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

Beer patriotism

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 1:10pm - 101 Comments

On the occasion of National Flag Day last week, Conservative backbencher Jeff Watson celebrated everything that Canada has to be proud of from the last fifty years—managing in the process, either with or without irony, to both damn and confirm Mr. Ignatieff’s observation of some years ago.

Mr. Speaker, it was not the flag in days of yore; not Wolfe’s flag, nor Sir John A.’s. It was not the flag of Vimy or Passchendaele. It was not even the flag of Mr. Diefenbaker. Yet it is “our emblem dear.” When we welcomed the world at Expo in 1967, when we won the 1972 series against the Soviet Union, when we set a Winter Olympic record for gold medals last year in Vancouver, it was our flag.

We are proud to be here representing Canadians under our single red maple leaf raised 46 years ago. Well, most of us are proud. One MP, however, has said, and I quote: In the case of the Canadian flag, I cannot entirely forget that it is both my flag and a passing imitation of a beer label.

The Liberal leader should be ashamed of himself. We should all be proud to celebrate Flag Day. As one company said, “I am Canadian.”

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  • WDM

    Quote of the century,

    • danby

      Last century

  • MostlyCivil

    "As one company said, “I am Canadian.”"

    Was that the Belgian beer company, or was it the half-American one?

    Molson: Just Visiting

    or

    Labatts: Not a leder(hosen)

    • SanDiegoDave

      Bless you for pointing out the bleeding obvious.

      I personally can't tell if this is a face palm moment with one hand or two. Anyone?

  • Cats

    Ignatieff did say some pretty horrible things about Canada to American and British audiences.

    Disgusted with him Cats.

    • W.B.

      Who would win or lose a contest between Harper and Ignatieff over who has said the most horrible things about Canada?
      Sadly the Libs have not yet started running hate inspired attack ads. I wish they would. There's no shortage of topics.

      • Cats

        You mean Harper's constructive criticism about the country he loves ?

        He's put all those things into action since coming to power and his popularity has only increased.

        Guess they couldn't have been so horrible after all, at least not according to actual Canadians.

        Victory Cats.

        • Mike T.

          Pathetic.

          • Cats

            46% of people approve of Harper.

            What's Iggy, in single digits ? And today he says that "polls don't matter".

            I guess being hated by Canadians of all stripes, including his own party, for saying such unpatriotic dribble would make anyone want to change the song, eh ?

            Popular Cats.

        • MostlyCivil

          "not according to actual Canadians"

          Actual Canadians? You realize, of course, that by using that term, you now have to define it.

          May I suggest to all we ask Cats "What's an Actual Canadian, Cats?' at every opportunity until he answers? Might be a splendid way to change the feline channel.

          • TimesArrow

            Cats don't do existentialism.

            Cats only make pointless assertions and partisan generalizations.

            Cats not too smart.

            Dogs way smarter.

            Cats eaten my verbs.

        • brooster2

          OK, I'm in…so, what's an "actual Canadian", Cats? One that spits up hair balls?

    • former_ADB

      Like what exactly Cats?
      (Having read the 'beer label' quote in context, I wouldn't say that that quote was horrible.)

      • Cats

        The our peace keeping tradition, central to Canadian identity since Suez was "bogus" and that he wished his country was "better".

        It was said in the most condescending tone that dripped with arrogance.

        Disgusted with Ignatieff and his lack of patriotism Cats.

        • Andrew (not PorC)

          How about describing Canada as a second-rate socialistic country? You really can't call one without the other. I mean, saying that Canada should be better is unpatriotic. Saying Canada is second rate is patriotic. Cognitive dissonance overload.

          • Pat

            Cognitive dissonance cats?

        • ADB

          Perhaps these 'quotes' might fall under the label of "constructive criticism" too.
          Hard to judge without seeing the original context. Impossible to judge the tone.

          Shouldn't will all hope that our country could be better than it is?

          • former_ADB

            Drat. I forgot to login for my last comment. Anyway I meant to ask shouldn't we all hope that our country might be better than it is?

