New Cabinet - Old Lefties

[kokanee]

Thank you Paul Martin for your great reforms. We here in Non - Liberal BC have a brand new Minister in Charge of Depressing West Coast Initiatives: DAVID ANDERSON!!

Now we can be sure that our offshore oil and gas reserves will be forever hostage to green and native victim demands, and therefore never, ever developed for the benefit of honest taxpayers.

Tell us again about Western Alienation.

[RT_1984]

Anderson must fall in the next election. For the good of the country.

[Schilly]

Now we can be sure that our offshore oil and gas reserves will be forever hostage to green and native victim demands, and therefore never, ever developed for the benefit of honest taxpayers.

A good "if/then" argument I might say.

[Craig Read]

Yes quite amazing that David Andersen is in any Cabinet. The father of Kyoto support in Canada - this hippie environmentalist finds it humorous i suppose that 300.000 jobs will be lost or would be lost if Canada still tries to make its Kyoto targets, just in the GTA area. I am sure a few hundred thousand more would be lost out West.

What exactly does Andersen bring in experience, background and thought to 'Western Economic Diversification'?

What does the job title mean anyways ? Will David help BC diversify out of lumber and marijuana production into ....what heavy vehicle production, electronic development or perhaps eco-friendly industry ?

I don't know why we need all these economic mandarins in Canada regulating and picking winners and losers or developing diversification strategies. This is not how modern economies are built.

Just ask MITI in Japan - the architect of a 12 year depression though back in the 80s the liberal backscratching press and business school professorial elite told us that the MITI way was of course superior.

Never learn do we.

[Neal.F.]

I am more disturbed by the retention of the most inept foreign minister this country has ever had, , Bill "How's your boyfriend?" Graham. what's worse is that he holds the same post.

And McCallum who has botched defense remains in cabinet.

Shampoo Pettigrew, who was responsible for the mess at HRDC, and left the explaining to Jane Stewart stays as well. Bad call.

And when you think it can't get worse, it does. Denis "Big Brother" Coderre also stays. What is truly bizarre is that it exposes the fact that Martin has suicidal tendencies. Coderre, while head of the Young Liberals in the '80's , a Chretien loyalist worked tirelessly to undermine Turner at every opportnity. He will likely do the same to Martin. Somebody must have some really damaging negatives of Martin for Coderre to have remained.

Then the Quebec nationalists: Liza Frulla and Lucienne Robillard. Yes, she who voted to have the Canadian flag removed from the national assembly. Way to go Martin.

In the lower echelons of cabinet, to wit, the parlaimentary secretaries, we find three of four Tory turncoats, (Brison, Price and Harvey) and none other than.....Headless Fry, the BC former Cabmin who was found, while practicing medicine, to have issued fraudulent prescriptions, and who is famous for the famous "Right now, there are crosses burning in Kamloops as we speak! I have a letter from the mayor to back it up" When asked to produce te letter she could not.

And who appluded Sunera Thobani's "the US has bloodstained hands, and throuroughly deserved what it got on 9/11"

Yes, martin, real change.

[Hugo]

Chretien was a corrupt, amoral powermonger. Witness the affairs with the "loans" made to the Grand Auberge, the Fu brothers case, the TotalFinaElf connection, the Robert Black lawsuit and so on. The corrupt money-grubbing and Byzantine intrigues are seemingly endless.

Martin seems determined not to bother with any house-cleaning. Little cabinet reshuffling, no investigations into allegations made against Chretien's cronies, no changes for the Senate or the Supreme Court, no electoral reform, in fact, very little reform of any kind except fiscal (and we shall see what happens to that - just look at fellow Liberal Dalton McGuinty's broken fiscal promises in Ontario).

Same old Liberals. It's my opinion that the only way that party will clean up its act, is if it is firmly booted out of power by the CPC, and that may be a wake-up call to reform into a party worth voting for again. Right now, they're just a bunch of crooks and thieves.

[Neal.F.]

