With an almost audible door creak, the Liberals began their search for a future in power by throwing open the family crypt.
Former leaders and ex-prime ministers, flanked by old cabinet warhorses, senators and senior staff, formed a parade of fading government memories to launch the Liberal’s seminal “thinkers” conference here Friday.
The pretext is to envision Canada in 2017, when it turns 150, but the ultimate objective is to design an election-salvage strategy for the natural governing party before it loses the title to the Conservatives for good.
The party’s grand old man arrived first, seizing the media spotlight with a gusto that instantly had some onlookers wishing he’d come back. Former prime minister Jean Chretien, as only he can, delivered a delightfully mangled rehash of his unblemished place in history (what sponsorship scandal?) before advising Liberals simply to “do their best”.
Minutes later, treading carefully to avoid coming within handshake distance of Mr. Chretien, was nemesis and follow-up Prime Minister Paul Martin.
The two men never appeared to come into physical or even eye contact, hardly the right mood to excite a group hug, but Mr. Martin oozed confidence about the conference’s success while taking pains to avoid saying anything worth quoting.
[More]
Related:
Iggy has been out of Canada for so long that , like Obamalinsky , he does not understand the country and its values.
Iggy wants to set up a National Daycare program run by (cradle to crypt ) CUPE. It will cost billions, allowing lots room for Adscam-like skims to keep the Liberals in power forever.
Iggy and the Liberals from the crypt need a reality check. To take just one un-sustainable entitlement, Health costs are going through the roof. It’s approaching 50% of the Queens Park budget and by McGuinty’s own calculations; it is going to 70% of the budget in 12 years. This is unsustainable very soon when interest rates inevitably rise. The interest on the debt will start to significantly chew into the budget as McGuinty adds $125 billion in debt before starting to reduce the debt in 2016 assuming the most optimistic scenarios play out..
We need to be cutting back on government unionzed monopolies but Iggy and the Liberals want to add even more entitlements. The battle lines have been drawn. We’re all Greece now.
If you try to do impossible things, that are actually impossible, reality eventually hits you right in the face, so Governments will have to be scaled back to what is essential or it will be scaled back by the whole system crashing.
Dictatorships on the other hand like Chavez in Venezuela or Mugabe in Zimbabwe continue on with suicidal policies as they believe they can order the impossible to happen and govern by fiat i,e, too insane or ideological to acknowledge reality and drive their countries into the ground beyond all hope of anything but total social collapse and violence.
A democracy that remains a democracy will change governments and policies hopefully earlier than total collapse and may just suffer decades of depression.
The problem with the LPC is that they have been playing with “second stringers” since Harper appeared on the scene. All the “big guns” walked away and will remain away until the “Libs” get the message and start to ask why.
So far they haven’t figured it out and “so” they will remain in the wilderness until they do.
“You can take that to the bank.”
The NDP and their supporters are always bragging that Tommy Douglas was/is the father of health care program. So, what was in the original bill, what would and would not be covered. Anyone want to go back to that time.
There are lots of places costs could be cut, starting with a lot of costly procedures in our prisons. Administration at all levels could and should be cut by 50%, re negotiate all union contracts and cut out a lot of benefits. If they don’t like it, get another job.
We have minimum wage laws, how about a maximum wage/salary law.
Do prisoners get paid while in jail-how about going back to the days that prisoners did all the work, raised their own food, and cooked it and did the dishes.
A long time ago, an employee wrote a letter stating how he had to go thru drug and alcohol testing to keep his job, and he suggested that all welfare recipents should have to to the same thing. Anyone not passing, cut off.
Lots of places for cuts that would not hurt too much, except the union worker.
#3 , The problem with the LPC is that they have been playing with “second stringers”
That’s because the first stringers were blue Liberals who recognized that with the resurrection of conservatism that they were insufficiently differentiated from conservatives to spend their time and energy kissing babies. So they got real jobs in the business world that they identify with.
Therefore all the Liberals are left with is the left.
Their picks of Dion and Iggy are from academia, elitists who like to stand in front of the class and pontificate.
Next up: Boob Rae …a Dipper.
Next up: Justin Trudeau : who goes all tingly with Castro.
The LPC will “remain in the wilderness” until 2 things happen:
- they again become the pro business Blue Liberal party of Wilfred Laurier, free trade etc
- the CPC screws up with some kind of scandal and get thrown out
Thats right Nom, why call an election when we already have a left leaning government in Ottawa.
Left of what UV?
Name a leader; name a party, name a country that PMSH is left of?
(sorry for the dangling participle , the dangling is irony)
Nom, Nom — would you really call our Federal Tory government, a true conservative one? Maybe in name only. Heck, its getting hard to tell the lieberals from the Tories in many areas like deficits, flip flops, scandals, raising taxes (HST), patronage appointments, Quebec favortism, support for bilingualism, big government, MPs not allowed to vote as per their constutuent’s requests, etc.
Its even confusing with their leadership as Iggy was a Bush supporter and probably a card carrying Republican while in the states for all those years and Harper in his youth, was a member of the Young Liberals of Canada while attending high school in Etobicoke, Ontario.
Yea I know, people change butt its got to be confusing for your average Canadian voter, if indeed they actually vote anymore (only about 59% exercised their right during the last federal election).
More on the Frum firing from the right leaning Ottawa sun.
‘No one wins with Frum firing’
http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/editorial/2010/03/26/13370511.html
UV, one more time with feeling… name someone in political power on the planet that represents your idea of conservatism. Give us an example of what works in the real world, something or someone , with elected power, who you hold high on a pedestal of conservatism.
The corrupt Liberal old boys network wants to get back in the game, they haven’t been able to steal any extras from the treasury in four years now. A ton of cash still goes their way through various government programs though, which is unfortunate. Crooked Liberals are never far away from power because they spend so much of our money buying voting blocs when they are in power. Some Liberals should be in jail, everyone agrees they stole our money from the treasury, but no one is making them pay it back? Liberal criminals seem to get away with crime only because they’re Liberal criminals – that’s not supposed to happen in a just society.