        • Jenn_

          So Cats, you want a candidate for Prime Minister who DOESN'T think his country could be better? What on earth would he be running to do? Is that what Harper said? "I'll become Prime Minister and not do anything since the country is absolutely perfect just the way the other guys left it."

          • Cats

            I want someone who thinks we are the best and will protect that greatness.

            Yup Cats

          • Jenn_

            Well then why didn't you vote for Martin? He was the sitting Prime Minister while we were "the best." it seems very, very strange of you to change him out for some untried guy.

            Logically, the only reason you'd do that is because you hoped for something better. But logic isn't really your thing, is it?

          • tedbetts

            And yet you vote for and drink kool-aid for someone who thinks we are a second tier country with a defeatist attitude and would be indifferent to splitting the country up into 10 different separate countries.

            What a frickin dumbass you really and fundamentally are.

    • bennji1977

      I hear you, I can't for the life of me understand how Iggy got off on saying something like this

      "Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status. "

      SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      • former_ADB

        No Bennji, I think you're mistaken, it was Stephen Harper who wrote that.

        Oh, I see what you mean…

        • bennji1977

          No, I am pretty sure that it was Iggy – you must be confusing is with an old Harper quote……the new one from PMO now reads

          "Canada appears NOT content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its NOT second-rate status. "

          • Mike T.

            oooooh, the rope-in, the feint, the suckerpunch!

          • Cats

            Haha you do know that there was a minister of state for finance who's job it was to run around to banks and ratings agencies and tell them not to downgrade Canadian debt or call in loans back then right ??

            You do know we were called an honourary third world country back then, that our currency was a peso ?

            The Liberals swept to power in 1993 with big spending promises. Their first budget was a flop that only made the debt WORSE.

            Harper and reform forced them kicking and screaming into making cuts with the budget after that.

            Proud of his actions Cats, proud of Harper for saving the country in the 90's.

          • Mike T.

            There's only one question anyone wants answered from you CATS: Why does Harper hate Canada so much?

          • gottabesaid

            Harper saved the country from the Liberals in the 1990s, eh?

            Am I the only one who finds this statement hilarious?

            The Liberals brought the deficit to heel largely by cutting transfer payments. You can't listen to QP for five minutes without Conservatives chastising the old Chretien government for cutting transfers. So… Harper should take credit for doing something he demonizes on a daily basis?

          • MostlyCivil

            We've always been at war with Eurasia. Remember?

          • bennji1977

            According to Cats reasoning, the Harper and the Reform gang are also single-handedly responsible for bringing about the "decade of darkness" for our brave men and women in uniform.

            All joking aside; however, I do wish that we had at least ONE party of the hill focused on cutting the astronomical growth in government spending.

          • tedbetts

            (Actually, technical point here, about 20% of the deficit was eliminated by transfer cuts. Chretien/Martin eliminated the Conservative deficit by cutting transfers, cutting program spending by about 7%, consolidating and reviewing all programs, keeping new spending in check, reeping the revenue windfall of Mulroney's GST and a recovering economy.

            The salient point [Note to Cats: that means "important"] is that it takes a full-on attack and a lot of sacrifice to eliminate a big Harper or Mulroney size deficit. There is no single magic bullet and the economy cannot do it on its own. Which is why every economist and the Harper appointed Budget Chief and the IMF (and probably Harper and Flaherty too) all think that Harper and Flaherty are completely out to lunch with their deficit reduction plans. Deficits don't disappear by magic, Mr. Harper.)

          • tedbetts

            Oh, and by the way, Chretien eliminated the deficit 3 years early than Harper/Manning were calling for.

          • gottabesaid

            Oversimplification on my part… although my 'salient' point is that Harper, today, downplays the Liberals' deficit-cutting by chastising them for cutting transfers, "which is something we will never do, Mr. Speaker" I've heard Harper say a few times in QP.

