Mme Francine Lalonde députée du bloc québécois à interpeller le gouvernement canadien mercredi 28 octobre 2009 à la chambre des communes, la vidéo se trouve ici et voici les questions et les réponses obtenues:

Mme Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l’Île, BQ):

Monsieur le Président, Nathalie Morin et ses trois enfants sont retenus contre leur gré en Arabie Saoudite par un conjoint violent. Hier, le ministre des Affaires étrangères a déclaré qu’il s’agissait d’une chicane de ménage qui ne le regardait pas. Qu’on imagine le tollé si les policiers refusaient d’agir dans un cas de violence conjugale sous prétexte qu’il s’agit « d’un conflit familial privé ».

Pourquoi le ministre des Affaires étrangères refuse-t-il d’entendre les appels à l’aide de cette Québécoise violentée?

M. Deepak Obhrai (secrétaire parlementaire du ministre des Affaires étrangères, PCC):

Monsieur le Président, il s’agit d’une histoire de famille très compliquée. À cause du droit international, Mme Morin et son mari doivent trouver une solution au problème de la garde des enfants avant que ceux-ci, qui sont tous des citoyens saoudiens, puissent revenir au Canada.

Il n’y a pas que cela. Il y a deux semaines, le ministre des Affaires étrangères était en Arabie saoudite. Il y a rencontré le ministre des Affaires étrangères saoudien avec lequel il a abordé la question. Il a aussi discuté avec des représentants de la commission des droits de la personne saoudienne.

Le ministre des Affaires étrangères est très actif dans ce dossier, et nous espérons que les tribunaux régleront cette question.

Mme Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l’Île, BQ):

Monsieur le Président, le 22 septembre dernier, le conjoint de Nathalie a demandé 300 000 $ américains pour accepter le divorce, donner la garde et laisser partir Nathalie et les enfants. Quand le ministre des Affaires étrangères s’en remet à la justice saoudienne, il feint d’ignorer que Nathalie n’a jamais été mariée ni ici, ni en Arabie Saoudite, et que cette Canadienne québécoise n’a pas à payer le prix de sa liberté ni de celle de ses enfants.

Qu’attend le ministre pour agir?

M. Deepak Obhrai (secrétaire parlementaire du ministre des Affaires étrangères, PCC):

Monsieur le Président, dans le cas de Nathalie Morin, il s’agit d’une histoire de famille très compliquée. Elle doit résoudre ce problème avec son mari parce que ses enfants sont saoudiens. Il s’agit d’une question relevant du droit international auquel le Canada adhère.

Permettez-moi de me répéter. Le ministre des Affaires étrangères s’est rendu en Arabie saoudite et il a abordé le problème avec le ministre saoudien concerné ainsi qu’avec des représentants de la commission des droits de la personne. Des agents consulaires ont communiqué avec Mme Morin plus de 300 fois. Nous continuerons à être actifs dans ce dossier.

Former Premier Bill Vander Zalm speaks out against the HST at a rally besdide the Vancouver Convention Centre Saturday.
Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, Canwest News Service

The media have been circulating a story since last night that the Conservative Party intends to introduce legislation next week that would put the issue of the tax harmonization between British Columbia, Ontario, and the federal government to rest. At least in federal circles. Reuters originally released a document revealing that the Conservatives want to test the Liberal Party resolve over the HST issue.

Parliament would be asked to confirm the right of provinces to enter into such a contract with the government, and if the opposition votes it down, then the HST would die. But if the Liberals back the legislation it could be a “problematic” situation for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

“Parliament’s decision on the framework legislation will be certain and final,” according to the document. “This legislation will have the support of the Official Opposition or it will not. If it does, we expect the bill to win approval before the Christmas recess.

“If the framework legislation is rejected before Christmas, we will not revisit the issue. Not next year. Not after the next election.”

The media has cynically framed this as an ultimatum made to the Liberals in order to either have the opposition accept the legislation, or else humiliate Michael Ignatieff for being forced to take a stand on the HST. This is because Mr.Ignatieff has been confusing in his statements about the HST, referring to it as the “Harper Sales Tax”, but also promising not to repeal the tax if his party gained power.

Not so fast, says Macleans columnist Paul Wells, via his blog. The Conservatives have released a statement to their caucus, which mysteriously found it’s way forwarded to the media, saying that this move is not politically motivated:

Dear Caucus Members:

A front-page story in the Globe and Mail [the one quoted above] gives an unfortunate and inaccurate impression of our tax-harmonization framework policy.

The Government will introduce a tax-harmonization framework in order to respect provincial decision-making and to honour commitments made to Premiers McGuinty and Campbell.

Contrary to what the story implies, we are not proceeding in this manner to embarrass, box in or gain an advantage over the federal Liberals.[...]

So there you have it. The Conservatives are bringing the HST debate out into the open, but not for crass political gain, as so many pundits have surmised. This recent denial by the Conservatives is, of course, also subject to skepticism and debate.

According to the Globe and Mail article so reviled by the Conservatives in their email to “Caucus Members”, the Bloc Quebecois have signalled they would defeat the HST legislation, and since we already know where Jack Layton’s heart lies, that would leave the Liberals with the final say.

Not according to a recent article in Bloomberg today, which says that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has worked out a deal with the separatists that would allow for the legislation to pass.

“The Bloc will support the motion,” Pierre Paquette, who leads the party’s day-to-day operations in Parliament, told the press. Of course it’s purely based on self-interest, as usual. Quebec would receive financial compensation from the feds, just like Ontario and B.C. if the HST goes through. Since it already harmonized with Ottawa, it hasn’t received financial compensation.

So to those people living in Ontario and British Columbia: How do you like decisions made about your province being decided by a political party with no interest in being in Canada?

In a Vancouver Sun editorial that ran in Tuesday’s paper, Mark Milke, the research director for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, makes the case that the public subsidies upon which Canada’s political parties now rely for the majority of their funding need to be eliminated.

Those subsidies were the central plank of then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s campaign finance reform initiative, Bill C-24, that received royal assent on June 19, 2003. The bill sought to reduce the influence of big business and organized labour in Canadian politics, capping donations by groups at $1,000 and individuals at $5,000 per party, per year. It also extended regulation to leadership and nomination campaigns, which had previously been internal affairs whose rules and regulations were determined by the respective political parties. In the place of the big donations by big business and labour that Canada’s political parties had relied upon, the Chretien government created a public subsidy that was paid to parties on a per-vote basis.

