Charles Adler's Take on the CBC, PM Harper and the "Hidden Agenda" Re-Capital Punishment

When Liberals and their minions in the media have nothing else they trot out the old tired "hidden agenda thing."
The other night the CBC chief anchor Peter Mansbridge interviewed PM Harper and asked him about some of those "hidden agenda" issues and what he would do about them  when he gets a majority. Mansbridge was clearly setting a  trap that PM Harper so cleverly did not step into. Here is the exchange on the "controversial" capital punishment.

PM: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?
PMSH: I don't see the country wanting to do that. You know...
PM: YOU DON'T SOUND AS FIRM AS...
PMSH: Well, I personally think there are times where capital punishment is appropriate. But I've also committed that I'm not, you know, in the next Parliament I'm not... no plans to bring that issue forward.

How much clearer must the PM be? PM Harper  is NOT bring that issue forward in Parliament.  Nothing controversial here.   Charles Adler thinks so too.  Here's his take:

The latest exhuming of that corpse had to do with the prime minister “revealing” to our mortician-in-chief, Peter Mansbridge, that he, Stephen Harper, is a mainstream Canadian. The PM told “Morty” that “there are times where capital punishment is appropriate.”
I watched this and couldn’t figure out why any normal human being would take this as a controversial remark. Let’s take the CBC trophy sound bite to a place where all Canadian issues need to be aired to see if they pass the sniff test. (If you start sniffing gas, just stop me). Let’s take the issue to Tim Hortons.
Coffee talk
You and I are having a double-double and the conversation turns to crime. At some point you blurt out, “You know what, Chuck. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if they fried that freak Russell Williams.”
My response would be, “Who would?”
My response would NOT be to go into the Corus radio studio the following day and turn on a private-sector national microphone to say: “Folks, you are going to have a hard time believing this, but a friend of mine shocked me yesterday at Timmy’s. He told me, and I hope you’ve got your emotional seatbelt fastened, but he told me he wouldn’t lose any sleep over the idea of this country putting Russell Williams to death.
“Can you believe any decent person with Canadian values saying that? I thought I knew my friend. But I guess you just never really know for sure what the strange thoughts go through the minds of human beings. I never thought my friend could ever feel this way. I guess he’s been hiding this from me. You might call it his hidden agenda.”
Of course this scenario is preposterous. The purpose of my show is not to find ways of condescending and sneering at my neighbours, the people of Canada. I don’t work for the CBC. The PM thinks there are times when capital punishment is appropriate. Can you find me even one person at the coffee shop you go to who would find that strange or frightening.
To some of the PM’s political and media opponents, Russell Williams is just a misguided person. They think Stephen Harper is the freak. To the rest of us, the PM is just the rest of us. He’s able to see through the increasingly transparent agenda of his media and political foes. They want us to be embarrassed about what we think about life and death and justice.
In my Canada, a prime minister would look the Canadian camera in the eye and say, “In a just society, Russell Williams would hang.”

Bingo! Another one out of the ballpark from Adler again. PM Harper was just voicing his opinion not a Conservative or a government policy.  Thank you Mr. Adler for stating what the most of us are feeling and thinking.


Related:
I think PM Harper has always been consistent on this issue.  Here from the transcript is the exchange  on abortion, another item the Libs and their media cheerleaders drag out from time to time. I don't why they keep bring this up but anyway.

PM: WOULD YOU RE-OPEN THE ABORTION ISSUE?
PMSH: No, no. Look, Peter, I have spent my political career trying to stay out of that issue. It's one on which people, including in my own party, have passionate views. They're all over the map. And you know, what I say to people, as you know, many people I know are pro-life. What I say to people, if you want to diminish the number of abortions, you've got to change hearts and not laws. And I'm not interested in having a debate over abortion law.

What caught my attention here was what I highlighted. That is if you want a change in the abortion rate, hearts and minds have to be changed.  PMSH  is exactly right. You can't change anything if you can't change the hearts and minds.

Ruby Dhalla's Campaign Team Crumbling

Looks like key members of IRuby's team are deserting her. 

Brampton-Springdale MP Liberal Ruby Dhalla’s campaign suffered a major setback yesterday when several of her core team members crossed the floor to join Conservative candidate Parm Gill’s growing camp of dedicated and loyal supporters.

Looks like they're leaving the sinking ship much like the latest star Liberal candidate for Halton, now held by
Conservative MP and Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt.

Wanna trigger an election now, Iffy?  Go ahead!

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!

Here is a journalist who should be fired toot sweet.  For this:
Cannon and Baird next in line, if Harper were to die  written by Postmedia's Glen Mcgregor.  He has totally crossed the line in journalistic integrity IMHO.  Is there nothing better to write about? This from a couple a few commenters on the article.

Parkland Parent

1:21 AM on January 19, 2011

Wow. Slow news day or wishful thinking?

 Kanadia

1:23 AM on January 19, 2011

I am a reader that frequents this site. After reading this article, I will be taking my reading elsewhere.

This article is appalling.

righton42

12:14 AM on January 19, 2011

I AM DISGUSTED AND SHOCKED AT THE SUGGESTIVE
CONNOTATIONS OF THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE BUT NOT SURPRISED AFTER ALL THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE IS THE SAME NATIONALITY AS THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE WHO FREED THE LOCKERBIE BOMBER A F-----G SCOT S----R.

