Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much

This sounds like a scared Liberal in a CBC suit.

Why shouldn't the right of the political spectrum in this country have what the left has enjoyed in the form of the CBC for all these years?

Of course partisanship on the left is just considered good reporting, on the right it's "drive-by attacks... misrepresentations, and is positively Orwellian"

All that aside more is better in any marketplace, especially when one is dealing with information.

Not out of Curiosity

Michael Ignatieff is a smart guy. You have to be to teach at Harvard. The thing of it is that all the Liberals in Canada pinned their hope on this guy to be their new leader and not one of them waited to see if he could lead.

What they failed to grasp... probably because the ones making the call were also more academically minded than politically minded and the rest followed their lead... was that smart doesn't necessarily translate into either decisive or savvy. As time has gone on Ignatieff has proven himself to be a slightly more personable version of Stephane Dion.

Truth of the matter is Iggy could probably explain to you the way the country ought to be run (as a Liberal would do it) but he wouldn't be able to convince you and ten of your close friends to try and do it with him.

As a friend of mine once quipped to a particularly inept Troop Commander... "Sir, I wouldn't follow you out of curiosity."

Iggynoramus and the Clowns of Parliament

This is absolutely hilarious, and sad.

You see, not only do the Liberals not stand for anything but their positions are so inscrutable, unfathomable and so completely devoid of any principle that they themselves don't know how to vote because they can't keep their convoluted positions clear in their own heads.

There is an old Chinese proverb "The man who takes the straight road never gets lost."

Canada's evolution to a two party state

Canada's political left should unite if they want electoral success.

The NDP may manage to split left leaning Liberals, but I think they are more likely to court and win over the Greens, as their actual philosophies are much more closely aligned. The Greens must be frustrated in both the total lack of electoral success and the antics of Liberal Senate wannabe Elizabeth May, so I think they will be receptive to overtures.

However, the big turning point will happen post 2014, when new seats are created in the House and it becomes possible for any party to win a majority without seats in Quebec. This will marginalize the BQ, and Quebec voters will abandon the BQ in droves to keep a “seat at the table” in Canada's Parliament. Since the NDP is a Social Democratic party and the BQ is a National Socialist party, the BQ voters will move to the NDP as the national party with the closest political philosophy.

Will everyone on the political Left want to join or merge with the NDP? of course not. Given that 51% of the Greens reject it, there are still 49% of Green voters on the table (and I think the 51% is the older, more libertarian “Greens” from the founding days). After all, not 100% of the Reformers or PC party moved over to the CPC when it was founded, and stranded remnants of the Greens, BQ and LPC will probably wash up on the beach between now and 2014 depending on how smart the NDP are and how fast they work should they decide to read this post and act on it! (Anyone want to forward this to Jack Layton? Heh).

The core philosophies or ideologies of the NDP will appeal more to the Greens and BQ than anyone else, and only the NDP has the critical mass of operatives, money and political experience to actually do this. Certainly if the Progressives want to finally gain political power, this combination makes the most sense, uniting similar groups into a single national party rather than several marginal and regional parties.

This also makes the choice very clear to all Canadians on election day, a clear decision between the Classical Liberal philosophies of the CPC (however much they honour them in the breach) and the Progressive philosophies of the new Socialist Alliance Party. The post 2014 landscape will be much clearer for all.

“Unite the Left” will certainly take a while, how long did it take to go from Reform vs PC to Alliance vs PC to merger?

The BQ have no real incentive to merge today, but their voter base will see the changes in the wind after 2014, that should start the process of an NDP/BQ merger, or an NDP takover as former BQ voters move to the NDP to keep a seat at the table.

The Greens will probably come to the NDP if asked nicely (i.e. offered some real incentives), and a large fraction of their voter base will follow since the NDP offers pretty much the same ideology. This is probably something the NDP will have to initiate and manage to completion, and yes, it is something of a wild card as to how and when this can happen. Left leaning Liberals might start flocking to the Socialist Alliance Party in a sort of reversal of the former NDP players shifting to the Liberals since they will follow political power, and a rapidly growing Socialist Party will certainly be an attractive force compared to the constant bickering and searches for a new “Dear Leader” that the Liberals have been reduced to. After all, who will have a better chance at getting the keys to the treasury?

Will this happen tomorrow? No, of course not. Many Liberals are clinging to the idea that the Young Dauphin will be their “Dear Leader” who takes them back to power (and the ones who don’t are probably gathering around the Bob Rae/Power Corp faction). This fight will take some time to play out. There are five years to go before seat reapportion becomes mandatory (and the Prime Minister can upset the entire timeline by bringing in legislation creating the new seats any time between now and 2014), which I see as the trigger. Jack Layton could start the process sooner by reaching out to the Greens, and maybe to disaffected left Liberals, but the big shift won’t come until Quebec voters see that it is really possible to have a Parliamentry majority without having seats in Quebec.
Two notes here:


1. The rush from the BQ might take place right after the 2014 period, or they might need to be “convinced” of their irrelevance in one post 2014 sitting of Parliament, but the Quebec voters will indeed move.

