Ezra Levant on Jack Layton's funeral
I didn't watch the funeral and so I can't judge it for myself, but a NDP partisan hijacking of the funeral is pretty consistent with everything else that has happened since Jack Layton's funeral.
Another interpretation of the words of Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis
Mr. Karygiannis’ response was to call Mr. Tsai and according to Mr. Tsai this is what he said:
“I don’t think he was very pleased,” Tsai said. “(Karygiannis) said, ‘ I don’t care what you guys write. It won’t affect me. And I’m glad you can write.’ He kept saying, ‘I’m glad you can write English,’” Tsai said.
Mr. Karygiannis denies having said this, but it seems like an odd thing for Mr. Tsai to make up so I am leaning towards it being true (or at least he said something close to that).
Now on the face of it this is clearly a racist slur, but I can provide a bit of context that allows for a different interpretation.
During the 2011 federal election I was living in the riding that these two men were contesting. I thus had the misfortune of becoming familiar with the campaign literature that Mr. Tsai released to the public.
It was awful, just plain awful.
It was like the pamphlets were written by someone who didn’t know what the red and green lines in a word document meant. Or maybe they thought it meant that the word was correct and so made sure that every word in the document had a line. Either way, if I was the absolute dictator of Canada I would force whoever wrote such crap to return to elementary school to review the basics. I wish I had kept one of the pamphlets so I could show you how absolutely truly bad the grammar and spelling was.
I am no perfectionist (as my long time readers know) but these pamphlets were all but unreadable.
In that context is looks like really Mr. Karygiannis was making fun of Mr. Tsai for his inexplicable inability to find a 6 year old to proof read his campaign literature during the election.
Or he could be a racist. I don’t really know, just throwing the idea out there.
(He is undoubtably an ass)
Partisan Jack
This seems to me to be an odd choice for a way to honour the life of Jack Layton through charity. The most obvious choice would have been cancer research or some cancer patient support group. If they didn’t want to make it about the thing that killed him, there are plenty of other choices. Jack Layton was suppose to care about the downtrodden, so why not ask the public to give to a women’s shelter or an organization trying to help at risk teens?
Instead we are asked to give to what is essentially a partisan organization. To be fair the only people likely to give to it are actually NDP partisans, but that just makes it feel like a cynical ploy on the part of NDP fundraisers to capitalize on the death of their leader. Yes they are not asking money for the NDP directly, but it will be the NDP that will benefit from the activities of the Broadbent Institute.
This isn’t the only oddly partisan way that Jack Layton is being recalled or honoured. The City of Toronto plans on turning the CN Tower orange on Saturday. Orange in Canadian politics has been branded to identify the NDP. So to honour Jack Layton we are going to turn an iconic symbol of Toronto into a giant advert for the NDP? As a non-supporter of the NDP this leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. (Especially when you consider that it isn’t like the City of Toronto isn’t doing anything else in memory of Jack Layton).
Now we can turn to the awkward conversation about Jack Layton’s “final note to Canadians.” Christie Blatchford has been dumped on a lot this week for having the guts to be critical of not just the letter but the reaction to his death in general. At the risk of exposing myself to similar ire, the letter reeks of partisanship.
Ms. Blatchford already pointed out the odd snipe at Harper in the words “We can restore our good name in the world.” As if we were one step away from Syria. But this is hardly the only bit of partisan hackery in the letter. Hell the letter starts off by trying to direct the conditions of the leadership race to replace him. The fact that Mr. Layton preferred in early leadership race to a later one is not really a message that all Canadians needed to hear.
The next section he encourages cancer patients to not give up hope, which is nice but then he moves on to talking directly to the intra-Parliamentary and extra-Parliamentary sections of the NDP. I suppose that is fine in principle, since it is with their support that he was able to accomplish his goals, but he managed to slip in there a resume of things that he claims as initiatives of the NDP. It just seems…well smooth.
