Oh, yes, that’s certainly the way to bring a new era of responsibility to Canada
So there's a pesky ethics investigation against your prime minister? No problem, we'll just sack the ethics commissioner!
I must say I'm impressed. It's as if Stephen Harper is using the Cliff's Notes version of "cloning the Evil Party for Dummies" as his handbook for how to govern Canada, but mistaking the notes for the entire text, and thus doing everything wrong as fast as he can go. If not for the spectacular success of the American Evil Party at taking a completely incompetent government and turning it into a religious icon, I would say that Harper is trying to redo the VW bug vs. PC comparison of 1993 ("what's the difference between a VW beetle and the Progressive Conservative Party?" "The beetle has four seats."), but given the experience of the United States I'd think that the CPC is simply trying to get all of their sleazy, incompetent, and illegal scandals out in the open early in their term so that the electorate will forget about it by the time the BQ decides to shiv the Tories for not splitting the union quickly enough.
The oncoming doom of Roe v. Wade in the United States gives a cautionary note for the now so softpedaled that you can barely see it promise to do a (nudge nudge wink wink) free vote to strip civil liberties from same-sex couples; the Tories might be telling the barking lunatic wing of the party to sit tight and wait for a few "reforms" to be made (converting the Senate into an elected chamber, which would convert an almost-harmless rubberstamp into a massively undemocratic boatanchor that would be owned by the party that controls the rural provinces, strikes me as the most whoppingly dangerous reform if you prefer a democratic republic to what the United States is becoming) at which point they can go on an orgy of rights-stripping.
I suspect the "the beetle has four seats" lesson may be a little too recent for that sort of stunt to succeed. The complete collapse of the PC is a lesson that there aren't that many "safe" seats even for an established political party, so the Evil and Stupid Party strategy of carving out safe districts and fighting over the borders might not find fertile ground on the free side of the border.
(via Tilting at Windmills)
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The Man Who Would Be King…
It has become clear this last week that one of the misconceptions which many of us are labouring under, is our idea that the recent federal election was about the election of MPs, and the ability of a political party which gained most seats, to decide who should be the Prime Minister of Canada.
Silly us! The election was not about that at all!
It is now clear from the defence of his actions in not cooperating with the officer of Parliament, the Ethics Commissioner, that Mr Harper was not appointed Prime Minister.
Move aside, Queen Elizabeth, and make room for our new monarch, Emperor Stephen the First.
The Queen is gone; long live the King!
I now have a new understanding of the expression royal blue Tory….
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Yes, I admit it’s pretty Chretien-esque to fire the ethics commissioner right after he announces that he’s going to investigate you, Ed Broadbent would have been a great choice to replace him. Nobody could accuse the long time leader of the NDP of pro-Conservative bias.