Big Lies of the Canadian right-wing echo-chamber

Oh, yes - according to James Moore, yesterday's stock market drop was a negative reaction to the political situation.

Strange that the Dow Jones reacted to politics in Canada as strongly as the TSX, isn't it?

More strange that the markets climbed sharply when this began last Thursday.

The only numbers that matter:  58% supported the coalition, 38% supported the Cons.

Deb Grey followed shortly after Moore. She repeated the talking point about "Canadians just having voted for Steven Harper as Prime Minister". She also likened the coalition to "Hillary Clinton telling Obama that she was taking over, with John McCain's backing".

Does Deb Grey not understand either political system? Or do they have completely different ballots in Alberta? Do they directly vote for a Prime Minister, unlike the rest of the country?

Shame on Deb Grey for participating in this propaganda campaign. I never liked her politics, but I used to think she at least had some integrity. 

Deb Grey. Populist.   I take it she is frustrated.  Aren't we all.

Her idea of locking the four leaders in a room to hammer out a deal is wishful thinking.  Those words will resonate I think however with most Joe Q. Public.  Political junkies know that Harper can't be trusted. Only if the GG has Harper sign a ****ing Magna Carta!  

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

Yes, well watch for that to be dropped as a rhetoric item throughout the day, as the TSX has gone up and so has the Canadian dollar, as of this am. So according to their psoition, then the "market" forces like the idea of a cooperative government.

___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"

Good Grief

CBC has had one pro-Conservative speaker on after another.  What a disgrace.  They have gone completely unchallenged.  I guess CBC is trying to hedge their bets.

Using the PMO to release a sketchy tape on the weekend. Today, the Prime Minister's Office is busy with party business ...

"Last election, Stéphane Dion gave his word. He said his Liberals would never form a coalition with the NDP," the English-language Conservative radio spot says. "But now he's cut a deal with the NDP and he's working with separatists to make it happen. He even thinks he can take power without asking you, the voter."

The Tory ad suggests it's unacceptable in Canada to take over a government without an election, even though Parliamentary rules allow it.

"This is Canada. Power must be earned, not taken," the ad concludes.

 http://tinyurl.com/6ekkml

Did any of you see this in the Montreal Gazette: Coming Soon to Radio Near You (and newspapers, emails, etc)

"The Conservatives are revving up their party machine to try to win the high stakes game of political chicken they triggered with the tabling of their fiscal update Thursday. While Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois discuss ways to form a coalition government, the Conservatives are calling on their grassroots members to bombard radio stations, newspapers and the internet with messages backing the Conservative position.

For those uncertain what to say, the Conservatives are providing handy dandy talking points and convenient lists of local radio stations, newspapers and all of their coordinates...."

No, I saw it elsewhere a couple of days ago though. And my first thought was and "talk about subverting democracy", and then "we are seeing a precursor to a formal dictatorship", if he accomplishes the propaganda war that is what we will have.

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"watching the tide roll away"

THe CPC machine is in gear.  The entire Coalition better be prepared for the biggest assault every seen in Canadian History by a political party. It is not going to be pretty, and they have decided to go for blood. This will be a battle of the activists, and the CPC has a very strong mobilization capacity.

PS, if nobody posts, this thread shows up in short as....

The big lies of

madmax

I thought some we see humour in that....

Good, I hope they spend a huge portion of their "war chest" will give them less to fight an election on.

Moreover, I do not see it as a battle at all, it is just a pathetic attempt by the CPC, to hold onto power they do not have the legitmacy to.

Canadians who voted against Harper, are not about to vote for him should another election arise. It would still be a minority government, and maybe even less of CPC one, as Harper has pissed off Quebec soundly now, and will only further that by his yellling "separatists".

___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"

Mike Duffy Live on CTV news has been massacring the coalition with mostly anti-coalition views all day long. I got the day off and I couldn't help notice that this coalition is a duck that wont quack. Premiers, former Liberals, University Professors just killing this idea.

