The Politics of Ballyhoo: David Emerson and the Soft on Sovereignty Trade Deal

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

When the RCMP boss Giuliano Zaccardelli, interfered in the 2006 election campaign, there was an immediate drop in Liberal support. They had been clearly headed toward victory, but plummeted as a result of his questionable actions.

Recognizing that they were in trouble, Paul Martin fought hard to keep some of his strongest MPs from going down in defeat. And one he threw himself and his party behind, was David Emerson, whose narrow victory in 2004, suggested he could be in trouble.

Liberal campaign workers .. were being pulled out of races across the Lower Mainland - from ridings in Vancouver, the North Shore, the Tri-Cities and elsewhere - and ordered to Vancouver-Kingsway, where cabinet minister David Emerson was desperately fighting to hold his seat. Whatever the fate of the Martin government, whatever the outcome of nearly a dozen close races in B.C., the Liberals were anxious to save Emerson, their west coast star. The efforts of those many Liberal volunteers were rewarded on January 23 as Emerson won re-election. (1)

Which made his defection (2) all the more troubling. All of those volunteers who worked so hard on his behalf must have been devastated.

Just as all of those party workers and volunteers had trekked across the Lower Mainland to Vancouver-Kingsway in January - to work the phones, to knock on doors, to pound signs into the ground, to scrutineer on election day, to drive voters to the polls - surely Emerson would now be happy to return the favour, to toil on their behalf, to make a personal sacrifice for a year or two ... (1)

It was suggested that he broke ranks because he was lured by the perks of a cabinet post, but I don't think so. Emerson had been an executive at the lumber giant Cancor. He could afford the good life, and the extra $ 70,000 in salary would have been a drop in the bucket.

I think there was something else that lured this robber baron. Stephen Harper's views on trade that heavily favoured the corporate sector.

As successive Liberal and Conservative governments have opened the doors too wide, allowing the takeover of our country's resources, there was always at least a pretence of protecting Canadian sovereignty. Maude Barlow in her book Too Close for Comfort, speaks of the 2004 rivalry for the Tar Sands between China and the U.S.

Paul Martin cautioned that the federal government may have to step in, since this could be deemed a threat to national security. And David Emerson agreed. "The government thinks it should be concerned about the overall position of our natural resources and the degree to which we want to lose control of our natural resource base." (3) (Of course Alberta's premier Ralph Klein blew a gasket, seeing it as more interference from Ottawa.)

And yet after betraying those who voted for him, and those who had worked so hard to get him elected, Emerson would do another 180. When he was hammering out the Softwood Lumber Deal, he lashed out at those who criticized it, as being "anti-American".

Softwood Lumber and Conservative Ballyhoo

I was a bit disappointed in Lawrence Martin's view of the Emerson defection and the Softwood lumber issue, in his new book Harperland. I like the book and found that he did a pretty good job of keeping balance. And yet he used Conservative talking points on this issue. Very odd.

With their defeat, the Liberals also left behind the long-running softwood lumber dispute with the United States. Harper assigned the trade portfolio to his newest Tory, David Emerson, who had worked on the file as a Grit, to prove that the Conservatives could get an agreement their opponents could not. The dispute had intensified in 2002, when the U.S., alleging that Canada unfairly subsidized producers, imposed 27 percent duties on the lumber.

Under the terms of the Free Trade Agreement, a joint trade panel was to settle the problem. All the rulings went Canada's way, but Washington, to the consternation of Canadian negotiators, was not prepared to let those verdicts stand and insisted instead on a negotiated settlement. Having run the Canfor Corporation, B.C.'s giant forestry company, Emerson knew the file well. He had come very close to getting a settlement for the Liberals, which may well have helped them do better in B.C. in the 2006 election*. "But the problem," recalled Emerson, "was that there was an element in the agreement that would have required higher tariffs on western B.C. producers than on eastern producers." That, he said, would have caused too much discord. Under the Tories, however, he engineered his way around that obstacle and secured the deal. The new bilateral accord required the U.S. to pay back about $4 billion of the more than $5 billion it had collected on lumber imports. The missing billion prompted some complaints, but the consensus was that a flawed deal was better than none at all. Harper was pleased. His much-derided floor-crosser got the job done. (4)

Unfortunately "his much derided floor-crosser" only got the job done in favour of the U.S., but the deal was devastating for Canadians, because it once again tied our hands in terms of what we can and cannot do for the industry. The U.S. resented the fact that our lumber sector was subsidized, meaning that we could lower our price when the markets demanded it. This new deal put an end to that, and it was tested in 2007, when Quebec and Ontario introduced aid packages to benefit their forest industries. (5) U.S. officials complained and it went to arbitration.

Paul Martin in his book Hell or High Water, describes what really took place.

George Bush had been after him for a settlement, but Martin explained to him that much of the Canadian timber used for our lumber industry is on crown land. Therefore, all Canadians are in partnership with them. The U.S. counterparts, on the other hand, are mostly private concerns. He spoke of this at a meeting.

Afterwards, Bush came up to me and thanked me for my remarks. I took the opportunity to make a point. "Lookit, I am out there making the case for free trade – something that you want – and yet you aren't respecting that principle with your NAFTA partner in the face of judgment after judgment against you on softwood at international tribunals. How can you be credible on free trade of the Americas when you won't respect the deals you've already signed?" It was the first time I felt the message really penetrated. (6)

And they were very close to reaching a deal, though they were adamant that all of the money the Americans had collected in tariffs, the full 5 billion, had to be returned. Then the election writ was dropped.

When the Harper government picked up the thread of our negotiations in the spring, they yielded on this point, settling for an agreement that returned a billion dollars less than what had been improperly collected, and inexplicably allowing half a billion dollars to flow directly Into the pockets of our American competitors. This was blood money the Americans had won through a policy of harassment.

