Lame Duck British PM Lectures: Canada Ignores

Gordon Brown, who was never elected as Prime Minister of Britain and is so far down in the polls that he never will be, is lecturing the G8 countries on what needs to be done. He's not happy that Canada isn't going along with the plan:

And he hinted that international regulation of markets would be necessary, putting him at odds with countries like Canada and Germany, which would rather retain national regulators.

“I think that every country in the world is now having to look at its regulatory systems,” he said. “Let's be clear: If nothing changes as a result of the events in the financial crisis, then the world will be a more unstable place, and growth will be unsustainable. So things have got to change.”

The interview made it strikingly apparent how far out of step Mr. Harper's government has fallen from Western European and U.S. views, especially on climate change and international aid.

Mr. Brown outlined a “growth strategy for the world” consisting of African development funding, investments in climate-change reduction and reform of global institutions to create a worldwide regulatory framework.

While those ideas have won the broad support of the major European nations and of U.S. President Barack Obama, and are likely to set the agenda at the Italian summit today, they also differ sharply from the agenda of Mr. Harper's government, which has moved away from African aid, avoided a major role in carbon-emission reduction and shunned the notion of international regulatory bodies.

The tone of Doug Saunders' article in the Globe is that this is a bad thing. If Harper sticks to his guns and away from the peer pressure to conform, it'll be the first thing he's done this year that I would whole-heartedly approve of.

The western countries are starting to look like suckers. China sends aid to Africa but expects things in its interest, such as mineral rights, in return and doesn't lecture them on human rights. China also ignores climate change rules and grows at 9% every year. They must shake their heads at bankrupt western countries who call for more stimulus. (On loan from China itself.)

I like how Harper is taking a step back and being cautious about this madness.

Toronto Star, National Newswatch Run with Liberal Spin

If you go to the National Newswatch website today, they have an unflattering picture of Prime Minister Harper next to an evil looking Richard Nixon shot. They link to an article from the Toronto Star. Here's the first paragraph:

OTTAWA–In a move described as "Nixonian," Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested he would release potentially damaging videotapes of Michael Ignatieff after the Liberal leader called on Harper to fire Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

Who described it as Nixonian?

Ignatieff described the comment as the "most Nixonian" of Harper's many remarks to him. "Every day that goes by, he's more like Richard Nixon," Ignatieff told reporters.

Good grief. Why not just go straight to the Liberal Party website for the news?

I like how they add this nugget, to help us conjure up memories of the Nixon era:

While U.S. president, Nixon installed secret audio recording systems in the Oval Office, his cabinet room and at Camp David and surreptitiously recorded hundreds of conversations from February 1971 through July 1973.

Of course, it doesn't say that nobody is accusing Harper of releasing a bugged recording of Ignatieff. Way down in the article it explains that Harper meant there are many speeches and public appearances that Iggy made over the years, and that there is probably a few things he said that would be embarrassing.

They imply this is paranoid and ruthless of Harper. Hmmmm... Remember back in the Martin era, the Liberals quoted over and over an excerpt from a Harper speech in New York, years before when he said Canada is like a northern European welfare state? I guess it's ok if the Liberals dig up this stuff.

When you think of it, isn't Paul Martin more Nixonian? Bitter battles before getting the big job, that made him thin skinned and paranoid? Mysteriously became wealthy when not in office?

What the...?

February 2009: budgetary surplus of $0.8 billion

There was a budgetary surplus of $0.8 billion in February 2009, compared to a surplus of $3.0 billion in February 2008. Budgetary revenues were down $2.7 billion, or 11.9 per cent, from February 2008, largely reflecting lower corporate income tax and goods and services tax (GST) revenues. Program expenses decreased by $0.1 billion, or 0.6 per cent, compared to February 2008, largely reflecting lower operating expenses of departments and agencies. Public debt charges decreased by $0.4 billion compared to February 2008.

