ChuckerCanuck 2.0

Meanwhile, back in Iggy's country

2009-11-04T08:58:00.002-05:00

The yanks under the 49th parallel have gone ga-ga over last night's elections results in New Jersey and Virginia. Both states went solidly Republican. Virginia had been trending Democrat for the last ten years and New Jersey hasn't seen a Republican governor since 1997.

Is this the end of Hope and Change in the United States? Without the Tiger to help us along, let me answer: Nope. All we learned yesterday is that despite the President's popularity, local politicians have to be likeable too. Despite the goodwill people have for the President, his policies aren't so hot as to overcome some local challenges.

New Jersey is the perfect example.

Not one year ago, state police could load up a Boeing 777 with all the crooked politicians they nabbed in a corruption case. New Jersey Democrats suffered, Governor Corzine suffered, in part because the mob runs Jersey the way it runs Quebec.

Not only that, but Governor Corzine woke up every morning trying to raise tolls on the state's highways. Ever been through New Jersey? It'll cost you about $20 to go the length of the state. Not $20 in one shot. Not two shots of $10. Not even 4 shots of $5. No, a motorist has to go through nearly a dozen tolls on the same damned highway to get from A to B. It is the most frustrating experience in the world and I guarantee this: New Jersey's economy pays a price for the inefficient collection of highway tolls.

Contrast that with the greatest toll highway in the world: Toronto's 407. You get on, you get off. Bill comes in the mail and can be paid on the internet. No scramble to get into the cash only line, no last-minute lunge for the pay ticket to show where you got on the highway, no creeps in latex gloves telling you you owe them $1.35.

New Jersey, in spite of its immense wealth, is a dumbly run state. All the Obama speeches in the world can't erase that plain fact.

"Enough of this nonsense. The Royal Family is not doing its job."

2009-11-03T20:57:00.002-05:00

Michael Ignatieff used the occasion of Prince Charles' marital break-up to write a real "deep thinking" piece about swapping the monarchy for a presidential system. In it, he has some real nasty, flippant comments to make about the monarchy, like:

"Dignity, authority and respect — all the qualities peeling away from the monarchy by the hour — are there to behold in the distinguished figure of Richard von Weizsacker, Germany's president. He has even used his office to speak for the German liberal conscience. Could someone tell me why the current Speaker of the British House of Commons could not do just as well? At least she has no family we would have to endure."

Funnily, he also attacks the media for following the tawdry parts of royal life like "a rabid kind of porno-populism." But then, wouldn't launching a weighty discussion of the head of state based on the tawdry parts of royal life be "a rabid kind of porno-intellectualism?" Porno-intellecutalism, afterall, is glibly tossing around an extremely complicated proposal like it was choosing restaurants for Sunday brunch.

I am sure Richard von Wisecracker was a terrific president of Germany; but six good years of Germany history doesn't mean we should all go deutsche. Other presidents in other countries didn't fare so well: Clinton had already been through Gennifer Flowers as Iggy penned his ode to constitutional re-engineering (and his presidency hadn't even begun!)

Moreover, none of this is done in the context of Iggy the Canadian. When he talks about the speaker of the house, it is not our speaker of our house that he is talking about.

Not that it matters much, I suppose. Either way, arriving at the final design and then implementing such a fundamental re-build of our state is mind-boggling. The payoff is meagre. The only people who make those kinds of proposals are ennervated busybodies completely detached from the constraints of time and space. Suddenly, Iggy's Dream Big Canada just got a whole lot scarier.

CBC-Liberal Man on the Street

2009-11-03T13:00:00.002-05:00

CBC journalist: Sir, I was wondering if I could get a comment from you on the H1N1 virus.

Peter Mansbridge: Sure, but -

CBC journalist: Okay, great. First, what's your name?

Peter Mansbridge: Peter M-

CBC journalist: Forget that. I'll get my staffer here to collect the details after the question. I have three questions. One, how terrible do you think the vaccination program is?

