Libluvin L Martin Finally Has Admitted, PM Harper Has a Sense of Humor

Has Lawrence Martin come to his senses or is the world coming to an end? Maybe he sees Mr. Ziffy as a total dud. A condescending,boring, stuffy,elitist who was out of the country for 34yrs and doesn't have a clue. Watching paint dry is more exciting than the visiting professor. I don't know but he has written a relatively positive piece about PM Harper's image. He admits PM Harper really does have some personality and is not rigid like what has been previously reported.

Mr. Harper has recently had Bryan Adams and Nickelback over to 24 Sussex – and it wasn’t for talks on a new equalization formula. Rather, for live sessions (with Adams at least) with the Prime Minister at the keyboard. He’s got a music room set up for visiting virtuosos. Son Ben joins in with some wicked guitar playing.
This is the same father who was once pilloried in the media for a scene outside of his son’s school. He shook Ben’s hand while dropping him off, which was said to typify the Harperian rigidity.
The rigidity is overstated. Behind the scenes, the Prime Minister is not, as it often appears in public, in need of a blood transfusion. He has a piercing sense of humour that on a good day, aides attest, could give Jon Stewart a run for his money. Another unknown talent is his capacity as an impersonator. Mr. Harper cracks up his cabinet on occasion with splendid imitations of those across the floor facing him in Question Period.

There's a time and place for everything. Time to work and time to let your hair down. Politics should not be a popularity contest. The PM does have a great sense of humor and does let his hair down once in awhile.but is serious when it comes to tackling the problems this country faces and gets the job done.
You'd think from the central media, he's nothing but a controlling,stiff meanie who doesn't have humorous bone in his body.
Canadians want a strong leader who buckles down and gets the work of the nation done. They don't want a leader who is seeking to be a celebrity and doesn't have clue and can't get the job done.
I think the PM has struck a good balance.

Is There Trouble Brewing in The Liberal Family?

Oh,Oh!  Trouble brewing over a possible coalition/merger with the Dippers.  Rae vs. Ziffy camps.  Rae is hot for it, Mr. Ziffy, um..... not so much, at least for the moment.

Now, trouble is brewing once more, as Liberal support continues to slide and some of Mr. Rae’s advocates openly agitate for a debate about a coalition with the NDP. One influential supporter said that if the Liberals don’t take the idea seriously, they have no chance of governing the country in the foreseeable future.

However, supporters loyal to Mr. Ignatieff are hitting back, arguing that a deal with the NDP would sacrifice the Liberal party’s history and identity.

 How will it all end up?  Who knows? Will Buffalo Bob get his way? Will Mr. Ziffy get his way?   Stay tuned!  It's beer and popcorn time! Enjoy!
Meanwhile PM Harper and his government will continue working for Canadians getting things done.

Finally An End To Inmate Pensions

Today the government will introduce legislation that will bring to an end OAS and GIS that were being paid to long term convicted criminals that are incarcerated. They shouldn't have been receiving pension in the first place.  Child killer, Clifford Olson, say goodbye to your $1,100 pension monthly cheques. 

Inmates don't need the money anyway. What are they going to spend it on?  Pretty well everything is supplied for them at the auspice of taxpayer anyway.

 It'll be interesting to see how the opposition will vote on this. You would think that this should pass unanimously.   It's really a no brainer.         
We shall see.
Kudos to Sun colmunist Peter Worthington in bringing this to light in March and Human Resource Minister Diane Finely taking such quick action seeing how slowly government usually operates at snails pace.

How Does Prime Minister Jack Layton Sound?

Just the sound of that should be enough to scare the wits of ya. Norman Spector muses about a Prime Minister Jack Layton in the light of the latest Angus Reid poll.

Think about it for a moment, a coalition government lead by a Prime Minister Jack Layton would literally bring our country to it's knees. We'd make Greece look like tight wads. We'd be in the same shape or worse as them in short order. Of course to stay in power, he'd have to shovel billions more of your money into Quebec to keep them appeased and on board.

You'd have free National Daycare, National Social Housing, 360hrs of work to qualify for EI, full implementation of Kyoto bowing to the religion of global warming and all kinds of welfare programs that hasn't even been thought of yet etc.. Heck, why not National everything?