I'm shocked and pleasantly surprised.

via: Small Dead Animals

Homeless Cons = Voteless Cons

Fractures in the Tory party are talking place. This splinter group is disappointed with Harper.

...But what on earth are Homeless Cons? It's a group started by Robson and his wife, fellow writer and pundit Brigitte Pellerin as an outlet for people who don't think the current Conservative government is conservative enough.

"If you are a conservative in this country," Robson says over the phone, "you believe in free markets, traditional social values and strong national defence. You are lucky if you get one out of three out of any Conservative Party you elect."

And Robson thinks that with the way the Harper Conservatives are acting right now, the score is zero for three. The government will not touch the abortion issue he notes, gave up on the vote they promised on gay marriage and in his mind doesn't fund the troops properly. The final straw for Robson appears to have been the latest budget with its projection of a $64,000,000,000 deficit over two years; this after the government was already the biggest spending government in Canadian history. "If that's conservatism," he says, "why not vote Liberal."

I'm not very interested in this group.

Firstly, if it gains traction it will mean two to three straight Liberal majorities. Vote splitting allowed Chretien to win three straight majorities with less than 40% of the vote.

Secondly, if they are talking about banning abortion, they might as well take up arms and become a guerrilla band, because they aren't going to get elected in Canada. The US is much more socially conservative, and they had W. Bush, and a majority in both houses of Congress and it's still legal there.

Thirdly, belief in a strong defense is also not a winning issue. Not in these tough economic times. Harper has increased military spending substantially but why do we need an even stronger defense? Is somebody threatening to invade us? Or does it mean help buffer the US commitment as they occupy two Middle Eastern countries? People in western countries, across the board, are growing weary of those conflicts.

Finally, and most importantly, I don't know if you can talk true fiscal conservatism while Quebec is part of Canada. There's no real private sector there, they rely on handouts. If a government tries to cut back on that, they will not win any seats in vote rich Quebec. If you still proceed with cuts, somehow cobble a majority out of the rest of Canada, they will threaten to separate. I don't know if there is popular support to allow Quebec to leave Confederation within English Canada. Not enough people have caught on to what a sinkhole Quebec is to our tax dollars.

In sum, 2009 is not the time and Canada not the place for this movement.

Quebec Confidence Scam

I'm no fan of Jeffery Simpson in the Globe and Mail, but he has an interesting article of how Quebec recently screwed the federal Tories and the "have" provinces. (read)

After much caterwauling and nattering from Quebec about the “fiscal imbalance,” Mr. Harper had duly handed over billions of additional dollars for social programs – only to find that a campaigning Mr. Charest had taken the first tranche of the money and announced tax cuts to help his re-election bid. At which point, Mr. arper hit the roof.

Further betrayals arrived. Mr. Charest, having pocketed the billions for the “fiscal imbalance,” sent his Finance Minister to announce at the beginning of the federal campaign that, no, Quebec's “demands” (Quebec is always demanding) had not been met.

With every Conservative candidate campaigning on having settled the “fiscal imbalance,” it was quite a blow to their credibility to hear Mr. Charest declare the matter unfinished. Of course, Mr. Charest had many other grievances and gripes that needed attention. So much for giving Mr. Harper a break in Quebec.

(...)

And yet, here's the dilemma: Despite a staggering economy, growing unemployment and a fiscal nightmare, Ontario taxpayers, via Ottawa, are still going to ship billions of dollars to Manitoba, the four Atlantic provinces and Quebec.

Last week's Quebec budget had $8-billion in equalization payments, amounting to 12 per cent of total revenues. Notwithstanding this bonanza, and the fact that payments had almost doubled, the budget contained a chapter complaining about how unfair equalization was to Quebec. Call it Gallic gall.

It's hard for me to believe that I supported Charest for the PC Leadership Race of 1993. My dislike started for him soon after the disastrous election that year when he refused to partner with the then Reform Party. Now as the Quebecois crook-in-chief, my hatred is viseral as well as political.

