The Baron of Banality

- RUDYARD THE INSANE ... You are, as always, misinformed. - The NDP has historically been strongest in Saskatchewan, Ontario and your province BC, to the point of electing several federal MPs in these provinces in most elections and even forming the provincial governments there on occasion. The NDP has been weakest in Alberta, Quebec and Atlantic Canada (only the ignorant now call it The Maritmes). So it has taken the NDP many decades to even elect MPs in Atlantic Canada with the exception of a couple of long standing seats in Cape Breton. Therefore, the NDP is NOT known for making inroads in Atlantic Canada. Do you get your political information from talking to yourself or from contemplating the bottom of a beer bottle? - As to Toronto and the GTA in general, the NDP is strongest not in the so-called gentrified or tony or affluent areas but in the poorest areas. Even the seat Layton is seeking includes mainly below average incomes, housing, and retail trade plus above average unemployment and immigrant densities. Do you work at being such a jackass or does it come naturally?

- RUDYARD THE INSANE ... IF you can lie all the time without getting banned, I fail to see why I should be banned for telling the truth. - However, I don't much care because there are not enough posters here to make it a very interesting forum and, frankly, I am not very keen at being on the same forum as a a nutter like you. All of us who have seen your insanity close up on other forums feel this way, which is but one of the reasons you are banned on every other forum that you have ever visited. - Since this is your forum of last resort, I suggest you watch your congenital prevaricating. Speaking of prevaricating, didn't you say yesterday that you were off to Hawaii? God speed - and the sooner the better.

- HEY, NUTTER ... Did you talk with Jim McNulty THROUGH your TV set the same as you used to claim you ''talked'' with Barbara Yaffe and Don Martin? Or perhaps you talk with McNulty THROUGH the pages of your newspaper as you claimed to talk with several other political columnists. Do you still edit the columns of the New York Times' Mark Steyn and advise him what to write? How about that french poet who has been dead some 250 years whom you claim telephones you regularly? GO AWAY, NUT CASE RUDYARD.

- THOSE OF US familiar with your disruptive, deranged, dishonest, dispicable and disgusting conduct on discussion boards during the past several years find it truly hilarious for you to pass judgement on ANYONE'S "moral compass'.

- 1991 - Since you have chosen to call me naive, simple and touched, may I begin by saying that it is naive, simple and touched to seek to make anything whatsoever out of Diefenbaker's "limo" ... if you actually knew very much about Dief, you would know that he avoided limos and never, ever rode in Cadillacs after a time in the 1940s when he was in a caddy in a parade and heard a leather lunged burger yell out "here come the tories in their cadillacs" ... even when he finally had some money from the sale of his books in his 70s, his most extravagant car was an oldsmobile 98. - I am well aware that physical presence, TV persona, and ability as a leader are all different things, although also all related to different facets of leadership such as communications, decisiveness, boldness, people management, etc. ... indeed, I may very well be rather more aware of what constitutes leadership than you are in that I have consulted and lectured on the topic and have made lots of money selecting and appraising leaders for corporations. - You are misinformed to say that Diefenbaker was a disaster for the PC party ... he did disappoint in many ways as prime minister ... but he took a party that had been out of power for 22 years and through his superb campaigning skills won a tremendous upset in 1957 and the biggest win in in history (until Mulroney) in 1958 ... without Dief, the Liberals would have remained in power for several more years than they did ... also, Diefenbaker put the "progressive" in the PC party in substance not simply in name through much social legislation to benefit the average canadian and the then kids he inspired to go into politics such as Mulroney and Clark continued his tradition of a socially progressive party ... Dief gave those parts of the country that could not be seen from the penthouse of the Royal York on a clear day a voice in the country's political decision making ... he gave us our first Bill of Rights, he gave native peoples the right to vote for the first time, he was one of two people who got RSA removed from the Commonwealth because of their apartheid policies, he made our immigration act and policy colour blind, he gave a measure of dignity to our old age pensioners, he established roads ro resources and in picking up for the first time 50% of the costs of transcanada highways and medical insurance he finally got us some decent roads and with Tommy Douglas provided the basis for medicare ... I could go on but I shall just say that I fail to see how this was a disaster for the PC party. - As to heroic figures as PMs, I repeat that the four of our national leaders who could move and animate and motivate and inspire a crowd and sometimes an entire nation were MacDonald, Laurier, Diefenbaker and Trudeau. They were the great orators among our leaders and the reaction of crowds of people to them was something that defied logic and balance sheets. You are old enough no doubt to have heard of Trudeaumania from 1968 when crowds across Canada were enthralled with PET. Well, let me tell you that the reaction of crowds to John Diefenbaker in 1958 was even more fevered and worshipful. I recall being a 14 year old in Moncton in 1958 and seeing at the train station several women excitedly exclaiming "I touched his coat! I touched his coat!" after Dief had dismounted his train to shake hands on his whistle stop tour. Out in the Okenagan Valley of BC, Dief during the 1958 campaign was addressing a large crowd when it began to rain. As they saw that Diefenbaker had no umbrella and was getting drenched in the downpour, most of the crowd was seen closing their umbrellas and getting wet with him as a mark of respect. Anyhow, I'm a student of canadian political history and am entitled to my opinion - it happens to also be the opinion of Canada's greatest political biographer Peter E. Newman. We'll get over the fact that you disagree. As to the nutter Rudyard going today by the name of Galahad, he is simply inciting which is what he lives to do. He knows nothing about the Diefenbaker era, being a DP who was still in Slovakia when The Chief was our PM. So all his is is a bullshit artiste out to enflame. If you are dumb enough to agree with him, this is a reflection on you not on me. Certainly, it betrays a naive, simple attitude to our history. Next thing you'll be claiming that Chretien was a great orator, LOL.

