Hey Gilles, quit whining!

Blogging from New York and I read this...

Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe has called for the federal gov't to deliver services in Quebec only en francais and called Prime Minister Harper AND Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff "rednecks".

I love the response from Soudas:

"There are certain days in the year when Mr. Duceppe should put aside his whining, his complaining, his constantly seeing the glass as half-empty," Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas said Wednesday.

"Quebecers see the glass as being half full. Mr. Duceppe just comes across as a big whiner."

I was recently at the Montreal-Trudeau airport and the FIRST language EVERYONE spoke to me in was French.

So yeah, quit yer whinin' Gilles and let us rednecks tawk the English in Quebec will ya?

An election if necessary but not necessarily an election

Duly elected Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff wants to hold the Conservative accountable by having them meet the 45 day qualification for Employment Insurance, stimulus conditions or face defeat.

According to Ignatieff, the government must meet the following conditions:

• Provide more details about improving the employment insurance system before the House of Commons votes on budget estimates at the end of the week. The government has said it will introduce new EI proposals in the fall.
• Give more information about stimulus spending and the ballooning deficit than included in last Thursday's progress report.
• Provide clearer answers on the government's action plan to deal with Canada's medical isotopes shortage.

Details, information, and answers. Reading this it would appear that again, Michael Ignatieff stands for nothing and has a way out to avoid an election.

You know the line, "an [election] if necessary, but not necessarily an [election]".

This was the Liberals best chance and they missed it.

See you in 2010... a Space Odyssey by Iggy Stardust.

Jasmine MacDonnell, Lisa Raitt, and Fishy Plants

Blogger Steve Janke points out that, Jasmine MacDonnell, the assistant of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, is the daughter of Liberal party fundraiser Ralston MacDonnell.

Something smells fishy to me.

Just over a week ago, secret documents related to the Ministry were left behind at CTV. CTV called the party and someone picked them up with the news media ready and waiting. I remember a scenario similar to this not long ago when RCMP confiscated boxes from a Conservative party office and the media just happened to be there, ready and waiting.

Back to Jasmine... she resigned after Raitt asked Prime Minister Harper if she herself should resign, which he refused. Apparently, Jasmine was in tears.

Then only a few days later another story came to light. A tape recorder containing a conversation between Jasmine and Lisa Raitt while in Victoria back in January was then left behind at the press gallery in Ottawa months ago.

The recorder was given to Mr. Maher [of the Halifax Chronicle Herald] in February by another reporter who found it in a women’s washroom on Parliament Hill and recognized his voice on the recorder. Mr. Maher had interviewed the minister on Jan. 21.

Mr. Maher informed Ms. MacDonnell that he had the recorder and invited her to drop by his office to pick it up. She never did.

HOW CONVEEEEEENIENT.

A few questions..

1. Why the heck would Jasmine MacDonnell record a private conversation between her and her minister?

2. Why would she leave it behind in a women's washroom? She must have been listening to it or would she not have kept it in her purse/pocket?

3. Why didn't she recover it when asked by Mr. Maher at the Chronicle Herald? Did she totally forget?

3. Why would she leave secret documents behind at the CTV?

4. Why did this all come to light in the last week?

5. Why didn't the Prime Minister fire Lisa Raitt as he did with Maxime Bernier when he had secret foreign affairs documents lying around for his then girlfriend to see?

Incompetence just doesn't describe this anymore.

And I'll just state it again. Jasmine MacDonnell is the daughter of Liberal party fundraiser Ralston MacDonnell.

NDP win majority in Nova Sociala

Jeez, after reading comments in this article, you wonder how the heck they got elected?

My bets are that the PCs just didn't have the gumption, the grassroots, or any GOTV (get out the vote) going on. And all the soft-liberals shifted to the NDP.

Now, I haven't done any post-election analysis, but I think this election just shows that campaigns really DO matter--that good campaign teams, grassroots volunteers do work and last-minute desperate campaign attack ads don't make much difference against positive political momentum.

