Tory MP Ryan Leef Has Tons Of Class: All Of It 3rd

Ya Wanna read something really funny, though?  Here's Ryan's MMA record.  And his legal one.

Peter MacKay: A History of Geographical Blunders

In posing a question to former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. MacKay said California shares a border with British Columbia.

Arnie was polite enough not to point out the fact that two little places called Oregon and Washington lie between Cali and B.C.

This is not the 1st time this kind of thing has happened. In fact, its not the 2nd time this kind of thing has happened:

He [Peter MacKay] got his speaking notes for the Northwest Passage mixed up with his speaking notes for the Arctic Ocean, and I think that's pretty appalling given the importance of this particular issue for the long-term interests of Canada.

No! No!! Its the 3rd time.

You Must Be Kidding Me?

Stephen Taylor writes:

Hedy Fry believes that there should be a special clinic on Parliament Hill to vaccinate Members of Parliament and staff. Meanwhile, most people in Ottawa will have wait as the first two weeks of vaccinations are rationed for those of us that need it now such as those with respiratory conditions, young children and pregnant women, among others with special needs.

This isn't worth commenting on, really, except that Bourque has picked it up seems to be humping it as a scandal setting elitist Libs. against der volk that drink their coffee at Tim Horton's. But let's try Reason, shall we?

In the midst of a pandemic of as yet unknown severity, one thing that you would think you would want to work smoothly would be your national government, wouldn't it? And since that in our case is a parliamentary democracy, said government would encompass MPs and their staff, wouldn't it? Since health care professionals are calling for a spike in workplace absenteeism as the 2nd wave of H1N1 kicks in, wouldn't you want to take precautions to avoid a situation where...oh I don't know...the government falls by accident because too many legislators are at home puking, or legislation deleterious to the well being of the nation gets passed?

I would hope so. I mean, the phrase "making government work" keeps echoing through my head. Dunno who said that first.

PS. Taylor: Discus sucks. It sucks especially as I keep getting junk mail representing comments from the goobers that normally comment at your blog even though it appears you have deep 6ed my own comment. Can you please make this stop?

Next Up: Government Subsidized Chastity Belts

Apparently, sexual violence in Quebec is caused by "hypersexualized" teenage girls. The federal government has a plan (and the $) to help:

OTTAWA — The federal government has allotted nearly $355,000 to help reduce sexual violence in part by promoting self-esteem and "solid values" among young Quebec girls.

Much to ridicule here, and Diva Rachel does an able job of it. I would just call attention to the following:

The project description says 15 girls in the regional county municipality of Matane, a community on the Gaspe Peninsula about 400 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, will be trained to act as community outreach workers and agents of change in their schools and communities...

Remember last Novemeber when Queen's University planned to train "dialogue facilitaters":

Their job will be to intervene in conversations they overhear among students in dining halls and common rooms in which topics of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability and social class are discussed. The facilitators, says Patrick Deane, the university's academic vice-president, are supposed "to serve their peers ... in difficult or sensitive discussions" and foster "a spirit of mutual respect and understanding ..."


There was a huge, I mean huge outcry. Robert Sibley, for example, wheeled out the specter of Communism:

...it amounts to the imposition of Marxist and left-radical agendas to the exclusion of others. In other words, the program's real purpose is to promote the supposedly progressivist ideologies of radical feminism, gay rights, multiculturalism, and, lest we forget, anti-westernism (read: anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism).

Note that the Queen's initiative involved no public money (as far as I can remember). In this case, we have the federal government shelling out $100,000s to fund a cadre of chastity cops, who will infiltrate the local community and "facilitate" when girls start to talk dirty, whatever counts as talking dirty out in the boonies "400 kilometres northeast of Quebec City". Not the imposition of socialism, clearly; more like the imposition of something out of The Handmaid's Tale.

I eagerly await the media backlash

h/t Dawg.

Dhallapalooza: The End Is Near

Most likely, with the release of yesterday's "minority report" on Ruby Dhalla's nanny problems, you will see the issue fade from the public eye. Just a few final comments, then.

Having spent about two months following the issue (on English language Sikh forums, Filipino Canadian media outlets, and Brampton-area message boards), it seems clear that not everyone in the relevant communities is enamored with either Ms. Dhalla or her family's business practices. And I probably would not want to work for them as a domestic (although that basement apartment does look rather sweet).

But never did that old saying "Let's not make a federal case of it" ring so true. A couple of workers have trouble with their employer, quit after less than a month's service, and turn parliament into a monkey show. You can't but agree with the minority report's main conclusion: that this was an exercise in partisan politics designed to damage Ms. Dhalla's standing in the community and wreck her re-election hopes.

