Larry Martin Seems To Be Afraid

Libluvin journalist, Larry Martin seems like he's afraid these days. First he comes out with a book  that portrays PM Harper as an iron fisted control freak who hates Liberals. He likes to try to make the Conservatives look bad at every turn by the way.
  Today in his column I sense real fear on his part.  Fear that Liberals are losing their grip and influence on the provincial scene and it that will spill over to the federal scene. Oh, dear! He believes the troubles of the Liberal governments in BC, Ontario, and Quebec is a reason why Iffy can't get any traction despite the phony plaid shirts, the phony poses with Tim Horton's cups on the Magical Liberal Express tour.  It might have a bit of an influence but I think Ignatieff and his team do enough damage to themselves without the help of the provincial cousins.

The caving of the three Liberal fortresses may have consequences beyond their jurisdictions. Tidings at the provincial level don’t often reverberate with much impact at the federal level. But when the Liberal brand name takes a hit in three great domains in the same time frame, it surely can’t help. It may be among the reasons why Michael Ignatieff is not getting much liftoff despite all his hard work through the summer.

Martin goes on to lament the troubles of the three Premiers who he calls successful. Successful? Huh? 
 Larry is clearly afraid that the public is starting to wake up and see the light, that the Liberal socialist agenda has failed. Poor Larry!

Federal Liberals can’t quantify how much they’re being hurt by the plight of their provincial leaders. They say Quebec is where it’s being felt most. And they don’t like the luckless irony of it all. Three of the most successful Liberal premiers to come along in decades are detrimental to their federal hopes.

Larry, accept it. Change is a comin'.  I sense the public is starting to look for change at all levels, more fiscal  accountability,  smaller government, less government spending, lower taxes, more individual freedom, in other words, more conservatism.

Related: CanadianSense gives his perspective on the same article.

Intellectuallism vs. Wisdom

 Could the reason the Iffy Waffle is not resonating with Canadians is that he's smart but not wise?
Monte Solberg is spot on again in his  commentary pointing out that being an intellectual is not the same as being wise. He says Iffy may be smart but not necessarily wise.

Lately several commentators have criticized the Conservatives for being anti-intellectual, citing the attacks on Michael Ignatieff’s Harvard background.
I certainly can’t speak for all Conservatives, but in my case it’s totally true! I’m guilty as charged. I’m anti-intellectual.
However, in my defence, I draw a sharp distinction between meddlesome intellectuals, and those sensible and learned people who, conservative thinker Russell Kirk argued, should really be described as scholars.
Conservatives are not opposed to people who spend their lives doing research, writing, teaching and reading books. Society is immensely better off for their contributions. Personally, I would be quite happy to read books all day in my unscholarly way.
The real problem is those people who read the wrong books, arrive at the wrong conclusions, and who would foist their weird theories on the rest of us. You know, garbage in, garbage out, followed by now we have to live in the dumpster.
Those commentators don’t seem to get that being intelligent is not necessarily the same thing as being wise. Yet we’ve all met that well-educated person who would be proud to be called an intellectual and was, in fact, a pontificating fool.
That’s why Conservatives believe we should rely on humanity’s experience to guide our lives, as opposed to listening to intellectuals. Intellectuals are always prepared to toss out the wisdom of the ages for a new system that some social scientist cooked up last week. They think that makes them progressive.
Thank goodness that, most of the time, intellectuals just find ways to make government bigger, which is bad enough. Sometimes, though, intellectuals are wildly successful and we end up with everything from communism and the Soviet gulags, to the belief all cultures are equal, at least until someone gets stoned to death.
Now, understand that I am not at all suggesting Michael Ignatieff falls into that unpleasant category where all the murdering took place. I’m just saying intellectualism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At best, it’s big government busybodies telling us how we should live. At its worst, it’s a scourge.
In Canada, the last intellectual prime minister we had was Pierre Trudeau and both Liberal and Conservative governments have spent years undoing his ruinous economic policies, and reversing his centralizing tendencies. His once ballyhooed policy of official multiculturalism is clearly destined for the dustbin.
Only the Charter has survived, more or less unscathed, though it vomits up new surprises almost every week.
In the end, I’ll take wise and measured over brilliant intellectual any day, and, right now, so will the Canadian people.
The Liberals have figured that out too. That’s why the Liberals are trying hard to cover up Harvard Iggy by putting him in that plaid shirt and teaching him to say “double-double.”
Unfortunately for him, it’s not working. In Question Period he’s still as dry as toast. He still seems to be without humour, the human touch, and, by definition, humidity.
Being as objective as I can be, he still comes across as the same lecturing intellectual, no matter how many times he poses with that cup of Tim Hortons’ coffee.

I agree with Monte, I'll take wise over intellectual any day too!
Here is just the latest example of Iffy's smarts that aren't particularly wise.

