The far left simply doesn't get it -- they didn't get it before, and they won't get it nowWriting mere hours before the outbreak of violent protests in downtown Toronto surrounding the set-to-begin G20 summit, Rabble.ca's Darren Puscas published an article entitled "Harper's aggressive plants: Canada at the G8 and G20 Summits".Among the plans Puscas treats as "aggressive" are the promotion of budgetary austerity amidst the European economy walking a tightrope between tenuous stability and total collapse, opposition to a global bank tax, opposition to Iran's nuclear program, climate realism, and the child & maternal health program.And one other thing: Puscas insists that Stephen Harper is propagating a "culture of fear" around the G8 and G20 summits:For the far-left, Puscas' article is...
Marci McDonald complains about "right wing attacks"Writing a column in the Ottawa Citizen, Marci McDonald -- of The Armageddon Factor fame -- complains that she's been treated rather unjustly by Canada's conservative media.Citing sources of attack such as Ezra Levant, David Frum and Blazing Cat Fur, McDonald decries the injustice of it all, and insists that she had no malignant intent in mind.She writes:"I've found myself in a firestorm of controversy, the object of distinctly un-Christian invective and the unbridled wrath of the right-wing blogosphere. Charting the uneasy minuet of religion and politics in Stephen Harper's Ottawa appears to have given me a level of notoriety summed up in a current title on the best-seller list: I am, as one friend quipped, the girl who kicked the...
Stephen Harper has remarkable power over progessivesIt's clear that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accrued a great deal of power over Canadian progressives. The apparent unwillingness of the Canadian people to rise up en masse and cast off the Conservative Party has begun to so overwhelm them with despair that they continue to dream up crazier and crazier schemes in order to unseat him.The most recent is a proposal to merge the Liberal Party and NDP into a single party, proposed by Young Liberal President Samuel Lavoie."What scenarios are left to impede Harper from radically altering the face of our country in a way a majority of Canadians don't agree with?" Lavoie asked. “Basically uniting all the federalist progressives in some way, shape or form...”Which means that Lavoie would...
NDP objects to appointment of high-rolling Tory donor to SenateThe Conservative caucus in the Senate has remained stable, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed BC Lions owner David Braley to the upper chamber.Braley joins Conservative Senator Jacques Demers among the roster of sporting figures who seem to have no business whatsoever in the Senate.The Liberal Party and the NDP quickly vented their outrage at the appointment, noting that Braley donated $99,000 to the Conservative Party prior to the ban on corporate donations.“It appears that the reason why he was appointed was because of close to $100,000 worth of donations to Conservatives in recent times,” complained Liberal MP Marlene Jennings. “I think it shows Mr Harper’s extreme cynicism, with regards to Parliament, the...
Eeeek! It's Christians! And They're Praying!To hear Canada's far left describe it, one would think that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have transformed Canada into a theocracy.Murray Dobbin is quite keen to insist as much. As is Antonia Zerbisias.Sometimes the evidence offered for their panic-mongering is rather thin. For example, Zerbisias points at the National Prayer Breakfast, where denizens of Parliament Hill meet to pray over some pancakes (or something).The problem for Zerbisias is that there has been 44 such breakfasts prior to 2010. Yet only in 2010 does this render Canada into a theocratic state.She points also to the other thin gruel offered by she and her fellow panic-mongerers: Conservative reluctance to include abortion in a maternal health care...
...Or maybe it's better that you don'tWriting in the Guardian -- the only place where she's able to peddle her political invective these days -- Heather Mallick has a message for Britain:She despises Canada. So Britain should avoid being like Canada.Mallick tells Britain that they should "use their words". She describes it as polite shorthand for: "Stop hitting your little friend, you tiny nasty animal. Negotiate. Share your toys. Find a way."This is immediately preceded by her wailing about how Canada's centre-left opposition parties won't gang up against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, and refuse to share their toys with them."Use your words". The phrase takes on a particularly facetious tone when it comes from someone whose personal viciousnesa and...
Dobbin continues to peddle his coalition fantasiesThe everlasting so-sad-it-isn't-even-funny-anymore reign of Murray Dobbin has produced far more than its fair share of ideological-at-all-costs stink.Yet those observing Dobbin's mediocre flailings can rest assured of one thing -- so long as Dobbin remains good at winding up his extreme left-wing fellow travellers, the publishers of Rabble.ca will keep him around.In his most recent discharge, Dobbin leads off by drastically mis-reading the most recent polling numbers, even according to his typically self-serving choice of which polls to recognize:"We have a government so contemptuous of democracy that it is utterly unapologetic in trying to impose on the country an agenda opposed by probably 75 per cent of the population -- treating its...
