Manley : Screw the coalition - go straight for collaboration

"As a Liberal, I believe the first step for my party is to replace Stéphane Dion as leader with someone whose first job is to rebuild the Liberal Party, rather than leading a coalition with the NDP.

His weakness probably fuelled the Conservative hubris that led to this fiasco in the first place.

But the first task should be to work collaboratively with all other parties to restore the confidence of Canadians in their Parliament."

~ John Manley in an editorial in today's G&M

I see. As a Liberal your advice is to ditch the coalition for a collaboration with the Cons, is it?

The only chance the coalition has to bring down Harper is before the next Speech to the Throne in January. Best you work on playing nice instead, says deep integrationist John Manley, as a Liberal. Feh.

OK, you all know the words by now - everyone sing along :

John Manley : Harper's hand-picked chair of last year's Afghanistan panel which sought to legitimize Canadian partipation in Operation Enduring Freedom, Canada Chair of the deep integration project, 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, and author of "Building A North American Community" for the US Council on Foreign Relations with Thomas d'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Robert A. Pastor the self-proclaimed father of the North American Union :

"The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

Next stop for Manley - IggyNation.

Steve blinks : Non-Confidence Motion and Coalition Proposal

CP : "The Liberal motion, which has the approval of the NDP and Bloc Quebecois, reads:

"In light of the government's failure to recognize the seriousness of Canada's economic situation and its failure in particular to present any credible plan to stimulate the Canadian economy and to help workers and businesses in hard-pressed sectors such as manufacturing, the automotive industry and forestry, this House has lost confidence in this government and is of the opinion that a viable alternative government can be formed within the present House of Commons."

A source says the opposition parties have agreed that Liberal Leader Stephane Dion would lead the government for the next few months.

A combative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday the government won't back down on a single measure, despite the opposition threats.
"We're staying on track," Flaherty said in Toronto."This is the financial plan of the government of Canada. This is a matter of confidence."

My god, Jim, I think you've finally got it!

.CPAC Live for interviews in the foyer...

Ok, everybody get that?
Steve says the opposition wants to install Dion and a coalition government using the support of a party that wants to destroy Canada when he got the mandate, he got it, I tell you, with his 37% of the vote.
Bottom line - To avoid the non-con vote, Steve's postponing ways and means and opposition day till Dec 8.
Good. Will give the coalition time to work on their 63% mandate.

Dion resigns

.

Shit. Here come the Ffeitangis....

Strategic voting - a Liberal Con

Snagged from Paulitics : this great graphic of 12 months of polls in BC.

Greens and Cons are up, while the Libs show every indication of coming dead last among the four parties.

Cue a little chat about strategic voting from Liberal Bob Rae at Team BC :

"Former NDP Premiers Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh teamed-up Friday to deliver a message to progressive voters: to fight for British Columbia and stop the conservatives, the only choice for progressive voters is the Liberal Party of Canada.

Rae said that he returned to federal politics to stop Stephen Harper and said he’s determined to do just that, describing this last parliament ... as the house that Jack built."

And this is the guy the Libs have sent out to talk us into strategic voting ?
Suck on this, Bob :

Strategic voting is a horrible horrible horrible and sometimes necessary choice, depending on what's going on in your individual riding. I've done it.

But somehow the Lib call for strategic voting always amounts to "Vote for us or the Cons will get in!", even when, as in BC, it's obviously the worst possible available strategic choice to get rid of the Cons.

As Thwap said at Pogge's : "Rae, you miserable ignorant slut."

h/t Pogge, Paulitics, Accidental Deliberations

UPDATE : Dion rules out coalition

"Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion flatly rejected forming a coalition government with the New Democrats today on the heels of hints from NDP Leader Jack Layton that he'd be open to the idea.

Mr. Dion, speaking after an address to a Vancouver-area business crowd today, said he could not work with Mr. Layton in this way because the NDP leader wants to hike taxes on business."