For my sins, I watched the Conservative Party's two hour leadership debate on Sunday. I was highly impressed by and could confidently support both Tony Clement and Stephen Harper in competition with the tired old Martin-Chretien cabal led by an increasingly beleagured Paul Martin. However, I found Belinda Stronach to be farther out of her depth than Britney Spears would be if she were explaining shakespearean acting to Sir Lawrence Olivier. Mr. Harper was impressive in his systematic, logical approach to questions and his clear and confident answers. Mr. Clement brought new policy ideas, passion, humour and aggressiveness to the debate and, to me, beat Stephen Harper by a slim margin. Ms. Stronach brought ten minutes of obviously rehearsed and uninspiringly delivered vague, simplistic policy material and slogans proferred to her by her high priced political operatives and spin doctors. Unfortunately for her and for those of us watching, she had to fit this ten minutes of material learned by rote into more than thirty minutes of speaking time. So she repeated the same material at least three times during the debate, often with only a tenuous connection to questions asked or points made by her opponents. Indeed, if I hear one more time about fresh (but totally unspecified) ideas, baking a bigger pie or growing a broader base, I shall be ready to heave. The one saving grace is Belinda's presence provided unintentional comedy that made us laugh during this long and mostly serious afternoon. For example, after Belinda's third repetition of the need for the nation to bake a bigger pie and for the party to grow a broader base, I pointed out to my wife that whenever I ate a bigger pie, I always seemed able to grow a broader base. (Actually, if my base gets any broader, I'll have to cut out even smaller pies or get a much wider dining room chair.) In her opening statement, she bragged about running a 75,000 employee company and 45 minutes later she spoke about a 72,000 employee company, causing my wife to wonder if the 3,000 staffers who went missing in just 45 minutes were simply unable to watch her any longer even for money and had turned off their TV sets. At another point, Belinda asked for us to give her 40 days with Paul Martin on the campaign trail and my wife allowed as to how on the basis of her debating prowess this might be even harder for her to handle than 40 nights with her good pal Zipper Billy Clinton. I remember high school debaters who were better informed and prepared for their task than was Ms. Stronach yesterday. Choosing her as leader would bring the party into disrepute even more than the then new CA party's choice of Stockwell Day dogged it painfully for years. The only question now is will someone on her political payroll have the integrity, ethics and decency to do the party and her the good turn of telling the Empress that she really has no political coattails nor clothes of any kind and should drop out. Given the cynicism in politics today, I tend to doubt it.

- MH - I don't know what gave you the idea that this board was about details but if it is true, this is the only political discussion board on the www that is about details. Most of such boards are about sweeping generalizations with no details (bullshit) and/or about some arcane and irrelevant trivia (e.g. Bush got caught 25 years ago driving while plastered) with no true relevance to the current situation and posted purely for partisan purposes (birdseed). - Since most boards are almost exclusively of the bullshit and birdseed variety, I rarely bother to post on most boards anymore. This board is refreshingly more substantive and civilized (as long as the Rudyards are kept out) than most and does, indeed, provide more detail, context and relevance than most. But I fail to see how some sort of daily diary of Tony Clement's record as health minister or whatever it is you are looking for will accimplish anything much here. It certainly won't change your mind about him or the Harris government or compel you to switch to the PCs from the NDP. So I shall pass on your request. Hope you understand.

- In this week's MacLean's, my former neighbour Peter Mansbridge tells a story about John Diefenbaker's phenomenal memory which, along with his ability to read 300 pages an hour and his extraordinary way with words and with crowds impressed the hell out of mere mortals like me. - In Peter's column he writes of how he was chosen as a ten year old to go to Ottawa with his sister as two typical canadian kids for a film shoot on Parliament Hill. After days touring the Peace Tower and the other historic spots, Peter and his sister wound up their shoot in the PM's office with the Chief. Peter observes, "Diefenbaker was the perfect host, shaking hands, posing for pictures and chatting up my mother, who'd come along. He spent at least 20 minutes with us." - Mansbridge notes that twenty years later (which would have made Dief 81 or 82 years old) he was a CBC reporter attending a Diefenbaker news conference. After the conference, Peter took from his briefcase the old photo of him and his sister and asked Dief if he would mind signing it for him. To Peter's considerable scepticism, Dief claimed he remembered the moment well. As he penned his autograph, the Chief looked up and said, "Ah yes, your mother was there too, wasn't she?". Peter's scepticism turned to amazement that a busy prime minister meeting scores of people every day would twenty years later near the end of his life remember a brief meeting with a couple of kids and their mother. - When my mother was interviewed by Diefenbaker to replace his personal secretary while she was recovering from a broken hip, she mentioned that years ago her uncle had been a PC MP and had served on the backbenches with the Chief. By then, her uncle had been dead for at least ten years and Dief probably hadn't seen or heard from him or his wife Aunt Lottie for well over 15 years. But immediately the Chief, a great mimic, launched into a perfect imitation of the distinctive voice of Aunt Lottie. My mother was astounded and greatly impressed. - The last time I saw Dief in person (other than at his funeral) was in 1974 a few weeks after he had won his twelth straight election in Prince Albert and increased his majority at the tender age of 79. (His main opponent was a 68 year old NDP candidate who good naturedly ran on the slogan "Give Youth A Chance".) I hadn't seen him for a couple of years and my mother hadn't worked for him for more than five years. - As he ushered me into his office, he asked about my mom and dad and then asked whether our family dog named Lady had recovered from her catarac condition and operation that my mom had mentioned to him in about 1968. (She had but later died.) I was nonplussed that Dief could remember something that I had almost forgotten about myself. - In Canada's history, we have only had four heroic prime ministers - those who regardless of policies and technical skills were able to somehow make an emotional, personal connection with people that transformed them into larger than life figures who dominated any room they were in and inspired fierce love, loyalty and hate but never indifference in canadians. These four PMs were MacDonald, Laurier, Diefenbaker and Trudeau. - One picture I have is of Dief's funeral train in August of 1979 passing by about 25 farm folks at four in the morning somewhere in Saskatchewan. The men have their caps removed, the children are waving at the train and the women have their heads bowed. One farmer stands with a sign on which is written "John, you'll never die.". I feel the same way about him.