If you think I’ve been harsh up until now, take a good look at the next two sections. He addresses messages to Quebec and youth.
Why Quebec and youth?
Seriously, why did he (and his wife and Chief of Staff) decide that those two groups deserved a specific message? Why not Toronto where he lived most his life? Why not to his own age group? Why not the West or the East or any other part of the country?
It is because Quebec and youth are recognized as being fundamental to the NDP if they want to form government. Read the letter and it not just clear but blatantly obvious that this is electioneering.
(emphasis mine)
To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.
If you read that on a fundraising letter or heard it on a stump speech you wouldn’t bat an eye. But again, this is supposed to be a final message to all Canadians.
By the time I got to the end of the letter, the first time I read it, I felt so ripped off and cynical that I dismissed his rather nice sentiment about the importance of optimism as I would if I heard it come out of any politician’s mouth: shallow sentimentality.
I think what bothers me the most about all this is the picture that all this cynical partisanship is painting of Jack Layton. I now have in my head the picture of a man who was so thoroughly a partisan hack that he tried to use his own death as a way to advance his party’s electoral success. This picture is unfair because I’m not sure how much he actually had to do with the letter and he has had nothing to do with what has happened after he died. But I never knew Jack Layton and I never knew anyone well that knew him well, and so really I have nothing to judge him by except the public image. That public image has been very partisan, especially in the days after his death.
I suspect that he was more than that. I suspect that he was much more than Partisan Jack. He was a father, a husband, and a friend to some. He was more than a vehicle for political gains and it sickens me that he is being treated that way.
We are losing the war of ideas
Evidence has come out today that the damage has been done not just among policy wonks but the general population as well. A survey conducted by Abacus Data showed that most people would support further “stimulus” spending in the event of a recession.
The federal government has promised to balance the federal budget by 2015 without raising taxes or cutting transfers to persons, including those for seniors, children and the unemployed, or cutting transfers to other levels of government that support health care and other social programs.
Which of the following statements, if either, come closest to your view? [rotate statements]
The federal government should continue with its plan to reduce the federal deficit even if the economy enters another recession: 33%
The federal government should reconsider its deficit reduction plans and focus instead on job creation and stimulating the economy if the economy enters another recession. 58%
Neither: 11%
I had never heard of Abacus Data before but I lack the technical knowledge to judge the methodology and so I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume that this survey is reasonably accurate. You can see all the details here.
I’m not surprised that the majority of people would be supportive of something where there is no strong national voice arguing against it. Organizations such as the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation are the only ones speaking out against deficit spending in Canada. But the Conservative Party has a far greater reach and pull than either of these organizations. Without the Conservative Party to make the case the debate has become entirely one sided with most of the population.
Conservatives, libertarians, or whatever…we are losing the war of ideas on this issue.
A Royal Row
Defence Minister Peter MacKay's restoration of the royal honour has not gone without comment. The MSM editorials are running overwhelming against the change. What might have been a simple nomenclature shift, a bit of symbolic reconnect with out military traditions, has highlighted the low intensity culture war that exists in modern Canada.
The modern Canadian Establishment is overwhelmingly dominated by products of the Pearson-Trudeau era reforms. The junking of the royal military monikers in 1968 was a landmark moment for this class, another important step in Canada's move away from its supposedly stuffy colonial past. To those less enamoured with the Trudeaupian project, the creation of a large and unsustainable welfare state matched with a systematic attack on this country's British heritage, these changes represented an undermining of the Canadian way of life.
While the Harper government may be faulted for many things, its spendthrift fiscal policies and weak willed economic reforms, it has had a subtle and profound impact on Canada's culture wars. Since the Pearson-Trudeau era the conservative movement has been in near constant apologetic retreat. Calls for national unity couched in the language of appeasement to Quebec nationalists, demands for fiscal moderation on the grounds of the long-run sustainability of social programs, at every step conservative values espoused in a half hearted and compromising manner.
