The NDP wins a seat in Quebec!

For the first time ever, as far as I know, the NDP has won a seat in Quebec.

Outremont, in the classy (meaning rich people of all races,creeds, and colours) part of Montreal, habitually votes Liberal.

This is good news from the perspective of a progressive person, and is well overdue. I have always wondered why the NDP didn't have a more significant presence in Quebec since Quebec's societal values (at least since the Quiet Revolution) seem more in tune with the NDP than the Liberals or Conservatives.

My thought is that the NDP is viewed in Quebec as an anglophone party, perhaps because of its prairie antecedents.

Admittedly, Outremont
isn't exactly a hotbed of frenchie separatists, but this is still a big win.

Unfortunately, there is a downside-- this will encourage weasels within the Liberal Party to start their backstabbing now.

That is WRONG. The time for the likes of Michael "Lurch" Ignatieff to start backstabbing is after the next election, if things go poorly.

If they start backstabbing now they are in danger of handing Stephen "Spock" Harper a majority in parliament.

And that, above all, cannot happen!

NDP intentions clarified!

Thanks to a responder from my last posting, I was directed to a weblog with some inside info on the negotiations that went on between the Liberals and the NDP prior to the Tuesday vote (a motion to curtail Canada's military participation in Afghanistan by 2009).


According to ceasefireinsider,

The Liberal motion was uncritical of the military mission and supported its continuance unchanged, yet called for the government to notify NATO that our troops would be withdrawn from the combat mission in Kandahar when the current commitment ends in February 2009.

(snip)

In politics, the wording of a motion is important. When I first read the Liberal motion last week, I feared that it was D.O.A., or Dead-on-Arrival. The motion let the Conservative government off the hook by not expressing any concerns at all about the failing mission, did not call on the government to change the focus from war-fighting to peacebuilding, and missed what is becoming an obvious solution to the war: a diplomatic settlement.

We urged the Liberals to make a small amendment to their motion in order to win NDP support, and Former UN Ambassador for Disarmament Peggy Mason actually suggested specific changes to the language that would likely have been palatable to both Liberals and the NDP. We sent the suggestions to every Liberal and NDP Member of Parliament. The NDP even proposed an amendment during the debate, but the Liberals rejected it.

Whew!

That is a relief. If this account is factual, though, it only increases my still relatively small fear that Dion is listening to the wrong people.

He must have some sort of workable strategy! I am even possibly prepared to accept some triangulation at this point.

Also, it lets me off the hook for my potential 'J-Lay' confrontation. As a Canadian, of course, I reflexively recoil from anything confrontational.

WTF is up with the NDP?

After lunch, on the way back to my cubicle I was informed by my main news provider, the Elevator News Network (ENN), that the Conservatives had defeated a Liberal motion that Canada withdraw from Afghanistan by 2009.

They accomplished this through the support of the NDP. What is that all about?

If the NDP is up to their old trick (infuriatingly obvious during the Harris years, here in Ontario) of supporting the Tories for short-term political advantage, I am going to have some sharp words to share with 'J-Lay' the next time I happen upon him relentlessly glad-handing hapless passers-by.

If the bill had gone through, it would quite possibly have made our part in the occupation of Afghanistan the big issue in the next election.

And what sort of "progressive" entity wouldn't want that? The mind boggles...

The NDP, apparently.

Well, I got what I wished for...

And now Stéphane Dion is the leader of the Liberal Party. I should be happy, and I was very, very happy when I heard the 3rd round results. Why, then, do I now have this feeling of doom in the pit of my stomach?

I'll tell you. By Sunday, columnists in the Toronto Star (?!?), let alone the other papers, were commenting on how pathetic the Liberal Party will be with Dion leading it. A response to my previous posting seems to sum it up: Dion as the Liberal leader is handing Québec to the separatists.

Despite how often I hear this, I still do not understand the logic. What does it matter if Québec sovereigntists will stay away from the Liberals under Dion? Wouldn't they vote BQ anyway?

Would it be better that sovereigntists pretend to support the Liberals under, say, Iggy, then betray them later, Like Bouchard & co. did to the Mulroney Conservatives?