Peter Mansbridge: Well, I don't -

CBC journalist: Agreed. It sucks harder than a New York City sewage pump. Question two. How much better would this be if the Liberals ran the federal government and steamrolled the provinces with its own immunization program?

Peter Mansbridge: It isn't quite -

CBC journalist: Spot on. We'd have 30 million immunized Canadians by now and no one would be dead. Question three - are you or anyone you live a CBC employee?

Peter Mansbridge: Don't you recog -

CBC journalist: Terrific. Thanks, sir. Hopefully, your comments will save lives and get Michael Ignatieff in power. He's promised us a juicy budget increase if we watch his back.

Peter Mansbridge: Oh, in that case, my pleasure.

Hurricane Katrina and the Jonestown Massacre in One

2009-11-03T08:43:00.002-05:00

Liberals have taken to calling the H1N1 vaccination - Canada's largest by far in its history - Stephen Harper's Hurricane Katrina. At first blush, that seems like a harsh and hysterical characterization; thousands died in New Orleans, afterall. But really, the analogy fails mostly because Al Gore taught me that Hurricane Katrina was, foremost, global warming's fault.

So, I would fish around for other comparisons that might seem more apt.

Like, H1N1 is Stephen Harper's Tiannemen Square. Or, H1N1 is Stephen Harper's Killing Fields. Perhaps less murderous sounding, H1N1 is Stephen Harper's Waterloo.
No, that isn't gutsy enough. Stephen Harper's Rwandan Genocide. That should grab eyeballs.

If only Canadians had put Liberals in charge. Things would be so much better. For one thing, Liberals would have told GSK to screw pregnant women and the gluttonous amounts of virus required to make their vaccines. Then, they would have told the provinces to go sit on virus-laden rotten eggs while the feds swoop in to do the immunization. The feds would have skipped the provincial armies of nurses and doctors and dispatched a bunch of white collared Ottawa bureaucrats across the land to immunize the nation. There would be calm; there would be serenity; most importantly, Liberals would have saved scores of lives.

In the next election, there is a simple campaign poster that will hand Liberals victory. Black background. White lettering. First line: How Many Canadians Did Stephen Harper Kill? Second line: 5,400 (get the parliamentary budget officer to calculate the actual number).

Unleash your inner Ignatieff

2009-11-02T19:58:00.004-05:00

I caught this piece earlier today and it has changed my life forever already. I had a late lunch and stopped at "pure laine" restaurant chain, Normandin. When dessert time came, the waitress asked if I wanted some.

I never have dessert at lunch. But I changed my mind and this time, I said "yes".

She asked what would I have.

I told her the Brownie Sunday.

She complimented my choice and scrolled it on her pad.

I frowned and said that on second thought, the cheesecake was what I wanted.

She smiled approvingly and scratched out the sunday, jotting down cheesecake instead.
Then she turned to bring the order to the kitchen.

Five feet away, I frowned again and got her attention with a sort of polite cough/whistle. She was not smiling when she turned back to me. So I shook my head and waved her off apologetically as if it was nothing.

Three minutes later, she returned with the cheesecake. I smiled with embarassment. By the time the cake got to the table, I had changed my mind. I didn't want the cheesecake anymore. I asked her if it was still good for another customer if she took it back to the kitchen right away.

She was frowning now, wondering if I wanted the brownie sunday afterall.

I had changed my mind on dessert, I admitted. She left with the cake and came back with the bill. I left a 20% tip on the tax included total but I was pretty sure she didn't think that made us square.

Monday Morning in the Liberal War Room

2009-11-02T09:03:00.003-05:00

The Master Strategist walks in, triple caramel latte in hand, and quickly silences the groups of twenty somethings.

Master Strategist: Okay, folks. What's the news out there?

Piker: Tremblay wins the Montreal mayoralty.

Master Strategist: The mob's man stays put. Can't use it.

Piker: Why not?

MS: Tremblay was a Liberal. Probably still is.

Newbie: Our embassy in Cuba is in shambles.

MS: Now that's a story. Conservatives letting a key foreign affairs asset crumble. Work with it.

Newbie: Will do, boss.

