Astute observers of the internet in general, and equine-themed politics blogs in particular, will have noticed an eerie silence from this site of late.
Canadian politics has rarely been as interesting as it is now. Minority governments have treated Canadians to greater transparency of their legislative process (when the legislature is permitted to meet that is) and given more relief between the parties’ approaches to issues and impasses.
But while there is more to write about than ever, there seems to be less and less time to write – at least anything worth reading that is. And as the very first post to this site said, the problem with blogs is quality. Do your research, make tight arguments, avoid the ad hominum and with any luck, you will write the kind of blog you would want to read. But in short, if you aren’t trying, don’t try.
All to say that for the next little at least, it’s all going to get a whole lot quieter around here.
But instead of leaving it like this, let’s leave it like this …
The Liberal Party of Canada will never be an alternative to the Conservatives, precisely because so many Liberals agree with Stephen Harper.
The evidence of this is legion, but the most recent is right here.
Today the Ignatieff Liberals pushed the biggest, ugliest, loudest, hot-buttoniest political hot-button Canadian politics has to offer on the right / left divide … and members of the Liberal caucus pushed it right back.
In their attempt to entrap the Conservatives on abortion, the Liberals exposed their own two-facedness on this touchstone issue of social conservativism when John McKay, Paul Szabo, and Dan McTeague voted against their party’s motion, while other right-wing Liberals Albina Guarnieri, Gurbax Malhi and Derek Lee abstained.
This isn’t the first example of Liberals pretending to stand for something only to show they stand for the opposite; it is only the latest.
Today, if you want women to have the right to choose, there are Liberal MPs for that. But if you want abortion outlawed and returned to back alleys, there are Liberal MPs for that too.
If you are in favour of public health care, there are Liberal MPs for that. But if you want private for profit delivery, there are Liberal MPs for that too.
Does this sound like a party that is an alternative to Stephen Harper?
This Red/Blue convergence is borne from the fact that the modern federal Liberal Party, bereft of leadership, has taken the aggregation of interests to the bizarre extreme of aggregating opposite interests and calling it a party.
The sum of it is that there is no greater unity of opinion on any issue in the Liberal Party of Canada than you would expect to find on a city bus. The difference is, at least the people on the bus know where they are headed.
So, just like they have years ago in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia, and most recently Nova Scotia, Canadians looking for a change from the old politics will look past the tired and confused Liberals, to Jack Layton’s New Democrats. The change will come.
"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world." - T.C. Douglas
Showing posts with label Harper Liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harper Liberals. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Iggy Liberals wrong on human rights
Lately, the Ignatieff Liberals have invested considerable political capital on international affairs. They are banking on Canadians becoming so furious over fellow citizens being left to their own defences abroad, and the country's reputation being tattered and soiled on the world stage that they can transform Ignatieff's "just visiting" into "worldliness" to make him an attractive electoral alternative.
Regardless of what one may think of a advisability of strategy posited on making foreign affairs a vote determining issue, the Liberals have clearly not considered their own vulnerabilities on foreign affairs.
The Star's Linda Diebel points to one such example. In deciding to back the Conservatives controversial free trade deal with Columbia, the Liberals - led by a renowned (albeit badly flawed) human rights scholar - are deliberately glossing over horendous human rights abuses in that country.
Diebel takes issue with Liberal Scott Brison's assertion that "To say that paramilitary forces are murdering union leaders today is false."
Diebel in response:
"don't whitewash the actions of a government led by a president accused by Colombian human rights groups of sanctioning death squad activity when he was governor of Antioquia (where Apartado is located) in order to sell free trade. Rights groups claim workers trying to organize on [Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe's own family ranch were assassinated by the death squads. He is very well-known for his tirades against human rights organizations and the slick operations of his sales team."
Regardless of what one may think of a advisability of strategy posited on making foreign affairs a vote determining issue, the Liberals have clearly not considered their own vulnerabilities on foreign affairs.
The Star's Linda Diebel points to one such example. In deciding to back the Conservatives controversial free trade deal with Columbia, the Liberals - led by a renowned (albeit badly flawed) human rights scholar - are deliberately glossing over horendous human rights abuses in that country.
Diebel takes issue with Liberal Scott Brison's assertion that "To say that paramilitary forces are murdering union leaders today is false."
