national | Political Insider

The Specter (Horror) of an Ontario Election!

While we wait for the results from Greece why not turn our guns I mean attention to Ontario, the have not promise that is still haunted by the Ghost of Bob Rae.

I am talking about provincial Bob, the former Premier who has gone on the bigger and better things as the Interim leader of the dying Federal Liberal Party.

Why is it Bob is always around when things start to die off.

But I digress.

This week and since April Ontario voters have been haunted ( nauseated is probably a better word) at all the BS coming out of Queen’s Park relative to discussions between Dalton ( I don’t have a clue what I am doing but I sure know how to run a deficit) McGuinty and Andrea ( Will people please quit reminding Ontarians how much my party and Bob Rae screwed up the last time we were in power) Horwath trying to save the Liberals recent budget.

In a stroke of genius ( Genius is a BC word we use to describe stupid things Christy Clark and the BC Liberals do),Horwath walked away from an earlier agreement with Dalton ( Hey I can always run for the Federal liberal leadership if I blow my minority parliament) McGuinty and introduced amendments to the budget legislation that Tim ( I lost an election I should have won) Hudak immediately supported.

This caught Andrea ( I didn’t think that far ahead) Horwath off guard and now the Province of ( Hey western Canada your bloody oil is screwing up our manufacturing) Ontario is bracing for an election in neither wants,needs or can afford.

So where does Bob ( I didn’t run for liberal leadership because I didn’t want to do to Canada what I did for Ontario) fit into this?

The voters are terrorized by his memory and think a snap election could result in yet another NDP government taking a have not province into even greater depths of havenotery (My word).

Here is a comment from one such terrorized voter : Horwath and the rest of her communist/socialist cohort prove once again that when push comes to shove they would rather sit behind the safety of their rock and throw sticks and stones & manipulate the press then really tackle the issue and call McGuinty’s bluff. There is a reason the NDP will never be leaders and it is never more obvious then right now!

Kinda speaks for itself doesn’t it!

Do you think Ontario will be plunged into a needless election and elect an NDP government led by Andrea( She’s a knucklehead along the same lines as Christy Clark) Horwath?

Can you imagine the mess she would make not only of the province but also the country?

Supreme Court to hear Etobicoke Centre case!

He won fair and square. The Courts should butt out!

I find the Etobicoke Center case to be interesting not just because I am a Conservative with a vested interest ( I hate losing) but because as a Campaign Manager in the last election I went to a number of Elections Canada meetings for both of the Electoral Districts I worked in.

For what it’s worth they were located in Langley and Surrey British Columbia.

This question was front and center at all the meetings because a lot of us were startled by Elections Canada’s rules regarding specifically homeless people voting.

Essentially we were told that if a homeless person approached the booth and said he lived in the area he or she was eligible to vote.

Recently,as I am sure you are aware an Ontario Court judge tossed out the election result in which the Conservative Ted Opitz won by a mere 26 votes.

What the correct thing to do is anybody’s guess and I have my opinions and I will share them shortly.

This whole thing reminds me of voting in Saskatchewan in the late 80’s and early 90’s. As scrutineers we were always warned about a certain political party ( I was a conservative, It was not the Liberals and the green and Saskatchewan Party did not exist back then) would fill up vacant rental house just before the election with students,drunks etc, and get them to vote repeatedly.

Most scrutineers were stressed and tense and I recall challenging many a vote.( Hey you have already voted get lost!)

In the case of Etobicoke Centre I feel for all the people involved.

I feel for our guy because as the judge said he did nothing wrong and it was because of Elections Canada’s rules that this happened.

I feel for the Liberal ( not really he’s a Liberal) who lost his seat by 26 votes.

I feel for the voters who had their result tossed out.

The problem as I see it in tossing out the result a year later is that it does not take into consideration the climate on the original voting day as compared to what exists now over a year later.

People voted not just for Opitz but to toss Igantieff out!

Quite frankly Mr. Opitz will get screwed if this Ontario court judges ruling is allowed to stand.

What I think should happen is that the Supreme court should throw out the Ontario judges ruling for a number of reasons.

They would be: Courts should not interfere in election results otherwise every close result will be referred to the courts who have no business getting involved.

Secondly people vote on a given day for a given reason. That can change 13 months or more later and is also not fair to the process.( See giving Mike Ignatieff the high hard one above)

What should happen is that the Supreme Court Should allow the election result to stand and admonish Elections Canada for the stupidity of the rules. They should give it a year to report back to the court with streamlined rules to prevent this from happening again.

Everybody should have to show proper ID to vote, no exceptions!

What do you think?

Federal Liberals Have a Dilemma!

It's easy son, wave it a little longer and they will want you real bad!

Justin Trudeau has once again said he is not interested in the job of permanent Liberal leader. He made that clear moments after Bob Rae announced that he would stay on as interim leader but would not be in the running for the permanent job.

This presents a huge problem for the party that is trying to reinvent itself.

At this point Gerrard Kennedy,Joyce Murray,Martha Hall Findlay,Marc Garneau, Dominic LeBlanc and David McGuinty are the names rumored to be interested in the job.