The oilsands would shut be down. How about strict gun control laws? The military would be armed with candy, teddy bears and shovels and be reduced to doing social work and shovelling snow in Toronto. Slaps on the wrists and hugs for criminals. Free drug injection sites through out the land. There would probably be a new national holiday named Gay Pride Day. If you operate a business or manage a bank, you'd be punished for making a profit.

I don't know how this sounds to you but this is most likely what you would get with a "Prime Minister Jack Layton." All your dreams come true! A socialist's utopia! Barf!!!

If this were to happen, God help us! Makes me want to run to the hills.

Mr. Ziffy Does Not Know Canada

 As Rex Murphy has so eloquently states it, Mr. Ziffy just does not know or get Canada.
Mr. Ziffy believes that being out of the country for so many years has made him a" better Canadian."  Huh?   Because I haven't been a world traveler and out of the country for years, does that make me "less of a Canadian?

Mr. Ignatieff, in a recent Toronto speech, tried a little rhetorical judo on the Conservative ads. He tried to project the idea of Canada as a place in continual evolution, as the most internationalist of countries, and went so far as to say his "being out of the country" actually made him a better Canadian.
This last claim was merely excess and nonsense since, in logic, he'd be the perfect Canadian, by his terms ... if he'd never come back at all.

You need to know the country on a basic local level. You need to feel it. Rex thinks Mr Ziffy doesn't feel it thus the success of the "Just Visiting" ads the CPC put out were successful. You need to get out and get to really know the people and they are all about. What we're thinking, what we're feeling. Ziffy just doesn't get it.  In other words, you need to connect to the people, the surroundings etc. You need to know what makes the country tick.

Let me be clear on this point. His absence is not a disqualification for our highest office, but it is a mighty obstacle. The common-sense response to having lived "out of country" for so long is that he cannot know it. We are, we Canadians, very much where we live. We learn our country by living in it, by absorbing the flow of its events, by acquiring an emotional as well as an intellectual grasp of its rhythms and moods. We inhabit this country, and it returns the favour: It inhabits us.
What's implicit in Mr. Ignatieff's picture of Canada is that there's nothing fixed, common and settled here. This is ludicrous. Canada is not a centreless void: There is, very much, a here, here. We have our social and civic codes. There are, beneath the multitude of our separate and diverse peoples and regions, great central patterns of common attitude, shared value, a signature take on the outside world and an understanding of our entwined interrelationships.
Canada isn't a blank slate waiting for the inscriptions of unending diversity. There is an essence to this country. What we have in common, the core, is that which enables the embrace of diversity in the first place. Mr. Ignatieff may understand some of this, but does he feel it? Does he perceive the strength and depth of the common endeavour which has been and is this country since its founding? Canadians are far more patriotic than, outside hockey triumphs, they let on.
The public then is perhaps anxious that the man aspiring to be prime minister, while abundant of intellect is impoverished of experience, that he lacks the emotional knowledge and feel for this country that is the product of daily lived encounter with it and its people. Can he give it a "local habitation and a name?"
So at both ends of the political scale, the district and the national, the question of understanding and really knowing the people and country is the central one. Proportional representation is a step away from full engagement of the representative and the people he or she represents. Michael Ignattief's core weakness is that so many Canadians are withholding assent to him as their leader because they do feel that, at the most profound level, perhaps he does not know their country.

Here is one example of him being out of touch with the country's mood, abortion. This from John Snobelen, the Toronto Sun

So why are we suddenly talking about abortion? Michael Ignatieff.
Ignatieff would like you to believe there is a vast right wing, neo-con, radical right, fundamental Christian conspiracy to ban abortion. Desperate for a wedge issue, he has dusted off the old, tired hidden agenda stuff.
Trouble is, Ignatieff managed to wedge himself. The boy is sharp.

Mr. Ziffy at one time compared our flag to a beer commercial. He said the only thing he missed about Canada was Algonquin Park.  Times have changed. The country is different than when he was here before. Maybe he should go out and smell some more barns.