2. “National Socialist” in its correctly political meaning: this is a Socialist party which divides the spoils on the basis of “ethnicity” rather than “class”, “gender”, “victim hood” or other non racial group identifiers.

Ignatieff Begins With I

...and he is the I in team.

A Spade a Spade

There has been quite some fervor about the NDP possibly changing its name in the upcoming convention. The word is that they may drop the word "New".

Well, I for one would like to see them all change their names to more accurately reflect their political and organizational beliefs.

The NDP would call itself the Marxist-Socialist Party of Canada

The Liberals would call themselves the Pragmatic Socialist Party of Canada

The Green Party would call itself the Anti-technology and Advancement Party of Canada

The Bloc Quebecois would call itself The Xenophobic Communist Party of Quebec

and the Conservative Party would call itself The Utilitarian Social Conservative Religious Alliance Party.

Oh, The Freedom Party, could call itself The Capitalist Party.

Planned Servitude.

This is perhaps the most frightening pro control, pro regulation, big government, big brother piece of policy I have ever seen.

Read the whole scary thing for yourself.

The other guys? Well I'll just say that their model of servitude is less defined. It's kind of like comparing a Soviet Gulag to France's Devil's Island. On the outside they appear very different but the result is essentially the same.

Jack Layton's Radio Check.

"This is Jack Layton to Canada... Radio Check... Over."

"Jack, this is Canada... You are weak, and spineless, but your transmission is loud and clear... Out."

*It's a rare thing when you can actually hear the backpedaling

TIC: the Three Idiots Coalition

Tics, the small blood sucking vermin that drain the blood from their host are an appropriate species to compare to the Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition. And just like the lecherous ideologies they represent, when any host country becomes too infected with these political vermin it dies, just ask the USSR.

Many Canadians are rightly outraged that the TIC’s are banding together to dispose of Canada’s duly elected Conservative government. And had this as a plan since before the speech from the throne. In other words since before any of the “reasons” they gave for their outrage in the first place.

But there are others that have taken the opinion that the Government asked for it. That by cutting hard and deep, the government was being a bully and poking the opposition in the proverbial eye. I can’t understand the reasoning behind this line of thinking. The Prime Minister is supposed to be responsible to Canadians, not to the political pork barreling and pet projects of the opposition parties.

What is the first thing that politicians say when the economy starts tanking? What is the very first thing we hear from government? “Canadians (listen up dummy, that’s you and me) are going to have to tighten our belts.” Well ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my memory we have a government that has begun the process by practicing what it preaches.

The Conservative government has had auditors going through the various departments for quite some time, rationally identifying places where cuts could be done and should be done. This is the kind of forward thinking I would expect from a government that sees trouble on the economic horizon.

The TIC’S believe that our government should follow the rest of the world lemming like into huge stimulus packages. My question is why should we when we have been told by organizations like the IMF that Canada is head and shoulders above the ROTW.

Is Canada in for a recession, I don’t know, probably, but if you talk to anyone who has studied economics the huge projects and billions in “stimulus” undertaken during the Great Depression prolonged that crisis. In addition the “New Deal” (of which we are being offered a watered down version by the TIC’s) didn’t end that crisis, WW2 did.

Furthermore, what is $30 Billion Canadian dollars to the world? What is it supposed to do? For those of you who don’t understand what is wrong about the idea that our government can spend its way out of an economic recession caused by runaway spending Fred Thompson has a video for you, and Publius over at Gods of the Copybook Headings does a fine job as well.

This is a global slow down. With trillions and hundreds of billions being thrown around by the heavy hitters (USA, China, EU) what if anything will our paltry $30b sum do? The phrase pissing in the wind comes to mind. It might feel good to get it out, but your just going to end up all wet and looking like an absolute idiot by the time you’re done.

Canada has a resource based economy, with billions of dollars in “stimulus” being force fed into the economies of the real players in this “crisis” won’t that stimulus spur manufacturing? Won’t they be looking for the raw materials they require to actually do the manufacturing?

So to me when I hear people blaming the current government for cutting pork during the most significant economic downturn in almost 100 years it makes me shake my head in bewilderment, and when I hear people screaming for a bailout/stimulus package without any demonstrable proof that Canada needs it or that it will do anything it makes me want to puke.

If the TIC’s get their way they will create more problems than they will solve, and beware friends, as always, only part of this has to do with the economy, like an iceberg liberal/progressive/socialist ideology has a small acceptable premise floating up where everyone can see it and a huge lumbering menace below.

Run up the Black Flag!