Over the last five years we have seen a strong and full throated support for the State of Israel, outdoing even that country's historic patron, the United States. Such a policy may have picked up a few votes in Forest Hill, yet its real value has been a tremendous shift in our foreign policy. There would be no relativistic hand-wringing over Middle East policy, Israel was a free nation with a moral right to defend itself against its sworn enemies. A whole set of values was consequently brought into view: Canada should defend freedom and those who support freedom.
This may not seem a radical approach to our American readers. It would not have seemed out of place in the Canada of 1956, which welcomed thousands of refugees from the Budapest uprisings of that year. But then came Pierre Trudeau and his merry little jaunts with Fidel Castro a generation later. Freedom? That's just some people talking. Those three nights in Havana back in 1975 are so much part of the modern Canadian's mental furniture, we're friendly to Cuba and the Americans are not, that the depravity of that visit goes without much comment.
Let me state what should be obvious but has been pointedly ignored. During the Second World War, when Canada played a vital role in the defence of freedom and civilization, the wealthy and well educated Pierre Trudeau used his connections to absent himself from military service. While hundreds of thousands of Canadians volunteered to serve their country against a great evil, most of whom came from quite ordinary backgrounds, the privileged PET loafed around at Harvard. To some men such conduct might be a disgrace. In some other time and place such behaviour would have barred a man from ever holding elected office. But the Canada of the 1960s was a very different place and time indeed.
While other young men worked for a living, PET spent his youth jumping from job to job, a sometime government lawyer, occasional magazine editor and one time law professor. He was famous in certain circles for being glamorous in the relatively drab intellectual and cultural life of post-war Canada. A flash of colour in a gray landscape. Such men can be amusing but they are rarely useful, either to themselves or others. He did daring things, like visiting communist China. Had Pierre Trudeau been born in China, it is unlikely he would have survived Mao. Totalitarianism and flash do not go together.
Then there was his buddy Fidel. What a lark. Canada, one of the leading industrial democracies of the age, whose honoured dead are buried by the thousands in foreign graves, should have its leader visit the world's largest island prison camp. How very witty, how very daring wrote the columnists in the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Take that America, chortled their colleagues at CBC. Those who weep so eloquently for the poor think very little of the poor in communist countries. So Pierre and Fidel laughed and sang. In the old, stuffy Canada such behaviour would have lead to his removal from office and possibly even charges of treason. The modern Canada was not so stuffy. Freedom, after all, was just some people talking.
Gerry Nicholls has rightly pointed out that the royal return for the military is part of Prime Minister Harper's revenge against Pierre Trudeau. Disgusted with the Trudeaupian excesses he has bided his time and struck a small but powerful and symbolic blow for what we today call conservative values. Once they were not called conservative, or liberal or anything but simply Canadian values. We have taken a two generation detour from ourselves.
The Pearson-Trudeau reforms were not a natural organic evolution from colonial to nation state. Canada was already a nation state. It was one of the most successful nation states in the world. To men of moderation and modesty this success might have lead to reflection and careful adjustment. But the 1960s were an ambitious time filled with ambitious men. While ambition is a very good thing in business, science, art and engineering, it is a dangerous thing in politicians.
So these ambitious men, one rather dull and one rather colourful, went about making Canada very modern. Trudeau was well into middle age when he became Prime Minister. Mike Pearson was an old man. Age had not improved them. They went about the nation's affairs in the manner of neurotic adolescents desperately trying to gain acceptance of their peers, rather than their parents or teachers. Our role model would not be aged old Britannia, now in very sad decline. It would be the nations of the future, Red China, Soviet Russia and Castro's Cuba.
To the generation that came of age at that time, that merry band of now aged Canadian Jacobins, this was an expression of independence from the past. There is a subtle but vital difference between stepping away from the past and abandoning it. Yes we did need to assert our Canadian identity in the 1960s. That is not what actually happened then or since.
