April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Politics

Howard Hampton: Soon to be former ONT NDP Leader

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hh_thumbnailTodays Star has a good article on Howard Hampton the soon to be former Ont. NDP leader. Hampton never did get the chance to shine, stifled as he was by the shadow of Bob Rae. A shadow which even a move by Rae to the Liberals has not lifted. Ironically Hampton and Rae were not allies during the Rae administration. The Neo-Con climate of profit and business before people was also not conducive to Hampton’s message of fighting poverty and social responsibility.

Hampton, according to the Star article, gets under McGuinty’s skin and that alone is endearing. Having campaigned originally on a message of change, McGuinty has done precious little to change the circumstances of the most vulnerable in the province.

I hope that the next NDP leader will take up the fight for social responsibility recognizing that a society is only as strong and as healthy as the weakest of its members.

Who wants to be USA North?

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I’m wondering who is behind the polling questions on the latest Angus Reid poll. Most deal with questions of confidence around the parties and leaders and whether you support coalition. There was also this question among the mix;

Which of these political systems do you think would be best for Canada?
Please select one response only.

    A presidential system, with an executive branch that is separate from the legislature
    The current parliamentary system, with the prime minister and cabinet exercising power
    A semi-presidential system, with a president in charge of foreign policy and a prime minister in charge of domestic policy
    Not sure

A Presidential or Semi-Presidential system? Wonder who’s looking into garnering support for that?

Dec. 6th. Ring a Bell?

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If it wasn’t already obvious who is behind the Rally for Canada campaign it is made clear that they are dimwitted Cons by their choice of day to rally.

December 6…come on now think hard…no not coming up with anything? Well hardly surprising from the supporters of a party seeking to revoke abortion rights, seeking to revoke equal pay for work of equal value, who see daycare as licked with a taxable 1200 a year –don’t spend that all in one place now!–

Apparently the Cons don’t feel the need to pay respect to the women killed that day or the many many victims of violence since. One can only hope that the negativity and noise from the Con wankfests don’t disrupt any memorials being held.

Thanks for once again showing why you will never ever get my vote.

Beware the Evils of LSD

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Liberals, Socialist and Disjoiners (Separatists)

Sensations and feelings change much more dramatically than the physical signs. The user may feel several different emotions at once or swing rapidly from one emotion to another. Sense of time and self changes. Sensations may seem to “cross over,” giving the one the feeling of unity and seeing democracy in action. These changes can be frightening and can cause panic among Conservative members.

HE WHO MUST BE OBEYED, fearful of losing his tenuous grip on the brass ring, has resorted to the silliest and shallowest of political manoeuvres – the scare tactic.

A missive to Conservative supporters reads;

“As you read this letter, the Liberals are holding secret negotiations with the socialist NDP and the separatist Bloc Quebecois to overturn the wishes of Canadian voters and take power,

Though he himself was involved in trying to wrest power from the government of the day jointly with gasp Socialists and Separatists [read Alison on this]

“respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders”

Yet he now maintains that such an avenue thwarts democracy. That’s rich coming from a man and a party whose ideology is the antithesis of democracy.

COAL for Christmas

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Little Stevie has been very naughty. Going around thinking he is special, breaking things he sees no value in — like democracy — and generally not playing well with others.

Traditionally Santa brings such children coal for Christmas. I think this year should be no exception, Harper deserves a coal [ition government] and while that is punishment for him it will be a grand gift for the rest of us.

The last few years have been very depressing watching the opposition waste opportunity after opportunity bowing to the manipulations and machinations of a party for whom ideology trumps all. Duceppe put it best;

What the Conservative government presented today was not an economic statement but an ideological statement. This ideology so blinds the government that it fails to see how urgent it is to act.

Instead of presenting a plan to help the economy recover and breathe some air into it, the Prime Minister has chosen to smother it. . . The Prime Minister has preferred ideology to economics. He has placed partisanship above democracy.

Despite the surpluses accumulated over 10 years, the Conservative government not only refused to present its plan, to provide relief, it consciously chose to stifle the economy to advance its outdated ideology on the reduction of government.

Naturally, we are prepared to cut our salaries and to reduce growth of expenditures by the government bureaucracy. But the purpose of these savings should not be to reduce government in order to avoid a one-time deficit, but to support the economy, to support the people.

The government has decided to take advantage of the crisis to attack the rights of women and workers. The government is proposing to suspend public servants’ right to strike. It has decided to attack women’s rights by submitting their right to pay equity to negotiation. Since when are rights negotiable? It is scandalous. We will never accept such an attack by the government on women’s and workers’ rights. We will never allow it.