Wouldn't it be nice is Quebec seperated? Why Isn't Quebec an Independent Country?

I'm glad to see that the Conservatives and Harper are looking elsewhere to pick up support.

Take Harper's Advice Obama

Obama worshippers and Harper haters must cringe while reading this op-ed from Lawrence Martin at the Globe & Mail:

On Afghanistan, where three more Canadian soldiers were killed on Tuesday, you get the feeling that our Prime Minister is being refreshingly candid while Barack Obama, he with the four-square reputation, is playing dangerous games.

Stephen Harper shocked more than a few observers with his recent statement that the Pakistan-abetted Taliban insurgency probably will never be defeated. Leaders seldom, if ever, say this kind of thing when their troops are on the battlefield. Usually, they just raise false hopes.

Mr. Obama is going the surge route in Afghanistan. The first big foreign policy act of his presidency is a major escalation of a war – 17,000 more troops. It makes him sound more like Lyndon Johnson than a peacemaker. And it looks suspiciously like an act of political counterbalance – I've got to look tough – for his planned exit from Iraq.

After you send in the troops, the problem is getting them out. Presidents don't like to leave without a claim to victory. Otherwise, they fear they'll be seen as sending a message to the world that America is weak.

Yes, that's right. Harper is looking like the decisive intellectual here while Obama looks weak. Liberals and Dippers are looking around for the script that Harper is a George Bush clone.

Candid Harper on Afghanistan War

"We’re not going to win this war just by staying . . . we are not ever going to defeat the insurgency... My reading of Afghanistan’s history is that they’ve probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind."

- Prime Minister Stephen Harper, interviewed on CNN last week.

UPDATE: Critics, like Warren Kinsella, label this a flip-flop but that is ridiculous. It's called evolved thinking. Eight years on, and with the kind of reports he receives, doesn't the intelligent person constantly challenge their own beliefs? To begin with, this war had almost unanimous support. We wanted to hit the Al Qaeda after 9-11. (Kinsella's boss Ignatieff was certainly for it.) However, it has become something we haven't quite bargained for. The US have attempted nation building and are pretending Pakistan is an ally, when it is an enemy. You have to imagine Harper has been privately frustrated with the operation. He is doing the right thing now by talking about possibilities, instead of sticking to something that is clearly failing.

UPDATE II: John Geddes at Maclean's says Harper has been thinking about this since late 2007.

He certainly didn’t talk in terms of coalition forces securing some sort of decisive victory over the Taliban before pulling out. Here’s what I wrote in a Dec. 28, 2007, Macleans.ca piece we headlined “Not-so-happy New Year”:

On Afghanistan, the dominant defence and foreign policy file, Harper again looks ahead to tough choices. Rather than talking up the military mission in Kandahar as an inspiring undertaking, he used the year-end sit-down to vent frustration at slow progress in building a self-sufficient Afghan government. “You know, the United Nations and our allies will have been in Afghanistan 10 years in 2011. For God’s sakes, Germany was basically fully restored within four years; Germany joined NATO ten years after it was conquered.”

He does not seem to be willing to accept anything like an open-ended commitment in central Asia. “To say that Afghanistan would need decades and decades just to do the basic security work, I think is pushing credibility,” Harper said. “Not just pushing the patience of the Canadian public and the military, pushing the credibility of the effort. A sovereign government must, at some point, say, ‘We can actually deal with this on a day-to-day basis. We can be responsible.’”

Update III: I'm watching coverage of this on the news and it's driving me crazy. Don Newman on CBC is saying that he thought Harper didn't want to cut and run. They then show a 2006 clip of Harper saying this. Like this is a smoking gun of hypocrisy. He was saying that about the mission in Kandahar and Southern Afghanistan AT THE TIME. That Canadian soldiers came under fire and held tough. He didn't mean that we had to stay fighting this thing until 2050, no matter what new factors arise.