            Now, I've heard the Conservatives downplay the Liberals' cutting the deficit, and I've heard the Conservatives blast them for how they did it… but I don't think I've heard a Conservative actually say "If it wasn't for us, the deficit wouldn't have been tackled." That's a new one.

          • gottabesaid

            By the way… are the Conservatives going to be swept into a majority government by promising to dismantle the federal government?

            Oh yeah… couldn't do that. Never get elected on a platform like that.

            You probably shouldn't criticize the Liberals for their election promises, given that the Conservatives will be running (as you have readily admitted) a disingenuous campaign.

          • Pat

            Interesting. I was not aware that the Reform Party (led by Preston manning, NOT Stephen Harper) came up with the idea that increasing your income and reducing your expenses was a good way to reduce your debt.

            It is a wonder that any country ever survived without the Reform Party to teach the world this concept.

          • madeyoulook

            Canada needed the Reform Party to teach the federal NDP that concept. The teacher tried, the student still failed.

            And there was a report aways back (in the National Post, I think, so all the right people will howl at it), that quoted a Reform MP of the day saying then Finance Minister Paul Martin encouraged his Reform adversaries to keep up the deficit-debt rhetoric, since that helped buoy his own fiscal sanity fight within the Liberal cabinet & caucus.

            So, yeah, "that concept" obviously needed (and needs!) champions. Good on Manning and others (even a former version of Harper) for being those champions.

          • tedbetts

            And they were just so very AWESOME that they managed to convince Clinton in the US and Germany and the UK and France and so many other countries to do the same.

            They were one voice in a cacaphony of cries to reduce the deficit. Mulroney had more influence than Manning in that regard and certainly more than Harper.

            Indeed, Martin eliminated the deficit about 3 years sooner than Manning/Harper had called for.

          • Gayle

            Of course, because we all know how influential the minority Reform Party was on government policy.

            Face it, Paul Martin was a successful Finance Minister, just as he was a businessman, without any help from Preston Manning. I think he was pretty well aware of what he had to do to reduce the deficit all by his little old self.

          • former_ADB

            I've no idea what you are talking about.
            Mr. Harper decribed Canada as a second-rate socialistic country in an article (some might consider treasonous) published in the National Post, in December 2000, several years after he saved the country (according to you).
            Of course, he was writing for Canadians rather than Americans or Brits, but I don't think that makes it any better, Or does it Cats?

          • TimesArrow

            "The Liberals swept to power in 1993 with big spending promises. Their first budget was a flop that only made the debt WORSE.

            Harper and reform forced them kicking and screaming into making cuts with the budget after that"

            No, the threat of losing our borrowing rating forced them.

            Odd how Harper supported the cuts at the time [ probably thought they didn't go far enough] and now he chastises the libs who had a very different debt scenario than today – admittedly kicked off by their party. How would Harper have done it any differently? Or is that an out of context question?

          • Dan

            Out of curiosity, is the giant stimulus fund and the roughly $200B of new federal debt that we're in the process of creating the fault of Stephen Harper or the Liberals?

          • TimesArrow

            Oh very definitely the libs/coalitions.

            SH is still the same guy he always was back in the 90s. He's never had a real choice, the libs have forced his hand at everyturn…why they even forced him to adopt the worst traits of Chretien…that poor boys just never got an even break in his life.

          • Richard_S_Argent

            Post of the Day!

            :D

          • EeeOar

            bennji shoots……he SCORES!!!!!

    • gottabesaid

      I'd be curious as a cat to know if there has ever been a Liberal, living or dead, that you're not disgusted with. Just to find out if Iggy is in a rare category, or just another subject of run-of-the-mill partisan disdain.

      • Mike T.

        If pressed, I have no doubt he'd find some long dead Liberal to wax eloquent over in order to derisively compare him to any current liberal office-holder. MacKenzie, maybe?

    • tedbetts

      Is that as bad as calling your own country "a second tier country and proud of it" or a "northern European welfare state of the worst kind"? Or to say a region is lazy and suffers from a "culture of defeat"? Or to say he doesn't care if Canada remains as one country or two countries or ten countries? Or that Alberta should build firewalls against the rest of Canada?

