Iggy would lead Liberal/NDP coalition

[dagger]

So... there now is a Liberal-NDP pact. And Ignatief will be the PM.

Stay tuned, Stevie boy may have commited the ultimate act of political hari kiri.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...-coalition.aspx

[Canus Chinookus]

Actually, if the Libs and NDP go through with this, I believe it'll be their own undoing. How can the few Lib supporters remaining ever take their own party seriously ever again after this BS? I think Harper will get his majority if this idiotic move by the opposition goes through.

[pictues]

Unless they do a good job canadian's could see this as political parties banding together and working together for the better of the country, we shall see

[thinair]

Lets end this crap right now, push for the Republic of Western Canada (and I'm from eastern Canada),

Nothing is getting done, nor will anything get done unless we move toward a two party system....I don't see any Obamas on our horizon. Iggy-pop is just a Trudeau re-incarnated.

[conehead]

Maybe Iggy (or someone else) can "Unite the Left", creating a new Liberal Party. Then we would have two major parties to duke it out.

[Kip Powick]

Careful..Dagger doesn't want to hear from anyone with that attitude

[dagger]

Actually, if the Libs and NDP go through with this, I believe it'll be their own undoing. How can the few Lib supporters remaining ever take their own party seriously ever again after this BS? I think Harper will get his majority if this idiotic move by the opposition goes through.

You are as delusional as Harper. The "few" Liberals, the Greens, NDPers and Blockheads - representing two-thirds of all votes cast - are driving around with bumper stickers today reading "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for him!".

And there are a lot of progressive conservatives - as distinct from Reformers - who would be more comfortable today in a centrist Liberal party run by a new leader than they would staying in a party dominated by Harrisites. You see, we learned our lesson in Ontario: sooner or later the Harrisites will drive all good people out of the temple because that's what that conniving crowd does.

[dagger]

Lets end this crap right now, push for the Republic of Western Canada (and I'm from eastern Canada),

Nothing is getting done, nor will anything get done unless we move toward a two party system....

Then we can be as fukced up as the Americans.

[internet]

So... there now is a Liberal-NDP pact. And Ignatief will be the PM.

Stay tuned, Stevie boy may have commited the ultimate act of political hari kiri.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...-coalition.aspx

Let's make this very clear.

This is a Liberal - NDP - BQ pact.

That's right... your precious pact is held together by seperatists who want to break the country apart.

Never forget this little get together takes 3

[AME]

So... there now is a Liberal-NDP pact. And Ignatief will be the PM.

Stay tuned, Stevie boy may have commited the ultimate act of political hari kiri.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...-coalition.aspx

I like this guys comments

by Neil Flagg

Dec 01 2008

12:17 AM If the Liberals think that installing an illegitimate PM on the country, propped up by the separatists and the leftists, is going to earn them the respect of the Canadian public, they're sorely mistaken. I can't fathom how anyone other than the most fiercely partisan Liberal or NDPer could think this is anything but anti-democratic lunacy. This will backfire on the Libs. And Rae stepping aside for Iggy, sounds like he's once again the smarter of the pair, understanding this is a disaster in the making for whoever takes it on.

Further, this doesn't have anything to do with Harper - this is a power play cooked up by the losers that, if not hatched now, would have been hatched soon enough. They just found their moment to pounce.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...-coalition.aspx

[dagger]

Let's make this very clear.

This is a Liberal - NDP - BQ pact.

That's right... your precious pact is held together by seperatists who want to break the country apart.

Never forget this little get together takes 3

Don't make me laugh. Any minority government - the current Conservative one included - only retains power by keeping the other parties - including the Bloc - from pulling the plug. The Tories have bent over backwards to curry favor with Quebec nationalists. Fiscal imbalance? Quebec is a nation?

You have quite a nerve to point fingers.

[internet]

Don't make me laugh. Any minority government - the current Conservative one included - only retains power by keeping the other parties - including the Bloc - from pulling the plug. The Tories have bent over backwards to curry favor with Quebec nationalists. Fiscal imbalance? Quebec is a nation?

You have quite a nerve to point fingers.

My point isn't my finger...

You said it was an NDP-LIB pact. I'm saying it takes 3 to tango.

As for pandering to PQ - Federal governments have been doing that since the 60's.

[AME]

My point isn't my finger...

You said it was an NDP-LIB pact. I'm saying it takes 3 to tango.

As for pandering to PQ - Federal governments have been doing that since the 60's.