MS: But that's not going to change the polls. We need more meat. Anyone die this weekend?

Wetback: Canadians die every day.

MS: I mean, did anyone die of the swine flu?

Wetback: Not that we've found.

MS: Fuck! We need to find some deaths, people. Did you comb the local news outlets?

Wetback: Yes.

MS: Check again! The Tories have blood on their hands and I swear we're going to
find every last drop!

Wetback: Sure, but, I was pretty thorough.

MS: Any mysterious deaths?

Wetback: A couple.

MS: Until they know exactly why those deaths happened, they happened cause of swine flu, got it?

Wetback: Yes, boss.

MS: C'mon people. The best you can give me is a leaky roof in Havana? I need panic. I need soylent green. I need suffering and misery. How's the economy?

Piker: Green shoots are....

MS: Shut your trap with the green shoots! People are starving. And the swine flu is just making it worse. Get me death or none of you have jobs by happy hour.

The Master Stategist takes a sip of his caramel latte and huffs out in a hurry. He has a meeting with Wayne Easter and a welcome mat.

Signs you have three children....

2009-11-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

Moving to dailight savings time gives you jet lag.

Didn't they invest Facebook to keep you off the streets at night?

2009-10-31T20:31:00.003-04:00

8:30 pm. Kids asleep. Pumpkins out. Porch light off. All the signs that our house is out of the hollowe'en business for this year. Chuckercanuck slips into flanel pyjamas, pours himself Michel Jodoin's apple brandy (who needs calvados?) and gets popcorn going for the horror film we'll watch in the basement.

There's a knock at the door. Chuckercanuck leaves the snifter in the kitchen and heads down the hall to answer the door, eyeing the candy bowl to see what's left to give. He opens the door.

Filling up the doorway are a barrel-chested pirate with a commanding beard and a candy collecting companion in a dress that would make Maryah Carey blush.

"Trick or treat," they announce opening hiking bags from mountain equipment coop.

"Oh, wonderful," Chuckercanuck says, "let me guess, your Blue Beard the Pirate. And your, your-" I was lost.

"His serving wench," she answers like I had just phoned her on some 1-976 line.

I drop some rockets and smarties into their bags and try to regain my adult edge.

"So, how'd you make that beard, son," I ask, "it looks terrific."

The pirate looks down at me with a questioning glare. "I grew it," he says, "moron."

They turn and stomp across my lawn into dark, wet night.

"In Hedy's defense...."

2009-10-30T21:21:00.004-04:00

I watched Bob Rae on Power Play today. He's unflappable and sounds the same when he lands a punch or swings into open air.

Tom Clark offers him a chance to react to Hedy Fry's call to put federal MPs in front of the line for H1N1 vaccination because of all the handshaking they have to do.

Bob Rae, smooth as gelato, starts off with, "in Hedy's defense..." and you know that however charmingly he delivers the rest the sentence, it will be absurd. He finishes, "she meant the folks in the parliamentary cafeteria." (That's why it was so important to get jobs within the castle walls in the dark ages.)

Tom Clark couldn't resist grabbing Bob Rae's left heel and shoving the foot a little deeper into the Rae gullet, "so the folks at the parliamentary cafeteria should get the vaccine before the folks at Tim Horton's?"

Just call him Bob. I think he can save the Liberal party.

Right now, as we speak, people are shaking hands in Prince George

2009-10-30T13:08:00.002-04:00

Give Hedy Fry some credit. When she listed her priority list for Canadians to get the H1N1 vaccine, she suggested all MPs should be first. Obviously, she wanted to say Liberal MPs should be Canada's first priority. (Followed by Bloc MPs).

Her thinking is pretty sharp on this: MPs shake a lot of hands so they are high risk groups. It is always fun to try and picture what Liberal MPs like Hedy Fry think the rest of us do all flikkin' day long. How does business get done? Not on a handshake, if you believe this Liberal. The rest of us just sit on our duffs in hermetically sealed cubicles waiting to file an EI claim.

