Media Friendly

It has been noted by reporters, especially the CBC reporters embedded in the campaigns, that the Harper has been Mr. Congeniality this election. He visits them with beer in hand on his plane, socializes. Same with Jack Layton who whips out the guitar to sing Kumabia and some old labour hymns.

Whereas His Royal Highness Paul Martin has locked himself away in the front of the plane unavailable to reporters. Scott Feschuk his royal jester blogs that despite this being a none issue, whether one is media friendly or not, the real reason for PMPM hiding in the front of the plane is that he is practicing his ole soft shoe.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, HAS NOT gone to the back of the plane (although in his defence, the annual PMO mambo contest is coming up soon, and heand Sheila need to put in some serious floor time if they have a hope ofdethroning me and Scott Reid).

Tags Canada Federal Election Liberals politics Blogs Paul Martin

Guns and Butter for Conservatives

Back to the Guns and Butter economics.

Well the Conservatives are promising to shell out $5.3 million in waste, err military spending.

As the old guns and butter formula in economics teaches us, guns cost more and are a waste, butter costs less and is good for people from farmers to consumers. Butter better, guns waste.

Hmm wonder where Harper got his economics degree from, Stalin U? Under Stalin butter was sacrificed, Ukrainians starved, but heavy machine industry grew in the Soviet Union, and they produced the Stalin Tank, percursor to the German Panzer.

Under Harpers plan he may say he wants to build more battleships, frigates, etc. however there is no matching industrial plan for Canada to become self sufficient in industrial production for military harware. The old corporatist monopolies, the Irvings on the East Coast and Bombadier in Quebec would be the only bidders for these contracts. All other companies in Canada are now U.S. subsidaries.

What the Liberals have wrought, as Mulroney did before them, is the destruction of Canada's indigineous ship builidng and aircraft manufacturing industries. Which is why we have been buying used submarines and faulty helicopters and a pending bid on a failed Hercules, because we no longer have the industrial infrastructure needed to create these war machines.

The destruction of Canada's military industrial complex, as embryonic as it was, is the earliest form of privatization and contracting out of jobs in our manufacturing sectior in order to court favour with our NATO allies. What we couldn't provide in troops and material we made up for in contracts for used military goods as well as open skies and ranges for NATO training excercises.

Digital Payola

The new age of payola scandals continues to rock the corporate recording monopolies yet again. This time its the folks who cried foul over napster now conspiring to maintain a price monopoly on your downloads. Guess they need the money to run all those anti-piracy ads. New York probes price-fixing in digital music

Haiti Quebec's Shame

Yves Engler, Paul Maritn heckler, the writer and director of a film critical of Canada's role in the coup de dat on Aristide in Haiti has an excellent column in today's Toronto Star. The Bloc and Liberals align on Haiti policy

In an earlier article I refered to Haiti as Canada's colony, perhaps the actual term should be Quebecs colony. As Engler says;

Reuters and Associated Press have reported numerous police killings of
unarmed protesters over the past 18 months. On June 28, UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, described the situation in Cap Haitien, the country's second largest city, as worse than that in Sudan's devastated Darfur region.
More recently, Thierry Faggart, director of the human rights section for the UN mission in Haiti, admitted that the post-coup human rights situation is "catastrophic."
Yet Canadian-funded NGOs working in Haiti (largely based in Quebec) who criticized the Aristide
government and called for his removal remain curiously silent on the abysmal record of the interim government.
Officials from the Quebec Federation of Labour blocked a resolution originating in English-Canada union locals criticizing Canada's role in Haiti at the Canadian Labour Congress's annual
convention in June.
Even Quebec-based Alternatives, a "progressive" news organization that receives CIDA funding for work in Haiti, effectively supports the Liberal government despite growing grassroots opposition to Canada's
shameful role in Haiti.
Why are the Bloc and Quebec "left" organizations siding with what has been described as "Canadian imperialism" in Haiti? Could it be the numerous Quebec-based companies that do business there? Or the diaspora that sent many members of the Haitian elite to Montreal? Or the fact that the Aristide government promoted the Creole language at the expense of French?

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Quebec
Haiti
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Imperialism
BQ
Liberals

And now a word from Quebec

The next leader of the CPC will be from Quebec. Once again the rumour mill is running in Quebec that high ranking Conservatives are planning to oust the Harper if he loses this election. Comments to that effect were made on Mike Duffy's show prior to the Christmas election break.

Several high ranking Conservatives in Quebec are suggesting that the Conservatives need a leader from Quebec in order to win an election in Canada.The fallout over the Conservatives Western Canadian leadership continues from the fall.

They have dismissed Peter Mckay as a potential leader instead focusing on the current candidate from Pontiac if he gets elected, or failing that some old Conservative hacks from the Mulroney era. Either way, the night of the long knives will begin on January 24 should Harper lose again.

The Conservatives maybe Her Majestys Loyal Opposition on that day, but the party will disintegrate into faction fights that have been patched over in order to win this election. Conservative unity will be tested should they not gain seats in Quebec, the Maritimes and lose seats in Ontario, and the prairies, sans Alberta. This is a fragile party held together not by policy but by sealing wax and string, and Harpers ego.


Also See:

Tory Watch

Harper



Tags Canada Federal Election Conservative politics Quebec Stephen Harper