to justify it by claiming the labour movement also screwed up by doing the same thing, it's disingenuous. While labour ran their own Third Party campaigns, which are always useless, they did endorse the NDP in the end. Unlike Buzz and his brain. Stanford can't admit his strategy divided the parlimentary left, and FAILED. it wasn't his fault it was the NDP's for calling the election too soon.

It's not the NDP or Liberals that are the Left in Canada. The Left in Canada is outside of electoral politics and parlimentarianism. Its time to build a unified Socialist organization broad based enough to include the Libertarian Left as well as the 57 varieties of Leninists and other Marxists, Left Social Democrats, Red/Greens, etc.

The Green Party this election has shown that it too has moved to the Centre if not to the right and as an electoral option has now failed in two elections to get anyone elected.

If we are to challenge the Poltical Parties in Canada which solely focus on Parliment then we need a Pan Canadian organziation that can do so. And part of its policy will have to be a debate on how we approach elections. Because the strategy of the Third Parties, the single isseue and social issue NGO's in this election also failed.

And issues get lost in elections like Haiti did. Or the issue of Nationalizing Big Oil. These are issues that a Socialist Organization brings to the fore during elections and campaigns around.

See:

WHITHER SOCIAL DEMOCRACY?
THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM, LABOUR AND THE NDP
A SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE



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Blogger Announces It's Down Again

Arghh!

Yep a little note in the upper right corner of my blog dashboard tool bar tells me so. At 7PM PST Today. Monday February 6th.

Their blogger notes to us are located at Blogger Status For your future reference.


Just a quick reminder that we will be going ahead with a planned network maintenance on Monday the 6th from 7–8PM PST. Blogger and Blog*Spot blogs will be unavailable during that time.

This maintenance won’t fix everything, but it will make things better. I promise. Posted by Pete at 21:18 PST


Well at least we are warned.But they still can't fix all their problems.What else is new.

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