Uh, didn't she do that pretty much as soon she joined the campaign? Not that he wasn't making a fine job of it on his own, but he needed someone to ensure that there was something in his platform for crazy, gun-loving, Bible-thumping, white people who weren't male, too.
The Aspers have apparently decided that their flagship, the National Post may be folded under an umbrella or something. It's all a bit complex to me, but has to do with the Global bankruptcy or something.
Mr. Asper heads out to pasture
Couldn't happen to a nicer paper. Really. Even if they never did get the spelling of "Nazional" quite right. The problem was that, although they tried to claim an audience, Canadians actually have a limited tolerance for right-wing, blindly-pro-Israel garbage on the editorial pages (The odd thing is that Izzy Asper, who eventually sent the paper to hell, was at one time president of a Liberal Party arm).
It cannot be co-incidence that this announcement comes immediately after this guy was killed the other night. Their sole remaining reader? We just editorialize, you decide.
Among it's dafter content, the paper published screeds defending Mark Steyn. They also publish the ramblings of a number of what are known as Blogging Tories. Such as one Mr. "Raphael Alexander" a.k.a. Adrian McNair. I honestly haven't the familiarity with Mr. Alexander that others have cultivated, but I know what I like, and most of his writing is garbage by that fickle and arbitrary standard. Although I place a caveat by his coverage of Vancouver's Great Boondoggle.
The paper's recent hagiographic coverage of the Stephen Harper New Conservative Government of Canada (for which it functions much the way that FOX Noise did for the Bush White House--as a PR organ) is unlikely to be missed. At least by a majority of Canadians.
Okay, so I'm not entirely unmoved. Whatever its manifest and grotesque failures of conscience and decency in its editorial pages, the Post was known at one time for good journalism. But the rot set in when the Aspers forbade the publication of editorials criticizing Israel. And what may die in the coming days is a shell of addled opinion and relentless conservative cheerleading that not only doesn't represent Candians, but in recent years seems to have broken with reality.
Though the paper claimed to be a free speech champion, it ended up proving that censorship for the wrong reasons rots political discourse. God rest whatever's left of its soul.
I will, however miss John Moore, the Post'stoken lib'rul.
Barb and k.morrison pointed out in the comments on the post below that the floor for receiving the home renovation tax credit is $1000, rather than $10k.
Serves me right for posting in a hurry. Also for getting my information from home reno store handouts rather than the website. So the tax credit may be of some worth. Though I personally feel a new government is a better investment.
Michael Ignatieff, that shifting mass of shapeless ego currently fronting the Liberal Party of Canada, has decided that a Loyal Opposition party should, like, oppose something the government proposes.
Harper's also been gambling that fear of triggering an election he keeps claiming no-one wants (which is true--No Tory wants an election, not with their tragic record of hubris and ham-fisted mismanagement).
And he's largely succeeded. The Liberal opposition has been confined to saying "Hey--You better not cross this line--Yeah, this one here ... Okay, but not this one ... We really mean it. Well, I guess we can live with that then ..."
At the moment, polls show the Libs and Refor--I mean, Alli--I mean "Conservatives" neck-and-neck. However, Harper knows what that means. Unless he comes up with a world-beating idea (unlike any other he or his cronies has ever managed to have), he's toast. Which is actually a pretty safe bet anyway if he continues to foul up the economy as badly as he has thus far.
Of course, Harper prefers fear to actual, y'know, ideas and stuff. He threatened that, last election, if the Libs got elected it would spell econo-disaster (while simultaneously denying that a) there was an economic crisis on already and b) that he hadn't made it worse by denying its reality). He can't use that one again, I'm guessing.
So this time he's whinging that the Liberals might turn off a tax credit for building additions onto your home. Bad news, Harpy: The credit only kicks in after $10 thousand. And how many people have ten grand to throw down for a 15% tax credit? Given the current economic non-disaster you apparently think you've presided over?
So let's have the election. Keep it clean, above the belt, and no clinching in the corners. I realize that Mr. Harper may be handicapped by those rules, but all lousy things come to an end, so I've heard.