My Big Dream, Big Canada suggestion would be this: if Hedy Fry is so worried about the hundreds of handshakes she suffers daily, just stop. Stop shaking hands. Smile and, in an act of leadership, say, "during the flu season, I don't shake hands." People will come away thinking this quite sensible.

It reminds me of a situation last week. I was meeting with a couple of folks, I came late to the meeting and therefore skipped the formal introductions. During the meeting, this woman kept couching into her hands. Both hands. Lots of deep, meaty coughs. When the meeting ended, I apologized and said, "I'd shake hands, but I am not feeling 100%." They smiled and understood.

I was feeling 100%. I just didn't want to shake the woman's hand until I saw it dipped into chlorine.

All this to say: Hedy Fry had an opportunity for leadership. Instead, like a good Liberal, she acted on her "me first" instincts.

Energy and Unity living together in perfect harmony

2009-10-29T22:45:00.004-04:00

While I was out, I noticed a few interesting and related stories.

First, Hydro Quebec is buying NB Power.

Second, the Praries would get royally screwed in the re-engineering of our economy to satisfy climate changers. Obvsiously.

These stories are both about national unity and energy.

In a guttural sense, Quebec is buying New Brunswick. I can understand why Danny Williams would be a little fierce about the implications for the long term. The Premier of Newfoundland has a job, afterall. From this perch, however, I see lots of benefit in the deal for national unity; potentially as large as the Quiet Revolution when its implications are fully worked through.

Then you have Suzuki and Pembina pushing this model where Prarie provinces suffer orders of magnitude more pain than other provinces. But we all get to feel pretty good about ourselves. Shame on you, Indonesia. And since it hurts the rest of us orders of magnitude less, we could care less. As an often beleagured federalist, I get exhausted thinking about angry westerners stirring it up, but could you really blame them? Quebec separatists, if Quebec were an oil patch, would be saying: "we need to separate to protect our wealth from these lunatics with their computer games about the weather." So how can we blame westerners for getting all separatist on us?

Jim Prentice scored a homerun with his reaction to the report which was swift and decisive. The government has been mute on the Hydro Quebec story. Now, I know this isn't as exciting as Iggy firing a man who has devoted his last years to Iggy via the grapevine. But I says it is a little more important. Canada is an energy superpower afterall precisely because of the depth and bredth of its world class energy resources. Oil. Coal. Uranium. Natural Gas. Hydro Electricity.

Game Changer

2009-10-28T20:04:00.002-04:00

I'm about five miles north of Yankee stadium, all cozy in a Marriott hotel in Yonkers. Like any good Canadian, I am thinking not about baseball, but about inside baseball: Peter Donolo has come to rub his magic all over the Liberal leader's office. Jane Taber reports that Liberals (in Toronto, in case I had to mention it) see this as a "game-changer".

Let's pretend that somehow Mr. Donolo does change the game, turns Liberal fortunes around and starts kicking Tory ass*. Then, here's the question everyone will be asking: why the hell isn't Peter Donolo the leader of the Liberal party? Have Iggy resign his seat, hand Mr. Donolo the nomination and keys to Stornaway. It seems a waste to have this appendix (Iggy) wedged between Canadians and the true Liberal brain, Peter Donolo. What does Iggy bring to the table but terrible instincts and a ruthless ability to drop anyone who's invested a smidgeon in him? (Oh, could Ian Davey and Iggy's first wife have a great chat over a bottle of Pinot Grigio.)

But we have to pretend real hard to imagine that happening. In the story of Canadian politics, the Liberal party is a side-show; a small tent of circus freaks keeping everyone amused while waiting for the main event under the big top. The main event is Stephen Harper. It is the slow and steady pull of the country from syrupy sloganeering (Peacekeepers!) to enlightened pragmatism. We are the only truly 21st century country on the planet.

* Peter Donolo will do as much for Iggy as Warren Kinsella has done: support lower than Stephane Dion's Liberals - even in Quebec where Dion was supposedly reviled. On the bright side, they can collaborate on a sequel to Kinsella's earlier political work, Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics. I already have a title for them: Getting Your Ass Kicked in Canadian Politics.

