Mushy Middle A Canadian Value

This says it all bout Canadian Politics this weeked.Everybody's second choice rises to top

It was the case for both the Federal Liberals and for the Alberta PC's.
Ed Stelmach Is Alberta's New Premier

And I think Iggy from the dejected look on his face yesterday, as the Liberals forced him to wait ten minutes and another ten miuntes till prime time news in the East, knowing the outcome in advance of his defeat and Dions victory, sat grimacing thinking probably this same thing....A defeated Dinning regrets counting Stelmach out


It was all about party unity for both the Federal Liberals and for the Alberta PC's

The new leader of the Progressive Conservative party is uniquely suited to hold its warring factions together, Ted Morton said Saturday after a crushing third place finish in the race to replace Ralph Klein.“With Eddie (Stelmach) it’s probably the easiest to pull the party together,” Morton said late Saturday.“I think he’ll be a very good leader — lots of experience, practical judgment.”

It was the rejection of the backroom boys, the outsider and of extreme shifts to left or right. It was the acceptance in truly Canadian fashion of stay the course politics, the politics of the mushy middle, of Canada's realpolitick; liberalism. Whether in Montreal or Alberta. Regardless of political labels Canadians are really 'conservative' social democrats.

In Alberta it was stay the course politics as Steady Eddie continues the old Ralph Regime. Which means he is a lame duck premier. The extremists on the right who rallied behind Morton will move to the Alberta Alliance. The back room boys in Calgary who made Dinning their candidate, will now move to their natural home, the Alberta Liberal Party. And the next leadership race will be to turf Taft, to put in their boy.

The days of the PC's ruling the One Party State are numbered. As I said Ed Stelmach = Harry Strom. The similiaties of their backgrounds and their leadership victories are no coincidence. Despite Edmonton Journal Legislature pundit Graham Thompsons assurance that this isn't true, it is.

Ed Stelmach, a soft-spoken farmer and cabinet veteran, has come up the middle to become the leader of Alberta's Progressive Conservative party and his province's 13th premier.

Stelmach never put forward a dynamic platform, matching his own undynamic personality. He promised to reach out to Albertans and listen to what they want him to do.

Some of Morton’s supporters had dismissed Stelmach as the next Harry Strom, a mean-spirited reference to the bland Social Credit premier who went down to defeat 35 years ago at the hands of Peter Lougheed.

Strom took over an exhausted Social Credit party that lost to an energized and new Conservative party.

A stay the course Party is a party in entropy. It was the downfall of Social Credit under Strom it will be the defeat of the PC's under Stelmach.

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

Liberal Leadership Race

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Dinning Exposed

Calgary Sun Columnist Rick Bell, himself being attacked by BT bloggers, takes a swipe at the crowd of syncophantic Moronites, err Mortonites in the blogosphere. Unfortunately it's a column he should have wrtitten a week ago.

He reminds them that it was Dinning, not Ralph, who really created the Ralph Revolution, the creation of the Republican neo-con state in Alberta in the ninties. Yep supposedly 'liberal' Jim Dinning. Like Bell I remember those bad old days, with mass demonstrations in the streets of tens of thousand Albertans hurt by the cuts, ordinary Martha's and Henrys who had never demonstrated before protesting.

His policies are still in place today, causing thousands of Albertans to go homeless. And while Dinning brags about being the Chair of the Calgary Health Authority it was when he was in power the government blew up a Calgary Hospital.

Of course these same BT dweebs forget that his protege was one Paul Martin who did the same thing federally. And Reform Party MP Stephen Harper at the time was complaining that Martins cuts didn't go far enough, using Dinnings as an example.

They like to claim his corporate/political relationship with Martin proves he is a Liberal. Au Contraire.If Dinning supported Martin as Head of TransAlta it's because they are both corporate shills and 'neo-liberals', not social conservatives. And last time I checked 'neo-con' was interchangable with 'neo-liberal'.

Far-right wonks must have had their eyes wide shut during the early '90s Ralpholution

n fact, if those now blathering about Dinning had actually been there in the trenches, they would have seen Jim slammed for being too tough, screeched at for sticking too closely to a plan, slimed for keeping colleagues on track when they began to feel like wavering or could no longer stand the sound of protests.

It was Dinning who brought in Sir Roger Douglas, the New Zealand tough-guy politician, to help convince Conservative MLAs their balancing of the books could be done. Sir Roger even gave the PCs the buzz word for when the going got tough. Don't blink.

It was Dinning as treasurer who appointed a blue-chip panel of experts to advise where Alberta's finances needed cleaning up. It was Dinning who introduced the law to outlaw deficits. It was Dinning who forced government paper-shufflers to make three-year business plans.

