So Much Happening-Don't Know Where To Start

Little over a week ago, few Canadians knew who David Emerson is, and nobody knew anything about Michael Fortier.

They sure know now.

The Harper cabinet, which is a well balanced, talented and representative bunch has been overshadowed by controversies of Harper's making. Let's see how well they perform.

Meanwhile Martin has completely disappeared courageously leaving the battlefield by carefully stepping around the wounded bodies.

Buzz Hargrove has been stripped of his NDP membership while he takes credit for the election of an additional number of NDP candidates. Go figure.

Thank God for the Olympics and the gambling controversy, at least we look elsewhere for our entertainment and that was even before the Cheney hunting feat!

OOOOooops - Polls Stand Corrected

I'd no sooner finished rejoicing over the polls I referred to yesterday that the pollster issued a correction.

Since the election, the Charest government has gained 4 points while support for sovereignty has dropped by 3.

I thought the previous numbers were too good to be true.

Meanwhile, Allan Rock has taken himself out of the leadership race. I guess he will patiently sit in New-York waiting for the time when the new government finally gets around to firing him.

His stellar performance in his various portfolios will no doubt make him a candidate for a middle associate status in some legal shop, same as his illustrious colleague, one D. Dingwall.

Sic transit gloria.

Former PM Chretien's Legacy

Former PM Jean Chretien got his wish and must be having a swell time right now.

He left Paul Martin a poisoned well, a house with crumbling foundations, a farm that could yield no more crops and then sat back to watch it all turn to ashes in the hands of his successors.

The Martin forces had not been kind to him or his supporters. He paid them back at the price of a once proud party reduced to a shadow of its former self facing a long, painful road back if it is again to deserve the trust of Canadians.

Meanwhile the golfer from Shawinigan will probably quietly drop his futile law suit against Justice Gomery and go on to tee off for another round. It is often said that political parties are greater than the men who make them up and that they survive because of ( of in spite of) their successive leaders.

True enough, but periodically a leader will come around who would rather see his successor bite the dust than see the world evolve without under the leadership other than his own. No wonder potential candidates are reluctant to pick up the challenge, to assume the daunting task of years of toil in the wilderness trying to recruit new talent and mend the sorry state of party finances.

There is no quick fix for this one. Only patient, consistent and arduous work will begin to bring the house back together from the ground up.

Meanwhile, Harper will hopefully make good use of the reprieve circumstances have sent his way, after all, there 103 MPs who will not be ready for an election any time soon. He is also fortunate that the high expectations his election have generated are tempered by his minority status. He can therefore be forgiven for moving forward prudently and incrementally.

As a measure of those expectations, suffice to note that in the week following the election, the Charest government has shot up 10 points in public opinion while support for sovereinty has dropped a similar amount!

Expectations indeed.

Buzz is Back Again: Curiouser and Curiouser

The president of the CAW, the inimitable Buzz Hargrove, wrote an op-ed piece in the Globe yesterday entitled "Why I did what I did".

It is an explanation of sorts for his wild assertions during the campaign, for the convoluted logic that led him to urge bizarre voter behaviour (including voting Bloc) in the name of a strategy that escaped most listeners.

Now that the outcome is not to his liking, he takes another shot at gratuitous advice that is even more bizarre. He suggests that the 3 opposition parties enter into a written pact to prevent the Tories acting on a some key components of their program. The effect, Hargrove writes would prevent "Mr. Harper from using his term in office as a launch pad to an eventual majority".

God forbid that a Tory government should govern in such a way as to rally a majority of Canadians in support of its policies!

Hargrove argues that a majority of Canadians does not support the Tories' views on crucial issues. True enough, but then again, they did not support anyone else's either. Nor did a majority support the Liberal view in 2004.

I didn't Buzz scream then. I don' know what Buzz has been smoking lately, but his strange pronouncements and weird call to arms leave me wondering.

Buzz, the voters have spoken. Not all that clear a message, maybe, but clear enough to allow Harper and his team to set to work. As to the party you support (I'm not sure whether its the Liberals or the NDP these days) I suspect they will strategically will not seek your endorsement or support in the next election, 2 years or so down the road.

I rest easy knowing that the Tories do not risk your unsolicited embrace.

Take a Valium, Buzz.

My previous comments on Buzz Hargrove and Election 2006

For Canada: It's Been A Good Day

Monday's election has brought wonderful news.

