Vancouver King

Our nation within a nation has been electing pro-Quebec only MPs for generations. Did it ever occur to Harper this nationalist fibre is an institution there, one to be denegraded at considerable political risk? Clinging to power by any means, Harper savaged the Quebecers and saved his floundering minority but at great cost: The loss of Quebec and soon his toehold of seats there. And for what eventual prospect? - to die a slow political death at the hands of an unforgiving recession.

If only Conservatives could overturn the political laws of gravity. Who decreed the govt of the day should be the party to wear the blame for rough times? What unfairness. How dare proud Quebecers resent our using their duly elected MP's as whipping boys in an exercise to save our political butts. Ungrateful ingrates. Speaking of butts, It will be a travesty to see ours used to warm the opposition benches in an early Fall election instead of fulfilling our manifest destiny - stomping the homos, abortionists and the tokers. It's all so unfair...

Latest Harris/Decima poll showing dead heat between the main rivals. Their analysis shows significant movement of women away from the Conservatives. Quebec remains a Tory wasteland - they poll only half their actual 2008 election result. Liberal - 33% Conservative - 32% NDP - 14% Green - 10% Bloc - 9% http://www.harrisdecima.com/en/downloads/p...ses/031309E.pdf

BC's announced deficit is $1.5 billion, however, Gordon Campbell's farthest-to-the-right-of-any-govt-in-Canada Liberals face voters in 2 months, so there is a reasonable asssumption that they've done a Flaherty - cooked the books out of political expediency. What else to expect from a premier who keeps a straight face while insisting that a $1 billion security bill for the 2010 Olympics should not be included as part of Olympic budget expenditures. As if this recession isn't bad enough, now the full implications of a political culture that tolerates fraudulent budgets and statistics will frustrate any recovery.

I'm beginning to wonder how much of the Big 3's difficulties are the result of an automotive press that cannot revise it's judgement of quality and value from the horrible 1970's junk once made by N. American manufacturers. A year ago I watched the two jokers on BNN's car half-hour program attack a Ford executive with inane questions and outright scorn on it's Aviator offering - not a single reason based on the vehicles performance, quality or value. The hatchet job caught my eye as I had rented one and was thoroughly impressed with it's performance and build quality. By comparison, all reviews by these guys of Japanese luxury SUVs begin with the obligatory sucking of the tailpipe while in the kneeling position. Daily newspaper auto sections cannot even bother to review Detroit offerings, despite quality, mpg and service plans virtually on par with imports. How much of Detroit's current woes are due to an auto press's knee jerk reaction, incapable of thinking beyond Asian imports?

With one huge difference: Liberals are not led by a rabid partisan with apparent multiple personalities, randomly lurching from civility to junk yard dog. In contrast Ignatieff is a study in calm consistency. Any election campaign in the near/mid term must allow for fallout from every new factory closure and continuing grim financial news. For Conservatives the economy represents an extra opponent and the govts current talking point of alleged opposition stalling of the stimulative budget, seems designed to counter the downturns inevitable political effect by sharing the blame. Expect Ignatieff to pull the plug after June's interim update.

This situation is laughable. Is there a Tory political junkie in this forum that honestly believes John Q. Public will tolerate another CPC character assassination campaign as a substitute for a tight focus on the imploding economy? My guess after a month of negative ads the major poll numbers will read something like this: Liberal - 36% Conservative - 29% How gullible does Harper think voters are? Sober second thoughts will probably prevail.

Fine then, at your suggestion, George Bush and his cronies will also be charged.

CNN reported results of polling this week showing corporate chieftains now are held in lower esteem than used car salesmen and, gawd forbid, politicians. Obama reflected these public perceptions when he chastised Wall Street bankers as "disgusting" for using taxpayer bailout money to award themselves $18 billion US in unearned bonuses. Disgusting hardly cuts it, although full marks for the sentiment by a president straight jacketed by corporate interests that own the American govt. Surely this latest demonstration of stealing public funds coming on top of spawning frankenstinian derivitives that plague world financial circles, warrants rewards much more severe than loss of inlated bonuses or pay. My modest proposal? In America's "jail them all" culture, the turn for bankers has arrived. Include in infrastructure spending, funds to build a hundred new prisons to house the worst 20,000 corporate management offenders, all to be charged with a retroactive new law - crimes against the American people.

This meeting was a liberal dream. Obama's focus on global warming means Harper has no more excuses for environmental inaction and resulted in his vow to coordinate programs with the Americans. Who would have thunk it, our PM's habit of emulating Bush carries over to the new administration. Should be interesting to see Tory reaction to our two "integrated economies" when America nationalizes it's major banks.

That says it all. The bottom is falling out of the Canadian economy and you have decided to buy Korean. You continue to be part of the problem.

