Biggest story yesterday was, without a doubt, the eHealth auditor’s report on a $1B WASTE of OUR MONEY. That was, in fact, the biggest news story this week. On Wednesday morning, the Ottawa Citizen (a CanWest newspaper) reported on David Caplan’s weasley resignation over eHealth on PAGE 4 in a sub-sub column type story, buried far away from the front page. I thought: OK, it’s a CanWest paper. They don’t like to talk dirty about ANY liberal.  Strike one.

So then came on Global TV News (CanWest again) with Kevin Newman, live from Toronto, on Thursday evening. Lead story? How the CONSERVATIVES are NOT ACCOUNTABLE for the stimulus program with their ‘vague’ Action Plan website with only ballpark numbers, and how in the States it is all so wonderful with fancy websites with all the information you could ever need on their stimulus packages, down to the cent. We got to see some Liberal MP, aide by the side, you know, to provide him with some much needed ideas, staring at a computer screen and commenting on how the Economic Action Plan website is misleading Canadians and withholding the truth. Then they tracked down John Baird, and his explanation was simple: (paraphrasing) “That website they have in the US cost them 65 million dollars, we’d rather put that money into roads”. There, end of the story. A non-story, really. Why did they open with this story as opposed to the Billion Dollar Scandal in Ontario? Simple, so we can now ease into the liberal un-friendly story with the following line: “… and another example of what can happen when Governments are not held accountable: in Ontario a report came out today on eHealth, the Ontario Government’s…”. ANOTHER EXAMPLE? You’re equating a blatantly incompetent McGuinty Goverment’s 1 BILLION DOLLAR WASTE to a website that only lists ballpark figures of money actually spent and got something for it? And those are BOTH examples of what can happen when Governments are not held accountable?

Strike two.

This morning, I open the Citizen. Granted, they (finally) have the eHealth story on the front page. However, my eye caught a story further on in the paper: “PM appoints 5 judges with Tory links“. And I thought: funny how I never read: “Chretien appoints 5 judges with Liberal links” back in the nineties. It was just “PM appoints 5 new judges”.

With the polls clearly indicating that Canadians are moving away from Liberals and towards Conservatives, it is no wonder CanWest is losing money: you can’t bet on a losing horse and expect to make money.

So, what other things you have been saying during the campaign that have now proven to be untrue? Or, in other words, what other things has Mr Harper said during the campaign, that you said were lies, turn out to be true?

Yes, Dion held his L O N G awaited press conference yesterday, after HIDING OUT for nearly a week. Saying he’ll step down, but stay on for now (?). He blames everything on himself, but mostly on a number of other things (is that possible? It’s like a shirt is 100% cotton, AND some wool h/t Seinfeld), such as:

1. The Conservatives’ giant war chest
2. The Liberals’ small war purse
3. The Conservatives painted a bad image of him he could not shake
4. The Conservatives said his Green Shift plan was a “Tax”, neglecting to mention the matching income tax cuts.

So, for #1 and #2, you have no-one to blame but yourself: you are the leader of the party and as such in charge of bringing in the donations. Just because others are better at fund raising doesn’t mean they were the cause of your demise; #3: Harper=Bush, Soldiers in our Streets, Harper is a Liar, Harper lives in a ‘bubble’, Harper is dishonest. ‘Nuff said. #4. Sorry, but it isn’t the Conservatives interest to sell YOUR plan to YOUR voters. I think everybody in Canada knows that. Everybody, except one, apparently.

In all of this, past year not showing up for votes in the House, and this election disaster, Mr. Dion still hasn’t stepped past his Parisian snootiness. It’s my fault, but really, it’s those meanies across the isle! He claims to be stepping down for the good of the party, but in the same breath he says he’ll stay on for another 8 months, no doubt to collect his hefty MP salary to be able to pay off his own personal debt.

Well, well. Mr. “I am not a quitter” Quits. Who’s the liar now, Mr. Snooty?

This is the first election I’ve heard the opposition parties say: If the Conservatives win a strong minority or a slight majority that means they got 40% of the vote which means 60% of Canada did NOT vote for them. 60% of Canadians DO NOT WANT them. That means 60% of Canada voted for US and so we should govern.

