Not too glorious, Iggy. You should be ashamed of himself.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Don't Worry, One Day The Liberal Leader Will Do Something Liberal
But apparently not today. Today, he's rushing to help the Tories impose automatic jail terms for drug crimes, an idea so stupid that they couldn't even dig up four "experts" to argue in favour during the committee stage.
Not too glorious, Iggy. You should be ashamed of himself.
Not too glorious, Iggy. You should be ashamed of himself.
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14 comments:
He is acting like a Liberal.
But it makes for such good soundbytes to support this travesty of a bill....
You're right. One day the Liberal Leader will do something Liberal...just not this one.
Not sure if this is here or in the US but if you go to a jury trial the jury has the right to find you not guilty if they don't agree with the charge even if you are actually guilty of the offence, the problem is that most people don't know about this quirk and most in the system don't want it known.
I'm very worried that Ignatieff, now crowned as king, is looking like a conservative. Let judges judge. Remember Robert Latimer? Manditory sentencing is always ridiculous. No one can anticipate every case that will ever come before a court and say that one sentence fits all. Its a big case of Hubris. Michael, take the step. Just say No to manditory sentencing.
What's Ignatieff's position on marijuana decriminilization? Didn't he talk about it at town hall in BC some time ago or am I mistaken? Is he in favour of Keith Martin's private member's bill to decrimilize it?
Coming out in favour of it would probably be great move at this point to disguish himself from the Conservatives on this issue.
It's bad enough that the Conservatives are trotting out this stupid, ill-conceived bill, trolling for votes.
It's worse that the so-called "new Sheriff in town", Michael Ignatieff, who put the Tories on "probation" would get behind this bill as well.
It's all about votes. Doing the right thing no longer matters - to anyone, but probably the NDP. For all their warts, they basically will never get elected because they stand behind some principals (they may be wrong, but they stand behind them).
The Cons and Libs could learn a lesson
It's bad enough that the Conservatives are trotting out this stupid, ill-conceived bill, trolling for votes.
I'm sure you've made a point of posting that commment on several of your beloved Blogging Tory blogs.
This, to me, explains why Iggy has lost the centre-left Liberal vote. It's almost as though he's trying to purge Liberal ranks.
I sent this to the party this morning and it is for real:
subject: Support C-15 lose BC Liberals - this one for sure
if you support the mandatory minimums legislation I will send you back my Liberal Party Membership and not support the Party further.
I live Vancouver but I have lived and worked in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto.
It has less support in the population as a whole than the opposite.
While I am a staunch NDPer I have to say I'm impressed by the level of dissent among Liberals on this bill. Partisanship be damned, this bill is bad for Canada--in fact, if there is any content to the term "un-Canadian" then surely this is it--and needs to be killed.
Please keep up the pressure within your ranks to do the right thing!
Cheers.
The last 5 polls that I have seen on the subject show that a majority of Canada’s support marijuana legalization and by a fairly large margin. More to the point it is something that is particularly popular with the Liberal base. According a 2007 poll, for which the complete breakdown is available, support is 55-41 nationally and is favoured by Liberal supporters 68-29 and by NDP supporters 71 -27.
http://angusreidstrategies.com/uploads/pages/pdfs/2007.06.27%20Drugs%20Press%20Release.pdf
The way to drum up grassroots support is not pass policies that they are firmly against and then ask them to donate money.
"...if you go to a jury trial the jury has the right to find you not guilty if they don't agree with the charge."
In the US, if the jury finds you not guilty the state has no right to appeal that decision.
Not so in Canada.
This is a bad bill, and the only reason I can see why Ignatieff is supporting it is the same reason why the liberals supported all the other bad justice bills - because crime is a wedge issue and during an election the CPC can win votes with this strategy.
The LPC were making noise about decriminalizing marihuana once - did they do some polling that told them this was a loser for them? Otherwise why abandon this?
That said, not a lot of people know about this bill. I know during the last election I told my pot smoking friend that she could go to jail if Harper won - and she told her pot smoking friends, and so on, and so on. Now I guess I have to tell her to vote NDP if she wants to avoid this fate.
Looks like emails are being blocked from people letting the caucus know their displeasure. Therefore, people who want to oppose C-15 should also call the OLO at 613-996-6740 and let him know that way.
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