      The problem for Conservatives is that when you read Iggy's comments in context, they don't look bad at all, but when you look at Harper's comments in context, they look even worse.

      The problem for Liberals is that the Conservatives have long since given up on caring about any substance in politics, and now it is all spin all the time, and they have the most money to do it and the media lap it up without independent checking for truth or context.

      • Cats

        Public policy criticisms made by a Canadian for the benefit of Canadians ?

        Sorry ted betts but that isn't the same as globe trotting to other countries and trashing Canada in front of them.

        Right wing Cats, annoyed with far lefty commentator Ted Betts.

        • Pat

          Yes it is.

          Cognitive Dissonance cats!

        • tedbetts

          I've never heard Iggy trash Canada. Not once.

          Harper on the other hand made a career out of attacking and belittling Canada.

          He doesn't even care if we break up into 10 different countries! How patriotic!!

          • Cats

            "I'm a tax and spend Liberal" – Michael Ignatieff

            Ted Betts you concern troll Tory blogs a lot eh ? And Macleans ?

            Pretend to be a centre right type of guy.

            I think the fact that you're supporting an ardent lefty like Ignatieff puts to rest any notion that you're not also a tax and spend, big government type of guy.

            Actual small government Cats

          • tedbetts

            Everyone is a tax and spender when in government, by definition, Harper moresoe than most. Better a tax and spend Liberal with a sense of fiscal prudence than a tax and borrow and spend spend spend conservative like Harper without a fiscally prudent bone in his body.

            I do consider myself on the fiscally conservative side, at the very least the fiscally prudent side. It's why I voted for and campaigned for Mike Harris in the 1990s. It's why I turned to Martin and Chretien durin gthe 90s. It's why I could never ever vote for Harper, under whom the government payroll has never been bigger, the spending never greater, the deficits never bigger.

          • tedbetts

            And if it wasn't already settled science that Harper spends like a drunken sailor and does dishonour to the words fiscal and conservative, there's his most recent bout of attempting to buy us off with our own money rampant spending of hundreds of millions of OUR dollars!!

            We can't get rid of this guy fast enough. Prentice, Lord, Campbell, heck, I'd take Manning or even Clement. But get rid of Sir Spend-a-Lot and his sidekick Deficit Jim (doing to Canada what he did to Ontario!).

          • Cats

            And it logically follows that we should support the Liberals HOW ?

            Canada's spending trajectory started on an upward trend in the last few years of Martin's tenure.

            So you're a 90's Liberal and everything after the 2000 election just didn't happen, eh ??

            Concern Troll Alert Cats!

          • MostlyCivil

            What's an "Actual Canadian", Cats?

      • Cats

        This same comment has appeared 3 times ?

        Working over time to elect far left tax and spend Liberals ?

        I'm sticking with the only fiscally Conservative game in town, the CPC thank you very much.

        NOT a lefty Cats.

        • tedbetts

          ROTFLMAO!!!

          "Fiscally Conservative"?????????? Harper's government??????

          Biggest spending government in our history.
          Record breaking spending increases above inflation every single year of his government.
          Increased the number of public service employees every single year of his government.
          Biggest tax increases since Mulroney.
          Biggest deficit since Mulroney.
          First federal government to increase income taxes since Mulroney.
          Record breaking spending on polling.

          Didn't think cats liked pork so much, but I guesss they do. Tax and borrow and spend spend spend Conservatives!

          "Conservatives" or "Harper" and "Fiscal prudence" should only be in the same sentence if there is a big "NOT" inserted between them.

          • Cats

            Each one of those talking points is either incorrect or lacks context.

            Pathetic Cats.

          • TJCook

            Prove it.

          • Cats

            "Biggest tax increases since Mulroney"

            He's talking about a .5% cut in the bottom income bracket that was defered by a single year in which a 1% cut in the GST took place.

            Pretty pathetic talking points.

            Disgusted Cats.