The Harper government said there was no alternative. But there was – even if the negotiations fell through. The American policy on softwood lumber did not even conform to domestic American law, and ultimately we could have taken the matter to court in the United States. We would have won, and won in a way no U.S. administration could ignore. (6)

But can you imagine Stephen Harper saying no to George Bush, or George Bush saying no to his corporate sector?

During the 2008 election campaign, Jack Layton vowed to scrap the deal:

Layton said the agreement -- hammered out in 2007 under the carriage of former International Trade Minister David Emerson -- was a betrayal of Canadian lumber producers. The "softwood lumber sell-out to the U.S. gave up on years of trade rulings in Canada's favour," Layton said in Kenora, Ont., putting the blame squarely on Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. After the deal was arranged, Layton said, "Harper then broke his promise to provide loan guarantees for struggling producers, and to find ways to help support forestry communities." He added: "Instead, he gave a $50-billion tax gift to profitable banks and oil companies that don't need the help." (7)

This brings us to a more recent issue from South of the border, that is becoming an election issue in their upcoming mid-terms. With the housing market in the U.S. drying up, Canadians have had to look elsewhere for trade, and have found a lucrative market in China. But the Americans are protesting because of our increase in output, which is lowering the price and making competition tougher, as they also tap into the Chinese market. (8)

This was something that Paul Martin wanted included in the deal, because at times accelerated production was necessary, when pine-beetle infestations prompted immediate harvesting. We are supposed to be allowed to compensate for that, but now the Americans are suggesting that we are "cheating", and only using it as an excuse to dominate Chinese trade.

More arbitration. (9)

We should not have signed this deal that has meant the loss of jobs and the loss of our ability to protect our citizens. But in true fashion, Harper bullied everyone into doing his bidding.

The Harper government's excuse was that the Canadian companies couldn't hang on any longer. They had to settle quickly. Of course they had to settle, but that was because David Emerson as a Conservative minister accepted a deal he had rejected as a Liberal minister! His new prime minister in essence threatened a very reluctant Canadian industry: "Knuckle under, because you won't get any help from us if you don't." (6)

So What Was behind All the Ballyhoo?

While the Conservative line remained that Emerson did with them, what he wasn't able to do with the Liberals, there is another story here. There always is, isn't there?

In March of 2006, during the summit in Cancun Mexico, when the media was distracted with the shiny zipper on Harper's hunting vest (something that would never have been part of his wardrobe), a trilateral working group was formed, called the North American Competitiveness Council, another deal giving corporations more power over everything from "trade laws, economies, defense, (and with that foreign policy), emergency response, education, transportation, immigration, health and environmental regulations, resources, energy, law enforcement, intelligence gathering ..." (10)

Signatories to this included Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice, who let it be known that the softwood lumber issue "was a sour spot for them". Stockwell Day, Maxime Bernier, Peter Mackay and David Emerson (who also represented the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) endorsed the deal, so the push was on.

Can you imagine if the headlines in our papers read "Stephen Harper enters into agreement with Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice", both part of the Bush administration. So instead Harper took one for the team and the headline was "Harper's big game hunter look a fashion faux pas, expert says." That's how far our media has fallen. That was the news.

The editors must have weighed the stories: Aggressive deal that hands our country over to American and multi-national corporate interests, or our doofus PM in a hunting vest? And Fashion Faux Pas won the day.

According to author Andrew G. Marshall:

The idea is that they want to move this process of integration so far along without public knowledge that by the time the public becomes aware .. it will be far too late for the public to oppose it, as it will have already become a reality. (10)

And I think it may already be a reality with the Buy American/Sell Canada deal that Harper signed during his two and a half month prorogue vacation. The media meant to warn us of that, but Rhona Ambrose just bought a new pair of shoes, and you know, they had to prioritize.

It just makes me so damn mad.

Footnotes:

*Lawrence is wrong. He did better because of the extra efforts of volunteers who were moved from other constituencies to make sure that he did better. A poll held prior to the election showed less than 20 per cent of residents in the riding knew Emerson by name. (See above)

Previous:

The Politics of Contempt: The Nixon-Harper Ticket

The Politics of Hate: Where Will it Lead?

The Politics of Conceit: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

The Politics of Opportunity: Election Tampering

The Politics of Jabberwocky: As Canada Plummets Down the Rabbit Hole

The Politics of Ballyhoo: David Emerson and the Soft on Sovereignty Trade Deal

Sources:

1. Emerson: The Power and the Tory. His betrayal, his perks and some context for the outrage, By Will McMartin, The Tyee, February 9, 2006

2. Former Liberal David Emerson defects to Tories, By CTV News Staff, February 6, 2006

3. Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America, By Maude Barlow, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 0-7710-1088-5, Pg. 200

4. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 49-50

5. U.S.-Canada Trade Dispute: 1982 to present, Random Lengths, May 5, 2010.

6. Hell or High Water: My Life in and Out of Politics, By Paul Martin, McClelland & Stewart, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5692-5 5, Pg. 381-383

7. Layton would cancel Tories' softwood lumber deal, CTV News, September 24 2008

8. Chinese lumber demand fueling B.C. industry improvements, By Autumn MacDonald - Quesnel Cariboo Observer, October 12, 2010

9. U.S. trade officials take step toward reopeining softwood lumber dispute, By Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, October 8, 2010

10. Tyrants and Traitors: The “Evolution by Stealth” of a North American Union, By: Andrew G. Marshall, August 7, 2007

An Attempt to Remove All Reminders of Stephen Harper's War

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

On June 3, 2008; Canada's then Ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, was interviewed on a U.S. radio program via telephone.

What the morning talk show host, Renee Montagne, wanted to know was why Canada was suffering a disproportionate number of losses in the war. The highest ratio of all NATO forces.

Whenever you hear that a NATO soldier has been killed in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, it's probably a Canadian soldier. Canada only has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan but they are fighting in one of the most dangerous regions of the country. So while Canadian troops make up only a small fraction of NATO forces, they've suffered the highest number of fatalities proportionately. (1)

Soon after being elected in January of 2006, Stephen Harper made Afghanistan his first official visit anywhere as prime minister. There he gave his now infamous "cut and run" speech, which was simply a scaled down version of one that George Bush had presented at the U.S. Naval Academy* a year before.