  OTTAWA — Come Jan. 1, federal Liberals will face a gaping $1.8-billion hole in their election platform.
That's because the new year will ring in a 1.5 percentage point cut in the corporate tax rate.
The imminent reduction has Liberal strategists wrestling with how best to make up the resulting loss of tax revenue, which the party has been counting on to pay for leader Michael Ignatieff's promises to invest in things like child care and homecare.

What he and his party want to do would be job killing that's for sure. To roll back the tax cuts would force companies to not hire new employees even most likely cause them to lay off the ones they have.  Not smart or wise!

There is a reason he's not resonating with the public and that is he doesn't have the real life experience that regular people like you and I have.  He's an elite ivory tower academic Russian aristocrat who has never had to struggle to pay the bills or put food on the table.  Yes he's written books, studied and worked at Harvard etc. but that's all he knows. He's arrogant, and condescending.  He doesn't talk to us, he lectures us.  Monte's right no matter how many plaid shirts or how many Timmie's coffee cups he poses with, he'll always be an elitist intellectual.

A successful politician has to be wise not just smart to play the game these days.  That describes our current Prime Minister.  He's both smart and wise. He always catches his opponents off guard wading through the political mine field in a minority government. That's why he's been able to stay in power for the last four years.  He's more in touch with the Tim Horton's crowd than Iffy will ever be.

My husband always quotes this Bible verse each time we pray for PM Harper and his team:

Matthew 10:16 (King James Version)

 ¹⁶Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

For those of us who believe in power of  prayer, pray that PM Harper and his team have the wisdom of Solomon as they  wade through the political mine field each day as they are sheep amongst the wolves.   

Iffy- Why Doesn't Anybody Like Me?

People were supposed to come clamoring to worship at his feet by now.  That just hasn't happened.
 The Liberal leader is at a quandary as to why Iffymania is not taking place.  He spent the summer on a bus with his plaid shirt traveling all over the country trying to be one of us and yet he can't get traction.

Michael Ignatieff spent the summer on a bus touring the country. He travelled 40,000 kilometres and he shook more than 15,000 hands – and yet he can’t figure out what he’s doing wrong.
Behind the closed-doors of his caucus meeting Wednesday, the Liberal Leader appeared “frustrated,” according to an MP who attended. His frustration seems to be over the fact that despite his Herculean efforts to try to connect with Canadians this summer, he hasn’t.

 Michael Ignatieff was brought to Canada from his comfortable position at Harvard in a promise that he would be anointed Prime Minister shortly after he would arrive.  He was parachuted into a riding in Toronto where an ethnic female minority candidate was forced to step aside so Iffy could take his place.  Then after the disastrous election results of the Liberals under Stephan Dion and teaming up with the socialists and separatists to overthrow a  duly elected government that fortunately failed, Iffy was crowned leader without the grass root Liberal members having a say.  Now he expects the Canadian public to fall in love with him and crown him Prime Minister and we are not prepared to do that.  He wonders why.

Well first of all he might have a look in the mirror.   Most people don't know what he actually stands for because he keeps flip flopping on everything. Most find him arrogant and condescending even though he tried to bring himself down to our level during the summer.  It  didn't work.  The public are as not stupid  he or his handlers think.  We saw right through that phony facade.

He might also look at his own party. The Liberal party is empty  of policy, morally bankrupt and believe they are entitled to run this country. They supposedly have been developing policy for the last two years, you'd think they would have some by now. Remember the Thinkers Conference for example? It was to produce new bold ideas. Nothing came of it.  He commissioned Scotty Brison and Tipsy John Mcallum to come up with an alternative budget in 2009. Never heard a word.   Where's all these policies, eh?  And when they don't have the reins of power they act like rabid animals, All they do is mudsling, the faux scandals and fake outrage over everything. The public does not like that either.

All he does is smear PM Harper and doesn't offer any alternatives.  Iffy and the Liberals are in a time warp stuck in the sixties.  They keep regurgitating the same old big government type of stuff like universal day care, etc.  Times have changed.  The public don't want those things anymore.  They want prudence, accountability,  lower taxes, smaller government etc.   The Liberals have not caught up with that fact.  They're blinded by their own hunger for power they can't see past their nose.  That's why you and your party can't get traction, Iffy!

Liberals Poaching An NDP Idea?

Is The Liberal party so bereft of any new  ideas that they seem to be poaching ideas from their coalition partners?  They are working on a plan for Homecare.

A major initiative in the works, according to insiders, is on health care – specifically, home care. The new plan would see new forms of financial assistance for family caregivers, people who have to take time from work to tend to aging parents or family members stricken by mental or physical illnesses.
This would be done for thousands of families through increased benefits, a major one being an expansion of the employment insurance system. There’s a compassionate care benefit in the existing EI, but Liberals say it’s too small and overly restrictive.
The party also wants more investment in institutionalized home care – professional caregivers going to homes – and will push for that in the coming renegotiation of the federal-provincial health accord. But this is a more dubious prospect. Their emphasis will be where the federal government has the most power to act – a concrete plan for family caregivers.