So I did some research into past elections and, applying the above ‘rule’, where you don’t have the Canadian people’s blessing to govern if you don’t get more than 50% of the vote, the history of our country would have been quite different:

• 1867: Conservative won with 50%, Macdonald can stay.
• 1872  Conservative won with 49.9%. Macdonald thrown out. Liberals and Other govern. (Blake PM)
• 1874: Liberals won with 53.8%. Mackenzie can stay.
• 1882: Conservative win with 53.4%. Macdonald can stay.
• 1887: Conservative win with 50.7%: Macdonald can stay.
• 1891: Conservative win with 52%. Macdonald can stay.
• 1896: Liberals win with 45.1%. Laurier thrown out. Conservative & Order govern (Charles Tupper PM)
• 1900: Liberal win with 52%. Laurier can stay.
• 1904: Liberals win with 52.5%. Laurier can stay.
• 1908: Liberals win with 50.6%. Laurier can stay.
• 1911: Conservatives win with 51.2%. Borden can stay.
• 1917: Conservatives win with 57%. Borden can stay.
• 1921: Liberals win with 40.7%. Mackenzie King thrown out. Other and Conservatives govern. (Arthur Meighen PM)
• 1926: Liberals win with 43.6%. Mackenzie King rown out. Conservatives & Other govern. (Arthur Meighen PM)
• 1930 Conservatives win with 49%. Bennett thrown out. Liberal & Other govern. (Mackenzie King PM)
• 1935 Liberals win with 44.4%. Mackenzie King thrown out. Conservative, Social Credit & Other govern.
• 1945: Liberals win with: 41.4%. Mackenzie King thrown out. Progressive Conservatives, CCF, Social Credit & Other govern. (John Bracken PM)
• 1949: Liberals win with 50.1%. St-Laurent can stay.
• 1953: Liberals win with 50%. St-Laurent can stay.
• 1957: Progressive Conservatives win with 39%. Diefenbaker thrown out. Liberals, CCF, Social Credit & Other govern. (St-Laurent PM)
• 1958: Progressive Conservatives win with 53.7%. Diefenbaker can stay.
• 1962: Progressive Conservatives win with 37.3%. Diefenbaker thrown out. Liberals, Social Credit, NDP & Other govern.
• 1963: Liberals win with 41.7%. Pearson thrown out. PC, Social Credit, NDP & Other govern. (Diefenbaker PM)
• 1972: Liberals win with 38.5%. Trudeau thrown out.PC, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Stanfields PM)
• 1974: Liberals win with 43.2%. Trudeau thrown out.PC, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Stanfields PM)
• 1979: PC win with 35.9%. Joe Clark thrown out. Liberal, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Trudeau PM)
• 1980: Liberals win with 44.3%. Trudeau thrown out. PC, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Joe Clark PM)
• 1984: PC win with 50%. Mulroney can stay.
• 1988: PC win with 43%. Mulroney thrown out. Liberals, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Turner PM)
• 1993: Liberals win with 41.3%. Chretien thrown out. Bloc, Reform, NDP, PC & Other govern. (Lucien Bouchard PM!!)
• 1997: Liberals win with 38.5%. Chretien Thrown out. Reform, Bloc, NDP,PC & Other govern. (Manning PM)
• 2000: Liberals win with 40.8%. Chretien Thrown out. Canadian Alliance, Bloc,NDP, PC & Other govern. (Stockwell Day PM)
• 2004: Liberals win with 36.7%. Martin thrown out. Conservatives, Bloc, NDP, Green & Other govern. (Stockwell Day Harper PM)
• 2006: Conservatives win with <50%. Harper thrown out. Liberals, NDP, Bloc & Green govern. Dion Martin PM.

So, to recap, with this new ‘rule’ we’d have had: No Jean Chretien (+), A BQ as PM (-), No Paul Martin (+), No Free-Trade (-), One term of Trudeau (+), Right Government for past 15 yars (+)

Hmm… more pluses than minuses. Maybe they’re onto something here…

Hypothetical scenario:

Minority Conservative Government. First vote of confidence will be on Tough on Crime for Young Offenders. It will (obviously) be defeated. Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens will go to the Governor General, and form a new coalition government. We’ll get:

1. Prime Minister Stephane Dion
2. Minister of Finance: Bob Rae
3. Minister of Defense: Jack Layton
4. Minister of the Environment: Elizabeth May

If this doesn’t scare anybody I don’t know what this country is a-comin’ to.

And this is a VERY REALISTIC scenario. The Bloc, Greens and NDP have already said they’re open to it. Dion has REFUSED to rule out putting May in his cabinet, indicating he’s open to a coalition. The only way to stop this is by electing a majority Conservative government.

h/t to Lowell Green‘s radio show

In this week’s edition of the Lanark County EMC is a “Meet the candidates” section for my riding, Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington. It profiles the four major candidates with a little biography and a blurb that was obviously sent in a good while ago to meet the deadline.