Given what the latest Ekos polls show about the Libs standing in Ontario, these efforts have apparently failed.

A Trivial Pursuit...

When you visit the website of Michael Würstlin, the fella behind the CPoC's new ad/on-line campaign , you find a brief reference to the board-game Trivial Pursuit.

And indeed:

Eighteen-year-old artist, Michael Wurstlin agreed to create the final artwork for Trivial Pursuit in exchange for his five shares.

And suddenly I am reminded of something I read just yesterday:

"When you're down in the polls, when you're presiding over the worst collapse in employment in recent memory, when you've got record bankruptcies everywhere you look, the thing you're going to do if you're in government and responsible for this mess is change the channel and that's what they're trying to do," Ignatieff said in Toronto last night.

"Is that serious government? Is that serious politics? That's the kind of government we've got."

The Tories and Mr. Würstlin seem made for one another.

Fun With The Tories New Website

1) Go here, the CPoC's new anti-Ignatieff website.

2) Go to the "share section". You should see a an image this at the top left of your computer screen

Our ever stupid CPoC, not having learned the first time around, is using a remailer that lets you send emails from the new site, alerting people to the new site. A few hints:

a) "Your Email" can be anything. It doesn't have to really exist. That's also the line that seems to have the most characters available to you if you want to compose and send a subversive counter-message.

b) The "To" line gives you about 15 characters.

c) The "From" line seems to have more characters available than the "To" line.

d) The text of the email you send will be boiler-plate:

Your friend stockwell day thinks Michael Ignatieff is just visiting. Michael Ignatieff has made his choice: after over 30 years away he has come back to Canada, but only if he can be Prime Minister. In short, he’s just visiting.To find out more visit http://www.ignatieff.me/. It's not about stockwell day. It's just about him.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem much you can do about to change this text, but your subversive message WILL appear in the header info of any email you send from the site.

So use your imagination and send "the gift of Iggy" to all the reporters on your contact list. Make the story of the new website and new ad campaign be that they are idiotic.

Randy Hillier: Lets Rename The Titanic

I’ve learned that Hillier will soon be announcing a policy to rename the party. That’s right. Instead of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Hillier proposes that we rename it the Conservative Party of Ontario.

If Hillier wins the PCPO leadership (but he won't), call it whatever you like. I just hope he pulls the more mainstream candidates into crazy-land with him and leaves us with plenty of youtube clips chronicling the process.

The Conservative Movement's Most Impressive Accomplishment

Historians will almost certainly judge it to have been this.

My Wife Says These Times Remind Her Of When Mulroney Was In Power

He didn't have the support to kill the CBC, but did have the power to hobble it mildly as a kind of pointless gesture to the knuckle-draggers in his political base.

A lot of good people, many of whom had turned down more lucrative offers in the U.S. to work for CBC, lost their jobs back then too.

And, wife, as for all that stuff between me and GritGirl, it all meant nothing.

Anyway I did it for Canada.

What Is Past

To Free Dominion Members

Congratulations on your Free Dominion Banquet

As the leader of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, I want to thank you for the volunteer work you are doing to promote principled conservatism. Thank you for providing a discussion forum for the Alliance's National Council Candidates. It is through hard working volunteers like yourself that we will defeat the Liberals.

The internet will continue to play an increasing role in the interactive citizen government e-relationship. Free Dominion is on of the many steps in that direction.

[...]

Sincerely,

Stephen Harper
Canadian Alliance Leader

...is present:



Canada's Conservatives: still dangerously stupid after all these years.

Why Not Feed Them To The Rich?

Because, Senator Ruth, the flesh off a goose shot in an urban setting is potentially contaminated by, among other things, lead and golf course herbicides, and a fit meal for neither rich nor poor.

Silly woman.

The American Left Will Be In Power For A Long Time

...if the American Right gets up to nonsense like this.

Also, I share Steve M's view of street protests:

Demos and marches may have had a real effect on American politics a couple of generations ago (while also generating a nasty backlash), but now they influence no one and barely make the papers.

A facebook page with a couple dozen signatures gets as much coverage as a march with several thousand bodies in it. Nobody freezes or gets rained on, and you can control the wing-nuts simply by employing the delete key.

h/t VF.

Just When It Looks Like Harper May Be Nearing Majority Territory...

...Alberta decides it wants out again.

These guys are led at the moment by David Crutcher, who was briefly President of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party's Calgary-Egmont association until they turfed him out for supporting the candidacy of Craig Chandler.

Right now it sounds like a joke, the old crew from the Reform Party crazy train revving up their electric walkers.

Here's a story from Thursday's Financial Post.

Interesting To See How This Pans Out

These guys are planning demonstrations against the "Separatist led coup" on Saturday. More information at their Facebook page. Seems to be organized by a lady named Andrea Walker, who I have never heard of.

