The latest in a long line of Conservative political farragos may also be the most bizarre. No doubt at this moment the Prime Minister is muttering "tabernac" sotto voce - please, pardon his French.
SACRISTIE-MERDE UPDATE: Wafergate hits the big time. (You'll notice that while the PMO asserts that the host was indeed consumed, they never quite categorically state when).
It's a shame, though, that the whole sordid contretemps is drawing attention away from the other religious fracas consuming Ottawa at the moment.
Showing posts with label Stephen Harper would do well in Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Harper would do well in Ohio. Show all posts
08 July 2009
Hostie!
07 April 2009
At least the release doesn't start with "Canada's New Government"...
I hope that this will be my final post relating to l'affaire Galloway (because I really do think think the whole thing is best put to bed), but a line in Linda McQuaig's otherwise off-point and fairly unedifying column from today's Star caught my attention:In March 2008, the Harper government signed a broad-ranging security pact with Israel.
McQuaig's implication is that the Canadian and Israeli governments were somehow in contact regarding banning Galloway.
The pact, which has received scant attention in Canada's Parliament or media, established close Canada-Israeli co-operation in "border management and security," under a management committee comprised of Canada's deputy minister of public safety and Israel's director general of public security.
Frankly, this notion strikes me as silly (not least because the scoundrel would have received a tenth of the publicity had he been allowed into the country), but I was interested in the pact McQuaig refers to. So, off to the Public Safety Canada website! News release is here, and the text of the thing itself is here - it's a Declaration of Intent, not a pact.
As for the documents contents, judge for yourself. The piece explictly declares itself not legally binding. Is it diplomatic bumf? My own instinct is that bumf is usually produced by governments for some specific reason - but as to what that reason is, I can't say. Likely not to explicitly bar loud-mouthed British MPs.
Thoughts? Aldous, what is the precedent for these sort of quasi-binding thingies?
04 December 2008
The polls are in...
...and things look bleak, at least at the moment, for the coalition.
EKOS has the Conservatives at 44% nationally. Strategic Counsel has them at 45%. Ipsos-Reid has them at 46% (though Aldous quite points out that some of the internal numbers are, to put it mildly, a little confused).
The "smart" buzz now seems to be that Stephen Harper provoked a politicial, constitutional and national unity crisis deliberately to ensure himself a majority government sometime in the new year. And while the public is more divided than the topline voting preference numbers would suggest (and, more importantly, pundits are avowing that the PM's behaviour means his chances of winning a majority are nil), the Conservatives are benefiting from Canadians "rallying to the flag" and by extension, the government of the day. As noted in an earlier post, Harper is set, in some circles at least, to be elevated once again to the status of Greatest Political Mind in Canadian History.
Do I buy it?
Yes and no. At the moment, the Conservative media assault has, once again, been successful (Harper's brtual treatment of the media at the beginning of his first mandate has paid off spectacularly, as the national press corps has managed to develop the political equivalent of Stockhold Syndrome). This success is compounded by the impotence of a Liberal Party that, it seems, continues to ignore the threat posed to its existence by ongoing internal divisions. All this is the conventional wisdom. However, it doesn't mean there isn't a way out.
What unconventional wisdom can I offer to rescue progressives from the mess we find ourselves in?
a) Pass the Budget. It's time, I think, for the coalition to take the high road. It seems clear that Harper desperately wants the House to fall in the New Year. Don't let it. Call the Prime Minister's bluff. Pass whatever godawful stimulus package he presents, in the name of national unity. (If it's really egregious, vote it down and run like hell with it.)