The Conservative Party of Canada, with its ties to the grassroots culture of the Canadian Alliance/Reform Party not entirely extinguished, was far more successful than the more institutionally-oriented Liberals at raising money at the individual level. Perhaps sensing that weakness and an opportunity to go for the proverbial kill, the Conservatives floated the possibility of eliminating the public per-vote subsidy in last November’s economic update. The Liberals, and to a lesser extent the NDP and Bloc Quebecois, reacted like a cornered animal, sensing the existential threat posed by the proposition. In the end, the Conservatives backed off the proposition after the Liberals threatened to form a coalition between themselves, the NDP, and the Bloc Quebecois.

Yet Milke believes that the decision by the Liberals and the NDP to fight so desperately for the preservation of the public subsidy was a mistake, or at the very least, a miscalculation. “While receiving such money is in their short-term interest,” he writes, “it works against their long-term chances in Quebec, where public subsidies provide artificial life support to the separatist Bloc Quebecois.” While the Liberals have struggled to raise money under the new rules, compared to the Bloc Quebecois their fundraising efforts would make Barack Obama’s campaign team envious. Where the Liberals earned $1.96 in public subsidies for every dollar they raised privately, the Bloc Quebecois received $3.91 in public money. What galls Milke isn’t so much the figure itself – one that rises to a staggering $5.13 if the transfers from riding associations are excluded – but the fact that they use those funds, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, to campaign against Canada. The public subsidy, Milke argues, “allowed them to heavily advertise in an election, staff their party machine and lobby for Canada’s destruction — mostly at everyone else’s expense.”

There’s another way of looking at this, though. Yes, the Bloc Quebecois is devoted to the promotion of Quebec’s independence from the rest of Canada, but it is also committed to the protection of Quebec’s interests on the federal level, and in the 16 years since the party was created out of the smouldering remains of the coalition of conservatives that comprised Brian Mulroney’s two majority governments it has been the latter that has kept the Bloc the busiest. Despite its stated interest in promoting Quebec’s independence, the Bloc Quebecois has made meaningful contributions to debates over the national gun registry, same sex marriage, the war in Iraq, and other matters of national significance. Meanwhile, no Bloc MP has ever refused to take the Oath of Allegiance that is required of all of Canada’s Members of Parliament.

On a philosophical level, the presence of the Bloc Quebecois is more a testament to the vitality of Canadian democracy than a threat to it. Implicit in the many attempts to banish or marginalize the Bloc Quebecois from federal politics that have been proposed over the years is a way of thinking that is fundamentally opposed to the spirit of democracy, which encourages diverse and often conflicting voices. More dangerously, such efforts share the same attitude towards those undesirable views as those held by the architects of the Bush II administration’s push for democracy in the Middle East, where democracy was promoted only as long as the elections that resulted produced desirable – and strategically favourable – outcomes.

The Bloc Quebecois’s presence in the House of Commons isn’t an ideal situation, but a healthy democracy is supposed to be capable of managing less than ideal situations. If anything, that ability to co-exist with imperfection, to tolerate dissent, and to treat different voices without prejudice, is one of the most important tests a given democracy must pass. If nothing else, the Bloc’s presence demonstrates that Canadian democracy is alive and well.

Daniel Christopher Myles Aitken now awaits sentencing for his second conviction for murder, that of Alexander James McLean at Macaulay Point Park in Esquimalt, according to Louise Dickson.  

Mr. McLean had ‘been shot twice in the back of head on October 28, 2003,’ says the caption below a huge mug shot of the deceased.

Mr. Aitken is currently in custody for two previous convictions.

The first was one of manslaughter, in the case of Samir Shamoon, described by Dickson as ‘one of the city’s most notorious drug dealers and pimps.’

Charged originally with second degree murder in the Shamoon case, Mr. Aikten was finally found  guilty of manslaughter in the 1995 shooting death.

Earlier this year, Mr. Aitken had been found guilty of first degree murder for shooting Adan Merino outside the Chelsea apartments on View Street in Victoria, in December 2004.

I was not aware of the prior manslaughter conviction until I read about it yesterday in a long front page article by Louise Dickson in Victoria’s sensationalistic Times Colonist war-mongering rag.

In any event, I believe that this case is significant for Canada as it is likely to be cited by proponents of the death penalty in the next Canadian federal election.

Arguments will very likely be made by some of the more fanatical of Death Culture proponents in the imperialistic Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), those paranoid and ultra-reactionary candidates in favour of the reimposition of the death penalty, and they will likely cite the lamentable history of Mr. Aitken, and those of other violent recidivists like him, as justifiying such a change.

Their arguments should be refuted with vigour by the best pro-life anti-death penalty historians, jurists, philosophers and politicians in the land, and I am not one.

This huge constituency abides, however, in all Canadian political parties, with high concentrations in the left wing of the CPC (former ‘Red Tories’ in the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada), and in the right wing of the Liberal Party of Canada (like pro-life Democrats in the USA). 

Almost all of the Bloc Quebecois, and even a few members of the New Democratic Party are also known to be pro-life opponents of the death penalty’s use in Canada.

Many of these people have been influenced by the teachings of the late Polish Pope on the Death Culture, and in particular, his position on the death penalty.

While adhering to the traditional Roman Catholic teachings on life and death based in the Thomistic philosophic system, which in its turn owed so much to Arabic translations of Aristotle, Pope John Paull II called into question the need for the use of the death penalty in our time by advanced technocratic societies.

He practically admitted that most post-war secular governments in Europe had already properly and efficiently banned the death penalty, and hinted that it would be a good thing for civilization’s sake if more countries followed suite.

Now is the time for these pro-life opponents of the death penalty, and especially elected Members of Parliament and other concerned Canadians to expose the deadly philosophical links between the Conservatives’ costly unjust war-making and their desire to needlessly reimpose the death penalty in Canadian prisons,  reactionary and totalitarian terrorist policies that ape the Death Culture materialism of the Empire of the South.

Let’s not let the Canadian Death Culture Establishment use Daniel Aitken (or any other killers like him) as the poster boy for the death penalty to be brought back to Canada.

If anyone in Canada should be incarcerated for life without parole, it should definitely be Daniel Aitken.

- Gregory Paul Michael Hartnell, President

Concerned Citizens’ Coalition

[For a link to the Louise Dickson page one article in the Victoria Times Colonist on Daniel Aitken's history of crime,

please refer to the Commments section below.]

