Dion era

quote:

---

I think he's also the most leftist leader the Libs have had in a good while, and I hope he gets a chance to implement his 'three pillars' (strong economy, social justice, environmental sustainability).

---

Do you think you might be projecting a lot of qualities onto him out of wishful thinking and it may not actyually be there. If you watched the speeches at the Liberal convention, every single one of the candidates said very similar things (even Iggy).

quote:

---

I think Dion will prove to be the most left-wing leader the Liberal Party has had in a long time.

---

Well here's what this "leftist" imperialist had to say about Afghanistan:

quote:

---

When New Democratic MP Alexa McDonough questioned the wisdom of having Canada shift its focus in Afghanistan from development to full-scale fighting, Dion was dismissive.

"We need to be there. Canada is a good citizen of the world. We are very courageous. We have been in Yugoslavia. We are ready to be in tough situations."

True, he voted against the Harper government's decision in May to extend the Afghan mission to 2009. But he made it clear at the time, that he was voting against the way Harper made that decision, not the decision itself.

In September, when NDP Leader Jack Layton called on the government to withdraw Canadian troops by early 2007, Dion was caustic. "No one wants us to get out now, like Mr. Layton, in dishonour," he said on Sept 17.

Now, it seems, the new leader of the Liberal party has changed his tune.

---

[url=http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/A... ticking on Kandahar role[/url]

Oh he's a "leftist" alright ... for as long as the campaign is on!

I imagine 13 years ago you thought Chretien was a "leftist" too because he campaigned to cancel NAFTA, bring in proportional representation and child care.

As someone correctly stated; ALL Liberals campaign as New Democrats and govern like tories.

All very legitimate criticisms. However, as an NDP'r who decided to exercise pragmatism and get elected as a delegate to the Liberal leadership convention there are a couple of things to keep in mind about Dion before relegating him to the "same old fiberal" category.

1. Check out the globe from Monday and you will find a story in report on business on how Dion has fewer ties with big business and bay street than any major party leader in decades. Not starting out in debt to corporations is a good start.

2. It has been suggested otherwise but it is important to note that the entire Liberal establishment, from Chretien to Martin to all the backroom boys were totally opposed to Dion.

3. He absolutely needs work on his policy (afghanistan being an egregious example) however he won because of the support of the youth and the most left wing elements of the party. He has nowhere to go to the right and his base of support within the party (including key organizers who chaired his campaign) is intensely left. As an example, I spent the week as a Dion delegate wearing a kuffiyeh and chatting with Palestinian Kennedy delegates, there were also a vast number of other "pragmatic liberals" from the NDP in the Kennedy and Dion camps (which of course united to earn Dion the victory).

4. Finally, the environment really is one of the most critical issues we face, so even if he's soft elsewhere, major progress on one key issue is a lot better than we got from Martin or Chretien.

I'm no liberal but whoever will destroy the country slower is okay with me and I think Dion fits that bill best.

I am not a fan of slow death. I choose life, and will not vote for a slow death. Dion is just one person within the liberal party. The liberal party is stronger than its leader.
Big yawn to this Dion era.

[ 07 December 2006: Message edited by: babblerwannabe ]

Liberals playing musical chair. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

[ 07 December 2006: Message edited by: babblerwannabe ]

quote:

---

Finally, the environment really is one of the most critical issues we face, so even if he's soft elsewhere, major progress on one key issue is a lot better than we got from Martin or Chretien.

---

The Environment is not just one issue; it is a framework within which a number of issues interact. Climate change alone threatens to swamp (literally and figuratively) all other issues, and is also linked to virtually all other issues.

I hear spears being filed and knives being sharpened.

It was reported that literally “none” of the Liberal Party’s ‘Establishment’ (Big E) and its machinery backed outsider Stйphane Dion in his run to become their Party’s new leader. Their hand-chosen “Michael Ignatieff” had always been the insiders’ candidate for the top job. ‘Their Man’ had been heralded as a “second-coming of Trudeau”.