Let's just hope it's true.
Oops--I blew it. The tax credit goes from $1000 to $10,000. We regret the error.
Speaking of Politics ... Which of Course I Never Do ...
Today is Bastille Day! Today in 1789 a group of concerned citizens stormed HM prison le Bastille Saint-Antoine. In honour of which I am having a beer.
The lesson of the Bastille is threefold: 1) Sic Semper Tyrannis The Bastille's notoriety was due to secrecy rather than based in fact. At the time of its storming, the garrison was mostly pensioned veterans, backed by 30 or so Grenadiers, and the prisoner count was seven.
However, it remained a symbol of the ruling classes, and following the storming it was appropriated as a symbol by the ruling revolutionaries, leading to lesson #2.
2) Revolutions Poison History (so does everything else) The goal of storming the Bastille had nothing to do with releasing the prisoners, until it occured to someone what a fine political gesture it might make. Instead, the concerned citizens, pragmatic pre-Marxists that they were, were attempting to apply Marx' principles a priori to the supplies of weaponry, shot, and powder inside.
In the aftermath, the prison's governor and several other of the prison staff were murdered, despite surrendering under a truce flag, and their heads cut off and paraded on pikes.
3) Political Currents Are Profitably Navigable After the Revolution, a well-connected impresario named Palloy contracted to demolish the building. As part of the demolition, he sold the rubble to souvenir hunters.
Invitations were sent to the Hornet and Wasp On condition they laid by their stings
"They might as well ask us," protested the Wasp "To fly to the ball without wings."
"I hate you," the Hornet replied "But for once what you say does seem perfectly true I'll never go stingless as long as I live, and if I get a chance, I'll sting you."
[...]
Those who stick to their principles stick to their stings, and those who have guns will take aim. But after they've stung, or after they've shot, What they never will take is the blame.
For the jolly right wing radio hosts, columnists, and pundits--They've done so much for their fellow people. However, this is no time for recriminations.
You're the elected leader of a large western democratic monarchy. Going into an election last year you said there was no economic crisis. Then you said there was, but it wasn't necessary to do anything about it. Then, having yielded ideology to reality at the insistence of the opposition you said you would have to do something about it for the good of the workin' folk. Then you bailed out international megacorps. Then you said "By the way, there's gonna be a defecit. About $30 bn worth".
So here's where we stand: Having gone from record surplus projections to (optimistic but still abysmal, and vice versa) defecit projections in four statements, this week you say "Actually, er ... It's going to be a wee bit bigger than we thought ... Um ... How does, oh, FIFTY billion dollars sound?"
Faced with calls for the resignation of your obviously grossly incompetent Minister of Finance, staring down the debt hole you gouged in our economy in the service of "Conservative" ideology, and wishing you hadn't completely spent up the surplus $30 billion you were gifted by your Liberal predecessors you:
A) Issue a mea culpa, and like any good CEO, tender your resignation. After all, your ideology claims government should behave like a business. B) Ask for a vote of confidence in the house and accept the possibility of an election. C) Take quick, decisive action by firing your finance minister and recognizing that your no-brakes free-market ideology is a failure. D) Threaten to show old videos of the Opposition leader.
Guess which one our Dear Leader, Steve Harper, picked?
May I suggest that Canada add $300 million to the defecit? That's what it costs to hold an election. And whatever it costs it'll be cheaper to put someone else in power.
The Conservative Party of Canada: Making bad ideas even worse, lying about it, and wondering why the voters don't seem engaged.
One of the common arguments used by creationists used to be "Well, where are the transitional fossils, eh?"
And they had a point at one time. It was difficult to link, for example, birds to dinosaurs, land mammals to whales, and humans to other primates. Surely if one creature morphed into another we should see some in-between forms. But for the past thirty years in particular those transitional forms have been showing up.
Unfortunately, every time a new one turns up the usual response from creationists is "Well that was a separate species, all on its own ..." Which is true. But doesn't mean what they want it to mean.