Every young nation, like every young person, needs to make such an act of assertion. We were not, however, like the young man or woman who leaves home and seeks out their own taste in art, music and friends. Rather we are were like the young man or woman who changes their name, paints and pierces themselves in a ridiculous manner and then, as if they were the first person in history to do so, proclaims their individuality. So facile a rebellion, however, is not an assertion of individuality, it is a pathetic substitute for it.
Dropping the royal honour in 1968 was just such a facile rebellion. Our younger, but clearly more mature, Commonwealth brethren in Australia have no problem with a Royal Australian Air Force and a Royal Australian Navy. They do not regard retaining their historic traditions as "abject colonialism." We are not reverting to a second-class colonial status with the restoration of the royal honour. For the first time, in a very long time, Canada is again remembering itself. We are now outgrowing the juvenile antics of the Pearson-Trudeau era.
Government grants are bad for art in Canada
Find out the answer by checking out this article written by my Volunteer colleague Peter Jaworski.
And support a new voluntary way of contributing to the art by taking a look at the crowd sourcing method of the always wonderful Lindy.
Note to CMA: the Canada Health Act is part of the problem
All options should be on the table for financing an overhaul of Canada's health system - including the possibility of user fees, the outgoing head of the nation's largest doctors' group says.
"We support the Canada Health Act. ... We believe that nobody should be denied access to meaningful health services because of their inability to pay," Dr. Jeff Turnbull, president of the Canadian Medical Association said Monday at the organization's annual general council meeting in St. John's. "Those are essential tenets." But, "I think the public would expect us to look at all options," the Ottawa doctor said.
This is interesting because, although the CMA has talked about user fees in the past, Dr. Thurnbull has always backed away from any such suggestions and I had always gotten the impression that he was solidly opposed. So it is heartening to see that he is at least open to a dialogue and is willing to “look at all options.”
The problem is that any debate or discussion on user fees would be completely abstract. Provinces are forbidden by the Canada Health Act to initiate any experiments that would allow us to find out how user fees would work in Canada. The Canada Health Act is like a cage shutting provinces off from potential policy solutions that could make universal health care sustainable in Canada.
If we really want to be serious and take a look at new funding structures for the health care system then we need to first: remove, reform, or suspend the Canada Health Act.
A patient health charter would not fix health care
The problem being that such a charter does not say how these services are to be delivered. It is frustrating as hell to see proposals like this brandied around as if they were solutions. We have already been promised better service. Putting it in a new document and calling it a charter would do nothing to accomplish the underlining goals of a universal and sustainable health care system.
Health care policy makers and the public in general have to stop goofing around and face the realities of the current system’s failings. It is not an administrative problem that can be fixed if we just become more committed to the issue or pour more money into it. The system is fundamentally unsustainable and structurally unsound.
We need to look at what works in other major industrial countries and accept the lessons of what has not worked here.
Government running out of money
The Conservative Party has screwed itself and the movement
As you may recall, the Conservatives ran in the 2008 election promising to continue a balanced budget. Shortly after the election, even while the world was in a global economic meltdown, the Conservatives still rightly and bravely refused to return to deficit. The economic update that Jim Flaherty brought in a month or so after the election confirmed the government’s commitment to a balanced budget.
Included with that economic update was a change to the party subsidy system that opposition MPs perceived would disadvantage them. They rebelled not so much against the idea of balanced budgets but to save their party coffers.
What happened next was fantastic for the Conservatives.
The public by in large despised the new coalition. Partly it was because of the inclusion of the separatists in a supporting role and partly it was the erroneous idea that Mr. Dion wanted to steal the election. For whatever the reason, the public were not behind the coalition and the Conservatives were enjoying polling numbers that they have never seen since. Mr. Dion was shortly thrown out and the coalition collapsed.