CCC

by matttbastard

Yesterday, the office of Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan released the following statement, explaining why the Harpercons were blocking the release of a Canada Firearms Centre (CAFC) performance report on the Long Gun Registry:

“Canadians don’t need another report to know that the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.”

Less than 24 hours later, veteran Parliamentary reporter Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star has linked to the report, which reveals the dirty little secret of Canada’s oh-so controversial Long Gun Registry:

It works.

Notes Delacourt:

[The registry is] spending less, attracting more registrants and police are using the registry  more — almost 4,000 times last year. Yep, that’s an argument to kill it.

Golf claps to the spineless, craven Liberal & New Democrat MPs who allowed the Harpercons to bully them into pissing on the graves of the 14 Montreal Massacre victims (and props to the Bloc for actually doing the right thing for Canada — shocking, I know).

A rundown of the twenty turncoat cowards who felt that pandering to low-information voters trumped public safety:

1. Mr. Malcolm Allen
   (Welland) NDP
2. Mr. Scott Andrews
   (Avalon) Liberal
3. Mr. Charlie Angus
   (Timmins—James Bay) NDP
4. Ms. Niki Ashton
   (Churchill) NDP
5. Mr. Larry Bagnell
   (Yukon) Liberal
6. Mr. Dennis Bevington
   (Western Arctic) NDP
7. Mr. Nathan Cullen
   (Skeena—Bulkley Valley) NDP
8. Mr. Jean-Claude D’Amours
   (Madawaska—Restigouche) Liberal
9. Mr. Wayne Easter
   (Malpeque) Liberal
10. Mr. Claude Gravelle
    (Nickel Belt) NDP
11. Mrs. Carol Hughes
    (Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing) NDP
12. Mr. Bruce Hyer
    (Thunder Bay—Superior North) NDP
13. Mr. Jim Maloway
    (Elmwood—Transcona) NDP
14. Mr. Keith Martin
    (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca) Liberal
15. Mr. John Rafferty
    (Thunder Bay—Rainy River) NDP
16. Mr. Anthony Rota
    (Nipissing—Timiskaming) Liberal
17. Mr. Todd Russell
    (Labrador) Liberal
18. Mr. Scott Simms
    (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor) Liberal
19. Mr. Peter Stoffer
    (Sackville—Eastern Shore) NDP
20. Mr. Glenn Thibeault
    (Sudbury) NDP

And a handy-dandy directory of the MPs who comprise Canada’s 40th Parliament, including contact info — so you can either thank your local MP for standing up against gun violence, or politely tell them how you feel about them flipping the bird to the women of Canada.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

The Hill Times reports. (H/T Joanne from Blue Like You)

Excerpt:

According to the recently-released EFC study, “Canadian Evangelical Voting Trends by Region, 1996-2008,” which uses a series of electoral polls by Ipsos Reid and Angus Reid Strategies, in 1996 the Evangelical support for the Liberals was 35 per cent and it has been rapidly going down to 11 per cent in the last election, as the Conservative vote rose. The Conservatives’ support from evangelical Christians peaked in 2006, with 60 per cent of the Evangelical vote and then dropped to 48 per cent in 2008. The NDP vote in 2008 was at 16 per cent among evangelicals.

Evangelicals make up about 12 per cent of Canada’s population, or four million people distributed throughout Canada and to a lesser degree in Quebec.

[...]“There are two things that are fairly important for evangelicals, as they are important to Canadians who engage in the political system. The first thing is that there’s space created for engagement; so we have identified in the paper some of the incidents where it appeared that the Liberal Party was closing down the opportunity for evangelicals to engage on equal footing with non-evangelicals in the party and we’ve also identified where the Conservative Party had opened some place for evangelicals to engage on an equal footing,” said Don Hutchinson, EFC vice-president and co-author of the report.

[...]According to this research, Catholic support for the Liberal Party has dropped 24 points since 2000. In 2006 they were as likely to vote Conservative as Liberal and by the 2008 election, they showed preference for the Conservative Party.

Joanne (who calls the Liberal leader “Iffy”) adds:

The question is less why it happened – because that is obvious, but rather why do the Liberals even bother?

Being religious usually involves having a moral compass and a set of strong values. It also means showing respect for other folks’ spiritual views.

Clearly Iffy is hardly the poster boy of unwavering commitment and sticking to principles and decisions. Furthermore, his strategists have have often shown contempt for people of faith and great delight in stirring up pseudo-scandals like Wafergate.

In other words, they are unable to walk the talk.

Michael Ignatieff appears to be an atheist. His Liberal party is anti-Christian, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-liberty and anti-prosperity. I am surprised that anyone could vote for the Liberals, or worse, the New Democrats or the Bloc Quebecois. The left in Canada is hostile to publicly-expressed authentic Christianity across the board. The left is happy to violate the rights of authentic Christians in Canada.

Related posts

• Pro-life debater shouted down at McGill University
• Pro-life debater shouted down at St. Mary’s university
• The persecution of a Catholic Bishop (at Blazing Cat Fur)
• The persecution of Rev. Stephen Boissoin (at Ezra Levant)
• The persecution of Catholic Insight magazine (at Ezra Levant)
• The persecution of Christian businessman Scott Brockie (at The Interim)

Décidément, Jean Chrétien ne se doutait certainement pas, lorsqu’il a quitté le pouvoir en 2003, que son héritage politique allait conduire ses successeurs à la tête du PLC tout droit en enfer et qu’il faciliterait du même coup l’accès au pouvoir aux conservateurs.

Mais on ne peut le blâmer : les jeux de coulisses entre les progressistes-conservateurs et les réformistes-alliancistes qui se tramaient durant les derniers mois au pouvoir  de Jean Chrétien sont passés totalement sous le radar de son flair légendaire. En effet, les cartes du jeu ont été rebrassées immédiatement après son départ et ce qui était bon pour les libéraux à l’époque où le mouvement conservateur était en pleine guerre civile l’est un peu moins  maintenant que la droite a été réunifiée. Ce qui a fait la fortune (ou plutôt, les majorités) de Jean Chrétien a mené les libéraux de Paul Martin, Stéphane Dion (et Michael Ignatieff?) vers une longue traversée du désert sur les banquettes de l’opposition.

