I RETURN AFTER AN EXTENDED ABSENCE - HAPPY SPRING!

First of all I extend my apologies to Dorsal for not responding to his last posting (Jan. 16). He set the stage rather nicely for another year of banter and political jousting. His comments on the situation in Haiti were especially poignant and we can agree on his thoughts without hesitation. But what do I think of his less benevolent musings on the political scene?


1. On the proroguing of parliament – A cynical but certainly not an unprecedented tactic – I don’t buy the “re-calibration argument” but I find it equally implausible to believe that the Conservatives were too concerned about the fall-out from the Afghan detainee issue. The polls clearly indicate that Canadians do not care about the human rights of the people of Afghanistan.  (They all look the same so they must be, right?)

2. On the budget – In the short term it’s hard to find fault with the rationale for keeping the tap open to some degree of stimulus spending and the public service sector makes such a good target for showing hard-headed restraint in spending; why not pick on these fat cats? It’s the typical divide and conquer strategy of this government: set one group of Canadians against another and side with the group most likely to vote for your party. The fact that Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has eviscerated Flaherty’s projections for a return to a balanced budget without unpopular cuts to transfer payments or increased taxes, has gone largely unnoticed by a public relieved that there will be no pain for most of us in this particular farce. With the rising value of our dollar, it’s hard to see where the growth required to dig us out of this hole comes from? But most galling of all is the fact that this government will spend 43 million dollars this year to advertise the diminishing benefits of “Canada’s Economic Action Plan”.


3. On my Liberals and our ineffective leadership – Yes Dorsal, we do lack traction and we are being out-foxed at every turn. The few issues we could use to our advantage are either too petty or of too little interest to Canadians to make us sound like anything but “whiners”. However, I have enjoyed the “Mr. Dithers’” label that the Canadian press recently hung on Harper after his "flip-flops" on our sexist anthem and promised “conditional” aid for poor, but only poor God -fearing and chaste mothers and children. (Like he gives a shit – give me a break!) The fact of the matter is that our two major parties have always treated we voters as fools easily swayed by hot button issues and emotional appeals – the Conservatives are just much better at picking those issues and denying them to the opposition.


4. On Julian Fantino we can agree! - It’s just not possible for any man to be implicated in so many incidents of wrong doing and not be guilty of something! The quashing of the charges in Caledonia was rightly perceived by the citizens of Ontario as prima facia evidence of the existence a two tiered justice system.

AH