And every time a new missing link is discovered, the gaps in evolution that have traditionally had gods forced in to account for what we don't know grow a little smaller.
And so we have Ida. Ida isn't a lemur, nor an ape. And yet she seems to be both. The magnificently-well preserved fossil may ... I say may because lo it is way sciency to try and be clear about what we don't know ... Certainty is the province of creationism ... be a link between lemurs and other primates, including us.
Researchers are unsure when and where the primate group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans split from the other group of primates that includes lemurs.
"[Ida] is one of the important branching points on the evolutionary tree," Richmond said, "but it's not the only branching point."
The question is whether the discovery of yet another transitional is likely to wring some acknowledgement of the truth of evolution out of the theory's detractors. I am unlikely to hold my breath.
Anyone remember a time when a few other parties were talking about forming a union of parties to wrest the wheel of government from the singularly incapable pack of rethreaded loose screws currently steering our country into the $#17ter? And what did the Right Wing call it? Ah yes: "TREASON". That was the word they screamed shrilly from their blogtops.
What did the PM say about that effort? Ah yes:
"My friends, such an illegitimate government would be a catastrophe, for our democracy, our unity and our economy, especially at a time of global instability."
~Stephen Harper, back in the days when Coalition was a bad word.
There was talk of making common cause with "socialists" and "separatists". And now? Well I guess they're all about teh compromise, eh? A kinder, gentler sort of dictatorship. Presumably this was what they had in mind when Harper FIRST proposed such a joining.
Harper's switched positions more times than twin hookers on $5-a-shag night in a logging camp. It boils down to one thing: Stephen Harper stands for Stephen Harper, and what Stephen Harper stands for is whatever will keep Stephen Harper in power.
He sold whatever Conservative credentials he had (and he hadn't many--most of his claims of "Conservatism" were just an unrelenting love for the Reform Party's dumber positions) with the budget, in which the "Conservative" (whose friggin' thesis concluded that governments should never try to spend their way out of a recession) decided to blow the money he hadn't already tossed down the boghole in order to keep power, knowing that a majority of his opponents required at least a symbolic sop to the nationwide fear of the recession he helped spend us into.
So now conservatives hate him too. And since he didn't have a hope in hell of a majority, it's likely his bum'll be polishing a rocking chair ere long.
The NDP can't support him and maintain any credibility when they used to crap on the Liberals for voting cynically to support the government rather than trigger an election. The Bloc Quebecois runs the risk of the same if they support the guy they were willing to sign up with the Liberals to help defeat last fall.
So Mr. Harper, I direct your attention to the south, to the US, where the Republican party is crumbling like Dracula in the sunlight. Look to your future, sir. You certainly haven't been looking to the country's.
However, I'd like to put the Liberal Party and NDP on notice: We are, we must be, better than this. Better than the fear, better than the loathing of that which is different, better than the fear of change, better than fear of the future. Start showing some goddam vision, please. Quit trying to imitate the Conservatives just because they didn't suck enough to get voted out last time.
I want a party with vision, and perhaps when we come back after this messag I'll tell you what that means.
Meantime, here's an unrelated commercial. And why not? We all have to spend ourselves stupid to help this economy, right?
The Right Wing: Screwing Itself Into Irrelevance: Part One
Correction: As Joshua has pointed out in the comments, I've oviously misunderstood Mr. Graham's remarks. He clearly is advocating some level of accomodation. That said, it changes my perception very little.
This is from today's New York Times. The US Republican party is engaged in a struggle between those who, y'know, work in the real world and know what the word "compromise" means and those who feel that Der Party is not sufficiently ideologically pure, like Michael Reagan (the Gipper's kid--Not as bright as daddy was but not far behind either):
“It’s interesting that people say the right has taken over the Republican Party — but no one can say what we’ve done,” Mr. Reagan said. “We’ve been closeted for the last eight years; it’s time for the right to come out of the closet.”
