read it? will it be public? my understanding is that the report will be delivered to the government.red said:
evidence? again my understanding is that Gomery can only make recommendations to prevent a future Adscam.
How long before Canadians get mad??
- Thread starter langeweile
- Start date
evidence? again my understanding is that Gomery can only make recommendations to prevent a future Adscam.
You mean just like Martin did? Or any other politician?Keebler Elf said:
Why is an ambitous conservative a bad thing, but the same behaviour is accepted with a liberal?
The biggest mistakes the Conservatives are making is to under estimate the ruthlesness and cold bloodedness of Martin.
He likes to play Mr. Dithers, but when it comes to his survival, he will stop at nothing.
Imagine a Conservative doing the same thing.
When one's personal ambition comes first, against the survival of the country, then it's a bad thing, regardless of party affiliation or political leaning.langeweile said:
It's a bad thing because of his reliance on the Bloc. It seems that Harper would be a very happy guy if he became PM, even if it meant that the Bloc would hold a vast majority of the Quebec seats and push for soveriegnty (sp?) again.
The Bloc already holds a vast majority of the seats in Quebec.
The decision to hold or not to hold another referendum will be made in the National Assembly. Who sits in Ottawa representing the Quebec seats will be irrelevant.
The current strength of the Bloc is due to: (a) the torpedoeing of the Meech Lake Accord by Liberals Pierre Trudeau and Clyde Wells, supported by Jean Chrétien; (b) the mismangement of the national question by the Liberals post 1995; and (c) the outrage caused by Liberal corruption in Quebec.
Now the Liberals would like us to believe that they are the only ones capable of digging us out of the abysmal hole we are in. Well, the Tories can't do any worse.
The decision to hold or not to hold another referendum will be made in the National Assembly. Who sits in Ottawa representing the Quebec seats will be irrelevant.
The current strength of the Bloc is due to: (a) the torpedoeing of the Meech Lake Accord by Liberals Pierre Trudeau and Clyde Wells, supported by Jean Chrétien; (b) the mismangement of the national question by the Liberals post 1995; and (c) the outrage caused by Liberal corruption in Quebec.
Now the Liberals would like us to believe that they are the only ones capable of digging us out of the abysmal hole we are in. Well, the Tories can't do any worse.
Federally, yes. Provincially, no. The Parti Quebecois - a provincial offshoot of the Bloc - is in opposition.johnhenrygalt said:
Yes, and no. The referendum (some would call it a neverendum) decision will be made in Quebec City, certainly. But if the Bloc numbers in Ottawa increase, that would make it more politically feasible that such a referendum would pass.johnhenrygalt said:
Again, these are only part of the facts. Current Bloc strength in Quebec is primarily a reflection of the Conservative (and I don't call them Tories, because they're not) inability to attract support east of the Manitoba border. The Meech and Charlottetown Accords were, if you recall, rejected by the majority of Canadians. Corruption in Quebec, though, first of all did not come to light before the previous election, and IMO has been a mainstay of Quebec politics for decades, spanning parties and platforms.johnhenrygalt said:
Well, if the Conservatives would get their head out of their collective asses and see Canada in the harsh light of reality - socially progressive, fiscally conservative - then they may have a chance. But their slavish adherence to socially conservative policies, plus the fact that they change their minds on important issues depending on which way the political wind is blowing, will continue to keep them on the sidelines.johnhenrygalt said:
(Note: I had actually thought the Grits had the corner on indecision, but after I saw MacKay change his mind about the union of the venerable PC party and the Alliance, and after Harper originally supported the budget but then changed his mind when he saw it politically expedient, says volumes about the Conservative inability to maintain focus.)
Because Martin sought out the PM office with a platform that consisted of more than "You should vote for my party b/c the other party is bad"...langeweile said:
You are sorely mistaken and misinformed on Quebec politics as well as the origin and affliation of the current movements. The Bloc was not and has never been an offshoot of the PQ. They do share a common objective and there is certainly crossover in terms of membership.happygrump said:
The fact that the PQ is in opposition in Quebec is what makes the Bloc strength in Ottawa irrelevant as far as a future referendum is concerned.
So, for the sake of argument, let's say you're correct.johnhenrygalt said:
Are you trying to argue that the number of Bloc seats in the House would have no effect on the provincial PQ and their incessant attempts at secession?
This is not true.happygrump said:
Charlottetown was rejected. Meech was never put to the people. Meech was defeated by a handful of bitter and narrowminded Liberals who put personal ambition ahead of country.
Corruption has also been a mainstay of Nova Scotia politics, Saskatchewan politics, PEI politics, BC politics, Alberta politics and the other provinces as well. This is one area where we are not a distinct society.
You evidently have no idea what the Conservatives stand for. You only know what the Liberals say the Conservatives stand for.
Those are fair statements. Peter MacKay lost all credibility as a leader when he made the 11th hour deal with David Orchard. That the merger decision was ratified by the membership vindicated his flip-flop, but his inability to admit that he did in fact reneg on a promise strains credibility.