Diebel in response:
"don't whitewash the actions of a government led by a president accused by Colombian human rights groups of sanctioning death squad activity when he was governor of Antioquia (where Apartado is located) in order to sell free trade. Rights groups claim workers trying to organize on [Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe's own family ranch were assassinated by the death squads. He is very well-known for his tirades against human rights organizations and the slick operations of his sales team."
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Harper v. Ignatieff: The fight for who has the better conservative ideas
At first they won’t admit it. But over time – and usually over drinks – Ottawa Liberals are starting to confess a deep concern that their current leader may be their most right of centre yet -- and that this will have a very real consequence in the next election.
His cosmopolitan and intellectual aura aside, on the environment, the Iraq war, violence as a means to an end and on things ordinary people actualy care about, Ignatieff's opinions are almost indistinguishable from Harper's. New Democrats have already begun to seize on the homogenization with this biting commentary.
Contextually this makes sense. The Liberal Party has been inexorably drifting to the right over the past 25 years. The Chretien-Martin era marked new low point for progressives. The governing Liberals slashed $25 billion from health and education and downloaded it to the provinces, they eliminated the federal role in social housing, they gave tens of billions worth of incentives to the oil and gas sector, they put us into a war in Kandahar without a clear mission, and they pushed through a reactionary anti-terror bill, complete with draconian security certificates. So, it is almost a given that whomever leads them now should necessarily be more individualistic, more laissez faire, more hawkish and less committed to basic notions of fairness than the one previous. Ignatieff fills the bill, and then some.
Another measure is this: the Liberal Party of Trudeau and Pearson was home to some of the most out-spoken, risk-taking progressives of their era -- like Tom Kent, Allan MacEachen, Warren Allmand, Paul Martin Sr., Monique Begin, and Pauline Jewett.
Yet where are these people in today’s Liberal Party? They aren’t there; or if they are there, they are so timid and neutered in a party that equates hacking away at health and education as providing tax “relief” that “social justice” is spoken of with the same mindless monotony as an advertising jingle.
None of this is to say that recent Liberals have not done or promised progressive things. It is just that on balance, the party is far more to the right than it’s ever been. The result is that given the choice of taking a decision favourable to Conservatives or New Democrats, one could safely predict today's Liberals would take the former.
In the desperate days of the 2004 election Paul Martin threw long and declared that Liberals and New Democrats “share the same values”. The snicker-worthy intonation being that if Liberals weren’t Liberals they would be New Democrats.
The move won him votes, but it also won Liberals much more scrutiny of their record by centre left Canadians.
Given the choice of an Ignatieff-led Liberal Party – a party that a month ago agreed to prop up the Conservatives for a 79th time in exchange for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to collaborate with Pierre Poilievre on a private members bill – or the New Democrats who are showing in Manitoba and Nova Scotia that progressive parties can govern with their values in 2009, it’s a good bet progressive Canadians will be attracted to the more hopeful choice.
The scrap over who has the better conservative ideas will be fought out by these two men.
His cosmopolitan and intellectual aura aside, on the environment, the Iraq war, violence as a means to an end and on things ordinary people actualy care about, Ignatieff's opinions are almost indistinguishable from Harper's. New Democrats have already begun to seize on the homogenization with this biting commentary.
Contextually this makes sense. The Liberal Party has been inexorably drifting to the right over the past 25 years. The Chretien-Martin era marked new low point for progressives. The governing Liberals slashed $25 billion from health and education and downloaded it to the provinces, they eliminated the federal role in social housing, they gave tens of billions worth of incentives to the oil and gas sector, they put us into a war in Kandahar without a clear mission, and they pushed through a reactionary anti-terror bill, complete with draconian security certificates. So, it is almost a given that whomever leads them now should necessarily be more individualistic, more laissez faire, more hawkish and less committed to basic notions of fairness than the one previous. Ignatieff fills the bill, and then some.
Another measure is this: the Liberal Party of Trudeau and Pearson was home to some of the most out-spoken, risk-taking progressives of their era -- like Tom Kent, Allan MacEachen, Warren Allmand, Paul Martin Sr., Monique Begin, and Pauline Jewett.
Yet where are these people in today’s Liberal Party? They aren’t there; or if they are there, they are so timid and neutered in a party that equates hacking away at health and education as providing tax “relief” that “social justice” is spoken of with the same mindless monotony as an advertising jingle.
