Steve Chase of the Globe and Mail has an excellent piece in today' paper exposing the misleading and unsubstantiated Harper rhetoric about the Dion Green Shift. It has generated a lot of interest with 145 comments already noted as I write this post.
Nice to see some serious MSM reporting on this policy with comments from experts and not just swallowing the Harper hype as if it were reliable and accurate.
This piece shows Harper is not a leader. He is a MISLEADER.
Harper can't be trusted. He is a danger to democracy.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Happy Birthday Omar Khadr
Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, child soldier, and only westerner still left in Guantanamo prison “celebrated” his 22nd birthday yesterday.
He has spent a third of his life in a foreign (meaning American) prison because our government, both Liberal and Conservative, have found the protection of his citizenship rights “inconvenient.”
Khadr has been denied the protection of the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. He is entitled to the protection of both Conventions but he is disposable for political reasons.
Every other western country has repatriated their Gitmo prisoners and then tried them domestically – with the cooperation of the US government. Why is Canada so far out of step with the rest of the world?
This just one more example why we need to be careful who we elect so we s individual citizens do not have to fear our government.
He has spent a third of his life in a foreign (meaning American) prison because our government, both Liberal and Conservative, have found the protection of his citizenship rights “inconvenient.”
Khadr has been denied the protection of the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. He is entitled to the protection of both Conventions but he is disposable for political reasons.
Every other western country has repatriated their Gitmo prisoners and then tried them domestically – with the cooperation of the US government. Why is Canada so far out of step with the rest of the world?
This just one more example why we need to be careful who we elect so we s individual citizens do not have to fear our government.
Friday, September 19, 2008
New EKOS Poll Has Some Fascinating Results.
EKOS has a new poll out of about 4000 Canadians with some interesting numbers and some “same old” numbers too.
Hat tip to Kady O'Malley of Macleans for the EKOS link. The pollsters reporting on the Undecided voter has not been very high profile in this election. Nor has the variability of the voter intentions been studied much to date. The voter intention have been given extensive media coverage but are essentially a “no news story because nothing much has changed in this election from the results in 2006.
Some momentum seems to be building for the Greens. They are making BC a three way race for second place running equal to the Liberals and breathing down the neck of the dippers. In Tory-blue Red-neck Alberta the Greens are also competitive with the Libs and ahead of the NDP. They are all way out of contention here over all but it may mean a concentrated effort by Dipper Linda Duncan in Edmonton Strathcona and the same by Liberal Jim Wachowich in Edmonton Centre may make them contenders in the home stretch.
The core Conservative support is strong but they have no growth from any second choice preferences. So if strategic voting is going to happen, and it will, the Cons are vulnerable, especially if they seem to be heading for a majority. Most notable is the Undecided group split virtually equally between the four major parties but conventional wisdom is the Undecideds don’t show up anyway. In what many see as a boring pointless election, expect this to hold true.
In the simple ABCs of a Danny Williams world, voters who want to support “Anybody But Conservative” has some reason to be encouraged. The EKOS poll shows the Conservatives would attract only 10% of all second choice voters. That means there not much chance of Harper getting a swelling of strategic voter support to push him into a majority government.
Harper will have attract support for his coveted majority based on his new advertising persona of a metro sexual “Who’s Your Daddy” family man that has come from his in-house Image Consultant preening of his new “true self.” Harper has a core and committed voter support with consistent polling between 35-38%. But it is concentrated mostly in rural Canada. That seems an unlikely voter mix to manufacture a majority, but campaigns count and that possibility should not be counted out.
A Harper majority could happen if Quebec wants it to happen. Any whiff of that as a real possibility, then expect Ontario to see that coming. They would engage and show up to reject Harper like a cold cut on a Ritz wise-cracker, just to balance it out the Quebec influence on Harper and push him back into minority territory.
With a minority government second and third place seat results become very important. They become the holders the balance of power and hold the strings that keeps the government in office and honest. The second choice Liberal support comes mostly from the NDP. A full third of them would go Liberal if they were to switch votes. Not good news for Layton the self-delusional “I am running to be PM as the wannabe Canuck version of Obama. If it becomes strategically necessary to beat back a Harper majority or to simply humble them, Dion could pick up a quarter of the soft Green vote too. Even stranger is the possibility that 16% of the obviously disillusions old time true blue Reformers who want to send Harper and really embarrass him, could do so and turn to the Liberals to serve those ends.
