Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The UnCanadian Activities Committee

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:38am - 32 Comments

In case you were worried that this government was feeling chastened by the events of these last two weeks, CBC aired a clip last night of Pierre Poilievre, the Prime Minister’s parliamentary secretary, referring to the coalition earlier in the day as both “undemocratic” and “unCanadian.”

In other news, the Prime Minister placed a call last night to Michael Ignatieff, the prospective leader of that undemocratic, unCanadian coalition. Sources suggest Mr. Harper sought to personally register his objection to Mr. Ignatieff’s undemocratic, unCanadian activities. Any suggestion that the Prime Minister would be interested in working constructively with an undemocratic, unCanadian scoundrel such as Michael Ignatieff is false, misleading and probably also unCanadian.

Tags: coalition government, Michael Ignatieff, pierre poilievre, Stephen Harper

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dan in van

Don’t worry. We can see the priorities shining thru — good little CON first of all, Canadian second.
Those terrible separatists whom Harper worked with eagerly before are not to be trusted unless they are working with Harper… And the Canadian parliamentary system is no place for parties to vote and decide the will of the people.
Mob rule (and western separatism) is in!
Shenping

The way I see it, whenever those “separatistes” travel abroad, they have Canadian passports, their families have been in Canada for a few centuries, and their constituents who voted for them drink Molson & watch hockey. Maybe I’m just politically immature, but that sounds Canadian to me.

I have a strong suspicion that very few Bloquistes are actual true separatistes. It’s rather more likely they are trying to get the best possible deal for their constituents & keep themselves elected by playing on the insecurities & regional prejudices of their supporters. I’m sorry, but in politics, that makes them very Canadian.
john g

In other news, the Prime Minister placed a call last night to Michael Ignatieff, the prospective leader of that undemocratic, unCanadian coalition. Sources suggest Mr. Harper sought to personally register his objection to Mr. Ignatieff’s undemocratic, unCanadian activities. Any suggestion that the Prime Minister would be interested in working constructively with an undemocratic, unCanadian scoundrel such as Michael Ignatieff is false, misleading and probably also unCanadian.

Didn’t Ignatieff himself say in his press conference that Harper called in the spirit of cooperation? If he’d called to be an ass don’t you think Ignatieff would have said so? What was Harper supposed to do, kneel and profess fealty to King Iggy?

And if Harper hadn’t called, let me guess…you’d slag him for remaining in his ivory tower and not wanting to work on the budget in the spirit of cooperation with the opposition. And probably a hundred other things.

If you and Kady and the others here other than Coyne and Wells want to shill for the Liberals on your blogs, it’s your house. But for the benefit of your readers, and for Macleans’ credibility as a balanced, non partisan news magazine, at least be honest and up front about it. Stop pretending to be a non-partisan commentator when it’s clear that your HDS is overriding your ability to be objective.

I’ve been one of the most vocal critics here of yourself and Kady for bias, but believe it or not, it’s not because you are partisan; it’s because you are partisan while pretending, in the absense of any such declaration, to be non partisan. In the months that I’ve been reading here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of you criticze the Liberals for anything. And it’s not like you haven’t had the opportunity or reason to. You just don’t.

The day you identify yourselves as partisan will be the end of my criticism of your bias, because at least you will be honest about where you are coming from. Stephen Taylor’s posts here fully disclose his partisan interest. It’s an example that a few bloggers here should really think about following.
Steve Wart

Aaron capitalising the C in uncanadian is incorrect and quite distracting, and repeating it five times in two paragraphs forces me to beg you to stop trashing the English language. You are a journalist right? Maybe Macleans needs an editor to moderate the blog posts.

Maybe the Conservative Parliamentary Secretary should moderate his language, but what’s the point of your second paragraph?

Regarding the coalition: the ball is in Count Ignatieff’s court, regardless of his claims to be waiting for Mr Harper to “walk down the hill”.
archangel

john g,

“…it’s not because you are partisan; it’s because you are partisan while pretending, in the absense of any such declaration, to be non partisan.”

It’s not because you are objective; it’s because you are not objective while pretending, in the absence of any such declaration, to be objective.
archangel

“Regarding the coalition: the ball is in Count Ignatieff’s court, regardless of his claims to be waiting for Mr Harper to ‘walk down the hill’.”

So Harper will have a hissy fit, because Iggy won’t let him have his ball back?
D

Ignoring all the partisan bickering that blog postings on Maclean’s site seems to attract these days (meaning I end up reading only about 10% of the posted comments), it sure would be nice if a journalist asked Poilievre what he defines as being “unCanadian”. Anybody tried that yet?