Makes me think that the coalition failed to consider people outside the Ottawa beltway when they cooked up this scheme. Not sure all Liberals are on side with the "coup d'etat"

Wow!  A Roveian twofer.  Questioning your opponent's patriotism while lying:

"During question period, Harper also accused Dion, NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe of deliberately avoiding being photographed in front of a Canadian flag during Monday's signing ceremony of the agreement between the parties.

"Mr. Speaker, they had to be photographed without it because ... a member of their coalition does not even believe in this country," he said.

Video and photographs of the event, however, clearly showed at least two Canadian flags behind the three leaders, as well as a painting of the Fathers of Confederation."

 http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/12/02/question-period.html

Where the hell is Jack Layton?

You'd think he could get up on a chair somewhere and tell Stephen Harper: "The jig is up! Pack your bags and head back to the White House!"

I find it amazing how these stary-eyed conservo-junkies get to take the day off ride their favourite political hobby horse when the rest of the country is out there making the economy work. Must me nice.

Bill Casey supports the coalition: 

Harper has not only united the left, he has united everyone outside his increasingly narrow tent.

Wow- with Casey onboard against Harper- Harper is toast.  The respect level for Casey on all sides is very, very high.

I stated this about Casey in another thread this morning, he was on the news here in BC last night stating those things about Harper and that he had been part of the cooperative talks and was on board with them.

___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"

Harper proposed coalition with BQ in 2004

In 2004, Harper's 99 conservatives would have needed support of the Bloc as the NDP had only 19 seats. There were 135 Liberals in parliament then.

He wasn't quite as explicit, but obviously he was suggesting that exactly the same thing was an option.

Harper would rather create a potential unity crisis in order to save himself.  Anyone who thought he would go guietly into that good night was kidding themselves.

I never thought he would go quietly, but I never thought he'd be so stupid as to try to divide this country along every regional fault-line.

"The Conservatives having lots of money, the barrage began yesterday with radio advertisements. If the past be any guide, ferocious TV ads will follow. It would not be foolish to speculate that in such desperate times, the party might even buy television time for their leader to make an address.

Through its own propaganda machine, its MPs and ministers, friendly media (of which there is plenty) and the broadcast advertisements, the barrage will continue - relentlessly and remorselessly for weeks if necessary, with only a slight pause for Christmas."

http://tinyurl.com/5qdk52

We can't get too confident or complacent though. The Conservatives are, to be frank, going to play to the ignorance of Canadians as to the way our parliamentary system works. They have the money and a largely friendly corporate media on their side, so defeating them in the "hearts and minds" of Canadians won't be easy. Jeffrey Simpson said in the Globe that the Cons are going to use every tool available at their disposal to do this, we need to not only do that in favour of our cause, but make our tool box bigger and better 'cause at least as it relates to money and media access ours has seen better days.

So, whether or not the Cons succeed in casting doubt on the legitimacy of the coalition is important in this instance, because if they succeed in the PR battle, it will help the Cons win more votes come next election. The coalition needs to be prepared for this onslaught, for the sake of the future viability of progressive causes. I'm not trying to be a concern troll here, but let's not, as LTJ alluded to, allow right-wing lies, memes and cynical usage of Canadian nationalism to allow them to subvert Canadian democracy.

Just listening to "cross-Canada" comments on CBC radio's The Current where one savant weighed in with [have to paraphrase here] "I know what's going on in Ottawa...these three [monkeys?] are trying to take control...they're making us look like a Banana Republic!" Interestingly, they could only find one voice for the coalition out of 7 or 8 that they played.

CBC is most likely on the block in the next year if Harper gets to carry out his sell-off and (shed-off) of Canadian assets/liabilities. It's actually this issue more than anything that has me concerned to get him out now. He will use the recession/depression to implement his extremist divestment agenda.

The Banana Republic phrase is appearing in letters to the editor across Canada.

Obviously part of the Scripting and Phrases for the CPC war machine.

Time to turn that one on its head, as in: "These Banana Republicans are confused. They think we elected Harper as president, instead of having voted for our Parliamentary representatives."

Good one, LTJ!

