This is a great article explaining why HM PM Harper has accomplished. There are some in the media saying perhaps the Tories should have HM PM Harper resign. That is prety silly, even for the grits msm.Harper, on the contrary, is still rebuilding a party brand destroyed in the disaster of the 1993 election. He gathered a fragmented party in his hands while on his back he bore more than a decade of negative labels created by effective Liberal propaganda. When he began, the Conservatives had been destroyed in Ontario, were non-existent in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and were barricaded in the West. It was a party ideologically split between a right wing led by Preston Manning and the Red Tories led by the quixotic Joe Clark. Harper has also been saddled in English Canada with whatever...
All this talk about the grits losing Toronto seats, has driven dion to return to the once safe fortress Toronto. Let's hope the NDP surge will allow Tory candidates to come up the middle and win some seats in Toronto.Dion to hit T.O. as polls show NDP growthUpdated Sat. Sep. 27 2008 5:23 PM ETLiberal Leader Stephane Dion has suddenly booked a Sunday event in Toronto in the wake of some new polls that show the NDP to be hot on his heels in cities."In the 416 and cities around the country, there are signs of Liberal vote erosion to the point where the NDP vote is surging," CTV's Graham Richardson told Newsnet on Saturday from St. Catharines, Ont.The Dion campaign has taken Sundays off so far this campaign, but after flying to Ottawa tonight, Dion and his wife Janine Krieber will fly to...
dion wants massive change when the ballot question in Canada is about stability. I think the ballot question is also about leadership and dion is not a leader.In the midst of this turmoil in financial markets, Dion announced the Liberal platform of $56 billion of new spending, $40 billion of which would be covered by his Green Shift carbon tax, and the remainder by unspecified program cuts and revenue increases based on the assumption of 4% growth in GDP, which seems to be wishful thinking.The Conservatives jumped all over these numbers, suggesting a “$12 billion black hole” in Dion’s fiscal framework that would plunge the country back into deficits. Not only that, but Dion last week announced $70 billion of infrastructure funding over 10 years. That’s a big number. Jean...
dion is not a leader and that we're better off with Harper!From Nik Nanos.Question: Which of the federal leaders would you best describe as:The most trustworthy leaderThe most competent leaderThe leader with the best vision for Canada’s future[Leadership Index Score - Daily roll-up of all three measures]Stephen Harper 108 (+7)Jack Layton 51 (NC)Stephane Dion 32 (-16)Elizabeth May 14 (NC)Gilles Duceppe 13 (+2)...
I guess we have the answer for the question for dion. Dion personally still owes $690,000 for his "leadership" bid. That means he raised about $300000 since the Dec 3, 2006 convention. He didn't pay back the required money by the June 2008 deadline. He got an extension until December 2009. He was supposed to have made a payment of $230,000 with interest by September first. There is no evidence that dion has complied with this elections Canada requirement. Indeed from this database it looks like dion raised less than $34000 until the quarter ending in June. This is not surprising as the grits are almost broke. $690000 represents most of the party's fundraising in the last 3 months. Why hasn't elections Canada raided dion's house? seized his car or demanded he comply with their...
I thought this was interesting. It seems canadians think taliban jack would be a better opposition leader than dion. dion seems to be having more delusions. He will soon be ordering the sun to rise .Mr. Layton doesn't really expect to be Prime Minister, but there are polls suggesting Canadians view him as considerably more attractive than Mr. Dion as opposition leader. A new Angus Reid poll found 62% of Canadians don't think the Liberals have done a good job as the official opposition; 57% don't think they'd do much of a job as the government; and 62% think the NDP would do a good job replacing it as the official opposition.That's not a positive sign for Mr. Dion, who just yesterday finally got his campaign plane out of drydock and was able to take to the air. He's using it to fly to New...
Don Martin, who seems ever more anti- Tory, lists dion's ever growing list of problems. It seems the grits are preparing for a dion succession already.Trouble is obviously afoot on other fronts. In the Greater Toronto Area fortress for the Liberal party, a major rally that MPs were told would happen this week was inexplicably scrubbed. Thus, Dion left the city without a sendoff hug from his star candidates. Behind the scenes, sources say the Liberal party will quietly cancel its December convention in Vancouver, clearing the decks for a leadership convention next year if this tour continues evolving into a funeral procession.The Liberal leader’s strategy so far is the classic sign of a party coasting on a lead. Someone should let Mr. Dion know that some polls have him a distant second...
