Observations
I'll start off with this statement.
The conditions which will allow Harper to engineer the fall of his government are almost in place.
Now some other things of note.
Iggy says "
I was for torture before
I was against it."
"We have two conflicting stories, plus an improvised arrangement with an outfit known to practise the torture we are trying to prevent," Liberal Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff said."
Harper has successfully
separated devout adherence to Kyoto from protecting the environment.
"If Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe feel that the failure to move more decisively on climate change is grievous, if they are convinced that Harper is wrong when he argues that he cannot do more without doing irreparable harm to the economy, then they are free to move a non-confidence motion in the government at the first opportunity."
Some of the interest groups are starting to call in their markers from the liberal party.
One in particular.
"There's something deeply unsettling about Rae's continued evasion of responsibility on the issue. During his bid for the Liberal leadership last year, he repeatedly accepted blame for many of his shortcomings as Ontario's premier ? but not for Bill 167. As long as he continues to pass the buck on the bill, we can assume there are no lessons learned."
Delusions of grandeur?
"Those who are truly environmentally conscious will support Dion, those who are not may be working towards his ouster. But he will certainly get one election, so let us hope that he finishes a close second to our next Prime Minister, Elizabeth May!"
Oh and a word of advise to the Greens (and by extention Dion-liberals), you might want to get a handle on that comments page. Some of that commentary is what conservatives refer to as pay-dirt.
Here it comes
Looks like Harper's strategy to make the election about the effects of Kyoto are coming to fruitition.
link"Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, is reporting the following details from the study, which he said has been backed by independent economists:The economy would shrink by 4.2 per cent if Kyoto is implemented. "It says it will cause a recession on par with the 1981-82 recession." Job losses will total 275,000 by 2009 Electricity costs will jump by 50 per cent by 2010 Gasoline costs will jump by 60 per cent almost immediately, and Home heating oil will double."
Yep, and with the opposition parties falling over themselves to be "Kyoto, just Kyoto, and nothign but Kyoto" it will be hard for them to worm their way out of that corner without changing startegy halfway through the campaign.
Labels: Conservative majority, Global tax regime, kyoto
Catch 22
Let me get this straight.
Harper has announced he will appoint Bert Brown to the senate as part of a long held promise to reform that body.
Now the confusing part.
Dion is against the move because it would be "unfair" to do so because:
- It gives elected senators more legitimacy.
- They would be more likely to use their legislative powers.
- You shouldn't do it unless you redistribute the number of seats.
Could someone, anyone, in Dion's inner circle please explain to him that saying don't change the senate because we like it the way it is, unelected, unequal, and unaccountable, is not going to gain him any credibility.
It's particularly glaringly bad considering Dion's past history as minister of intergovernmental affairs.
Liberals new useful idiot part 2
Its official,
Dion wants to make the Green's a branch party of the LPC.
And
May plays the part on que.
Of course, such
associations do have there drawbacks. Unless its
where you wanted to be all along?
Now a short quick note to liberals.
By believing and acting on the premise that "uniting the left" will do for you what it did for conservatives, your making a mistake.
Rather than being a party of the left and the center, you've now become a party of the left, the far left, and only the far left.
That genie is out of the bottle now and it won't be going back in unless you can quickly call a leadership race, re-write (actually write) policy , select a new leader that is more centrist (do a hard right turn) and you can do this before Harper pulls an excuse for a nonconfidence vote, you might end up like the old federal Progressive Conservative party under Kim Campbell.
But hey don't listen to me, you decide what hill you want to expire on.
Update:
Looks like this wasn't a spur of the moment thing. Or at least thats if Gart isn't just blowing smoke trying to look like an insider?
On the way there, of course, I listened to reaction to the day’s big political announcement of the marriage of convenience between Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May. As you might imagine, I’d known about this for a while, and had mixed feelings about Dion’s decision not to run a candidate against May in her ballsy move to unhorse Peter Mackay.
Somebody might want to get a screen shot of that too.
In other developments this story from the
TORSTAR quoting May saying the decision was more of one based on vendetta than principle.
"
OTTAWA–Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has vowed to make Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay pay for a controversial decision to merge the former Progressive Conservative party with the right-wing Canadian Alliance.
May told the Star yesterday she plans to build a political coalition that will punish MacKay for breaking a promise not to sell out the old PC party, which he merged with the Canadian Alliance in 2003.May will face off against MacKay, the MP from Central Nova since 1997, in the next federal election.
MacKay's decision to merge the PC party with the Canadian Alliance was controversial because of a gentleman's agreement that MacKay made with fellow leadership candidate David Orchard in the 2003 campaign to run the party. Third-place candidate Orchard backed MacKay after receiving a promise not to join with Stephen Harper's party.
Orchard later joined the Liberal party and backed Stéphane Dion's leadership bid.
– Allan Woods"
I guess the green in May's party is a little green monster.
Labels: Liberal leadership race, May's little green monster
The liberals are going Dion in the polls.
The media is frantically sighting the latest SES poll to fill in the blanks on their
pre-written stories.
Go ahead and pile on boys and girls but don't forget to do some real investigative reporting.
See it matters not one bit who is leading the liberals right now because the way they have choosen to elect their leader has shackled them to the modus operandi of pandering to the interest groups. Said interest groups have co-opted the party so much that now the leader in fear of offending the most vocal members of the party, repeat vebatum whatever is near and dear to those groups.
So it would matter not a wit if Bobo Rae, Iggy, or even the annointed one Justin was leader. Until the liberals actually decide to draw a policy line in the sand they will be at the behest of any nutbar group that wants a soapbox to stand on.
Suck to be them.
Labels: Liberal leadership race, liberals
Harper will soon get his excuse to call a confidence motion
Proof Dion has the Martin gang working for him."Dion is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to endorse the revised version of the Clean Air Act including its plan to have
a carbon budget for Canada that will help the country honour its Kyoto commitments."
Smooth move exlax. You and every opposition party leader is beating the Kyoto drum so loud you can't see the conservatives defining you as being Kyoto and only about Kyoto.
"Mr Dion can you explain how a global tax regime reduces green house gas?"
Labels: Conservative majority, Global tax regime, kyoto
