Liberals In Trouble

[Kiraly]

That's alittle extreme don't you think?

If you were to reside politically in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, Harper would appear to be extreme from your vantage point.

[Big Blue Machine]

He isn't extreme.

[caesar]

Big blue; when you have been on the earth a little longer you will become a little more discerning. Harper is extreme right wing and that is a fact that i doubt even he would dispute.

[Kiraly]

Actually, that is an opinion that is easily disproven.

But since you make the claim, feel free to state your case.

Enquiring minds want to know.

[caesar]

yeah right; ask Harper

[caesar]

Canadian party politics has for decades been overlaid with regionalism," she said. "I would expect many Western Canadian respondents who have supported the Reform, and now Canadian Alliance, for no other reason than they identify with those parties because of their regional protest appeal."

"And the fact is that party leaders often try to cover their tracks to attract voters who might otherwise be offended if they knew how right-wing some of their policies really are."

[Cartman]

Let me get this straight, the debate is whether or not politicians of any stripe have hidden agendas and whether or not Harper is right wing? He was unable to articulate an actual agenda during the last election b/c the Cons. had held no policy convention and even then he flip flopped on the issue of supporting the US in Iraq. I also doubt even Harper would refute that he is right wing. So, what is the argument here?

[kimmy]

Canadian party politics has for decades been overlaid with regionalism," she said. "I would expect many Western Canadian respondents who have supported the Reform, and now Canadian Alliance, for no other reason than they identify with those parties because of their regional protest appeal."

"And the fact is that party leaders often try to cover their tracks to attract voters who might otherwise be offended if they knew how right-wing some of their policies really are."

Who are you quoting, caesar? I would like to know whose opinions you're offering to support your case.

The fact that many westerners have supported Reform/C.A./CPC as a protest vote against the old-line parties doesn't really support the argument that Harper is an extremist or has a hidden agenda. Once upon a time, the forerunner of the NDP was supported as a western protest party too, wasn't it? That some westerners supported the CPC and its forerunners as a protest vote doesn't really say anything other than testify to Canada's fractured political culture.

As for Harper covering his tracks... as a man who has been involved in academic and political life for a long time, his "tracks" are a matter of public record, as the Liberals pointed out on their website "WhatHarperSaid" or whatever it was called.

-kimmy

[Big Blue Machine]

then Harper had Whatteammartinsaid.com or something like that

[caesar]

As for Harper covering his tracks... as a man who has been involved in academic and political life for a long time, his "tracks" are a matter of public record

yes, like when he claimed he did not want Canada to join the Iraq invasion; of course he had been earlier whining that we should very emphatically.

[August1991]

I'll resurrect this thread because it shows that this internecine battle has a history.

Gagliano implicates Lapierre

Gagliano:

Ils disent que je suis un mauvais libéral maintenant, après tant d'années, après tout ce que j'ai fait pour le parti... Cela fait mal. Jean Lapierre était un ami, et depuis qu'il est retourné en politique, il ne me parle plus! Ce n'est pas facile de se faire accuser de toutes sortes de choses quand je sais que je n'ai rien fait de mal ", a dit M. Gagliano.

Lapierre:

" Je suis un ami de François Dufort (un patron de Cossette à Montréal) depuis une vingtaine d'années. J'ai eu un mandat pour Cossette pendant 18 mois peut-être... Je n'ai jamais chargé pour du lobbying, je faisais de l'analyse politique et des brain stormings ", a expliqué le ministre des Transports. " Je n'ai jamais sollicité, obtenu ou exécuté de mandat de lobbying, je n'ai jamais chargé pour ça, moi ", insiste-t-il.

The kicker:

Sous le gouvernement de Paul Martin- en juin 2004-, Cossette a obtenu le lucratif contrat de placement média pour toute la publicité fédérale. Cossette touche désormais pour trois ans un pourcentage sur le placement d'un pactole de 70 millions de dollars en publicité gouvernementale, le plus gros compte de placement média au Canada.

La Presse 19 April 2005

(God knows what Google will do with Lapierre's anglicismes.)

