If I was the PM and I was at the French debates I’d say:

To Gilles Duceppe: Can I finish my sentence for once?
To Jack Layton: How come you sound like a Scot, and I sound effeminate?
To Stephane Dion: Can you take a stand on something? I know Rae and Iggy are not here, but geez. You can’t even say if you’re for or against a our crime bill. At least Jack said he’s fundamentally against so he’ll vote against. You say “we’ll see”.
To the moderator: They have four minutes to pile on me, and I have 1 minute for rebuttal. Why are we sitting around a giant guitar pick? Do I have to sit next to the passion flaky? Why am I facing a three headed firing squad? Why is my back to the camera in the overhead shots, and the firing squad is facing the audience?
To Elizabeth May: God, you’re annoying. You remind me of Jar Jar Binks (“Global Warming comin dees way: Meesa Gonna Die!”) I hope so…

And that is why I would never be a PM. But that’s OK.

The debates

Wouldn’t it be fun if, at the debates, whenever someone says something really stupid (and the chance of that is pretty high, with Dion, Layton, Duceppe AND May in the same room), that Harper looks into the camera a la Jim Helpert of The Office with a look of “What am I supposed to do with this?!?”.

That’s what I want out of these debates.

Dion stated he’s ready to become PM and he’s going to show that to Canadians during the debates.

So in order to accomplish that, he’d have to serious brush up on the following areas before the French debate on Wednesday:

1. The Economy (uh, might as well start from the beginning: “An economy is the realized social system of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.”) 
2. The Environment (why don’t you fight pollution rather than some plant feeding odourless gas)
3. Foreign Policy (nuff said)
4. Reading the Canadian people (“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”)
5. Democracy (Teaming up with Lizzy May and not running candidates in each other’s riding, then getting in bed with the strategic voting crowd is NOT democratic)
6. English (you have an extra day for this one, only due on Thursday)

Layton revealed his feel good platform. It’ll make everyone, except for those nasty corporations, happy! He’ll take the feel good money from those nasty corporations and put it on your kitchen table. Yay. Raising corporate taxes. Yes, nothing says “buy our cheap products” than higher corporate taxes.

“Now is not the time to do something new, wild or stupid” (Stephen Harper).

Dion finally gets it: it’s all about the economy. A full 18 days AFTER Harper started talking about the economy, Dion is finally on the same page, and then has the audacity to say “It’s the economy, ” [waives hands] “Stephen”. Is this guy not embarrassed? Who does he think he’s fooling?

Jackie proposes a brand new, expensive to run, Ministry of Consumer Affairs. Is this what Harper means when he says “new, wild and stupid”?

Five Ottawa Liberal candidates ganged up on Ottawa-West candidate John Baird yesterday, saying he meddled in municipal affairs by intervening in the Light Rail project. They say the Federal Government should not meddle in municipal affairs, and then, in an ironic twist, proceeded by laying out THEIR terms for the Ottawa Light Rail project.

Another good day for conservatives: a great economic speech by Harper, an embarrassing moment for Dion, Layton talks kitchen tables, Gilles stands by his “fresh meat” comment, and May hasn’t been heard from.

Dion’s response to a question from a STUDENT who asked is Mr. LeDrew’s remarks could undermine party morale:

No, because I know how much our party is convinced that we need to win that for our country. It’s not like it was only a battle for who will have the power to enjoy the power. It’s the philosophies and approach. It’s the kind of Canada we want.

…

Now compare that to this response from Harper to questions from a seasoned reporter:

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/election-2008/conservative-campaign/#clip95524

Can anyone be more together, calm and clear with their thoughts and insights?

Why is there even a choice?

I am tired of hearing the phrase “third election in four years”. Doesn’t that sound like we’ve had an election nearly every year? What they don’t mention is that normally we have two elections in four years (one at the start, one at the end of the four years), and this is just one more. And they don’t mention the fact that two of three opposition parties have been trying to get to this election for two and a half years, and the third party has been threatening to do it for that same amount of time. So, this is an election ALL FOUR PARTIES WANTED, AND THUS, BEING A DEMOCRACY, MOST OF THE POPULATION.

read more…

Foreigners will pay for the arts, or something

Dion proved that he has no idea how an economy works: he said yesterday that foreigners would pay part of the carbon tax when they buy our products. Uhm, professor? [raises hand] Didn’t we learn in Economy 101 that it is the interest of the country to make our products MORE attractive to foreign buyers? Isn’t making our products more expensive going to turn them off of Canada and turn them to China? Just a question, professor.

read more…

Trains, Planes and Automobiles. And ponies.

Jack Layton is talking (again) about kitchen tables and being Prime Minister. Talk about being a one trick pony. He did put in a good dig about Liberals not following up on their promises in past elections and taking a promise off the table during the current election.

Finally a pet peeve of mine gets addressed: the naming of serious offenders of 14 years old and over. It always was very frustrating to see these young punks ‘protected’. And not a minute after Harper announced this new measure, and the bleeding hearts are already complaining how teenagers do not have a developed enough brain and can’t be blamed for their actions. And how the death penalty is not far behind and how Harper is turning us into the United States. We don’t need the death penalty. Just stick them in jail for a really long time. I’d be happy with that.

read more…

Dion’s New Creed: Ditch the Shift, Pitch The Team.

Yes, Dion has ditched the widely unpopular and poorly understood Green Shaft plan, and is pitching a newly minted “team approach” on the campaign. Apparently, Ignatieff is doing the announcements now. At least we can understand what he is trying to say: over $80M for the auto industry. I don’t hear Jackie complaining about this ‘corporate bailout’… Oh, in the “Another Day, Another Billion” file: another $1B or so for farmers. Since we ran into one on the campaign trail.

read more…

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…

read more…