Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Lawrence Cannon: consistent

by Paul Wells on Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:38pm - 0 Comments

“Several ambassadors who emerged from the vote made no mention of Ignatieff’s remarks; one had never even heard of him.

“Instead, African ambassadors, in particular, pointed to a series of Canadian stances on issues ranging from African debt relief to the Conservative government cutting funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and accusing it of having terrorist links.

“‘In my discussions with African ambassadors … that issue has not been brought to my attention, nor have the other issues been brought to my attention,’ Cannon said when asked about those concerns.”

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Tags: lawrence cannon, when he's gone nobody will remember he was ever there

More by Paul Wells

Anon 001

Be fair to Cannon. Harper runs foreign policy.

And Finance. And Immigration. And …..
WDM

I'm trying to think of anyone who would actually be any better in that caucus.

John D

Harper has some cats… (not Cats, mind you)
danby

~~Helena Geurgis?~~
Anon 001

Strahl.

Prentice.

Nicholson.

Heck, I will even throw in Day.

But you're right — not that many.
BCer in Mtl

Michael Chong
Peterborough Dave

The 2 billion dollar (sorry- it's too easy) fake lake was deeper than the caucus talent pool.

Holly Stick

Remember when CIDA cut Kairos, which included a program to help women in the Congo. And this article says other CIDA money was wasted on junk there.:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/anti-ra…
Stewart_Smith

I wrote this for you
to complicate so Haiku
so rhyme it does not

Ignatieff did crime.
Ambassadors did not say
right is Stockwell Day

Holly Stick

Yoda, you is that?

Holly Stick

Well, too late for that, but mitigation is better than doing nothing.
cbombast

African UN votes are for sale — no matter what you plan to do with the power. It's laughable.

Emily

Funny, we've never had a problem before.

Step5555

Not to mention that you'd think that if that was the case we'd be able to out-do Portugal on such matters. We can't out-spend one of the PIIGS?

brooster

"People outside of Canada were saying, 'Well, Germany and Portugal have a united front, their opposition and their governments seem to be fully, 100 per cent behind this bid,'" Soudas said.

"We had an opposition leader that opposed Canada and clearly was not in it for Canada on this one."

There you go again, Dimitri, with the big lie. Do you really think anyone takes you seriously? My kids, when they were teenagers, used to shift the responsibility onto others. Unlike you, they eventually grew out of it.

Holly Stick

Don't Germany and Portugal have calition governemnts? Aren't coalition governments beter than minority governments with delusions of grandeur?
BCer in Mtl

The George Costanza of Canadian politics

BGLong

And Postmedia is doing an "it appears" story ….

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Canada+loses+…
Richard_S_Argent

Is it just me or have the Conservatives' punches been missing the mark an awful lot of late? It seems like since summer every time Harper and The Gang pull out an old chestnut – the evil coalition will ruin Canada, Liberals hate your freedom gunowners, Liberals hate our pilots, Liberal policy will bankrupt us, Ignatieff wants Canada to fail – it is met with yawns from the opinion makers in the media?

These attacks used to be heralded as proof of his strategic genius, now they're almost universally laughed off.

Amazing what a bus trip'll do for ya eh? ;)

Silly_Walks

I don't think it was a bus trip, so much as any act getting tired after repeated exposure.

Richard_S_Argent

Man, it seemed like I had to wait forever for people to finally get tired of that schtick!

Better late than never I guess :)

Stewart_Smith

I believe you can look to when Dimitri got his promotion for the Conservatives losing their message mojo (April, I think). Without having a clue as to the internal workings of Mordor, it certainly seems Dimitri was an asset as the front-line spokesman but something of a flop as the boss. ( i.e. communications director, not the real Boss)

brooster

IMO, Guy Giorno's fingerprints have also been all over the Cons' fiascos in the last year.

gottabesaid

Ignatieff didn't scuttle the bid… but he did give the Tories an excuse, and they're sticking to it. The 'what if' I'm thinking about is, what if Ignatieff hadn't said what he did? What would the Conservatives be saying today? How would this be spun?