It was Dinning who was a leader of the fight to get government out of the business of business. And it was Dinning who gave Albertans a report every three months on the state of the province's bottom line and didn't allow any cash to be blown on anyone's pet projects.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Liberal Premiers MIA

As the Liberal Premiers in the audience at the Liberal Convention joined other leaders and candidates on stage with newly elected Liberal Leader Dion two were noticable by their absence. Jean Charest, Liberal Premier of Quebec and Gordon Campbel Liberal Premier of B.C. In Charest case it was even more obvious since the convention was in Montreal. Of course neither of these two are really Liberals, they are Conservatives wearing the party monicker as a matter of political convinence and opportunism. Had they been there and brought their ideological supporters Iggy might have won.

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Liberals Stay Liberals

Whew, good news for the Liberal Party of Canada they elected Dion. The Liberals we have loved and hated for thirteen years are back.

They had the choice between going neo-conservative with Igantieff, but rejected him. They could have gone social democratic but rejected Rae. They could have renewed the party but they rejected Kennedy and Martha Hall-Findlay.

Instead they embraced Dion like an old wool sweater, the Professor appointed by Chretien and promoted by Martin. Dion brings unity to the Liberal family, embracing a smiling Chretien and Martin on stage, they know, wink, wink, nothing has really changed in the party. The Natural Governing Party is again secure in the hands of the old guard.



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Status of Women offices to be closed

Here is the conservative definition of inefficiency; advocacy and lobbying for womens rights.

“What these offices don't necessarily provide is the help directly to women. There was a lot of lobbying groups, there was a lot of advocacy. Ms. Oda said. “I'm very surprised that the opposition would say, “Put money back into inefficiencies,” when you can find inefficiencies and streamline the operations.

Right and had the offices provided financial aid to women they would have been closed for being another liberal social welfare scheme. You can't win when the Tories have you in their ideological sites.

More jewels of wisdom from Ms. Oda.Minister in Charge of the Status of Women
Of course feminism is the reason that men are on top and women are on the bottom, well economically and socially speaking. Its not systemic sexism in society that's the problem its Liberals supporting womens organizations.

“We don't need to separate the men from the women in this country.... This government as a whole is responsible to develop policies and programs that address the needs of both men and women.”

Do the math.....

Ms. Oda said the closures will save on unnecessary rent and utility bills and she claimed that even with $5-million in cuts, there will be $700,000 more for women's programming.

Huh? Where did the other $4.3 million go? Oh, probably to Afghanistan to help liberate women there.

A tip o' the blog to Next Agenda

See:

Tory Cuts

Feminism

Status of Women

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Your Tax Dollars At Work

Tory dirty tricks at the Liberal Convention were paid for by Taxpayers. Government employees members of the Tory party were active in dirty tricks campaigns on the Liberal convention floor. Importing American style politics into Canada. This like the Haskett campaign in London Ontario that saw Environment Minister Rona Ambrose's media relations flack , a government employee, working on her campaign. Your tax dollars at work.

Delighted Tories say they helped knock Rae out of Liberal race

One Tory operative described how a handful of government supporters proliferated at Liberal parties throughout Montreal on Friday evening and handed out anti-Rae buttons.

"Make Bob the first NDP prime minister," one button said.

Another button aimed at underlining Rae's tumultuous time in Ontario said: "Vote Bob. Who needs Ontario?"

The party made similar buttons for all the other candidates - but it was mainly for show. Rae was their main target, said a government official.

One Conservative aide took pride in pointing out that his party fabricated an internal party memo suggesting their troops were most afraid of Michael Ignatieff - and most anxious to face Rae.

The ersatz memo was leaked to a pair of English-and French-language newspapers and ran under headlines that cast it as a behind-the-scenes peek at Tory strategy.

The name of Tory campaign chair Doug Finley, the supposed author of the memo, was stamped on the document as an afterthought.

The Tories then made arrangements to get the memo leaked through a third party to English and French newspapers, Tory sources said.

A tip o' the blog to Rusty Idols

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Harper Not In Cuba

While the leaders of Latin America celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Harper was in Mexico attempting to make the phoney government of Felipe Calderon look legitimate.

More than 1,300 politicians, artists and intellectuals from around the globe were attending the tribute to the man who governed Cuba for 47 years. Bolivian President Evo Morales, Haitian President Rene Preval, Nicaraguan President-elect Daniel Ortega and Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez were among the guests of honor.

Oh well Castro didn't make the Celebrations either.

