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.

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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.

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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.

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Last year I sent an angry email to the NDP explaining to them that Global Warming, as it was then called, is not man-made, and that they were wrong in their environmental policy. I promptly got a reply thanking me, and that they too were concerned that human-induced global warming is destroying the planet (?), and then they added me to their email list calling me “friend”. So I sent another email asking them if they even read the email that comes in, to which I got no reply.

And so, this evening I received another email from my NEW Democratic “friends” begging me for money because they want to put a new ad on TV but they don’t have the money, so if I could please send them some.

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A Hidden Agenda, A Pie in the Sky, and Other Fluff

I know this is only week two, but geez, this election must be one of the most  b o r i n g  ones in recent history. I mean, all we have talked about so far are pooping puffins and whether or not certain people are in the debate. I was going to write a blog on day 10, well, there’s nothing to write about!

It’s just more of the same… the Liberals have rolled out the Hidden Agenda again. If they are so afraid of this hidden agenda, why did they go along with it and help implement it for the last 43 votes in the house? He also jumped on the Newfoundland ABC campaign – Anything But Conservative. So, even Dion thinks his party is not a good alternative. Layton, as usual, has a pretty decent idea for health care, but then follows it with a completely out-of-touch way of implementing it. I think, in general, New Democrats think that money just falls from the sky to be deposited on your kitchen table.

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Still No Sun Spots: The Ice Age Cometh.

Jackie today was big on platitudes, small on substance. That seems to be the NDP’s matra. He’s going to “take on” big oil, and “watch your backs”. He’s also going to “oversee” gas prices. As usual, no talk on exactly HOW he’s going to bring down gas prices, HOW he’s going to stop big oil. Oh, but he’s going to MONITOR them. Thanks. That’ll save us. You know, Jackie, just wishing something doesn’t make it so. You gotta have a plan.

Dion, in the mean time, wants to reverse the new immigration rules he so readily abstained from defeating just this spring. It seems he now disagrees with the fact we’re fast tracking more skilled immigrants that can actually do some good work in this country. I guess he would rather see doctors drive taxi cabs than perform operations. He also said he would apologize in the House of Commons for some other thing our government did over a century ago. Don’t you think we’ve apologized enough already? We weren’t even alive when those things happened. We’re not responsible for them, so why must we apologize? Let’s just say this: we appologize for anything and everything we did up until now. Now, let’s go on with running the country.

As usual, Danny Williams of Newfoundland has to tell his constituents how to vote, as if they they don’t have a mind of their own. For some reason, he doesn’t like the Conservatives, even though the Conservatives plan is clearly the best for his province. How does he think a Liberal Carbon tax would work in his oil rich economy? The Green carbon tax is even worse, and Layton’s Cap and Trade scheme can’t be good news for oil money either. The Conservatives are the only national party that wouldn’t tax his oil income. Sure, you miss out on some equalization payments, but you get to keep all that big fat oil money! Maybe it’s time Newfoundland starts to give something back to this country.

Gilles was, once again, in Quebec, so who cares.

Where is Elizabeth May? Has anyone seen her? Elizabeth May has not been seen or heard from for two days. This is her big thank you to the people who voiced their opinions so loudly that two party leaders and a consortium of old men changed their minds. “Thanks for getting me in, folks! Now I’m going to disappear. See ya later!”

You know, I went to the CBC.ca website to pick up on some election news bits. I couldn’t find any. I wondered why that mouthpiece of the Liberal party has NOTHING on the election on its front page. Then it dawned on me: there is nothing good to report about the Liberal campaign. They’re way down in the polls. They are not coming out with new policies, although the Green Shaft plan is changing so much every day, you may call it a new plan every time it is mentioned. In order to get to the ‘election subsite’ you have to click on “Federal Election” in the “Recent Searches” box! I thought the election is the biggest story in this country, but the CBC website lists “Blue Jay Baseball” as its main headliner, followed closely by “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera”. Nice to see our tax dollars at work over there.

