I say this economic crisis is, in Canada, mainly psychological. What we need is a shot of optimism and another topic of conversation. I say the Conservatives are right to focus on Iggy’s favorite subject: himself.

Har, har. tr

Pot, meet kettle.

Harper is not just an arrogant bastard. He’s a mean, vindictive, unprincipled, control-freakish, cold, divisive arrogant bastard.

Whereas Ignatieff wants to strengthen national unity and invest in the country’s foundations, Harper wants to further decentralise what is already the most decentralised federation in the world, perhaps in the hope that eventually it’ll fall apart and his real aim will be achieved a couple of decades hence… accession of the Western provinces to the USA.

Hardly a tough electoral choice if you’re not a closet Republican.

Honestly, think it through. There is no question that Mr. Ignatieff has a strong ego and a desire to achieve profile and renown. This is a trait he shares with every other party leader, and most MPs, mayors, CEOs, and anyone else with a trace of ambition.

So what?

The interesting question is: What is his political narrative? And does he have the strength to make it a reality? If his narrative of how he wants to shape Canada is one you agree with, and you think he has it in him, then vote for him. If not, don’t.

Jejeune statements that he is driven by “ego” are about as useful and interesting as saying rain is driven by the coalescence of water molecules around dust particles in the atmosphere. It’s not wrong, but it’s certainly not the whole story (rain is also driven by the sun heating up the surface of the ocean, etc.) and it’s irrelevant to the question of whether the consequent rain will help you grow your crops.

If the PM does not retain the confidence of the house – that is to say, if the majority of our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES in PARLIAMENT do not support him, he should resign or the Governor General should call on that majority to form a government if possible,( especially so soon after an election). Harper has never had majority suppoort at 37% (and it is well down from there now).

Harper has exerted pressure to circumvent this process. This is far from his first abuse of the parliamentary process. He has used prorogation of the house prior to a vote of no confidence to avoid the vote. This is UNPRECEDENTED and highly dangerous. Harper appealed to public opinion to go over the heads of our elected representatives in parliament while using distrust of Quebec as a club to shore up suppoirt since he has lost it in Parliament.

This is just one of his many abuses of the parliamentary process (go to the facebook group “why I distrust Stephen Harper” for 115 more or so). Everything that is good about this country was brought by the Liberal Party – Medicare, the CBC, the Canada Pension Plan UIC etc. etc. etc. If it were for The caolition, we would have had no stimulus package, since the Conservatives did not realize that the world economy was in trouble. And he is doing nothing about protectionism either – too busy writing attack ads. The LPC will bring back what it means to be a Canadian and competancy in government. Harper is toast and it is just a matter of time. (By the way, an MP from Quebec has just as much right to be in Parlaiument as Harper).

The American rule would not apply to Iggy. But it did stop Arnie S.

Only about a third of the passengers on the Mayflower (some 37 people in all) were members of an ultra-puritan sect called the “English Separatists”, which meant “separate from the Church of England.” Several of them subsequently returned to England, and others joined them from the old country.

The expedition itself was organized by City of London merchants, with a charter from the Virginia Company. As the passengers declared in the Mayflower Compact, their aim was: “for the glory of God and the honour of our King and country, to plant the first colony in Northern Virginia.” That is exactly what they did, and New Plymouth developed as a British colony for over 150 years.

Canadians ought to be the last people on earth to swallow later American secessionist propaganda.

Yeah, but try saying that to Tom Flanagan/Barry Cooper/David Bercuson/Ted Morton/Link Byfield. They’ve got a huge zeppelin-sized regionalist ego invested in that myth…

Then you can stop embarrasing yourself.

My forefathers came to this country in the 1600s. I am a French-speaking Ontarian, of portageurs heritage, but more recently I have been told that I am part of the Québécois nation, something that ‘has to do with the French language’ – I do speak French and was educated in French and my adult children speak French to me. If you were asking me today, here in Toronto where I live, what I am, I would definitely respond, screw you Stephen Harper, I am a Canadienne. Is Michael Sabia a member of the Québécois nation? Some say yes, others no.

Sabia, Ignatieff and I are all citizens of Canada. Ignatieff has the right as a citizen of this country to run for office and to become its prime minister. If someone is questioning that right, then it is not Michael Ignatieff’s right that is questioned but the mobility right of all Canadian citizens. If Stephen Harper intends to quantify the ‘canadianity’ of citizens dependent on the time they spend in Canada versus abroad, then he should grow a pair and table legislation.

Iggy recognizes that just as we are all recognizing that the Harper Conservatives are acting and behaving just like the Martin Liberals did in their dying days in office. Desperate lashing out in the hopes that, in the flurry of negative attack ads, no one will realize that they had no clue what they were doing.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who promised Cadman “financial considerations” in exchange for his vote.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who illegally passed money in-and-out of local ridings so the national campaign could surpass the campaign spending limits.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who promised to only have a confidence vote on budgets and fiscal estimates, and then held confidence votes whenever he wanted to score some political points, something Harper used to think was anti-democratic.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who promised to have elections on fixed dates so the PM couldn’t call an election on a whim, something Harper used to think was anti-democratic.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who promised to have a confidence vote on his fiscal update, and then cancelled that.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who promised to give the Liberals an opposition day in November, and then cancelled that, an act Harper accused Martin did of being anti-democratic.

It wasn’t Ignatieff who took the historically unprecedent, anti-democratic, anti-Parliamentary step of cancelling Parliament altogether to save his own job and avoid democracy in the House of Commons.

No sir, the Conservatives are the very last folk who should be giving anyone lessons in democracy or “lusting for power”.

Not only was Calgary founded by the Crown, but Winnipeg and other towns and cities were founded by the Hudson’s Bay Company to fulfill its requirement to establish settlements in order to preserve the west as British, requirements mandated by its fur trade monopoly charter granted by the Crown.

you seem to be confusing lack of reading comprehension, with a lack of blind faith that if Iggy promises the sun won’t rise tomorrow, that it won’t, notwithstanding the obvious pattern to the contrary.

No worries patrick, I sure some time in the near future, Iggy will be explaining to us why an apparant position designed to leverage regional difference, isn’t what it appears to be. It will be our lack of “comprehension”.

No doubt caused by our not residing in academic halls for most of our adult lives, and thus beholden to basic rules of cause and effect, responsibility for words, and actions vs. rhetoric. Rules which never apply in nuanced academia.

But in that case, since what parties have done or said in the past is no longer fair game, I gather we’ll all stop hearing from Liberals about Mulroney now.