When Dion and Kennedy made a deal to move their support to the stronger of the two on the second ballot, the idea was that Kennedy and Dion were both strong in their home provinces, and almost non-existent in their ally's home ground. So this implies to me that Dion does have strength in Quebec. (Or, that Kennedy isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Zing!)

Be a little more optimistic, all you Liberal power-hungry sluts. For once, you have chosen (distractedly, it seems) someone who isn't part of the red-tie/expense-account-padding establishment.

The next general election could be framed, for example, as a clear choice between a 'Nice Guy' and an 'Asshole' (as my dad would say). What more can you ask for?

Maybe you won't be seen as such opportunistic whores this time! Cheerfully abandon that perogative to the Conservatives would be my advice.

The Liberals' Big Day fast approaches!

Who will emerge as the next leader?

The Lurch-like Michael Ignatieff? The elfin Bob Rae? Perhaps even the semi-literate Gerard Kennedy? Or maybe one of the other guys?

Who can say? A Liberal convention is even harder to call than normal elections since more things go on 'behind the scenes'. As far as anyone can tell Ignatieff has the first ballot support of about 30% of the delegates. It could be higher, no one is sure. But this is sure: If Ignatieff doesn't hit well over 30% of votes on the first ballot, he is doomed.

Why is this? Because all the other candidates hate his guts, including his supposed good buddy Bob Rae. So if the first vote doesn't show definite movement towards Ignatieff, he will receive insignificant increases in support in subsequent balloting.

Assuming that Iggy gets little more than 30% on the first ballot, what will happen? It will be a competition amongst the other candidates to become the 'anyone-but-Ignatieff' candidate who will, I believe, end up winning.

In my heart, I hope it is Dion, but judging from what I have read over the last few weeks my head tells me it will be Rae.

Either Dion or Rae (or even Kennedy!) would be infinitely better than Ignatieff, but recent polls appear to indicate that Rae has the best chance of any of the candidates to help the Liberals deny the Conservatives a majority in the next federal election.

It saddens me, because I would like to see the NDP gain a greater voice in the Commons and Rae (or to a lesser extent Dion) would grab votes from border-line NDP supporters like myself.

On the other hand, if Harper's Conservatives form a majority government, it would be a catastrophe. And according to the aforementioned polls, Bob Rae is the best person to prevent that.

Still, I hope for the miraculous victory of Stéphane Dion. Mostly because I really like Frenchies!

Addendum: I should mention that it seems to me that although Martha Hall Findley was the most personable, well-spoken, and non-'full of shit' of all the candidates, she was never given serious attention. Luckily, she is young, so I hope that we will see more of her in Liberal leadership campaigns to come.

Anyone but Michael Ignatieff

I can't believe this guy is the presumptive front-runner in the Liberal leadership race. But then again, Liberals are such a bunch of power-hungry sluts that they would elect Ben Mulroney as leader if they thought it would get them a majority.

Ignatieff's political views on important international issues of the day closely resemble those of the Great Satan's present administration: pro-Iraq invasion, pro-Afghanistan occupation, and a believer in the moral rightness of torture, at least as long as the torturers are in the employ (officially or otherwise) of the Great Satan.

Worse still, not only is he a war crime enabler, he is dreadfully boring, at least while speaking publically. I saw him on "Question Period" last spring and he was horrible.

To call his performance 'wooden' would be unfair to wood because at least wood has a bit of 'give'. If you can imagine a shorter, swarthier Lurch from the Munsters giving a speech, but with less emotion and his torso tilted to leeward at about 15 degrees, then you can imagine what Ignatieff was like.


But enough! The anti-Michael Ignatieff movement continues to build in preparation for this fall's Liberal Leadership convention. Lots of ammo for rewarding water-cooler chit-chat can be found at StopIggy.com.

An amuse-gueule from StopIggy:

Iggy spends a lot of time in ‘The Lesser Evil” describing how various forms of torture are not really torture at all, including, “forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress.” This is all an unpleasant but necessary part of “the war on terror” for Iggy, and he goes on at great length about concepts such as “torture warrants” that would allow U.S. agents to legally torture suspected terrorists. In another article, “Evil Under Interrogation: Is Torture Ever Permissible?” Iggy expands his list of permissible torture to include “permanent light or permanent darkness, disorienting noise and isolation.” For Iggy, what international law calls “torture” becomes “permissible forms of duress”.