Interesting to see what kind of numbers they can draw.

Tory Talking Points Same For MPs And Yokels!

Here's a list of what the Tory War Room wants its MPs to say re the looming Liberal/NDP coalition government while giving radio interviews. Here is a list of what the Tory War Room wants its grassroots to say when they call their local talk radio station.

They're the same list! Or, more specifically, many of the talking points are the same word-for-word in both lists. Its gonna feel like deja vu all over again in radio land by the end of the weekend.

This struggle is really going down-market, but how will the Torys communicate with those who don't follow talk radio? High school graduates, for example.

Harper And Flaherty Tank Canadian $

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar fell against the U.S. dollar on Friday as the possibility of a second federal election in three months raised uncertainty among investors about the government's focus on dealing with the financial crisis.

[...]

"When you've got a government which is basically, when they talk about the opposition parties, that there's been a declaration of war in parliament, it's not necessarily a good thing for the currency right now," said David Watt, a senior currency strategist at RBC Capital markets.

"A lot of investors are rewarding governments that are showing strong leadership on the financial crisis and it looks like we're (Canada) going to be thrown into disarray."

Not much question whose getting the blame here, is there?

The Possibilities

Harper backs down.

From Wells comments (Jeff Jedras, I think):

Harper will back down. He’s not leaving 24 Sussex any time soon. He’ll carve the party financing stuff out into a separate, non-confidence bill, throw in a little earlier stimulus to mollify one of the opposition parties, and live to fight another day, his bluff having been called.

Some Liberals catch a flu:

Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said it would be "premature" to discuss the prospect of a coalition or even to firmly state that all Liberals will vote against the update on Monday. He was happy, though, to attack the Conservatives.

As I argued yesterday, if the point is to kill the subsidy cuts, this might work. There has to be legislation introduced, it has to go through various committees, to the Senate, etc. At some point it could all die in the night. And, as Kadey notes, there is no sign of this legislation in the update or elsewhere:

According to the Man in the Striped Tie who is in charge of explaining stuff to confused journalists, the legislation will be introduced “soon”. How soon? Well, before the House rises for Christmas, although he admitted that it was unlikely that it would make it through Parliament before the break — which means that we may not have an election showdown until the New Year. Oh, and remember all that stuff about belt (or, depending on your perspective, noose) tightening beginning at home for all political parties? The specifics of those cuts/freezes/whatever to MP and ministerial salaries are also left to the imagination; presumably that, too, will be in the magical mystery Bill C-2. (I’m assuming it will be C-2, since there’s no indication that the government plans to break its perfect record of not introducing legislation between now and whenever the bill is finally tabled.)

Now, I am not one of those who thought the Lib's abstaining did them much harm last election. At least it did less harm than Dion's trying to explain the Green Shift in garbled English. And with respect to any number of contentious bills (C-6, C-10, C-484), the process worked. In this case, however, the optics may be too awful to contemplate.

Weird Shit Happens

If the Liberals do the right thing and oppose these cuts, along with the rest of the opposition, I suspect we are more likely to see an outcome such as this:

Canada’s constitutional law dealing with minority governments was altered in 1968 when Pearson’s government was unexpectedly defeated on a matter of confidence. While this should have led to an immediate dissolution of parliament, none of the parties were ready, and Pearson was in the process of being replaced as leader of the Liberals. By mutual agreement among the party leaders, a new motion was passed that retroactively declared that the budgetary matter on which the government was defeated was not a matter of confidence, setting a new precedent.

As a final note, if these sudden events inspire the Liberal Party to get a new leader in place on the cheap and before May '09, then some good will have come of it. At this point I don't give a crap who it is. If its Iggy, hopefully Kinsella will make a man out of him (teach him to drink beer and say eh), and I will always be around to provide character building ridicule on occasions when he says things like "The Spotted Boa is a noble animal, which consumes its prey head-first and eats it whole, later excreting it in compact pellets and thereby reminding me of me."

Update: Tories take option number 1--They Cave!

But How Will It Play In Quebec?

And here’s his closing argument in English-speaking Canada. Should the taxpayers of Canada finance the separatist movement? Answer: no.

I guess The Tories only have 8 or 9 seats there to lose, right?

A Somewhat Credible Rumour?

Update III: An “I Support Public Campaign Financing” facebook group has already popped up and I’m hearing a somewhat credible rumour that the NDP, Liberals and Bloc are or have already held a teleconference to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition government.

Anyone else heard this?

PS. On the other hand, this smells vaguely of surrender.

Or maybe its all a ploy.

For example, if you wanted to cut this subsidy, floating a rumour that you were going to kill it outright might make whatever you actually do seem reasonable