Inkless Wells

 Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

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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  • 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.

    • Anon Liberal

      The Security Council is not a token seat genius. It's pretty much the only UN body with real power.

      • Tony

        Oh really? Power maybe being in the 5 veto members, or are you suggesting that Portugal is now a major player in real power?

  • Emily

    Well….it's hard to talk to someone with their fingers in their ears while they are singing 'la-la-la-la, I can't hear you'

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