- UD - THANK YOU. As for money, Clement has enough of it to get the job done and the red herring by Harper that Clement is not really in the race because he doesn't have enough money proves only that Tony is scaring Stephen as his campaign gains momentum. The debate this Sunday between 2 and 4 pm is televised and should give Tony another leg up on Stephen as well as burying Belinda's faint hopes. - Yes, every day is a day of crisis for health care in Ontario and in every other province because an aging population, avaricious health care people especially doctors and exploding costs for new drugs and technology is bankrupting the public system. Currently, health care costs run to nearly half the total budgets of the provinces and it is estimated that at the current rate at which health care spending is increasing in Ontario as a percentage of total Ontario spending, by 2042 there will be no money left for anything other than health care. None of this is Tony's fault, as McGuinty and company are discovering, and the current system as currently funded is simply not sustainable. Since I was the guy in the other thread who remarked that Harper won't pick up many votes in the east and Clement won't lose many votes in the west, I won;t argue the point, LOL. And I do think that Clement is the best of the three Conservative choices to unite and grow the party. You know, the last federal PM from Ontario was Lester Pearson 35 years ago. Among the six since then, none are from Ontario while three (Clark, Campbell, Turner) are from the west. I do not consider it unreasonable to finally have another leader and PM from the place where over 35% of the population and seats and over 40% of the economy are located.

- MH - Yes, it is true that Tony Clement is rightly claiming that he is the only candidate among the three who has had actual ministerial experience including being in the eye of the hurricane during perhaps the most potentially devastating in human life and actually devastating in recovery costs and in commerical revenues lost of any specific emergency to hit Canada since WWII. In addition to the obvious truth that he is the only one with this invaluable experience, he also suggests he did a good job in the aforementioned crisis - the SARS crisis - and I agree. Here is why: 1/ While Chretien was away on a luxury golfing holiday with Slime Bucket Billy Clinton and federal Health Minister Ann McLelland was away campaigning for Paul Martin's leadership bid (for which she is now rewarded as Deputy Prime Minister), there was a total leadership vacume federally on SARS which created severe problems (see below) and made Clement's job even more difficult that it already was. So any assessment of Tony's performance during these critical weeks must take this into consideration. 2/ When the WHO asked Ottawa to install new technology at the departures points of our international airports so we could test for SARS symptoms and thereby prevent the export of SARS carriers to third world countries where even one or two cases could lead to epidemics, Tony Clement added his voice - privately because he needed some federal co-operation - to the WHO's request. Of course, the asleep at the switch or otherwise occupied morons in Ottawa ignored this request, passing out booklets instead. This so aggravated the WHO that within two weeks they slapped a world wide travel warning on Toronto which, more than anything thing else, led to the billions of dollars in fall off of the GTA and Ontario tourism and convention business. 3/ As the extraordinarily punitive impact of the WHO's travel warning became clear in the ensuing few days, while Chretien golfed and McLellan campaigned, Tony Clement took the initiative and assembled a small team of public health experts from the provincial, federal and municipal levels, he led them in putting together an iron clad health and public safety case for the lifting of the travel warning, he got the feds to finally commit to installing the new SARS testing technology at the airports, he learned the brief that he would present to the WHO, and then with just two or three assistants he flew commerical to Geneva and made the masterful presentation to the WHO general director that resulted in the lifting of the travel warning within 48 hours of his presentation. THIS WAS A FEDERAL RESPONSIBLITY as it was a matter between a national jurisidiction and a UN agency but Tony took the initiaitive and the risk and made the effort and he won big! (This while the feds were doing dick as usual and Mayor Mel was insulting the WHO and asking who they were.) 4/ After the crisis was over, Clement presented the bill to Ottawa for about $900 million and the disgustingly partisan Chretien feds tried to stiff him with $250 million. Ultimately, the new Liberal administration got about $350 million because Clement wouldn't "take it or leave it" with cap in hand. 5/ As to other aspects, yes, as you noted, he worked hard, communicated and co-ordinated well, and was there 24/7. Indeed, Tony lost some 25 pounds off his already slender frame in the two plus months of SARS crisis and inspired his officials with his 24/7 gung ho attitude and effort. He comunicated to the public regularly and articulately and honestly and credibly, partly because of his extraordinary speed in assimulating and understanding complex materials. But what the public saw and liked, while important, was just the tip of the iceberg (see above). 6/ As to running the ministry in less inclement times, Clement set a very positive, progressive focus, tone and pace as minister which is what a strong, effective minister should do to channel and inspire and embolden those in his ministry to move forward. He had - at 27 billion dollars - the largest ministerial budget in the entire country. He had the most difficult ministerial job in the country - health minister in any of the large provinces today is the most difficult of ministerial jobs because the stakes are highest including life and death, the money is never enough, the stakeholders are many and diverse and divided, and there is always political hay for the opposition and the media. While I don't have the time to get into detail, I can tell you that the highest increase in health spending during the PC years came during Tony's tenure due to his persuasive and knowledgable representation and that the SHORTEST waits from GP referral to hospital bed are in Ontario and the province is still considered to have one of the three top health care systems in Canada (with Alberta and BC). Am I a Tony Clement fan now? You bet! I can't wait to hear him excoriate and eviscerate Paulie Martin for his viscious cuts to health care transfer payments which reduced the federal contribution from 26% of costs to less than 16% of costs, stiffing the provinces for billions while posing as the defneder and protector of medicare.

