Globe and MailSees the Light at Last

[scribblet]

From today's Sun - some explanation about the vitrolic, over-the top-opposition to anything Harper does or says. Not to mention the double standards they apply as they bash Stephen Harper for his alleged "made-in-America" policies, but invite American Democrat Howard Dean to speak at their leadership convention.

http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Commenta...21/2431810.html

Many Sun readers wonder why Stephen Harper got so much grief from other Canadian media last week when he rightly raised with China's president the issue of China's secret detention of a Canadian citizen.

Or why what strikes many people as a logical proposal by Justice Minister Vic Toews to give the police some input into the appointment of judges, is greeted by our legal community with hysteria.

Or why, on almost any issue he tackles -- child care, foreign policy, the environment -- Harper is met by a tsunami of vitriolic, sneering, over-the-top opposition.

Globe and Mail Ottawa columnist John Ibbitson has helped to answer those questions in a remarkably blunt column last Friday. Headlined "Bob Rae and the China syndrome" Ibbitson said the fears of many westerners (and other conservatives) that Canada is run by an eastern liberal elite are valid.

This is, he said: "A governing class of senior public servants, academics, artists, journalists, lawyers and judges (that) belongs to a community of common interest physically and intellectually centred in downtown Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa."

These liberal elites, Ibbitson writes, are "very displeased" with Harper, viewing him as "a wrecker: a cold-blooded leader of a band of vulgar ideologues that, with every action, destabilizes the liberal consensus that has dominated our federal government for generations."

They also "despise" frontrunning Liberal leadership contender Michael Ignatieff for working abroad for so long and then presuming he can return here and be handed the Liberal leadership.

Thus, says Ibbitson, "the Liberal consensus is rallying around Bob Rae" whom it sees as "One of Us," even if he once "strayed" into the NDP. It has chosen him "to replace that awful man in the Prime Minister's Office" and is now doing all it can to help.

To which we at the Sun can only respond ... yeah.

-snip-

Link to G & M article http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

[hiti]

You mean Mulroney's Sun?

As for Rae.... your dreams will end very soon.

[leonardcohen]

I just read an article recently in either The Ottawa Sun or The Ottawa Citizen that said a recent poll actually had the Liberals sans leader were actually tied with the Conservatives in popularity.That makes me wonder about whether some people are just plain dumb or do we really hate conservatism that much or don't care about corruption at all.It appears the fear mongering that the liberals use as a campaign strategy in just about every recent election goes much deeper then i thought. :angry:

[scribblet]

I just read an article recently in either The Ottawa Sun or The Ottawa Citizen that said a recent poll actually had the Liberals sans leader were actually tied with the Conservatives in popularity.That makes me wonder about whether some people are just plain dumb or do we really hate conservatism that much or don't care about corruption at all.It appears the fear mongering that the liberals use as a campaign strategy in just about every recent election goes much deeper then i thought. :angry:

Its a campaign strategy, you can see it on this board, but it could backfire on them again if they are not careful.

They (Liberals) can only hurt themselves with the use of over the top vicious rhetoric, opposing any and everthing the CPC does renders much of the complaints, even valid ones, as not credible. They can cry wolf too often.

As an example, the Liberal Senate has sent back the accountability act with over a hundred amendments. Foot dragging on measures that would tighten up political fundraising until after the party's leadership convention was over will be a good campaign issue - they increased the ceiling for political donations to $2,000; they want to maintain a separate ethics commissioner for the Senate; and limit Access to Information coverage for The Canadian Wheat Board, the Nat. Arts Centre and Sustainable Development and Technology Ca. That along with their foot dragging on the anti crime bill is good campaign fodder and another excuse to get rid of the Senate.

The CPC will likely restore it to the original so this could be an endless loop unresolved until an election is called. Very good material for a campaign, and not good optics for the corruption-addicted Liberals - just in time for a spring election and a public reminder of Liberal perfidy.

They should be careful of what they wish for (the Liberals that is)

[August1991]

Good read. Thanks Scriblett.