Or as close to it as possibleWith Michaelle Jean set to vacate Rideau Hall and Prime Minister Stephen Harper set to choose her replacement, a great many Canadians seem excited to find out who her replacement will be.A great many more do not.It really isn't that difficult to understand why. Canadian political appointments have long been anticlimactic. Speculation abounds leading up to the appointment, then Canadians shrug their shoulders afterward.Compare this to political appointments in the United States, where appointees are scrutinized by elected figures, and subjected to a lengthy confirmation process.Discussion of the appointment before the fact has actual meaning in the United States. In Canada it doesn't. In Canada, citizens have very little -- more like no -- input into these...
Time for "ten percenter" mailings to endOne of the news stories that has generated a quiet buzz in Canadian politics was a recent vote to ban the controversial "ten percent" fliers MPs are elligible to send out.In recent years this practice has been abused by MPs mailing fliers into ridings held by other parties. The Conservative Party is not the only party to abuse this practice, but they've been the most prolific.MPs are allowed to send fliers to a number of households equal to 10% of the number of votes they received in that riding during the last election.The purpose of those fliers is supposed to be to provide information to the constituents of those ridings, but far too often the mailings have been used for crass partisan politics.The time has long come for the 10% fliers to be...
Dobbin: Social engineering only illegitimate if it's from the rightWriting in an essay published on the ideologically-parochial Rabble.ca, Murray Dobbin articulates a few more of his "Stephen Harper the anti-democrat" arguments.Among some of the points raised in the essay, Dobbin decries what he calls "right wing social engineering":"One of the most popular concepts on the political right over the years has been the notion of 'social engineering.' The phrase is intended to describe a process by which liberals and the left 'engineer' society - that is, set out to remake it -- by implementing government programs, intervening in the economy, and redistributing wealth so that there is a measure of economic equality (in a system defined by inequality). The implication is that these changes...
Trudeau family avoiding a painful inward journeyWriting in an op/ed published in The Mark, Justin Trudeau offers some advice to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that partisan Liberals would likely delight in reading:"Even though it makes my job as a member of the Official Opposition a little easier, I am genuinely disappointed that this Conservative government didn’t hold true to the principles that brought it to power.And I’m not even talking about their abject failure to be fiscally responsible or their enthusiasm for patronage and pork. I’m referring to the basic premise of the old Reform Party, the call for a government that is open, accountable, and respectful of democratic values and the rights of its citizens.Instead, over the past four years, Stephen Harper has carefully...
Several studies have found, confirmed and re-confirmed that Canadian parents would rather see their children become lawyers or journalists than politicians, showing all three of these professions to be among the most reviled in the country. What they all have in common is the perception that they make a living from lying and generally being despicable individuals. Unfortunately, the vast majority of members in each of these professions have done more than their share to solidify this view. When it comes to politicians, people look for honesty, integrity and leadership. It is understood that politicians are always faced with difficult decisions and that they don’t always make the right choices. But making mistakes is human, and as much as people may be angry about a flawed policy or...
Harper may democratize Senate by making it more controversial than everAs any political thinker who has ventured anywhere near the topic of the Senate knows, Senate reform is an extremely tumultuous topic in Canada.With Prime Minister Stephen Harper's governing Conservative Party finally taking control of the Senate, it's about to get much worse.Part of the increased controversy will have to do with Senate committees, and how Harper may intend to use them. Where these committees were once obstacles to Senate reform, for example, they will now become tools of it -- at least according to Tom Flanagan."When the two reform bills are reintroduced –- one to limit senatorial terms to eight years, the other to provide for consultative elections –- the government doesn't have to worry about...
Stephen Harper makes five new appointments to SenateStephen Harper finally made his expected Senate appointments toay, as his party finally put itself in the driver's seat in the upper house.Bob Runciman, Vim Kochhar, Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, Elizabeth Marshall and Rose-May Poirier will all be joiing the Conservative Senate caucus.While Harper's last batch of Senators -- featuring among them former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers (who admitted he knew nothing about politics) -- was considered by many Canadians to be sub-par. This particular batch is much, much better.Bob Runciman is an outspoken advocate of Senate reform. He even introduced a recent bill that would empower the government of Ontario to hold elections for Senate nominees. (The bill was defeated by the McGuinty...
After stimulus spending and corporate bailouts for companies that will eventually disappear anyway, Canada is now saddled with a considerable deficit and must start looking at ways of reducing, containing or, hopefully, eliminating it, while continuing to grow its economy and create jobs. This is not an easy task, as it will require substantial cuts to government spending and a major overhaul of the tax system. Spending cuts will put the government of Stephen Harper in a predicament. Canada’s government programs are mostly geared to special interests that, even though they constitute a minority only, can make a lot of noise and cost the Conservatives dearly at the polls. But any anticipated screaming of such groups notwithstanding, cuts will have to be made, including to the tax...