These potential candidates would have trouble motivating their own EDA ( Electoral District Association) boards to show up at their summer barbeques let alone captivate the country to vote for them.

So unless they have a sleeper superstar ( Dalton McGuinty LOL ) it comes to begging Trudeau to take the job.

The Dilemma of course is if he takes the job it helps the Conservatives, if he doesn’t take the job Tommy Mulcair and the NDP will steam roll them in the next election.

It is sort of a ” your screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t” situation don’t you think?

Which message did Quebec voters send?

With last nights split in the Quebec by-elections, I wonder what message the electorate is sending the government and perhaps by extension the country?

Hey Pauline if the country thinks I was an asshole, wait 'til they see you in action!

With the PQ win in a usually safe federal seat, were voters using the by-election as a safe time to send the Charest government a message or is full scale change happening which will lead to another full on unity debate as pompous windbag Pauline Marios seems to think?

With the world economy once again on edge , can Quebec and Canada afford to have that discussion now?

Can Quebec afford to have that discussion no matter the shape of our economy given it relies so much on Federal government assistance ? ( You thought I was going to say because they are a bunch of freeloaders living off the country and whining whenever seat redistribution or senate reform comes up for discussion?)

I would suspect that common sense will eventually prevail and even if the government turns over Quebec will vote to stay in Canada.

If however, we have a referendum and the polls look like we are headed for separation we can always make a robocall or two to Jacque Parizeau”s friends.

You know, his friends named Money and the Ethnic vote!

What do you think?

Federal Liberal Leadership: What will they lead anyway?

In another few weeks the race will officially kick off for the Federal Liberal leadership.

A lot of discussion lately has been centered around who will run.Will it be Rae? Trudeau? McGuinty?

Just What will the lucky winner Champion?

The better question in my opinion would be : Just what will the eventual winner be leading?

Will that winner lead a party which is on its deathbed and has little hope of coming back to life as the party they know and recognize Or Will that lucky winner have to be a good negotiator so that he or she can play a lead role in negotiating a merger with the NDP?

Recent polling of supporters would seem to show that they want the two parties to merge so that they can defeat the Stephen Harper led Conservative Government.

That decision has to be made before any leadership contest because it will help determine the type of leader needed to make any negotiations successful.

Of course merging is no guarantee of winning any election.

They have to prove they can get along together first before the Canadian people trust them to govern.

That in itself is no small order for two parties like the Liberals and the NDP?

Do the Conservatives care who wins?

If you believe the rumors that they already have ads ready that say elect Rae and he will do for Canada what he did to Ontario, then if McGuinty runs and wins they would simply have to change the name because as everybody knows he is making a mess of Ontario as well.

Trudeau? Not much different; Elect Justin Trudeau and he will make a mess of Canada just like his father did.

Unless they have some superstar with no baggage their only hope is to merge and I don’t see that happening for at least one election.

The party of Adscam always has to learn their lesson the hard way.

What do you think?

The Death of the BC Liberal Brand!

IMG-20120331-00011 — We are not Malcontents!

Over the next days and weeks there will be countless discussions on the Liberal brand both federally and with the British Colombian election eleven months away provincially.

Lots will be said about who will want to run for the Federal Liberals when the question should probably be what will the eventual winner actually be leading.

Here in BC the discussion will be centered around the BC Liberals changing their name, Christy Clark’s leadership and the horror of a Dix led NDP win.

Prompted by Michael Smyth’s eight handy hints for Clark, I thought I would kick off discussion today with a look at the hints and reasons why Clark and the Liberals are doomed to lose.

Smyth’s article presupposes that people ( like MLA van Dongen and volunteer campaign workers like me) are malcontents because we left the party.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

I left because I had enough. I heard a Campbell speech in 1999 that started with I want to be Premier because I want BC to be a place my kids can grow up in,work here and live here.

In 2009 Campbell made a speech at his nomination that said I want to be Premier to build a province that my Grandchildren can live here and work here.

Same Speech 10 years later meant to me they had done nothing in the first 10 years of their mandate.

What life the BC Liberal party had for me died that night.

That combined with HST,Basi Virk etc. was and is a party that I no longer wanted to be associated with.

For John,the BC liberal Brand died later,but died it did.

When he left( that took courage), as you have heard van Dongen says countless times, it was because he wanted open honest accountable government. He has added that he wants to work in a government that both he and the electorate can trust.

This is not happening now and will not happen under the BC Liberals, Clark and the smoke and mirrors of a name change now.

People like John and I want to build a better BC that all of us can be proud of and that includes the people we elect to government.

We can’t do it under the Liberals and we cant do it with the same people under a different name.

People do not trust her government and they won’t no matter what she does between now and next May.

Scaling back her holidays to 4 weeks as Bob Plecas suggests probably throws most British Columbians for a loop as well. Lets face it,when most people start a new job they only get 2 weeks after year one.
Add to that, the more times she is snapped smiling at summer barbeques the more her poll results will drop. With the house out, people will just assume she is on one long summer vacation.

I believe that most people live by the old adage that he or she who lives in a glass house shouldn’t throw stones.