Harper was an idiot to annouce support for the Liberal budget - not as much of an idiot as Martin/Goodale for proposing the budget, but an idiot nevertheless. After 3 years as leader of the opposition he is still learning. Unfortunately Martin, after close to 12 years in government has demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to learn.
Neither do they, themselves then. I have yet to hear a series of fundamental policy statements by Conservatives on anything other than "kick the Liberals out".johnhenrygalt said:
Now, please don't misunderstand... I believe that the Grits have been corrupted by power. Any single party that maintains power for more than a decade cannot help but see their power as some sort of entitlement.
But the simple fact is that, whatever one may think of the Grits, Harper's Conservatives simply do not reflect an ability to be up to the task.
Who knows? Maybe they are. Maybe if Harper reined in the bitter Ablonczys and other loudmouth right-wing renegades in his party and move it towards the centre, he may have a chance. But he has done nothing to convince the vast majority of Canadians that he provides a credible alternative.
I sincerely wish I was wrong. I really do, because the strength of a democracy is so often dependant on the effectiveness of the opposition.
Quick prediction: We all know how Conservatives deal with leaders who cannot win. I predict that by this time next year Harper will be a has-been and the Conservatives will have a new leader.
Hold me to it.
There is a current of opinion in Quebec that the presence of the Bloc has a negative effect on the PQ and their sovereignty option. For many "soft nationalists" and "nationalist federalists", the Bloc vote is a "safe" vote whereby they can democratically assert their Quebecois identity without upsetting the status quo. The BQ exerts great efforts to convince Quebecers that they cannot be Quebec's "insurance policy" in Ottawa. This argument may be spurious, and it will not be enough to tempt me to vote Bloc; but I know many federalists who do vote Bloc.happygrump said:
I of course would love to see Quebec go Tory blue, but for the moment we have to deal with the fact that Quebecers have chosen separatists to represent them in Ottawa.
As for Harper's leadership I am conflicted. I have dreams of living in a country where a man's province of origin or residence does not preclude him from high office. Having lived for close to a decade in Alberta and grown to love its people, I'm tired of the Quebec (and Ontario) media inaccurately protraying Albertans as extremists - just as I'm tired of the English language media portraying Quebecers as nuts.
The Tories need to focus on platform. On their website I can't find the platform - if it's there I don't see it. Chrétien's 1993 "red book" was masterful. I doubt many voters read the book; and there was enough "dirt" on the 1993 Tories that Chretien could have focussed on the opposition; but they gave the impression that the Liberals had done their homework and were ready to take charge.
The Conservatives need a Blue Book. They need a platform, and they need to show they are ready to govern. I'm a Tory and would vote for the Conservatives if an election were held today; but if I take off my partisan hat, I'm not convinced that the Conservatives have shown they are ready to take charge. The Liberals are rotten to the core (IMO), but the nation has not crumbled, the economy is doing relatively well and business in being carried on as usual. Despite the corruption, the Conservatives are running against peace, prosperity and incumbancy - a tall order.
I am personally so far removed from the centre of Conservative decision making that my guess at Harper's motivations are no better than anyone else's. A conservative minority in many ways would be a poisoned pill to Harper as it was to Clark in 1979. Until he's ready to take a majority, I don't understand the rush to an election. I would have much preferred the Tories to have said after the budget "it's a good start". Then they should have sat down with Martin and Goodale, extracted a handful of concessions in exchange for bipartisan support of the budget for the good of the nation.
But for all I know, the Conservative caucus is in no mood for compromise, a terrible attitude for politicians in a pluralistic democracy.
Trying to be "socially progressive" was one of the many ways that the old PCs dug their own grave. I recall how, during the final years of the Mulroney era, they tried pandering to the radical feminism that was going at the time, going as far as to give the feminist groups a new Federal obscenity law designed by notorious radical feminist theorist Catherine MacKinnon, and shovelling funding money to advocacy groups, the most powerful of which- the ultra-leftist National Action Committee on the Status of Women- was elevated to the status of a quasi-government ministry. The PCs were richly rewarded when these groups returned the favour by using their newfound money and status to accuse the PCs of waging a "war on women" and instruct Canadian women to vote NDP. Meanwhile, socially conservative family-values types flocked to the Reform party in droves.Happygrump said:
The same party brainiacs then put Kim Campbell at the helm, reasoning that having a women as party leader would give them impeccable "progressive" street cred. What they didn't realize, though, is that as far as "progressives" are concerned, a female conservative is merely a self-hating sellout and traitor to her gender- and they vote accordingly. Anyways, Campbell figured she'd be seen as real hip and progressive if she made some anti-religious comments in public. This didn't impress the progressives, but it did offend Catholics greatly- and the Liberals took the chance to prove that, good progressive secularists though they may be, they aren't above exploiting religious sentiment when they can get some mileage out of it.
