The poisoned turncoat

I can hardly stand all my good fortune at the moment. I keep feeling the need to pinch myself to make sure this isn't a dream. Bob Rae is stepping up to be ‘Chief Salesman’ of the Coalition reports the Globe and Mail.

Bob Rae is preparing a coast-to-coast campaign to sell Canadians on the concept of a coalition government, taking over as chief salesman and manoeuvring around Stéphane Dion, whose leadership is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Mr. Rae, the Toronto Centre MP and Liberal leadership candidate, began staking out his territory Thursday as the champion of a coalition government aimed at taking down Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“He's going to carry the can,” said one of his chief strategists. “He's going to stand up and let his voice be heard and encourage Liberals to hang in and we can take down Harper and put in a good government that will do the right thing.”

I really think if I was a liberal, I would be seriously considering the possibility that Bob Rae is a NDP plant set on destroying what is left of the Liberal brand. But since I am not even close to being a modern day Liberal all I can think is – happy days are here again! Knock yourself out Bob! Good times people, good times!

For future prosperity or fun and games, someone get Bob Rae on the record – Now.

Liberals and NDP claim they cannot support the Conservative government because of a proposed freeze on the salaries of civil servants and a temporary removal of the right to strike during this recession.

I am not even sure if this is even still on the table, but anyway,has anyone asked Bob Rae (current Liberal Member of Parliament for Toronto-Centre) point-blank - why he does not now support these measures in an uncertain economic times when as Premier of Ontario he unilaterally re-opened provincial civil servants collective agreements, removed the right to strike, rolled back salaries and imposed a ‘free day’ of work on civil servants? If it was right for Ontario then, how much more right would it be today, when the country is facing a world wide economic crisis the like which has never been seen before?

Or is it just one of those smoke and mirrors statements Dion likes to throw around – like when Dion rejected a proposed NDP-Liberal alliance way back on September 23, 2008. The Globe and Mail:

BURNABY, B.C. — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion flatly rejected forming a coalition government with the New Democrats today on the heels of hints from NDP Leader Jack Layton that he'd be open to the idea.

Mr. Dion, speaking after an address to a Vancouver-area business crowd today, said he could not work with Mr. Layton in this way because the NDP leader wants to hike taxes on business. “We cannot have a coalition with a party that has a platform that would be damaging for the economy. Period,” the Liberal leader said.

Of course, a Liberal would probably tell you what is said in the West - stays in the West.

Regional Solitudes

I voted for Preston Manning and while I am personally more or less socially conservative, I am not much fond of those who would use government to legislature personal morality or limit an individual’s choice to make any decisions. I am, more or less anti-abortion but I am quite happy to live in a country which has no laws governing abortion and individuals have the right to live out the dictates of their own conscience.

Fiscally, I am conservative, and believe less government is better the better government. Ronald Reagan might have been reading my heart when he said the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I am here to help”. But what caught my heart was when Preston Manning announced, “The West Wants In.”. It resonated in a way for me, as a former Maritimer and long-time resident of the centre of the universe that very few Canadian political slogans had to date.

My mother grew-up in the back woods of the lower Miramichi, and after a brief stint at an Air Force base in Chatham, New Brunswick, ended up with a whirlwind marriage and found herself on a plane going to live in Toronto. She had excellent typing skills and references from the Royal Canadian Air Force but she had trouble finding a job in Toronto of the early sixties.

No one in Toronto wanted to give a young woman from the backwoods of Miramichi a chance and some even suggested she would have a better shot of landing a job if she looked to the factories rather than the front offices. She persisted and landed the interview of her life. She believed it was going well and clocked in an error free phenomenal accurate typing speed. Her potential employer asked what she wanted as a wage and she quoted $50 a week which seemed to her to be the going wage for typists according to the ads in the newspapers. He told her point blank that because she was from the Maritimes and she should consider herself lucky to get half that. She gathered up her purse, her gloves and her hat, and asked him point-blank to tell her the difference between an Underwood typewriter in the Maritimes and an Underwood typewriter in Toronto. She didn’t get the job but she kept her self-respect in tact.