Dion, the underdog, was never on Big E's radar scopes. Yet, in back-roomer words, this “compromise candidate”, this “lightweight”, this “unelectable”, won. This was never to have happened. Big E had developed few 'hooks' in him. He was not 'their man'.

From a shell-shocked, Big E perspective, Dion and his king-maker, Gerard Kennedy, will present major problems. These two people are sworn to “party renewal” from bottom to top. If shaking the Party’s internal timbers were to happen, it would inevitably threaten and challenge the back-room authority of Big E.

Will history be recording and comparing a parallel between Stйphane Dion’s future to that of the “Big E” backroom assassination of the most principled, ethical man that they ever had in a leader, John Napier Turner? As was John, Stйphane is an "outsider" in Big E’s halls of ‘power at any costs”.

John had become Liberal Party Leader and, automatically, the seventeenth Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Canada as of June 30th, 1984. Nevertheless, he was ruthlessly undermined, stabbed, shafted and destroyed by the upper, insider ranks of "Big E". Two and a half months later, on September 17th, John’s ravaged body was thrown to the wolves following a lackluster campaign against Brian Mulroney. Of course, the campaign had been directed and controlled by Big E.

Even though the Liberal.ca website headlined, “New Liberal Leader Stйphane Dion Welcomed by United Liberal Caucus”, for some strange reason, I can hear a dull ‘grinding’ sound taking place on "Big E” whetstones where spears and knives are being sharpened for The Ambush.

Some advice to Dion and Kennedy: Don’t turn your backs or, to paraphrase baseball’s Yogi Berra, “It will be dйjа vu all over again”.

EDITOR: While the above entry is 'obvious' to even the lightest of political junkies, it is fascinating that none of our mainstream columnists and broadcasters have drawn a parallel between Dion’s unpredicted election and the fate of John Turner.

Maybe that goes with 'youth' and not having witnessed it first-hand in the summer of '84.
[URL=http://votp.blogspot.com/ ]DION AND THE LIBERAL PARTY ESTABLISHMENT[/URL]

Rick Salutin in today's Globe Focus section (subscriber-only) says the media have it all backwards: Dion isn't the renewal candidate sweeping out the party establishment. He's the Liberal family's immune system repelling the two outsiders, Ignatieff and Rae. I think he's right.

[url=http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paul Gross:
[b][url=http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC...

---

From the article:

quote:

---

Over there is David Orchard. The last convention I saw him at was the final fling of the Progressive Conservatives, which made Peter Mackay leader, just before he handed the party to Stephen Harper and the former Canadian Alliance. Mr. Orchard is an organic farmer from the West, a long-time foe of free trade, and he ran then, coming second to Mr. Mackay and striking a deal to back him, based on a written Mackay promise that there would be no merger talks with Mr. Harper. I still wonder how Mr. Mackay can walk into a room without having to explain that.

---

I wonder about that as well.
[img]confused.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:

---

[b]The real key, to my mind, is to maintain some pressure on the left to keep the Liberals on track.[/b]

---

.

Absolutely. There is no excuse for giving the Liberals a majority, in the next election or ever again.

1993-2004 proved once and for all that, without a strong left presence to hold them accountable, a Liberal government is certain to be indistinguishable from a Tory government.

There was nothing Chretien did that Mulroney could not also have done. So it will be if Dion gets a majority and the NDP gets reduced to nothing again.

The mistake must not be repeated.

Just wondering.....how many Liberals parked their vote with the NDP in the last election?

I see Dion moving left on the Environment. I think he is more worried about the Green Party than the NDP.

quote:

---

Originally posted by remind:
[b]

Well, nussy, I see you have posted nothing substantive to support you words, so like usual, it is your opinion only.

However. I will say I doubt Dion is worried about the Grenn Party. Why or how did I formulate that opinion?

The Green Party has NO seats in Ottawa, the leader could not even win a by-election, and now after that by-election that she lost, her words, and the words of those in her inner circle, have assured that they will not get any seats in the close future, if ever.