"You can't lead from the bleachers. I want Canada to be a leader," Harper told about 1,000 troops at the Kandahar airfield base the day after he arrived on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. "Your work is about more than just defending Canada's national interests. Your work is also about demonstrating an international leadership role for our country."

"There will be some who want to cut and run, but cutting and running is not my way and it's not the Canadian way," he said, to a round of applause. "We don't make a commitment and then run away at the first sign of trouble. We don't and we will not, as long as I'm leading this country." (2)

Up to that time, 10 Canadian soldiers and a diplomat had been killed, and 26 Canadian soldiers had been injured. But that was about to change. To impress George Bush, Stephen Harper sent our men and women into the most dangerous areas of battle. According to Rick Hillier: "It was Stephen Harper's decision to move Canadian troops from Kabul and reposition them in southern Kandahar province, where they are now at much more danger of being killed by roadside bombs." (3)

And speeches were not the only thing Harper borrowed from his mentor. He also made the decision to discontinue flying the flag at half mast as a show of respect to fallen soldiers, and forbid the media from capturing for history, the images of flag draped coffins.

"Look, don't bring the Airbus in, or if you bring the plane in, turn it away from the cameras so that people can't see the bodies coming off, or do it after dark, or do it down behind the hangars, or just bar everybody from it," Hillier quotes the PMO staffers as saying. "They clearly didn't want that picture of the flag-draped coffin on the news."It is Canadian military policy that every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan will be honoured as a war hero. Harper's disrespect for soldiers was the last straw for Hillier and prompted his early retirement at the age of 53. (4)

Harper expected backlash for this decision, from the media that he had already silenced, but was unprepared for the reaction of Canadians, especially from military families.

Nothing "casual" About Our Losses

Last week Canada revealed itself once again as a truly unique nation. In a world where dead warriors are commonplace and taken for granted, this country stopped, paid attention, lowered the flags and gave full military honours to four soldiers, who died inexplicably and tragically at the hands of our allies. (Lesley Hughes, April 2002)

Hughes was referring to the "friendly fire" deaths of four Canadian soldiers, the first reports of our country's losses in this war. And a nation mourned. Bill Leger, the father of Sgt. Marc Leger, spoke in reference to Stephen Harper's 2006 decision to ban the media from covering the flag draped coffins of fallen soldiers:

"... in 2002 it was a great thing for us to have the media there. It was something that we felt at that time, and still feel the same way, that it was a Canadian thing. It was something that we wanted to show all Canadians what the cost of their liberty is. It's nothing else but that. And it's still heart-warming to see the faces and everything else when people were lined up on the 401, in 2002, all the way from Trenton to Toronto. They wanted to be there. They had to be there. I was told that often, over and over again. And those are the memories that I have, and those are the things that I carry with me all my life." (5)

And Leger's mother was interviewed more recently:

Ask Claire Leger what the past decade has meant to her, and she'll tell you a story of abiding sorrow ... After the tragedy, Leger and her husband Richard planted four small Canadian flags in the garden of their home near Ottawa, in memory of Marc and his comrades, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 24; Pte. Richard Green, 21 and Pte. Nathan Smith, 26.

Seven years later, the Legers haven't sought ''closure'' from their grief. As the war years have ticked by they've maintained a steady vigil, dutifully marking the death of every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. ''Every time I have to go put a little flag in our garden, it feels like I'm burying our son all over again,'' she says. ''I send a card to every family that loses a soldier and I often get a card back, with a picture of their son or daughter.''''There's less and less attention paid to those who are killed and it's heartbreaking to me,'' says Leger. ''I wish I could share with other families the support we had when Marc died. We were embraced by Canadians. That's what kept me going - I felt people actually cared.''Leger is a fierce critic of what she considers an unwinnable war, and says Canada's participation has made us ''puppets'' of the Americans. (6)

Stephen Harper then did an about face, finding a way to make himself look good, and with the help of the ad firm Hill and Knowlton, quickly turned the war into a giant photo-op. Canada had not witnessed a propaganda campaign of this magnitude since the last world war. But it was not about "King and Country" this time, it was about Stephen Harper and ... well ... Stephen Harper.

His first defense minister, Gordon O'Connor had been an employee of H&K, lobbying for military contracts. In the United States, the ad firm was well known for using dirty tricks to sell wars:

Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. (7)

Canadians were no longer going to oppose the war. Belligerent nationalism would reign supreme, and they were going to instead cheer from the bleachers. Rah, rah, rah!

And what did they use to whip us into a frenzy?

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign [my emphasis] to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S. (8)

So in Canada, H & K not only had one of their own (O'Connor) as Minister of Defense, deciding which of their clients got what military contracts; they were also able to sell a yellow ribbon campaign that had been mothballed, to a country not known for outward displays of such aggression.

And to make sure that everyone stayed on message, Stephen Harper completely controlled the media, by completely controlling that message.

The Harper government used a pervasive message-control tool to persuade Canadians their foremost purpose in Afghanistan was building schools and fostering democracy rather than waging a war that was turning bloodier by the day.

An investigation by The Canadian Press shows the Conservatives systematically drafted “Message Event Proposals” as part of a quiet campaign to persuade Canadians their country was primarily engaged in development work to rebuild a shattered nation rather than hunting down and killing an emboldened insurgency.The government used MEPs literally to script the words it wanted to hear from the mouths of its top diplomats, aid workers and cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 to divert public attention from the soaring double-digit death toll of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. (9)

And when reports began to surface as early as 2007, that Canadians could be charged with war crimes:

WASHINGTON–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office used a "6,000-mile screwdriver" to oversee the denial of reports of Afghan detainee abuse when the scandal first erupted in 2007, according to a former senior NATO public affairs official who was then based in Kabul. The former official, speaking on condition his name not be used, told the Toronto Star that Harper's office in Ottawa "scripted and fed" the precise wording NATO officials in Kabul used to repudiate allegations of abuse "at a time when it was privately and generally acknowledged in our office that the chances of good treatment at the hands of Afghan security forces were almost zero."

