Liberals

[maplesyrup]

PM makes gas tax promise

Mayors from across Canada applauded Prime Minister Paul Martin's promise Friday that cities will eventually get at least $2 billion annually from the federal gasoline tax if the Liberals are re-elected.

The extra money to invest in urban infrastructure would be available starting next year and would grow to five cents of the tax from every litre of fuel sold in the country within five years.

Martin made the announcement as part of a new deal for cities "to have a greater voice in the national conversation" in a speech to the annual meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

"Our municipalities are the most under-funded of the three orders of government and they have the least amount of say when the policies of other governments have an impact on them. This has to change," he said.

[maplesyrup]

Martin attacks other leaders on languages issue

[maplesyrup]

Lapierre vanishes! Mais il ne disparaît pas!

Gotta like this!

[maplesyrup]

The Liberals find a winning issue: Clarity

If you enjoyed the previous Paul Wells message, you'll love this.

[maplesyrup]

Martin s'est trompé de clou

Interesting article explaining that Quebeckers are least concenrned about ethics & the scandals, and most concerned about social programs. The media are quite misleading at times.

[maplesyrup]

Canadian elections: campaign hype cannot mask popular disaffection

The proprietor of one of Canada’s largest corporations and Finance Minister from 1993 to 2002, Martin succeeded Jean Chrétien as Prime Minister last December. For the preceding two years, the big business press had egged Martin on in his campaign to seize the Liberal leadership, dubbing him a political colossus for the massive public spending cuts he had imposed between 1995 and 1997 and the five-year, $100 billion schedule of tax cuts he had unveiled in the run up to the November 2000 election.

However, Martin’s reputed mass support was quickly revealed to be a media-blown bubble. Within weeks of his becoming prime minister, the Liberals fell sharply in the opinion polls. Martin had planned for an early May election, but fearing for the future of his government he repeatedly pushed back the election call, finally opting for what was effectively the last possible polling date before September

No one escapes unscathed in this one.

[maplesyrup]

May 29, 2004

Is Warren having a change of heart?

[takeanumber]

If someone important calls me, personally, and says:

Paul Martin's senior staff were wrong to state that Jean Chrétien, and the people around him, were criminals; and....

...Then I will pack my bag and fly up to Ottawa to help out in the war room tomorrow morning.  No bullshit. PMO switchboard has all my numbers - or they used to, anyway. Your move.

He's right.

Martin first moved far to the fiscal right, and stayed there for awhile. Then, he seemed to move to social conservative right, which really enraged many.

Then, he seemed to back away from the conservative right.

And then he moved back to the social centre.

And then he seemed to move back from the fiscal right to the fiscal centre with all of these recycled, rehashed problems.

Then he made Chretien et al. out to be criminals (perhaps true?) and then expected none of the shit to splatter back?

Then he backtracks again.

Anyway, I guess my point is this:

The scientific definition of a second is so many oscilations of a cesium atom.

I respectfully suggest that the scientific definition of a day is measured by the number of position oscilations of Mr. Martin in a day.

[maplesyrup]

I wonder what the Liberals are going to do now.

The Liberals it seems made a serious tactical error at the beginning putting all their chips in the Martin basket.

Now according to Ipsos-Reid tonight, we see that Martin's momentum has turned negative to the tune of 47% in the last few weeks.

I get the impression the Liberals are like cornered rats.

Watch out!

[Michael Hardner]

I'm still banking on a Liberal minority government.

Whether the Bloc or the NDP has the balance of power, the Liberals will be able to offer them much more than the Conservatives will.

Martin will have a year or two to turn things around in his favour.

[maplesyrup]

Well Ipsos-Reid said tonight they are not sure that the Liberal bleeding has stopped.

[Kliege]

Martin will be out of the country for 2 days in the next fews days for D-day events in France, that will not help the Liberal campaign either.

[Slavik44]

Martin will be out of the country for 2 days in the next fews days for D-day events in France, that will not help the Liberal campaign either.

he better make sure he doesn't end up in norway

[maplesyrup]

Is another one of the Martin Liberals "Star' candidates in BC biting the dust?

This time it is Shirley Chan over a campaign worker's e-mail sent out calling people retarded.

She's done like dinner.

[Liberaler]

I will be voting and rooting for the Liberal party 100% The Alliance-Conservatives should lose this election.

[maplesyrup]

Apparently it was quite a nasty e-mail.

And the party name is Conservative Party of Canada. Easy, big fellow.

[Kliege]

I will be voting and rooting for the Conservative Party 100% The Liberals should lose this election.

[maplesyrup]

BREAKING TREND STORY:

Martin is finally getting some well needed help.

[August1991]

Breaking trend? Manley? Dion in five provinces? I'd say the Liberal leadership race has already started.

The Liberal Party is like a shark; it has to keep moving or it dies.