Le plus dramatique dans cette histoire (du moins pour les libéraux), c’est que  la donne est en train de changer complètement et  pas nécessairement en faveur du parti libéral. Les conservateurs vont bientôt laisser leur marque sur les institutions politiques canadiennes et si les libéraux ne se reprennent pas rapidement en main, ils seront contraints de regarder le train passer. Exit, le «parti naturel de gouvernement», place aux conservateurs!

Natural Governing Party

Un brin alarmiste, vous dites? Pas tant que ça!

De 1896 à 1996, les Conservateurs ont occupé le pouvoir durant seulement 31 ans. La cause? Un Québec indéfectiblement libéral, ce qui assurait aux rouges un avantage d’une cinquantaine de sièges en moyenne sur leurs adversaires conservateurs. Pour accéder plus facilement au pouvoir, les conservateurs ont cru bon pencher un peu plus vers la gauche et dorloter davantage le Québec, ce qui était relativement facile avec le vide créé par le rapatriement de la constitution et la désaffection dont souffraient les libéraux. Mauvaise stratégie, qui a fait perdre aux conservateurs leur appui dans les provinces de l’Ouest. Et voilà : le Parti réformiste était né, et durant 10 ans ils ont livré une bataille sans merci au parti progressiste-conservateur.

Tout ça pour dire qu’à l’époque de Jean Chrétien, les forces de droite étaient davantage occupées à mettre leur composante sœur en échec qu’à livrer une vraie bataille aux libéraux. Or aujourd’hui ce n’est plus le cas, et l’avantage Rouge a été complètement décimé. Aujourd’hui, les Québécois appuient massivement non pas le parti libéral mais bien le Bloc québécois. Les conservateurs n’ayant jamais bénéficié de cet avantage québécois, cela ne change rien pour eux, mais les libéraux, eux, se retrouvent privés des 50 sièges que leur assuraient jadis la Belle Province.

Dans l’Ouest, les libéraux ne sont tellement plus compétitifs que dans la majorité des circonscriptions, la bataille se joue à deux entre le NPD et les conservateurs. Aujourd’hui, les libéraux peuvent prétendre à un maximum de 20 sièges à l’ouest de l’Ontario sur les 92 que compte la région. Les conservateurs? Environ 70. Voilà pour l’avantage Bleu.

Les conservateurs et les institutions

En ce qui a trait aux institutions, comme je le mentionnais, les conservateurs sont sur le point de se conférer un avantage stratégique majeur.

D’une part, le Sénat a perdu sa majorité libérale mardi dernier, lorsque la sénatrice Joan Cook a tiré sa révérence. Le 29 novembre 2010, lorsque le sénateur Peter A. Stollery prendra à son tour sa retraite, les conservateurs seront plus nombreux que les libéraux et les indépendants réunis (un Sénat conservateur minoritaire, si on peut dire), pour finalement obtenir leur majorité sénatoriale le 13 mai 2011. Si les conservateurs se maintiennent en poste jusque-là, donc, la Chambre haute leur sera acquise.

Mais l’élément le plus fondamental dans le changement des institutions, c’est à la Chambre des Communes qu’il se produira, avec le projet du gouvernement d’augmenter à 342 le nombre de sièges à la Chambre basse. Ces 34 sièges supplémentaires seront ajoutés en Ontario, en Alberta et en Colombie-Britannique. Rien de spécial là, sauf qu’il s’agit de circonscriptions rurales, disons, plus favorables aux conservateurs qu’aux libéraux. Ou du moins, le genre de circonscriptions où la lutte se fera à deux entre le NPD et le PCC, plutôt que d’éventuels fiefs libéraux comme dans les régions métropolitaines de Vancouver et Toronto.

L’héritage Chrétien

Et Jean Chrétien dans tout ça?

Il est en partie responsable de la situation actuelle. Comment? C’est lui qui a modifié les règles du financement électoral de manière à favoriser le Bloc québécois. Simple, disait-il. Tant que le Bloc dominera le Québec et que la droite sera divisée partout ailleurs, le parti libéral est assuré de remporter une majorité. En effet, Chrétien se doutait bien que sur 75 députés, jamais il n’en ferait élire plus de  la moitié, et où iraient les autres? Aux conservateurs, évidemment. Mais la stratégie s’est maintenant retournée contre les libéraux, et ce sont des députés qui font cruellement défaut aux libéraux qui se retrouvent à mordre la poussière devant des candidats bloquistes.

Quant à son autre héritage, eh bien, Jean Chrétien en a lui-même fait la démonstration au cours des dernières semaines : le grenouillage interne au PLC n’est pas une chose passée et n’était pas propre uniquement au tandem Chrétien-Martin. Après les guerres Chrétien-Turner et Chrétien-Martin, voici maintenant la guerre Chrétien-Ignatieff! Jean Chrétien est en effet très actif dans les coulisses du parti libéral et son clan de partisans – dont font notamment partie Bob Rae et Martin Cauchon – aiguise ses couteaux dans l’ombre… Essayez maintenant de convaincre la population canadienne que vous êtes prêts à diriger le pays, quand vous n’êtes pas capable de diriger votre parti!

Le temps se fait de plus en plus rare pour les libéraux. Les changements qui sont sur le point de s’opérer pourraient les confiner à l’opposition  pour encore de longues et pénibles années…

Bloc MP Jean-Yves Laforest, the party’s finance critic

The left-leaning Bloc Quebecois have what they think is a perfect solution for the Conservative government to cut the deficit: they would impose a surtax on the income of the richest 1% of Canadians, and shrink the public service. Rather than increase payroll taxes for Employment Insurance, the Bloc say the government should raise taxes on the wealthy.

They’ll be using this kind of policy plank as they head into two by-elections in Quebec in November. The party accuses the Conservatives of cutting the deficit on the backs of working Canadians, while letting banks and oil companies escape their “fair share” of taxes. Predictably, the Conservatives weren’t too enthusiastic about the idea:

Public Works Minister Christian Paradis rejected the BQ’s advice: “The Bloc wants to raise taxes. For us, this is not a road we will take. And they want to cut public-sector jobs without looking at the effect that could have. That sounds bad. It seems to me they are not thinking.”