I couldn't agree with Ibbitson more. But he's far too forward thinking in his closing paragraph:

That is why the Liberal consensus is rallying around Bob Rae. He comes from the right sort of family, and although he strayed into the NDP, he has grown and matured and increasingly acts like One of Us. Stéphane Dion might be acceptable in a pinch, but it's Bob Rae that the liberal consensus has chosen to replace that awful man in the Prime Minister's Office.

The elite of the liberal consensus may well get their way; they usually do. But here's a thing. Money and power and people are flowing steadily westward and the decline of deference continues to drain power out of the common rooms and into the commons.

One day, not that far off, the West will choose the song, and the masses will elect whom they please, and the elite of the liberal consensus will find themselves talking only to each other, and being listened to by no one at all.

IMV, Dion fits the bill better than Rae but either would be alright to the central Canadian elite. I doubt Harper will have the ability to overcome the onslaught. As I posted elsewhere, he'll likely be a one mandate PM.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

While I don't like Harper or his policies, I fear Iggy and Rea for their carbon tax delusions. I certainly hope that the next election leaves things pretty much as they are with whoever winning only having a minority government.

[hiti]

As an example, the Liberal Senate has sent back the accountability act with over a hundred amendments. Foot dragging on measures that would tighten up political fundraising until after the party's leadership convention was over will be a good campaign issue - they increased the ceiling for political donations to $2,000; they want to maintain a separate ethics commissioner for the Senate; and limit Access to Information coverage for The Canadian Wheat Board, the Nat. Arts Centre and Sustainable Development and Technology Ca. That along with their foot dragging on the anti crime bill is good campaign fodder and another excuse to get rid of the Senate.

The CPC will likely restore it to the original so this could be an endless loop unresolved until an election is called. Very good material for a campaign, and not good optics for the corruption-addicted Liberals - just in time for a spring election and a public reminder of Liberal perfidy.

They should be careful of what they wish for (the Liberals that is)

42 (?) of the amendments to the Accountability Act came from Tory Senators. Are you going to be honest in your electioneering and state the obvious or will every Tory parrot "over a hundred amendments by Liberal Senators"

I think that the ceiling for donations should remain at $5,000 and the Senate should have their own ethics commissioner. Access to information under this Act is severely limited, but that is what Harper and his gang like, operate behind close doors. (quote-MacLeans)When the accountability act was tabled last spring, it failed to include most of the Tory campaign promises designed to beef up the access to information rules. Instead, a House committee was assigned to study possible changes to the law in the indefinite future. Critics accuse the Conservatives of trying to postpone and, ultimately, smother their own promised reforms under endless evaluation of the options. (end quote)

You go and use this in your election platform. LOLOL Accountability act 'a bureaucrat's dream,'

[scribblet]

Nothing but threats and games from Liberal Senate as Liberal Senator Joseph Day promised to use obstructionism to block the act.

Liberal Senator Dan Hays, said the Senate must be cognizant of the major policies in a government's platform, and the public opinion expressed in an election. (Calgary Herald, February 2, 2006)

Liberal Dan Hays, the leader of the opposition in the Senate, wouldn't promise anything on Thanksgiving, but did acknowledge it would be difficult for unelected senators to vote against legislation advertised as a cure for corruption. ``I note with interest that the House of Commons passed it with support from all parties, and that's a strong signal,'' Hays said. (CP, June 22, 2006) and

iberal Senator Catherine Callbeck said she believes the Senate will respect Harper's plans to do things differently. "The Senate has respected the popular will of Canadians," she said. "It has sometimes held up legislation such as the free trade bill until there was an election on that issue. But it's only held it up in exceptional circumstances. We realize the House of Commons is elected." (Charlottetown Guardian, April 10, 2006)

They must be forgetting what they have said. as the Liberals are playing partisan political games and actually flaunting about their obstructionism.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...me=&no_ads=

Liberal senators table ethics act amendments