Someone Else Gives Dean Del Mastro the Smackdown

There was a great column in the Globe about Dean Del Mastro, by Douglas Bell, who aptly refers to him as the Canadian Idiot.

Yesterday’s Globe featured a piece by Steven Chase describing Tory efforts to filibuster
an attempt to convene hearings to review policing at the G20 summit. Among those
MPs quoted was Peterborough Tory Dean del Mastro. Now you might expect that being a pro-life, anti-gay-marriage backbencher who sits on a lot of committees, Del Mastro would – how to put it – tack down wind on this one. Fair enough. Nobody gets ahead in a Harper caucus going even ever so slightly off message. Del Mastro, though, went above and beyond to the point where I’m thinking a
rabies test might not be inappropriate.

Maybe it's not fair to single him out, but his actions regarding the violence at the G-20, epitomizes the way this government handles every awkward situation.

Instead of addressing issues they spew out talking points and hide behind Canadian institutions.

Our men and women in uniform ...

Our brave police officers ...

Our flag ...

The problem of course is that those things are ours, not theirs, and when they are being disgraced, we need to make it right by restoring their honour, and you don't do that by turning yourselves into cartoon characters.

You do it by allowing inquiries to get at the truth. Weed out the "bad guys" if you find any and restore our faith in them.

Another example of the problem with always having to stick to a script, and never being allowed to think for yourself is this guy:




Adam Radwanski also follows up with his "Thugs and Hooligans" theme.

Kady O'Malley noted in a committee live-blog that really is a must-read - that is, unless you want to avoid getting thoroughly depressed about the state of our democracy - Stephen Harper's MPs seemed to be reading from the same talking points as Hudak. To review, Hudak is a provincial opposition leader, and even many supporters of his party will acknowledge that his Toronto Sun op-ed was beneath him. These are the people running the country. And they seem not the slightest bit more interested in taking seriously the fundamental questions that have been raised about the balance between liberties and security. It would be nice to think that, once the theatre is over, some of these people are at least a little bit troubled by what their jobs involve.

The group demanding a full public inquiry now has over 54,000 members.

This young lad has a great blog and has also been following the story. I love his profile: "I am a geek, world history buff, my interests and hobbies are too numerous to mention. I'm a political junkie with a cynical view. I also love law & aviation! I always promote young people who become engaged in politics, cynical or otherwise. Good job ... hmmmm Geek?

We need to stay on top of this.

Update:

Del Mastro speaks, ignoring the fact that his government gave the 1.3 billion dollar contract to secure Toronto, while the money went to everything but securing the city. Instead it was used to attack anyone who doesn't support their Draconian government. Nice try Dino.