Emily

They'd say the same thing.

It's the same excuse they've used for 5 years straight….why change now?
craigola

That it's all Linda Duncan's fault.

Reverend_Blair

Oh, it won't be.
chet

Shorter Paul Wells:

LEAVE IGGY ALONE

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com/ Scott_Tribe

Shorter chet: The ambassadors are lying. They're all Iggy-lovers.

NoNameCS

Even shorter chet: They're all out to get us.

Anon Liberal

Shortest chet yet: Me not so smart.

YYZ

Tiny Chet: Adscam! ADSCAM!

Dave

All foreign diplomats are Liberals, don't you know?

kcm

I think you may be right…Ignatieff has gotten off pretty lightly…of course it really really helps to have boobs like Dimitri and the loose Cannon opening their mouths and merely confirming how cluelesss they are. As PW says, Cannon is consistent…consistently incompetent.
I still believe Ignatieff's judgement was questionable in speaking before the vote – although: to be fair his response after the vote has been good. But he's got to learn to stop handing the cons ammunition…although: the way the've been shooting themselves in the arse lately, maybe he's not got much to worry about.
danby

More Cannon fodder for the herd
NiceGuy

Lord knows that all the hippy pinkos will have their panties in a knot over this….as with all the other 'disasters' over the summer, nobody cares. The UN has become just another corrupt instrument of the third world anti-semitic rabble. We should pull all our funds and troops out of this ridiculous organisation.

Mulletaur

Wow, a PMO staffer who thinks he's the reincarnation of Richard Nixon. How curious.

NiceGuy

Wrong…I am FAR more conservative than that wuss Richard Nixon….alas, I am not a PMO staffer either. Maybe one day though….

madeyoulook

I am more than prepared to accept that the Leader of our Allegedly Loyal Opposition had no-to-minimal impact on the outcome of this vote.

But it was still politically brain-dead to have said what he said in advance of the vote. If only because it exposed himself to this sort of attack now. What was he thinking? Was he thinking?
John W.

It's shameful how so many media pundits Evan Solomon on CBC being the prime example, totally distorted yesterday's events. absurd, ridiculous PMO spin was allowed to completely overshadow the main issue of the day. Old fashioned me, but I think journalists have some responsibility to provide balance, so that an idea that is 99 % garbage doesn't get equal billing with the accumulation of facts which are 99 % correct.
The look of disgust on Bob Rae's face on CBC yesterday as Evan Solomon conducted another slanted interview and played the Ignatieff is to blame charge over again, when it was clearly irrelevant to the actual news of the day, was a story in itself. Just shameful pandering to the PMO by so many news organizations and individuals.
Brammer

"FTW" says Harper, using the pre-internet meaning of the acronym.
Holly Stick

People who think women and men are equal do not espouse your swinging dick theory of politics.

Churchill, who was by no means "soft" said it's better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.

hosertohoosier

1. He said SOMETIMES its better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. And I agree. But it is a lot easier to negotiate with others from a position of strength, than to draw upon some imaginary reservoir of goodwill.
2. I will have to inform the many scholars of perhaps the leading approach to understanding security issues in international relations that they are misogynists.

Holly Stick

Anyopne who wanks on and on about "soft" power and "hard" power is probably insecure about his own potency and incompetent at interacting socially.

Holly Stick

"…To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war…" http://www.bartleby.com/73/1914.html

Funny, the quotations often use "always" or else just leave "always" out; nowhere did I see "sometimes" as part of the quotation. Fail.

Tony

With all due respect, Mr. Wells, who cares? I would rather read about QE2 and the potential currency war, and what it means to Canada, than a token seat at the big UN table and all chatter around this meaningless position – and I know that isn't necessarily your thing, but Canadian's seem tied up in meaningless debates/controversies.