"It was highly unusual. I was told this was the titanic issue for Prime Minister Harper and that every single statement that went out needed to be cleared by him personally ... [my emphasis]" (10)

In February, the Hill Times reported on the suffering of our men and women who saw service in Afghanistan:

More than 6,000 Canadian Forces members and discharged veterans who are receiving physical or psychiatric disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada have either served in Afghanistan or have a disability that has been related to their service in Afghanistan, the department says. The majority of the soldiers receiving benefits are likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or war-related psychiatric conditions, according to global figures the department and the Canadian Forces provided The Hill Times. They also do not appear to be included in Afghanistan combat or non-combat casualty figures the Canadian Forces compiled, even though the veterans and serving members who have psychiatric conditions likely have them as a result of serving in the Afghan war. (11)

And when this report came out, Harper's head media cheerleader, Jane Taber, turned it into a hyper-partisan sideshow. I have never been so ashamed.

So given Stephen Harper's callous disregard for human life, and anal control of the media, should we be surprised to learn that he is now attacking our veterans? Should we be surprised to learn that he has fired the man advocating for them? Or should we be surprised to learn that he has forbidden our broken soldiers from telling their stories?

A half dozen Afghan war veterans who wanted to talk about how their injuries affected their lives were told by senior military staff they were not to attend a press conference held earlier this week by Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran. The instructions come as the debate over how injured veterans are being treated reached a highpoint in Ottawa earlier this week, when Stogran held a news conference and criticized Veterans Affairs Canada and the government for not doing enough for the country's injured military personnel. Other veterans, no longer serving in the Canadian Forces, also spoke out at the conference about the failure of government to provide for them. (12)

Are you mad yet? Are you ashamed? Are you Canadian?

This may have been Stephen Harper's War when he changed our direction from Peacekeepers to Peacemakers, but this is now our war, as we go into battle against a government who would allow our veterans to be treated like this.

Are you in?

Footnotes:

George Bush (April 2005): "Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere — but I believe they're sincerely wrong. Pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies — that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends... To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)"

Sources:

1. Canada Bears Brunt of Fighting in South Afghanistan, Interview with Arif Lalani, National Public Radio, June 3, 2008

2. Canada committed to Afghan mission, Harper tells troops, CBC News, March 13, 2006

3. A Soldier First, By Rick Hillier, Harper Collins Publishers, 2009, ISBN - 13:9781554684915

4. General Rick Hillier criticizes Stephen Harper, Lilith News, October 20, 2009

5. Canadian Government Imitates Bush Regime: Dishonors Their War Dead Too, Afraid To Let The Public See The Cost Of Empire, Associated Press, April 26, 2006

6. Afghanistan war: Canada's defining event of past decade, By Richard Foot, Canwest News, 2009

7. How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf, Center for Media and Democracy

8. How Bush Sr. Sold The Bombing Of Iraq, by Mitchel Cohen, December 28, 2002

9. Ottawa’s Afghanistan message: It’s development, not war, Government scripts told top diplomats how to frame the mission, Mike Blanchfield and Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press, June 7, 2010

10. PMO issued instructions on denying abuse in '07: Former NATO official says response to reports was 'scripted' in Ottawa, By Mitch Potter Washington Bureau, November 22, 2009

11. Afghanistan veterans on disability now 6,000 Forces, Veterans Affairs reluctant to disclose casualty records after eight years of war, By Tim Naumetz, the Hill Times, February 8, 2010

12. Wounded vets claim they were muzzled by brass: Soldiers were willing to discuss injuries, but steered away from ombudsman's press conference, By David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen, August 21, 2010

Michael Ignatieff and the Man from Shawinigan

I have to be honest, I never voted for Jean Chretien or Paul Martin. I guess as a long time PC supporter, I still held onto the old prejudices, somehow believing that they were the enemy.

But since then I have come to respect Mr. Chretien as a statesman, and recognize his contribution to our country.

I've also realized that things are not always as they seem, and as Joe Clark once said about Stephen Harper, and the PC's fall from grace; that for those who didn't want to stick it out and rebuild the party, the "alternative was frightening".

And we are now learning just how "frightening" the alternative really is.

I called my blog Pushed to the Left and Loving it, because when I felt that there was no longer a party in the centre, only an extreme right-wing neoconservative option, and I lost my home; I discovered that the other side of the fence wasn't so bad after all.

For decades the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives battled for that coveted centre position because that's where most Canadians hang out. But once elected they worked toward consensus building.

But neoconservatism is the exact opposite. They don't want to build a consensus, they just want everyone to get out of their way.

Stephen Harper's former campaign manager, Tom Flanagan, once suggested that their biggest challenge was convincing Canadians that they were moving to the centre, when they were not. Harper even managed to fool us for awhile, but his latest actions in regards to the G-20, the 16 billion dollar military jet contract, closing the prison farms, Fox News North, the census debacle and his "white's only" hiring options, have blown his cover.

He's still the same right-wing extremist that defined him in his Reform Party days.

So despite all the rumours, Michael Ignatieff's visit with Mr. Chretien was a hit. I knew it would be. Both man are intelligent and genuinely care about this country.

My journey to the place where I now promote Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party, was not an easy one. I inherited the gift (curse?) of skepticism from my dad, who always reminded me to question everything, to arrive at my own truth.

The best example of this was in high school, when we were given an assignment to write a political essay, choosing from democracy, monarchy, communism, etc.

I chose communism because I thought it would be easy, given the headlines in the middle of a the Cold War. But when I completed my first draft, my dad handed it back and said that it was not an essay based on anything other than rhetoric, and to be fair I had to at least learn what communism really was. (he was certainly not a sympathiser, but a life long Liberal)

So every day I headed to the library and asked for the Communist Manifesto. It was not allowed to be out on the shelves at the time, and I felt like an adolescent boy asking the druggist for condoms.