Gabby in QC

11:40 PM on January 18, 2011

The media often wails and wrings its collective hands at the lack of civility in our political discourse.

In the wake of the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords, one would think that responsible media people would shy away from allusions to politicians' death.

I guess we really do need an election, because it appears journalists have nothing better to do than write tripe like this column.

Bruce 2

10:31 PM on January 18, 2011

This story is as bad and inflammatory as Scott Reid's "kill him, kill him dead" that was published in the Globe and Mail some time back.

The media and in this instance Glen Mcgregor and Postmedia News should be admonished for this tripe.

Irresponsible, to say the least.

How about informing the public about  all the accomplishments that have been made in the five years of PM Harper at the helm instead of this garbage? The media can't do that it might put the PM in a positive light. Can't have that you know, gotta keep it hidden.  The MSM in this country seems to be  getting worse and worse in it's blatant anti-Harper,anti-conservative reporting and they want  readers, listeners, and viewers to pay attention to them? This kind of garbage like this doesn't help.

Be Careful of What You Wish For Iffy

Iffy thinks he has the perfect ballot question that he thinks he can win on which is really poached from  former US President Ronald Reagan.  The question is "Are you better off than you were 5 years ago?"   L Ian MacDonald states  that the Liberal leader is no Ronald Reagan. and that it was a much different ball game in the US then than we have now in Canada.

Ignatieff is no Ronald Reagan, but leaving that aside, his question needs context.
For example, the Wall Street Journal recently ran a comparative chart on its front page on the Canadian and U.S. housing sectors. Between 2005 and 2010, the price of housing in six major Canadian cities increased by 44 per cent. Over the same period, the home index in the U.S. fell by 18 per cent, and is projected by the New York Times to fall a further five per cent this year. Six million American families have lost their homes. Noted the Journal: "One difference: Canada never embraced sub-prime mortgages."
Canada has done much better than the U.S. in two other key measurements -fiscal frameworks and the health of our financial-services industry, rated the best in the world by the World Economic Forum for the last three years. While Wall St. needed a $700-billion bailout from Washington to get through the 2008-09 financial crisis, Canadian banks never drew down a nickel of $150 billion of standby credit in the 2009 budget. And while U.S. banks have shrunk in both market capitalization and asset value, four of the Big Five Canadian banks now rank in the Top 10 in North America.

L Ian Macdonald says if you ask a question like that, you may not like the answer.

Ask a question and you get an answer, though not necessarily the one you want.

Like this answer from  a survey taken last fall by Farm Credit Canada that asked that same question to farmers.

While we await results from the rest of the country and a possible election, farmers have already spoken. An annual survey of farmers for Farm Credit Canada, a government agency, asked farmers whether they are better off now than they were five years ago and whether they will be better off in five years.
The answer is yes on both counts and the numbers are increasing.
67% of respondents believe that they are better off now than they were five years ago. This is a significant shift from last year (2009: 60%).
55% of producers are planning to expand and/or diversify their farm or business in the next five years.
76% of respondents said that their farm will be better off in five years time.
The online panel survey of nearly 4,900 farmers was conducted last fall.

If farmers are better off, I'm willing to bet most other Canadians are better off too than they were 5 years ago.  Go ahead Iffy, ask that question, you may not like the results! 

Entitled to Their Entitilements

I was so pleased the other day when PM Harper said that the next election campaign whenever that may be one of the Conservative platform planks would be to eliminate the $2 a vote taxpayer subsidy,(a tax is what I call it).

As you expect the Libs and Dippers have come out whining and bawling and squawling not to take their entitlements away.  Boo Hoo Hoo!

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s opponents say his plan to campaign on killing direct financing for political parties is irresponsible, arguing the current subsidies are good for democracy.

The Liberals and New Democrats made it clear Thursday they have no intention of agreeing to repeal the subsidies introduced in the past decade, saying they ensure the ideas of voters are represented by vibrant political parties that no longer have to rely on “big money” from the business community.

So they claim to take away their entitlements is not good for democracy, well Tasha Kherriddin disagrees.

The result is not more democracy, as the opposition claims, but less. Taxpayers are forced to subsidize parties for whom they would not vote. They also subsidize incumbency, as parties with the most votes are favoured over parties with the fewest. And the restrictions don’t stamp out business or union influence; corporations in particular end-run them by having their executives make individual donations.

I believe that if enough people like a certain party, what they represent and  support a it with their wallets, that's the way it should be.  If a party can't raise funds on their own then may be that party is not resonating. Thus let the chips fall where they may.  It should certainly not be forced donations like we have now.  We should not be forced to donate to parties we don't like. 

If the PM campaigns on killing this tax, I think it will resonate.  Right now in a time of restraint in our own households, taxpayers expect our politicians and political parties should be doing the same.

So how will the opposition parties campaign on the why they should still be receiving their entitlements?  They're going to have a hard time explaining.  Just the  thought alone of being forced to donate to a party that's hell bent on breaking up the country, voters will agree that entitlement should go.

Parties should raise their own funds and not rely on the taxpayer. If they can't, the public is not interested in them, so they shouldn't exist, just plain and simple. At least one young Liberal agrees.

And while we're at it, let's end that irritating $2 per vote subsidy for political parties. If the Liberal party wants me to fork over some dough, it should have the grit to ask me personally.