None of this is to say that recent Liberals have not done or promised progressive things. It is just that on balance, the party is far more to the right than it’s ever been. The result is that given the choice of taking a decision favourable to Conservatives or New Democrats, one could safely predict today's Liberals would take the former.
In the desperate days of the 2004 election Paul Martin threw long and declared that Liberals and New Democrats “share the same values”. The snicker-worthy intonation being that if Liberals weren’t Liberals they would be New Democrats.
The move won him votes, but it also won Liberals much more scrutiny of their record by centre left Canadians.
Given the choice of an Ignatieff-led Liberal Party – a party that a month ago agreed to prop up the Conservatives for a 79th time in exchange for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to collaborate with Pierre Poilievre on a private members bill – or the New Democrats who are showing in Manitoba and Nova Scotia that progressive parties can govern with their values in 2009, it’s a good bet progressive Canadians will be attracted to the more hopeful choice.
The scrap over who has the better conservative ideas will be fought out by these two men.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Harper Liberals go wild against Morgentaler appointment
No surprise that a few flat-earthers on the extreme right are upset over the announcement that pro-choice pioneer Henry Morgentaler has been named to the Order of Canada.
But has anyone else noticed just how many of them are so called “Harper Liberals” – Liberal MPs who share the same social conservative values as Harper’s backbench?
Hey, look, there’s Dan McTeague:
“Liberal MP Dan McTeague said Dr. Morgentaler is a very controversial person and if he is admitted to the order, it will polarize Canadians.” The Governor-General and the committee advising on appointments to the Order of Canada have always been careful in the past not to choose people who were controversial or who would not be unanimously celebrated by all Canadians, Mr. McTeague said. "It's more of a social statement rather than the usual apolitical decisions," he said. "There will be people who cheer what he has done. There will be others who fundamentally disagree with what he represents."
And there’s Paul Steckle (in a quote that appeared in the print edition, yet oddly missing from globeandmail.com):
“Liberal MP Paul Steckle said, “It diminished in my mind what we think the Order of Canada stood for.”
Now not all Liberals are "Harper Liberals" of course, but when you hear Liberals rail violently against Harper’s so-con agenda, is it wrong to expect all of them to sound like NDP MP Olvia Chow who said: “It's a great celebration,” she said. “We can be very proud that Henry Morgentaler after all these years of struggle for a woman's right to choose finally being recognized”?
Just like it was on gay marriage, when it comes to a womans right to choose, Liberal branding and Liberal reality can't exist in the same room.
Regrettably, the braying at the moon is destined only to get louder once reporters remember the fundamentalist and "I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose" agenda of Stephane Dion’s candidate in Central Nova.
Stay tuned.
But has anyone else noticed just how many of them are so called “Harper Liberals” – Liberal MPs who share the same social conservative values as Harper’s backbench?
Hey, look, there’s Dan McTeague:
“Liberal MP Dan McTeague said Dr. Morgentaler is a very controversial person and if he is admitted to the order, it will polarize Canadians.” The Governor-General and the committee advising on appointments to the Order of Canada have always been careful in the past not to choose people who were controversial or who would not be unanimously celebrated by all Canadians, Mr. McTeague said. "It's more of a social statement rather than the usual apolitical decisions," he said. "There will be people who cheer what he has done. There will be others who fundamentally disagree with what he represents."
And there’s Paul Steckle (in a quote that appeared in the print edition, yet oddly missing from globeandmail.com):
“Liberal MP Paul Steckle said, “It diminished in my mind what we think the Order of Canada stood for.”
Now not all Liberals are "Harper Liberals" of course, but when you hear Liberals rail violently against Harper’s so-con agenda, is it wrong to expect all of them to sound like NDP MP Olvia Chow who said: “It's a great celebration,” she said. “We can be very proud that Henry Morgentaler after all these years of struggle for a woman's right to choose finally being recognized”?
Just like it was on gay marriage, when it comes to a womans right to choose, Liberal branding and Liberal reality can't exist in the same room.
Regrettably, the braying at the moon is destined only to get louder once reporters remember the fundamentalist and "I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose" agenda of Stephane Dion’s candidate in Central Nova.
Stay tuned.
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