CBC In Trouble: Not Much Sympathy from the Tories

Well, here's a little fun respite from Bailout Fatigue. The CBC are experiencing a huge revenue shortfall, and unfortunately for them, Uncle Stephen isn't going to write them a cheque to make up for it:

OTTAWA — The Conservative government has no plans to "insulate" the CBC from the sharp decline in advertising revenue that has forced companies across the media industry to lay off workers and cut costs, a spokesman for the prime minister said Wednesday.

The comments suggest the public broadcaster could come up empty in its efforts to lobby the government for a bridge loan to cover a deeper-than-anticipated drop in ad revenue.

"The CBC cannot be insulated from all market realities," said Kory Teneycke, chief spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "Nobody likes to see this, but broadcasters have to adapt to lower ad revenues. No one broadcaster is immune from that."

Amen. The source of this article is from CanWest, which is now a penny stock and barely has a pulse. How can we save one and let another die?

Harper would never say it but, he has to be having a private chuckle over this. CBC have been no friend of his.

Hat tip: Strack Attack

UPDATE: Strack also provided a link for the Globe survey asking: Should the federal government provide more funding for the CBC?

Unfortunately, the left leaning Globe readers favour it by 57%. If they had this survey at the National Post, the results would be different.

Obama Visiting Canada Today?

I didn't even realize it. They really should have more coverage in the Canadian media on this event. I really had to dig to find it.

Ok, poor attempt at sarcasm over. I think David Frum's comments about the situation to be the best:

The opportunity:Barack Obama’s presidency is already going seriously wrong. His own administration concedes that their trillion-dollar stimulus plan will create few new jobs in the next 18 months. Public support for the huge plan is plummeting. And meanwhile Obama has neglected the single most urgent and important challenge facing the United States and the world: fixing the broken American banking system.

The contrast between Obama’s ideology-first, results-last leadership and the cautious pragmatism of Stephen Harper’s government shows strongly now, and will look only more impressive in the months ahead....

The Canadian public just shrug and say: But Obama is a cool, rock star and Harper's a white nerd. (Look at Warren Kinsella's post today, this is exactly what he's saying.)

People lose their minds with celebrity hype. Remember all those people openly weeping for Princess Diana, a person they don't know personally? Did she do anything for these people other than provide an object for "People Magazine" like star fawning? To me this is the same type of thing with Obamania. And it is something I don't entirely understand, when grown-ups get carried away with this sort of thing.

Politically Correct Speak: Women's Pay Equity

Just what the heck is "Pay Equity" for women? I hear this all the time. The Liberal and NDP benches are always claiming Harper and the Conservatives are setting back women's pay equity issues. I ran across this in a Toronto Star article today:

In this case, the Conservative attack on pay equity – the idea that men and women should be paid equally for work of equal value – provides the most telling example. Bill C-10 would end the right of federal civil servants to take pay equity complaints to the federal human rights commission. Instead, such issues would have to be dealt with as part of the normal bargaining process between union and management.

And in determining whether wage rates for men and women were fair, any arbitrator would have to take "market forces" into account.

The problem with this is twofold. First, as a federal task force wrote five years ago, collective bargaining involves tradeoffs. But a woman's constitutionally protected right to be paid fairly is hardly something that should be traded away for an extra coffee break.

Equally important is the reference to market forces. Toronto lawyer Mary Cornish points out that pay equity was designed specifically to rectify a failure in the market that permitted systemic wage discrimination against women. To turn around and subordinate equity to this same market is to negate the entire exercise.

She notes that when former Ontario premier Mike Harris made a similar attack on provincial pay equity, the courts slapped him down.

I wish they could provide specific examples of where this inequity takes place? I don't know what they mean. As far as I can tell some number cruncher came up with the stat that for average salaries, women's are 70% of men's. There are so many factors that go into that, it's meaningless to cite it. I'm sure if they did stats they could find out left handers make or less than right handers. But still they are trying silly social engineering, to bring up women's numbers. It's a fake issue. I've never met a woman who has felt they make less because they are female. There's no secret cabal of evil white men who decide that women will make less than men.