Michael Hardner ... A Stronach win would play into the Liberals' hands. Clement was part of Harris' well-oiled political machine but certainly isn't cute, cuddly or fatherly enough to give him a boost at the start. Jack Layton - start talking like a conservative NOW and you will reap rewards. - MH - YES, the Liberal spin doctors are all going around talking about a Stronach victory in the leadership race. While they don't really expect this to happen, they would be thrilled if it did and they also figure (rightly) that just mentioning her name as a serious candidate subjects the new party to a certain amount of hurtful ridicule. - TRUE but Tony Clement proved he was a good leader during the inclement storms of the SARS crisis and he is capable of more emotion and dynamism as a speaker than Harper who has the charisma of an embalmer. It will come down to Harper vs Clement on the second ballot/count and Tony does have a shot. Unlike Harper who travels with more CA and personal baggage than Imelda Marcos on a shoe buying trip to New York that renders him unelectable east of Manitoba, Clement can hold the bulk of the CA seats in the west while picking up 20-30 seats in Ontario (more if Martin can't lance the Sponsorgate boil) and holding at least a few of the Atlantic Canada seats for a net gain over the two parties 80 seats last time. More importantly, Tony unlike Stephen can unite and grow the party down the road. - The trouble with this is that nobody will believe Jack's 11th hour conversion to fiscal responsibility and the public sector monopoly union for whom he works wouldn't let him walk the walk even if he believed in the talk. Mind you, since his dad was a cabinet minister under Brian Mulroney, he could get some good pointers on how to fake being a conservative. Besides, Jack's best course of action now is to continue bleeding votes from Martin and the Liberals by portraying them as nothing but tories and even more corrupt than the tories.

- MH - While no politician including Bush is impervious to polls, to suggest that he is as poll driven as that unprincipled reptile Chretien is not supportable by the facts or the record. - The reason Bush is in trouble currently is because he is NOT poll driven enough and so he will not modify his postions on Iraq and on the economy to blow with the prevailing american winds. (For example, check and you will see that Democratic frontrunner John Kerry has had more positions on Viet Nam, the Gulf War and the current war in Iraq than Xavier Hollander in her prime working a stag party for the LA Kings. This 'nuanced' policy determination as the Democrats euphemistically call it and opportunistic bullshit as I call it resonates in the polls. Bush doesn't care - he is serious about the war against terrorism and the restructuring of Iraq and about reducing the size and tax bite of government and that its that.) - The reason that inarticulate, moronic weasel Chretien ruled for so long is because he always took his decisions based on polls over principle. So, for example, he opposed the War in Iraq mainly because the majority of people and the overwhelming majority of Quebecers during a Quebec election campaign opposed the war not because it lacked UN approval as he claimed. As Opposition Leader in 1990/91, he also opposed the Gulf War and IT HAD UN APPROVAL but he figured the polls were against it. - As to the gay marriage issue in the US, unlike in Canada the matter of marriage is a state not a federal responsibility. Bush has already spoken out on the issue several times to the effect that the people by way of a state referendum or at the least by their representatives debating and voting in the legislatures should decide on such fundamental moral and social issues not a few unelected and unrepresentative judges. I agree fully with this view of Bush's. There is little else the president can do without making the thing more polarized and divisive than it already is. He cannot 'order' the mayor of Frisco or the governor of California to do his bidding in a federal system on a matter outside of his jurisdiction. I also think that Governor Arnie (who is doing a hellava job and leaving the dull Gray Democrat in the dust so far) is in favour of the idea of gay marriages and wouldn't intervene even if Bush tried to lean on him. - You see, MH, as much as the hard left rabble likes to paint George W. as some kind of extreme bible thumping neanderthal because he happens to be an avangelical christian, the truth of the matter is that Bush is a relatively moderate republican on social issues and on people's right to live and let live. He did not raise the gay marriage issue on his own volition, even though the vast majority of americans are against gay marriages and all he has really said is let the people or their representatives not the ivory tower judges decide. - Similarly, he spoke up very directly right after 9/11 to the effect that the american people must understand that the war on terrorism was not directed against arabs in general and/or arabs in america and that americans must be tolerant and inclusive in not discriminating against their fellow citizens of arab or moslem origins. Bush was extremely popular in Texas as governor with texans of mexican (tex-mex) and spanish ancestry generally and even made the effort to learn spanish as well as passing legislation to improve employment and education opportunities for minorities in Texas. Recently, he has passed a law making it possible for millions more mexicans to enter and work in the US legally and with the protections of US law. - So your cynicism, while understandable, is misplaced. None of the minority who favour gay marriage in the US except for Cheney's daughter and a small rump group (pun not intended) called Log Cabin Republicans will vote for the GOP ticket. Few of the hard right born again bible belters will desert the GOP ticket even if Bush says nothing at all on gay marriage. - The only way this issue could affect Bush in the polls and in the big poll in November is if the Democratic candidate (Kerry or Edwards) comes out very strongly and directly for gay marriage. This would ensure a huge victory for Bush in November. But this won't happen because the Democrats are the sisters in arms of our Liberals - they always put polls over principles. So just as Paul Martin has tried to defuse and defang and delay this issue here by loading down the Supreme Court with additional questions in the reference to the Court, so will the Democrats adopt a 'nuanced' position on gay marriage (except, of course, when they are addressing gay groups).