Elizabeth May to throw Green votes to Dion

says LaPresse : May prête à tout pour battre Harper

At least I think that's what this article says.
Ok here goes my truly terrible French translation :

The leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, will ask her troops in the last sprint of the electoral campaign to put all their political weight behind the liberal candidates of Stephan Dion in certain districts where the fight is tight in order to block Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
This forms integral part of the non-aggression pact concluded between the leader of the Green Party and the Liberal leader Stephan Dion in April 2007, LaPresse learned yesterday

OK, we knew that, but :

But this pact also provides that Mrs. May possibly decides in favour of the election of Stephan Dion for Prime Minister in the last days of the electoral campaign. This electoral strategy had never been revealed up to now.
"The idea of the agreement, it is like a non-aggression pact so that the day before the vote, the environmentalist forces in the urban centres join Stephan Dion. In the discussions with Mrs. May, it was implicitly understood that she will launch a call in favour of Mr. Dion. That was always the spirit of the agreement", affirmed a liberal source well acquainted with the talks between the Liberals and the Greens.

Wow. If someone more fluent in French can give me a less clunky translation, I'd be grateful.

Update : "May says there is no deal between her party and the Liberals beyond what she called the leaders' "courtesy arrangement" of not running candidates in each other's ridings.
"There's no truth to it whatsoever," May told reporters at a campaign stop in Toronto.

During the 2007 Green leadership contest, rival David Chernushenko accused May of having actually asked some Green candidates to consider withdrawing from the 2006 election to avoid splitting the centre-left vote and thus helping the Tories.
May rejected Chernushenko's characterization of her actions but acknowledged that she did speak to some Green candidates a week before the 2006 vote.
"I was calling them in desperation to say: What could we do? Could you for instance interest the Liberals if they were interested in talking about proportional representation? Was there room for a coalition there?"

Libs claim "Liberals, Tories, same old story"

Now playing on the Liberal website :

"February 26, 2008 – The Liberal Opposition will not bring down the Conservatives based on their latest budget because it adopts many of the measures the Liberal Party has championed, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said today."

Thanks for clearing that up.

Did Canada "Just say NO!" or did we just SAY no?

On Canada's role in Iraq :

U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, March 25, 2003 :
"Ironically, Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel...will supply more support to this war in Iraq indirectly...than most of those 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there."

Secretary of State Colin Powell : "We now have a coalition of the willing...who have publicly said they could be included in such a listing.... And there are 15 other nations, who, for one reason or another do not wish to be publicly named but will be supporting the coalition."

Yeah, well, Powell and Cellucci, celebrated liars both, could have just been padding out the ranks of the 'coalition', as it were. But then there was :

CanWest Jan 19, 2008 : Canadian commander takes a leading roll in Iraq :
"Canadian Forces Brig.-Gen. Nicolas Matern recently arrived in Baghdad as part of the first wave of soldiers and officers from the U.S. Army's 18th Airborne Corps from Fort Bragg, N.C.
Matern is assigned as a senior officer in the Iraq Multi-National Corps which consists of around 130,000 troops."

And he was not the first :

"In 2004 Lt.-Gen. Walter Natynczyk, then a major general, served as deputy commander of the Multi-National Corps during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
At the time, he was in charge of 35,000 soldiers. Natynczyk oversaw planning and execution of all multi-national corps-level combat support operations."
"Canadian Maj.-Gen. Peter Devlin was also recently a deputy commander in the multi-national corps."

Plus there was the 1300 Canadian troops on the four Canadian warships providing Persian Gulf escort, the two dozen Canadian war planners in Florida, the providing of surveillance data from RADARSAT 2, the RCMP in Jordan training Iraqi police, the Canadian advisors embedded in Iraq's Interior Ministry, and, my personal fave, Canadian Pension Plan investment of our money in military contractors who make, among other goodies, cluster bombs and land mines.