Why are we wasting time with this?

Brooding Harper Taking a Walk?

I'm seeing this story all over the place, that Stephen Harper is demoralized, and possibly contemplating retirement. The biased Canadian media always gives him a hard time, but there seems to be something to this. Don Martin from the National Post explains:

MPs confide there's a darkening mood in the big guy himself, hardly surprising given the stormy economic challenge Mr. Harper faces. One source says there was a blowup between a furious Prime Minister and key players last week. And PMO chief of staff Guy Giorno is now plotting the second major internal shuffle in eight months.

What does all this mean? Search me. But some who orbit just outside Mr. Harper's innermost circle speculate that a Conservative party with no heir apparent could lose its leader before the next election.

If true, I can't help but think of this as a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington tragedy.

Since I have reached voting age, Preston Manning, and Harper are the only politicians I have believed in. Guys who I backed with my mind and heart.

I saw Manning speak when I was a student at Carelton twice. The first time it was in front of, at most, 50 of us in a lecture hall. I was impressed that he spoke at a high level. He didn't play a phony populist and spoke as an intellectual. He quoted Burke and Locke.

Around the same time, a friend of mine attended a Paul Martin lecture, and he spoke about the future "green economy." There was a campus buzz. This was hip, new. Unfortunately this sums why Manning, a principled intellectual to fault, would lose out to the trendy, gimmick salesmen of the Liberal Party. (Such was being a student in Ottawa, you got to see politicians.)

Manning never could make it, but up came Harper after the Stockwell Day disaster. Same thing as Manning. He was a wonk. An economics geek, a number cruncher. Authentic. (Though not nearly as a good a speaker. It's unbelievable that Manning was seen as un-charismatic.)

Harper knew he had to play politics and win elections. The base, were prepared to accept compromises. He's won two elections, but as a minority government. No doubt, the office has worn on him. Why wouldn't it?

Harper needs a new, fresh plan of attack. Is it in him? Time will tell.

I still think he should have stood up to the coalition threat. Force an election. If not, allow them to take over with Dion as the PM. Can you imagine that clown presiding over things right now? This terrible budget would be theirs to hang around their necks.

The Death of Canadian Conservatism

Andrew Coyne blasts Harper as a sell out, and tallies the long term damage this budget is going to do at his Maclean's blog:

And whatever its likely consequences for the debt, its effect has already been to ratchet up expectations, to tilt the political landscape toward greater and greater interventionism, to change the very language in which we discuss these things. Again, this is unlikely to be easily reversed. Among the consequences of the end of conservatism will be to make it difficult, if not impossible, to muster a constituency even for restraining the growth of government, let alone rolling it back. When the “right” is defined as $34-billion deficits, record spending, and bailouts for everything in sight—when every other party is to the left of that—people lose the ability to think in any other way. They forget there was ever a contrary view.

Conservatives, then, should think hard about whether they can afford to support this government any longer. Its sole contribution at this point is to limit debate, to rule out of bounds any serious discussion of alternatives, since “even” a Conservative government now believes in an all-pervasive, ever-expanding state. The Conservative experiment—the whole enterprise of “uniting the right” in which conservatives have invested much of the past decade—has reached a dead end. They have not succeeded in replacing the Liberals. They have only succeeded in becoming them. Perhaps, some conservatives will conclude, it would be better if this government were defeated—if the party were to lose power, that it might find itself.

(...)

When there is no longer any budget constraint, when deficits are not evidence of incontinence, but “stimulus,” why should any project, any sector, any region be denied? More to the point, when there is no political constraint—when no party is pulling to the right, while four pull left—spending can only go in one direction. And for the foreseeable future, that’s where the action is going to be: sucking money from the gushing spigot of the state. Starting a business? Only a chump would spend his time worrying about pleasing the consumer. It’s the politicians you want to keep happy, mate.