Welcome Peter Donolo

2009-10-27T20:59:00.002-04:00

If you are like me, you probably spent about 15 minutes today wondering if you were the new Liberal Chief of Staff.

Alas, by day's end, the Liberal's figured it all out and whittled the list of possible replacement chiefs of staff from 30 million to one, Peter Donolo.

Congratulations Mr. Donolo and enjoy the next 4 months as Liberal Chief of Staff. You'll have your hands full planning all sorts of exciting things from a Thinker's Conference to how to mess with Stephen Harper real bad. I mean mess so bad it'll look like a tornado ripped through 24 Sussex.

Remember That Open Nomination Fight in Outremont?

2009-10-27T09:24:00.002-04:00

When the Cauchon-Coderre Calamity wound down last month, Liberal propagandists were cheering the fact that, regardless of the mess, it will all end with an open nomination battle in Outremont. Martin Cauchon would face off against Comlam Amazou for the title of candidate. Democracy wins, they hailed!

Well, democracy, Liberal-style, did win. Cauchon's only rival has dropped out due to strong-arm tactics and anonymous letters urging him to quit the race. The events read like the Iggy coup itself: brutal, swift, unflinching.

Now the people of Outremont are blessed with the unimpeded return of Martin Cauchon. Soon, or not so soon depending on Iggy's mood, they will get to see Cauchon's beaming face on posters along Laurier and Bernard. That Amazou fellow will be lucky to run the van on voting day that picks up sad sacks cajoled into voting Liberal by some pushy freak at riding headquarters. Maybe he'll get a gracious word when Martin Cauchon wins that night: "Thanks especially to Comlam Amazou who took all the anonymous threats we sent him seriously. Good move!"

Of course, Mr. Amazou won't even get that election night thanks. And why? Because the Liberals will lose in Outremont to Thomas Mulcair and the NDP. As a perenial opposition party, the Liberals will have nothing to entice Outremont to swap horses. Not just that, but anonymous threats to quit a race are more compelling than anonymous pleas to help the campaign team out. Look for a drop in Liberal turnout in Outremont.

So, Mr. Amazou, the only revenge you will have is seeing Mr. Cauchon get wiped out.

More Biased Tory Stimulus Spending

2009-10-26T13:32:00.002-04:00

Like Gerard Kennedy, I share outrage and shock at what may be the biggest boondoggle in Canada's history: the Knowledge Infrastructure Program is embarassingly slanted.... towards Liberal and Dipper ridings!

Cue Susan Delacourt: "Isn't that what the sponsorship scandal was all about?" Cue: Chuckercanuck, "Er no, the sponsorship scandal was not aimed to send stimulus money to opposition ridings!"

Universities are, largely, in Liberal and Dipper ridings so money going to the knowledge infrastructure has to head, largely there.

Now, before you Tories get all outraged, a la Grit, about being robbed of stimulus monies, consider this:

When we talk about the knowledge infrstructure, we are not talking about grad students debating whether the USSR was communism in practice or David Hume's super-turnip. We are talking about science and engineering. Sure, there are lefties in science. But engineering? I'd bet engineering is about 75% Tory, 25% mis-guided. We are, afterall, the least university-like part of the university. We wake up early for classes, do homework and never make it to the local Hizbullah rally.

So really, the funding is going to Tories, he, he, he. That those centers of activity are in the middle of ridings where artsy-fartsies never move out of their student apartments and never move on from their second hand bookstore clerk work is just a lovely cover.

Christmas on the Barberry Coast... Cancelled!

2009-10-26T09:27:00.002-04:00

One of the hottest trends for Canadian political junkies is one that Chuckercanuck has fully engaged: political vacations. Tour groups of bloggers and others are being formed to produce some of the most memorable vacations taken by famous Canadian politicians in history.

For example, last Easter, I took the family to visit the Castros in Cube, like Trudeau. After a busy summer, I escaped with the family to Bermuda, like Iggy the Ignator. A couple of years ago, we spent Thanksgiving camping outside the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine - like the Mulroneys.