Here are the candidates:

Dave Remington, Liberal. Napanee Mayor… blah blah blah… business community… blah blah blah… ah, the good stuff: Most important issue this election: The Green Shift. Other issues of importance: education, health care, agriculture, the environment.

Sandra Willard, NDP. Home health worker. Most important issue: global warming, jobs, keeping health care private, supporting single parents and keeping uranium mining out of the riding.

Chris Walker, The Green Party. Renovation contractor, renewable energy consultant. Most important issue: the environment. Other issues: the arts, health promotion, renewal in faith in the democracy.

Scott Reid, Conservative. Incumbent. Seeking fourth victory. Most important issue: THE ECONOMY. Other issues: state of our local rural economy.

I know this is just a rinky-dink newspaper in a largely rural riding somewhere in the middle of nowhere. However, it lays bare the painfully obvious: before their leaders discovered the economy last Thursday and turned it into a national ‘crisis’, neither the Liberals, the NDP nor the Greens had anything even remotely economic in their platforms, whereas the Conservative had it front and centre. 

Who is out of touch with Canadians now, eh?

President Ken Lewenza of the CAW, Canada’s largest private sector union, asked his members to vote strategically to stop a Harper majority from becoming a reality.

“Stopping a Stephen Harper majority is one of the most important challenges progressive Canadians have ever faced” — Ken Lewenza

In this story, it is obvious he blames the Tory Government, rather than the fact that people do not want  trucks and SUVs anymore, for closures in the Ford plants, GM plants and numerous auto parts plants.

He wants his members to vote Liberal or NDP depending on your riding. Hmm.. Liberals want to put a carbon tax on every auto plant out there, making cars more expensive (read: layoffs). The NDP wants to tax “big corporations”, like, say, GM and Ford (read: layoffs). The Conservatives are the only ones proposing tax cuts for corporations, so I don’t really see his motivation here.

I said it before, the closure of those plants has nothing to do with government: it has to do with the lack of foresight and market research by the ‘big three’: Ford, GM and Chrysler. They did not realise people were switching to smaller, more fuel efficient cars until it was too late. Toyota and Honda, on the other hand, clued in a long time ago, and are actually building new plants in Ontario.

Oh my God!

I read the most terrible news on the Liberal website this morning, it nearly made my heart stop:

The Conservative plan to use trucks to carry partisan billboards throughout the province of Quebec during this election campaign is a perfect example of the harmful effect the Harper government has had on Canada’s environment, Liberal Candidate for Vaudreuil-Soulanges Brigitte Legault said today.

Can you imagine that? They are using TRUCKS throughout the province of Quebec to carry partisan billboards around!

Not just regular billboards mind you, but PARTISAN billboards! Imagine that, TRUCKS to carry PARTISAN billboards!

Shame on them! I have to change my vote to Liberal now.

This reminds me of this famous exchange between Clinton and Chretien:

Reporter: What do you think of the drugs that come across the border?
Chretien: Yes, I t’ink dats a good t’ing. We need more of dat!
(confusion)
Clinton: No, he said “drugs”.
Chretien: Oh, I t’ought you said “trucks”!

Free University Education, Anyone?

The Liberals promised to make University virtually free for most students. Yes, in a country with a crumbling health care system, crumbling infrastructure, crumbling Military, we need to make universities free for most people. Students can’t possibly be expected to work to make about $6000/yr to pay for tuition & books. That means, well, you’d have to work two nights a week and an entire Saturday! And you can’t go out and drink anymore! We can’t have that, so we’re all gonna pay their tuition for them. Nice. You know, we already have extremely low tuition fees. Name me any other country where you can get a year’s worth of quality University education for under $5000. They promise 300,000 grants and bursaries of $3,500 – $4,000 each. That’s around $1,200,000,000 ANUALLY. That is in ADDITION to the $25B education endowment fund. I suppose our carbon tax will pay for that. Oh wait, it was going to pay for those fisheries announcements earlier. Or income tax cuts. Wait, I’m confused…

The NDP came up with a national child care program because “families shouldn’t have to struggle to find quality child care”. Yes, nothing says quality like a government run program. $1.45B for this in the first year. Where this comes from, I don’t know. It’ll fall from the sky I suppose.

The conservatives came up with a plan to ban all Cigarillos. Wow. How about banning cigarettes? They are lethal, you know. They kill more people annually than all guns, long guns, knives, and car accidents combined. Tobacco kills over 45,000 Canadians every year. That is 123 PEOPLE A DAY. They also kill 1 in 3,300 to 1 in 5,500 Non-Smokers each year (that is about 16 every day). So, in addition to being a suicide machine, there are a murder weapon. And as such, they should be banned. If only the government wasn’t relying on the taxes they bring in. Damn.