Will this bode well for the federal Conservatives? I don't know. What I do know is that having left-leaning gov'ts in the Ontario legislature does after a period of time. As long as McGuinty is Premier, there's a large group of Ontarians that will balance it out with federal Conservative MPs.

Anyway, HUGE win for the NDP in a province with a recent long history of electing minorities. It appears Nova Socialans (sic) are looking for ... what's that word? stability. but change was a big thing.

Hello Jack Layton? Are you seizing this opportunity? .. the NDP did grow massively in BC. They have a gov't in Manitoba and now Nova Scotia. Oh my guess he's still practicing his crappy Question Period rants in the hallway.

Time IS right for Grits

Globe and Mail and Metro columnist Lawrence Martin says the "time is right for Grits" to force an election.

I would have to agree. The economy and unemployment have likely reached their lowest point. The Conservatives have been mired in a mostly currently ineffective ad campaign against "duly elected" Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. The deficit misreads by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, massive bailouts for GM, and the very recent misteps by Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt--including the secret documents left behind at CTV news by her assistant, and her tape recorded conversation left behind, again, by her assistant, the possible lack of radioactive isotopes for cancer patients, AND the loss of gold at the Mint, could the news get any worse for the Conservatives. Perhaps.

Don't forget that the polls show the Conservatives in 4th place in Quebec and trailing the Liberals in Ontario. With opposition calls for dramatic EI reform and the Conservatives seemingly slightly compromising, while it's an issue no doubt, it's not an election issue.

But here's why an election isn't going to happen as Lawrence Martin speculates...

1. The economy. The last thing I think most people want, especially investors and bankers, during this time is instability.

2. Liberals need the NDP and Bloc to get enough votes in the House of Commons to force an election. The NDP have indicated they don't want to go to the polls, especially with them badly trailing the Liberals, they'd likely lose seats. The Liberals also lead the Bloc in parts of Quebec so the Bloc probably won't do any better than they are now.

3. No one wants a July or August election. In fact, this would favour the incumbant as many are away on holidays.

My bet is by October, when the House resumes, the Liberals and Bloc will assess the polling data, and if the Conservatives don't have a big enough scandal to lose confidence, we might not see an election until Spring 2010.

But by that time, the economy will likely have recovered, and the main reason to go to the polls will no longer be the issue.

Also, Michael Ignatieff will have flip flopped on so many issues that more and more people will want to know what he really stands for. And I bet that will be the next salvo of Conservative Party attack ads.

And the Liberals will have missed their chance.

Reverse Insenaty

Some people say that insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and getting the same result. But I'd say in the case of reforming the Canadian senate, it's worth it to pursue and is not insane, nor is it "insenaty", unless those opposed to any reform (Quebec) have anything to say about it. And they always do...

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2009/05/28/9600246-cp.html

OTTAWA - When it comes to Senate reform, the Harper government is applying the old adage: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

The government reintroduced for the third time Thursday legislation that would force senators to retire after serving a single, non-renewable term of eight years.

And it intends to reintroduce legislation soon that would create a process to elect senators.

"Well, here we go again," said Marjory LeBreton, the government's leader in the Senate.

Two previous attempts to impose term limits went nowhere amid objections from Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, which argued that Senate reforms require a constitutional amendment approved by at least seven provinces.

Quebec, which views the Senate as a chamber designed to protect minority rights, has been the most adamantly opposed. It has threatened to take the federal government to court if it persists in trying to unilaterally reform the upper chamber.

Some have asked my view on senate reform. I believe having a triple-e senate a key ingredient to national unity, otherwise many provinces are just colonies within the dominion. Canada has changed dramatically over the past 100 years and our current senate makeup is a relic of an old system that needs major reform. And I'll take any kind of reform, any progress to get to a triple-e, even if it's one step at a time.

This is the key issue of why I support Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

First off, we have too many senators. I propose the following, similar to the U.S. system:

- Each province gets 6 senators and each territory gets 2 for a total of 66. (Keep in mind that they have 100 senators in the U.S. (2 per state).