Belinda Stronach is quoted as saying that she is ready to be the prime minister and that she disagrees with leadership rival Stephen Harper that money will be a major factor in winning the Conservative leadership race. (Clearly, this comment by Mr. Harper that it was a two person race between him and Belinda because Tony Clement lacked the campaign money and other organizational resources to mount a winning leadership bid shows that Clement is picking up substantial support in the race.) Then Ms. Stronach went on to say that the delegates were smart people who would make their choice based on such considerations as the candidates' track records and what ideas they bring to the leadership race. WOULD BELINDA STRONACH SUPPORTERS PLEASE TELL ME: - What track record does Belinda actually have in political endeavors and what ideas has she expressed that differ in any serious way from the standard boiler plate stuff expressed by all the candidates? Since I had foolishly thought that Ms. Stronach had zero track record in politics and that only Tony Clement thus far has expressed anything resembling a genuine new and exciting idea, I must be uninformed. Please elucidate the alarming extent of my insufferable ignorance and shine the light of truth on this matter. THANK YOU

- Sir Riff ... You are clearly a good Liberal since you totally dismiss my post with the pithy comment "well most of that post is nonsense" and then quickly change the subject from defending the indefensible to taking the offense in specious attacks on the Conservative Party and its predecessors. Liberals are very good at such diversions and intellectual slight of hand. - Now, Sir Riff, lets get serious, shall we? - Since you contend that most of my post and therefore most of my ten points are nonsense while I happen to know that all of them are valid, PICK ONE, yes, just pick one which you feel capable of debating in an intelligent, factual and rational manner and I shall be delighted to debate it with you. - After you and I have finished our discussion on whichever of my ten points you choose to try to debunk, I shall then do the same with your idiotic defence of why you "are forced" to vote Liberal. It will be lots of fun, Sir Riff. Yours expectantly, THE BARON