The NDP are actually Greener than the Greens.

A single issue party like the Greens will go no where, as Dion well knows. If he is going Greener it is because of the NDP.[/b]

---

I never saw where she said that they won't get seats in the close future.

Am I allowed to have an opinion? I still think that many Liberals parked their vote in the last election. Certainly they would never vote for the Conservatives. I form my opinion simply by talking to people I know. Some of whom were Liberals and voted NDP in the last election.

quote:

---

Originally posted by nussy:
[b]I still think that many Liberals parked their vote in the last election. Certainly they would never vote for the Conservatives. I form my opinion simply by talking to people I know. Some of whom were Liberals and voted NDP in the last election.[/b]

---

I think it's clear from the results that at least as many people left the Liberal column and entered the Tory column as left the Liberals for the NDP. I wish it were the other way around, but from the overall results it appears that most people who left the Grits went Tory.

Among your friends who parked their votes with the NDP, what was their major reason for abandoning the Liberals? Were any of them embarassed by the Sponsorship scandal?

quote:

---

Originally posted by nussy:
[b]

The sponsorship scandal was on top of the list. [/b]

---

Well, that's good to hear, in that many Liberals I know had a thousand excuses as to why it didn't matter, and that people were being rude and irresponsible to bring it up in the context of how one might vote.

Well, it's not hard to predict what direction the Liberals will take under Dion. It will be the same strategy as always-- bait and switch on the left, and a wink and nod to the right.

Dion will campaign on behalf of progessive ideas on environmental issues, women's issues, present himself as the second comming of Walter Ruether to the union movement, and waste no time screwing all those people over if they get a majority.

Reinstituting the tax free status for big business via the income trust requires that someone will have to pay.

....and it won't be the kids who contributed to Joe Volpe's campaign, now will it?

quote:

---

Originally posted by tostig:
[b]

So....
keep Harper in for another five years?[/b]

---

I can't answer for Tommy but as far as I am concerned, despite being opposed to numerous actions of this government, if forced to make a Hobson's choice between Grits and Tories I would at this time, and for the next few years as well, pick the Tories as the lesser of two evils.

The reasons are their move to tax income trusts, which as you well know the Liberals would never do and which Dion would immediately reverse if he and his handler Marissen, a darling of the Vancouver Board of Trade crowd, were to seize power. As well, I think the Accountability Act and income splitting for seniors are good moves.

I am opposed to their scheme to dismantle the Wheat Board, I cannot understand why the Hell literacy programs were cut, and their three dollar a day daycare scheme is too laughable for words.

But what is the cost of letting the Liberals back in after such a brief stay in opposition? In my opinion, it would mean an exponential acceleration of the entire Sponsorship approach to government and public administration. I don't want that, and since that strikes at the very core of democracy, I think it's the greater evil to avoid.

Let Dion in with a small minority, with the NDP and BQ holding the balance of power. Keep Dion in a minority and make him earn his stripes. A Harpoon majority (although highly unlikely to happen) would be a disaster.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
[b]
However, I also keep in mind that the brunt of a tory attack on us would be taken by those just below where I sit on the economic ladder.[/b]

---

That's a dangerous work practice.

To bore you all further:

I have arrived at my point of view through a circuitous, and often misspelled, route.

At base, I like this country, and I like the people I am stuck here with. This is a great country. Look at how well we ordinary Canadians do in times of crisis, whether it is war, natural disaster, or national projects.

Ordinary Canadians-- farmers, factory workers, shop keepers, won the battle honours that our current ordinary Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are building on. Did Sir John A. Macdonald ever pack a hole in the Canadian Shield with nitro? Did he remove a single rock from a blasted tunnel in the Rockies? How many rails did he set on the praries? When ice storms or hay crop failure hit, we saw Albertans helping Quebecers, and vice versa- despite the supposed animosity our so called leaders exploit and prod for cynical gain.

