Posted on 05/19/2005 7:16:24 AM PDT by fanfan
Canada's Liberal government should fall tonight because its members have become renegades in power.
They are politically corrupt and out of control.
They have no vision and no guiding principles.
All they believe in is clinging to power, by any means.
They have already hijacked our democracy once, by refusing to recognize a non-confidence vote they lost last week.
Indeed, Prime Minister Paul Martin only agreed to accept the verdict of tonight's vote after carefully plotting the "winning conditions" he believes will ensure his political survival.
In this, Martin and the Liberals are no better than the Quebec separatists they claim to despise. Separatists have twice been defeated in referendums voted on by the people of Quebec.
But, just like the Liberals, they too refused to acknowledge defeat and are now plotting the "winning conditions" for a third, successful and therefore -- for them -- "final" referendum.
To better ensure his own political survival tonight -- which, sadly, seems likely -- Martin threw away the fiscal prudence he built his reputation on as finance minister and cut a $4.6-billion budget deal to buy the NDP's support. Then he bought former Conservative MP Belinda Stronach with a cabinet post.
Last night, Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal accused the Liberals of trying to buy his support in tonight's non-confidence vote with a patronage job for himself or his wife, also a Tory MP.
The Grits denied the charge, saying Grewal approached them and was rejected. In any event, we've already seen the levels to which the Liberals are prepared to stoop to save their own hides.
As for all of Martin's brave talk about ending the "democratic deficit," Canadians now know that that's all it is -- talk.
Martin's only vision for fixing our health care crisis is to keep throwing money at it, which Canadians know isn't working.
The only thing Martin and the Liberals have proven adept at is changing the subject from their own dismal record.
Just a few weeks ago, the national public debate in this country was all about Liberal corruption in AdScam and whether it was time to bring this arrogant Liberal government down.
But for tonight's vote, Martin has managed to change the subject to whether Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is fuelling separatism by voting with the Bloc to defeat the Liberals!
Think about how absurd Martin's (and Stronach's) logic is.
This is a minority parliament. The only way the Liberals can ever be defeated is if the Bloc and the Conservatives combine forces to bring them down. What Martin is really saying is that even a Liberal minority government must never be defeated -- because any attempt to do so would be allying with separatists.
Please. We're a lot tougher on separatists, whom we consider traitors, than Paul Martin is; after all, he chose a co-founder of the Bloc as his transport minister and Quebec lieutenant.
But the only reason separatist sentiment is raging in Quebec today is due to outrage over Liberal corruption in AdScam.
And however much Martin tries to run away from the truth, it's Liberals who are to blame for that. Liberals without shame.
Please let me know if you want on or off the Canada/Adscam ping list
What are the odds Canada's conservatives will get their vote in before the US Senate does?
Souns like liberalism is dying worldwide! As it should, being that it is a failed philosophy.
Belinda Stronach and Paul Martin are made for each other.
Both are hypocrites.
Both have revealed themselves to be -- for all their idealistic blathering -- just two more grubby politicians prepared to do anything for the sake of power.
Neither would know a principled position if it hit them in the face.
For the brief time she was a Conservative, Stronach -- who claimed to have played a key role in uniting the old Alliance and Tory parties -- billed herself as someone who wanted to re-inspire Canadians, especially the young, about politics.
But by crossing the floor to join a corrupt Liberal government yesterday in exchange for a cabinet seat as minister of Human Resources and "democratic renewal," Stronach herself heightened the rampant cynicism that is increasingly turning all Canadians, especially the young, off politics.
A smug and smiling Stronach didn't just betray Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and humiliate Deputy Leader Peter MacKay, both politically and personally. She also betrayed her constituents in the riding of Newmarket-Aurora.
She betrayed everyone who voted for her in the race for the Conservative leadership little more than a year ago.
And in a broader sense, she betrayed every Canadian who wants democracy to be more than just, as American humourist P.J. O'Rourke famously described it, a "parliament of whores," where everyone has a price.
Tomorrow, Stronach will prop up a corrupt Liberal government she voted just nine days ago to defeat.
She will vote in favour of a Liberal budget she has told the House of Commons is "flawed and defective" and built on "an accounting shell game" reminiscent of "Enron and WorldCom."
Laughably, as Martin's minister for democratic renewal, Stronach will -- presuming the Grits survive tomorrow's non-confidence vote -- be responsible for implementing the reforms recommended by Judge John Gomery in connection with AdScam. Ironically, two Tory turncoats are now the voice of the Liberals on AdScam -- Stronach and Scott Brison, who, as Public Works minister, is their point man on the scandal.
Nothing so reveals Martin's real attitude toward the Gomery inquiry that he brags about having created, as his putting Stronach in charge of implementing its recommendations.
He knows that Stronach -- now a national joke and a discredited political neophyte -- will be the last person Canadians will take seriously when it comes to cleaning up Liberal corruption.
What we seem to have in Stronach, both in her previous incarnation as her father's proxy at Magna and now as Martin's fig leaf for AdScam, is a shallow dabbler and dilettante with a short attention span, be it in business, politics or her personal life.
In that sense, while the Conservatives have been damaged by her defection, in the long run they are better off rid of her.
Lets hope and pray it dies in Canada, starting today.
What's the time diff? I'm on EST, so will that 5:45 be the same here?
Yes, Eastern Standard Time. :-)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I presume Martin would not be pulling this stuff unless he thought he had a good chance of winning. And if he does win, what are the Canadian voters going to do about it?
They re-elected Chretien when the knew he was corrupt, and they then proceeded to elect Martin when they knew he was corrupt and his whole party was corrupt.
This isn't unique to Canadians. The Europeans consistently vote for these kinds of people. We Americans elected bill clinton twice. And New Jersey elected Frank Lautenberg. California will re-elect Barbara Boxer. Massachusetts has decided to give Teddy Kennedy and Barney Franks lifetime tenure in the senate.
Liberalism is dead as a moral cause, but it still seems to be alive as a corrupt means of holding onto power at any cost. Are we so certain that Canada will vote them down next time?
At the least you good folks would get an influx of Conservative Canadians.
My choice would be Dallas!
No, but we have to try one last time to save our country.
Some are suggesting that Martin wants the government to fall, because there are rumors that the stuff we've learned about Adscam is just a small tip of a very large iceberg.
My own crystal says that the Liberals will win Ontario, take a 3-way split in the Atlantic provinces and get wiped out in the rest of the country. Depending on the breaks it will be either Martin propped up by the socialists or Harper backed by the Québec separatists. I think the latter scenario would actually be better for national unity, because another term for Martin will drive away both Québec and Alberta.
I want to be on
thxs
You've been added. :-)
Add me, thanks.
There's a health care crisis in Canadastan?
Gee, I thought Canada had the model unverisal health care system.
/Sarcasm
The Liberals are so despicable, almost anything else would be preferable. It may be that Canada will be sick until they eventually find some way of dealing with Quebec, perhaps by separation.
Of course you have to keep trying. And as I suggested, Canada is not the only western country to suffer from such dire political problems. I just don't think you can assume that the Liberals will lose just because they are now openly exposed for what they are: corrupt, venal, and without honor or concern for their country.
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