- Blatant lies, huge money laundering and kick back schemes, hundreds of broken promises, breathtaking hypocrisy - this is the view from Parliament Hill and Queen's Park these days. So it's not easy being Red these days - being a large L Liberal in canadian politics. - Even Liberal PM PM is not immune from criticism in recent days. Of course to me, Paul Martin is still a hero! In fact, he is one of the cast of Hogan's Heros. Remember Sergeant Schultz with his constant plea "I know nuting, nuting ... I see nuting ... I hear nuting!"? Clearly, Paul is doing the Sergeant Schultz ploy regarding the mafia like money laundering program that went through over $100 million in Quebec, mainly between 1996-2001. - So yes, it is hard to be a Liberal at the moment. You first of all have to be someone who, in John Diefenbaker's immortal phrase "will believe anything - twice." But you also have to capable of double think, double talk, stopping on a dime and reversing yourself 180 degrees and then denying that you reversed yourself at all, and be able to leap tall constructs of logic, reason and fact in a single bound. Are you up for the Liberal Challenge? - To find out if you have what it takes to be a good Liberal in these tough times, please review your responses to the following ten questions. Strong and true Liberals in Canada today score ten out of ten on this review. Rate yourself accordingly. 1/ A good Liberal will believe Dolt-on McWeasel's election assertions last September that those tight fisted heartless Tory bastards short sheeted the health and education systems by not spending enough on them and will also believe McWeasel's assertions now that those footloose, irresponsible, spendthrift Tory wastrels spent far too much on health and education so there is no money left in the provincial till. 2/ A good Liberal will believe PM Paul Martin's pleadings that he knew nothing at all about a $100 million, five year money laundering and kick backs scheme by the Liberal party in Quebec while also believing that Mike Harris knew every detail of the criminal Keobel brothers' activites in Walkerton concerning the municipal water supply and that Ernie Eves knew everything there was to know about the tainted meat being shiped out of the Aylmer meat processing plant. 3/ A good Liberal will believe that former gossip columnist and current gutter press author Stevie Cameron (whose Liberal appointed husband was fired by Mulroney) wrote an authoritative, objective and truthful book about Mulroney and chronies titled "On The Take" while the Report prepared by the AG and her professional CA staff in the Auditor General's Office who spent years investigating the frauds and boondoggles of the Chretien years was probably overstated and sensationalized and full of errors. 4/ A good Liberal will believe that the Chretien government led by Finance Minister Martin cutting billions from the health, education and welfare transfers to the provinces so that the federal contribution to medicare went from 26% to under 16% between 1995 and 2001 while the Ontario Harris government increased health care spending by roughly 20% means that the Liberals are the saviours of medicare while the tories are the defilers and destroyers of medicare. 5/ A good Liberal will believe that Trudeau's increasing the federal debt by over 2000% during his reign, almost all of it on program spending, and Mulroney's increasing of the debt by 150% during his reign, almost all of it due to the annual interest charges to carry Trudeau's profligate debt means that MULRONEY not Trudeau is clearly the Godfather of the horrendous federal debt in Canada. 6/ A good Liberal will believe that the Chretien government - despite doing nothing except to impliment the Mulroney policy agenda for the economy and to ride on the coattails of the US economic boom of the 1990s -deserves the credit for the relative economic prosperity of Canada over the past ten years. 7/ A good Liberal will believe that the Liberals under Chretien and Martin slayed the deficit by selflessly tightening their Ottawa belts even though Finance Minister Martin cut spending in direct federal operations by just 2% while cutting the transfer payments to the provinces and to individuals by upwards of 30%. 8/ A good Liberal will believe that Mulroney's spending of $350,000 for the PM's cadillac lemo and over $3 million to upgrade the PM's jet aircraft were examples of disusting tory waste while Chretien's spending of $320,000 for his PM chevy lemo and over $100 million for two new executive jets that were not needed or tendered were examples of responsible Liberal financial behaviour in safeguarding the tapped out tax payers' money. 9/ A good Liberal will believe that a mid term review of the Ontario financial situtation which assumes that nothing whatsoever will change on either the revenue or the expenditure sides for the final six months of the year is PROOF POSITIVE that the final numbers six months later will reveal a "Tory" deficit of $5.6 billion even though everyone with half a clue knows that revenues are climbing and emergency expenses are dropping and other changes will inevtiably occur before the year is out. 10/ A good Liberal will believe that Lyin Brian is the right name for a PM in Mulroney who promised to take specific tough and unpopular decisions and then took them but that Chretien who never kept a single major promise from his Red Book and McWeasel who so far has kept but 2 of his 231 cynical election promises are honest, sincere, transparent leaders. A good Liberal is a little bit stupid or a little bit crooked. The best Liberals are a little bit of both. Did you measure up to the Liberal challenge?

- MH - Good point!

- I was highly impressed with both Clement and Harper and pleased that the new Conservative Party has two informed, articulate leadership candidates, either of whom I could support in a general election. - Stephen Harper did better than I thought he would in that he managed to keep his well known arrogance and temper in check when pressed by Tony on a number of matters (which aggressiveness by Clement is to be expected from the guy trying to make yards and get votes away from the current front runner). I've never seen Harper quite so conciliatory and jovial or at least pleasant and it is effective for him to come off that way. - Tony Clement was understandably the more aggressive candidate, conveying the message that he was a bridge builder unlike Stephen who was a wall builder and that Harper if he is to make progress as a leader must understand that it is more effective to speak in a postive way than a negative way on issues and problems. Tony also took a more national perspective on the issue of bilingualism in the federal public sector while Harper catered to his western constituency on the question. As well, Tony gave a more honest and informed answer on whether or not the current model and system of health care was sustainable even with the new money promised by the feds - Harper equivocated while Clement said clearly that no, it is not and we must get on with innovations to change and thereby sustain the system. - Overall, I saw no knock out punch delivered or even a knock down punch but I would give a slight edge to Tony Clement for being effectively aggressive and coming across as someone who is already at least the equal of the guy who's already been two years in the job of leading a federal party. Now if only Tony were blond, wore contacts, and showed a bit of leg. Oh, well, you can't have everything.