This election has not yet started and is far from over. The lessons learned from the Dion and Stelmach victories should not be lost on Emperor Harper. When the front runner is found wanting and the path forward is not clear in the minds of the electorate, then anything can happen. Layton is a non-starter and Harper has shown his in not to be trusted. Harper may well “win” the election but not the country. Making Layton the reason to believe in the NDP because his leadership numbers were better than Dion’s ignores the Liberal depth and bench strength compared to the narrow and shallow Dippers.
The voter has a long weekend to really decide who they choose to trust with their future. This election will be decided over the long weekend before the Tuesday vote on October 14th. My money says that the victory of a majority government will not go to Harper because he is a one-man show demagogue and therefore deemed to be dangerous.
This election will not be a blessed event for Jack Layton because he is seen as essentially superficial. It will not be the Greens because they are a parking lot for many disgruntled voters. Expect May to personally surprise us all and especially Peter MacKay, who could be dumped again. It will not be Dion but it might be the Liberal Team who could have the best overall election showing by simply exceeding expectations.
Hat tip to Kady O'Malley of Macleans for the EKOS link. The pollsters reporting on the Undecided voter has not been very high profile in this election. Nor has the variability of the voter intentions been studied much to date. The voter intention have been given extensive media coverage but are essentially a “no news story because nothing much has changed in this election from the results in 2006.
Some momentum seems to be building for the Greens. They are making BC a three way race for second place running equal to the Liberals and breathing down the neck of the dippers. In Tory-blue Red-neck Alberta the Greens are also competitive with the Libs and ahead of the NDP. They are all way out of contention here over all but it may mean a concentrated effort by Dipper Linda Duncan in Edmonton Strathcona and the same by Liberal Jim Wachowich in Edmonton Centre may make them contenders in the home stretch.
The core Conservative support is strong but they have no growth from any second choice preferences. So if strategic voting is going to happen, and it will, the Cons are vulnerable, especially if they seem to be heading for a majority. Most notable is the Undecided group split virtually equally between the four major parties but conventional wisdom is the Undecideds don’t show up anyway. In what many see as a boring pointless election, expect this to hold true.
In the simple ABCs of a Danny Williams world, voters who want to support “Anybody But Conservative” has some reason to be encouraged. The EKOS poll shows the Conservatives would attract only 10% of all second choice voters. That means there not much chance of Harper getting a swelling of strategic voter support to push him into a majority government.
Harper will have attract support for his coveted majority based on his new advertising persona of a metro sexual “Who’s Your Daddy” family man that has come from his in-house Image Consultant preening of his new “true self.” Harper has a core and committed voter support with consistent polling between 35-38%. But it is concentrated mostly in rural Canada. That seems an unlikely voter mix to manufacture a majority, but campaigns count and that possibility should not be counted out.
A Harper majority could happen if Quebec wants it to happen. Any whiff of that as a real possibility, then expect Ontario to see that coming. They would engage and show up to reject Harper like a cold cut on a Ritz wise-cracker, just to balance it out the Quebec influence on Harper and push him back into minority territory.
With a minority government second and third place seat results become very important. They become the holders the balance of power and hold the strings that keeps the government in office and honest. The second choice Liberal support comes mostly from the NDP. A full third of them would go Liberal if they were to switch votes. Not good news for Layton the self-delusional “I am running to be PM as the wannabe Canuck version of Obama. If it becomes strategically necessary to beat back a Harper majority or to simply humble them, Dion could pick up a quarter of the soft Green vote too. Even stranger is the possibility that 16% of the obviously disillusions old time true blue Reformers who want to send Harper and really embarrass him, could do so and turn to the Liberals to serve those ends.
This election has not yet started and is far from over. The lessons learned from the Dion and Stelmach victories should not be lost on Emperor Harper. When the front runner is found wanting and the path forward is not clear in the minds of the electorate, then anything can happen. Layton is a non-starter and Harper has shown his in not to be trusted. Harper may well “win” the election but not the country. Making Layton the reason to believe in the NDP because his leadership numbers were better than Dion’s ignores the Liberal depth and bench strength compared to the narrow and shallow Dippers.