The country knows exactly what's happened to your party, sir: It's become Rush Limbaugh's bitch. Like a teen hooker in the Dominican Republic.
Witness also Senator Graham:
Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.
“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”
You lost Hispanics because you're raving, foaming, anti-immigrant racists, and you lost the young because your ideas froze solid back in the Goldwater days and never thawed, even to simply keep up with history. But that's okay. Eventually, if Senator Graham and Mike Reagan have their way, the moderates will all become Democrats and the party will regain what they appear to think is its true identity.
It's time for the right to crawl back under its rock and sit out the next three decades or so while the grown-ups get on with repairing the damage. If Specter stays a Democrat (and although I'm inherently suspicious of floor-crossers I've generally liked him), and Franken finally gets the Minnesota senate seat he won (in other words if Norm Coleman stops being a douchebag--Sorry, that's like asking a snake to stop being a reptile), then the Senate belongs to the Democratic Party.
So I have a gmail account, as some of you may know. And today I went to check it, as, y'know, you do, right?
And found myself the inadvertent focus of a love triangle, or so it seems.
First off, because the address is fairly common, I get a lot of mail that seems to have been misdirected or mis-addressed to "Metr0" or "met.ro" etc. etc.
In this instance, someone named, for arguments' sake, "Johnson" at somemail dot com has apparently sent to "Rapartist34" at someothermail dot com, pictures of himself. For reasons equally unfathomable, person two has sent them to another address which closely approximates mine.
The first set, in message one, are fairly benign. A black male having dinner with a pretty woman, a couple of plain-jane pics of said black male ...
It's the next two that are ... um, interesting. It seems as though the person depicted has become very excited. It's hard to be certain it's the same guy--the camera's on the bathroom floor--but that would be the logical conclusion, no?
The third leaves absolutely no question as to exactly how excited said dude is.
So, having taken some time to think about all the permutations of why I appear to be receiving nude photos of person unknown A courtesy of person unknown B, I composed the following response:
Dear guys:
If you're going to send pictures of your dick to people, please check the address first. For all you know you could have sent this to your own mother! What would she be thinking right now?
"Mmmm ... sonny boy looks good with his boxers off ..." "My boy--hung even bigger than his daddy!" "Wait'll I tell the girls at bridge!" "I'm so glad he's found a nice boy to show his dick to ..."
Come on guys. I'm all for internet porn, but at least have some professionalism! Speaking of which--You really need to work on your camera angles. That thing looks no bigger than about six inches, and are you sure that's the impression you're trying to give here? Oh, and a word of advice: for this kind of work you really need better lighting too--Surely you can find a bathroom with track lighting somewhere? I could hardly read your tattoo.
Which was mis-spelt by the way. I'll leave it to you to figure out whether it's "My hart," "belongs," or "dady."
All the best with your future photography. To increase your public profile I've created a whole new MySpace page in your name and will faithfully post all the pics there. Since I don't know whose email to enter on registering, I'll use one for the "main" and one for the "secondary" addresses.
But don't worry. I'll make sure I get those addresses right. Which unfortunately does not guarantee that some goober won't accidentally send you his dick pics through sheer carelessness, lack of attention, and lack of consideration.
From the Doonesbury website's "Say What?" segment:
"I screwed up." -- Barack Obama, February 3, 2009
"I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it... I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet... You know I... I hope I... I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't... You just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." -- George W. Bush, August 13, 2004, when asked if he'd made any mistakes since September 11, 2001
I wish we had an Obama here. Instead, we have the Conservative Party of Canada who cling to the worst failures of their philosophy even as their incompetence makes headlines.
I think the award for "Remark Least Appropriate in Scope" goes to the anonymous commentator I heard this morning who said: "Americans have been waiting for this moment for two months."
No sir. The world has been awaiting this moment for eight years.
I have referred to the Bush years as the Kidney Stone Presidency. That stone plinks off the rim of history today and will hopefully be swiftly flushed.
If I were granted one wish it is that Obama will truly be everything Dubya wasn't: Statesmanlike, generous of spirit, and consensus-seeking for starters.
