Category: Government

I can’t wait to see Smirkin’ Jack! flip his lack of a wig over this one; you just gotta know that its gonna be priceless. The federal Tories have just announced that they’re looking at a surplus of over $13 billion.

That’s not what’s going to get Jack!’s goat, though. This is:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Monday the surplus would go entirely to reducing the federal debt, a move that he said would save hundreds of millions next year in interest payments on that debt.

Asked on CTV Newsnet’s Mike Duffy Live why the government wouldn’t make any new spending commitments, Flaherty said: “We’re not like the last guys,” referring to the Liberal government of Paul Martin.

Yup, that’s right. For all the special interest moochers looking for a little something from the gravy train, NOTHING. Nada, nil, zip, zilch, the Great Bugger All.

Good news from the Hill! The Tories, in keeping with both their election promises to get tough on crime and their typical don’t-give’me-bullshit style, have announced today that they will be introducing a bill this fall to enact a “three strikes and you’re out” policy against violent offenders.

From what I’ve heard so far, the bill would work hand in hand with the existing dangerous offender designation but with one difference: reverse onus. After three violent convictions, it would then be up to the scumbag to prove that he isn’t dangerous instead of up to the crown to prove that he is. Makes sense to me. If you have a habit of commiting violent crimes, you’ve pretty much done the crown’s job for them in the burden-of-proof department, haven’t you?

Now, if we could just get ol’ Vic Toews to consider revisiting one other good old idea whose time seems to have come back again…

Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington brings up an interesting (and disturbing) question in his latest column: Was the latest suicide attack in Afghanistan, which left four brave Canadian soldiers dead and dozens of soldiers and civilians wounded, deliberately timed to coincide with the return of our MPs for the fall session?

Are the Taliban taking lessons from the West’s history of warfare in the last half century? Are they being mindful of how the United States lost the war in Vietnam?

Yes, I know I’m going to get some heat for that comment (most of it likely from Texas) but it’s still true. The war in Vietnam was never lost on the battlefield, it was lost on the streets of America. The American public lost its stomach for the conflict and the Yanks finally cut and ran in April of 1975. In spite of winning every major engagement with the enemy (yes; including even the Tet offensive, which the peaceniks called a victory for the commies), the inexhorable, grinding lack of support for the war back home eventually knocked the pins out from under the whole damned effort.

The usual Leftist suspects who are today comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam will howl any parallel that they can find, no matter how tenuous. What they won’t mention, unless you drag it out of them kicking and screaming, is the more than 5,000,000 (yes, FIVE MILLION) Cambodians and Vietnamese who were slaughtered by the communists after the Americans pulled out. Why the hell do you think we had so many boat people seeking refuge in Canada??

How many Afghanis will the Taliban murder in repraisal if we leave?

If a recent poll is any indication, however, the Taliban are in for a rude surprise if they think mere casualties are enough to shatter our collective will. The poll by Ipsos-Reid, taken in the days prior to this past September 11th, shows that Canadian resolve is hardening as the war goes on, not weakening.

We are, historically, not a nation given to heat-of-the-moment declarations of war (with the exception of 1939) but when we do get into a fight, we damn well finish it.

Well, it was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it? A whole summer with no parliamentary shenanegans. But all good things must end and today, the orchestra of scorched cats tunes back up in Ottawa. It’ll be a doozy, too.

From Afghanistan to gun control to softwood to dozens of other issues that have had time to simmer for the last couple of months, the Tories are definitely going to have their hands full.

Anybody out there care to give odds on a spring election?

Ever have one of those days when you start feeling like God’s little hackeysack? Yeah, me too. Especially these days. First, it was Joe Fontana announcing that he was going to step down from federal politics to run for mayor of London in the upcoming municipal election. Okay, fine, I could live with that. At least he’d be down at the municipal level where he can do less damage (relatively speaking).

Sure, it might suck to be in London for the next few years but, hey, sometimes you gotta take one for the team, right? Besides, if memory serves me right, he wasn’t as lousy as a Councilor as he was as a Minister. But now… THIS!!

…former Ontario education minister Gerard Kennedy says aside from him, other contenders for the top federal Liberal job may also be considering London-North-Centre. Martha Hall Findlay and former Ontario premier Bob Bob Rae are also in the leadership race, but without federal seats.

As if getting stuck with Joey Bananas for the next four years wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse. I guess it should have occurred to me that, with Joe out of the fed picture around here, somebody was bound to come along to fill the gap. But not like this (insert bigass eyeball-rolling emoticon here).

Now it’s starting to look like every god damned also-ran in the party that flunks out of the Great Grit Porkbarrel Grand Poobah Pageant is going to be descending on London North Centre in an effort to make a grab for the federal payroll teat. Gerard Kennedy, Martha Hall Findlay, even Bob F#%!ing Rae (why do I have chest pains??) fer chrissakes! We’ve been spending years cleaning up the neighbourhood, and this comes along??

Did I rape nuns in a previous life or something?

There can be little doubt that, in the hours leading up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s historic appearance before a Senate committe today, a lot of Grits were wondering, “when’s the other shoe going to drop?” Well, what fell wasn’t a shoe at all, it was an axe. For the unelected layabouts in the Senate with a cushy job-for-life, it was the axe.

When word first got out that the PM was going to make history by directly addressing the Senate to see to it that the Upper House, so infested with Grit cronies, didn’t bugger about with the Federal Accountability Act, musings began to fly fast and furious that ol’ Steve was gearing up to hit the unelected ne’er do wells right where it hurts. The musings were bang-on for once.

Saying that “Years of delay on Senate reform must come to an end,” Harper swung the hammer and uttered the news that must have turned the blood of most Senators to icewater: not only is he looking to limit Senate terms to 8 years (currently, the lifers can lollygag about in the Red Chamber for up to 45 years), he will also bring in legislation this fall to create a process to elect senators! And he’s not willing to piss around about it either:

The government, hopefully this fall, will introduce a bill in the House to create a process to choose elected Senators… The government isn’t looking for another report. We are seeking action… The Senate must change and we intend to make it happen.

In other words: STFU and either get with the program or get the hell out of the way:

…[Grit] Senator Jim Munson said critics have said Harper would “like nothing better than to fight an election on the backs of the Senate.”

“Well, don’t give me the opportunity,” Harper replied.

The prime minister suggested the government might go it alone on reform if the Senate balks.

“What there would be political consequences on, senator . . . is if the population were to become thoroughly convinced that any kind of Senate reform were impossible,” he said.

“You know, given that the government is committed to Senate reform, I think we would obviously be looking at how to proceed.”

Let the hysterics from the left begin. The howls will go up across the land that Harper is Americanizing the Senate. That’s utter bullshit, and Harper was ready for it:

“I wondered when that particular line would come up,” Mr. Harper said. “I don’t think the Americans have any particular monopoly on democracy. I think it’s as Canadian an idea. In fact, it’s an idea now shared by a growing number of countries in the world, and virtually all now elect their legislatures.”

The Senate is, without a doubt, one of the most undemocratic and anachronistic institutions remaining in this country. The sooner the Tories take a chainsaw to this rotted oak, the better it will be for us all.