Beyond The Commons

Beyond The Commons

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

With kind regards

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 8:59am - 0 Comments

Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz and NDP MP Charlie Angus exchange greetings.

So Gary, let’s be frank: we’re just not on the same page here at all. Rural New Democrats have brought forward legitimate concerns of rural residents and are looking to have those issues addressed. The Harper Conservatives, on the other hand, would rather try and just stir up rural Canadians with all manner of wild and crazy conspiracy theories about our local police forces. And just for the sake of a quick fundraising buck and some negative partisan advertising.

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  • danby

    Full marks for civility

    • Stewart_Smith

      and yet full marks for snark as well. gotta love that!

  • ChrisWPG

    Let's hope the rest of the NDP swing vote comes to their senses before the vote.

  • Lord Kitchener's Own

    Awwww.

    I thought they were going to form a coalition.

  • Standing By

    It's hard to imagine any outcome from this other than a few less votes for the NDP in urban ridings and a few more votes for the Liberals.

    If that translates into seats, presumably it would mean maybe a few more Liberals might get elected, though not likely fewer NDP.

    So this is a loser issue for the conservatives.

    Chessmaster Harper seems to be losing his touch.

    • ChrisWPG

      Quite the optimist, I hope your right!

    • Mulletaur

      No, it means that the NDP will be crushed in urban ridings after Jack Layton shows he can't lead his party on a point of principle. NDP = No Damn Principles.

      • Standing By

        Which, given the urban splits, helps the Libs maybe gain a seat, not the Cons, right?

        • Dave

          Not in Saskatchewan, with its abominable riding map.

        • PolJunkie

          Yes sir. That's why I Harper will sorely regret pushing this bill.

    • tedbetts

      A few NDP seats are directly in jeopardy because of this, eg Mulclair. The NDP loses urban and women votes on this.

      Worse, there won't be any upside for their rural MPs either. Conservatives will paint every NDP vote as a vote FOR the gun registry even in ridings of MPs who supported this bill. As we saw with Stoffer, they won't hesitate to lie and say every NDP vote was in favour of keeping the registry.

      The Liberals will lose some rural votes, but it is not clear to me how many. Clearly, for many rural ridings in Ontario and Quebec and the Maritimes this is not a big deal. Where else can the Liberals lose rural votes? These are more than offset by the urban vote gains and the women vote gains.

      The Conservatives win whether the registry is there or not. If it goes, they will claim they're getting things done (putting the big lie to the PMB claim) and then continue to use the registry as a threat – 'vote for us/pay us or else the evil coalition will bring the registry back!! If it stays, they win even bigger because they can whip up emotions on this issue better than the opposition can with the resulting fundraising and volunteers and gun lobby support coming out big for them.

      • Jeff Jedras

        Don't overlook the threat to urban Con MPs. Some won by tight margins, and some won by margins that would have been tight if not for the weak LPC campaign in 08. Con gains in urban centres benefit from a strong NDP pulling down the LPC vote enough to squeak through. If you combine the Con MP offside with his urban constituents on killing registry, along with urban voters upset with the NDP's role in killing it, that equals trouble for a number of urban Con MPs. And the road to Harper's mythical majority (or even keeping his minority) lays in urban gains. There's little ground for him to gain in rural.

      • Mulletaur

        Perhaps this is just a clever way for Jack Layton to get rid of his only leadership challenger, Thomas Mulcair.

      • WDM

        I could be entirely wrong on this, but I have a tough time believing that anyone who's vote could swing on the gun registry is voting Liberal anyhow.

        • tedbetts

          NDP voters will move to the Liberals.

          Lots of voters in the middle who are not card-carrying Conservative. This would be one more issue piled onto many.

          Lots of voters who support the gun registry but were fed up with the Liberals for other reasons held their nose and voted Conservative/NDP or stayed at home the last few elections.

          There are lots of votes in play. More and more I believe that the idea that we're facing a choice of a Harper majority or a reduced minority is completely the wrong frame of reference. The size of the undecideds and the growing negative scores for Harper (whereas Ignatieff is moving in the opposite direction, with room to grow) lead me to believe that anything is possible in the next election and that the actual campaign will matter a great great deal. Especially looking at 1984, 1993 and 2006 and seeing how far behind the incumbent the next PM actually was.

          • WDM

            True enough, suppose I meant the reverse, that aren't many votes the Liberals are going to lose (ie there aren't many people whose top of mind issue is the registry that are voting Liberal anyhow)

    • PolJunkie

      "It's hard to imagine any outcome from this other than a few less votes for the NDP in urban ridings and a few more votes for the Liberals."

      Only if the Libs dont' screw up the comms on this one. I must say that I am quite please that they were so quick to jump on this.

      As for the Chessmaster-in-Chief, you better believe that he didn't bank on this turn of event. It was supposed to be Ignatieff on the hot seat for this one, not Layton. Chessmaster needs a strong and unblemished Layton for his plans.

  • Out There

    Nicely phrased.

    Are Conservative MPs still allowed to send mailouts to other ridings? I wonder whether Mr. Angus will become a target of Conservative attack ads as retribution. Tories tend not to take setbacks lightly.

  • guest

    "When law enforcement managers try to write the laws they enforce, history has taught us we risk becoming a state where police can dictate our personal freedoms."

    hmmm

    "While police can and should be consulted on the efficacy of current policies, police chiefs should not be lobbying to tell the government which laws it should adopt."

    uh…huh

    Doesn't Parliament adopt laws? The government only introduces bills. The elected representatives in the legislature vote on them. Oh, but that is the "tyranny of the majority" and heaven forbid the government be accountable to them (reminder…"them" = the people's representatives)!

    So let's get this straight. If the police don't obey the government's whims (by suppressing reports or not toeing the party line), we risk becoming a police state. AND YET when the government is forced by that darned constitution to go along with the will of the majority of the House (remember, the role of which is to hold that same executive branch of government to account), that is tyranny.

    If it cannot acquire that elusive majority, will the government simply continue to disregard the democratically elected majority of the House (the opposition), mislead the public about our system of government and who is accountable to whom, generate tax-funded propaganda, and increasingly move us toward an authoritarian state?

  • Mulletaur

    Either the NDP is for the long gun registry or it is not. If it is in favour of keeping the long gun registry, Jack Layton has to show leadership and whip the vote. If it is not in favour of keeping the long gun registry, Layton can continue to do what he is doing, which is allow his rural MPs to kill the registry. This is not complicated. The NDP is not going to get itself off the hook by trying to be half-pregnant on this issue.

  • Wascally Wabbit

    Fine snarky indeed.
    Up there in the snarky heights with – amongst others – Pierre Trudeau!
    Nope – I’m not really comparing Charlie with Trudeau – but I just like to see the knee jerk reactions from CONBOTS and from True Blue Liberals!
    Certainly enough of snark – that IF Charlie Angus ever did get defeated over this (and I think that is a slim chance because he has indeed done wonders up there in his riding for his constituents – -especially the First Nations communities) then he has a promising future as a columnist – possibly here with Macleans!

  • PolJunkie

    "The Harper Conservatives, on the other hand, would rather try and just stir up rural Canadians with all manner of wild and crazy conspiracy theories about our local police forces. And just for the sake of a quick fundraising buck and some negative partisan advertising."

    Be that as it may, Charlie, you are still helping the Tory cause with your vote and, ultimately, the Liberals. That's all people will remember.

  • Mark R

    Mutual admiration society here. I think this blog has become a babble or a Torstar hangout. Have fun.
    Cheers

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