(If I were granted two wishes I would wish that every member of the Bush junta would be knocked unconscious leaving the White House, rolled up in carpets, and extraordinarily rendered to Gitmo, where they could provide historical object lessons to high school classes. But the sewer of history is, I suppose, as close to justice as we're likely to see.)
The Buffalo Beast's annual list of the 50 Most Loathesome People has been published. And guess who made the list?
Update: Turns out Metro managed an honourable mention for failing to provide the proper link. all fixed. Thanks are due to silverstar for pointing that out.
That's right: At number 43, it's YOU.
Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.
Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus’s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.
Sentence: Invaded and occupied by Canada; all military units busy overseas without enough fuel to get back.
Well while I disagree with applying this to more than the McCain/Palin voting bloc of the population, I think the sentence presents an elegant solution.
Wait a second though. If the sentence is carried out, Americans would be overwhelmed by nombre quarante:
40. Free Credit Report.com guy
Charges: OK, he’s actually French-Canadian, but he invades America’s headspace every day. It’s bad enough that we have to see this albino smurf lip-sync some ad man’s grating jingles of financial woe fifty times a day. It’s bad enough that these ditties, as calculatedly infectious as bio-weapons, bounce around our skulls like a .22 caliber bullet. But the kicker is that this culture parasite and his “band” are hawking a scam. That’s right; freecreditreport.com isn’t free—in fact, it’s 15 bucks a month after the week-long “trial period.”
Exhibit A: There is a website where you can get a free credit report: It’s called annualcreditreport.com, and it was created in compliance with an act of Congress by the three big credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Then Experian set up freecreditreport.com, and their suicide-encouraging commercials, to cultivate and benefit from public confusion.
Sentence: Powering Ween’s tour bus with a stationary bicycle.
Go read the list. It's a swipe at demagogues left and right, and those others who are too self-important to see past their own egos.
Consider me The Prisoner. I will not tell you who Number One is. However, perhaps you'd like a clue?
If you want to know why the rest of the world is scared of Americans, consider the fact that after two terms of disastrous rule by a small-minded ignoramus, 46% of us apparently thought the problem was that he wasn’t quite stupid enough.
The conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.
Oct. 7: "I think there are probably some great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as a consequence of all this panic."
Asked whether he would unequivocally rule out a deficit under his government: "Yes. ... Yesterday I think I was asked one question about whether we would run a deficit and I said, 'No.' That's my answer."
Oct. 11: "The fact of the matter is independent analysts, including the International Monetary Fund, say that Canada is not going to go into recession with the current world environment and its current set of domestic policies. We're the one country that's going to continue to show some growth."
Nov. 23: "The most recent private-sector forecasts suggest the strong possibility of a technical recession the end of this year, the beginning of next.
"I am surprised at this. I am also further surprised, more importantly, by deflationary pressure that we're seeing around the world. This is a worrying development, one of the reasons why it may well be necessary to take unprecedented fiscal stimulus."
Dec. 15: "The truth is, I've never seen such uncertainty in terms of looking forward to the future. .... I'm very worried about the Canadian economy."
Asked whether the situation could turn out to be a depression: "It could be, but I think we've learned enough about depression; we've learned enough from the 1930s to avoid some of the mistakes that caused a recession in 1929 to become a depression in the 1930s."
"Those are my principles, sir. And if you don't like them, I have others." ~Groucho Marx
Just in case a Tory supporter has made it this far without having his or her head tear itself in twain trying to reconcile the PM's messages, or is still clinging to the idea that Dear Leader is capable of talking from just the one side of his mouth:
You know, the Liberal party certainly has lied to Canadians during its years in power. But at least with them it was an abberation, something they were embarassed to be caught out at.
With the Harper Conservatives it's nothing more or less than policy.
Bring on the next election. Unles Stephen Harper steps down and provides us with an actual leader. If he really wants to do Canada a favour, I'd suggest he appoint Stockwell Day as his replacement.