[maplesyrup]

I'm surprised there has been so little talk about Martin's future.

Does he really have one as leader of the Liberals?

Liberals have gone from suggesting Martin would obtain 250 seats to a minority government. and Liberals are happy about that. Are they nuts?

Isn't it time they threw the bum out?

[maplesyrup]

Prime Minister can learn some lessons from Mulroney

Then Mulroney changed from a consensus politician to a conviction politician, from small fixes to big ideas. The Progressive Conservative embraced three major initiatives: free trade negotiations which transformed the economy, the Meech Lake Accord to amend the Constitution, and the Goods and Services Tax that dramatically changed Canada's tax structure. Like them or not, each one was historic in sweep, controversial, visionary and politically unpopular. Two of the three succeeded.

Martin's seven months in office have been long enough to generate some of the same problems Mulroney encountered when he brought his campaign team with him into government. He may have learned that loyalty and good intentions are not enough.

But it remains to be seen if Martin is tough-minded enough and intellectually agile enough to make the same leap from consensus to conviction.

[caesar]

Prime Minister can learn some lessons from Mulroney:

Let's hope not

[kimmy]

I'm surprised there has been so little talk about Martin's future.

Does he really have one as leader of the Liberals?

Liberals have gone from suggesting Martin would obtain 250 seats to a minority government. and Liberals are happy about that. Are they nuts?

Isn't it time they threw the bum out?

I hope that Martin doesn't give in.

I am just very happy that the Chretien era is finally over. I think that Chretien was more interested in winning fights than about doing what was best.

I really do think that Paul Martin is sincere about wanting to do things different. I like that he ihas already been to the west several times to meet with real people in Alberta and BC. Chretien never came west except to go skiing (or pepper-spray protesters. )

I am wondering about the people who thought the Liberals would make 250 seats. What were they smoking?? After the string of problems they had (most of which are messes that Chretien left for Paul Martin to fix) I think the Liberals did very well in this election. Considering how mad people were about the sponsorship scandal, the Liberals could have been sunk. But they weren't and they pulled it together.

Paul Martin did the right thing when Sheila Fraser's report came out. The public inquiry has generated negative press for the Liberals, but Martin went ahead with it anyway. I think that is a good sign of his character. (and I think the amount of friction it has caused within his party speaks poorly for the people who are opposing him on it.) I hope that Paul Martin continues to be prime minister and that he continues to do things different. I am looking forward to the Paul Martin era!

-kimmy

[maplesyrup]

Tough times in the civil service

Alcock has operated on the assumption that candour is the cardinal virtue, throwing away his text and speaking off the cuff, dismissing descriptions of the complexity of a situation as "That's all bull----," and reducing public servants to tears.

"He is the chief mechanic, and he keeps throwing monkey wrenches into the government machinery," one expert said.

"I've never seen anything like it."

Alcock's bull-in-a-china-shop style is in contrast with that of his predecessor, Lucienne Robillard, who impressed the officials she worked with through her innovation, ability to listen, skill in managing a department, and competence.

[kimmy]

Tough times in the civil service

If public service workers are upset that they are under a magnifying glass, maybe they should think about why. They brought it on themselves!

It is hard to have much sympathy after the string of disasters the public service has produced.

Others suggest it is unfair to blame Alcock; that Martin himself cast a shadow on the public service when, instead of defending public servants following Auditor-General Sheila Fraser's report on sponsorship, he talked about cronyism and corruption and named a flurry of inquiries.

Oh boo hoo!

I can't imagine why anybody would expect the Prime Minister to stick up for people who have been, essentially, caught red-handed laundering money. How can anybody feel sorry for these people?

And the sponsorship scandal is not the only one, just the most famous. Over the past few years there have several others!

-HRDC accounting practices lose track of a billion dollars

-the Radwanski affair

-paid $160 million to Hewlett-Packard for stuff that was apparently never received

-gun registry costs went completely out of control

We trust the public service to use our tax money to the most benefit for Canadians! And they have let us down several times in the past few years. I do not think it is unfair to expect better...

They fear the effect of the public inquiry into sponsorship, headed by Judge John H. Gomery, will be as draining, time-consuming and embittering for the senior public service as the Somalia Inquiry was for the Canadian military.

Since the Somalia inquiry hurt people's feelings and made them feel stressed out, it probably shouldn't have been done

Maybe Canada's public service was just a big happy family before, but obviously some people were just a little too comfortable with their positions. Maybe it is just a few bad apples who ruined everything for the whole bunch, but whatever the case it is obvious that there needed to be some changes. If the changes have been handled badly, then that is unfortunate. And if the changes have hurt peoples feelings then that is sad as well, but I can't think of any job that doesn't have some accountability and expectations of performance and consequences if those aren't met.

-kimmy