The liberal left - right divide
The latest kerfuffle within the Quebec liberal fold, between Coderre and Cauchon seems to go down the above mentioned demographic, its almost like there is a battle going on by the left wing of the party to take control.
Coderre isn't what I'd call a blu-lib, he's more of the Chretien style politico. Hitch your wagon to the leader and do his dirty work for him so he doesn't get any dirt on him, in spite of what ideology he carries. Cauchon, the guy that wants to decriminalize marijana and possibly some other laws, is classic lefty. He and Bob Rae, Gerrard Kennedy, Justin Trudeau, and Hedy Fry all see the way to go is to take the country further left than its ever been.
So here's how I see it. Cauchon is just the current figure head for the leftwing, just as Coderre is to the blu-lib establishment.
The sad thing about this is that the sides are lining up for the public to see.
If Bob Rae openly declares what the leader should do about this, its an admission that he and Iggy don't really get along too well, heck there may even be some plausibility to the suggestion the rivalry which began in that shared dorm room so many years ago at Uof T hasn't died down but has been fueled by recent events. But its better than that. The Iggy-Rae feud, and the Coderre - Cauchon feud are merely pretexts upon which the two sides within the LPC will use to blame the other if the wheels go off the bus during the next election campaign.
Let me take this further.
If after the next election, the libs have experienced an even bigger defeat, there will be a push to merge the left again. I have only one small bit of advice if you guys want to make it work.
You need to have Justin Trudeau on board or else it will never get off the ground.
Anyways, good luck with that.....you'll need it.
Labels: May's little green monster
Talkng point - election campaign (door knocking)
Before I go further I'd like to state that there are two items I want to see as platform.
- A pledge to eliminate Chretien's vote subsidy.
- Reform or remove the HRC's.
Now then, as to the subject matter. Should one of the candidates come knocking at my door be sure that my questions will be to find out what you want to do if your party forms a government. Not grand idea's and vague generalities, I want specifics.
Also know this, especially if you're a liberal candidate. I'll be asking which piece of legislation that the Harper government has passed, or was pending, that your party is opposed to. Do not say all of it, I'll remind you that the NDP and the Bloc where more than willing to vote against the government many times, but all those times you're party allowed those laws (which you say you oppose) to pass. So I'll ask again, please be specific, on which one of those laws you want to reverse that you think are so bad.
Is it raising the age of consent?
The GST cut, so you'll want to raise the GST then?
Elected Senators? You either want reform to be a big constitutional package like Charlottetown, or you like it just the way it is....so all that noise about Harper's senate appointments was just more flatulance?
I think you get the point.
BTW
One more thing I'd like to see in the next election. Is if Harper indicates that he is only willing to debate one representative of the opposition....and they can figure out which one gets to go head to head with him. Oh I can hear the accusations of divisive already. Here's the phsycological two by four that you'll get hit with. If you guys where willing to go into a coalition in the fall and have one leader speak for all of you, whats the problem now? If it happened I can just imagine the opposition tearing each other apart if Harper refused to relent. Want a bet the liberals will be hard pressed to justify to Bloc voters that they should speak for them.
The beauty of a suggestion like this is that the leaders debate is not held by law, its a tradition that the leaders have agreed to participate in. Thats the catch, they agree to be there, but they don't have to be there. The thing is run by the broadcasting consortium, and they negotiate with the leaders to arrange a debate.
Last time when Lizzie May demanded a spot, Harper almost refused. This time with the justification that only one representative of the coalition be present so that the odds are fair will have the opposition foaming at the mouth. What it could also do is cut off attempts by the liberals doing what they always do when the campaign comes apart at the seams and plead with the NDP to lead them their vote. It would definitely harden up the NDP base and not allow the liberals to raid it.
But hey, I'm just speculating. No truth in anything I've posted. Not one word.
Labels: beer and popcorn, May's little green monster, Quebec politics, the free lunch crowd at it again, useful idiots
Ignatieff's far rightwing views?