The voter has a long weekend to really decide who they choose to trust with their future. This election will be decided over the long weekend before the Tuesday vote on October 14th. My money says that the victory of a majority government will not go to Harper because he is a one-man show demagogue and therefore deemed to be dangerous.
This election will not be a blessed event for Jack Layton because he is seen as essentially superficial. It will not be the Greens because they are a parking lot for many disgruntled voters. Expect May to personally surprise us all and especially Peter MacKay, who could be dumped again. It will not be Dion but it might be the Liberal Team who could have the best overall election showing by simply exceeding expectations.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Don't Ask Harper to Fire Ritz - Defeat Him AND Harper TOO - at the Polls!
The Liberal and NDP calls for the firing of Minister Ritz is pure histrionic politics. It is all about putting the heat on in an election and not anything about enlightened politics. It is just being pushed to keep the media focused on the character flaws of Minister Ritz. It serves to call out Mr. Harper, thereby exposing some of his character flaws too.
The MSM and the Blogs will keep the Ritz issues and events, and the other like them, alive during the campaign I am sure. Nice to see the CBC TV interviewing the families of some of the 17 deceased Canadians on the news tonight. It puts a human face and some of the context on the pain of those who families have been victimized by this food inspection deficiency and bad government policy.
Harper was out to save some money by reducing our food inspectors and turning them into paper report auditors by taking them off the plant floors where the problems occur. Harper has proven that he thinks good politics is the same as good government. That is rarely the case, as this tragedy - and failure of good government - illustrates dramatically.
Harper is not going to fire a Minister in the middle of a campaign for mere crassness, insensitivity, stupidity and boorishness. Get serious. Those are some of the qualities that many of Harper's hard line supporters and War Room types seem to admire in Conservative candidates.
I don't think the grassroots founders of the old Reform and Alliance types, who are the heart and soul of the current Conservative party are happy with this kind of politics. I think we can expect lots of those founding Tory supports to switch votes or at least stay home this election, as a result.
If the good citizens of North Battleford have had enough of being embarrassed by Mr. Ritz they will tell him so on October 14. In the meantime, as a Minister in the Harper government, his insensitive comments and plastic apology are instructive to the rest of us about the quality of mind and flaws of character we find in many, but definitely not all, of the political players Harper government.
If Ritz is typical of many of Harper's team, and why wouldn't he be, it is no surprise that Harper wanted to shut up most of his Cabinet and all of his Caucus since be became the Conservative leader. His PMO prepared and approved all official speaking notes for everyone in the Conservative cause. Those partisan speaking notes were almost always uttered by some lackluster Parliamentary Secretary or, worse yet, Peter Van LOON who was the dependable boor to be found“Harping” half truths in Question Period.
Harper's Caucus and Cabinet is chorus line of mimes and mutes. They are not obviously not ready to govern and are too dangerous to be given a majority. Harper's unbridled personal political aspirations are to be either our Emperor or our "President." His is not interested in the nobler role of our servant-leader. To me that means he too is unfit to govern.
When you elect someone to public office to represent you, you are giving them your consent to have power over you and to speak on your behalf on the many critical policy issues of the day. You also are giving them the power of discretion and decision. You empower them to make value choices and trade offs on your behalf and in your name. Those value choices are inevitably between competing interests and are never easy - but citizens expect them to be made in service of the greater good. Not in pursuit of some personal political power trip.
Harper's superficial, or sinister, sense of governance is shown in some of his campaign promises. For example he saw tinkering with two points off GST as all you needed for a winning and effective national tax policy. His chest-thumping about a minuscule and meaningless reduction of $150 per year for seniors as a substitute for sound social policy is embarrassing. Then we have the laughable tax credits of a maximum of $750 as an inducement for first time home buyers masquerading as an economic stimulus. It is shabby and sophomoric.
Under the circumstances and given the weakness of the Canadian partisan political leadership, we have few alternatives except another minority government, be it Liberal or Conservative. That means while we Canadians did not want this election in the first place, it will not settle anything of significance. But that is the price of political prudence and the best outcome for Canada - this time.