- Each province is divided into 6 regions (not necessarily based on population). These regions are determined by the provincial legislatures. For example, Alberta would be divided as such: Edmonton Captial Region, Calgary Region, Central, Northwest, Northeast, South.

- Three senators are up for election every six years in conjunction with a province's civic elections usually held every three years.

- Because of elections, there is no need for term limits. I believe if someone is doing a good job and continually gets elected, then there's nothing wrong with that.

- Current campaign financing laws would apply with an adjustment to the amount a campaign can spend depending upon the population of the region.

Now is that so insane?

More liberal spin on the IggyAds

In the MSM and blogosphere, Liberal pundits are trying to spin the IggyAds as personal, and aren't doing to badly of a job either, but they tried to do the same thing with Dion, and well, we know how that worked out.

So let's clear up some of that spin, shall we?

What the Liberals are spinning but what ads DON'T say is that if a Canadian lives outside the country for any given period of time, he or she is "less Canadian". I certainly wouldn't say Wayne Gretzky is less Canadian than the next person and the ads don't depict this.

The ads don't necessarily speak for themselves, but they let Michael Ignatieff do that on his own.

I don't know any Canadian currently living or having lived abroad, myself included, ever say that the country I was in, especially the U.S.A., was "my" country. It would be very arrogant for me to do so.

The ads are only backfiring mostly upon Liberals themselves? Why? Because it's simply true that Ignatieff was out of the country for 34 years and now wants to lead it. It's simply true that he said if he doesn't become prime minister that he hopes "Harvard will take him back".

So in this sense, what the Liberals are trying to deflect, Ignatieff included, is not what the ad says, but simply what HE says, and so in effect, they're not spinning the ads, but the truth about Ignatieff himself.

And I bet, it won't be the last time.

Iggy's spin on the ads

I watched Michael Ignatieff's reply to the Conservative attack ads.

He basically asked, "At any given time, there may be two million Canadian citizens living and working overseas. Is the Conservative party saying these people are less Canadian?"

Good question Mike! Well, I'm a Canadian who's worked abroad in the U.S. many times. And no, I'm certainly not less Canadian than any of my fellow citizens.

But I'd NEVER say, "What kind of an America do YOU want. ... This is your country just as much as it is mine."

And THAT'S the difference folks.

Alberta to sue criminals over health care costs

The spirit of the bill is fantastic. The Alberta gov't wants to sue criminals for any health care costs as a result of their crimes. Sounds brilliant, doesn't it?

A few questions though...

1. How many criminals are actually going to be aware that they'll have to pay these costs (likely expensive), and most importantly, will it deter them from committing crimes that cause a burden on our health care system? I doubt it.

2. Do judges have the power to determine this? Is this open for interpretation dependent upon the situation?

3. Even if a criminal is convicted, would they even actually pay a likely very high cost?

That all said, even if the money doesn't flow or if it doesn't deter, what's the harm then?

Let's say a drunk driver hurts someone badly in a crash? Would they pay directly or would their insurance company cover it? Or what if the fact he or she was drunk was in question? At that point, it would be up to the insurance adjuster in determining this. Regardless, instead of Albertan taxpayers covering unnecessary negligence, that responsibility is transferred to those that caused the problem in the first place.

Ok, more questions...

But is THAT the issue?

What if we didn't have publicly funded health care?

Would having this law even be an issue then?

Wouldn't the health insurance companies between both parties fight it out, like they do with car crashes?

Oh, but with drunk driving, they already do in regards to vehicle damage. But why not personal physical damage that taxpayers have to cover?

Do people hold back their physical injury upon someone else if they know they will be sued for health care damages? Perhaps, on a personal level. But now the gov't wants a piece!

So...

Have their been studies done on this as regards the effectiveness of such laws?

And...

What other jurisdictions have implemented this and does it work?

I love the spirit of the bill, but is it worth the trouble?

Michael Ignatieff flip-flops on June election threat

Steve Janke at Angry In The Great White North shows another Iggy flip-flop and has kept track of a growing list of such flips.

Iggy is a true Liberal. Stand for nothing and everything.