Now that was Toronto in the early sixties and when I started working 20 years later; I too learned early the value of hiding my regional, religious and ethnic diversity hidden - if I wanted to work in anything but the factories of Hogtown. Not everyone was prejudice against Maritimer per say but there was definitely still a bias against anything which reeked of ‘otherness’ and Maritimer still qualified as just one of my ‘otherness’ qualities. Old bias dies hard in the Centre of the Universe. Part of the reason things started to change was the changing demographics of Toronto by the mid-80. It remade Toronto more as a place where people came to rather than were from.

I instinctively understood the sense of alienation coming from the West. In fact, I held even a certain sense of sympathy for the Quebec separatist movement as well owning to my own personal narrative. Although, living in the Centre of the Universe, what surprised me was lack of responsibility or self-awareness most Upper Canadians held or felt to towards creating and fostering an environment which created this sense of alienation in the first place.

Manning tried to hard to unite the west and find a place at the Canadian table for the West and he believed it was possible for Western Canadians to be full and equal partners within Confederation. I too wanted to support the idea of a Canada which was not divided but united along regional lines. If anything, events in recent days, have only underscored the many regional solitudes held in this land; where the voices of 72 MP’s from Western Canada can be reduced to mere 23 under this Coalition government-in-waiting-to-grab-power-and-not-earn-it.

A coalition of alleged reasonable and fair-minded MP’s willing to work to govern based on compromise for the good of all Canadians but paid for by the impotent voices of a few. A coalition, whose MP’s support based is predominately from one region in Canada, and does not hesitate to give veto power to the 49 regional separatists within our political midst from another region. This is called the value of compromise and accommodation. Well, blow me down and westward. Preston Manning was wrong and the parties of entitlement have proved it.

I just don’t get Libber-dipper math

Allegedly the price for the Quebecois Bloc not to bring down the Axis of the Swilling is $1 billion dollars while the alleged cost of the last election was around $300 million.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to have another election? In fact, we could have even two more and it would still be cheaper than paying off the Bloc. Although, I am not a Liberal so I don’t do ‘new math’. Of course, another upside would be that no one has to bother worrying about whether there is any truth to the rumours of Dion et al paying off the separatists with six senate seats.

So where is the beef? Dion? Jack? Gilles?

Yesterday, the apologista crowd of the Three Amigos protested the complete nose dive of the TSX had absolutely nothing to do with their political shennigans – even though our market tanked lower than our neighbors.

Today, the neighbors had a rally and a surge, and ours, well maybe, not so much. But remember, it has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of faith in the general competence of the Liberals, NDP or Bloc to lead us, and just because the Liberals cannot manage their own party finances, with or without their public purse entitlements, it should in no way reflect our their ability to manage the Canadian economy - much.

The Liberal Fascists have won

Mark this day well. Liberal Fascism reared its ugly head and destroyed anything of value or purpose to be found in Confederation. I can hardly believe the scope of the hubris needed to conspire to create a coalition government which hands over veto power to a Quebec separatist party.

I have become a stranger in a strange land without ever leaving my home. Canada is no longer my country nor is Toronto my home. I was planning to leave for the west at the end of June, and beyond my personal reasons for leaving, I realized today there was absolutely no future worth having or reason to stay here. Once my family gets safely off the plane, I have only one thing to say to the people of my new land – PUT UP THE FIREWALL.

Taking a dive?

The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Axis Coalition is being firmed up to be a done deal:

OTTAWA — The Liberals and NDP have reached a deal to bring down the federal Conservative government and form an unprecedented coalition to take its place that would last 30 months and include cabinet seats for both parties.

Sources confirmed Sunday night that the two sides have ironed out an agreement that would see a cabinet of 24 members — 18 Liberals and six NDP. The Liberals are expected to meet in caucus Monday, where MPs will be able to discuss the arrangement.

While I expect blog politicos will be watching the latest Axis developments today, I on the other hand, will be keeping my eye on the TSE. I suspect the market will be especially vulnerable in light of the news Canadians may be facing government by Axis and cause the TSE to start to tank. If not a complete dive today; it probably will be once the Axis coup is established and presents parliament with its ‘stimulus package’.

Update:Well, the TSX has experienced biggest drop since Black Monday.