          • tedbetts

            Oh, I forgot about that one. Stole my money so he could win an election and keep one single promise by increasing my taxes for a dumb GST cut that even Flaherty thought was dumb.

            But: investment killing income trust tax, job-killing payroll tax increase in a recession, air tax, etc. Plus the income tax increase you mentioned.

            Liberals cut taxes. Harper cut taxes and increased taxes. He's a tax and borrow and spend spend spend conservative.

          • Cats

            The average Canadian is $3000 dollars richer per year under Harper.

            The same was NOT true under the previous Liberal government.

            Fiscal conservatives worry about the net tax burden on families, not the composition of individual measures.

            Pathetic concern trolling.

            Try again.

            Dissapointed Cats.

          • Gayle

            Prove it.

            And I don't mean simply providing a link to where the government claims. Prove the average Canadian is saving $3000.00 year in taxes.

            While you are at it, define what they mean by "average Canadian". Are they saying that people who represent some sort of "average" Canadian are paying less taxes, or are they saying that on average, taxes are down $3000/person. This is important because if it is the latter, then it is safe to say the rich are actually paying way less taxes (because of the GST as the rich are more likely to spend on big ticket items), but the middle income earners are paying more (because of that lovely new payroll tax).

            I know this is hard for you cats, but do try to say something substantive on this issue.

            Thanks

          • Cats

            "Prove it."

            Its reality. If you want to put on a tin foil hat and claim the government economists are lying go right ahead.

            Ridiculous Cats.

          • Loraine Lamontagne

            Just checked my T4s for the past five years. Not reality for me.

          • Gayle

            Shorter cats

            I cannot prove it because I really do not know what they are talking about. Are they referring to how the GST cut averages out over the entire Canadian population? Or are they actually saying the average person actually pays 3000 dollars less a year.

            Mindlessly parroting CPC talking points without question cats!

          • Cats

            "Biggest spending government in our history."

            In absolute dollars but not as a % of GDP which is the measure that economists actually use.

            Pretty pathetic takling points.

            Economics Cats.

          • tedbetts

            It's a 100% factual statement, Cats. No PM has spent nearly this much money as Harper.

            No PM has increased spending over his tenure as much as Harper.

            He started with a SURPLUS plus a "rainy day fund" which were gone before the recession even hit.

            Harper's a tax and borrow and spend spend spend conservative.

          • Cats

            Debt to GDP is 3%, which is small than many years in the 80's and 90's.

            Its a 100% untrue statement to claim that spending is the highest under the CPC.

            Oh btw who called for the stimulus in the first place ? Oh btw who complained that it wasn't big enough this whole time ?

            It would be one thing if you were supporting a party to the right of the CPC.

            But you're a Liberal, who's fiscal record has been ridiculously bad if you look at their spending proposals since 2004.

            Finding concern trolls and putting them to shame Cats !

          • Burn

            Hahah, Burn!!.
            Ahhh poor, poor cats
            Must hurt, doesn't it? Abandoned cats

          • tedbetts

            Each one of those facts are 100% true. And you know it.

            Harper is a tax and borrow and spend spend spend conservative.

          • Cats

            I've debunked all of them.

            The record of the Liberals since 2004 is far, far worse.

            If we followed any of their proposals we'd be broken.

            Martin, Dion, Iggy puts Harper to shame when it comes to spending.

            Small c Economic Conservative CATS!

          • Gayle

            Yeah. And if you claim you are superman I guess that will magically make it true too?

            Delusional cats.

        • Jenn_

          42 million dollar temporary building fiscal conservatives? It did say "government" not "parliament".

          • Cats

            The government doesn't pass spending bills ….

            Duh Cats.

    • Richard_S_Argent

      Didn't bother reading the article I see.

  • OriginalEmily1

    Eugene Forsey, our late great constitutional expert dismissed the flag as 'a dish towel from Woolworth's'.

    • Jenn_

      I was very, very young, but I still remember the fury my parents had when the flag came in. Yelling and screaming at each other–and they were on the same side!