Before the coalition collapsed though, they had scrambled for an excuse to take the reigns of government that didn’t look completely self serving. They came up with the idea that the “real issue” was the government’s lack of action on the economy. Not many people really bought this, but once the coalition crisis was over the opposition parties held on to their assertion that “stimulus” was required.
It was at this point that the Conservatives had a choice. Really they had three choices:
1. They could have refused to go back into deficit and possibly fight an election (although I personally think the disorganized Liberals would have backed down).
2. They could have made the case for a balanced budget but be willing to compromise and bring in a small deficit.
3. They could have taken ownership of the “stimulus” concept and outspend the opposition’s wildest dreams.
The key difference between the third option and the other two is that it concedes that deficit spending is beneficial to the economy. Stephan Harper would not have had to look far to find arguments against this; he could have referenced his own Master’s thesis. Yet he decided to ignore his own intellectual history and embrace ideas that he would have once spat at.
We can speculate on why he did this. My personal feeling is that the coalition crisis scared the hell out of him. He simply did not want to lose power. But such speculation is beside the point. The result was that there were no federal politicians in Canada arguing against the failed Keynesian theory of “stimulating” the economy.
Flash forward to this week.
Once again Canada’s economic outlook is not so good. It isn’t nearly as bad as 2008 or 2009 but it is bad enough that Jim Flaherty is under pressure to introduce more stimulus spending. Now that they are secure with a majority government it looks as if the Conservatives are preparing to resist that pressure, but they lack any real strong arguments against the opposition.
Mr. Flaherty has said that it is more important to balance the budget and really the economy isn’t all that bad anyway. So the natural response is, “well how bad does it have to get before you stimulate?” The Conservatives want to say never, but they can’t. They have already conceded that there are times that “stimulation” is needed.
So instead of being able to debate with conservative ideas, the Conservative Party is stuck pussy footing around the issue and vaguely assuring that maybe they would stimulate if things were very bad, but well maybe not, it depends, you see, on conditions and we don’t really know what is going on, so we have to wait and see, and really we don’t want to leave the deficit for our children to pay for so we need to be very careful about more spending and…so on.
This is how the Conservatives have screwed the conservative movement and themselves. They have made it impossible for them to put forth a genuinely conservative response to the likely coming recession. They may be able to resist the pressure to spend more but they have to do so while at least pretending that it is a viable option. Thus fiscal conservatism is completely thrown out the window.
This problem will persist for years if not for decades. Every time there is an economic downturn there will be pressure to spend money trying to “stimulate.” Every time, whether in opposition or government, it will be impossible for the Conservatives to convincingly argue against it without renouncing the actions of Stephan Harper and Jim Flaherty.
So thanks to the Conservative Party of Canada, Keynes and his big spending admirers now have a death grip on Canadian fiscal policy.
We are screwed.
Tim Hudak is bad because drugs are bad (mmkay)
"I lived a pretty normal life as a kid growing up so yes, I have. It's been some time."
He lived a normal life and so of course he smoked up as a young man. It is normal…IT IS NORMAL…for people to consume this illicit drug.
This drug has been banned since 1923 and yet almost 80 years later it is still considered normal to consume it. Hell I will wager that it is far more normal than it was in the 1920s. Talk about a failure of government policy.
It also begs the question of what is the point of trying to stop people from smoking cannabis in the first place.
Watch out kids! If you smoke up that weed stick you might end up being some loser, like the leader of a major political party in Canada’s largest province (or like the President of the United States for that matter).
The pointlessness of marijuana prohibition is mind boggling.
Libertarian islands: as explained by Peter Jaworski
Check out the Seasteading Institute.
Parliament Act 1911
Samuel Begg: Passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords, 1911A century ago today, His Britannic Majesty George V gave Royal Assent to what was to be known as Parliament Act 1911.
With this act the power of the House of Lords were essentially reduced to that of suspensive veto, with the exception of a bill to extend the life of Parliament.
