Big Lies of the Canadian right-wing echo-chamber

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

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?

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.

"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

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"

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".

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"watching the tide roll away"

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

Brunos wrote:

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.

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.

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

Harper proposed coalition with BQ in 2004

Quote:

On Friday, Mr. Harper went before television cameras to slam a potential Dion-led government as illegitimate because he lost the Oct. 14 election.

But the Liberals and NDP said those arguments were undercut by Mr. Harper's 2004 letter to then-governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, which requested that she turn to him if Paul Martin's newly elected government were defeated in the Commons

"We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority," the 2004 letter stated.

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.

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.

"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

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.

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. 

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

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.

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:

Quote:

Some were clearly disappointed to see the Conservatives falling short of a majority that seemed within reach in the early weeks of the campaign.

"I think we'll have wasted our money if we don't get a majority," Conservative supporter Jan Sproule said as she watched the results.

However, party heavyweight Preston Manning said the victory was a step in the right direction.

"They managed to get a minority last time and they've got a stronger minority this time. The graph is going up," said the former Reform Party leader. "We'd all like to see it get to a majority faster, but I don't think you can complain about the trend."

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.

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. 

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

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.

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

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.

Ken Burch wrote:

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

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

Manley hasn't been an MP since 2004.

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.

[url=http://www.lindamcquaig.com/Columns/ViewColumn.cfm?REF=113]Financial elite back in the saddle[/url]

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

> Linda McQuaig

Quote:

The good news is that there are still some tickets left for the Fraser Institute's 35th anniversary gala dinner next Monday night in Vancouver. The bad news is that the tickets - including tables for 10 at $7,000 - will probably all eventually be sold.

And that means yet more money flowing into the amply filled coffers of an organization that for 3½ decades has worked tirelessly to cut taxes for the rich, undermine public health care, destroy confidence in public education and prevent Canada from joining the global climate change battle.

 
 
The Institute has been been pumping out climate change misinformation for years, generating confusion so that the Harper government can get away with doing nothing.

Amazingly, the rich executives attending the Vancouver gala will all get tax receipts for their tickets, allowing them to further reduce their taxes below the already low levels the Fraser Institute has been instrumental in winning for them.

(The effective tax rate on the richest .01 percent of Canadians - a group that will be out in force at the gala - has fallen by 26 percent in the past decade and a half, according to Statistics Canada data.)...