- Yesterday, the Auditor General released her annual report and a few canadians managed to interrupt their intense concentration watching second rate US TV sitcoms in rerun long enough to drag themselves up to a sitting position on their couches and to declare themselves to be at least slightly annoyed at the horrendous waste and malfeasance revealed by the AG. Then, everybody went back to the boob tube and then back to sleep. - Well, almost everyone. But for those of us who really are annoyed at being ripped off and are determined to not get fooled again, here are the highlights of yesterday's AG report: 1/ The federal sponsorship program in Quebec was a $250 million boondoggle in which unqualified Liberal hacks were selected from the unwilling to do the unnecessary. At least 40% of that money - $100 million - was handed by the government to middle men who provided no discernible service or value whatsoever in return. This was clearly a case of money laundering that would make the Mafia proud. Since even these arrogant Chretien Liberals were constrained from openly and directly raiding the public treasury to reward their friends and to top up the Liberal party coffers, this $100 million - often without even the necessary phoney and fradulent documentation - was simply handed over to the advertising middle men who then pocketed much of the money for doing nothing and then kicked back millions of dollars to the Liberal party in donations. Federal Liberal money laundering and kick back schemes - a proud part of the canadian heritage and soon to be filmed as a Heritage Moment for those CBC 60 second spots. 2/ The $101 million contract to Bombardier for Chretien's two new executive jets was untendered and unnecessary, reports the AG. No wonder the troops in Afghanistan have been driving around in unarmoured tin cans - clearly, there was no money left in the DND budget for such trivialities as proper and safe equipment for troops on the front lines after Chretien and others took their cut. 3/ The $1.2 billion (that's Billion) of spending SO FAR in native land claims settlements has been spent without any attempts whatsoever to track said spending to ensure that it reached those for whom it was intended and was spent on the purposes for which it was intended and provided reasonable value for money for both taxpayers geenrally and the native peoples. Any bets that this is NOT in reality another billion dollar HRDC type boondoggle and that most of the money was not wasted on friends of the Liberal party and chiefs of a lavish lifestyle and criminal persuasion? 4/ The $3 million spent in Quebec to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the RCMP was redundant, wasteful, undocumented and some of the bank records of the RCMP in Quebec have been "mysteriously" destroyed. This is the 'proud force' who licked their Liberal masters' hands for several years in persuing a phony, politically motivated witch hunt to nail Brian Mulroney because that petit petty prick Chretien wanted to nail him regardless of evidence or rule of law. This shows that the Liberals now have even the national police force in their pockets so that any pretense of the old separation of politics and the bureaucracy is dead and the result is the politization and corruption of the public sector. 5/ In Tequila Sheila's former stomping ground, Heritage Canada, the AG reports that our national parks are crumbling into total disrepair and that priceless heritage documents from our history are rotting due to inadequate storage facilities. Presumably, Sheila was too busy fixing up her Liberal friends in Hamilton and elsewhere, handing out free flags, and campaigning for the leadership to be able to focus on and to channel money to where it was most needed. 6/ The EI surplus paid by all of us who earn income has now reached $43.8 billion which, for example, would be enough to fund the entire health AND education budgets of the province of Ontario. For the past few years, the AG has noted this in her report since it has under Martin been transformed into the sort of fradulent insurance scheme that would land private sector executives in the crowbar hotel. Starting in 1995, Martin jacked up the rates dramatically while making it harder to qualify for the insurance and reducing the level and duration of the payouts. Now, the AG reports that 2/3 of those who phone the EI centers for information and assistance get a busy signal (which is probably just as well since only 1/3 now can qualify for the benefits to which they contribute every payday). THERE IS MORE, MUCH MORE, OF THIS SHIT BUT YOU GET THE IDEA, DON'T YOU? For me, I have decided that I cannot stomach another Liberal term even though I was toying with the idea of a one time vote for blue Liberal Paul Martin unless Tony Clement became CPC leader. Now, I shall support the CPC even if Stephen Harper becomes leader. If the totally unqualified little rich girl becomes leader, then I shall for the first time ever (I've been voting since 1965) not vote. Paul Martin was the number two minister in the government and in Quebec, and the finance minister to boot, during the time of this money laundering and kick back scheme in Quebec. For him to say he knew nothing about it is simply a disgusting bloody lie. The truth is that he had to know the gossip and some of the realities about this prolonged fraud scheme but chose to remain silent so as to preserve his chance to one day become prime minister. Had the new PM said that, yes, he had heard rumours about these phoney advertising contracts and had broached the matter privately with the PM and asked him to look into it, I could live with Martin because now he is doing all the right things to mop up the mess and punish those involved and prevent it from happening so easily and flagantly next time around. But I cannot and will not accept being lied to again by a Liberal leader, even one in Paul Martin who in so many ways is well qualified and well grounded to be a good PM. If you, too, have been considering voting for Mr. Martin but are tired of being lied to constantly by Liberals on virtually everything - from election platforms to specific policies to operational waste and malfeasance to the rewriting of canadian political history - maybe it is time for you, too, to send Mr. Martin and his party a message by withdrawing your political support. I hope other people will think seriously about this.

- YOU ARE CORRECT ... Layton's grandfather was part of the Union Nationale government but resigned from Duplessis's cabinet in 1939 over the conscription issue because he favoured our participation against Hitler in WWII. - More intersting to me is that Jack Layton's father Robert was a long time Liberal before "seeing the light" and becoming a junior minister in Brian Mulroney's PC government. This is not something Jack brings up very often.

- MH - Sometimes you are simply too sophisticated for a barefoot country boy like myself to get your humour. I promise to keep trying.

- For Paul Martin, the second most important figure in the government for almost ten years, the senior minister from Quebec, and the minister supposedly most concerned with battling the deficit including rooting out government bumph, burglary, boondoggles and bungling, to claim that he knew nothing about this minimum $100 million money laundering scheme right out of the Mafia manual is about as credible as Goering claiming he knew nothing about the halocaust (in fairness to Goering, he accepted responsbility, something Martin and Liberals generally never do). - You will well recall my opinion - supported by ample evidence long before this latest scandal and corroborated by U of O Professor Gilles Pacquet who is an expert on government operations and scandals - that the Chretien government was the crookedest administration in the post WWII history of Canada and made Mulroney and his gang seem as pure as Mother Theresa and the Nuns of Calcutta by comparison. Hopefully, the picture is becoming clearer to all by now. - What is Martin doing about it? All the right things - he's fired Gagliano, he's called for an indepedendent public inquiry, he's got Treasury Board's Reg Alcock and Supply's David Owen on the case as well as the Public Accounts Committee and the RCMP. He has pledged that they will get to the bottom of what happened, how it happened, who was involved, how to tighten up reviews including putting controllers back into each department, and he has pledged also that heads will role and cells will beckon. - What will the political fallout be? Probably almost nothing since the election will be over before the reports and changes and disciplining and criminal charges are actually laid. Don't forget - the HRDC scandal was TEN TIMES as costly (a billion unaccounted for not a crummy $100 million) and the public, per usual, got mad for a day, then yawned, rolled over and went back to sleep. - Will the changes to come prevent this sort of scandalous boondoggle and burglary from happening again? Probably not. The only really effective way to increase probity in government is to have an effective opposition ready and electable to replace scoundrels who screw up and to have a fearless media as an arm of said opposition. We don't have either one in our present Benign Dictatorship. I'm hoping we will no later than the election of 2008/9.