b) Ditch the Bloc- Nicely. The Bloc is doing no favours to the Liberals and New Democrats outside Quebec. The coalition must either come up with a rhetorical strategy that adequatly convinces Canadians of the Bloc's good intentions, or part ways, amicably. This ties in with the need to:
c) Replace Dion - But Fairly. I have supported Stephan Dion from before anyone gave him a chance. But his manifold talents are lost on the media, the public, his caucus, and occasionally himself. So, drastic times call for drastic measures - but fair measures that give the Liberal base a chance for involvement. This means a very speedy convention process, or some sort of one-person, one-vote ballot, in early January. Do it all online - it could be cool and exciting and 21st Century! And whoever loses has to suck it up (I think, sadly, this is the most unlikely of my suggestions to actually come off).
d) Up the Ante with the NDP (and the Greens). Whoever the new LPC leader, the formal coalition with the NDP needs to continue. Despite the polemics of the National Post, Canadians are not particularly afraid of the NDP (and Harper's inflammatory rhetoric about the Bloc may succeed in legitimizng the New Democrats even more in the eyes of some voters). In a more or less permanent fashion, progressives in Canada must - I repeat, must - unite.
e) Develop a "Regular Joe" Platform. The LPC-NDP coalition needs to develop a common framework of policy that cuts across the traditional conservative-liberal-socialist spectrum. The contents of said platform are best left to another post - but they have to speak to the messy anxieties of ordinary people. That means unconventional or unexpected juxtapositions and amalgams of policies or ideas.
f) Use the Moment. Uniting progressives and developing an unconventional platform is going to embolden a lot of people, and attract new volunteers and recruits to the progressive front (ideally in Obama-esque proportions). A strong volunteer system needs to be in place to handle them, to solicit donations, and do all the cool stuff that, lo and behold, won the Democrats the White House. So, David Axelrod, and a minion, had better get called up the Great White North ASAP - for seminars, a pep talk, and the phone number of a good website designer.
Is this a lot to ask? In our poor benighted country, perhaps. It will take work. The alternative is to:
g) Let the Conservatives win a majority. Allow them to take power, destroy the bureaucracy, politicize every quasigovernmental agency they can, gut the social safety net, obliviate our world standing, and use the bully pulpit to rule for at least a decade. I guarantee Canadians will be sick of them by then. But will there be any Canada left?
You May Now Disperse to Your Homes!
...because the pundits have decided that the coalition is toast, Stephen Harper has returned to king-shit status, and we can now get on with turning into the world's coldest banana republic.
On what grounds do they make this judgement, you might ask? Chiefly because of the poor production values of Stephan Dion's video response to the Prime Minister.
But as Aldous alludes to in an earlier post, Dion's problem all along is that he doesn't look or sound self-satisfied enough to run the country. It would be nice if the punditry could just call a spade a spade and leave it at that. In any case, the Liberals are also playing to type and starting to bicker.
My only prediction at the moment: that if he escapes this, we're going to have a very vindictive Stephen Harper running Canada for a long time to come. And that makes me want to become an American faster than you can say "wrap yourself in the flag."
27 November 2008
Payback's a Bitch
I wonder if Jean Chretien ever imagined this would happen?
Prediction: if this oh-so-tactically brilliant ball of s**t passes the House, someone, in one of the four opposition parties, is going to bring up uniting the left. I hope the country's non-Conservatives take it seriously.
Because if this maneuvre is a taste of what's to come thanks to a recession and a Conservative government, there's not going to be much of Canada left to govern by the time someone in the Liberal party - or heaven forbid, the NDP - manages to get a clue.
The Liberals are finding out that payback's a bitch. I sure hope Stephen Harper's next in line.
30 July 2008
Klassic Komedy Kuote
"We don't govern by statistics in our government. We're governing by what we told and promised Canadians."
-Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, explaining the Conservative focus on crime and punishment despite the fact that crime is at a 25-year low.
20 April 2008
04 April 2008
Harper'd!
Stephen Harper announces he will not attend the Beijing 2008 opening ceremonies.
It's not what you think; rather, he has tried to decouple his attendance from the Tibet issue, and it's not a protest move.