Perhaps Governor-General Jean's accession to Harper is an opportunity for all parties to have a time-out.
Unfortunately I don't believe Harper will learn the lesson here. I believe he sees this as a win, even though the country loses greatly.
Mr Harper tried to get through an economic crisis sure to cost jobs by doing nothing at all, followed by a ruthless attempt to neuter the opposition parties in Parliament.
When they stood up to him, he first demonized them, using the code-loaded words "socialists" (defined as anyone left of Rupert Murdoch) and "separatists" (an accurate description of Bloc members). Though it was noticed that he used, in French, the word "severeigntiste (English: sovereigntist) for the Bloc.
Having failed to defang the grand coalition, he has run and hidden. Presumably plotting how to demonize and demoralize further, and we're drifting rudderless into what Mr. Harper lately called the worst economic crisis in seventy years.
Worse, Mr. Harper ignited the Canadian unity debate. Quebecers are furious at the broad smears against themselves and their (poorly, I feel) chosen representatives. Albertans are fulminating about the Bloc gaining influence in a government coalition that might oust their golden boy in the new year and claiming that "The West" (which doesn't seem to include BC) is being somehow marginalized--a ridiculous sentiment.
But in short, Canadians have been poorly served by Mr. Harper's hubris and lust for power at any price. The coalition was taking desperate measures, surely for their own gain, but also in support of Canada's democracy.
There are a couple of things we need to do in this country. First, encourage the parties to keep meeting--even the Conservatives should be included. This country will still need governing in six weeks, so if some compromise could be worked out, that'd be good.
Second: I feel that Stephane Dion and Stephen Harper should resign from the leadership of their parties forthwith. Harper no longer brings anything to the table but a track record of poison pills and astoundingly small-minded meaness, and Dion, though he had better ideas, was incapable of inspiring the voters to back him up. Gilles Duceppe and Jack Laytons' departures would be nice too, but are too much to hope for and not neccesary.
They've got six weeks to find interim leadership. Surely there's someone better out there?
Meantime, I'm still on the side of the coalition, and I hope the Conservatives lose the next confidence vote. But I'd feel a lot better if they saw the error of their ways and replaced Mr. Harper.
Speaking of sucking back and reloading: For a while I've felt this blog needed a bit of maintenance. But I hardly have time these days. So I'm going to work on that over the next few days. Of course we know how successful I am at that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, I declare the comment thread open for any discussion anyone might feel like raising about the current political crisis, or anything at all.
Canadian politics has a reputation for being boring. Especially with the Whamma-Bamma-Obama election taking place just south of us. But not any more!
For my non-Canuckistani Avid Fans (what are there, two of you?) let me explain: Canada had an election about six weeks ago. In violation of a law he inflicted on us at the start of his first minority government, promising fixed election dates, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pulled the trigger and precipitated us into our third election in four years. At a cost of roughly 300 million dollars. The outcome pleased nobody--the Conservative party retained a minority, the Liberals lost seats, the NDP gained a bit, and the Bloc Quebecois stayed at much the same level of support it's had since 1988 or so.
As the financial crunch deepened, Harper, facing accusations of not doing anything to blunt its impact, decided to slash ... democracy.
Briefly, Canada pays $1.95 per vote to its federal political parties. This was introduced in order to better regulate donations and donation limits. The Conservative party has a great deal of private money backing it up, as you might expect of a party clinging to the "don't-tax-corporations-or-the rich," economic policies of Reagan and Bush.
So in nothing less than a naked power grab, calculated to gut the opposition's finances, Harper decided that the way to save money in Ottawa was cut that $1.95 per vote--which would have saved about $30 million. A drop in the ocean, truly, when the auto sector is begging for billions.
Harper's supposed to be an economist. Supposed to be. Yet he introduced no stimulus measures, against the advice of any number of economists,and announced that, in utter contradiction of his own campaign promises, we might be facing a federal deficit (following his government's waste of the rainy-day surplus that successive Liberal governments had built for precisely such a contingency).