Today's Globe and Mail editorial corrects Harper's willful misrepresentations (aka lies) about Constitutional law and parliamentary procedures. The formulations are polite but firm. The editorial opens:

"Stephen Harper's declaration on Friday that 'Stephane Dion does not have the right to take power without an election' is not an accurate statement about the Canadian Constitution..."

What follows is a lesson is civics for the PM from the elites' "newspaper of record" that just a couple months ago endorsed him. Yesterday, the Globe called for Harper to step down and the Conservatives to appoint an interim leader as a way to avoid the coalition gov't taking power. Even if the GG somehow grants his request, it looks like Harper's done, no matter what "grassroots" hysteria Conservative operatives are able to whip up on talk radio and at the "rallies for Canada" this weekend. 

In the meantime, the CPC are rallying. One anti coalition group on petition online has over 125,000 sigs.

Is there a pro coalition petition floating around?

Here is the CPC version

To save his own government, Stephen Harper is deliberately trying to deceive Canadians about the facts surrounding a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition, former NDP leader Ed Broadbent said Wednesday.

In an interview with CBC News in Toronto, a furious Broadbent had harsh words for the prime minister, saying Harper was also trying to pit English Canada against Quebecers in his attempt to discredit the proposed coalition to replace him if the Conservative minority government falls.

"I've never seen the leader of a Conservative party, certainly not Bob Stanfield, certainly not Joe Clark, lie — I choose the word deliberately — the way Mr. Harper has," Broadbent said.

 . . . .

Broadbent said Harper is conducting a "shameful operation" by trying to turn certain defeat in the House of Commons into a national unity crisis.

"I'm concerned I have a prime minister who lies to the people of Canada and knows it," Broadbent said. "It's one thing to exaggerate. It's another to deliberately tell falsehoods."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/12/03/coalition-broadbent.html

The pro-coalition petition is on avaaz.org.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/coalition_for_canada/

By the way, it's also very clear that the anti-coalition campaign is being completely directed, top-down, by the Conservative party.

The pro-Coalition movement, however, is much more diverse and grassroots and is being carried by individual activists and community groups and organizations.

That is correct here is another coalition petition...

 http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/coalitiongovernment/signatures.html

 However, the CPC is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. Rally the base and a top down directive with results is better then a top down directive without results.

So they are making an impact.

In the same vein, these grass roots coalition voices could use some top down directives, but that would be difficult since it is three parties, and numerous activists all doing their own thing.

You can also voice your support at www.62percentmajority.ca/action/yourvoice

I believe Harper and all he said on Hansard over the years. He is the most heartless of all our politicians, and that's saying something!  Like most of them, he's a devoutee of Milton Friedman's fraudulant economics.  Harper is a social darwinist and probably thinks Christ was only kidding about the Good Samaritan.  This guy wants us to be part of the USA.  Maybe, like Mulroney, he will get a $15 million mansion for selling us out. I believe in democarcy--not a dictatorship by the rich and their deluded sycophants. 

The biggest lie was on election night: "we accept this result and this responsibility with humility."

"This is a time for us all to put aside political difference and partisan considerations and to work co-operatively for the benefit of Canada," he said.

But other Conservatives were more truthful that night:

That humility was a lie from the beginning. Stephen Harper was scared to death. He had just run against the weakest campaign the Liberals have ever run, and had failed to get a majority. He knew Dion would be gone before long, and next May would be replaced by someone much stronger. Someone who would bring Harper down when the time suited him -- unlike after past elections, this new Bloc caucus was sure to vote with the opposition -- and Harper would be out of power.

Harper was desperate. His only hope of holding power was to attack, crush, humiliate and bankrupt the Liberal Party in their brief moment of weakness.

Cancelling public financing of parties was not a miscalculation. It was a desperate move by a paranoid personality who saw himself as backed into a corner and having no other choice.

Unless the Liberals speed up their leadership choice, he will try some other means to crush them, not because he is a natural fascist, but because he fears they will beat him next time.

Great analysis Wilf... Excellent.

You are right and it is imperative  the LPC need to speed up their leadership choice, get it done while Parliment is .... vacationing....