We built and maintain this country. People like you and I. And there are tens of thousands of smaller, but as courageous accomplishements to go along with those examples.

We are a great nation, a great people not because of our leadership, but in spite of it.

Therefore, we have to stop looking at this party or that man or woman to champion what we think this country aught to be.

We have to do it, and we have to do it with the overburden of our leadership who bleat like stuck pigs about being "entitled to my entilements".

No one is going to hand us anything.

Not even Jack Layton.

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stargazer:
[b]Wow, so you think leaving Harper to run this country, that he is slowing destroying, for the next 5 years is better than taking a chance of a possible more left leaning Liberal caucus. And you said you weren't a Con. Yep...sure you are not *cough*

This is despicable on so many levels. Harper for 5 years would be the absolute WORST thing for this country. Your failure to see that, and your continual ass kissing of Harper, I simply do not understand it.[/b]

---

Stargazer, do you use the term despicable to describe every opinion you don’t happen to share? Is this how you get along with people where you work?

I don’t agree with you that Harper and the Conservatives are “destroying” Canada. I can say for a fact that they are taking social policy in this nation in a direction I personally disagree with. I outlined that above in relation to child care and literacy where the government’s cuts are clearly regressive and unnecessary. I try to balance that off as best I can against some improvements in the area of taxing the income trusts, income splitting for seniors, and the Accountability Act, which really complete’s Chretien’s work in the area of political financing.

However, if you honestly believe that the Conservatives are outrightly destroying the country, perhaps you can explain why you think that. Also, if you do sincerely believe that, perhaps you really would be more comfortable with the Liberal Party, since this is the message they are promoting constantly.

The other thing I hear Liberals talking about all the time now is religion, especially Islam and its various sects. It’s a discussion I can’t follow since I know almost nothing about religion, but it’s a subject that all the Liberals I know are very much into, complete with little jokes and giggles and all kinds of important sounding observations. In fact, the supposedly centrist Liberals are almost as much into that subject as the extreme, remote-right Conservatives on Kate McMillan’s SmallDeadAnimals site. A strange coincidence, perhaps?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:
[b]Personally, I find it really tedious when Liberal syncophants pretend to be progressive.[/b]

---

Calling it "tedious" can be a polite understatement.

Michelle, this fellow has also been doing the same to me. I am sick and tired of DavidMR. I will send you an e-mail.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]You get to stay for now, and you immediately stop your little vendetta against unionist. I watch you carefully for the next while and if you keep up the CCFer-like bullshit, you're gone.[/b]

---

Malcolm, like many good Scotsmen, is honest and forthright to a fault. And he does get a bit carried away sometimes in his dislike for Liberals. However, keep in mind that he comes from the land of Ross Thatcher, Colin Thatcher, and other such progressives. Until 1978 the Liberals were the main party of the right in Saskatchewan, and since then they haven't so much moved left as moved out the door. So lots of Saskatchewan folk share his view that the only difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that the Conservatives are more honest about their policies and their politics.

Now that's hard for us to understand in Ontario where Peterson was a bit to the left of the PCs, and McGuinty was a bit to the left of Mike Harris. Yet other than the free-trade issue Mulroney was to the left of John Turner, which is precisely why Reform seceded from the PCs. Paul Martin's father was not to the left of John Diefenbaker, and Paul Junior was not to the left of anyone I know.

And John Tory is, thank heavens, no further right than McGuinty. We're about to have an election in Ontario where anyone saying "the Liberals are more progressive than the PCs" can fairly be accused of being a "Liberal apologist" or a "Liberal sycophant". The PC candidate in our riding is a woman with a new licence plate: LITE BLUE. And she means it. In fact John Tory is looking for light blue women all over the province.

So in a few months Malcolm will sound almost -- well, I hate to say it -- normal. ("What, me normal?" I can hear him saying.) [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

[ 04 January 2007: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

Okay, it's probably not necessary for everyone to start dragging stuff up after he's already been dealt with.

Anyhow, since this is the 100th post, I'm going to close this.