But I worked my way through it, and while I decided that I preferred democracy, I reached that decision based on fact. My paper was more balanced, showing the pros and cons, rather than just falling back on the popular opinion of the day, that everything was a "commie plot".

Michael Ignatieff is no communist either, but also drew his own conclusions about political and social structure.

From his Massey lecture series ( The Rights Revolution, 2000, Anansi, Pg. 19-20):

"... some civil inequalities between men and women, between gays and straights, between Quebecois and English Canadians, have been addressed by rights talk. But what about inequalities between rich and poor? One of the strange features of rights talk has been that it makes visible some inequalities — sexual and linguistic inequalities, for example — while obscuring others — such as those based on class and income. I'm no Marxist, but I am astonished that social and economic inequality, the focus of so much socialist passion when I was a student, has simply disappeared from the political agenda in Canada and most other capitalist societies.

This disappearance has something to do with rights talk. It can capture civil and political inequalities, but it can't capture more basic economic inequalities, such as the ways in which the economy rewards owners and investors at the expense of workers. The economic system may not infringe anybody's individual rights, but the whole machine ends up reproducing enduring types of social inequality. Rights talk not only fails to capture this kind of inequality, but also diverts the attention of the political system from it"

So in the past thirty years, we've talked about women, aboriginals, gays, and lesbians. But what about the workers? What about the way their union rights have been eroded? What about the economic insecurity of our poorest fellow citizens? Why can't our politics address this? It can't be because everyone has shared the fruits of our recent economic boom. It can't be because the poor don't exist. It must be because they have become invisible.

He wrote that in 2000, without a political agenda, and it was after reading the Rights Revolution that I realized that we share common ground. I'm no Marxist either, but I know that our current system isn't working and neoconservatism is only making it worse.

The gap between rich and poor is growing and unfortunately our most vulnerable citizens are still "invisible".

I am not anti-corporation and recognize that we need a healthy business structure if there is any hope for success. But I don't believe they should be pandered to in the way that this government is pandering to them. Massive corporate tax cuts, while they are telling the rest of us that we have to suck up the recession, caused by the greed of the corporate sector in the first place.

The rights of the workers must be considered. A neocon vision is low wages and a free market. But what they fail to consider is that the reason businesses are doing well is because of good union jobs, that create buying power. If everyone is making minimum wage, who will be left to purchase anything other than essentials?

We need someone with a vision that encompasses all citizens, and I really believe that Michael Ignatieff is that person. And I also believe that he has the best team, that he will not silence and keep chained.

And I know in my heart that my skeptical dad would have voted for him, and that's good enough for me.

How Did we Get Here From There? The Afghanistan Call to Arms

International law, as set out in the United Nations Charter, is very specific in defining scenarios under which war can legally be waged .... There are basically only two scenarios that legitimize war.

First, if a country is directly attacked, and there is no non-violent remedy, it can respond with military force in self-defence. The only other scenario—when the collective interest of international peace and security is at stake—requires the authorization of the UN Security Council. [Michael] Mandel, author of How America Gets Away with Murder, notes that self-defence does not apply in the case of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, since the U.S. launched wars against both Iraq and Afghanistan, even though it was not attacked by either country.

Washington also failed to secure UN Security Council authorization. In the case of Iraq, Washington tried to get such authorization but failed, and so decided to proceed with its invasion anyway. In the case of Afghanistan, Washington never even tried for Security Council authorization.' Thus, says Mandel, both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions were illegal under international law.

The illegality of the invasion of Iraq was more clear-cut and obvious, since no connection has ever been established between the 9/11 attack and Iraq ... But the war in Afghanistan has long been considered more complicated and nuanced, since the ruling Taliban apparently allowed the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out 9/11 to use Afghanistan as a base. It might seem then, that the U.S. could reasonably argue that it was attacking Afghanistan in self-defence, since Afghanistan had harboured a group that had attacked America.

No matter how compelling the U.S. case against bin Laden was, Washington did not have the right under international law to invade Afghanistan in order to pursue him. "One is not allowed to invade a country to effect an arrest," notes Mandel.' (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 89-90)

Once the Karzai government was elected, the war did become legitimized, but that still leaves the question, was it legitimate to invade a country without actual proof that they were behind the terrorist attacks? Recent videos apparently from Bin Laden with an admission of guilt, are believed to be forgeries, and it's seems more plausible that he has been dead for several years.

He was suffering from acute kidney failure and could not have roamed around in the mountains for long undetected.

But this isn't about conspiracy theories, or who was behind the attacks, but our own involvement in the Afghan war. I'm using this page as a starting point for postings to show the chronology of 'the mission' and why I think we need to get out now. We can go back when the fighting stops and help rebuild, since we helped to destroy, but no more killing.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced on October 7, 2001; that 'Canada would contribute forces to the international force being formed to conduct a campaign against terrorism', but the original commitment was only to last to October 2003.

So why are we still there and what are we doing exactly? We're not fighting for democracy. Hell, we don't even have that here.

*************************************************

A Background to Afghanistan. A Nation in Perpetual Conflict

The Shah of Iran and the Birth of Terrorists

Truth May be the First Casualty of War, But in 2002 There Was Nothing Casual About Afghanistan

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

Military Spending and Other Costs Associated With the Invasion

More on the Financial Burdens of This Damn War

Selling the War Invoked a Buying Frenzy But Was the Product Shoddy?

The Manley Report Gave New Direction But Fails to Answer the Question: Why Are We There?

The Conservatives Do Poor Job of Supporting Troops

When Canada Was a Democracy we Were Able to Ask Questions

Dawson Bayliss Gives us One More Reason to Rethink Afghanistan

*************************************************

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

I don't as a rule read Jonathan Kay's column (or for that matter, the National Post). He's far too right-wing, and when I say right-wing, I mean that he would probably be more at home inking copy for Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

But it was Christmas Eve, and I suppose Mr. Kay was feeling a little festive, so in a gesture of peace and goodwill, he launched a full frontal attack on an op-ed piece written by former NDP campaign director Gerald Caplan, that had appeared in the Globe several weeks before.