{Actually, the budget was predicted to remain balanced--based on assumptions that amounted to a Canadian astronaut discovering rubies on the moon.}
And when Harper gored the Opposition's ox he did Canada a favour. Because he woke them up.
The Liberals would have been floundering about looking for a leader for the next eighteen months or so, allowing Harper to possibly find another few folks to give him the mandate he's been claiming he got last time around.
The NDP and the Bloc would happily have continued voting with or against the government, as served their interests. But when the money gets yanked out of their hands, politicans get testy:
The Liberals, NDP, and Bloc have apparently worked out a coalition power-sharing agreement. Which could mean Harper will soon be off to his retirement ranch, presumably overlooking the oil sands his power was based on.
In response, Harper and his supporters have claimed:
1) It's some sort of dirty politics, possibly illegal.
(Side note: it's long been suspected that the last election was held to forestall the parliamentary investigations into Harper's bribe to dying MP Chuck Cadman, as well as into the Conservative Party's "in-and-out" financial chicanery.)
But let's just check the numbers: 5.5 million voters went for the Conservatives. 8.5 chose one of the opposition parties.
So a coalition clearly represents more voters than the current government.
3) It's a "back-room deal" done without an election to really affirm the will of the people.
See my argument above. But also see Harper's communication policy--"What I say goes." Harper, historically, does more governing in the back room, out of sight of the Canadian populace, than any previous PM. He's muzzled press and his own ministers both--Partly to stop them saying things that might reveal the Conservative Party for the far-right party it actually is rather than the "centrist" organ it's portrayed as by Harper's flacks. Is it any wonder that every paper save the National Post is giving in to the Schadenfreude, just a little?
But even the Post has hard words for Steven Harper! That's gotta hurt.
As to the "will of the people,"--Harper has never had more than 38% of the population behind him. And with that kind of support the Liberals traditionally would have had a majority (as he's fond of pointing out).
4) It's "unprecedented" and that the correct thing would be for the opposition parties to trigger another election no-one wants, instead.
Because, well, Harper would never do anything like, say, get together with allies and make peace for the political good of the nation.
But in fact, there's been one more situation like this--although that coalition was formed to keep government viable, rather than topple it, so that this really is unprecedented in modern memory.
Put me down as inspired. That three squabbling parties with so little in common might just snatch the pie from Harper's mouth is a beautiful thing.
In every "Lassie" episode there was the moment known as the "Y'see Timmy ..." in which the Lesson of the Day was delivered.
Y'see Stevie, some people can get together, like. They put aside their differences and do soemthing that could benefit them all. It's called compromise."
CAVEAT SCHADENFREUDE Now don't get me wrong--Having the Bloc Quebecois, a party dedicated to smashing Canada into three parts, in government makes me a little nervous. And I've never been wild about the NDP's economic policies.
But the Bloc is going to have to tread a very tight line alongside the federalist parties. And the NDP may possibly realize how disastrous some of those ideas are (not that they'd necessarily make things worse than Harper's would).
But Harper was wrong for the country, and for this time. The US just dumped his nearest ideological analogue, and had he not set up such an efficient smear machine and been facing an uninspiring opponent in Stephane Dion, Harper'd have been in his rocking chair already.
In response, Harper has given his MPs and supporters the go-ahead to use "any means necessary" to staunch the blood. But he's already lost a lot of support for his astounding hubris. Even his own party thinks he's nuts. If he manages to survive, he may look pretty good. But if the Conservatives lose government, I think we may soon see a leadership contest.
If Harper wanted me to actually admire his cojones, instead of regarding him as the bully he's always been, he'd step forward, apologize publicly to the nation for his confrontational, divisive, positively Cheneyesque governing style and offer the Liberals a power-sharing arrangement.
But that would require compromise. Something Steve Harper has never been able to manage.
There may be terrible things awaiting us under the coming Bloc Canada, or whatever we decide to call it. But it might just be fantastic.
In honour of which, here's the loverly Diana Krall, Canadienne extraordinaire--who sneers just like Mme Metro.