The best of both worlds. Anger China, given the current sentiments in favor of boycott in the West, possibly provoking retaliation in 2010, and refuse to make a symbolic gesture on behalf of human rights!
03 March 2008
NAFTA springs a leak
This story, which has been percolating in the Canadian media for a couple of days, is likely a tempest in a teapot... but I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at the Canadian embassy when it (whatever it was) went down. Next time I see Michael Wilson, I'll quiz him maybe.
LOOSE-LIPS-SINK-SHIPS UPDATE: So it wasn't the embassy in Washington after all - but it was the PMO that decided to alert the news media to Austin Goolsbee's informal remarks. I suggest giving the Newsday piece a full read - the most interesting stuff is buried at the end.
This little fracas is really quite fascinating, if only for the fact that it teaches our American cousins what we poor Canadians have learned (or are learning) through bitter experience: Stephen Harper has a reputation for giving no quarter, letting no nuance go unpunished, and taking any and every opportunity to screw with you if he doesn't like your politics.
DENIAL-AIN'T-JUST-A-RIVER UPDATE: And the story continues to swell to distinctly unteapot-like proportions. Leaks? What leaks?
I'M-SHOCKED, SHOCKED-THAT-LEAKS-ARE-TAKING-PLACE-IN-THIS-ESTABLISHMENT UPDATE: Now that Barack Obama's lost in Ohio and seems weakened in the long term, our enlightened government is going to investigate just who leaked that darn NAFTA memo. But not by using the RCMP. And not taking into account the original causal leak. Jeffrey Monaghan must be shaking his head in disbelief.
OMG-BROKEN-TELEPHONE-DECIDES-THE-FATE-OF-NATIONS UPDATE: So it was Ian Brodie who made an offhand remark about an offhand remark he hadn't even heard, about a different candidate than the one the press reported the remark as being about, which then revealed another offhand remark that had been miscommunicated to somebody else. No wonder Barack Obama had no idea what was going on. Nothing was going on, except that someone turned the echo chamber up to 11.
This incident and its many reverberations could well be the basis for a PhD thesis. Maybe my PhD thesis...no wait, scratch that. Anyway, much to my chagrin given earlier posts, this fracas may be a good example of one of my favorite maxims. I hope Stephen Harper doesn't sue me.
THE-OTHER-SHOE-DROPS UPDATE: My mea culpa above notwistanding, I do have one question: how did CTV News, which originally reported that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns had contact the government (when, at least according to the initial leak, it was only the Clinton campaign that the government knew about, and in fact, now denies Brodie mentioned at all) get its information about the Obama campaign? Did they have the Goolsbee memo before they ran the original story? What, in short, was CTV's role in all this? Incompetence? Or something else?
HITTING-CLOSE-TO-HOME UPDATE: So maybe I won't be talking to Michael Wilson about this after all. I doubt it's high on his cocktail chatter list.
06 February 2008
12 October 2007
More Canadians in Kandahar
Who knows what it means that Steven Harper appointed John Manley to head a panel on Afghanistan? Moreover who knows what it means for John Manley to have accepted? This is the next play in Harper's book to defuse the increasingly toxic Afghanistan issue, but exactly how is it intended to do so? Is it a deft cut at the Liberals, who might end up seeing one of their party stalwarts backing their opponents? Is it a way to further implicate the Grits in their responsibility for the mission? Or is it simply a stunt that will be spun in all sorts of beneficial ways to the Tories in an upcoming election campaign?
18 September 2007
Spin That
So, the Liberals lost Outremont. Okay, I promised myself when I started writing this post that I would try to avoid engaging in any political spin at all, but I already have in that first sentence. So to neutralize things, I should also add that the Bloquistes lost Roberval—Lac-St. Jean and the Tories lost in St-Hyacinthe—Bagot. And to quickly come back to polemics: does anybody care about these godforsaken backwaters?
Speaking more generally, should anybody care about these Quebec by-elections at all? (My answer, in my best David Brent: obviously not).
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