For the Clark government to throw stones at Dix will endanger what little bit of a glass house the Liberal team has left.

Clark has not shown leadership since she was chosen to be Premier by the Liberal Party. An example of which is her stance on the pipeline.

Whatever she decides to do with this now will look like an act of a desperate politician . ( She is)

Finally, the handy hints and most discussion regarding re-branding and the fate of the Liberal party in BC leaves out is this: Dix’s poll results could be rising because the left leaning liberals have left the Clark tent.

Every time she pretends to be a Conservative more lefties leave the Liberal party, driving her poll numbers down even further.

What’s ahead? Certain electoral defeat for Clark and her team.

There is no way around it!

What do you think?

Canada: Becoming a Culture of Riots : Part 2

They aren't wearing any clothes,so show them a water cannon!

A few short weeks ago I wrote a post entitled Canada:Becoming a culture of Riots?

It is becoming evident that I should have entitled it Canada: Becoming a Culture of Idiots what with the recent goings on in Montreal and the dopes protesting in the near nude.

These idiots are not only interfering with one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions ( Montreal Grand Prix) but are also getting in the way of events where the so-called Elites are fundraising for a Children’s hospital.

Not only that but these morons are wasting copious amounts of taxpayers dollars given the cops don’t work for free.

You and I probably pay for these BLOCheads because most of them are either on welfare or collecting UIC.

Wonder where Pauline Marois and the PQ stand on this now?

I think we should bring out the water cannons and flush em all into the St. Lawrence.

What do you think?

Christy Clark Hits New Low!

I wonder If Clark will blow out Mario today?

Mario Canseco will no doubt be in for another tongue lashing today from simple-minded Premier Christy Clark over the latest Angus Reid poll.

Seems Clark finished right near the bottom ( Since most of you reading think she is a bottom feeder it’s probably an appropriate place).

Actually most people look at her that way as 3 out of 5 constituents disapproved of her!

To put Clark’s accomplishment in perspective both Dalton McGuinty and Quebec’s favorite whipping boy Jean Charest finished ahead of her.

Yesterday we heard from Clark Economic Advisor Jim Shepard who said he wished people would see Clark they way he does.

Uh Jim you might want to remove those rose-colored glasses and get a feel for how the voting public feels.

At some point today you will probably hear Clark say she doesn’t pay attention to poll results.

The genie is out of the bottle on that, given during her last tirade it was revealed that the BC Liberals have hired Angus Reid to do polling in the past.

If you didn’t pay attention to poll results why would you hire polling companies?

What do you think of poll results and in particular what do you think of Premier Clark?

Christy Clark: This Months Bonehead of the Month Winner, Hands Down!

The results are in and it’s official!

Premier Christy Clark Wins!

To Re Cap May:

Clark Shells out $67,000 to kick out new employee Chris Olsen!

Clark fumbles a simple answer to the question ” Did you smoke pot in high school”

Clark’s Forum Poll results show her and her party on the verge of being wiped out!

Clark brings in Family Day no matter what the cost to small business.

Clark and crew bonehead family day and have it on a different day than Alberta thereby forcing people to take a day off to visit family and spend the holiday with them.

Clark ducks Western Premiers meeting making BC the laughing stock of Western Canada.

Clark mishandles Catalyst file.

Clark gets upstaged by Brad Wall on the Mulcair Dutch Disease file.

Clark screws up the facts on the Hydro File.

Clark hires pollster and then ridicules him because results shows her and her government are inept.

Runners Up

Tommy Mulcair for the Dutch Disease comment

Pauline Marois because she’s Pauline Marois.

This Month Nobody can touch Christy Clark for the Coveted Bonehead of the month award!

Did I leave anything or anyone out?

Is anyone more worthy?

FYI : With her Filipina in her heart she is out of the gate flying this month too!

What’s with the Globe and Mail?

All Most all the News that's fit to Print!

Musings for a Sunday!

Lately we have been hearing a lot about the Globe and mail putting up a firewall and charging you for what you are reading ( after a certain number of stories).

To a certain extent I get that.

If you are reading this in a different time zone than that of British Columbia’s , you might not realize that most stories in the paper are available free by about 9 PM BC time.

I cancelled my subscription because I got sick of paying for things ( The highest subscription rates of any paper by the way) that other people got for free.

What confounds me this weekend,( unless I am proven wrong) is that after trial ballooning that they might charge for content, the Globe appears to have missed online 2 of the biggest stories that matter to British Columbians.

Firstly, I can find nothing online from the Globe regarding John van Dongen getting intervenor status on Friday. This from a news source that did reasonable coverage up to the announcement.

Second and perhaps more astounding , I could find no coverage of the bomb threats on the BC Ferries. This threw me for a loop because the Globe trumpets their mobile app. as one of the best to stay informed.

I can only imagine how somebody in the ferry line up would have felt clicking the app and looking for answers.

To the Globe I say, if you are going to charge for online content, pull up your socks and report all the stories.

Otherwise you will not be able to lay claim to be “Well Written and Well Read”; your readers like me will vanish.

What do you think?