After months of railing against the ‘separatists’ and ‘socialists’ bringing this country to rack and ruin by aligning with the Liberals to defeat the Conservatives, Harper is being saved from a non-confidence vote by those very same separatists & socialists. The NDP in particular (those dangerous socialists) have had a pretty easy ride in the last couple of governments by being able to vote against the government with impunity knowing the Liberals would likely end up giving grudging support to the government.

Ignatieff turned those tables around with his declaration that the Liberals would no longer support the government and in fact would bring the government down at the first opportunity. The declaration placed the Liberals back where they belonged, opposing the government instead of running scared while trying to look tough. Now Layton and/or Duceppe has to either step to the plate or we head into an election. That is the way it should be. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, parliament has reopened without a lot of pomp and circumstance. The lack of show was more due to the frigid cold than any austerity move. I’ve been in Ottawa and around the Hill this time of year, it is VERY cold there. The throne speech, written by the government and delivered by the Governor General, was relatively brief as throne speeches go.

The big news of the day wasn’t really the throne speech anyways. The bigger news is the budget that will be delivered tomorrow. Many of the details of the budget has been ‘leaked’, although when the leaking gets done by government officials and ministers, that is deliberate.

It appears there is going to be a $64billion deficit in the next two years. That is a complete 180 degree turn for the Conservatives from just two months ago when they claimed that we first of all were not going into a recession and secondly that we would not be incurring a deficit if a downturn should occur. Read the rest of this entry »

All eyes will be on Ottawa for the next few days leading up to Tuesday’s budget reading. It’s been a bit of an odd path to this budget. First we had an election that Harper called because he claimed that Parliament had become dysfunctional, which was true but largely because he and his people chose to make it so.

During that election, Harper either was blind to the fact that an economic tsunami was bearing down on the world or was deluded enough to actually believe that it would miraculously wash itself around Canada while engulfing our largest trading partner, the USA. He belittled the opposition when they spoke of the need to take immediate measures to offset the coming storm. He did note however that the stock market meltdown that was underway did provide some excellent buying opportunities. He didn’t seem to notice that those losing their shirt to create those opportunities, included Canadians.

More out of an inability of Dion to present himself as a viable alternative to Harper than anything else, Canadians, that is the 49% who decided to turn out to vote, once again gave more Conservative candidates their vote. Basically we gave what appeared to be the lessor of several evils the benefit of the doubt. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the last day of the advanced polls in our election and then next Tuesday is vote day. I’ve not been posting much on the election but have been watching very closely. I tuned into and listened closely to the English language debate last Thursday. I was glad that I did, as it is likely one of the very few times that Harper has been forced out of his ‘bubble’ in this election and it was long overdue.

Until now, Harper has managed to appear only at well staged events with only pre-registered attendees. When the press started to blow the whistle on the fact that Harper was keeping a bubble around him, and avoiding any unexpected outbursts by the electorate who have the right to answers from him, his campaign claimed that it was necessary due to security issues. Yeah right.

Anyways, back to the debates. Harper provided no surprises, he was the smug, arrogant individual he always has been. Talking around every issue put before him and beating hell out of the truth about the other leaders. He was nailed not badly a few times by the other leaders but it rolls off of people like Harper who really doesn’t care when it comes to others.

He’s not wanting to be Prime Minister to see a better Canada, he’s wanting to be PM to alter the country to his liking. For a guy who chose to call an election on a trumped up excuse, one really has to wonder why his party remains the only one which hasn’t produced a platform for the public to examine. What’s he hiding other than the fact that he really doesn’t have a plan beyond wanting to get a majority government. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, we’re two weeks into an election campaign here in Canada and so far I’ve not commented. I have some concerns about Dion as a potential Prime Minister, but I have ZERO doubts about the fact that Harper needs to go. As much as I don’t like Layton and his politics, I could live with him as the Official Opposition and Harper reduced to ‘also ran’ but that isn’t going to happen. At this point, it appears that we’ll do good if Harper manages to be kept to a minority government.

Ironically enough, some of my doubts about Dion have been quelled by Harper. See, first and foremost, Harper is a bully. Bullies often instinctively see value in their opponent that they want to flatten, quickly. Harper has been assailing Dion and his character from the moment that he was elected Liberal leader. That indicates to me, along with Dion’s unlikely win, that there is more to Dion than meets the eye. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack Layton the leader of the federal NDP party has long advocated that Canadian troops should be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan and brought home. Now he’s stated his willingness to have Canada raise the white flag for the first time in our history. Great warrior and military analyst that Taliban Jack is, he’s decreed that no international troops can win against the Taliban in that region, it is pointless to be there and our troops need to be brought home now.

His remarks were part of a speech he recently gave at the University of Ottawa. Geeze, that is the best the university can find to speak to our young people? The text of the speech is rift with lies and misrepresentations of the mission in Afghanistan which twisted his way to the conclusion that Canada should run while the running is good. Read the rest of this entry »

I spent some time today reading carefully through the report from the “Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan” chaired by John Manley, the former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister. The report on the whole seems to be in depth and well thought out. It doesn’t sugar coat the mission in Afghanistan nor is it doom and gloom. It raises some tough issues and makes some tough recommendations.

Partisan politics aside, the report lays out some obvious truths that don’t fit well in sound bites for partisan politicians.

For Dion, setting an arbitrary end to our combat role as February 2009 and then expecting our troops to focus more on training and mentoring Afghan National Army recruits just doesn’t make sense. You can’t train and mentor effectively from within the wire, you need to be able to accompany and support the raw troops on the battlefield and that means taking part in combat. You don’t train an army from a classroom. Read the rest of this entry »