Not content with putting ideology before the economy, not content with attacking workers, women, and Quebec, the Prime Minister is adding insult to injury by putting his own extreme partisanship before democracy. When speaking on December 8, 2005 about reforming the financing of political parties, the Prime Minister said:

“These measures are directly inspired by reforms introduced by René Lévesque 30 years ago, reforms of which all Quebeckers can be very proud. Quebec has led the way in electoral reform.”

By announcing his intention to eliminate public funding of political parties, the Prime Minister is betraying the memory of René Lévesque. Public funding was at the heart of René Lévesque’s reform. This desire to slash funding is a direct attack on democracy. Using the economic crisis as an excuse and under the pretense of saving $30 million, the Conservative government has shown the world the extent of its hypocrisy.

Hardly a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister called an election for strictly partisan reasons. He spent $300 million, ten times more than what he is trying to save by eliminating political party funding. What will the Prime Minister announce next in the upcoming budget? Does he plan to shut down Parliament to save $500 million?

The Prime Minister has manufactured a democratic crisis, simply to give himself a partisan advantage, because this government’s goal is to silence all forms of opposition: silence artists, silence women, silence unions and silence the opposition.

The latest rumour is that Harper has taken a step back and will reverse the decision to end the public financing of all parties.

Giorno, Harper’s Chief of Staff, has released a memo with such gems as;

* We’re not even two months removed from the last election, and a group of backroom politicians are going to pick who the Prime Minister is. Canadians didn’t vote for this person. We don’t even know who this person will be.

Oh Noes!!! we don’t know who it will be. How can we start smearing them?

* Not a single voter voted for a Liberal-NDP coalition. Certainly not a single voter voted for the Liberals to form a coalition with the separatists in the Bloc.

Actually the PR vote went more to a coalition than to the CONs

* This is what bothers me the most. The Conservatives won the election. The Opposition keeps saying that the Conservatives have to respect the will of the voters that this is a minority and so on.
* …how about Liberals, NDP and Bloc respecting the will of the voters when they said “YOU LOSE”.

YOU LOSE!? HAW HAW You’re rubber I’m glue… This is the best a government that thinks they were born from gods right nut can do?

* And what’s this going to do to the economy. I’m sorry, I don’t care how desperate the Liberals are — giving socialists (Jack Layton) and separatists (Gilles Duceppe) a veto over every decision in government — that is a recipe for total economic disaster.

SOCIALISTS RUN!!! HIDE!!! LOOK UNDER THE BED. Oh hai Sarah

* But how more phony could these guys be?

Yours? Geez I don’t know I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of them yet

* I mean, I follow the news, virtually every single day you have Harper or Flaherty out there telegraphing exactly what they plan to do with the economy. And not once did you hear the Liberals, NDP or separatists talking about toppling the government in response.
* No — do you know what set this off. When Flaherty said he was going to take taxpayer-funded subsidies away from the opposition. Now there is a reason to try and overturn an election— because the Conservatives the audacity to say “Hey, it’s a recession, maybe you should take your nose out of the trough.”
* And I wish the media would be more clear on this point — the opposition aren’t being singled out by this fact the Conservatives stand to lose the most money of all. The only difference is that Canadians are voluntarily giving money the Conservatives, so they don’t need taxpayer handouts. The only reason the opposition would be hurt more is because nobody wants to donate to them. They should be putting their efforts towards fixing that problem.
* I don’t want another election. But what I want even less is a surprise backroom Prime Minister whom I never even had the opportunity to vote for or against. What an insult to democracy.

Hmm so every other democratic country has the system you guys want to dismantle but anyone who calls you on it is against democracy? So how are things there in the Ministry of Truth?

Sign the Petition. Support a Coalition

Giorno memo from the G&M

Prison Changes You!

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Conrad Black in a letter to the Sunday Times rails against private prisons, the war on drugs and high incarceration rate in the U.S.

“U.S. justice has become a command economy based on the avarice of private prison companies, a gigantic prison service industry and politically influential correctional officers’ unions that agitate for an unlimited increase in the number of prosecutions and the length of sentences.”

Fruitless attempts to wipe out the illegal drug trade are to blame for the situation, says Black, taking up a battle cry long espoused by people he’s never traditionally associated with – those on the left of the political spectrum, including groups like the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The entire ‘war on drugs,’ by contrast, is a classic illustration of supply-side economics: a trillion taxpayers’ dollars squandered and (one million) small fry imprisoned at a cost of $50 billion a year; as supply of and demand for illegal drugs have increased, prices have fallen and product quality has improved.”

Having seen the system Black has suddenly developed a desire to reform it.

[..]penal reform is a cause he hopes to champion when he’s released from prison.

“I wish to advise Lord Hurd that when I return to the UK, I would like to take up more energetically than I did initially his request for assistance in his custodial system reform activities,” Black wrote, referring to Douglas Hurd, a patron of Britain’s Tory Reform Group.

Perhaps next he could do an enforced stint on welfare, work for a living at minimum wage, need a daycare space……..

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