The truth is that the Bloc Quebecois get it half-right. Increasing taxes on the rich isn’t really the best way to spur on economic growth, nor is this increase in spending in the public sector, as we’ve seen in the failures to reign in control of deficits both here and south of the border under Barack Obama. The President’s solution to the deficit in the United States was to increase taxes for the richest 5% of Americans to a 60% tax on their income, but the deficit and unemployment numbers continue to balloon to unprecedented levels. Our own deficit estimates here are $55.9 billion for fiscal 2009, but that number is becoming increasingly skeptical based on the accuracy history of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

The government should consider drastically reducing the size of the federal civil service, just as the Chretien government was forced to do in the early nineties to contend with their own massive deficits. And just as coincidentally, the government is raising Employment Insurance payroll taxes, just like the Liberals did. While cutting the civil service could be an attractive option to the Conservatives if they are able to parlay their recent polling numbers into a majority government, it’s unlikely that they’ll do anything at this junction to rock the boat.

According to the Bloc estimates, the 1% income tax raise on the wealthiest 1% of Canadians would only increase revenues by $1.5 billion a year. If anything this seems like an unnecessary grab for money from a source that wouldn’t really make a whole lot of difference in bringing down the kind of double-digit deficit numbers that Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has been predicting for a while. Restoring a percentage point to the GST, or creating an actual “luxury” consumption tax would generate more revenue, as unpopular as such a move would be.

Any kind of tax increase right now probably wouldn’t be a good idea, if the reaction from the HST in Ontario and British Columbia is any indication. Reducing the size of government seems like a worthy goal, as does reducing the deficit. But until the economy rebounds to the point where increased tax receipts make such moves possible, the government should probably be suspect of any “advice” the Bloc Quebecois offers them.

Here is the story from the Winnipeg Free Press. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Manitoba MP Joy Smith’s quest to have child sex traffickers hit with mandatory minimum sentences survived a challenge Tuesday when a Bloc Québécois amendment to her bill was defeated.

[...]The legislation creates a new offence for trafficking of people under 18 and sets five years as the mandatory minimum sentence upon conviction. The bill sets six years as the minimum sentence for trafficking minors with aggravating factors such as sexual assault.

Currently convictions of human trafficking don’t separate victims by age. The maximum sentence is 14 years (life with aggravating factors) but there is no minimum.

Smith says too many convictions under the law since it came into effect almost five years ago have seen sentences far shorter than five years.

Joy Smith is a Conservative Party MP. Here is the roll call of people who voted against protecting children from sexual predators. 46 MPs from the two socialist parties (the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrat Party) voted against the bill. The NDP is the English socialist part of Canada, and the Bloc Quebecois is the French socialist party of Canada.

Socialists receive lots of votes from criminals and are generally soft on crime, because they believe that law-abiding victims of crime are actually responsible for criminal behavior, and that criminals are the real victims of crime. That is how people on the left think. Good is evil. Evil is good. Does this remind anyone of the ACORN story?

Conservative MP introduces pro-life petition

In other news, Andrew notifies me that my favorite Canadian MP, Maurice Vellacott, has recently introduced a petition to recognize that abortion causes pain to unborn children.

Excerpt:

Liberal MP Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine) this week put forward a petition calling on the government to adopt effective animal welfare legislation because of the fact that animals feel pain and suffering.

In response, pro-life Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott noted before Parliament that preborn human children also experience pain. However, this fact is not recognized in Canadian law, which allows for legal abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

Presenting his own petition, Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin) stated, “Mr. Speaker, as a follow up to that series of petitions in respect of the pain that animals feel and in view of the fact that babies in the womb for the entire nine months feel some considerable pain caused by the abortion procedures that are used in this country, these petitioners in the country of Canada note that in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms everyone has a right to life, freedom from pain and freedom from the kind of assault fetuses experience in the womb…”

Again, the left-wing Liberal Party MP is terribly concerned about animal pain, but not concerned at all about allowing innocent unborn children to be killed. On the other hand, Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott is a solid social and fiscal conservative. He is especially active on men’s rights issues like shared parenting. He has an earned doctorate from Trinity International University in Chicago.

Only 36% of Canadians would vote for the Conservative Party if a federal election was held the next day, according to an EKOS poll conducted in late September. The votes of the other 64% of Canadians are fractured among the centre-left Liberal Party and three left-wing parties: New Democratic Party (NDP), Green, and Bloc Québécois.

The problem is our first-past-the-post or plurality voting system, in which the party that receives the most votes wins, regardless of not being the absolute majority.

An alternative voting principle is proportional representation, which is being advocated by Canadian groups for electoral reform, such as Electoral Reform Canada and Fair Vote Canada.

Our German friends went to the polls this evening in what was variously described as a “yawner,” “soporific” and “one of the dullest in living memory” in which turnout reached a record low. How low is as yet unclear: there seem to have been about four million fewer votes cast this year (depending upon the number of outstanding ballots).  That kind of drop should translate to a fall of 5-7 percent in terms of turnout, for a “lowest ever” result of around 70-72%.

(Yes kids. 70% is the lowest ever in Germany.  Let this be a lesson that there are other – and I dare I hazard the sacrilege of saying better – ways of doing democracy.)

However I would submit that this has been a crucial poll for both Germany and the world.  Suffice it to say that Germany remains, even now (especially now), the economic engine of Europe.  Their unemployment is now below even our own – the benefit of a strong social safety net built at great cost during years of boom – and the first shoots of global recovery have appeared there.  Along with France it essentially decides the direction of Europe, flail though Britain might (indeed, rightly or wrongly); it is a cornerstone of America’s Afghanistan policy, its European policy, its Iranian policy, its Russian policy… I run on.  (And could.)  But in short, this was an election of great significance to us – and not, indeed, just for foreign policy. What is happening in Germany is heading for us, too.

Background

On a basic level the political system is – was – dominated by two large parties and a number of smaller ones.  The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) are centre-right – though the name falsely implies some commitment to clericalism, more prominent in their Bavarian branch than generally.  They’re generally the party of rural areas, the country, and the south of Germany, especially Bavaria.  The Social Democrats (SDP) are centre-left – the party of the unions, workers, cities, especially in the north.  They have between them provided every Chancellor in modern German history.

In addition there are the Free Democrats (FDP, known colloquially as the ‘Liberals’), re-established along with the SDP and CDU/CSU at the refounding of the Republic.  They’re just that: though what we would call relatively “progressive,” as with most modern classical liberals  – sounds weird, especially as in America we term it “libertarian” – what the FDP really cares about is economics and driving government out of business.  As such it’s slightly socially moderating to either the SDP or the CDU/CSU, but economically quite radical.  Wealthier, college-educated urban Republicans would be quite at home here, and the FDP appeals to an educated, wealthy urban/suburban demographic.