Imagine my disappointment that we won't be heading to the Barbary coast (or nearby) for an exotic Christmas in Lybia. Colonel Khadaffi (aka. Keith Richards) doesn't want us anywhere near that big ol' circus tent where he and Paul Martin became the chummiest of friends.

And who is to blame? Those evil, neo-theo-geo-brio-cons who run our government. Like many Liberals, I am ashamed to be Canadian today. Like many Liberals, I say: Lockerbie is water under the bridge. Lighten up, Tories! Unless the Tories work double-time to repair our image in the mad mind of Tripoli's tyrant, I will be forced to scramble for new vacation plans. I hear Louis St-Laurent liked Saint-Patrice, Quebec. Hopefully the boobs in Ottawa won't piss off its mayor before Christmas.

Free, Free Fallin'

2009-10-25T22:25:00.002-04:00

We have a little problem with momentum and likely this thunder-crashing result in an Ipsos-Reid poll represents the very worst point before the pendulum swings back Iggy's way. I have never changed my mind about Iggy doing worse than Dion. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a floor to Liberal support; an absolute core group of dead-enders that won't leave the Liberal party no matter what. I'd say 25% of Canada is about the right number.

Then again, what do I know? The Liberals might just keep losing support. Rome fell, afterall. Probably not so quickly that anybody really noticed until it was really, truly gone.

At this point, the Liberals are suffering from some major concurrent defects at the same time:

They have absolutely the wrong leader for the current political circumstance.

They have no significant bench strength in caucus - their talent consists of never-quites and retirement-readies.

The narrative is a stale seventies story of bra burning and organic kibbutzes. It feels almost designed to deliberately alienate Canadians.

Any other party would crumble under such stresses and poll numbers would continue to slide. The coming months will be fascinating.

Sunday, after a bloody cold couple of weeks

2009-10-25T13:08:00.003-04:00

Here are a few facts that Canadians are primed to accept.

Fact 1. If the entire world reverted to a pre-industrial agrian economy with horse-drawn carts through mud-mush streets, the world's climate will change. Islands will sink. Islands will grow. Glaciers will retreat. Glaciers will launch assaults on lovely alpine prairies. Hurricanes will blow. Volcanos will erupt. Species will go extinct ( - er, better stop there before I get my creationist friends all upset). This fact is important because in the debate on climate change, the world desperately needs more discussion of that frustrating word, "adaptation".

Fact 2. If Canada alone reverted to a pre-industrial agrian economy of beaver in our traps and pine trunks floating down our rivers, we would make no dent in the fight against anthropogenic climate change. Our GHG emissions are a pimple on the great ass of human-made emissions and popping that pimple wouldn't save a single atoll. Our "leadership" on climate change would amount to knee-capping ourselves for the pleasure of morally shaming the rest of the world.

Stephen Harper is not a wild ideologist wedded to a grand conspiracy of bankers and arms-dealers profiting on the backs of the working man. The demands he makes on Canada's behalf in Copenhagen are reasonable and responsible. Giving in to the primitive animism of Elizabeth May or Iffy Ignatieff would hurt Canada and the many billions on this planet whose welfare rests on growing prosperity.

Paul Wells Makes Tories Blush

2009-10-23T20:23:00.005-04:00

This week's installment of Paul Wells in MacLeans is downright eerie:

"The Canada he is building, deliberately and with little scrutiny or real opposition, has a stronger national market and a weaker national vision. I’m sure he would defend that project eloquently if pressed."

And the Prime Minister would. He would also have a geek-army of propagandists taking that message to every corner with ears in Canada. But we are not being pressed, more Wells:

"The consummate failure of the opposition parties to sustain and deliver a coherent analysis of this government that rises above “He’s so mean” leaves Harper plenty of room to advance his agenda."

Liberals keep shouting "the emperor is naked" over and over again. They're hoping, one of these days, the emperor will actually be in his birthday suit when they say it. Waiting for that magic takedown, however, might take a while and need a few more leaders before they can strike gold.