      • OriginalEmily1

        Oh yeah…huge uproar over it. Tons of people still refuse to accept it.

        Except it's just a flag….none of them look fantastic….and you can't get everybody to agree on one anyway no matter what it looks like. LOL

        • Jenn_

          I completely and utterly adore our flag. I also love Nunavut's flag, and many of our provinces (not mine own). The ones that tell a tale with a picture. I decorated my room in Canadian Flag when I was thirteen. Actually, now that I think about it, it was less "I" decorated it, and more "my parents" decorated it, since they ordered and paid for everything. I guess it grew on them, LOL.

          • OriginalEmily1

            Mmmmkay….to each his/her own I guess…..LOL

          • Richard_S_Argent

            Absolutely love the Alberta flag. And all the territories. And Quebec.

            (man, we're nerds :)

  • danby

    A quote from 1990.

    Anyone have any interesting quotes from Stephen Harper going back 21 years or so?

    • bennji1977

      Not sure if they would have bothered to keep records of the daily musings of mail-clerks.

      • Jan

        'This stamp looks like a beer label'
        S. Harper

    • tedbetts

      How about calling your own country "a second tier country and proud of it" or a "northern European welfare state of the worst kind"? Or to say a region is lazy and suffers from a "culture of defeat"? Or to say he doesn't care if Canada remains as one country or two countries or ten countries? Or that Alberta should build firewalls against the rest of Canada?

      The problem for Conservatives is that when you read Iggy's comments in context, they don't look bad at all, but when you look at Harper's comments in context, they look even worse.

  • gottabesaid

    I appreciate an ambitious and witty Conservative using an old quote to embarrass/shame/heap scorn upon Ignatieff — that's what old quotes are for. But, using the catchphrase of a major beer label in said effort to embarrass/shame/heap scorn kinda reduces the effectiveness.

    Plus, by invoking the 'I am Canadian!' catchphrase, he's quoting a man (Jeff Douglas) who has now gone on to work for…are you ready for it?… THE LEFTIST CBC! HORRORS!

    • MostlyCivil

      As it happens, I know the man of which you speak.

      • gottabesaid

        Yup. Radio that, when it comes to patriotic suds, their enthusiasm is never flagging.

        • MostlyCivil

          Well said, sir. Hats off.

  • Trass

    Bad: Comparing flag to beer label. Good: Comparing one's patriotism to a commercial for said beer. The mind boggles.

    • TimesArrow

      Good observation. I can't quite make up my mind whether the irony is just funny or just very sad. Either way consider my mind boggled.
      Perhaps on balance funny since the irony is likely completely unconscious.
      Although…once i finish laughing i think i'll go bang my head against the wall.

  • TimesArrow

    I think most of us can now agree these consevatives don't do context ; unless it applies to themselves.

  • Mike T.

    Now if only dumb commentary was the worst thing about the CPC….

  • Not Stephen Colbert

    Aw man, I missed National Flag Day? FLICK!

  • frobisher

    And the actor who shouted "I am Canadian" for the American-dominated Beer Co. is now the co-host of 'As It Happens' on the….CBC!

    Patriotizm iz confoozing!

    • frobisher

      Whoops. Beat by the very much on-top-of-it gottabesaid.

    • TimesArrow

      None of that info was likely in Watson's TPs and we know how freelancing, even if it's only to make sure you aren't making an ass out of yourself, is frowned upon in Ottawa these days.

    • TJCook

      "Patriotizm iz confoozing!"

      Yup. It's just so hard to keep track of who the Conservatives want us to hate!

  • Richard_S_Argent

    First off, that comment by Jeff Watson might be the funniest thing I've read in months. Seriously, that's some Grade A Absurdity.

    Secondly, whenever the Conservatives make some obviously ridiculous and out of context attack on Ignatieff's words, they make me seek out the original document…and invariably I'm impressed with his writing. They've succeeded in making me feel less reticent about voting Liberal in the next election.

    Heckuva Job Harpie!

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