Sorry, I just don’t like smoking.

News flash for Jack: CO2 is plant food. It is good for the environment

Layton, once again followed in Harper’s footsteps by visiting cities where Harper had just been the day before. He criticized Harper and Dion’s environmental plans, saying they would not clean up the air, while offering his own “Cap and Trade” scheme, which, of course, will not clean up the air either, because 1) a trade scheme will just move the emissions from one company to another, and 2) Carbon Dioxide is NOT A POLLUTANT.

Dion vowed, when elected. he would ban all “military assault weapons” and “take them off our streets”. Someone ought to tell him there are no military assault weapons on our streets because they are banned outside the military. They’ve been banned since, like, forever. Day 4 and still no points for Dion.

Once again, the Conservatives’ campaign got overshadowed by stupidity. An aide has been suspended for making insensitive remarks about the father of a fallen soldier who criticized Harper’s fixed withdrawal date for the Afghan mission. Harper dealt with it swiftly and justly. However, these mistakes have got to stop! I know we’re still in the early days here, but geez, can we get some focus on policy?

Liz White, of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party, yes, that one, said May’s inclusion in the debate is great news for the fringe parties. She said all of her 72 supporters would like to see her up on the debate podium as well. And why stop there? Let’s invite all party leaders, including a dozen or so independents. Let’s see if we can have a debate with 30 something people up there.

I am happy Hypocrisy 1 is up and flying, so Dion can leave the province. It was starting to feel like house arrest. Like he was being punished by the other leaders. Yay, five days in and the Liberal campaign is off!

The Adventures of Sweater-Vest and Sweater Boy

Dion’s new campaign promise is that he’ll raise the yearly $1200 child benefit, one he fought so hard against last election, by 350 dollars a year. Apparently, the current $100/month wasn’t enough to buy both beer AND popcorn. He also called the Conservatives liars, a term usually reserved for the later stages of a campaign, but what the heck.  Dion said he can be distilled down to six words: CUT… INCOME…TAXES…SHIFT…TO…POLLUTION. Whatever. I dearly hope someone will have a clue what this guy is talking about before the end of this election.

The Conservatives took off an ad they had on their website depicting a Puffin deffecating on Dion’s shoulder. What, do they have 12 year olds making ads? Can we have someone with a brain making decisions over there please? They also announced a 2 ct reduction in the excise tax on diesel. Yay.

Layton said nothing interesting today other than a complaint about the Conservatives’ and Liberals’ campaign strategies. Good day for Jacky: didn’t loose any votes today and, as usual, stated the obvious as if it was a revolutionary thought.

Duceppe was somewhere in Quebec (where else?) and stated he’s questioning the fact a conservative candidate in a Quebec riding used to belong to Opus Dei. He doesn’t like Opus Dei. Then, confusingly, he concluded he doesn’t care what religion the other candidates belong to and it’s their business (?). In other words he was somewhere in Quebec talking about Quebec and about something he shouldn’t be talking about, so why should we care?

Meanwhile, Dion has been spotted wearing a Liberal red sweater. What’s the philosophy here, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em? Let’s bore everybody to death with 30 days of ads with people in sweater(vests) sitting in front of a fire place. Layton will follow, I am sure. He’ll always jump on whichever bandwagon is popular. I can’t see the chief block-head Duceppe in a sweater-vest, though. He may be our saving grace.

In the interest of avoid being sexist, we’ll include Lizzy May in this report: she didn’t do anything today other than whine on radio stations and sue the ol’ boy club. Then again, if we include May here we must also include all the other party leaders, so here goes:

• Ms. Constance (Connie) Fogal from the Canadian Action Party (whereabouts: unknown)
• Mr. Ronald O. Gray from the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (whereabouts: unknown)
• Mr. Miguel Figueroa from the Communist Party of Canada (whereabouts: unknown)
• Ms. Barbara Wardlaw from the First Peoples National Party of Canada (whereabouts: unknown)
• Mr. Dennis Young from the Libertarian Party of Canada (whereabouts: unknown)
• M. Blair T. Longley from the Marijuana Party (whereabouts: unknown)
• Ms. Anna Di Carlo from the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada (whereabouts: unknown)
• Mr. Francois Yo Gourd from neorhino.ca (whereabouts: unknown)
• The Hon. Sinclair M. Stevens from the Progressive Canadian party (whereabouts: unknown)
• Mr. Douglas H. Christie from the Western Block Party (whereabouts: unknown)

There, that’s your list, people. Like it or not, you have to pick one of these people to lead this country.