And while folks were comparing what Calderon and Harper had in common, he shares a common authoritarian personality with Castro and he comes from the other One Party State in the hemisphere, so he would have felt right at home.

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Castro

Cuba

One Party State

Harper Autarch

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The Other Alberta Boom

Homelessness. I got a job but no home.

It’s an unfortunate side effect of Alberta’s red hot economy. With the vacancy rate near the zero mark, and soaring house prices, the homeless count is rising in Edmonton with few short term solutions in sight.

Hundreds wait for a warm meal and a brief respite from the cold at the Bissell Centre. However, it’s a line that gets longer by the day.

A new report indicates there are 2,600 homeless people in our city; that’s up 19% from 2004. More than half are adults, ranging from 31 to 54 years old. When it comes to race, 47% are Caucasian, and 38% are Aboriginal.

Unfortunate side effect? I think not, its due to the Ralph Revolution and a lack of planning for boom times. Just like the lack of workers is a lack of planning. Thanks to King Ralph's automatic pilot government.

Homeless crisis due to poor decisions: experts

Alberta’s growing homeless crisis is not the result of its overheated economy, but of deliberate government decisions in the 1990s to cut affordable housing initiatives, says one of Canada’s leading experts on homelessness.

"In 1993, the province was spending $287 million annually on housing-related initiatives," said Michael Shapcott, co-chair of Canada’s National Housing and Homelessness Network.

By 1999, that was cut almost in half, he said. Even today, it is spending only slightly more than $280 million on housing — still less than 1993 levels. "If you are looking for culprits behind the province’s housing crisis, one of the culprits is definitely the provincial government. It has abandoned its responsibilities in funding," said Shapcott, one of the speakers at a three-day housing conference in Edmonton this week.

This is an issue none of the men who would replace Ralph have addressed in any serious fashion. It is a crisis, especially this week with record low tempratures and people dying.

But was it an issue in Wednesdays debate? Nope. Earlier in the campaign Dinning announced he would spend $20 million on affordable housing. Just so happens that is exactly the amount the NDP/Liberal Federal Budget of 2005 earmarked for affordable housing in Alberta. So much for Firewall Alberta. The PC's are willing to spend Fed money on housing, money that is supposed to be spent on housing, but they ain't coughing up any of their own.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Pinger Problems

For the past week pingomatic has been problematic, not pinging all its sites. Now Blog Flux has crashed. Sheesh. Can't these guys get their s--t together. Ah well what do you expect for free.



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Kennedy And Dion

A Bilingual Leadership



Hé espoir d'I vous pouvez m'aider pas simplement avec des voix, mais avec mon anglais. (Hey I hope you can help me not just with votes, but with my English.)

No surprize here, this had been predicted for the last week.


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Private Health Care A Commie Idea

Patients pay

Since 1980, spending by the Chinese Government dropped from 36% of total healthcare expenditure to 17 %, while patients’ out-of-pocket spending rose from 20% to 59%

Quick someone tell Ted Morton.

See:

Medicare is Communist

China

Medicare

Ted Morton

Conservative Leadership Race


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Liberal Values

This sums up the Liberal party renewal...... same old party, same old expectation of hand outs for the favoured......

Rae and his cash bar took flight the other night at Montreal's frenetically flashy W Hotel

"What? You have to pay?" The man, who's at a party for Liberal hopeful Bob Rae, looks askew, and then grunts at the bad-news-bearing bartender the way a Sicilian might greet a pizza with pineapple toppings. Let it be known: Hell hath no fury like a political conventioneer who wants to get sloshed, but is asked to fork over some cold hard cash.

We are entitled to our entitlements runs deep in the Liberal Party right to the grassroots.

Like I said the convention delegates were more interested in drinking and thongs than policy.


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Harper Supports Calderon

As I pointed out earlier our PM and his pal George Bush were in Mexico to legitimate the illegal government of Felipe Calderon. A goverment that has been supressing human rights, killing and torturing the opposition, in Mexico. But Harper was silent on that issue.

Oaxaca: The End of Tolerance
Why is this Repression Carried out Against the Popular Movement? And why Now?

And who should be joining Harper on his little trip, why none other than the spokesperson for Deep Integration of Canada with the United States and Mexico, corporate shill Thomas d'Aquino.

Unlike Hapers controversial remarks on China, the Official Opposition had nothing to say about this because they were partying all week in Montreal.

Harper watches brawl at inauguration ceremony for Mexican president

MEXICO CITY (CP) - Felipe Calderon was hurriedly sworn in as Mexico's president Friday in a chaotic ceremony packed with brawling legislators as Prime Minister Stephen Harper watched from the balcony above.