Democracy is sometimes said to be its own worst enemy. By its own definition, power rests with and emanates from the people. But given any society’s myriad interests, it becomes a Sisyphean task trying to accommodate all that the populace demands. Put in more mundane terms, democracy is a little bit like that old saying of too many cooks spoiling the broth; unless there is a central authority that separates the wheat from the chaff, there is a very strong risk that a country may rupture along the multitude of fissures running through it. China is a good case in point. The sheer size of its population and the large number of disparate regions and groups would leave the country ungovernable if it were not for a strong, centralized and even authoritarian hand at the top. Canada, by...
Politics is often no more than a game, especially in parliamentary systems, such as Canada’s. A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper played a round of “chess” with the opposition parties and won by employing a little-known move known as prorogation, or suspension of Parliament. Prorogation is a legitimate measure under the constitution. It may not be popular with opposition parties, but that does not make it undemocratic or an example of foul play. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, demonstrating his poor understanding of how democracy works, accused the prime minister of not “understanding democracy”. This makes Mr. Ignatieff the sore loser who swipes all the chess pieces off the board in a fit of anger. Chess is a very old game, and its rules are well-established and...
New thinking on foreign policy was badly neededSince Prime Minister Stephen Harper took office in 2006, there have predictably been some people he hasn't been able to please.Unsurprisingly, Frances Russell has been one of them. For good reason, Harper -- and many other Canadians -- don't seem particularly distressed by this.Many Canadians have recognized this for a positive development -- particularly as it pertains to foreign policy.As Roy Rempel would note, Canada has long lacked any kind of coherent foreign policy, and has instead relied on a network of finely-crafted platitudes wrapped around obselete Pearsonian peacekeeping missions that have often proven ill-suited to the current state of the world -- as in Rwanda and Somalia.Russell, for one, longs for the dreamland of...
Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament mob dissentersIf one were to follow any number of the arguments against Stephen Harper's proroguement of Parliament, they all add up to a critique of Harper's inability to handle opposition.So it's on that particular note that it's amusing to see how well the vaunted Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament handles opposition within its own group.For one thing, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament requires anyone to join the group before they're allowed to post comments on the wall, or to participate in their forum.In other words, the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament has been tailor-made in order to avoid having to tolerate any opposition within its own ranks.A good case in point is that of Timothy Sorsdah, who recently posted a link to...
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's proroguement of Parliament has been nothing if not controversial.In the most recent poll, the Conservatives are now tied with the Liberal Party at 30% support.But this proroguement suddenly has a whole new face. Canadians will get the opportunity to judge it very soon.The timing of Harper's recent proroguement of Parliament certainly cast the matter in a poor light. For one thing, it gave Canada's opposition parties the opportunity to claim that the Conservatives are simply trying to flee tough questions about the torture of detainees in Afghanistan.Tom Flanagan believed it. John McCallum even went so far as to accuse the government of being guilty of war crimes.But the revelation -- actually merely a reminder -- that the Liberal Party knew full well about...
Prime Minister claims proroguement necessary for economic workSpeaking to reporters about the recent proroguement of Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended the increasingly-controversial move on the basis of the need to prepare his economic agenda.Harper accused the opposition parties of being obstructive in Parliament, and distracting his government from the important work ahead of it -- something that Harper doesn't expect to change when Parliament resumes."The games begin when Parliament returns," Harper said. "The government can take our time now to do the important work to prepare the economic agenda ahead.""That said, as soon as Parliament comes back ... the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there'll be votes of confidence and election speculation for...
Murray Dobbin loses all contact with realityMore than three years after Elizabeth May became leader of the Green Party, the party has elected no members -- but pulled out all the stops to elect one -- May herself -- and is continually nursing a deteriorating reputation.Rabble.ca columnist Murray Dobbin has a word for this: "master plan". Elizabeth May's master plan.It's the kind of phrase that brings to mind cartoonish images of comic book villains toiling away in secret laboratories, just waiting for the day they can rise up and take over the world. If only it weren't for the interference of interlopers.In May and Dobbin's case, the "interlopers" seem to be the Canadian voters who won't support the party enough for them to win a seat in so much as a single riding. And, predictably, May...
Peter Stoffer accuses Michael Ignatieff of poor leadershipNDP MP Peter Stoffer has recently taken issue with Liberal Leader -- and Leader of the Opposition -- Michael Ignatieff.Ignatieff, Stoffer insisted, has been so very, very quiet. Too quiet.Moreover, Stoffer credits Ignatieff's reluctance to take Prime Minister Stephen Harper on in a more aggressive fashion."They’ve been very, very quiet," Stoffer said. "This is one of the reasons why Harper gets to do what he gets to do, because he doesn’t have an Opposition leader breathing down his neck. If you had someone like a Frank McKenna there facing him, I think it would be a different story all together."Whether or not McKenna -- the former Premier of New Brunswick -- knows how to be a good opposition leader may be a matter many...
