Tag: ndp

LEFT/CENTRE LANE MERGE?

Conservatives and Liberals, the Blues and the Reds, have been political combatants in this country from the very beginning.  They’ve contested every election ever sense, with the Liberals taking enough of those contests to be regarded at one time as Canada’s “Natural Governing Party.”

When you butt heads that often, over that many years, it’s completely understandable that a natural enmity would emerge between the two, something that leaks right down to the roots, right down into generations of families identifying themselves as being one or the other.  And if they go red, then they hate blue, and if blue, then red.  

It’s one of the reasons why political discussions at dinner parties are a 50-50 proposition. 

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BRIAND CARRIES UPC BANNER IN ARP

I spent a few minutes before starting this trying to think of something good to say about Randy Briand.  It was harder than it may sound, and in the end, I could only really think of one.

I don’t know Randy from a head of lettuce, so in fairness to him, I should make the effort to learn more about him before I weigh-in on whatever it is that he’s all about.  

So I did.

Salt of the earth is Randy.  Born in Petawawa into a military family, he served himself as a weekend-warrior in the Reserves, an infantry officer by his own account.  A school teacher for over thirty years, with a couple of years way up North working with indigenous children before returning home to become an Ottawa Valley farmer.  With a resume like that, what’s not to like, for heaven’s sake?

I don’t know of Randy’s formative years, where he developed his belief system and moral and ethical compass, but he apparently went through a catharsis of some sort when he met Grant Abraham, the leader of the Alberta-based United Party of Canada.  Abraham either solidified Briand’s world-view or he totally knocked it on its ass, but either way, Briand has emerged as whole, a complete man, one who has found himself a home in a new political party when all the others had failed him.

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LIBERALS IN SEARCH OF A LEADER. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR.

As 2024 draws to a close, calls for the resignation of prime minister and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau come from all compass points, both within and without the party itself.  Yet, as the clock winds down on this year and towards the next, Trudeau hangs on, head barely above water, dog-paddling furiously in search of a friendly shore to land upon.

Calls for him to step down from outside the party are nothing new, and neither are calls from his own party, although this is more of a snowball gathering momentum on its roll down the hill.  But for the Liberals themselves, there’s an element of inevitability that many of them seem not to sense, perhaps out of a willful need to ignore the obvious, maybe because they’re blinded by other things that aren’t there.  Or, perhaps better put, they’re adrift in the desert and, in desperation, they spy what they think is an oasis in the distance, some shimmering mirage  of hope that, cruelly, isn’t really there.

When it comes to the Liberals generally, there is no oasis, and really there’s not even a mirage.  What does exist in the near distance is a sandstorm that will totally engulf them and erase them from the landscape, buried under the weight of their many problems.

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BLANCHET POISED TO BE LEADER OF OPPOSITION

I wanted to introduce you to your next Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition after the next federal election.

His name is Yves-François Blanchet, and he’s the leader of the Bloc Québécois, the party that wants to see Quebec separate from Canada and form a sovereign state of its own.

In his role as opposition leader, Mr. Blanchet has no intention of speaking English, though he can, as it would offend his tender French nationalist sensibilities.  Yves-François is a bit of a dick that way.

How do you get this little pop-in-jay as leader of The Opposition?

Simple.

On election night, tune in and watch the Conservatives win maybe 230 seats in the House of Commons, making Pierre Poilievre the prime minister of Canada in a major electoral sweep.  The incumbent Liberals will be absolutely trashed, winning maybe 35-40 seats.  The NDP will be trashed right along with the Liberals, winning maybe 20 seats.

But the Bloc Québecois will win 40+ seats in Québec, since they don’t run any candidates anywhere else in the country.  Those 40 seats will make them the second largest party in the Commons, and hence the Opposition.

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BQ’S BLANCHET PLAYS THE GAME. JUST IGNORE HIM

The Bloc Quebecois’ Yves-Francois Blanchet is just the latest in a long line of hysterical Quebec nationalist politicians the rest of us have had to endure seemingly forever.  Somewhere in that province there obviously lies a comedy factory that pumps out these self-indignant, perpetually pouty politicians who calculate the ways and means of Quebec separation from the rest of Canada.

It’s almost funny, except for the fact that it’s not.  It is, though, exceedingly tiring.

To have people like this in our federal parliament is an indication that either Canada is the most tolerant and placating place on the planet or that we have some institutional dysfunction within our federal system.  I’m not here to complain about that system, because democracy can be inconvenient like that.

I’m here to complain about Blanchet.  Because people can be a pain in the ass like that.

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