You can't use reason with Dag, he is so obsessed that he has resorted to name calling "You are as delusional as Harper" and mis-spelt profanity "Then we can be as fukced up as the Americans." in an attempt to make everyone else wrong so he can feel good about his choices

[internet]

You can't use reason with Dag, he is so obsessed that he has resorted to name calling "You are as delusional as Harper" and mis-spelt profanity "Then we can be as fukced up as the Americans." in an attempt to make everyone else wrong so he can feel good about his choices

Well, I actually like Dag's insight on the industry - I think he has valid points and insight much of the time.

We choose to disagree on this.

[Guest rattler]

What do the Liberals want?

Lorne Gunter,  National Post 

Published: Monday, December 01, 2008

Chris Wattie/Reuters

Here's how we got to the brink of another federal election, or perhaps a change of government without an election: The Conservatives were too clever by half and the opposition parties were too disingenuous by a factor of six.

Had I been in the Tories' shoes, I likely would have decided to do the same thing--i. e., use the need to pare back federal spending as an excuse to end taxpayer subsidies to political parties. No doubt, it seemed like a good idea at the time: Deal a crippling financial blow to your opponents, but tart it up as part of a larger effort to keep Ottawa from running a deficit.

What the Tories underestimated, though, was the absolute and utter shamelessness of the Liberals -- and to a lesser extent the NDP -- not to mention the willingness of most media to bite uncritically on the opposition version of events.

The Tories expected the opposition to be angry -- the Liberals and NDP, after all, rely on taxpayers for around two-thirds of their funding--but they never dreamed either party would be prepared to throw the country into a constitutional crisis over this issue.

In the past 14 months, the Liberals have threatened to bring down the government for the following: A withdrawal from the Kyoto environmental accords; the firming up (slightly) of our criminal justice system; immigration reforms that make it easier for officials to reject bogus applications; and the 2008 budget, which, at the time, the Liberals criticized for containing too

much spending. (Now, of course, the Liberals claim to be ready to bring down the Tories because they aren't spending enough. But that's what passes for deep thinking and consistency in the Liberal mind.)

And let's not forget the Liberals' Afghanistan volte-face. Last February, Stephane Dion said he was "absolutely unwavering" in his commitment to end our Armed Forces' combat mission in Afghanistan by February, 2009. If the government didn't commit to that target date, he and his caucus would pull the Tories down. Yet. two weeks after Mr. Dion's exercise in tub thumping, he and his party agreed with the Tories that the combat mission should continue into 2011.

In short, there has been no single principle the Liberals believed in strongly enough -- not the environment, not peace, not open immigration -- that they were willing to force an election. But threaten to cut off the nearly $8-million they extract from taxpayers each year to pay

for office, staff, propaganda, conventions and the like -- well, we have finally found the one hill on which they are prepared to die.

The week before the 2008 budget was to be voted on -- the budget the Liberals claimed was so detrimental to Canadians and to the economy -- they jammed the House of Common each day to rail at the Tories over the Chuck Cadman non-affair. When it came time to vote on the fiscal plan, though, only 11 of 94 Liberals showed up. Such was the level of commitment to their principles.After the Tories announced on Saturday that they would climb down on the party funding issue, Ralph Goodale, the Regina Liberal MP, insisted "the political financing changes were never the issue" behind Liberal and NDP negotiations to form a coalition government. "The economy has always been the issue."

Oh, please. As the Liberals have shown during the past year and bit, there is no substantive issue greater to them than their own party's interests; no cause they would not advance to return to power and no issue they wouldn't jettison to avoid defeat. They even tried to deny ownership of the Green Shift in the final two weeks of the election campaign when it became obvious it was a stone lifejacket.

But threaten to cut off the subsidies that account for nearly 70% of their revenues and -- whoosh! -- they suddenly find their backbone.

If you are a Liberal, you can tell me that Stephen Harper overreached on party funding and got burned. But, please, don't tell me "the political funding changes were never the issue." It is the only issue.lgunter@shaw.ca

[dagger]

Only Gunter could try to change Harper's explosion of incompetence as the fault of the opposition. Ninety-percent of Canadians - even a lot of Conservatives - admit what Harper tried to do was wrong either on the issues or on the tactics. Gunter would like us to think Harper was right in all respects, right in what he tried to do, when he tried to do it, and that the reason it faiied is that the opposition didn't roll over and die. How dare the Liberals not roll over and die!

Not his last paragraph begins... "If you are a Liberal"... Sorry Lorne, but many Conservative media and commentators, including your Post colleagues, Post editorial board, etc, have said it, too.

Gunter is a lame joke, almost as lame as Harper.