Elizabeth May in six words: CUT… POWER… SHIFT… TO… STONE… AGE

Lizzy May did nothing for her campaign today other than having yet another press conference about the debate, saying that Democracy has prevailed. Fine. I actually welcome her to the debate, the country needs to hear what a crackpot she really is. This woman only has crackpot ideological ideas with no tangible plan to implement them. In a radio interview earlier this year she proclaimed to be against coal power and nuclear power and would shut them all down. When questioned on where we are supposed to get our power from, she answered: “we’ll find something, I’m sure”. That is the extent of her plan: “We’ll find something”. 

Jacky was standing side by side with union boss Buzz Hargrove, no surprise there, at the Oshawa GM plant, talking about how the Harper Government did nothing while jobs were disappearing there. He announced a plan to funnel cash from corporate tax breaks into “green collar jobs”… that is, more money to GM. GM already received hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money last year alone to keep the plant open, and yet GM decided to close that plant four weeks ago. Someone ought to tell GM that Pick-up Trucks and SUVs don’t sell anymore. You know, high gas prices and all that… We saw this comming, oh say, three years ago. For some reason, GM doesn’t know this, and is happily churning out truck after truck, parking them on the GM lot, where they will remain until the gas price will be below $1.00/litre. That’s not bad governing, that’s bad market research.

Gilles was in Quebec (where else?) arguing with the Head Provincial, sorry National, Separatist about not being Separatist enough. This bickering amongst Separatists is always entertaining.

Sweater Boy Dion went to the third safe riding in as many days. First he was in Ottawa South, David McGuinty’s riding which is as safe as you can get on Day 1, then he proceeded to go to HIS OWN RIDING in Montreal on day 2. Today he was in a high school in Walkerton talking about food safety. He likened the recent listeriosis outbreak to the Walkerton E. coli outbreak and how the provincial Tories were responsible for that fiasco. The Tories quickly pointed out that most of the provincial cuts were done under the previous NDP government headed by now Liberal star Bob Rae, while Layton insists that the food inspection agency was severely cut back under the Chretien government. In other words, not a good subject to bring up for the Liberals. At least they weren’t waiving their arms around talking about CUT… INCOME… TAXES… SHIFT… TO… POLLUTION…

Sweater-vest Harper announced the Afghan mission would end in 2011. Even though, as any military strategist will tell you, it is not good to set an end-date to any mission (the Taliban now just have to ‘hang on’ until then, and they’re safe), unfortunately, it is what the vast majority of Canadians want (I believe it is over 66%). And in order to get elected you have to make concessions. He wasn’t asked today what kind of animal or tree he would be. Bummer.

Here’s hoping Hypocrisy 1 will start up tomorrow so Dion can start flying. This bussing around a 200 km radius of Ottawa is getting embarrassing.

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. read more…

Elizabeth May Not

The big news today was that the leader of the Green Party will be excluded from the national debate again this time around. Three out of four leaders voted against her inclusion. In a news conferance she blamed it on discrimination (being the only woman being excluded by an all men panel, oh please) and called it undemocratic. If any group of people hold a vote and the majorioty wins, how is that undemocratic? That is the essence of democracy. The reason she’s excluded is twofold: she has no elected MPs, and she is colluding with the Liberal party in her Central Nova riding, where she made a deal with Dion not to run a Liberal candidate against her. Having her at the debate would have been like having two Libral speakers there. read more…

I was eagerly awaiting the 6 o’clock news yesterday. I was waiting for Jack Layton to come on again. I saw him on that very same news show on January 12ish, when it was a nice and balmy 10 degrees out. He was sitting on his Toronto rooftop patio in his summer jacket, and he said “I am here outside, in the middle of January, with my summer jacket on. Clearly, there’s something wrong here. This is a global catastrophe!”. So, since yesterday was the coldest March 6th EVER in eastern Ontario, with Pembroke going down to -32 overnight, I thought I’d see Jacky on his Toronto rooftop again, with sixteen winter coats on, freezing his ass off, saying “It’s March 6th! I’m freezing my ass off! Clearly there’s something wrong here!” But alas, Jacky did not show. There was no segment on the cold weather. Jacky had gone into hiding. He will emerge, no doubt, when the next global catastrophe occurs. To fight it… for the people.