Why did he wait until Christmas eve? Who knows?

Coal in his stocking? A bit too much eggnog? Waiting for Jacob Marley? It's any one's guess.

But our Jonathan was quite upset that Mr. Caplan was lamenting "My country seems to be slipping away in front of my very eyes..." I can relate, as can a great many Canadians. We have definitely taken a sharp right turn.

Now the National Post column was pretty much the same old, same old: Stephen Harper good, Jason Kenney new Messiah, where's my gun? ... ugh!

But then it took a kind of strange twist as Kay started toasting former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. (Did I mention it was Christmas Eve and there may have been eggnog involved?)

Paul Martin will forever be known primarily as the guy who fumbled Jean Chrétien's dynasty away to Stephen Harper. But if there were more justice in the world — or at least among pundits — he would get his due for making the single most momentous prime ministerial decision of the decade: sending a Canadian combat mission to Kandahar in 2005.

At the time, it hardly seemed epic: Most Canadians didn't know Kandahar from Kunduz. But the military wonks immediately could tell this was a game-changer. Putting our troops in Kandahar, at the ideological and political center of Taliban territory, meant the Liberals were shedding decades of peacekeeper posturing, and were putting the country on a very real war footing.

"We're not the public service of Canada ... Our job is to be able to kill people," said Rick Hillier, another man who deserves credit for changing this country. The then-Chief of the Defence Staff described the Taliban as "detestable murderers and scumbags" — words that made men like Caplan whimper and run around in little circles. In the old Canada, one didn't say such things. To speak plainly about evil wasn't — what was Caplan's word? — sufficiently "restrained."


I remember feeling a similar alarm when I heard Hillier's words and especially his tone, but he seemed like a decent guy; so I just put it down to some kind of bravado. And besides, when Jack Layton called his remarks "disconcerting", he was accused of trying to "bestow the most ennobled status on the Taliban---that of victim", which of course is sheer nonsense.

But back to Paul Martin.

Now I never voted for the man. I didn't care for his campaign strategy, and as prime minister, he was too indecisive. I thought he was a great finance minister though and is making an excellent statesman.

In Jean Chretien's new book, he is suggesting that it was just that kind of indecisiveness that first put our soldiers at greater risk. After writing of his decision to keep us out of Iraq, and only agreeing to go to Afghanistan, so long as they were in a safer region, he continues: "Later, unfortunately, when my successor took too long to make up his mind about whether Canada should extend our term with the ISAF, our soldiers were moved out of Kabul and sent south to battle the Taliban in the killing fields around Kandahar."

In Paul Martin's book, however, he states that he was considering a change in our role, and did not just drop the ball. He still wanted a Peacekeeping force, but thought that Canada should be better trained and better equipped for combat, so he put money into the military and on the advice of his defense minister, Bill Graham; in February of 2005, appointed General Rick Hillier as chief of the defense staff.

As journalist and author Linda McQuaig puts in:

It was the Martin government that appointed Hillier chief of defence staff and began pumping large amounts of new money into military spending. Soon after his appointment, Hillier began pressuring Martin to agree to U.S. requests to increase and intensify Canadian involvement in the Afghan war. Martin was initially hesitant, but agreed to the deeper commitment in Afghanistan, only after extracting from Hillier a promise that the Canadian military would also have sufficient troops available to participate in vital UN peacekeeping missions.

At a meeting with Hillier and the defence and foreign affairs ministers on March 21, 2005, Martin stressed the importance of the Canadian Forces being prepared to help the UN intervene, particularly in the brutal fighting in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people had been killed. Despite Hillier's assurances that troops would be available for peacekeeping, the general argued the following spring—with the support of the newly elected Harper government—that the military was so overworked by the Afghan deployment that it lacked the soldiers to contribute to a UN mission to Darfur.'

Under Harper, the military's desire to transform itself into an adjunct of the U.S. "war on terror" was now perfectly in sync ... (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 73-74)

We were Peacekeepers no more.

Stephen Harper Found in Bed With Separatists

I still find it mind boggling that the Conservative caucus was allowed to get away with their horrendous attack on Quebec and Francophones during the Parliamentary crisis.

Their shrill battle cries empowered the crazies and some of the comments seen around message boards, were astounding. I remember one from Alberta claiming a desire to 'lay waste' to Quebec on the way to do battle with 'Ontario'. Another suggested it was time to get rid of the 'Frenchies' once and for all, and even Diane Finlay sent out an email calling Gilles Duceppe 'a citizen of France' (that contained three spelling mistakes).

It is the duty of a Prime Minister to keep a country united, but instead Stephen Harper played on old hostilities to divide the country, just to save his job.

Of course, he's never really been a federalist and in a speech he made to the National Citizens Coalition, when he was the Reform Party MP for Calgary West, reveals that he would much rather see a loose federal government, than a united Canada. “Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion.”

Now in his defense Paul Martin made the same accusations against Harper when he formed his coalition in 2004, to reverse the results of the election. The non-confidence-mania that defined Martin's tenure became talking points that Stephen Harper was in bed with the separatists to bring down the Liberals.

I never really liked Paul Martin as a Prime Minister. I think he was and still is a brilliant financier, and many of the initiatives he put in place are helping Canada today to stay on solid footing during this economic crisis. But he ran too many attack ads and I hate attack ads.

But what I do find horrendous is the way that Stephen Harper will defy some legislation based on the support of 'separatists', (he once claimed that the gay marriage law lacked legitimacy because it was sailing through with the support of the Bloc) but has used that same 'separatist' support to push his own bills.

And then of course there was Stockwell Day's proposed Coalition with the Bloc to become an unelected Prime Minister in 2000, until a Liberal majority put an end to the notion.

