Rodney Weston: Thick as a Brick or a Ventriloquist's Dummy?

Last March, the Reformers' partisanship hadn't gotten so out of hand in the House of Commons, that the Speaker of the House, Peter Milliken, was forced to make an announcement, reminding them of the rules.

Althea Raj with Eye on the Hill, explains:

MPs were reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons Peter Milliken for using time dedicated for statements by members - also known as Standing Order 31 (a fifteen minute period before Question Period used mostly by MPs to salute little league teams and constituents who volunteer a lot) - to
slam each other.

"The tone was so consistently negative in Standing Order 31 statements that I felt it was appropriate to change the way it is happening in the House," Milliken said.

He then reminded MPs they are not allowed to use offensive language, attack a Senator, criticize the actions of the Senate, denounce a ruling of a court or attack the character of a judge. "The Speaker has also cautioned Members not to use this period to make defamatory comments about non-Members, nor to use the verbatim remarks of a private citizen as a statement, nor to make statements of a commercial nature," Milliken added, referencing older judgments.

Now I don't know if Rodney Weston was having trouble with the big words, or thought that 'Standing Order' meant to stand and take orders from the Party, but didn't he just go ahead and break the rules:

Mr. Rodney Weston (Saint John, CPC): Mr. Speaker, 34 years after leaving this country, the leader of the Liberal Party has returned with a plan to bring Canada back to the tax and spend ways of the Liberal Party that Canadians know so well. In fact, he even refers to himself as a tax and spend Liberal.

He is also the leader of the party that first pushed for a carbon tax, so he should not be at all surprised that the weekend that he became leader of the Liberal Party was the same weekend that his party reaffirmed its support for the job-killing tax. The Liberal leader said, “We will have to raise taxes”. He made this statement during a global economic crisis when all economists agree that raising taxes is the worst things to do.

The Liberals may want to raise taxes but Canadians know that this Conservative government will not raise taxes.

The only accurate statement in that convoluted nonsense was that the Conservative government would not raise taxes. But his claim that "when all economists agree that raising taxes is the worst things to do.", is dead wrong. All of this country's leading economists condemned the Reformer's cut to the GST, and recently the Council of Executives, made up of 150 of the country's CEOs.

As Murray Dobbin reminds us:

Ed Clark, the CEO of TD Bank ... told a business meeting in Florida that Stephen Harper was not listening to those on Bay Street who were telling him the best way to get rid of a large deficit is through tax increases — on people just like him. And it wasn’t just Clark. He was reporting on the judgement of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), the voice of the 150 largest corporations in Canada.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA? IS RODNEY WESTON REALLY THE BEST CHOICE FOR ST. JOHN?