The Tyranny of the Minority

This is the best political theatre I have seen in Canadian politics in awhile. The Liberals are attempting to cobble a coalition government with the NDP and have called out Jean and Ed out of retirement to work the phones to seal the deal. Toronto Star

OTTAWA–Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien and one-time NDP leader Ed Broadbent are planning to meet today to discuss the possibility of a coalition government.

A senior NDP official told The Canadian Press that Broadbent spoke to Chrétien at least four times yesterday and last night after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered an economic update that threatened to bankrupt the opposition parties.
"The idea is to have elder statesmen smoothing things out," the official said. "It's going to be a long day (today)." A Liberal MP confirmed that the talks were going on and the NDP said Broadbent was having a morning meeting with Layton.

Chrétien was seen on his way to his downtown Ottawa office, but when asked about the coalition talks he feigned an inability to understand English.
"Je ne comprends pas anglais," he said.

Finally, Chrétien answers directly and honestly what Canadians have long suspected.

And the confidence issue which would bring this down the Conservative government is about what? All because the Conservatives have proposed to do away the draconian finance law brought in by the old Liberal retrograde Chrétien himself; which saw the public purse shell out to political parties for every vote cast their way.

According to parliamentary procedure, once the government looses a confidence vote the Governor General has the option of asking the official opposition if a coalition government can be formed or dissolves parliament and calls for an election. So if Jean and Ed and close the deal, and the opposition parties who did not receive a mandate from Canadians to govern will suddenly be leading the country. And progs, libber and dippers routinely accuse tories of being ‘undemocratic’. Don’t even bother to quote the 63% didn’t even bother to vote Tory as absolutely no one in your respective camps voted for a voted for a Liberal/Dipper/Bloc coalition

I started to write this earlier today before the drugs kicked and sent me off to la la land and then I woke up to find Harper won’t include introduce the plan to cut funding to political parties as a confidence vote. At first, I had to give my head a shake trying to understand why he would bother backing down as facing an electorate saying no to a political free ride would especially resonate with ordinary Canadians in times of an economic downturn.

I don’t care that the libbers, dippers and Greenies would all scream Harper and the Tories are meanies because they won’t play nice with us. Frankly, most days I find it entirely too trying and difficult to get along with anyone other than a few libertarians-conservative types, but then, I have never had much patience with whiners or the smug self-righteousness of the progressive crowd. And for all their hype about equality and fraternity, their obvious contempt and ill-will for those who think remarkably different from themselves is self-evident. So I crushed up a few more painkillers, and struggle to get the horse sized anti-biotics down my swollen throat and head back to the big sleep.

Arising from my drugged stupor to discover three important things; it is possible for my face to continue to swell more than it has already, the joys of having an impacted wisdom tooth surgically removed seems never-ending, and the Libber-Dipper are so in love with the idea of a coalition betwixt the two that they have decided to go for broke and introduce their own confidence motions designed to replace the Tory government with Liberal-NDP Axis -entitlements or no entitlements. The Globe and Mail:

Earlier, the federal Liberals laid out a potential plan to bring down the Harper government by putting forward a motion they could use to defeat the Conservatives on Monday and replace them with a coalition made up of themselves and the NDP.

The Liberals presented four possible motions, one of which says the opposition "has lost confidence in this government, and is of the opinion that a viable alternative government can be formed within the present House of Commons."

Well, you know what – go for broke. I say, let the little tyrants bring down the government and present Canadians with an Axis coup. Besides it will be endlessly entertaining watching the Liberals attempt to be responsible stewards of the economy when they cannot even manage their own party’s finances responsibly. All the while the Bloc and the NDP will be holding out their hands out screaming, "More, more, more!" Even better yet - put Bob Rae in as Minister of Finance so he can do to Canadians what he already did to Ontario. I am pulling for Duceppe as Foreign Affairs Minister. Then Dion can teach us all the verses to the green shaft with the Axis parliamentary choir chiming in with the chorus.

Once the country is wheeling under the weight of the Axis feasting with economic entitlements will be coming out of everyone and their grandmother’s arse and as my children’s economic future is indentured for the next 20 plus years. One of two things will happen; Harper will finally get his long sought majority or the East will not just smell the Fire Wall but see it. Either way, I’ll know which side of the firewall me and mine will be on. Long live the free men and women of the West.