It's such a massive about face. Has anybody turned so hard, and so fast away from their base before in Canadian history? I guess you could say Mulroney but when he got all those Quebec seats, I don't think anybody was surprised he was just a run of the mill pork barreler.

UPDATE: Small 'c' conservatives express their dismay in this CP article:

"But it looks like things are grinding to a halt. Are we just going to enter a period of political pragmatism, when all you do is fight to survive? That's very discouraging.

"We thought that Mr. Harper had the strategic acumen to survive and make some progress toward conservative goals."

Hat tip: Pat

Boondoggle 101 - Laugh, Cry

Kelly McParland lists off some of the more distasteful pork barrel spending of the 2009 in the National Post today.

* Over $335 million in support for culture and the arts — recognizing the importance of our artistic institutions and the role they play in Canadians’ lives.

They should just hire a guy with a flag, who could wave it at Quebec and yell: "Yoo-hoo, Quebec? Over here! $335 mill for the arts! See, we DO care. We LOVE the arts. Can't live WITHOUT it! Especially that stuff on Quebec TV. Hoo-boy, how did you guys get so TALENTED?

(...)

* The Government of Canada invests over $10 billion each year in Aboriginal priorities. Budget 2009 invests another $1.4 billion on Aboriginal priority issues.

Anything that helps First Nations is good. But Ottawa spends $10 billion a year already, and for that we get Third World conditions. Does anyone really believe throwing more money at the problem is the answer?

* $25 million for an endowment to support the creation of international awards to recognize excellence in dance, music, art and dramatic arts.

Yeah, awards, that's what we need. Especially international ones. That way we can get more international entries into categories like: Best televised program involving a politically correct visible minority in a hilarious comedy set in a small prairie town. (Or, Borat visits Dog River)

What Could Have Been?

As I mentioned at the time of the Great Canadian Coup d’état, Harper should not have tried to seek to prorogue Parliament.

If he lost the confidence vote, he could have demanded an election. If the coalition agreed, he was a cinch for a majority. Were the Liberals going to run with Dion again? Impossible. They would have backed off completely if faced with this. Harper should have called the bluff.

He could have let the Governor General decide to allow the Coalition. Imagine that clown Dion presenting this horrendous, mega-deficit budget? What a scenario: The Liberal leadership candidates squabbling all the way until May at the convention; Jack the Mustache annoying the hell out of the public as a cabinet minister; Gilles Duceppe is lauded in Quebec for all the extra pork; The PR would be so bad, it would guarantee a Tory majority in the future. Iggy’s career would be permanently damaged.

Instead the Conservatives own this terrible pork-barrel budget. Lefties won’t even appreciate it, and conservatives are repulsed. It looks like things are going to get worse, no matter what's in the budget, so it gives the Liberals a chance to say it wasn't their fault.

The only hope is that the opposition votes it down today. I doubt the Liberals will be so foolish.

Liberals Posturing Before Budget

Are the Liberals going to take down the Tories over tax cuts?

Opposition parties are threatening to vote down this week's much-anticipated Conservative budget because it contains a potentially contentious proposal to permanently slash taxes for middle-class Canadians.

While the Conservatives say the tax cuts will help working families during a challenging economic era, the Liberals say the rollback is ill-advised and will do little to stimulate the economy.

"If the permanent tax cuts were very large, we would be very concerned, partly because it would saddle future generations with a big debt and a permanent deficit," Liberal finance critic John McCallum told CTV's Question Period Sunday.

McCallum added that the tax reductions will be an ineffectual stimulus because people are more likely to save extra money during recessionary periods.

And if the Tory budget fails to deliver what's best for Canada, McCallum said the Liberals will have little option than to vote it down.

Good luck with that message. "Hey Canadians, you wouldn't spend your money like we want you too, so we are going to take the tax cuts off the table. " Not a very good piece of an election platform. Sounds like a bluff to me.