L Ian Macdonald analyzes the start of the campaign. Things are not going well for dion.Stéphane Dion? He got on a bus and went to Ottawa South, the closest thing to a safe Liberal riding in the capital. Then he got on his bus and went to Montreal where, the next day, he campaigned in St. Lambert and Westmount-Ville Marie, where by-elections had been scheduled for that day, and where the Liberals had a semblance of a campaign organization already in place.That evening, Dion attended his own nomination meeting in St. Laurent, and yesterday appeared in N.D.G.-Lachine before boarding his bus again for eastern Ontario. He has spent the better part of his campaign launch on the ground in Montreal, campaigning in some of the safest Liberal seats in creation.This is not a good sign. Normally a...
Tim Powers asks if dion paid one third of his leadersship debt by Sept 3, as he promised to do.ccording to Elections Canada, Mr. Dion had to submit proof he has repaid one third of his outstanding leadership debts on September 3, 2008. A week has passed and Canadians still have no proof he has complied with his own repayment plan. Three of the former Liberal leadership contenders (Ken Dryden, Hedy Fry and Michael Ignatieff) have managed to file updated returns, yet no return appears for Mr. Dion on Elections Canada's website. Again, just curious. Always prepared to accept, as one Liberal PM said, that "a proof is a proof."...
ellie may the other grit leader will now be debating with her sweetheart dion. They will be a tag team duo. I wonder if she will be able to keep her foot out of her mouth long enough to answer a question. I'm glad she is in the debate. Let her dig her own grave.May won't endorse Dion, but he's her choice for PMThe Canadian PressSeptember 9, 2008 6:00 PM ETOTTAWA — Elizabeth May says she won't endorse Liberal Leader Stephane Dion during the current election campaign.There's no need. Long before the election writ was dropped last Sunday, the Green party leader had repeatedly touted Dion as her choice for Canada's next prime minister.Yet she professed surprise when Prime Minister Stephen Harper effectively vetoed her participation in the televised leaders' debates on the grounds that she'd...
This is the quality of grit that the people of Whitby Oshawa are getting. He didn't apologize until now. That is a non apology. This is much worse than the puffins pooping on dion. Will dion fire this yahoo?Liberal candidate apologizes for Nazi commentsCanwest News ServicePublished: Tuesday, September 09, 2008No sooner did the Liberals announce Brent Fullard would be running as a Liberal than the candidate issued a statement apologizing for comparing Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Hitler.Fullard, who's running in the Ontario riding of Whitby-Oshawa, apologized Tuesday "sincerely and without reservation" for sending mass e-mails in 2007 that compared Harper to Hitler.The Conservatives Tuesday asked whether Liberal Leader Stephane Dion would "boot" Fullard for sending one e-mail with...
I was very happy that the Court Challenges program was abolished. I was less happy when HM Government brought it back only for language rights challenges. Dion wants to bring it back for every left wing group to make court challenges. He wants to double the size of it. This is a very bad idea. It is an extremely biased program. Did it go to Christians to defend their rights to free practice of religion? Women who wanted to challenge the female biased family court system? No it only went to leftists groups intent on snatching ever more government cash. If they truly believe in their own never ending victimhood. Let them raise money from their own supporters to bring their tedious suits to court. The government doesn't actually have to pay for everything. This is yet another dion policy...
Lorne Gunter points out dion's carbon tax will do little to reeduce carbon emissions in any way. indeed dion doesn't explain how his carbon tax will in fact reduce so called green house gases. it is all just an article of faith.Dion Ex Machina...Stephane Dion's Green Shift provides no details about how we get from our present A to his desired green B, just lots of fluffy bon mots about how simple a journey it will be. If his party is elected it will simply tax bad things (fossil fuels, automobiles, Alberta) and reward good ones (the poor, farmers, truckers and fishermen), and that will -- somehow -- prod the creation of a future in which everyone has a job, income is fairly distributed and children can gambol all day in pristine flower meadows.Call this specifics-free proposal Dion ex...
Don Martin sees poverty everywhere in the grit campaign. The grits are broke and it shows! Did the grits get turned down for a loan in the end?It should take to the air early and often to give its leader an everywhere-at-once perception of having national reach and stature.In other words, everything the Liberal tour is not. So far. The now-infamous grounded Liberal plane, an ancient Air Inuit with a heftycarbon footprint for a vapor trail, was either a sign of organizational sloppiness or party poverty.And except for Mr. Dion’s modest rally on Sunday, this tour has been a trio of buses roaming around Ottawa and Montreal looking for something to do while (conflict of interest declaration here) charging reporters $2,100 a day plus hotels for the tagalong privilege.There’s something...