No I don't believe for a minute the guy is really right wing, matter of fact I don't think he's ever held fast to any belief. Any resemblance to a show of belief or statement made to express same by Squidward is either coincidence or done for show to keep on side with his audience.
But I digress.
Iggy wants to "show" he's a centrist.
Oh goody....
Please explain then as leader of the liberal party what rightwing policies you agree with and a plan to impliment them.
Here's the to do list for Iggy:
- Eliminate the gun registry.
- Bring in a triple E senate.
- Return the definition of marriage to its traditional meaning of one man one woman.
- Get the federal government out of provincial jurisdiction, start with health care.
- Speaking of Prov-Fed jurisdiction, end the shell game of transfer payments.
- Rescind Canada's signature from the Kyoto Accord.
- Pledge to equip Canada's Navy with nuclear subs so they can operate year round in the Arctic.
- Make the CBC a private corporation.
- Ban the Bloc from sitting in the HoC.
- Lastly, reveal the names of the Quebec ridings that got the Adscam money, have the perps arrested and then have them stand trial.
This is just a start. However, because it requires Squidward to actually come out with a plan I doubt this will even come up on the radar of something "big". I do expect that if he wants the LPC to shift to the right this should remind us all what that path entails.
And frankly I don't think he has the onions to even suggest some of this stuff.
Labels: May's little green monster, Quebec politics, senate reform, the free lunch crowd at it again
Questions for liberals to ponder
If the pundits maintain your party has to "move to the center" and the perception currently is that the LPC is too far to the left, the assumption is made then that any move would be to the right.
So I ask, if the LPC is going to move to the right, what conservative principles do they agree with?
More importantly, whose support are they going to lose when they do so?
Ditch the carbon tax idea and lose what soft green vote they have?
Ditch the cradle to grave social program idealism and lose what soft NDP votes they still have?
Ditch judicial activism idealism and lose the support of those that want to remold the country in their image?
Frankly I already suspect its none of the above, which is why the talking point is "move to the center".
I know it, they know it, so you better believe its the elephant in the room. And because it is I look forward to a future political talk show where a well known liberal gets sandbagged with..."so if your party needs to change direction from where it is now, what would you do differently than the current government?"
I won't be too worried if I miss the live showing, it will get repeated when the CPC runs its next set of attack ads.
Labels: beer and popcorn, Liberal leadership race, May's little green monster
green shi*t
I think the west understands quite well now the implications of Dion's shift.The question now is do the voters in the GTA understand the ramifications that they to will have to pay?
And what of the resource sector? Some of which is the sole employer in
Northern Ontario and Quebec?
Then of course, what about the manufacturing sector in SW Ontario?
If the precident is set to raid one provincial jurisdiction, how will another province prevent it.
With that said, I just cannot fathom how Danny William's is keeping quite about this.
Perhaps one of our national media can press him on this?
Labels: May's little green monster
There is no free lunch II
There are times when the limousine liberals and silver-spoon socialists make statements that they think support their cause and whats said does the exact opposite.
"I have a feeling they would have been horrified and they would have killed it and it would never have gotten made because it needed the co-production deal and Telefilm money to get made,"
Uhm gee.....you think.
Basically admitting that the trash they make would never see the light of day unless there was a generous sponsor that never questioned what the time and money was being used for......sort of like the unwritten agreement between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien over sponsorship funds.
Reminds of an experience years ago when I was in elementary school.
Being somewhat naive, and having managed to get access to the schools tape recorder, I spent a few recesses amusing myself with the excuse of actually doing some useful "research". When my teacher got wind of what the actual output was the practice was soon put to a stop.
It was a useful life lesson that if you want to waste time and resourses do it on your own dime and not funds meant for their original intent. The film makers that want to continue to create movies that will probably never be seen or "appreciated" outside of their own elitist circle, should suck it up and go find private funding. If not, then perhaps they could make something that was worth seeing. I don't advocate tax dollars for porn or experimental film making.
The best part of the election threat over this is, that it once again puts the opposition in the position of supporting the elitist special interest group that live off of tax payer funded programs and not on the side of the poor slobs like us forced to support them through taxation......that would put the conservatives once again on the side of the majority.