Although the Liberals, Bloc and NDP may have pulled one over on the Canadian electorate with their coalition stunt, there are some actions we can take as free Canadians. I outlined a few on Sunday, and now I am going to propose piracy against a putative coalition government.

By piracy, I am following the example of Ragnar Danneskjöld, and will grab for my share of the $30 billion inflationary stimulus package. Like Ragnar, I will calculate my income tax from 1993 to 2006, and also add the GST paid for the purchase of a number of cars and two homes during that period. That is the figure I propose to use when claiming any government "stimulus" grants, which will probably be handed out in indecent haste and with the sort of oversight that allowed the HRDC to perpetrate the "Billion Dollar Boondoggle".

As a free and responsible citizen, I want you to carefully consider doing the same; calculate the taxes you paid from 1993-2006, add any GST for major purchases like houses or cars, then put together a business proposal to hire a few people and apply for a grant of that amount. This is only a self refund of the monies that were taken from you to support the extortionate and ineffectual government schemes that crippled Canada's economy and political culture, and reduced us to a shadow on the global stage.

It seems only right that we use the perpetrators of the last round of extortion to provide the refund now.

UPDATE!!!Don't Even Think About it Mme Governor General.

I've heard it more than a couple of times with regard to this political party tax grab/vote subsidy but anyone want to try and tell me how this money grab is democratic?

I mean if the winning party of an election gets 14 million votes and wins a majority but then proceeds to lie, cheat and steal, elect unpopular people to lead their party, divorce the party from the very people parties are supposed to represent and still get $23,800,000 every year regardless of the poor job they do?

On the other hand, if you eliminate the subsidy the party has to remain loyal to its base, it has to generate it's own funds. It has to be able to come up with leaders, platforms and policies that their supporters will support and it has to hopefully do well enough to gather more support the next time. That is democracy.

Democracy is not being forced to treat a vote like a post dated cheque.

The other concept being hoisted upon us is that these parties (all of them) are somehow part and parcel of our democracy and they must survive or our democracy won't function. Absolute bullshit.

There is no party that has to exist. If the party can not survive on it's own then like a business it shouldn't. There is no legal, democratic or constitutional mandate for any of them. They are supposed to be private entities separate from and unconnected to government qua government in any way. Anything less than that is an aberration of democracy the likes of which we see in Banana Republics and communist "Peoples Republics".

I hope that the Conservatives stick to their guns on this one. It's sink or swim time and I'm sick and tired of the political parties using my money to keep themselves afloat.


The word you're looking for is breathless indignation.

But before these leeching slimeball waste of skin political backroom dolts try to rob me of the right to vote for who leads this country they should probably take a breather.

They should take a good hard look at the second chart here.

If you think that western Canada is going to roll over and suck the teat of a socialist Government that they overwhelmingly rejected, that is imposed on them by an unelected Royally appointed babysitter, you're smoking dope.

Look at the numbers from Manitoba west... 71 CPC Members of Parliament, 7 Liberal, and 14 NDP. 71 to 21, you do the math...

Try to pull a fast one Mme Jean and the separatists in Quebec may get their wish courtesy of Liberal NDP and Bloc greed and delivered by the long ignored western provinces.

Why fund the Arts?

Watching the BRAVO! "election special on the arts", I was struck by an even greater sense of unreality than usual (and after sitting through a "Woman's Issues" all candidates debate, that is saying a lot...)

Two points in particular struck me:

1. Artists claim that they have "freedom" with State funding but not with private funding. Why does producing art approved by bureaucrats provide more freedom than producing art approved by any other patron? Apparently these "Artists" have no knowledge of the history of "Socialist Realist" art.

2. The mantra of "investing in the arts because it is an $8 billion dollar a year industry is totally nonsensical. If an industry is as mature and as profitable as the Canadian "artistic" community claims, then they clearly have no need of further State funding, from ANY level of government.

If any Conservative party supporters are reading this, feel free to use these points. For that matter, if any Liberal, NDP or Green supporters are reading this, please enlighten me as to why artists who's works we never have heard of or who's names we don't know are entitled to our hard earned money?

Dion: "Next Election About the Environment"

Yeah.

Stick with what you know?

Except that the closest DeYawn ever got to doing anything about the environemnt was naming a pet.

And then there's this...

"At the next election, it's unavoidable that the environment, climate
change, the green revolution we need to make, will be at the core of the
campaign,"

Hmmm, wouldn't this lead to the Libs going head to head with the Greens? A veritable battle of Titans! I can see it now, a political cage match between Dion and May. Like watching Pee Wee Herman mud wrestle Rosie O'Donnell for a bag of low fat, soy infused organic rice cakes.

905 Call 911

The Liberal Party of Toronto.

"But that building and rebuilding also requires a party to speak to
Canadians about Canada. The Liberals speak to Torontonians about
Liberals."