Unlike other democracies (and totally unlike the US) Germany does not allow a leader to have less than the total support of Parliament, called Bundestag; that means no minority governments as in Canada.  Throughout most of modern German history neither major party could gain a majority in parliament.  This meant not only that the FDP always chose who governed, but assured that they were almost always in government.  Though they were always the bridesmaid and never the bride, this made them relatively impervious to shifts in the electorate or their own vote totals.  Vice-Chancellor Genscher thus served in that role for twenty years and was continuously in government for twenty-five years under three chancellors.  Neither party cared much for them, but there was rarely a way around them.

But in the 1980s two other forces have appeared.  The first were the Greens (known as Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, or Alliance ‘90/The Greens, after the coalition between Western and Eastern parties formed after the fall of the Berlin Wall).  Starting slowly the Greens eventually shucked off their origins as a protest party and became willing to join a government (perhaps reflecting their growth from a niche environmentalist party to the favored outlet of the wealthy, urban left).  This was a major development: for the first time a government could be formed without the free-market FDP, making a socially leftist government possible.  It also tipped the subtle balance of German politics; given the unlikelihood of the Greens’ siding with the conservative Christian Democrats, it had the effect of opening up possibilities for the Social Democrats while driving the FDP even further into the CDU’s arms, as for the first time they faced opposition without them.

Reunification brought with it a new party.  First called the Party of Democratic Socialism, then combined with a coalition of ex-SDP members, the Left is a motley crew of ex-East German communists, far-left anti-communist reformers, disaffected Greens and Social Democrats, frustrated workers and welfare recipients.  It is the first quality that has made them anathema to the rest of German politics: initially it met with a cordon sanitaire of the type deployed in the Netherlands, Belgium and France to stop extremist parties from joining government.  At first it didn’t matter: the Left was a small party focused mainly in the East, so drawing fairly equally from potential CDU/CSU and SDP voters, and for the first decade of its existence it struggled both to repudiate communism and connect with the electorate.

Change is rarely spare

That changed in 2005.  The economic reforms of SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder managed to trigger a Bangkok dilemma: his actions were considered unacceptable to leftists and insufficient to rightists.  The Greens, in power for the first time since 1998, occupied only three or four non-economic ministries and provided little resistance.  In 2005 the SPD-Green alliance rallied on the back of the personal unpopularity of Angela Merkel, then CDU/CSU leader; but it was to no avail.  The government lost its majority.

Left leaders Oskar Lafontaine (above) and Gregor Gysi (below). Guess who was a Communist

But the CDU/CSU did not gain one.  Indeed they lost nearly as many seats as did the SPD.  The big winner was the Left party, now co-headed by a high-profile SPD defector, Oskar Lafontaine.  Lafontaine and others balked at Schröder’s reforms, which were seen to be uncompassionate, excessively pro-business and – worst of all – Anglo-American.  From a low of just two seats in 2002 the Left gained 54.  This is basically because the German system, mixed-member proportional, makes big changes between major parties require big changes in the overall vote.  This rarely happens, and a government has a majority of only 20-40, including coalition partners.

Drive a wedge of 54 into that – 54 members of Parliament that no one will have and that consequently will vote against anyone – and you have a problem.  Germany had that problem.  No coalition of two parties gained a majority.  Of the many options only one was plausible: a “grand coalition” of both CDU/CSU and SDP.

How can two opposed parties work together?  Tenderly.  Schröder had to go – and go he did – and in his place were Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, formerly his second-in-command.  Steinmeier was a politician with limited public exposure, first as head of Schröder’s private office and then as Foreign Minister, and despite an even split of ministries between the grand partners it was Merkel who gained credit for being public-spirited and a “safe pair of hands.”

Despite predictions they survived the entirety of their four year term.  But predictably Merkel and the CDU/CSU entered the election with a big lead over the SPD.  The entirety of the election campaign did nothing to dent that lead.

Yesterday and what it means

The results are contained here.  (Don’t laugh, Wikipedia is filled with elections nerds, and unlike so many national election bodies writes with an eye to general clarity.)

The traditional CDU/CSU-FDP coalition “won.”  But this was on a very small increase in seats (13) for the CDU/CSU (and a drop in votes).  These were mostly “overhang seats,” a German quirk which basically awards bonus seats because an opponent wins more individual seats than their party vote would allow.  This benefits the two major parties, as they win most of these single-member seats on the basis of strong regional and local support.  (It makes its last appearance this year – German courts ordered it quashed by 2011.) The SDP lost a record 76 seats and came an anemic second.  Here’s the kicker, though: both major parties had their worst result ever.  Only a bare majority of Germans voted for both parties of government combined.

The FDP surged to 93 seats (the CDU/CSU had 239), which means their partners will contribute some 30% of the coalition’s total, a number unprecedented in Germany and indeed most modern parliamentary democracies).  This was the greatest night in their history.  Their success has been so profound that they are actually within striking distance of being Germany’s second party – an unheard-of development.

Both the Greens and the Left also had the best nights in their history.  Though they maintained only their single constituency seat, in urban Berlin, the Greens surged over the 10% mark for the first time to take 68 seats.  The Left did better still – they surged to 13 constituency seats, including a majority of those in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, and rose to 76 total.  Only the success of the FDP prevented the Left from forcing the two main parties back into grand coalition.  For the first time, the three opposition parties’ total votes and seats outnumbered either of the two parties of government.

It can’t be surprising that the collapse of the SDP aided both the Greens and the Left – despite leadership under leader Steinmeier which, if not stentorian, was not at all disastrous.  The SDP is at serious, even terminal risk of becoming merely a pan-German leftist fraction, splitting their traditional voters with the Greens in the West and the Left in the East.  There is no love lost between the two, especially as the Left is (bizarrely) depriving the Greens of some of their anti-establishment luster.

FDP leader Guido Westerwelle, who hopefully didn't drink it all in one go

But Merkel must be said to have lost, too.  Her majority comes from the FDP’s success and they will not fail to let her know it.  Worse, whereas the grand coalition allowed her to govern “above politics” while avoiding any difficult questions – with the SPD’s tacit consent – the FDP have become unashamedly radical in their economics and their opposition to green politics, and they will push Merkel in their direction.  She cannot simply shrug, as she did with the SPD, and agree that the differences are irreconcilable for the sake of the government.  (Hence the suggestion that she actually preferred the prospect of a new grand coalition.)  The FDP will take their ball and go home if she doesn’t give them almost everything they want, and it’s likely she’ll do just that.  The consequence of not doing so is implicit in this interview, where the FDP leader tries to put down fears about a “centre-right” government: this “party of all people” is perfectly capable of making a government itself one day, especially if they continue to shine in the face of a taciturn, unhelpful Christian Democrat majority.  “We wanted reform – our own allies betrayed us,” etc.