I figureshitbag Manley belongs on this thread.Why would ANYONE consider him a liberal either big or small . This ass was on CCC and knifed his party again by saying british parliamentary democracy doesn't matter. Because canadians don't understand it. Thanks for explaining it. Good thing Harper had recruited someone so unbiased as to hate his party since he got dumped as leadership candidate, to give advice on Afganistan. 

______________________________________________________________________________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." Noam Chomsky

If Harper survives past January, Manley will probably cross the floor, since Tories are ok with people defecting TO them.

____________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

I agree, Wif. The analysis seldom reflects that the last election was a defeat for the Conservatives. What's more, they lost the election because, once more, Harper, the PM who doesn't trust anyone else in his party to express a thought, opened his mouth and put his own foot into it with the comments about arts funding.

 The media seldom mentions it. In fact I was livid listneing to "the house" whne they gave a crusory mention at "the ndp may sue harper for the tape" no context, nothing. I guess when it is high crimes and treason it is only OK to talk about it when it isn't real and just slander.

__________________________________________________________________________________ "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." Noam Chomsky

Big lie number one: that Duceppe and the Bloc are part of the Coalition.

Keep it simple:

Duceppe will not be in the cabinet room. Remarkably, he has given the Coalition a blank cheque for 18 months. He gets only three things out of it, if you look at the actual documents:

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/547490

http://www.thestar.com/article/548084 [45]

1.    "A permanent consultation mechanism."

2.    A re-opener after 18 months, although the Coalition agreement runs for 30 months. This is when they will finally be able to seek something they can point to for Quebec, which they will need politically in Quebec, and haven't gotten yet.

3.    The same policy goals for Canada as the Coalition government has, but which they have to trust the Coalition to implement. The remarkable thing here is, until this September the Bloc has always said it is not in Ottawa to improve Canada, but to pursue Quebec's interests. (By the way, they have never said they were in Ottawa to get Quebec independence, because it is a basic principle in Quebec that only Quebec will decide its future, not Ottawa.) But in the past election campaign they got a mandate from Quebec voters to "Stop Harper" and his "very right-wing agenda" as Duceppe said about 15 times a day. Their platform was, in fact, the platform of the Quebec Federation of Labour. So now the Bloc have found themselves committed to improve Canada, something new for them. They would not have done this except they decided to trust the NDP to share the labour agenda.

Parizeau recently said something like "if it's good for Quebec, it's good for a sovereign Quebec." What a new concept: the Coalition is good for Canada, therefore good for Quebec as a part of Canada, and therefore good for a sovereign Quebec. Sovereignty becomes less relevant than ever.

Parizeau recently said something like "if it's good for Quebec, it's good for a sovereign Quebec." What a new concept: the Coalition is good for Canada, therefore good for Quebec as a part of Canada, and therefore good for a sovereign Quebec. Sovereignty becomes less relevant than ever.

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Right on, Wilf. But meanwhile, out in Alberta, has Steve really given up on Quebec and is now going to focus on extending his "firewall" to include everything west of Superior?

What about the francophobes in Ayr (a local nest for their species) and elsewhere in rural Ontario?

His Canada may no longer include Quebec, and those layabouts in the Atlantic provinces, but Ontario? And will the starving, underpaid "ethnics" of Toronto give a damn?

A penny for your thoughts. 

Manley hasn't been an MP since 2004.

Harper is a follower of philosopher Leo Strauss who advocates a benign dictatorship and thinks it is OK to lie and conceal to bring one about for the people's own good.  See Professor Shadia Drury for an analysis of his thinking.

The CPC have significant radio adds, very effective in shaping opinion on the LPC/NDP and the separtists. People don't like the BQ collaboration, regardless of the details.  The CPC is phone call canvassing asking for support in the election.

Bump: another good coalition thread, including the proof that Bill Casey supported the coalition.

Financial elite back in the saddle

Fraser Institute gala will revel in having dodged the bullet when the economy collapsed

> Linda McQuaig

OH.  Well...his home has a floor...in fact, it probably has several.  He could still cross THOSE.