If last week’s opinion polls hold steady, Canada is about to get a lot more NDP MPs. There were 36 when Parliament dissolved and some of the wilder projections say that number could triple.
It’s unlikely that the socialist tide will reach so high. But it’s worth looking at some of the candidates who could be washed into Parliament on Monday.
Jack Layton calls his candidates “strong” and told reporters, “Our team is ready to work hard and demonstrate that each and every day as they’re campaigning across the country.”
But even that bland statement isn’t quite true. Take Jim Koppens, the NDP candidate from Ajax-Pickering, just east of Toronto. His friends tell reporters Koppens spent the first week of the campaign at an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic.
Koppens is clearly taking this election as a joke — he couldn’t be bothered to reschedule his holiday. Hopefully, if he wins, he might be kind enough to clear his busy schedule by the time Parliament starts.
Ontario isn’t the only place where joke NDP candidates are phoning it in. Ruth Ellen Brosseau, from the Quebec riding of Berthier-Maskinongé, left for Las Vegas in the middle of the campaign. Which is just as well, because her riding is overwhelmingly French — a language she can barely speak. Unlike Koppens, Brosseau actually has a chance of being washed into Parliament in an NDP wave.
Who knows? Brosseau, who now works in Ottawa, might even move to Quebec.
Taking the election campaign as a joke is one problem. But the NDP has the opposite problem, too — candidates who are way too passionate about what being in government would mean. Take Dennis Perrier, the NDP candidate from Medicine Hat. He says he’s running hard because he wants to bring socialism to power — so the government can “pool tax money for the benefit of all.”
Got it? Everybody puts their money in a pot and the government divides it up. Animal Farm-style.
New kind of nutty
That’s just old-fashioned socialism. But the NDP has newfangled weirdness amongst their candidates, too. Dave Nickle, the party’s candidate in Peterborough, Ont., has a very special theory about what our Canadian peacekeepers are doing in Afghanistan. They’re not there to fight the Taliban or to protect Afghan girls who want to go to school. No, they’re there to help secure a pipeline that America wants to build. “I find I get more and more angry,” says Nickle. Okaaay.
Nickle isn’t the only conspiracy theorist at home in the NDP. So is David Laird in Burlington, Ont. He knows who the real terrorists are. The U.S. government. No — not the real U.S. government, not even George W. Bush. But a hidden hand. In response to a petition about secret government agencies, he said: “We all know that there is no greater terrorist threat … than the secret government operating in the U.S.A.”
Thank goodness a man with that kind of super-secret knowledge is going to be — well, what will he be if he’s elected? Foreign affairs minister? Maybe in charge of CSIS? Or the minister for UFOs?
My favourite NDP candidate is James McLaren, from Ottawa South. He made a joke the other day about the Jewish holiday of Passover, asking, “Is that the month when Jewish people like to buy Japanese cars?” Huh? If you’re going to make a Jewish joke, in this case about Passover being in the month of Nisan, it should at least be funny, not stupid.
Maybe McLaren will be in charge of the NDP’s human rights commission censors. They’re merciless if you’re not politically correct — you know, saying Personitoba instead of Manitoba. But their own bigotry is just fine.
Get to know these names. Soon we might be calling them “boss.”
Yup just what we need a bunch of loons running the show.. Come on Canada is that really what you want? Let common sense prevail. Please! Vote for a Conservative majority tomorrow for sane sensible governance.
And just a little reminder of the sane sensible accomplishments of this Conservative government.
It’s unlikely that the socialist tide will reach so high. But it’s worth looking at some of the candidates who could be washed into Parliament on Monday.
Jack Layton calls his candidates “strong” and told reporters, “Our team is ready to work hard and demonstrate that each and every day as they’re campaigning across the country.”
But even that bland statement isn’t quite true. Take Jim Koppens, the NDP candidate from Ajax-Pickering, just east of Toronto. His friends tell reporters Koppens spent the first week of the campaign at an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic.
Koppens is clearly taking this election as a joke — he couldn’t be bothered to reschedule his holiday. Hopefully, if he wins, he might be kind enough to clear his busy schedule by the time Parliament starts.
Ontario isn’t the only place where joke NDP candidates are phoning it in. Ruth Ellen Brosseau, from the Quebec riding of Berthier-Maskinongé, left for Las Vegas in the middle of the campaign. Which is just as well, because her riding is overwhelmingly French — a language she can barely speak. Unlike Koppens, Brosseau actually has a chance of being washed into Parliament in an NDP wave.
Who knows? Brosseau, who now works in Ottawa, might even move to Quebec.
Taking the election campaign as a joke is one problem. But the NDP has the opposite problem, too — candidates who are way too passionate about what being in government would mean. Take Dennis Perrier, the NDP candidate from Medicine Hat. He says he’s running hard because he wants to bring socialism to power — so the government can “pool tax money for the benefit of all.”
Got it? Everybody puts their money in a pot and the government divides it up. Animal Farm-style.
New kind of nutty
That’s just old-fashioned socialism. But the NDP has newfangled weirdness amongst their candidates, too. Dave Nickle, the party’s candidate in Peterborough, Ont., has a very special theory about what our Canadian peacekeepers are doing in Afghanistan. They’re not there to fight the Taliban or to protect Afghan girls who want to go to school. No, they’re there to help secure a pipeline that America wants to build. “I find I get more and more angry,” says Nickle. Okaaay.
Nickle isn’t the only conspiracy theorist at home in the NDP. So is David Laird in Burlington, Ont. He knows who the real terrorists are. The U.S. government. No — not the real U.S. government, not even George W. Bush. But a hidden hand. In response to a petition about secret government agencies, he said: “We all know that there is no greater terrorist threat … than the secret government operating in the U.S.A.”
Thank goodness a man with that kind of super-secret knowledge is going to be — well, what will he be if he’s elected? Foreign affairs minister? Maybe in charge of CSIS? Or the minister for UFOs?
My favourite NDP candidate is James McLaren, from Ottawa South. He made a joke the other day about the Jewish holiday of Passover, asking, “Is that the month when Jewish people like to buy Japanese cars?” Huh? If you’re going to make a Jewish joke, in this case about Passover being in the month of Nisan, it should at least be funny, not stupid.
Maybe McLaren will be in charge of the NDP’s human rights commission censors. They’re merciless if you’re not politically correct — you know, saying Personitoba instead of Manitoba. But their own bigotry is just fine.
Get to know these names. Soon we might be calling them “boss.”
Yup just what we need a bunch of loons running the show.. Come on Canada is that really what you want? Let common sense prevail. Please! Vote for a Conservative majority tomorrow for sane sensible governance.
And just a little reminder of the sane sensible accomplishments of this Conservative government.