The leaders of the opposisition to the bill in the House of Lords and the House of Commons were the 1st Earl of Halsbury and George Wyndham respectively.
Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury PC, QC (1823-1921)
The Right Honourable George Wyndham PC (1863-1913)
A new way to fund the arts without government
Lindy is trying out a fantastic new funding model that allows fans to help fund his music. This is as opposed to the government forcing us to fund music that we don’t like. Check out this video of Lindy talking about this concept with Ezra Levant.
Please go to this website and help Lindy to create music. Don’t do it because Ezra told you to, and don’t do it because I told you to. Do it because Lindy rocks!
Here are some examples of said rocking:
Don't privatize the CBC because it sucks?
According to Ms. Taylor the consumers couldn’t possibly ever want what the CBC is selling and so they need the government to force consumers to pay for it with tax dollars. Her defense of a government owned broadcaster comes down to: we need to keep it because it sucks.
Ms. Taylor points out later that “Becoming Erica” is highly successful on iTunes. This may be so, I don’t really know. The only reason I’ve heard of the show is because I’ve seen posters for it on the side of busses. I have no idea what the show is about and I don’t know of anyone who watches it, but hey I just described about 90% of television.
Still if we are going to hold up one show as a success story I have to point something out. It is only one show and one show does not make a worthwhile network.
Ms. Taylor’s case for why the CBC is sanctified and must be protected is implied in her snide comment about other networks broadcasting American shows. Canadian programming must be protected and only the CBC can do that.
This ignores two truths:
1. The extent that CBC programming is dominated by British and, yes, American shows.
2. The fact that the other networks broadcast many successful Canadian shows, especially CTV.
I am not sure what essential Canadian culture is being protected by broadcasting Arrested Development throughout the day (does the CBC still do that?).
The reality is that the CBC is not inherently special, it is just crummy.
An Honour Restored
Time, observed a wise man, can sometimes run back. Tuesday at 9:00 AM Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced at CFB Halifax that once again we shall have a Royal Canadian Navy and a Royal Canadian Air Force. Land Force Command will again be known as the Canadian Army. The change is purely symbolic and has little impact on the administration of the Canadian military. The services' uniforms may have to be changed, but all in good time.
Let me express my delighted shock over this news. For Canadian traditionalists this is a glorious day. The National Post's editorial board rightly points out this is merely a small symbolic change, the military is still woefully underfunded. We are some way off from the glory days of the RCAF and RCN. It is unlikely that even so relatively pro-military a government as this one would countenance the commissioning of a new aircraft carrier. Our submarine fleet is still a mess. Nor is it likely that Hollywood will be making films about the RCN and RCAF any time soon.
The choir invisible of post-Pearson Canada is not happy about this change. The distinguished military historian Jack Granatstein has decried the change as "abject colonialism." It's alright professor, I don't think Minister Mackay will be declaring that the Statue of Westminster has been rescinded as well. Just the ill-conceived symbolic unification of the forces is being tossed in the ashcan.
Douglas Bland, head wonk at Queen's Defence Management program, is also not amused, fearing a revival of inter-service rivalry. Because of course that sort of thing doesn't exist now. Large bureaucracies, even necessary ones like the armed services, are prone to fighting over scarce resources, regardless of the ceremonial nomenclature. Professor Bland describes the change as "absolutely nostalgia" by veterans.
There is certainly an element of nostalgia. Most of the younger officers and servicemen and women have no memory of the pre-unified forces and likely little emotional attachment to the honour. Yet this misses the point of restoration. It is not about restoring what was so much as about preserving the future of Canada's military.
To the generation that came to the fore in the 1960s, like Bland and Granatstein, Canada was a country striving to distance itself from the imperial past. Professor Granatstein even cites incidents during the Suez Crisis in which Canadian peacekeepers were criticized for flying Union Jacks and having regimental names like Queen's Own Rifles. There is no doubt today that Canada is an free and independent country. This is not about returning to the past. Restoring the honour allows this generation of Canadians, for whom both Suez, Juno and Vimy are only names in a textbook, to reconnect with their past.