I've read a thousand polls and can't recall anything close to these Quebec numbers. Like an electoral chameleon the province changes it's spots again, this time sending the Greens - yes the Greens - into the lead as the choice of 26% voters. Although this lead won't last, if the country eventually gets a handful of Green seats from the province's turmoil, the whole country's politics will be enriched for it. The same people who bring you the negativity of the Bloc might now make amends by delivering Green seats. If there is such as thing as spectacle in poll results, this sounding has to be it.

Sounds like discord in Toryland. Maybe selling out the final vestiges of conservatism in exchange for an tenuous extension of minority power has left a bad taste in the mouths of MPs and the party faithful. Perhaps the gloom results from a lack of options - despite burgeoning party coffers, the CPC cannot do an advertising hatchet job defining Ignatieff as they did successfully to Dion as such a partisan campaign in the midst of our current downturn would spell disaster for the party. Meanwhile the Liberal leader continues a mistake-free apprenticeship, a keen strategist with, so far, all the right moves and his confident performance has been rewarded with steady increases in polling numbers. Contrast that picture with Stephen Harper's - an impotent prisoner of the ever deepening malaise.

You mean Harper has the Liberals exactly where he wants them?

The Liberal march to government continues.... Just released Harris-Decima poll for Canadian Press: Liberals - 33% CPC 31 NDP 15 Green 10 Bloc 10 http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...10?hub=Politics

This downturn is quickly taking on Alice In Wonderland qualities. 129,000 job losses is a record. 29,000 giving up looking is a record. That it does not yet represent 9.3% of the employment picture - apparently the dubious record - is less a ray of hope than a fig leaf for govt apologists. These kind of losses would be appropriate to America with a population higher by a factor of ten. So no one saw this coming, eh? All Harper & Co. had to do was rely on this dependable axiom: when America slips into recession, Canada invariably follows about 6 months later. No foresight, no plan and no hope for re-election.

It was with Liberals from Central Canada largely in charge over generations that lead us as a country to an envy-of-the-world status relative to world nations. Look at the quallity of living around you. What hasn't worked? Perhaps it's that a province with barely 10% of the nation's population is unable to impose it's made in Republican Washington agenda on a far too enlightened citizenry. We've had our 3 year respite of Alberta wannabes, it's time to get back on track.

Why not channel your frustration into a new conservative movement, one where right of center principles reign over political expediency?

Jack certainly appears jilted, his carefully planned stint in a coalition cabinet destroyed. Our household has supported the NDP since 2006 with maximum contributions, scrutineering etc., however, our priority remains tossing Harper from govt and, increasingly, the Liberals under Ignatieff represent the surest way to realize this. Until Pat Martin takes the party leadership, we consider ourselves now at home in the Liberal tent.

There is fair chance the treasury vaults will be opening wider in 2009-10 when the true dimensions of the downturn become apparent. Frankly, I hesitate to pan the initial attempt at jump starting a now sputtering economy as this budget could have been written by Jack Layton on a bad day. I console myself with the certainty that voters will eventually hang the man who authorized all the red ink.

All this blather over Harper's Quebec fallingout without a single mention of the two biggest factors turning the province against the Conservatives. Of the myriad costs to Harper of saving his govt in the manner he chose, the greatest one was losing favor in Quebec by demonizing the Bloc, his voracious anti-coalition rhetoric interpreted there as anti-French. The result was swift and stunning: Ignatieff vaulted into the federalist choice overnight. The above came on the heels of an October election where for the sake of saving insignificant dollars he alieniated the arts community, much of it centered in Quebec. What strategy, what genius, what a way to blow a majority. Quebec might be a "whore" but it's hard to argue against historical success. Harper's failure in dealing with the province and it's subsequent embrace of Ignatieff is a now major CPC hurdle next election.

You seem a tad confused, are you asking who will wear the blame for a stimulative budget that might not stimulate or, who is to blame for the economic malaise requiring the attempt at spending our way out of it. If the latter, look no further than Wall Street bankers who promptly awarded themselves $20 billion in bonuses from the initial taxpayer-paid bailout stateside. If you mean who answers for our deficit budget that's an easy one - the govt of the day will take the flak for failure or kudos for its's success. Heres a market tip: don't buy Tory futures.

Who needs an NDP/Liberal coalition when we have a Tory govt running scared? This budget could have been written by Layton and Dion. Andrew Coyne had it right yesterday, nothing remains remotely discernible as conservative with Harper's govt. This new dynamic is a Liberal dream come true - a newly meek and chastened Harper forced to absorb all the negative side effects of our economic malaise while his new rival gathers strength with the passage of time.

Got your tickets to the inaugaration?

Add in the inevitable 'Tory times are tough times' fallout from the current malaise plus a surprisingly positive reaction to Ignatieff's limited exposure, and the makings of a Liberal govt loom on the horiizon. Iggy's current refrain of 'they had no plan' seems to have resonance - his party is now tied with Tories as best managers of the economy. The biggest threat to this Liberal future is the new leaders propensity for undisciplined public musings as he exercises his formidable intellect. Victory at the polls is his to lose.