Thursday, September 3, 2009

You're Screwed Now Mr. Harper

Because many of us agree with Boris.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going with the Gazette on this one...

NDP, Bloc might save us from Ignatieff's folly


THE GAZETTESEPTEMBER 3, 2009


All spring and summer, Michael Ignatieff's Liberals fulminated that the Conservative government was being too cheap with Employment Insurance, refusing to authorize payouts for those who had worked only 360 hours. Stephen Harper had better yield on this issue, they warned, or we'll force an election and the Canadian people will rise up in their wrath.

But the Canadian people rolled over in their hammocks barely long enough to tell pollsters they were on vacation from their jobs - which most of them hold year-round - and not too fussed about EI. So the Liberals back-pedalled.

Yet now they have gone ballistic over, apparently, no issue at all. They hope to topple Harper, Ignatieff now says, not over EI but because the government is ... well ... no good at anything.

What kind of foolish game is this? Afraid to appear politically neutered like Stéphane Dion, Ignatieff has succumbed instead to testosterone poisoning.

Getting the timing of an election right is an opposition leader's most important tactical task when there's a minority government. There is a tide in the affairs of politicians, yes, but at present only Ignatieff senses a swell that could lift him out of Stornoway and deposit him at 24 Sussex Drive. The best the Liberals can hope for, pollsters and anecdotal evidence agree, is to form a minority government. And if the economy improves while the Conservatives fling bales of stimulus money at voters, we could end up with a renewed status quo.

It would be unfair to suggest that Ignatieff has grown bored with opposition and is eager to move up or go back to academia. But his sudden belligerence is hard to explain.

Like almost all Canadians who aren't Liberal MPs, we see little merit in a fall election.

Conservatives suggest that political uncertainty might weaken the economic recovery. We're not so sure, but we are sure that a fall election would change nothing, even if it brought us a Liberal minority. Ignatieff, like Harper, says he wants to reduce the deficit without raising taxes, a claim that insults voters' intelligence. Ignatieff has provided almost no substantial policy proposals, and has no new money to spend.

So Canadians must rely on common sense from the New Democrats or the Bloc Québécois, slim reeds indeed. Those parties could lose seats in a quick election, pollsters say, so maybe one of them will decide - purely as a matter of principle, of course - that there's no point in an election. We sure hope so.


http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/Bloc+might+save+from+Ignatieff+folly/1957141/story.html

Sep 3, 2009, 10:22:00 PM
James Curran said...

Woah. I was gonna write that.

Sep 3, 2009, 11:13:00 PM

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