(Note, I say few because Rae's next in line to coup his way to the top and discover a grab-bag of different yet equally fatal problems. So, we'll get two more Liberal leaders before they land on a genuine alternative to the Conservative party.)

Let's Pretend the Liberal Ridings are Getting Screwed

2009-10-22T20:03:00.004-04:00

Hot news everybody, turns out Tory ridings are getting more funding than Liberal ridings from the stimulus fund. At least, after CBC spot checks. Let's pretend that provincial cabinet ministers weren't calling this bunk. What could explain the bias?

Well, for one, we know that ridings are horribly distributed in Canada and not representative of population distribution. If the Liberal ridings in PEI and Newfoundland ended up with the same funding as the Tory ridings around Calgary, something would be dreadfully wrong. In fact, the current proposal is to boost the number of seats in the House of Commons by 25: almost all of which are Tory favorites. So, we would expect some imbalance to swing the Tories way since they are ridings where the electorate is packed like sardines in a tin can.

Another reason - nothing I have verified but something entirely reasonable to intelligent people - is that you can't distribute the money evenly across each riding. Trudeau Airport fits snuggly into a riding or two. It benefits all the folks within 20 proximate ridings though. If cash gets directed to projects there, that riding might look unfairly overfunded. But to deny it the investments would be bad policy making.

But the real big reason is one that I hope every voter in every Liberal riding considers. Liberal MPs spend their days playing demonizing sourpusses. Liberal MPs consider their Tory colleagues to be a barbaric horde descended from the sweeping steppes of western Canada, here to pillage and rape the civilized, urban east. Liberal MPs have made a sport of how much they can alienate and malign the government. The cost? Liberal MPs fail to represent and lobby on behalf of their ridings. They do not colloborate on projects that benefit Canada. Instead, they talk Canada and its economy down. They tell us how ashamed they are of being Canadian. They make lists of countries that are better than Canada. How can their electorates expect anything less than bitter disappointment when it comes to a fundamental role of an MP: represent the riding.

Today is another day of legitimately talking up the Liberal sponsorship scandal

2009-10-22T14:38:00.003-04:00

Thanks to my friends at Liberal central, I have been able to talk up the sponsorship scandal within the context of current political happenings. In case some lefties forget, the sponsorship scandal was all about getting Liberal friendly firms to ship fake invoices to the government and getting Liberal friendly government workers to ship payments to the friendly firms. Then, those firms funnelled funds in the form of cash-stuffed enveloppes to Liberals. To date, we still don't know who received those funds and how exactly they were used.

The reason we hum the tune to "Memory" and think back to those glory days for Liberals is that - wait for it - Liberals and their buddies in the media keep bringing their sponsorship scandal up; trying to make the current stimulus spending look like another sponsorship scandal. For many obvious reasons (already logged here), they ain't anything alike. But today, we have another key difference:

During the sponsorship scandal, no provincial Liberal government came to the federal government's defense. But today, we have exactly that: Ontario Liberals pointing out how tortured and perverted the facts must be to allow federal Liberals to cry bloody murder over the distribution of stimulus booty.

Deputy Premier George Smitherman is out there correcting the gross inaccuracies of Liberal studies into the stimulus spending. Shockingly, Liberals come up with their statistics by dropping unhelpful data from their analyses. One might be tempted to think they are deliberately fugding the numbers but given how they can't get the simplest details of recent Canadian history right, it is very possible that all those statistics got lost in Liberal fog. Quick, call a Thinker's Conference! Think through all this complicated stuff!

Most deliciously, Gerard Kennedy, still looking for houses in Quebec to re-locate his family, is the point man on the great stimulus study debacle. There was a time, before he hitched a ride to Inconsequentia on the good ship Federal Liberal, when Gerard Kennedy was actually sitting in cabinet with George Smitherman. I wonder if he ever expected his former cabinet colleague would be forced to show what bunk Kennedy is now stuck peddling.

