Crack for the Political Junkie
Let’s get this out of the way. I’m sure no one who is familiar with my ramblings will find anything surprising in my endorsement of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the federal Conservative party in the freshly-announced Canadian federal election.
Talk about a rare situation for the average political observer. First, the American campaign takes us through the Obama/Clinton soap opera and pro-Bama media propaganda machine, and then continues its exciting storyline with the addition of Sarah Palin to balance the scales of popularity and make it a very close race.
Now, Canadians get to enjoy a twofer.
After a comparatively lengthy term for a minority government, P.M. Stephen Harper has pulled the trigger on the long-suspected election day of October 14th. With the American campaign in the final push, this news is like crack for the political junkie. National campaigns on either side of the border! Everywhere you look, evidence of an election battle will be there.
Oddly, the writ calling for a Canadian federal election was dropped by the Harper Conservatives almost 4 whole hours ago, and the CBC has yet to broadcast any of its usual election-time ‘Harper is a Bush wannabe’, ‘Afghanistan is a lost cause’, or usual ‘Conservatives are the enemy of the environment’ investigative reports yet.
They must have caught David Suzuki napping. That Harper is a cunning politician, no?
The fact is, Canada is enjoying the best government we have had in decades. By no means am I saying that the Conservatives have been without fault or error – there have been mistakes, to be sure – but those are small examples in an overall term of successful leadership. Harper himself is by far the best choice for Prime Minister, even according to many Liberal voters.
Canadians are now comfortable with Harper. They now know that the long-running scare campaign by the Liberals and their socialist New Democrat friends against Harper personally and the Conservatives as a whole is unfounded. They understand that the global economy is slowing and economic uncertainty is on the horizon, and that Harper is the best person to handle it.
Canadians, generally on the fence regarding our involvement in Afghanistan, trust Harper to not only support and rebuild our military, but to continue the emphasis on the reconstruction aspect of the mission.
They trust Harper’s vision of Canada. While the left continues to paint Harper and the Tories as scary neo-cons who are ‘destroying Canada’s international image’, Canadians have seen Harper’s team start to construct a new, vibrant 21st century Canada in a position of global leadership. A nation that perhaps even an Alberta separatist could live with.
Canadians think about Harper’s number one competition a little differently.
After spending the summer traveling from coast to coast in a futile attempt at convincing Canadians that his party’s one platform issue, the Liberals ‘Green Shift’ plan – the only real issue they will be running on – is the global warming solution we have all been waiting for, Liberal leader Stephane Dion has already been forced to admit defeat by making changes to the policy. In promising to change the plan by shedding some of the taxes to some industries, he has proven that his claim the plan was ‘revenue neutral’ was blatantly false.
Some of us, of course, see the Green Shift as nothing more than the latest in the long line of Liberal-created tax grabs from oil producing provinces (read: bend over, Alberta and Saskatchewan and take another one for the team!).
We’ve seen this movie before. The NEP didn’t work 30 years ago, and it won’t work now. It is nothing more than a permanent carbon tax that will be levied on the Canadian public, and will impact the price of just about everything you buy and everything you do, everyday.
And the actual benefit to the environment? Zero. Now that’s a typical Liberal plan.
October 15th: Harper majority, Dion gone. Imagine the frenzy at the CBC!
Talk about a rare situation for the average political observer. First, the American campaign takes us through the Obama/Clinton soap opera and pro-Bama media propaganda machine, and then continues its exciting storyline with the addition of Sarah Palin to balance the scales of popularity and make it a very close race.
Now, Canadians get to enjoy a twofer.
After a comparatively lengthy term for a minority government, P.M. Stephen Harper has pulled the trigger on the long-suspected election day of October 14th. With the American campaign in the final push, this news is like crack for the political junkie. National campaigns on either side of the border! Everywhere you look, evidence of an election battle will be there.
Oddly, the writ calling for a Canadian federal election was dropped by the Harper Conservatives almost 4 whole hours ago, and the CBC has yet to broadcast any of its usual election-time ‘Harper is a Bush wannabe’, ‘Afghanistan is a lost cause’, or usual ‘Conservatives are the enemy of the environment’ investigative reports yet.
They must have caught David Suzuki napping. That Harper is a cunning politician, no?
The fact is, Canada is enjoying the best government we have had in decades. By no means am I saying that the Conservatives have been without fault or error – there have been mistakes, to be sure – but those are small examples in an overall term of successful leadership. Harper himself is by far the best choice for Prime Minister, even according to many Liberal voters.
Canadians are now comfortable with Harper. They now know that the long-running scare campaign by the Liberals and their socialist New Democrat friends against Harper personally and the Conservatives as a whole is unfounded. They understand that the global economy is slowing and economic uncertainty is on the horizon, and that Harper is the best person to handle it.
Canadians, generally on the fence regarding our involvement in Afghanistan, trust Harper to not only support and rebuild our military, but to continue the emphasis on the reconstruction aspect of the mission.
They trust Harper’s vision of Canada. While the left continues to paint Harper and the Tories as scary neo-cons who are ‘destroying Canada’s international image’, Canadians have seen Harper’s team start to construct a new, vibrant 21st century Canada in a position of global leadership. A nation that perhaps even an Alberta separatist could live with.
Canadians think about Harper’s number one competition a little differently.
After spending the summer traveling from coast to coast in a futile attempt at convincing Canadians that his party’s one platform issue, the Liberals ‘Green Shift’ plan – the only real issue they will be running on – is the global warming solution we have all been waiting for, Liberal leader Stephane Dion has already been forced to admit defeat by making changes to the policy. In promising to change the plan by shedding some of the taxes to some industries, he has proven that his claim the plan was ‘revenue neutral’ was blatantly false.
Some of us, of course, see the Green Shift as nothing more than the latest in the long line of Liberal-created tax grabs from oil producing provinces (read: bend over, Alberta and Saskatchewan and take another one for the team!).
We’ve seen this movie before. The NEP didn’t work 30 years ago, and it won’t work now. It is nothing more than a permanent carbon tax that will be levied on the Canadian public, and will impact the price of just about everything you buy and everything you do, everyday.
And the actual benefit to the environment? Zero. Now that’s a typical Liberal plan.
October 15th: Harper majority, Dion gone. Imagine the frenzy at the CBC!
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posted by Leigh Patrick Sullivan at 11:47 AM
2 Comments:
I don't know if the Conservatives will win a majority, but they will certainly gain at the expense of Dion and Taliban Jack. I think the key to this election lies in rural Quebec, and how many seats the Conservatives can pick up there from the Bloc.
The most direct path is through rural Quebec but there might be a surprise by breakthroughs in the immigrant communities of Toronto and Vancouver. No hope, though, of attracting Anglos in Montreal.
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