Clearly people are fed up in general, and there is a sense that the financial crisis has revealed that the traditional manner of doing business – by whomever – has failed.  All three smaller parties were fired up; anyone in government is meanwhile seen to be tainted.  This is a trend that has been growing and escalating as the post-9/11 world has taken shape.  It will continue to do, especially if the far right-wing National Democratic Party – neo-Nazis in all but name, handicapped only by being run through with agents of the security services – manages to begin making an impact.  So far, though, Germans are far more ready to cast a ballot for ex-communists than neo-fascists.

Elsewhere

These trends: the decline and fragmentation of major parties; surge in support for parties with more hardened, philosophically coherent (and so inflexible) beliefs on the fringes of the political spectrum; and an increased tempo of attacks by the mainstream against that fringe which has the effect merely of eroding further their own popularity; they don’t exist in Germany alone.  Britain, France, and the US face similar problems and have electorates of similar prosperity and more similarity of mind than many think.  They may not vote for the same things, but all follow the same cues.

British National Party rally (Sentinel)

In the UK all three parties have been hurt by the financial crisis and the related row over MPs’ expenses.  As in Germany, the collapse of the primary center-left party has not unlocked a surge for the center-right: people want Labour out but they don’t want the Tories in.  In the meantime disaffection with the political system and calls for reform are reaching a fever pitch.

A brief surge in the popularity of independents and other parties seems to be abating, but then there are established fringe forces to turn to: the conservative anti-European UKIP, the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, and the ultra right-wing BNP.  As yet there isn’t really a well-organized leftist force along those lines, partly because of the defeat of the unions by the Conservatives and the Trotskyists by Labour coupled with the presence of two established, mainstream left parties who can exchange votes between them.

Strangely in a solely first past the post system, like the UK or US, you seem to get more minor and fringe parties than you ever do in a country that actually lets them win.

Villepin (left) and Sarkozy (right) - as it were

In France personality politics seem to count for more than ideologies (and really, Gaullism’s less an ideology than a state of being), but the success of the National Front – they made it to the second-round of the French presidential election in 2002, which saw Jacques Chirac re-elected with 82% by a coalition of mainline conservatives and leftists of all stripes who encouraged a vote for “the crook, not the fascist.”  Though the rare and unexpected success was not repeated two years ago, terrible splits rage through the political class as the Socialists continue to gleefully tear each other apart and the entire ruling class of the governing UMP is embroiled in the Clearstream trial (or, put so much more delicately in its native italics, L’Affair Clearstream).  Clearstream sees the President of the Republic, Nicholas Sarkozy, suing the last Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, for allegedly falsifying a document listing Sarkozy as the recipient of a defense kickback.

Such behavior obviously makes off-the-grid candidates like young Communist leader Olivier Besancenot and perennial Franco-German Green Daniel Cohn-Bendit more palatable to the general public. Interestingly 2007 saw a moderate force appear and challenge the two main parties for the presidency, the Democratic Movement under Francois Bayrou; but after failing to endorse either remaining contender and disappointing results in parliamentary and European polls it looks to fizzle.  People can say what they will – nobody votes for a moderate party.

Canada faces an even more daunting prospect.  Unable to form a majority government after three elections in four years, with another looming, the Parliament split between the center-left Liberals and center-right Conservatives is further cleaved by the increasingly left-wing New Democrats and the Quebecois sovereigntist Bloc.  Add atop that a Green Party which polls 10% but doesn’t win a seat and you have a centre-right, and at times quite right-wing, government for whom only about 35% cast a ballot, against left wing votes of something like 52% (and a further 10% who would prefer not to vote in Canada at all).  The continuing inability of Ottawa to form a government is really a consequence of the annihilation of the Progressive Conservatives at the 1993 election, masked for eleven years by outsize Liberal majorities drawn from the resulting chaos.

There’s little prospect of a similar fate for either the new Conservative government or the Liberal opposition – though one might take the selection of a philosopher as their leader to be a sign of some despair – but a snap election today would probably ratify that of the last two polls.  This is no “message” from the people, besides that they don’t much care for anyone they have and don’t think it’s worth voting for anybody they don’t.  Quebec, lacking a separatist majority, is so divided between the mainstream parties that it returns almost uniformly separatist members who wouldn’t take part in any government (despite a half-baked attempt to replace the Tories with a Liberal/NDP coalition with Bloc support, which triggered an extraordinary dissolution of Parliament and a change in the Liberal leadership.

And then there’s the USA.  Our situation is a bit different because of the overwhelming difficulty of altering the basic structure of our government (which assures it’s only been done once or twice, and then relatively minor changes); the non-parliamentary system of government which makes it more difficult to logically tie a Congress together with a government; and the non-ideological political parties.  Make no mistake: Democrats are liberal and Republicans conservative out of convenience.  History is littered with liberal Republicans (and continues to be clogged with conservative Democrats).  Our parties are first and foremost regionalist.

But indeed all of these factors coalesce to make the situation worst of all the others.  Our ossified political system, reflective of an age in which travel, communication and authority were totally different, practically breeds disaffected.  A high rate of abstention is one way.  Another is the recent spate of specifically ideological “independent” (of what?) movements.  Ross Perot and Reform and Ron Paul come to mind most prominently. (But not Ralph Nader; his relationship with the Greens was uncertain at best.)

Ron Paul - a new force in politics, like him or lump him

The American system – for reasons totally alien to its practice – tends to suppress most of these movements.  That’s the effect of the primary system: force dissident candidates to fight intraparty elections rather than stand independently or found a new party entirely.  Like most of the progressive reforms of the early 1900s, primaries have had unexpected and almost totally anti-democratic side effects.  (Thanks for that, WJB.  Where was that cross of gold again?)  Not for nothing are the British Conservatives, riven themselves with internal dissent and still broadly unpopular, adopting the primary for their own candidates.