But despite the horrendous display throughout much of December and January, we've learned recently that Harper may once again try to schmooze the 'separatists' and 'socialists' to hold onto power. He really wants to be in charge when the Olympics takes place, to see how his new NAFTA on steroids security plan will play out.

Tories court Bloc and NDP in bid to hold onto power
April 29, 2009
CTV.ca News Staff

Tory insiders say the party is hatching a survival plan to keep the surging Liberals at bay and delay any potential election long enough to enjoy the international limelight at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

A major plank of the plan would see the Tories delay next year's budget and deliver it in late March -- two months later than when the budget was handed down in 2009.

That would deprive the Grits of an important confidence vote before the Olympic flame arrives in Vancouver next February, at which point the Conservatives hope the economy will have turned around.

Over the past months, the recession has provided much grist for the Grit mill, and allowed the official opposition to attack the government as insensitive and incompetent.

"We intend to be there (for the Olympics)," one senior Tory told The Canadian Press on Wednesday.

A second part of the plan will see the Tories launch a series of attack ads this summer focusing on the Liberal's popular new chief, Michael Ignatieff. (so this was not in response to the Grit Girl ads, as they suggest)

However, the Tories will need the NDP and the Bloc to play ball if they hope to stave off a non-confidence vote before the 2010 Winter Games, to be held from Feb. 12 to 28.
So far, it appears the NDP and the Bloc are willing to back up the Tories -- at a price.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe has been pushing for a tax-harmonization deal with Ottawa and wants improvements to the EI system. It's expected that Duceppe will lay out his formal demands on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Parliament witnessed a bizarre move when the Conservatives voted in favour of a Bloc motion that transfers $2.6 billion to Quebec and allows the province to administer its own sales tax.

Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton appears open to the idea of working with the Tories. However, his support is contingent on the condition that Ottawa deliver EI reform, provide stricter credit card regulations and increase pension protection.

Personally, I'm hoping this government is gone by the time the Olympics rolls around. I want my country back.

What exactly DOES Stephen Harper Stand For? I'm Dying to Know

The media seems to be obsessed with discovering Michael Ignatieff's platform, which will probably be presented soon, though I imagine it will become fodder for Conservative attack ads before the ink is even dry.

But that brings us to the question, what exactly does Stephen Harper stand for?

He's been in federal politics in one form or another, for more than a decade, but his politics are still vague and often contradictory.

He's not a Tory, because by definition a Tory is someone who values tradition. By contrast, Harper is more like Richard Nixon, who sees our institutions as his enemies. His years with the Republican fronted National Citizens Coalition, show just how much he really dislikes Canada and Canadians, so what's his story?

Why is it so important for him to stay in power, that he's willing to flip-flop on EVERY SINGLE so-called Conservative principle, just to keep his job.

I think it's a combination of vanity, arrogance, and the simple fact that he hates to lose.

After the 2004 election, when he failed to win a mandate, he formed a coalition with Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton, to claim power and become an unelected Prime Minister.

OK, I know that PMs aren't elected in Canada, but his intent was clear. If it took a 'coup' with 'socialists' and 'separatists', then he'd do what he had to do. The Governor General at the time, didn't agree with his plan, and instead asked Paul Martin to sort it out. He did, but Harper's coalition threat remained on the table throughout Mr. Martin's short tenure.

An International blogger sums it up nicely, though still just touches the surface. It's pretty clear that Stephen Harper is just in it for himself.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ditched his conservative principles and is pushing a Liberal-laden budget in an effort to keep his minority government in power. The new Conservative budget, to be announced tomorrow will be including Liberal measures such as $2 billion to help train unemployed Canadians and $7 billion for Canadian infrastructure and public works projects.

Stephen Harper also backpedaled on Senate reform and Senate elections and is spending $34 billion in tax payer dollars in an effort to stay in power and boost the economy.

Conservative backbenchers and supporters see this as ignoring the party's funding base in Alberta which wants to see less government, not more. The $34 billion deficit is also an issue as Harper promised just months ago there would be no deficit."We will not be running a deficit. We will keep our spending within our means. It is that simple.

The alternative is not a plan. It is just the consequence of complete panic, and this government will not panic at a time of uncertainty," Harper told a Toronto audience on October 7th 2008.

But that was before Harper was nearly overthrown by a coalition government and had to prorogue parliament just to stay in power. Harper's efforts now are acts of a desperate cowardly man clinging to power.

Harper claims he is just trying to be pragmatic, but conservative critics accuse him of losing his way and sacrificing his principles."

Absolutely he has abandoned his principles ... I don't even recognize this person who is the Prime Minister of Canada," said Gerry Nicholls, who worked with Harper at the National Citizens Coalition.

Harper is a one-time head of the coalition, a non-partisan organization for the "defence and promotion of free enterprise, free speech" and accountable government. "He was a principled small-c conservative who believed that ... conservative politicians should stick by their principles," Nicholls said. "I think he began to care more about public-opinion polls than his principles."

Harper's flip flops include:

The Senate. He was adamant he would not resort to the old politics of stacking the upper chamber with party cronies. But faced with the possible defeat of his minority government, Harper moved fast before Christmas to fill 18 vacancies with loyal Conservatives, many failed candidates or with party ties.

Fixed election date. In May 2006, Harper proposed fixed election date legislation that would set the next election date in October 2009, to stop political leaders from "trying to manipulate the calendar." Instead, Harper called an election last September, saying that Parliament had reached an "impasse." But he was also hoping to capitalize on his own promising poll numbers and a weak official Opposition before the economy worsened.

Supreme Court appointments. In December, Harper appointed Thomas Cromwell of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court, bypassing a parliamentary hearing process he championed to more openly scrutinize nominees.

Government appointments. The Prime Minister had promised to implement a public appointments commission to eliminate cronyism in such appointments. It was to be part of the government's much-vaunted Accountability Act. It never happened and, since winning its first minority government in January 2006, the Tory government has made some 1,500 appointments, many based on political pedigree. Tom Flanagan, a former Harper campaign organizer/Conservative strategist, said Harper has transformed into a political survivor on his last legs.