Calderon took the oath of office, ignoring whistles and catcalls from leftist politicians who dispute his razor-thin victory in the July election as tens of thousands of people swamped the streets a few blocks away to protest the new leader.

After legislators threw punches and chairs and blocked the front doors, Calderon was whisked in through the back, surrounded by bodyguards and ruling conservative party members as outgoing leader Vicente Fox presented him with the tri-coloured sash.

The ceremony lasted just minutes, with Calderon conservatives hugging each other and yelling in triumph while their rivals jeered: "Felipe will fall."

Minutes before he arrived, legislators were still shoving one another to the floor.

"That was interesting," Harper said as he left the heavily guarded building. "Our parliament is tame after all.

Harper, the first foreign leader to call him and offer congratulations, was invited to the inauguration when Calderon visited Ottawa in October.

His trip was vital in bucking up Calderon, said Thomas d'Aquino, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

"It it important for Canada to support Mexico in its voyage through this difficult period," said d'Aquino, who also attended the ceremony.

"I know that the conflict and disruption are painful. President Calderon faces an immense challenge but he is very determined to get the job done. In my view he is going to have to build a strong coalition and I believe he has the smarts to do it."

Harper's visit to Mexico seen as boost for Calderon

With Mr. Calderon's leftist opponents vowing to disrupt and even stop the swearing-in ceremony, saying the conservative's July election victory was fraudulent, the presidents of Peru and Ecuador have bowed out of a ceremony already short of big foreign political names.

Mr. Harper, scheduled to be in Mexico for just 15 hours, has already been promised a seat in the front row of visiting dignitaries, who include former U.S. president George Bush and Spain's Crown Prince Felipe.

"As far as I know, politically speaking, Harper is the highest-ranking leader who is coming," said Rossana Fuentes, a foreign policy analyst and former editor of the daily newspaper Reforma. She said Mr. Harper is living up to Canadians' reputation in Mexico as "los gringos buenos" (the good gringos).

"Calderon is a president who needs all the help he can get and he will appreciate Mr. Harper's effort to come down and be with him at a time when is facing a very difficult moment in his presidency," Ms. Fuentes continued.

"For the Prime Minister to go sends a very important message to the Mexicans that the relationship is extremely important to Canada," said Eduardo del Buey, executive director of the Canadian Foundation of the Americas, and a former Canadian diplomat in Mexico.

In deciding to attend the ceremony, Mr. Harper is repaying Mr. Calderon a favour. In October, the president-elect made a point of visiting Ottawa ahead of Washington in a series of courtesy trips to hemispheric allies before officially taking office.

Mr. del Buey said the two leaders have a lot in common. "They're both centre-right conservatives. They're both religious. They're both in their 40s. They're both a generation away from their predecessors. And they're both forming minority governments."

Dario Lopez-Mills/Associated Press

After attempts to block entrances, fisticuffs and much protest from losing leftists, the ceremony for Felipe Calderón lasted four minutes.

Mr. Calderón and members of his conservative National Action Party defeated attempts by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party to block the entries to the Congress. With his own partisans crowding the dais, the new president and his predecessor, Vicente Fox, were spirited in by bodyguards through a door near the front of the chamber at 9:50 a.m.

Mr. Calderón quickly took the oath of office, and Mr. Fox handed over the traditional presidential sash and left the chamber. The entire ceremony lasted four minutes.

All the while, opposition politicians blew whistles and held up banners suggesting Mr. Calderón was “a traitor to democracy.”

Just before the public swearing-in this morning, Mr. Lopéz Obrador held a mass rally in the city’s historic central square, the Constitutional Plaza, attracting more than 100,000 supporters. Then he led a march down Paseo de la Reforma toward the National Auditorium, where President Calderón was to speak.

Speaking to his supporters, Mr. Lopéz Obrador charged once again that the election was fraudulent and that Mr. Calderón’s victory was engineered by a “neofascist oligarchy.” He claimed the “imposition” of Mr. Calderón as president amounted to a “coup d’etat.”

“We are not rebels without a cause,” he said. “Sometimes they forget the heart of the matter, which is that they robbed us of the election.”

See:

Murder Most Foul

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

Dual Power In Mexico

Mexico



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Britney Needs a Liberal

Thong.

Britney's Crotch Shots Take Web by Storm

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Housefrau Belinda

She does blonde better. This makes her look like a frumpy housefrau. Hmm, maybe she is trying to pretend she is a REAL Woman.


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Scary Thought

This Liberal delegate in a thong. Ohh that image.



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