The object then becomes not the creation of new parties but the “capture” of existing ones.  The Democrats and Republicans are subject to an unending series of political, ideological and personal coups as different factions with different priorities attempt to seize control of the party – and through them government – via favored candidates.  (Hence the otherwise inexplicable vitriol on the liberal wing of the party towards Hillary Clinton, not usually thought to be a McCarthyite herself.)  Even these movements are often as geographic or personal as ideological – Nancy Pelosi has ensured the placement of liberal, Californian allies at the head of a number of key committees, even ousting and replacing John Dingell (Michigan – Ann Arbor and Detroit Suburbs) on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

But even this broad, non-ideological two-party consensus – encompassing a space which would otherwise be occupied by five or more parties were they ideologically- or geographically-based – has come under increasing strain.  Progressive Democrats are having a harder time governing with conservative Southerners now than at any time since civil rights and the phenomenon of Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber and other populist figures have driven a deep, festering wedge into the Republican ranks.

In some respects this year really has been an extraordinary one.  All of that plus the suggestion by a sitting governor that perhaps secession was legit after all and the inexplicable running battles over health care and climate (60% of the Congress is Democratic, yes?) and it’s no surprise that there’s a bumper crop of independents getting a lot of earlier exposure.

America’s a weird case.  In almost any other country I would say that both parties here are headed for a thumping (and both generally perform poorly in a generic ballot).  But the Constitution was not designed for parties and did not lend us a system that manages the inevitable ones well; and the two major parties have had decades – indeed centuries – to craft everything to their advantage and build up structures necessary to blunt even the best-funded challengers.  (We were speaking of Ross Perot.)  It also hurts that there are little in the way of central party structures; parties are not national affairs as in Europe because America is not a metropolitan country, with a clear center and periphery.  The people – political leaders, staffers, fundraisers – necessary, able and willing to craft any sincere challenge to the political center are not concentrated if they exist at all, and the ideological confrontation required for pieces of one party or the other to collectively defect simply isn’t there.  Animus, even hatred, has not yet translated into intolerance.  Part of that is because American politics is an older man’s game than most.  They are simply not as passionate, or hot-headed, depending on your view.

The party system we have will not last forever; but I can say that only in an abstract historical sense.  It could go on for a hundred years or a thousand or ten or through the day after tomorrow.  I don’t know.  There are signs that it’s corroding, and badly, in a way incomparable to the past – but this isn’t quite unique yet.  I am certain, if nothing else, that discontent with American politics will only continue to grow while the two parties continue their singular dominance of the country.  Don’t be fooled by good turnout recently (and ours still isn’t very good); it’s the break in the fever that foreshadows a renewed attack of the virus.

The bottom line is that it appears, at least to me, that the consensus built after World War II – not ideological, for that departed long ago, but the basic structure of how Western countries allow themselves to be governed – is breaking down.  Record losses for major parties, record gains for minor ones, fringe candidates with growing bankrolls and calls, even here, for broad-based electoral reform.  This evinces an entire hemisphere of people unsatisfied with their legacy.

The common thread seems to be a belief that the major political groups, the parties of government, have sacrificed a coherent, rigorous system of beliefs for the possibility of a vague electoral mandate.  Those parties and figures who reject that path, and prefer to offer an honest explication of their ideology, have begun to surge instead.  (Though in Europe and Canada more than here.)  If the parties of government are going to continue to be that in the future, the horror of triangulation and microtargeting will have to give way.  Ideology must be on offer; not just “real beliefs” or “convictions” coupled with vague platitudes about a stronger future but systems of seeing the world, the civil society, politics and the place of government in them.

Otherwise it will be extremists, unafraid to bare to the world their vision for it, who will benefit. For in a democracy ideological battles are no different than electoral ones: in the end it’s a matter of who chooses to show up.

The expectation of election has been upon us for some time now, and out of the media had come (and fled) the assertion that an election was inevitable this week.  This seemed all but certain from the television and radio press in the final days before the resumption of parliament.  Of course, with the unlikely pairing of the Bloc and the Conservatives, parliament will chug along for some time yet.  The NDP have pitched in as well, supporting the conservatives on unemployment insurance reform, heretofore a Liberal demand.

Not too long ago, the Conservatives railed against the Liberals for agreeing to form a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, and now they govern with the support of the NDP and the Bloc.  Not too long ago, the NDP slammed the Liberals for supporting (or abstaining from voting on) the Conservatives agenda.  Now the most salient and key plank in their platform is a borrowed Liberal demand, and they actively vote for the Conservative agenda.  The Liberals keep threatening a non confidence motion, a move that Canadians on the whole will likely not be supportive of.

The Conservatives continue the new-style politics of unleashing legislation on television, not in Parliament, and controlling the spin, leaving opposition playing catch-up.  For example, look no farther than Harper’s most recent visit to New Brunswick to provide his update on stimulus spending.  New Brunswick gets too few visitors not on their way to Nova Scotia but this is hardly a professional way to conduct parliament.

It’s getting to be all too much of a circus and it is a pathetic way to treat the Canadian public.  A recent quote in the Globe and Mail from a former Harper advisor illustrates the level of respect for the intellect of the Canadian public endemic to these people:

“It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be plausible…”

Tom Flanagan, University of Calgary Political Scientist, former Harper adviser.

Politics is, at present, about nothing more than the survival and growth of the party seats, at any cost, including the truth.

We’re not paying these people for theatre, we’re paying them to run the country.  Since their acting is transparent to all but the most fawning of the party sycophants, perhaps they could try consensus and concession for a change.  Let us judge their capabilities and have an election in due time.  We’re Canadian, we’ll reward those who act in a manner we see as congruent with our values.  Right now, there isn’t much to choose from.

If my theory is correct, then all the parties might stand to lose seats in Quebec, where Duceppe is willing to work for and support legislation on a case by case basis for the ridings his party represents.

What a concept.

Je suis peut-être un peu en retard sur celle-là mais…regardez cette mauvaise publicité du Bloc Québécois que j’ai trouvé dans le journal de ce matin…

Source: presentpourlequebec.org

Quossé ça??????? On commence à rabaisser les autres pour remonter son estime de soi maintenant du côté du Bloc Québécois??? En plus, la publicité démontre tout ce qui est directement lié aux partis adverses dans la course: le visage des chefs et leur couleur… Où voit-on le logo du Bloc Québécois dans cette pub???? Nulle part??? Et bien! Duceppe est confiant… Je me demande si cette publicité sera affichée dans le Canada anglais?? Ah oui! En passant, Jack Layton (NPD) est également dans la course… En résumé, une publicité inefficace et vide qui nous en apprend plus sur les partis adverses que celui qui a payé la facture de conception! Pathétique!!!