Posted on 06/11/2004 12:26:08 PM PDT by rarebird
Three days ago, Anne Cools -- Canada's first black Senator and one of its few black parliamentarians -- switched from the Liberal Party to the newly merged Conservative Party. She endorsed Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for the tight June 28 election, saying he is the best person to bring change. A quote from her Toronto press conference:
"Ordinary Canadians live paycheque to paycheque. And for the last many months, all that they've heard swirling around their heads is a steady diet of the misadministration of X million dollars, the mismanagement of Y billion dollars and I have watched that and it has caused me great distress...The Liberal caucus has no room for debate, diversity or difference of opinion."
A former feminist pioneer, the socially conservative Sen. Cools battled her former Liberal peers for the past 7 years. She supports social welfare, but sought to reduce waste. She is a firebrand against abortion, gay marriage, and gun control.
Well, all I have to get by on is a lousy paycheck.
I was mocking the media, who have slavishly adopted "African-American" for "black." And "anti-abortion" instead of "prolife." And did you hear the story of how the dyslexic editor at the LA Times changed the title of PROFILES IN COURAGE to ANTI-ABORTIONS IN COURAGE?
Senator Cools has reached the top of the career ladder. Our Senate is an appointed house rather than elected, and so that job is hers until she reaches 75.
The Canadian Senate has a well-deserved reputation for being a rubber stamp for the House of Commons. It's refreshing when we see them, as individuals or parties, standing up to the government.
Are there any other relatively known black conservatives in Canada (politicians or not) in Canada?
Canadian spelling typically uses the American z instead of the British s though -- Organization.
It sounds like Canada has the best of both worlds, spelling-wise.
Gee, I'd love to see the new conservative party do well up there. It certainly sounds like their Liberals have been in power long enough to get corrupted. It's a shame when that happens, but it seems to happen quite often. Our Republicans better guard against it, assuming they remain in power here for a good while.
The trusty OED (Oxford English Dictionary) shows the orthodox spelling is in "z" like organization, etc and in Britain Oxbridge publications enforced (and still enforce) this spelling convention. But it had been a British habit to use "s" like organisation, so much that it has now been accepted that "s" is accepted (and even preferred) in British spelling and for English variants derived from more recent British English (eg New Zealand, Australian, and South African English). It has now even been deemed "International English" standard in much of the world (International English is basically British English without its most distinctive vocabularies)
But still, writing using z is still a correct usage, but not many in New Zealand use it (some say it is too Oxbridge i.e. elitist, some say it is too American).
"...but not many in New Zealand use it (some say it is too Oxbridge i.e. elitist, some say it is too American)."
Thanks for that tip. I've made a sworn promise to Hubby that we'll decamp for New Zealand if ever Madam Hillary is elected president. I'll have to be careful of my spelling should that baneful day arrive. But what the heck! I can't really spell with a damn anyway!
O Canada! Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond must be flippin'! Bwahahahaha!!!
Just wait til the Conservatives seat those elected Senators from Western Canada who have been cooling their heels for years and introduce provision for an elected Canadian Senate.
Canadian spelling is Queen's English. John Alexander MacDonald felt Canada should copy the best of British tradition.
The Adscam scandal did them in. In Quebec, the Liberals will be lucky to keep 20 of the 75 seats in the Province and those will be anglophone ridings. If the Liberals slide further down in the polls nationally, Quebecois anglophones could switch to the Conservatives and even Atlantic Canada may toss out the Liberals to bring home the bacon. It depends on how Stephen Harper performs in his debate with Paul Martin. A win should cement things nicely for the Conservatives, considering they've been around only a couple of months and just elected a party leader.
No, you wouldn't want to come to the People's Republic of Aotearoa-New Zealand - if you think Boston or San Francisco is bad enough, NZ makes them look like Mesa, Arizona. I'm afraid mainstream New Zealand has Hillary Clinton on their right and Noam Chomsky on their left. (our current Prime Minister Helen Clark is to the left of Hillary and yet many Kiwis think she is "sensibly middleground". Although it looks like our next possible PM Don Brash is conservative, I believe mainstream NZ is far too left-wing to make his admin too long-lasting).
Hubby really, really, really wants to go there. He loves the geography. It IS truly something from a fantasy! Maybe we'll all come over and start a Reagan revolution in New Zealand!
Do you all drive like the English, on the left hand side?
Yes, they drive on the left hand side in NZ, AU, JPN, SA, and of course the UK.
Beware of ex-Californian leftists! We have a number of them here and there are rumours of more to come because the US is moving away from liberalism and NZ is so leftist that we even have an official no-nukes policy (No nuclear-propelled, or armed military frigates/aircraft carriers, etc can land in this country).
Here is an essential weblog site to get the NZ news from a politically conservative angle:
http://www.nzpundit.com
Yes, we drive on the left and traffic signs are half way between British and American conventions, although we use metric system for distance. In general, signs are a little different from their American counterparts but not too different to cause significant hiccups. (eg we call the "Yield" signs "Give Way" signs and is written as such on the signs themselves) Here is a webpage of our official Land Transport Safety Authority (LTSA, equiv to your states' DMV) about road rules in NZ:
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/roadcode/index.html
It should be a good reference for you if you have any problems about NZ's road rules.
Sorry, I don't pay enough attention to skin colour to be able to answer that question. I didn't even realize Senator Cools was black until her picture was posted here.
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