Reboot Alberta

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Harper's Probationary Period Is Over - It's Time For an Election

Take a few moments and read this link from CTV. It provides an interesting perspective and judging by the comments so far, an election in the late spring would be timely. It is clearly Dion’s call when to force an election. Harper tried to engineer one this past fall but that was about pure opportunity politics and not about good governance.

The sniping and carping by the Cons that is all about messaging and not governing has runs its course. We are tired of Canada’s new government and tired of being environmental front men for the Bush White House.

Harper has proven his indifference to social issues, his ineptness at environmental issues. He will expose his incapacity to deal coherently with the emerging slowdown of the economy in the Budget.

The Harper minority government was elected for two reasons. To declare our disgust with the Chrétien government and, as Gomery found, the willful blindness that enabled the corruption in the Montreal wing of the federal Liberal party. Secondly we were prepared to give the Harper Cons a chance but only as a probationary minority government.

Chrétien and Martin are history and there has been enough time for the Liberals to regroup and for Dion to assert his leadership. The probation period for Harper is also effectively over and we now know a lot more about how he would lead us and where.

It is time for an election and for the wisdom of the Canadian voter to once again to decide what policy issues we consider to be important to the future of the country and how and by whom we are to be governed.


8 comments:

  1. Considering that we are likely to have a provincial election in the March timeframe, that's going to make a positively bewildering set of campaigns in Alberta.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My estimate is there will be a federal Budget and some pponted debate on other key issues when the HOC resumes at the end of January...also the Manley Committee reports on our role in Afghanistan reports Jan 22

    The decision on the Mulroney/Schreiber Affair Inquiry will likely be for an inquiry and that will take time to set up and Dion will wait until that is well under way.

    Federally I see an early to mid May if Dion decides the dates. Harper will try some outlandish tactics to try and speed that date up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ken, my friend, we often agree and sometimes disagree.

    I concur wholeheartedly with the need for a federal election. Parliament is becoming less and less functional.

    I disagree, though, on your assessment of the Prime Minister (obviously) and look forward to watching Stephane Dion drive his leadership and his party into the ground.

    Something to worry about, though, is the possibility of overlapping federal and provincial elections in Alberta.

    There are far more people who are loyal to the federal cause and will put those campaigns first, compared to those who will put the priority on the provincial campaign.

    PC Alberta should be very worried about this, given that there is a lot more uncertainty provincially than federally (at least in Alberta, anyway).

    ReplyDelete
  4. So does that mean that Dion will quit sitting on his hands and supporting the cons, whereby essentially giving the Cons a majority?
    Does that mean libs will show up for votes because now is the time for an election? Now that is principled stand for you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes it is and was then a principled stand. We have had 3 elections in 4 years and 2 of them were minorities. Harper deserved a shot and we did not need another election that all the polls said would still be a minority and therefore deciding nothing.

    Dion and Harper are now established in their leadership roles and both in a position to place their visions of the country before the country.

    It is time we Canadians made a positive practical political choice. Not a rejection of the Chretien Liberals or a tepid test drive of the CPC.

    Let Harper propose a policy agenda that shows his environmental, societal and economic intent. Then let see how he proposes to pay for it in his budget.

    Let Dion do the same thing and lets see his economic vision in the budget debate.

    And then lets have an election to see who has the right stuff to earn the trust and confidence of the nation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. BR - I enjoy our disagreements as much as our agreements. Your observations are always thoughtful and civil and well informed....even when you are wrong ;~}

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:51 pm

    Dion has had numerous opportunities to vote down the Harper government. However, instead of voting based on principles, Dion viewed his poor polling results and had all of his MPs sit on their hands.

    As for environmental ineptness, under the LPC regime, greenhouse gases drastically increased. As well, did you forget that WHILE DION WAS ENVIRONMENT MINISTER, HE WON THE "FOSSIL OF THE YEAR AWARD". I am sure that these facts will be exposed either before or during the election campaign - Canadians have a right to know the Liberals terrible record on the environment.

    I do, however, agree with you that an election should be called. Most of the other liberal leadership camps want Dion out of the picture and an election is the only way to do that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous6:47 am

    Ken: You are a friend of mine, but in my view you didn't get this right:

    "The sniping and carping by the Cons that is all about messaging and not
    governing has runs its course. We are tired of Canada's new government
    and tired of being environmental front men for the Bush White House."

    I for one am not tired of the Cons. I love 'em. So great to see both
    competence and honesty. The arrogant Liberals, - the front men for
    Quebec and for mid Canada liberal 'say lots do nothing'
    environmentalists ARE truly tiring. And it is NOT racist or 'linguis-
    ist' or any other kind of 'ist' to say that some of us Canadians are
    also tired of Quebec -based and -biased Prime Ministers, and Prime
    Ministers who speak neither of the official languages.

    Two things I believe to be true.

    1. The first - the jury is not in about our ability to affect, and

    therefore fix, global warming. According to today's Sun, the same
    process for measuring temperature climb the "Warming" fanatics are
    screaming about shows no warming between 2001 and 2007. Whoops. For the
    warming narcissists to be right, warming has to occur and in fact
    increase in the last 6 years - and in ain't happening. And we humans
    are not affecting temperature change here on earth the same way we are
    not affecting temperature climbing on any of the other planets around
    the sun - all of which scientists say show increased temperature climb
    in lock-step with the Earth (except - whoops again - the last 6 years).

    2. The second - the stuff we could fix during the last 13 years of

    Liberal rule - wasn't. Pollution standards, toxic dump sites, water use
    (we don't even know where our aquifers are in Canada), true
    environmental protection issues we can actually control and measure and
    can as humans control - nada from the LIberals. The Cons are passing
    laws with cash to clean up 15 year and older dump sites - where were the
    LIberals in all this???

    The last scandal that wasn't - and Dion and Goodale worked their butts
    off to make it so - the Mulroney affair - is embarrassing for all the
    shrill opposition bozos and supportive newspapers. They worked so
    hard- the CBC even extended well into the night the "At Issue" panel to
    make this molehill appear mountainous - and all voters see is a bunch of
    money to be wasted on something that happened 20 years ago that ONLY
    Revenue Canada should investigate. And what Mulroney paid or didn't pay
    in taxes is truly his business in the same way we can't find out what
    the former Chair of Via Rail paid or didn't pay (on taxable perks
    disguised as 'expenses') - despite the demands of Liberal and NDP
    Opposition yappers who should know better.

    Let's face it - the Government couldn't send anyone except a mid level
    bureaucrat to jail for losing $250 million or so of our money in the
    Adscam affair, and didn't put Chretien away for his involvement in the
    Shawinigate thing - how are they going to get Mulroney 20 years later
    when neither side of the Schreiber mini-fracas admits to any Airbus
    impropriety?

    No Ken - THIS Canadian doesn't buy that the last election was ONLY about
    Liberals lying and stealing - it was also about a clear, concise package
    of five things the Cons wanted to do, and then they did 'em - that truly
    is governing......and how refreshing!!!

    Graham Fletcher

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous comments are discouraged. If you have something to say, the rest of us have to know who you are