What really bothers Gunter - and some of you - is that we of the political centre were right about Harper, and you know it. We had his meanness, his ideology-before-country attitude, his lack of compassion well delineated long before this. As Roy McGregor says, it's truly a statement about Harper that he couldn't get 200 seats in the last election campaign against Dion and the Green Plan. There is a significant portion of the electorate - perhaps one-third - that will never vote for Harper under any circumstances, and that pretty much dooms him. It's time for the Tories to consider other leadership options. The Karl Rove era of divide and conquer and kiss the ass of your base is over, only Harper has been late getting the message.

Good-bye Steve, I hear the Fraser Institute needs another economist.

[AME]

Gunter is a lame joke, almost as lame as Harper.

See what I mean

He's even now resorted to pulling figures out of thin air to try and support his position "Ninety-percent of Canadians "

[dagger]

See what I mean

He's even now resorted to pulling figures out of thin air to try and support his position "Ninety-percent of Canadians "

Well, let's see, there's a poll out in Quebec this morning that 76% support the coalition idea and only 9% want a new election. The same poll has Conservative support in the province down to 15% from 22% on election day.

I just read the political blogs on CalgaryHerald.com and they come to pretty much the same conclusions, as do almost every editorial writer in the country.

It would seem that only a small hardcore minority would think that what Harper tried to do was fair or smart. Under other circumstances, another time perhaps based on a campaign promise, cutting party funding would have been an acceptable issue on its own right, not tacked onto a key economic document where it was patently out of place since the Conservative goal with this was not to save money.

I feel quite comfortable pulling numbers out of the air. If it's 85% or 90%, very few people think that what Harper did last week, or at least tried to do, was good for the country.

[AME]

Well, let's see, there's a poll out in Quebec this morning that 76% support the coalition idea and only 9% want a new election. The same poll has Conservative support in the province down to 15% from 22% on election day.

I just read the political blogs on CalgaryHerald.com and they come to pretty much the same conclusions, as do almost every editorial writer in the country.

It would seem that only a small hardcore minority would think that what Harper tried to do was fair or smart. Under other circumstances, another time perhaps based on a campaign promise, cutting party funding would have been an acceptable issue on its own right, not tacked onto a key economic document where it was patently out of place since the Conservative goal with this was not to save money.

I feel quite comfortable pulling numbers out of the air. If it's 85% or 90%, very few people think that what Harper did last week, or at least tried to do, was good for the country.

I'm sorry, when you said Canadians I thought you meant all of us not just those in Quebec

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/country...lor/cacolor.htm

[dagger]

I'm sorry, when you said Canadians I thought you meant all of us not just those in Quebec

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/country...lor/cacolor.htm

I did mention Calgary. Is that not part of Canada either?

[AME]

Your ref to YYC was that you had read a blog, this was not backed up by a poll of any kind or even a link to the blog, so I didn't think even you wanted to focus on that.

[dagger]

Your ref to YYC was that you had read a blog, this was not backed up by a poll of any kind or even a link to the blog, so I didn't think even you wanted to focus on that.

I can quote editorials from Calgary and Edmonton. I have yet to see an Alberta commentator think that last week's turmoil was anything but Harper's doing, and to his discredit. Going forward, they may have more bad to say about the opposition, but right now this is where things are at.

[Guest rattler]

I did mention Calgary. Is that not part of Canada either?

Poll on the subject from CTV Calgary

What do you think of opposition plans to defeat the Harper government?

Good for the country    (14 %) 499

Bad for the country    (77 %) 2840

Won't make a difference    (9 %) 332

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate...bhub=VoteResult

[J.O.]

Dear Canada:

It is high time that all of us got our eyes back on the ball.

From Gunter's editorial:

As the Liberals have shown during the past year and bit, there is no substantive issue greater to them than their own party's interests; no cause they would not advance to return to power and no issue they wouldn't jettison to avoid defeat.

Well Mr. Pot, may I introduce you to Mr. Kettle. If Harper et al's recent actions aren't an example of exactly the same thing, then I don't know what is. I am now beginning to see why there is a large percentage of our population who choose to not cast a ballot. None of these clowns are (apparently) worth the waste of pencil lead. Here we are in the midst of a potentially devastating economic crisis, and our so-called leaders of all stripes respond with this petty bickering. We can sit here and argue all day as to who is right and who is wrong and nothing will be solved. I for one, want the people we elected to bury their partisan hatchets for a few weeks at least and get down to the business at hand. Our nation's future may depend on it. And all I can say to that is, "Heaven help us"!

[Cargo Agent]

dagger, you should stick to aviation topics.