Crooks and thieves.... as is the fate of any one-party-rule that continues too long.

One of his fiort orders of business was to abolish HRDC, and split it into two new organizations (smaller government?) which strikes me as an attempt to muddy the waters, and hope that in the resulting period of change, that the HRDC billion dollar boondoggles are swept under the carpet and quickly forgotten.

Next, he immediately ressurrects Chretien's marijuana bill that died when Parliament was prorogued in October... (Prorogue...bery good term: the Liberals are professional rogues...)

He's been PM a week too long, methinks.

As much as the punditocracy is still bleating about how he slices, he dices and is the only appliance canada will ever need, and that it's inevitable that he will lead the biggest landslide in Canadian history, and that the conservatives will finish behind the NDP and blah blah blah, I'm tempted to ask them, whether they prefer ketchup, chili sauce, or dijon mustard with the crow they'll all be eating in May.

Time to throw the bums out. BTW, Martin is saying he wants to be PM for 10 years.... Arrogant, swaggering pig.

Let's hope canadians wake up, and give him no more than 5 to six months.

[Michael Hardner]

It seems to me like there are more new faces in cabinet than old. And media reports have indicated that the new cabinet leans more to the right, although probably not enough for some.

Not being a politician myself, I'd like to keep an open mind about the Martin government. If I was Harper or Layton, of course I'd say that it was the same-old but I'm a voter so it's my responsibility to give every politician a fair shake.

So far, I'm most encouraged by the noises PM is making about electoral reform, and repairing damaged relations with the US.

Let's see.

[Neal.F.]

you don't go about mending fences with the US by, as a country that did nothing but sneer along with Gaul and Prussia and contribute nothing but obstruction to the US war effort, making holier-than-thou demands that one of the most sadistic mass murderes of modern times should be brought before lame liberal world court instead of being held accountable by the people he tormented for 30 odd years.

Then he revives Chretien's Marijuana bill, one of the most shameful pieces of legislation this country has ever seen in that it shows the country putting THAT on the frontburner while more important issues are left waiting. Just shows what an immature crybbaby, spolied brat socialist nanny-state this country is, if they allow this shameful childish excuse for leadership to continue.

Paul Elliot Chretien has been Prime minsiter one week too long already.

Martin is provng to be every bit the disappointment I thought he would..

Time to show him , and the Liberals the door.

If I may borrow, and adapt a line from the Republicans that was popular while slick willie lived in the white house: "PAul MArtin is not MY prime minister."

[Michael Hardner]

Neal, you're embellishing his statement.

He said:

"Obviously there's going to be Iraqi involvement but there also has to be a very important aspect of international involvement. "

I suspect that you're a partisan and that nothing PM would do is good enough for you.

If that's the case, then you're debating from the point of view of a CPC apparatchik. And that's fine too. But it's not the same as debating with a completely open mind.

[Neal.F.]

Sorry Michael, but you are right. there is nothing Martin can do that will make me happy, short of resigning.

However, it hasd nothing to do with CPC partisanship, and everything to do with the neccessity of cleaning out an extremely arrogant and corrupt government, and restoring multi-party rule in this country.

Canada has nothing of import to say about the Iraq war. Paul Martin still leads the same bunch of anti-americans as Chretien did. Heck, he even has HEDY FRY as a parliamentary secretary. This woman applauded as Sunera Thobani gave her snippy little speech a couple of years back about how the US is a nation with bloodstained hands, and deserved everything it got on 9/11.

same old bunch. some need their pinks, while others need to cool their haunches in opposition for a few years.

Paul Martin signed every bloody cheque that went through the governmnet betweem Oct. 25th 1993 and the day he went to the backbenches. Now he's trying to cover up the messes by re-arranging the furniture. What do you call splitting HRDC up into two organizations? I call it muddying the water.

[Michael Hardner]

I'll wait and see. Anybody has my vote at this point. Your point about Hedy and such is well taken.

But even YOU must like him more than Chretien.