Category: Canadian politics

From ABC
Roman dictator Julius Caesar may have been warned that deadly harm would befall him no later than March 15.
But the soothsayer who supposedly delivered the prophetic message couldn’t possibly have foretold what he would inspire, including a “Simpsons” episode called “Homer the Great, an episode of “Xena: Warrior Princess,” and a U.S. rock band from Berwyn, Ill., named the Ides of March.

Even Oscar-winner George Clooney is in on the act, reportedly finishing up filming of his “Ides of March,” a movie about a presidential campaign in which he acts and directs.

Indeed, the supposed encounter that William Shakespeare so tragically depicted in his “Julius Caesar” (“Beware the ides of March”) has become the stuff of popular culture.

[Read the Rest]

Concerning the Clooney movie, oh please not another  anti-American/anti-capitalist diatribe

It looks like student dollars are inadvertently being donated to the Liberals. How about those perpetual students at  the CFS, they aren’t rebels without a cause after all.

The Education Premier is getting low marks in Northern Ontario. The Sudbury Star commissioned a poll asking readers if the Ontario Liberals have been good for the North. Over 85% of respondents gave the Liberals record a solid thumbs down.

Now I don’t put much stock in Internet polls  because they can easily be skewed . However  these quotes give you  a small sense of how the liberals are perceived in Northern Ontario.

“The HST, the Health Tax, the G20,” said one man who voted no. “Not only has he not done a good job for the North, he hasn’t done a good job for the province period.”

Today  the liberal friendly working families coalition launched a new series of negative ads  . For those who think calling the WFC a liberal front group is  just another over exaggeration.. back in 2007 the WFC had a fairly public squabble with unions who did not  back  the Liberals  instead opted to support their traditional ally the NDP.

From  Toronto Star 
On July 20, Pat Dillon of the provincial building trades council wrote an accusatory letter to Michael Lewis, brother of former provincial NDP leader Stephen and a former Steelworkers official. Dillon accused Lewis of actively discouraging other unions from joining the working families group.

In his letter, Dillon recalled “the great harm done” by the Conservative regime under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves and declared: “Instead of trying to undermine the only effective voice for working people in Ontario, you should be focusing your efforts in trying to prevent a repeat of the Harris-Eves era.”

Dillon also complained that the NDP had appropriated the “working families” brand name for its own campaign slogan (“a fair deal for working families”).

Lewis responded in writing last week with a stinging rebuttal that said only the NDP could be counted on to advance labour’s agenda.

“There are some unions that see things differently, some who would support the Liberals for short-term gains,” wrote Lewis.

“I believe that these unions are mistaken if they think that this promotes the interests of working families.”

Lewis also mocked Dillon’s suggestion that the NDP had stolen the “working families” brand.

“Long before the working families coalition was a gleam in Don Guy’s eye, the NDP has been speaking about and fighting for working families right across Canada,” wrote Lewis.

Don Guy is the Liberal campaign director. He is also president of a polling firm that has done work for the working families coalition.

Pointing to this and other connections with the Liberals, the Conservatives have suggested that the working families coalition is just a Liberal front created to circumvent campaign spending restrictions. A formal complaint has been filed by the Conservatives with the chief election officer and is under investigation.

But the Lewis/Dillon exchange shows that the battle over the working families coalition is being waged not just between the Liberals and Conservatives but also within the labour movement, where the two letters have been widely circulated.

If the WFC was standing up for families why would they concern themselves with further splitting the union vote in Ontario?

If this commentary from a self-described undecided  voter is any indication the Liberals are really in trouble.

From  Times and Transcript

Liberal Party bashing among pundits lately appears to have become a sport, which itself ought to be a strong cautionary sign for the party. After all this includes a lot of people who are more sympathetic to the Liberal Party than any other . . . or once were.

But then, never has the self-styled ‘natural governing party’ been so out of touch with voters. Never have its MPs and closest advisers appeared so clueless about what to do.

If ever a political party needed a blood transfusion, it’s this one. Instead, it lives on inflated false confidence that everyone knows they are the ones who should be running the nation (ignoring two election defeats) and that all they have to do is throw enough mud at the PM and glory days will return.

It’s delusional. Never mind the lame duck leader. (Great unanswered question: why would somebody so intelligent and well informed – Michael Ignatieff is both – stick to hackneyed Party scripts and myths rather than actually lead it where it needs to go?) Despite failure after failure at attempts to create scandal out of stuff only politicians and policy wonks in Ottawa’s cocoon could work up more than a yawn about, the tactics remain unchanged. So the party comes off as arrogant (‘we know what’s best, not you’), power hungry to the point of desperation (and silliness) and still lacks a coherent platform or vision. For most, the tattered Liberal ethos from the late 1960s is little more than a curiosity 40 years later. If the Liberals do end up governing anytime soon, it will most likely be via an accident in how votes split or thanks to a massive error by the Conservatives unlike any they’ve committed to date. Hardly a ringing endorsement!

I’ve said this before and much of the reaction I’ve had or heard from Liberals (and sometimes small-l liberals) has been simply more mud-slinging: suggestions yours truly is just a conservative ideologue. It’s an occupational hazard. Yet, every election I make a choice, and often vote differently than in the previous election – the kind of voter political parties and pollsters who seek certainty hate. That’s another way of saying the Liberals could get my vote, if . . . Here’s a sampling of the sort of things that might do it:

* Drop the knee-jerk ideological devotion to hugely expensive nanny state social programs backed primarily by special interest groups. Devise a workable plan to ensure the programs we have now, particularly health care and CPP, do not end up bankrupting us or being ruined because we can’t afford them.

[Read the Rest]