- PLEASE NOTE that the first leadership debate involving the candidates to lead the new Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) will take place tomorrow on Don Newman's CBC Newsworld show (channel 26 on GTA cable) at 5pm EST and NOT at 6pm EST as I had previously announced. CBC apologizes for the erroneous information they gave to me originally. (OK, OK, CBC is a heavily subsidized crown corporation of uncivl non-servants who are far too smug, complacent, protected and coddled to actually care or apologize for anything but if they were in a competitive, for profit, market driven private network, I'm sure that they WOULD have apologized.) As mentioned before, Belinda Stronach is sitting this debate out for the same reason that Alberta steers don't hang around abbatoirs if they can find a way to avoid them. - Also please note that the first CPC sponsored leadership candidates' debate takes place on Sunday, February 22nd at the Ottawa Congress Centre between 2 and 4 pm, EST and will doubtless be carried on either and probably both CSPAN and CBC Newsworld. This time Belinda will join the two serious candiates because the party rule says all candidates MUST debate in party sponsored debates or they must withdraw from the race.

- MH - You really must learn to lighten up sometimes ... like almost all people with good taste who have been forced to live in Ottawa for a number of years, I choose to poke fun at it on a regular basis ... Jean Marchand said "the best thing about Ottawa is the train to Montreal" ... Allan Fotheringhan christened it "Fat City, the town that fun forgot" ... Goldwin Smith termed it "a sub-arctic lumber-village converted by royal mandate into a political cockpit" ... Lord Moran wrote of it "The atmosphere of Ottawa after Washington is like Belfast after Dublin" ... Sir Wilfred Laurier said "I would not wish to say anything disparaging of the capital but it is hard to say anything good of it. Ottawa is not a handsome city and does not appear destined to become one." ... GG Sir Edmond Head in his reasons for fixing the seat of government for Canada as Ottawa wrote "On the whole, therefore, I believe that the least objectionable place is the city of Ottawa. Every city is jealous of every other city except Ottawa." Last but not least, I said "Ottawa is a city of english canadian warmth and charm and french canadian efficiency."

- On this day in 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the Seven Years War between the British and the French and Canada passed from French to British control. - On this day in 1841, Upper Canada was united with Lower Canada as the Province of Canada and Kingston was chosen as the capital. (And it would have been a hellava lot more pleasant, livable and convenient for most of us had Kingston remained the capital of Canada rather than being replaced in some sort of cruel colonial joke by that backwater haven for mosquitos and other vermin known as Ottawa.)

- Tuesday, February 10th, 2004: TONY CLEMENT ... today, Tony unveils his innovative new tax proposal which is designed as a revenue neutral way to give the newest members of the workforce a tax holiday and a head start ... under his plan, canadians would enjoy a tax holiday on their first $250,000 of income so that they could pay off their student loans and other educational expenses and buy their first cars, condos, furniture, etc. and basically be better able to cope at a time when their expenses are high because they must buy everything from scratch ... this tax holiday or deferrment - $21,000 for the average new entrant to the labour force - is particularly important to those who come from humble circumstances and don't have billionaire daddies and other advantages of privelege. BELINDA STRONACH - sure, Tony Clement may have a bright new idea today but Belinda will be buying a bright new dress! With an annual wardrobe budget of just $750,000, this typical single parent/working mother must make the most of her limited fashion budget so she will be examining 12 trunks of haute couture flown in from New York for her personal perusal. STEPHEN HARPER - today, Stephen will meet with the Holly Rollers of Red Deer - a youth group of evangelical christians on roller skates - and explain his plans to build a firewall around Alberta, to make heterosexuality compulsory and retroactive, and to kick the shit out of those uppity frenchies from Quebec. - WEDNESDAY, February 11th, 2004: TONY CLEMENT AND STEPHEN HARPER - today on a special edition of Don Neuman's daily political show on Newsworld (Channel 26 on cable in the GTA), these two Conservative Party leadership candidates will air and debate their views in a leadership debate of one hour commencing at 6pm EST. This is the first leaders' debate of the campaign and thus a good opportunity to learn and assess the views and take the measure of the candidates. BELINDA STRONACH - believing that political leadership campaigns are not the place for serious discussion and debate of political issues, Belinda will be sitting this debate out. Besides, she will be trying out crotchless panties and other intimate apparel from Victoria's Secrets as flown in for her inspection by her good friend Slime Bucket Billy Clinton who knows a thing or three such things. (She will be participating in the party sponsored debates but only because she is bound to do so by the rules or would be disqualified as a candidate.)