The Liberal's recent adoption of conspiratism, whereby Harper is accused of having a "hidden agenda", in any case would totally neutralize any attempt on the part of the CP to shift leftwards. Harper could marry Peter Mackay on national TV while smoking a blunt and praising Saddam, and it would be spun as proof of his hidden ultra-rightist agenda.
The public tends to uncritically accept accusations of a "hidden agenda", and for good reason: the official right-wing party can be expected to stand for right-wing positions, and if they don't do so publicly, it seems plausible that they're hiding something. This means that the further left they go, the worse the perception of insincerity gets; the whole thing is like the political version of a Chinese finger trap, which gets tighter the harder it's pulled.
The best thing for them to do is to take a firm, open, and principled stand on some relatively inocuous social issues: gay religious marriage (not civil union), crime (OK, they do this already), weed, filth on broadcast TV (which a lot of parents of all political stripes are unhappy about).
I think I would actually pay money to see that!Truncador said:
I'm not sure I agree with this. The socially progressive wing of the party was spectaculary successful immediately after the Trudeau era. If my memory serves me correctly, it was only when the pragmatic, centrist Tories found themselves losing their power base to Manning and his Reform party in Alberta did the traditional Tories try to swing further to the right to maintain their Western base. But, in doing so, they alienated the PCs east of Manitoba (myself included), which ended up fracturing the party.Truncador said:
At least, that's how I remember it.
The catalyst which spurred the growth of the Reform Party and the decline of the Tories in Western Canada was the jet maintainance contract awarded to Montreal's Canadair despite a better bid from a Winnipeg firm. This was probably the stupidest decision made by the Mulroney government.
Harper has hit all the wrong notes since he appeared on the scene. At first glance he looked promising enough but he made a fatal error when he complained too loudly about the Liberals' failure to send troops to Iraq. Also, when Carolyn Parrish was overheard making the first of her anti-US remarks, Harper weighed in as if he was Captain America. At that point, most Canadians thought Parrish was just another live microphone victim and that Harper was being a bit too sanctimonious about it. So Harper's early impression is that of a religious, pro-American, pro-war, Westerner who probably spent way too much time hanging out with all those other crazy Stockwell Day type Reformers.Keebler Elf said:
As if that wasn't enough, Harper has also been unable to sell himself as an alternative to the Liberals. His sole contribution to Canada lately has been to drone on grimly and endlessly about adscam but to offer no clear vision of where he would take us if he was behind the wheel. Those who suspected he had a hidden agenda before could be forgiven for wondering if he has ANY agenda now, other than to highjack parliament, trying unsuccessfully to force an unnecessary election.
The socially progressive/fiscal conservative angle was indeed a smashing success in the 80s. The reason was that the Liberals were close to outright socialism in their economic policies, and even many ex-hippies, now grown up and in the business world, realized that doing something like cancelling the FTA would have been national suicide.
In the 1990s, the Liberals started doing exactly what the fiscally conservative always demanded, namely balance the books, forget protectionism, and so forth. They've become as fiscally conservative as it's possible to get without encroaching on social progressivism, by deeply cutting personal taxes, getting rid of cradle-to-grave, universalist welfarism (such as the present Health Act as it stands), and scaling back the State apparatus in general- all things that are deeply offensive to the progressive mind.
Arguably, then, the Liberals have not only usurped the fiscal con/soc-prog programme, but pushed it to its logical limits. It's interesting to note that the Liberals under Trudeau effectively ruined the NDP's chances in much the same way; it was not possible to go any further to the left without actually nationalizing all industry or outlawing monogamy. The difference is that Communism was well past its sell-by date at that time, while neo-conservatism is only just beginning to come into the sun. This leaves the CP with a choice: study the Republican revolution in the US and make a stand- one that may well fail, at least in the short term- or just fizzle out into obscurity.
In the 1990s, the Liberals started doing exactly what the fiscally conservative always demanded, namely balance the books, forget protectionism, and so forth. They've become as fiscally conservative as it's possible to get without encroaching on social progressivism, by deeply cutting personal taxes, getting rid of cradle-to-grave, universalist welfarism (such as the present Health Act as it stands), and scaling back the State apparatus in general- all things that are deeply offensive to the progressive mind.
Arguably, then, the Liberals have not only usurped the fiscal con/soc-prog programme, but pushed it to its logical limits. It's interesting to note that the Liberals under Trudeau effectively ruined the NDP's chances in much the same way; it was not possible to go any further to the left without actually nationalizing all industry or outlawing monogamy. The difference is that Communism was well past its sell-by date at that time, while neo-conservatism is only just beginning to come into the sun. This leaves the CP with a choice: study the Republican revolution in the US and make a stand- one that may well fail, at least in the short term- or just fizzle out into obscurity.
I'd prefer if there was a candidate that would maintain status quo on social issues but had a strong business background. The administration of the various governments has become a complete disaster and will become worse as the years go by. We need someone to go in there and clean house big time.