The Tories and the BQ have full slates in Quebec. The NDP is missing about 30 candidates and the grits are missing 4. they apparently picked people in Outremont and Lasalle Ville Emard over the weekend. This according to Tim Parent of CJAD news. The grit ground game seems pretty poor so far. The Tories have gotten off to a good start with new signs in the ridings I have driven through today.There are new Tory ads on gambling on dion....
Rex has a good column on leadership. The summary Harper is a leader, dion is not a leader.For all his angularity, occasional harshness and remoteness, Canadians recognize him as a leader. They see him, in the main, as competent and determined. They are not embarrassed when he goes abroad. They know he has intelligence to spare. And despite his chilliness of manner (which I expect is as much a product of shyness as arrogance), he's a decent man who loves his country. For good or ill, that's the package - and in the campaign about to unfold, from the Conservatives' perspective, it's mainly for the good.For the good, because leadership is the point of contrast, the pivot, on which - barring the explosion of some massive issue mid-campaign - the election will turn. At the very least, that's...
she finds some hope for dion, but lots of negatives. Dion's English is going to be a major problem. The carbon tax is not selling well. I look forward to watching HM PM Harper wipe up the floor with dion in the debates. The Liberal plan is too complex to be delivered succinctly. Time and again, the core message gets lost to technical jargon. That jargon is too dense to pack as much of a punch as the single-minded Conservative attacks on Dion’s carbon tax.Given that, the Green Shift is taking up too much space in the Liberal playbook, crowding out other themes that the party could score on. At a Winnipeg town hall on Tuesday night, more than half the questions dealt with matters other than the environment. The notion that the plan has an economic backbone does not really come...
... in the National Post. Ray Heard tries to make the case that not all grits hate the United States and that dion is a loser.Finally, Mr. Axworthy spent a year chairing a Liberal Renewal Commission, to which Frank McKenna submitted a truly brilliant paper on enhancing ties with the United States. The realistic and provocative Axworthy Report was largely ignored by the Dionites, who are afraid to rouse the sleeping dogs of failed Liberal policies, some of them admittedly legacies of the Trudeau era, thus dooming themselves to defeat in the upcoming election.Raymond Heard, Toronto....
The French papers in Quebec are calling dion's situation in Quebec a disaster. L. Ian Mcdonald points out that some of the national polls underestimate Tory support. The Crop and Leger and Leger polls show dion in dismal shape in Quebec. Don't trust the polls: The Liberals are down in QuebecL. Ian Macdonald, National Post Published: Friday, September 05, 2008MONTREAL -'The Liberals' morale is at zero" announced a headline across the top of two pages in La Presse yesterday. And that was just the turn off the front, where the banner was a composite quote from Liberal insiders: "In Quebec, it's a disaster."Stephane Dion, glancing through his press clippings, must have felt tempted to cancel his free subscription....
I must admit I have voted for Joe Clark in the past. I voted for him to leader of the PCs at least twice. I have meet him a number of time and I like him as a person. He is also a staunch defender of the Canadian Crown. He has become increasingly left wing with age and is now embarrassing himself with his occasional outburst . He has become a non entity in Canadian politics. Truly he is Joe Who? Don Macpherson thinks dion has become the new Joe Clark. A man marginalized and ridiculed. Indeed the grits will probably try to hide dion or send him with places with rae or iggy. dion is not a leader. His own party wants to hide his light under a bushel. While the English-language ads also mention accomplishments of the government, they are mostly about Harper. And by referring to his "strong...
It seems the grits and dion want to make this election about HM PM Stephen Harper's leadership. Are they kidding? They want to contrast dion ( who is not a leader) and the excellent leadership of HM PM? Bring it on dion. HM Pm scores much higher than dion in terms of leadership in most polls. The grits seem increasingly delusional. The grits also believe that the chump change from their victory fund represents a new grassroots push. Is dion working secretly for the Tories?OTTAWA -- Liberal MPs will zero in on what they say is Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's lack of trustworthiness, economic mismanagement and "control freak" leadership style during election campaign strategy talks at a three-day caucus session in Winnipeg.With Mr. Harper just days from calling an election,...