Stephen Harper must act to restore faith in Senate reformWith Prime Minister Stephen Harper set to appoint five new Conservative Senators before the beginning of March -- thus finally attaining his much-sought-after Senate majority -- many Canadians are very justifiably beginning to wonder if he's serious about Senate reform at all.Among those who seem to be beginning to doubt Harper's commitment to Senate reform is Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.After passing the Senate Nominee Election Act, which would allow for the nomination of Senators-in-waiting during provincial or federal elections. But now Wall is beginning to doubt whether Saskatchewan electing Senators will make a difference."We can elect all of the senators from Alberta and Saskatchewan that we wanted, but if we're the only...
Heather Mallick decries proroguement of ParliamentFor many Canadians, if any one particular word could be used to describe Heather Mallick, it's almost certainly "tiresome".Mallick demolished her own credibility with a vindictive hit-piece on Sarah Palin during the 2008 Presidential election. Under most circumstances, appealing to such ignominity would have to be treated as an ad hominem attack.Unless, of course, it serves to appropriately characterize an individual as an ideological attack dog.Similarly, the phrase "instant emergency" should strike most people as a tautology, unless it serves to describe a situation in which a particular course of action is only deemed to be threatening or troubling now.This is, frankly, the only realistic manner in which to treat the complaints of...
Stephen Harper requests proroguement of Parliament, Opposition feigns old outrageFor the second year in a row, the ever-tedious post-Christmas period in Canadian politics has been livened up by the spectre of a looming proroguement of Parliament.Most Canadians will almost certainly recall that Parliament was prorogued last year in order to derail an attempt by Canada's opposition parties to overturn the results of the October election and install a coalition government that Canadians firmly and soundly rejected.The crisis of the day was partially one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's own making. While it's hard to excuse the Opposition Parties taking such drastic measures in order to preserve what they feel is an entitlement -- federal government funding of their parties -- there's...
Lawrence Martin misses the forest of change for the treesWriting in an op/ed column in Metro News, Lawrence Martin decries the current state of Canadian politics, and blames it all on the leaders.Canada's political leaders, it seems, just aren't young, vibrant, hip, or inspiring enough. And the only way that Canadians will ever see any kind of meaningful change in Canadian politics is for Canada's youngest politicos -- individuals like Justin Trudeau and, uh... Justin Trudeau... -- to take over the reins of leadership.But Martin seems to be overlooking the myriad of ways that things have changed already. And it didn't take the young, vibrant, hip and inspiring Trudeau to change things.In fact, many of the most significant -- and constructive -- changes in Canadian politics have been...
The Liberal Party has already drawn considerable fire for its "Anywhere but Copenhagen" contest.But by displaying the contest entries on their webiste and using them for political purposes, the Party runs the risk of being embarrassed in more than simply the "whackos fantasize about assassinating Stephen Harper" department. They also run the risk of embarrassing themselves in the "can't keep the message straight" department.A case in point is the above image, in which Harper's face is superimposed on an image of Kanye West interrupting Tailor Swift and the MTV Video Music Awards. The Spaceman award Swift just received is replaced by a picture of the Earth, and Harper/Kanye is saying "Yo Copenhagen, I'm really sorry about those GHGs, and I'mmma let you finish, but Canada-China relations...
Stephen Harper, Canada’s conservative prime minister, has promised all along that he will get tough on crime (and criminals). Now his government has introduced legislation that will accomplish just that: mandatory minimum sentences, no more excessive credit for time served, etc. Liberals and others on the left, naturally, have opposed these measures. They feel that any tough-on-crime law is useless and that it should be replaced by tough-on-causes-of-crime laws. Generally, lefties’ hearts only bleed for criminals, but never for their victims. One Ontario judge, John Keast, is one of those bleeding-heart liberals, who will readily place the needs of criminals ahead of those of victims. “Most of today’s serious criminals were once victims,” he said. A courageous and bold...
Murray Dobbin: Stephen Harper = Ronald ReaganIn a recent column published on Rabble.ca, Murray Dobbin produces what seems to be the result of many a cold-sweat soaked night, in which Dobbin has dreamed visions of Stephen Harper as Ronald Reagan, and suffered nightmares of the ignominity of Harper refuting Dobbin's ideological vision for the country."As I watch with alarm Stephen Harper's lead over the Liberals solidify, even as he displays contempt for climate change efforts, and disdain for parliament, I am reminded of Ronald Reagan. What I remember is this: on almost every major issue on which he took a strong public stand, he was opposed by a majority of Americans. But that did not stop them from supporting him, giving him high ratings as President -- and re-electing him."As in so many...