If I was one of the small-c conservatives that still inhabited the liberal party (if there is such a thing) they must by now be questioning what happened to their party.
If Dion is smart, he won't bite. Leave this one for the NDP and the Bloc.
Labels: May's little green monster, the free lunch crowd at it again
Latest update on the catch 22
Looks like the liberals are finding out too late that their much vaunted coup last spring getting
Pablo's private members bill passed is going to push them into an election they cannot afford to fight both figuratively, financially, and physically.
And unless its not clear I'll explain it again.
The opposition parties must oppose the throne speech if it states the Kyoto targets cannot be reached by the Kyoto deadline. Especially Dion will have to make possibly the worst decision of his life to give his party more time to prepare, or let his pride get the best of him.
I'm counting on his pride, he is after all a liberal.
Start the countdown for a press release from Lizzy May saying the deal is off.
Labels: Conservative majority, kyoto, May's little green monster, useful idiots
Liberals new useful idiot part 9
You can always tell when the order to abandon the leadership is near when you read writeups with quotes like this:
"The Green Party does not have the chance of actually winning that riding, they don't have the infrastructure or the manpower to get out the vote," Meanwhile Lizzy May rather than trying to get this under control is just letting her prime candidates get raided by the other opposition parties.
I wonder if this was part of the deal she made with Dion?
Labels: May's little green monster
This is the day
that the envirokult
will be stunned at what hit them.
H/T National Newswatch
Also for a good read on the deja vu of it all read
this excellent post by Joel Johanssen at Proud to be Canadian.
Labels: May's little green monster
Liberals new useful idiot part 5
Looks like somebody in the media is finally catching on to
May's charade.
"The Liberals and the Greens have been joined at the hip ever since Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and Elizabeth May got together to form their Red Green Party. Surely May would prefer a Liberal government to one run by Scary Stephen. Obviously her idea is such that even her buddy Steffi, his trusty dog Kyoto and his policy stealing party don't want it. Perhaps that should tell May something."
Art has figured out that being a naively useful individual May will say whatever garners some media attention knowing damn well she will never be in a position to actually have to follow through on a platform of raising taxes.
Labels: May's little green monster, useful idiots
Liberals new useful idiot part 4
Alexa reminds the media what role Elizabeth May plays.
“I just don’t have anything to add to it,” the Halifax MP said. “I think that endless stories about where she is running, where she is not running… just kind of means she is not addressing the real issues.”
And May confirms it.
“I’m not pro-Taliban,” she said with a chuckle, “but the point is that in the Afghani context, they are not the devil we paint them as here."
Lets compare shall we?
On the one had you have the Taliban.
Beheadings, publically executing women for the high crime of walking in public, or just calling for the destruction of the western world. In May's mind, these are just an abberation...nothing to see here.
On the other is the current government of Canada...which she likens to the folks that allowed the destruction of six million jews by the third reich.
Call me impetuous, but I'm thinking the liberal party isn't the only one that may be experiencing a leadership coup soon.
Labels: May's little green monster
Liberals new useful idiot part 3
I'm not going to preface any commentary on whether May should apologize to Harper or not.
What I will say is that if Harper is equated to Chamberlain, then an extention of the logic to what group of people are equated to nazi's can also be assumed to May's statement.
I will also say that in her official capacity, she cannot speak for herself alone but those that care to share the stage with her.
Again I won't demand an apology, or retraction.
However, I believe that Stephane Dion and particularly Glen Pearson need to make it clear whether they believe just as Elizabeth May does, that any of us who are skeptics of Kyoto should be equated with nazi's?
A collorary to this is the recent spike in gas prices.
You think this is bad? If Lizzy has her way the price at the pumps is going to be three times what it is now. This seems timely that the local A channel nightly news ran a piece on how an increase in gas prices is going to impinge on the volunteers that assist Meals-on-wheels and the local food bank.
Would this be the law of unintended consequences?
Labels: Global tax regime, kyoto, May's little green monster
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