dion has spent the entire summer doing useful things. No , not studying English pronunciation. No, not fixing his parties awful policies. No, not paying off all of his debts. dion has spent the summer trying to sell the grit carbon tax. What is the result...Support for the Liberals' Green Shift dropping: PollJuliet O'Neill , Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, September 01, 2008WINNIPEG - Support for the Liberals' Green Shift carbon tax proposal fell over the summer, signalling leader Stephane Dion faces "a big problem" with the centerpiece of his election campaign platform, says Darrell Bricker, president of the Ipsos-Reid polling firm.An Ipsos-Reid poll of 1,003 adults completed Aug. 26-28 found a majority of 51 per cent support for the Green Shift in July has flipped to a...
dion is just making himself look weak and afraid. First he says he won't meet HM PM Harper, now he will meet HM PM with his tail between his legs. dion would have looked less weak if he had held his ground. Will he now beg HM PM Harper not to have an election? Dion to meet Harper on MondayBecky Rynor, Canwest News ServicePublished: 2 hours agoOTTAWA -- Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has agreed to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday afternoon in a move that will likely determine whether Canadians are heading to the polls this fall."It's happening at 4 o'clock at 24 Sussex," Harper's director of communications, Kory Teneycke, said Sunday.Dion had originally said he would not be able to meet with Harper until after scheduled byelections in three ridings on Sept. 8."We're happy...
Dion is not a leader.It starts with leadership. Stephane Dion is in many respects an impressive individual, but he's no salesman. On a pre-campaign swing through Saskatchewan this week, he came across more as the university professor he once was. His tendency is to lecture and, except in a classroom, most people don't care for lectures.That Dion is trying to sell the country on a whole new way of thinking doesn't help his cause. Dion's Green Shift policy is complicated, risky and reliant on a leap of faith. Voters are asked to believe we can improve the global climate through taxation....
John Snobelen agrees with most of us, that dion's green shaft is the wrong policy at the wrong time. I also think dion is the wrong man for the grits and for canada.The seasoned politicians will be telling Dion they simply can't sell a tax increase to people who are struggling with high energy prices and worrying about their jobs. It's not a message Dion wants to hear. The Green Shift was the Hail Mary pass that would vault him past Harper and into the Prime Minister's office. Dion was even publicly speculating about forcing an election this fall. When the by-election results are in and the inevitable polls are conducted early this fall, Dion will discover the Green Shift is the wrong policy at the wrong time.This fall, Dion will face a host of nominated candidates who are eager to have...
Macdonald points out dion's continuing problems in the east and the west. The green shaft is really going over that well. The grits are still broke and their credibility is pretty low. Two more are now jumping the sinking grit ship.Except that there are too many other elements in the mix.Last week, the Liberals had to contend with the resignations of two nominated candidates, Robert Morrissey in the Prince Edward Island riding of Egmont and Gary Oledzki in the Saskatchewan riding of Palliser. One Down East, and the other Out West.Now that's a serious problem, and one that has to be addressed. The Liberals dealt with the Oledzki matter last Thursday with a terse statement by party president Doug Ferguson that "Mr. Oledzki is stepping down for personal and professional reasons....
And this related to my post from yesterday. Here a few cartoons, diongreen shift cartoons....
elections Canada thinks dion owes $690000, while dion believes he owes $250000. He has to pay back this money by the end of 2009. He may go into an election campaign with a party and its leader deeply in debt. Seems the grits and its leader are shifty. These loans are not going to revenue neutral for dion. I have no doubt the grits friends at elections Canada will allow dion and his minions to eventually write off the debt.Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand gave Mr. Dion a deadline yesterday, requiring him to dig out of the red by the end of 2009, 18 months after the repayment date.Mr. Dion's fundraising team will host cocktail receptions, dinners,and various events in Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver to raise the outstanding cash, his financial agent, Anthony Cherwenka,...
Even uber grit Lawrence Martin, thinks dion and his grits will have trouble, explaining that they oppose legislation they supported three months earlier.Playing the immigration card will come with some risk for the LiberalsLAWRENCE MARTINIn the spring the Liberals acquiesced in the passage of the Conservatives' immigration legislation. In the fall they will bring forward a plan to have that very same legislation scrapped.Liberal sources say the repealing of the immigration section of the government's budget implementation bill will be part of an overhaul of immigration policy they are planning for their election platform.Campaigning against legislation you have in effect supported only months ago will constitute a rare spectacle in Canadian politics. But the Grits, who are firmly opposed...