Through out history loyalty and identification with a military unit has been essential to espirit de corps. Many an old soldier, who never speaks of himself, will regale you with stories of regimental battle honours. They fought then and there. Nearly two decades after its disbanding, there is a movement to restore the old Airborne Regiment. The regiment's last commanding officer said that "they tore the heart out of me" when the unit was stood down. These symbols matter to those who served and serve now. To know that you are not alone but part of a tradition that stretch both backward and forward in time.
That is what this restored honour will give to those who serve Queen and Country today. They may claim in a small way a part of that tradition which stretches to the birth of Canada and before. Those who wear the uniform now march in the same symbolic lines as those of Vimy, Juno, the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Britain.
A very royal honour indeed.
Ron Paul, fuck that guy right?
Biggest Blog Influx Ever
With that, I'm going to shut up. There are over 60 new blogs added today (yes 60!), which means you all have a tonne of visiting to do. I will say that these new additions bring our total list to over 325 blogs, which is amazing. Simply amazing.
To all the newbies listed below, welcome aboard!
Newfoundland, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, BlogRoll
Blog of the Week on Vacation
In the meantime, stay tuned for a little later on this evening. I have a fairly large update coming, but not about the Awards nor the Blog of the Week...
Newfoundland, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, BlogRoll
Americans and Liberty
I will say it, loud and clear: the freest society on earth in 1775 was British North America, with the exception of the slave system. Anyone who was not a slave had incomparable freedom.
Jefferson wrote these words in the Declaration of Independence:The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.I can think of no more misleading political assessment uttered by any leader in the history of the United States. No words having such great impact historically in this nation were less true. No political bogeymen invoked by any political sect as “the liar of the century” ever said anything as verifiably false as these words.
Stop messing around Obama
Barrick Obama must wake up to the steady decline of America`s finances and the inevitible consequances. Stop the smoke and mirrows and actually cut spending.
The Liberal Party`s biggest ASSet
Because you know, it isn’t like things didn’t turn out badly when he was fighting a deficit and declining economy in Ontario.
Note to John Ibbitson: try paying attention to history
Mr. Ibbitson makes the case that conservatives are poised to win most of the provincial elections that will be taking place this fall. Fine, but he then concludes that this means that “the federal Conservatives have no reason to fear a united front of premiers opposing their agenda.” As if a conservative in a provincial capital would automatically be best of friends with his/her “federal cousin.”
Canadian history is ripe with examples of interparty warfare across federal-provincial boundaries. The classic example would be the constant conflict between Ontario Liberal Premier Mitchell Hepburn and Mackenzie-King, but that is merely one of the most dramatic cases. Generally provincial interests have trumped political or ideological connectivity.
At the same time there are examples of first ministers from supposedly opposing parties working together. Bill Davis was famously cooperative with Pierre Trudeau on constitutional issues. More than in any country in the world, party loyalty does not travel well across levels of government in Canada.
I suppose I can forgive Mr. Ibbitson for not knowing his history (even though he was alive in 1982 and I was not), but I don’t understand how he could have forgotten the most recent dramatic example. Throughout Conservative Stephen Harper’s first mandate he was in a constant pissing contest with Progressive Conservative Danny Williams over equalization.
How do I know this? Because I read Mr. Ibbitson’s column!
Nov 26th 2010
If Mr. Williams were to run federally, it would likely be under the banner of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the party he campaigned so vociferously against in 2008 when he was at war with Ottawa over equalization.
No, it won’t matter much for federal-provincial harmony that “conservatives” will be in power in many or most of Canada’s provincial governments. In the long term a more harmonious federalism can be achieved by the federal government stepping out of federal concerns and stop pitching province against province with transfer payments.