Harper has "lost the initiative by provoking the other parties into this potential coalition against him ... and now he finds himself having to put together a budget which is really a coalition budget ... the government's hand is fairly weak right now," says Flanagan, author of the book "Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power".

Let's not forget the Income Trust flip-flop

And a few more lies

Canada Owes Much of it's Success to Paul Martin Man of the Year

In December of 2008, the Toronto Star named Paul Martin Man of the Year for his handling of the economy during his tenure, and for putting safeguards in place that would help Canada weather the latest economic storm.

Jim Flaherty attempted to remove some of those safeguards, but quickly pulled in the reins before steering us toward a crash.

I never voted for Mr. Martin, though I have always said that he was the best finance minister that Canada ever had. I just got turned off by his attack ads, so cast my ballot for the NDP.

MAN OF THE YEAR
For staying cool during the bubble
Toronto Star
Stephen Marche
Our derided ex-PM set a fiscal course that could save Canada from the worst of this meltdown
December 27, 2008

Last week Time selected Barack Obama as its Person of the Year, a decision that must have taken the editors somewhere in the vicinity of three-quarters of a second to make. North of the border, the choice will be more difficult. Over the past 12 months, our politicians have competed with each other to underwhelm us, and, aside from a couple of Olympians, the "news-makers" of the year didn't make enough news.

However, if we're going to judge the person of the year by the size and scope of his or her successes, then the decision becomes easy. This was Paul Martin's year. It was the year in which it became clear that he has been Canada's greatest public servant since the Pearson era.

The Goldman Sachs report on global financial currencies, which the company released in mid-December, read like a list of Martin's accomplishments. Our economic situation hardly makes for cheerful reading, but the news is less bleak than anywhere else in the world. The Canadian economy has "deteriorated less" than other industrialized countries, according to Goldman. Our banking system is doing well "in comparison with the rest of the G10," and the federal surpluses provide "some cushion" against the credit crunch that is eviscerating prosperity the world over. We are in this enviable position compared with other countries mainly due to Martin's vision and his toughness as finance minister and prime minister.

His 1998 decision to halt proposed bank mergers has been utterly vindicated. In a recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine – an interview about why he knew what others did not – Martin explained the health of Canada's banks as the result of restraint: "It was very clear to the superintendent of insurance and me that we simply couldn't afford the risks if one of our banks defaulted. We resisted the siren call of deregulation and in fact tightened up on loan-loss requirements and reserve requirements."

The smart-est government economists in London and New York – and Reykjavik and Paris and Moscow – failed to take these essential precautions.

At the time, the argument from the bank chairmen was that, if they didn't merge, the Canadian financial sector was simply not going to be competitive in the face of globalization.

Not only did Martin see through this argument, but he had enough confidence to shrug it off. A lesser man would have arrived at some kind of compromise with the heads of the banks – increased deregulation or some other sop.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, on Nov. 29, 1998, Martin invited Royal Bank chairman John Cleghorn to his house in Montreal for a chat. Cleghorn asked him straight out whether the mergers would be allowed to proceed.

"No," was all Martin said.

Reports differ on whether Cleghorn then replied "No, but ...?" or "Unless what?" but either way Martin's response was the same, without qualifier: again, "no."

This snappy bit of dialogue, while not exactly the Gettysburg address, was exactly what the banks, and the country, needed to hear, though it has only become clear 10 years after the fact.

Martin was disliked even more by the left than by the right. They thought his approach to deficits was savage and inhumane. Now we know that because of his discipline in the 1990s we are about to go into a recession from a position of strength. The real source for the left-wing hatred of Paul Martin was petty aesthetics, that he looked and acted like the centimillionaire businessman that he was. This distaste has had unfortunate consequences: If we had elected Paul Martin to a majority, we would now have nationalized early child care.

The social program that should be the foremost priority of progressives would have already come into existence, and would be doing more for working families, more to increase access to opportunity for underprivileged communities, more to maintain the social fabric, than any other potential government policy.

So, to sum up the legacy of Paul Martin as seen from 2008. From the right wing: He possessed a better combination of long-term vision for growth and fiscal responsibility than any other person on the planet. Martin kept his head while all those about his were losing theirs during the irrational exuberance of the 1990s. From the point of view of the left wing: He kept our economy stable enough that it could support the social programs we love, and he was about to enact what would have been the single most important social policy achievement since Universal Health Care.

So why did we kick this guy out of power again? Sure, he was a failure as a politician.

But Paul Martin has never received his full measure of appreciation because his vision for the country has been so thoroughly assimilated that we barely recognize it as his anymore. He saw that a robust capitalism was the only way to produce enough wealth to pay for the social programs that we cherish, and that strong social programs and regulation were necessary to keep capitalism from destroying itself.

He saw how to make these opposed dimensions of modern society complementary rather than competitive. I believe that the vast majority of Canadians, from every region of the country, understand the necessity of this balance. The Martin Compromise became the Liberal Compromise, which, in turn, became the Canadian Compromise.

Martin will never achieve the hero status he richly deserves because he is insufferably dull – I mean, there needs to be a new shade of grey to describe exactly how grey this man is – but his blandness should be to his credit. The prime ministership is not an icon of our identity like the office of the American president, nor should it be. The prime minister is chief bureaucrat, and for a while we had the finest bureaucrat in the world in power.

It is perhaps the ultimate testament to his statesmanship that it's taken until 2008 for his vision to be justified.

So while I too was not overly impressed with Mr. Martin as a politician, I do have the utmost respect for his abilities as a financial manager and statesman. I guess I couldn't see that in 2004 and 2006, but I sure can see it now. Look what we've got instead.

More Postings on Liberal Party:

1. Everything I Wanted to Learn from Scott Brison But Was too Afraid to Ask

2. My First Official Liberal Meeting and I Only Embarrassed Myself Once