Hat tip to Strack Attack. Who also mentions that heroic Obama is giving lower and middle class tax cuts in the US, why is it so bad when Harper does it?

Harper Holds Firm With Khadr

Stephen Harper is keeping his cool and is not in a rush to bring grenade lobber Omar Khadr "home". (story)

Stephen Harper said Friday he rejects the premise that Omar Khadr was a "child soldier" because the young Canadian was not a member of an army when he was accused a lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.

Far from backing down to mounting pressure to repatriate Mr. Khadr, Mr. Harper said he will not make any decisions until he finds out whether the U.S. is going to drop murder charges.

(...)

"As you know, Mr. Khadr is charged with some serious offences, and we'll have to see what the resolution of that particular issue is, but we have no indication at the moment of any withdrawal of charges."

This is a good point. Khadr was born in Canada, and his father was an Egyptian. He wasn't in an army. And, it's not like he was some innocent kid born and raised in a village in Afghanistan when US soldiers appeared and he had to protect his home.

What's the hurry to get this guy back? He blew up a medic with a grenade. Let's take a breath before we welcome him to Canada.

Big Deficits Projected for Canada

The federal government will run a $34-billion deficit in the coming fiscal year, and a $30-billion deficit in the following year, a senior government official said.

The size of the deficit is largely attributable to the Conservative government's decision to include billions in stimulus spending beginning in this year's budget. That includes immediate spending on infrastructure and help for Canadians hit hardest by the economic downturn.

With a minority government, I believe Harper had no choice. That said, it still feels like a punch in the stomach. My pessimistic side believes this will be another 20-30 year run with deficits.

Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio was 23.4 per cent in 2007, and that is forecast to rise to 28 per cent in 2010. Even with that increase, Canada will still maintain the position it has held as having the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G8, the official said.

It really felt like it was within our grasp to get out of debt altogether. Oh well, maybe the next generation can do something about it.

Liberals Dust Off "Hidden Agenda" Criticism Again

You can tell Iggy has hired Chretien era communications people as he uses the same doomsday accusations against the Conservatives:

"The federal government is weakened, the country becomes more regionalized. It becomes a more unjust and more unequal society bit by bit. This is (the conservatives') long-term strategic plan," he said.

Harper has been Prime Minister for three years, and people can see for themselves that it hasn't turned into a fascist dictatorship. They need new talking points, they are plain out of ideas.

Polls: Who Knows?

I've been saying how clueless and bumbling Iggy has been coming across since he took the helm. Maybe I jinxed it. Apparantly the Canadian public have been more generous in their assesment. A Nanos Poll has the Liberals and Conservatives in a virtual tie. (Here)

They have both at about 33%.

We'll see. I was in corporate communications for a while and we used polling companies. I think the margin of error is a lot more than they state. And I'm not even sure what they state here:

Between January 3rd and January 7th, 2009,Nanos Research conducted a randomtelephone survey of 1,003 Canadians 18 years and older. A random telephone survey of 1,003 Canadians is accurate plus or minus 3.1%, 19 times out of 20. Margins of accuracy are wider for subgroup samples. Readers should note that the data was weighted for gender and age to match the Canadian census results. Results should be considered representative of the Canadian population.
Results may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Call me a peasant, but that sounds like trickery.

Iggy's Shaky Start

I just saw Iggy on CBC. He was asked if he had any suggestions for Harper's budget, to which he replied: "It's his budget, not mine."

Uh, ok...

I'm becoming convinced that he really doesn't know what the hell he's doing. No doubt Liberals are getting nervous that this guy might not have the goods.

Are they and the Coalition daring to vote this budget down? As I mentioned a week ago, his spin-doctor Warren Kinsella said on his website: "Personally, I’m all for toppling ‘em right now."

An election? The Separatist Coalition again? Are they nuts?

UPDATE: The Globe and Mail tries to sum up what Iggy means. Notice there is no actual quotations on what he "says"?