Perhaps you read this in the account from Richard Sanders' of Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, or COAT, in Common Ground this month : Canada's Secret War in Iraq. An updated version of it is now here.

Sanders is exasperated that most Canadians­, including many lefties and peace activists, are loathe to accept Canadian complicity in the war on Iraq and continue to proudly proclaim that Canada refused to support the invasion of Iraq.

Note to Richard Sanders : Much of this is based on the wish to believe in a past golden age of Canadian autonomy to which we might magically return if we only we could get rid of Harper, and sometimes it's just the pretense to believe in it for reasons of partisan political rhetoric.
Meanwhile the pretense that Iraq and Afghanistan are completely separate and unrelated wars continues unabated, and Dion's new amendment on Afghanistan is so pleasing to Harper that he has asked the Cons to adopt it.

I am grateful that we have relatively few Canadian "boots on the ground" in Iraq - the real reason most Canadians do not consider us to be actually "in Iraq" - and that Canadian complicity consists mostly of our decades-old business-as-usual military integration with the US. It isn't anything to get all smugly Canadian about.

Interesting discussion/hair pulling event about Sanders' essay at Babble here and here. Sanders joins in.
Post title shamelessly pillaged from comments at Babble.

From Hansard :Not-Answering-the-Question Period

Question Period, Jan 31 : Not answering questions about detainees

Dion : "Mr. Speaker, today we heard reports that the government was allowing Afghan forces to take detainees directly during joint operations alongside Canadian mentors.
Because this is not technically a transfer, the detainee transfer agreement does not apply, but beyond technicalities are the immoralities of this practice.
Will the Prime Minister tell Canadians if this unacceptable practice is occurring, yes or no?"

Harper : " Mr. Speaker, as we train the Afghan forces to take more responsibility for the security of their own country, I think it can be assumed that they would also be taking more responsibility for all aspects of the mission."

Dion : "Mr. Speaker, we will get there. The Prime Minister understands the question very well. We are speaking of joint operations. During joint operations, who takes the prisoners? Do the Afghans or the Canadians keep them under their protection? It is a simple question. Prime Minister, what happens during joint operations?"

Harper : "I would assume that if Canadian Forces seize the prisoners they are in Canadian custody and if Afghan forces seize the prisoners I would presume they are in Afghan custody."

Dosanjh : "The government's attempt to circumvent the military's decision to stop detainee transfers is absolutely troubling.
Will the Prime Minister finally come clean with Canadians and admit that it was his government that issued this new policy to circumvent the detainee ban?"

Peter MacKay : blah blah blah "We stand behind the Canadian Forces."

Dosanjh : "We know Canadian Forces conduct joint operations with Afghan soldiers. There are prisoners detained by those Afghan soldiers. Do Correctional Service Canada officials have access to and the ability to inspect those detainees?"

Stockwell Day : "Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of members of Correctional Service Canada because when people volunteer, and these people are volunteers, to go to a country like Afghanistan they do so knowing the risks.
We are very pleased with how those individuals have been working with Afghan authorities, DND and others in the process of trying to demonstrate the types of things that we do here in this country which can guarantee or at least further the causes and interests of human rights everywhere. They are doing a great job."


They can keep this up forever. And they do.

Peace, pot, and the pettifogging Cons

You'll never guess what this is. Eugene found it.
It's a page at the Conservative Party of Canada website.

So if you are searching for info on the governing party of Canada, this is what you will find right below a picture of Prime Minister Stephen Harper : "Peace, Pot, Protectionism, and Parking Tickets".
It's a page slagging Dion for having anything to do with another party leader who would dare to countenance such outrageous ideas as peace, legalizing pot, and pulling out of the SPP and NAFTA.

Oh you silly Cons. You so don't want to go there.
Now that you are the governing party, you need to be promoting your own ideas.

Here. Just this once I'll turn this one around for you so it's more about you :


Now isn't that better? Sorry I couldn't fit anything into it this time about you guys and parking it.
Hope this one will do :


.