 This happens to be  an NDP idea in which Larry Martin fails to point out.

By 2026, the number of Canadian seniors will double to 8 million. Darrell tells me one in four Nova Scotians will be 65-plus by then.
These are folks who worked hard, paid their dues, and deserve dignity in their elder years.So we need to start building capacity in homecare and long term care — now.
We’re already falling behind. Some hospitals now devote a quarter of their acute beds to seniors waiting for better options.
Expanding quality, affordable long-term care will ease that pressure on hospitals, cut waitlists, and give seniors their dignity.
Investing in home care will do the same — and not only for seniors. It’ll reduce hospitalization, help people heal, and save the system money.
Home care today is a loose patchwork of programs resting on a foundation of unpaid care by overstretched loved ones.
Nova Scotia is making strides help seniors stay in their own homes & communities — but you shouldn’t have to go it alone.
Roy Romanow called home care the “next essential service.” We’re ready to make home care the first major expansion of public medicare in 40 years.

Is this poaching an idea? Is it a coincidence? Or is it more evidence of a coalition?  Both their ideas are eerily similar.   The coalition of the losers seem to be more in sink with each other than not these days IE-gun registry, census, etc. so who knows?

A few days ago I warned you that there would be denials.    Just as I thought. Yesterday Iffy denied it but Norm Spector did a good job remind us all of what he has said previously in his own words.  Today the Globe and Mail editorial is denying it  also saying it's just PM Harper's fantasy and there is no sign of coalition.

Political parties are entitled to agree with each other from time to time, without being accused of having formed a coalition. For several weeks, the federal Conservatives have been claiming that the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois are in a coalition. A particular convergence of opposition parties on this or that issue is no sign of any such alliance.

 What I also stated in my previous post was Don't believe them. because you can't trust either the opposition or the Lame Stream Media.  Is there a coalition or isn't there?  Maybe not openly at the moment but would they form one after the next election?  I think it's more likely than not.   They would stop at nothing to gain power. They are so power hungry they can taste it.   They are treacherous so  we need to watch them closely.

Bring Out The Tissues, Chantel Pines for The Good Ole Days

Chantel Hebert is crying the blues, lamenting about how the country is becoming less Liberal and about who's going to be the savior of the Trudeau legacy.

In the decade since Pierre Trudeau passed away, Canada has become less Liberal in political appearance and in policy outlook.

Boo, hoo, hoo!  Chantel then goes on to infer that the institutions that Trudeau imposed on us  is going to going down hill like medicare,  multiculturalism, bilingualism, the Charter etc.  She's also lamenting there is no one in Quebec waiting in the wings to be Prime Minister.

There is a real possibility that the party that built Canada's social union in the sixties and seventies could have little representation of any kind at the table of the upcoming renegotiation of the federal-provincial fiscal arrangements that underpin Medicare.With a year to go to the next Ontario election, the winds of change are battering premier Dalton McGuinty's third-term government.
A solid majority of Quebecers would rather have Premier Jean Charest resign than undergo the second half of his third term. In British Columbia, the tide turned against Premier Gordon Campbell some time ago.
These days, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's practice of starting every news conference in French; his recent choice of a bilingual governor-general; the zeal with which his ambitious ministers are polishing up their bilingual skills in preparation for the day the Conservative leadership opens up are tokens of Trudeau's continuing impact on Canada's national life.
But beyond those public nods to Canada's linguistic duality, Trudeau's imprint on the national psyche is really fading.
The current federal government — including its prime minister — is genetically predisposed to be suspicious of the impact of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the country.
The multiculturalism that Trudeau saw as part of the foundation of a civic form of Canadian nationalism is increasingly viewed as a fracture-inducing stress point.
A decade after his passing, no national party boasts a strong Quebec presence within its caucus.
Moreover there is little apparent interest among Trudeau's fellow francophones and not much appetite in the rest of the country for a new Quebec generation of so-called wise men/women to come to Parliament Hill — in the manner that Trudeau, Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier did in the mid-sixties.
If there is another prime minister from Quebec currently in the making, he or she is still very much a dark horse.

Chantel, Chantel, Chantel, I know you are pining for the good ole days but face it, the Trudeau experiment has failed.  Another thing, we don't want another PM from Quebec! We've had enough of that!
  Perhaps Chantel doesn't see that the public is starting to wake up to the fact that Liberalism (progressivism, socialism, marxism) doesn't work. 

People around the world are starting to wake up.  Look at Europe and the US in particular.  Progressives down there about to lose big time in the November midterm elections.  The Democrats are poised to lose control in the Congress for sure and very likely the Senate.  Real conservatives will be elected instead.  Voters have even rejected the progressive Republican establishment hence quite a few long time establishment GOP members lost in the primaries. That's why the tea parties are having such a big influence.

Voters are sick and tired of the big spending, the ever increasing size of government, and an increasing infringement of their civil liberties, individual freedoms and the nanny state.

Canadians don't want  Trudeau experiment 2.0!