We can’t forget that we Canadians have enjoyed the pleasure of paying for the $400,000,000 price tag for this pointless unnecessary trumped-up Harper inspired election fiasco. We must remember that at the ballot box in this election. This election has been perpetrated by "Harper the Misleader" and launched solely in the service of his lust for power and the personal political hubris.
Thanks Mr. Harper. Thanks a bunch. Next time lets have an election that is about Canada and Canadians and not about him. Wouldn't that be refreshing!
The MSM and the Blogs will keep the Ritz issues and events, and the other like them, alive during the campaign I am sure. Nice to see the CBC TV interviewing the families of some of the 17 deceased Canadians on the news tonight. It puts a human face and some of the context on the pain of those who families have been victimized by this food inspection deficiency and bad government policy.
Harper was out to save some money by reducing our food inspectors and turning them into paper report auditors by taking them off the plant floors where the problems occur. Harper has proven that he thinks good politics is the same as good government. That is rarely the case, as this tragedy - and failure of good government - illustrates dramatically.
Harper is not going to fire a Minister in the middle of a campaign for mere crassness, insensitivity, stupidity and boorishness. Get serious. Those are some of the qualities that many of Harper's hard line supporters and War Room types seem to admire in Conservative candidates.
I don't think the grassroots founders of the old Reform and Alliance types, who are the heart and soul of the current Conservative party are happy with this kind of politics. I think we can expect lots of those founding Tory supports to switch votes or at least stay home this election, as a result.
If the good citizens of North Battleford have had enough of being embarrassed by Mr. Ritz they will tell him so on October 14. In the meantime, as a Minister in the Harper government, his insensitive comments and plastic apology are instructive to the rest of us about the quality of mind and flaws of character we find in many, but definitely not all, of the political players Harper government.
If Ritz is typical of many of Harper's team, and why wouldn't he be, it is no surprise that Harper wanted to shut up most of his Cabinet and all of his Caucus since be became the Conservative leader. His PMO prepared and approved all official speaking notes for everyone in the Conservative cause. Those partisan speaking notes were almost always uttered by some lackluster Parliamentary Secretary or, worse yet, Peter Van LOON who was the dependable boor to be found“Harping” half truths in Question Period.
Harper's Caucus and Cabinet is chorus line of mimes and mutes. They are not obviously not ready to govern and are too dangerous to be given a majority. Harper's unbridled personal political aspirations are to be either our Emperor or our "President." His is not interested in the nobler role of our servant-leader. To me that means he too is unfit to govern.
When you elect someone to public office to represent you, you are giving them your consent to have power over you and to speak on your behalf on the many critical policy issues of the day. You also are giving them the power of discretion and decision. You empower them to make value choices and trade offs on your behalf and in your name. Those value choices are inevitably between competing interests and are never easy - but citizens expect them to be made in service of the greater good. Not in pursuit of some personal political power trip.
Harper's superficial, or sinister, sense of governance is shown in some of his campaign promises. For example he saw tinkering with two points off GST as all you needed for a winning and effective national tax policy. His chest-thumping about a minuscule and meaningless reduction of $150 per year for seniors as a substitute for sound social policy is embarrassing. Then we have the laughable tax credits of a maximum of $750 as an inducement for first time home buyers masquerading as an economic stimulus. It is shabby and sophomoric.
Under the circumstances and given the weakness of the Canadian partisan political leadership, we have few alternatives except another minority government, be it Liberal or Conservative. That means while we Canadians did not want this election in the first place, it will not settle anything of significance. But that is the price of political prudence and the best outcome for Canada - this time.
We can’t forget that we Canadians have enjoyed the pleasure of paying for the $400,000,000 price tag for this pointless unnecessary trumped-up Harper inspired election fiasco. We must remember that at the ballot box in this election. This election has been perpetrated by "Harper the Misleader" and launched solely in the service of his lust for power and the personal political hubris.
Thanks Mr. Harper. Thanks a bunch. Next time lets have an election that is about Canada and Canadians and not about him. Wouldn't that be refreshing!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Enlightened Savage Calculates the True Cost of Afghan Conflict
Harper releases a report on what he sees as the costs to Canada for the Afghanistan conflict.
The Enlightened Savage puts the true costs in context. Great post ES!
The Enlightened Savage puts the true costs in context. Great post ES!
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