The Conservative win was foreseeable and desirable.

More importantly, the breakthrough in Quebec has given Harper all the legitimacy he needed to truly claim representation across the country at the same time depriving the Bloc of their most potent argument, namely that they alone can represent the interests of Quebecers (the Liberals having forfeited their own moral authority in that regard, at least for the near future).

With real, albeit modest, representation in Quebec, Harper can now begin to rebuild the bridges that the Bloc would dearly love to blow. The fiscal deficit, while talked about chiefly in Quebec, sorely affects every provincial and territorial minister of finance. The problem is huge, the solution complicated if at all achievable.

But Harper began to be heard in Quebec when he admitted the very existence of the problem, something the Liberals had stubbornly refused to do. Harper can now probably look to 2 years of relative peace and multi-party cooperation.

He needs to begin to tackle this big one: if in the course of those 2 years he can bring forward the elements of a solution, one that meets with the approval of a majority of the provinces, then he will have paved the way for his own majority mandate.

He will probably have managed to save Premier Charest's second term while at the same time throwing the perspective of yet another referendum into neverneverland.

Heady prospects indeed!

Saved By The Buzz

In what has been so far a flawless campaign, Harper edged close to dangerous territory earlier this week with his unfortunate comments about the judiciary.

For the only time in the current race, he gave us a glimpse of the Harper Reformer of old which had been kept under wraps, the kind of right wing Harper that had been found unacceptable by a majority of Canadians. Oooops!

But then, two things intervened.

First was the inane comment of Buzz Hargrove, the militant labor leader/liberal campaigner whose enthusiasm got ahead of his mouth and his brain.

Second, this 2006. A short 18 pre-Gomery months ago, the press and the Grits would have hounded him mercilessly over his musings. This year, though, he can do no wrong and this is passed off as a mere bump in the smooth road to victory.

As to the Liberals, they are to busy taking their distance with Buzz to have a chance to make hay of Harper's misstep. Lucky this time, better not tempt fate too often.

Harper was right, of course about the Liberal dominated Senate. He is probably right as well about the civil service, although it is not politically correct to say what he said. The conventional approach is to refer to our beloved servants of the people as "highly professional" and "among the best in the world".

Never mind that in the last few years, they have presided over the 2 billion screw-up at Human Resources, 2 b. over the gun registry, 250 million at ad-scam, 5 million at Option Canada, they spent 78 million dispense $1.8 million to home care providers etc.... Best in the world indeed!

Just don't dare to say otherwise.

Meanwhile, the contestants to succeed Martin as leader are already lining up. Martin Cauchon, former minister of justice under Chretien has gone public, all the others are quietly working the phones.

Someone once said that the most comforting words in the English language, those spoken the day after the electoral defeat of one's party were "Good morning, Senator".

Too bad parliamentary tradition won't allow a PM to appoint himself.

Liberal House is Burning Down-2006 Canada Election Campaign Analysis

One week to go and the Liberal house is burning out of control!

Outside of Montreal, there is virtually nothing left of the once vaunted political machine that until recently could always be counted on to deliver a substantial number of seats. In the province, excluding the Greater Montreal area, the Conservatives are now closing in on the magic 30% above which they can realistically begin to count some chickens.

It has been a surprising one, starting in ho-hum way with all indicators showing a result similar to the last one. But then, Christmas happened, the RCMP came into play and right after the New Year, all the trouble that had been brewing below the surface erupted at once.

It is a campaign not unlike that of 1984, with the major difference however that the Bloc did not exist. They alone may or may not give the Conservatives a majority. Their support seems to hold pretty well even though they are losing some to the Tories who have already garnered a substantial number of Liberal defectors.

The Ottawa area is in mourning.

The venerable Café Henri Burger, host to politicians and high powered civil servants for over 80 years closed down on Saturday. The owner explained that his establishment had been mentioned frequently in the Gomery inquiry, which did not help his business one bit. Coupled with the disappearance of the expense accounts of George Radwanski, Andre Ouellet and David Dingwall it just became too tough.

Does anyone realize how difficult it will be to recruit candidates if the National Capital region loses its few gastronomic havens! Talk about a loss of entitlements.

Mind you, the crowd that is poised to invade Ottawa as part of the Harper brigade seem to be disciples of the Joe Clark school of haute cuisine where ice cold Baby Duck is the potable of choice.

Next thing you know, they'll be expected to work a full day.