[August1991]

Kinsella has this on his website. This battle is coming out all over the place. The Liberal Party is committing seppuku. Even the Tories and Diefenbaker didn't go this far.

Somebody is going to write a very good book about this whole episode.

Paul Martin took a personal interest as finance minister in federal contracts that went to a firm with close political ties to him, says a disgruntled Liberal backroomer.

Warren Kinsella, a former cabinet aide, told a Commons committee Monday that Martin had to know the Finance Department was making end runs around cabinet contracting guidelines in some of the work it awarded to Earnscliffe Strategy Group in the 1990s.

"In my opinion Mr. Martin was aware of the situation," said Kinsella, who served at the time as an aide to then-public works minister David Dingwall. "He knew of the problems with regard to contracts."

CP Wire Story

[August1991]

Once again, I'll resurrect this thread, and add a post.

Thank God that Canada is something much greater than the Liberal Party would have us believe.

November 11, 2005 - The ceremonies are complete, and moving, as always. When you watch them, of course, they leave you thinking about war.

In that vein, I wanted to point out that Paul Martin told the Laurier Club last night (check out CTV's extensive coverage and the video links here, about eleven minutes in) that, if Stephen Harper was a majority government Prime Minister, we would be at war in Iraq.

That might be true. But it's also true that, had he won a majority, Paul Martin would have done the same damn thing:

"I really think Canada should get over to Iraq as quickly as possible." - (Paul Martin, North Bay Nugget, April 30, 2003).

"I don't think there is any doubt, if there ever was... that [saddam Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction. ...he had lied and that he is continuing to lie." - (Paul Martin, Calgary Herald, March 7, 2003)

"The problem is...we know well that there is proliferation of nuclear weapons and that many of the weapons that Saddam Hussein had, for example, we do not know where they are, so that means the terrorists have access to all that." - (Paul Martin, Globe and Mail, May 11, 2004)

"Once the war in Iraq began, Canada was far from neutral." - (Paul Martin, CTV News, May 21, 2004)

"I really think Canada should get over to Iraq as quickly as possible." Get that? Paul Martin said that. Not Harper or Layton or Duceppe. Paul Martin. Get to war, and get to war fast. Said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, too.

On this Remembrance Day, it's useful to remember - as Paul Martin cravenly seeks to depict his opponent as pro-war - that, once upon a time, Paul Martin favoured George W. Bush's illegal war in Iraq, too.

My friend Chretien? He never did.

Warren Kinsella 11 Nov 2005

[kimmy]

Odd, isn't it, that Kinsella is much better at cutting up Martin than anybody the Conservatives have?

-k

[shoop]

Not necessarily odd, just the way things work. What Kinsella wrote is great, but Harper can't address Iraq. Doesn't win him any points.

Odd, isn't it, that Kinsella is much better at cutting up Martin than anybody the Conservatives have?

-k

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[August1991]

I'm going to post this link here because it's part of the ongoing, Liberal Party Civil War.

Now, they're trying to create a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", or something. IMV, the result is both humourous and dumb and like so much else in this Civil War, it leads to some really [irony]great[/irony] quotes:

The man the Liberals have assigned to assemble their blueprint for party renewal says the defeated government's national daycare program was "a deathbed repentance," the gun registry was "an administrative disaster" and the response to the sponsorship scandal was "bizarre."

The blunt-talking Tom Axworthy, a former aide to Pierre Trudeau who teaches at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., also says the former government's Kyoto policy was not only difficult to understand, "it wasn't real anyway."

"On file after file, we haven't had bad ideas, but the implementation process has been abysmal," he said in an interview with CanWest News Service. "A press release is not a policy."

Noting Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "intelligent political strategy" in Quebec, Mr. Axworthy said so much of the Liberal party's support in the province has ebbed away that it has almost lost its raison d'etre of national unity.

"We're in third place in Quebec," he said. "Now, if that doesn't occasion a rethink, I don't know what does."

National Post

The Liberals are having a leadership campaign and Tom Axworthy thinks they can have a 'virtual' policy conference. Right.