Monday, May 26, 2008

Bernier Resigns in Favour of David Emerson

Update: The Interview


Resigns? Yeah. Sure.

Somebody better tell Deepak his boss was fired.

Leaving national documents at you girlfriend's house is never going to be a good outcome for a cabinet minister. Fife says RCMP investigation probable.

REMEMBER how all the Conservative trolls and bloggers kept telling us this was a non-starter? An imaginary scandal. Remember how all the Dippers, including Jack Layton, Thomas Mulcair, Paul Dewar, and Pat Martin kept saying that this was nothing and the Liberals were taking too much time in the House with their questions?

Chantal Hebert also thought it was a non-starter.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

James: once again there is proof that the LPC caucus bleats away, lots of talk and little action - Two weeks ago Paul Dewar presented non-confidence motion in the Minister to the Foreign Affairs committee. LPC did not support it...

h/t - blogging dead horse:

Hon. Bob Rae: Mr. Chair, I'm going to indicate to you my opposition to Mr. Dewar's motion, and I'll tell you why. I'm not interested in seeing this committee get paralyzed by a procedural matter. We know very well that we could use our majority in the committee to vote non-confidence in the minister. We also know what the impact of that would be on the business of the committee and the business of the House. I'm not interested in doing that.

While the NDP were packing Bernier’s bags, the Liberals were freshening his bed clothes. "Becasue without you, Maxime, we are nothing!"

Just more limp gamesmanship from Her Majesty’s Artificial Opposition.


What exactly do LPC caucus members think their job is? There are votes in committees and in the HOC for a reason. The "Official" Opposition is supposed to vote against the government when they 1. don't support the govts legislation 2. have no confidence in govt. Ministers 3. have no confidence in the govt.

Rae and Iggy and the rest are perfectly happy to condemn Bernier in the media or during QP (which is broadcast) but god forbid they take any action against this government.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
James Curran said...

You must like to write a lot. You had to post that pile of dung twice.

Let's get a couple of things straight. The Liberals are the official opposition. We will pull the plug when we feel like pulling the plug. Not because the NDP demands it. What a joke the NDP is. Their Policy? Attack the Liberals. The Liberals and any of their planks, like tax shifting. Well, David Suzuki slapped Jack on that baby. Good luck explaining cap and trade Jack.

Biggest scandal since the sixties and we have Jaybird ridiculing the Liberals. Hilarious really.

I'm looking forward to the next election when the NDP end up with 19 or less seats. I'd be more than happy to go to the polls right now.

Anonymous said...

James: for the record, the double post happened by accident. No need to be so nasty. But I have noticed that you get nasty and defensive when you are choosing not to address an argument. It's ok, I know from past posts that you aren't very happy with LPC abstaining so I suppose it wasn't fair of me to point out yet another example.

I am puzzled by Dr. Suzuki since his own foundation supports Cap and Trade as well as Carbon Tax. So do the Greens for that matter. In fact, I just had lunch with a former Green staffer yesterday and he is pretty puzzled by May's behaviour.

It will be interesting to see what happens if the LPC plan does NOT include gas and heating. The whole point of a carbon tax from an environmental perspective would be to tax what generates the most carbon to try and force people to reduce their consumption. I think that could cause the Liberals a fair amount of enviro blow back - maybe not from the figureheads but definitely from the activist/voters...

BTW - sorry that Dion wasn't able to get Dalton McGuinty on board with the carbon tax. I guess Dalton cares too much about the folks in Ontario already hurting to add yet another layer of pain. (if you knew me you would know how painful it is for me to complement Dalton...)

James Curran said...

Well. Here's a couple responses for you. McGuinty has some people that around him that embarassed themselves recently by suggesting the Federal Liberal leader was making a serious error by his proposal. Then a whole bunch of environmental and scientific guys and media people sided with Dion. Now those McGuinty advisors are embarassed and are going to ram their point down Dion's throat. Nice.

Secondly, although a cap and trade may be a smarter move, it woudl take too long to implement. Some countries is Europe are 20 years in and it still isn't working corre tly for them. Whereas, most experts would agree tax shifting is much more immediate and can be implemented now. Then a cap and trade combination can be worked on as we go. See?

As for sitting on our hands. I have been more than livid. Anyone that knows me in the Liberal party has heard my opinion on that matter...not that I'm anyone in the Liberal Party...What Do I Know?

Anonymous said...

Actually, Layton has tried to bring in legislation for sometime that would start the implementation of cap and trade. Most recently C30, I believe had cap and trade but if not C30 there was legislation (although I would have to research the number).

There are also many examples of cap and trade that did not take long to implement. We both know that the timeline for implementation of legislation has more to do with the willingness and commitment of the government than it has with anything else.

If there is enough pressure, I don't imagine implementation would be that much longer than carbon tax. We already have the acid rain cap and trade system to use as a template. We don't need to re-invent the wheel.

Anonymous said...

Sorry - should have deleted the second version of the post when I first read your reply - hadn't had coffee yet - was still fuzzy :)