One Crisis(es) After Another
I thought this was too good to pass up, so I’ll paraphrase Stephane Dion and Scott Reid from this past week. Maybe you’ll get an ironic giggle out of it like I do.
This past week Mr. Harper turned an economic crisis into a political crisis. He then re branded that crisis by turning it into a national unity crisis, before instigating a constitutional crisis to get out of the whole mess.
All that in just one week when he could have just worked with the other MPs to solve the first crisis.
You know, I don’t think I’d like to be Prime Minister if these are the only options put before me.
New Heritage Minister, empahsis on the "new"
James Moore, star of this blog’s most popular post of all time, has been named the new Canadian Heritage Minister. He is best known for being one of the youngest MPs and Ministers in history – he’s 32 now – as well as being the MP who caused a stir last year by being vilified for looking at pornography in the House of Commons on his laptop. It turned out he was not looking at porn he was actually looking at, and I’m not making this up, semi nude photos of his girlfriend that she emailed to him. The NDP MP who brought it up later apologized for some strange reason. (If he was still looking at inappropriate images why apologize?)
As near as I can tell he has no history with anything “Heritage” related. He was a broadcaster for a couple months between being a student – political science, natch – and a politician. Other than speaking French, but Lord knows that isn’t much of a qualification. (Stephane Dion, I’m looking in your direction…)
While we’re on the topic of ‘things that give me pause’, why is his official website a .org? James Moore is an organization? That would strike me as rather narcissistic. Let’s hope that is not a sign of things to come. I’m keeping my fingers crossed really, really hard.
PS – I really don’t want to nit-pick, but what is with the dog photo? Trying to one up Stephen Harper and his cats?
Real winners and real losers
Congratulations to the Conservatives on another minority government. Many consider Stephen Harper’s team’s performance tonight a decisive victory, others will no doubt call it a major loss. So without further adieu I cut through the punditry and give you my ‘real winners and real losers’ of Federal Election 2008:
Honourable Mentions:
Winner: Toronto Conservatives. Just when it looked like Stephen Harper had given up hope on ever having a major breakthrough in Toronto and area, Team Blue delivers in the 416, roundly defeating several Liberal seat holders.
Loser: Quebec Conservatives. Just when it looked like Stephen Harper had given up hope on ever having a major breakthrough in Quebec, Team Blue imploded and struggled to keep even the 10 seats they held last time around. Even hand picked-Senator Michael Fortier couldn’t win. While hand picked-poster child Justin Trudeau had no problem winning in a seat that was anything but a sure bet.
Loser: Elizabeth May. She did great in the debates but just one political decision made before the election was even called was the one that did her in: running against Peter McKay. Why did she run in this riding?! She could have been the first Green MP save for this one extremely bad decision. I think her eyes were bigger than her stomach and she just got greedy. Instead the Green Party stays put with a big ZERO on the board and remains, sadly, irrelevant.
Loser: Bloc Quebecois. Harper hands you a gift and basically gives the entire province the finger and you turn it into… less seats?
Winner: Quebec Liberals. Never was a stronger message given that Quebec really is different than the rest of the country than when it came to the Liberal vote for 2008. Dion must be brilliant in French. How else to explain the Liberal increase in seats? Don’t ask the Bloc or Conservatives, they’ll be sratching their heads for weeks on this one.
Winner: Jack Layton. You may not be Prime Minister, so you’re probably disappointed, but NDP numbers went up across the country and so did your seat count. That makes you a winner, but barely, because their is very little to be proud of here. There’s only so many times you can say “better luck next time”.
Loser: Stephen Harper. How did you NOT get a majority?! Seriously! Stephane Dion could have been condemmed to an asylum part way trough the election and I don’t think it would have made a difference. The election was there for the taking, a better chance could not be imagined, and still… only a 15 or so seat increase. Never should a leader be so disappointed with his party’s win. Has Harper hit his ceiling? What went wrong? Hopefully something went wrong and he can identify it otherwise there is only one other answer: the majority of Canadian’s don’t like or trust you. And that doesn’t bode well for your party EVER returning to majority stauts.
Surprising Runner Up:
Loser: Stephane Dion. Harper can console his Loser status by knowing that Dion ranked higher on the Loser list. I don’t need to harp on Dion and his leadership. That’s just kicking a guy when he’s down. Instead I’ll let your party do it. Perhaps at the upcoming leadership review? See you then, Stephane. It ain’t going to be pretty.
Grand Champion:
Loser: Canadians. Did you enjoy your unexciting Fall election that left us right back where we left off? With a – as the Prime Minister himself puts it – “dysfunctional parliament”. Surely, you must at least feel a little lighter after all the frivolity? Maybe that is the lack of $300 million making you feel lighter. That’s how much you just paid for… whatever it was that we just got to do. Thank goodness we have fixed election dates to look forward to that will make sure this kind of thing won’t happen again… oh… yeah. Hmm. So much for that idea too, huh?
So there it is, my (annual?) Federal Election Real Winners and Real Losers. Shall we do it again next Fall? See you then, everybody!
Happy anniversary you Party animals!
Happy first anniversary to Ed Stelmach and Stephane Dion. (Today marks one year since both were elected to lead their parties – as everybody’s second choice.) So far boys, it looks like you are living up to absolutely everyone’s expectations. Keep up the… good (?)… work (?).
Subscribe
-
Like Minded