Iggy: Physics Genius, Factual Stumblebum

2009-10-22T09:41:00.002-04:00

"Mr. Harper, your time is up," said Michael Ignatieff just a few weeks ago. Everyone assumed that meant the PM's time was up, like now. But what the celebrity academic was saying had boatloads more nuance than that. See, while the Canadian polity lurches forward in painfully slow steps, Iggy travels at the speed of political light. As Einstein taught us, the relative frame of reference messes up our conception of time. Us, the Canadian polity, see time tick away, drip, drip, drip, tick, tick, tick. But from Iggy's fantastical perspective, time hasn't moved an inch. From his frame of reference, telling Mr. Harper that his time was up meant that at the speed of political light, it was up. At the speed of the Canadian polity, the Tory government could fall years from now.

And who can blame him? When headlines read that Tory support is softening down to a mear 12 point lead, well, I'd take the relativistic perspective myself.

Especially when headlines continue to embarass him. One issue Iggy should conquer without blinking is how modern democracies should handle terrorism (he famously suggested we should perhaps get into the targeted assasination business). So when he flubs up the basic facts of the Arar case, he looks foolish. Not only because he should have some handle on an explosive issue in his domain of mastery, but also it points to his complete cluelessness about what has happened in recent Canadian life.

Oh well, chalk it up to a bad day. Afterall, the Nanos numbers are in and the headlines are: "Tory support growing."

My pink ribbon is bigger than your pink ribbon

2009-10-21T20:35:00.003-04:00

Women of Canada, your salvation is here. Just like the environment, the deficit and and all the other things Liberals have made "central" to their next election campaign, women are on Iggy's short-list of top priorities.

I think we can all agree, this should usually be good fare for Liberals (as in, selling to the publc briskly). Tories want to strip women of their rights and shoes, to serve as baby factories and little league organizers. That narrative is legendary, all Liberals need is a credible excuse to invoke it. But when they invoked it this time, it fails miserably:

"Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is ignoring women in Canada,” she said. “Women are facing ever-intensifying challenges in their daily lives, challenges which a global recession and the repressive and backward attitudes of the Conservative government have only exacerbated.”

This is what Iggy's attack dog, Maria Minna, had to say. According to Liberal analysis, the global recession has exacerbated economic problems for women. The facts are plain: male-dominated economic sectors have been gutted (construction and manufacturing) while women-dominated economic sectors have been steady or growing (health and education). So when Maria Minna says the opposite we are either stuck with a case of Liberals making some very profound factual errors or they are committing double sexism.

The callous disregard for the facts is a sexist denial of male reality. But the real victims of Liberal sexism are women for the same reason. It doesn't matter if the economic position of women is going up or down in this recession, they are still the victims according to Liberals. Actual issues that affect women get lost in their false rhetoric about the recession. Instead of talking those up, Iggy is caught with nothing but a pink ribbon and some 1970s picture of women in the workforce. (Contrast to President Obama, often speaking out on the plague of fathers who abandon mothers- not that the Ignatieff crew would touch that one.)

chuckercanuck is not so swift

2009-10-20T12:37:00.002-04:00

I realise that across the great white north, the citizens are wondering, "where is chuckercanuck?" Let me explain:

I forgot my laptop and unlike the legendary Jason Cherniak, I cannot figure out how to post from my blackberry. I have here three seconds on a borrowed laptop so that's all I can say.

I will be back soon. Meanwhile, I can tell you that it is warm and sunny in Baltimore.

Tis a mere flesh wound, continued

2009-10-16T21:20:00.002-04:00

Andrew Coyne swoops in to rescue Michael Ignatieff.

When it is too late.

As the Bard said, a green shift by any other name is still a green shaft. And Iggy's committed to a green shaft.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister was in Toronto today putting opposition hyperventilations into context.

It is very nice that Iggy's big dream for Canada is a nation of windmill technicians. In fact, a modern day Cerventes would probably find 600-pages worth of inspiration in the whole thing. But even if he changed the story and had Iggy switch from windmills to deficits, the end would be the same. Prime Minister Stephen Harper.