— Musings —04.06.2011 09:05 AM
KCCCC Day 12: What kids might say
- I was a bit under the weather this morning. So I didn’t get to do my favourite thing, which is drive the kids to school. On these journeys, the kids will listen to the radio – always set to CBC, if my sons are being ferried – and ask me questions. The questions are always thoughtful and interesting. Here’s what they might have said this morning, with my response.
- Dad, why are they saying Stephen Harper is in a bubble? “That’s what reporters say during an election campaign, when they think a politician is trying to hide from tough questions and from real people. Very fair reporters I know, like David Akin, say it is happening, so I know it is. Lots of Conservative friends I know are telling me they think Harper has made a big mistake with it. It may not hurt Harper, because a lot of people aren’t watching the campaign, yet, and because reporters tend to make the allegation a lot. But, if it sticks, it’ll make Harper look like a chicken.”
- I heard he kicked out some kids. Is that true? Why did he do that? “Yes, it’s true. A girl had her picture taken with Michael Ignatieff, and the Harper people spied on her Facebook page and saw the picture. It makes him like someone who bullies kids, and who lies about it when caught. If I were working on the Liberal campaign, I would do an ad about that [UPDATE: And they have, below!] , and make sure everyone in Canada knows. When things like that happen, and no one cares, we’re not in Canada anymore.”
- Daddy, the radio said he had a man who worked for Harper who was in jail. How did that happen? “That’s a good question. Harper likes to say he’s tough on crime, but he’s not tough on crime when it comes to his friends. I used to work for Mr. Chretien, and I had a Top Secret security clearance, and that meant the RCMP investigated me before I could get hired. I don’t understand why a convicted criminal was allowed to work there. What files did he see? Are there other convicted criminals who work for Harper? I’ll bet there are.”
- If Harper is doing so many bad things, why did the radio guy say he is winning? “He’s winning, but he’s lost support in the past week, because he’s had a lousy campaign, and Ignatieff has had a good one. He’s also always ahead at the start of campaigns, because his supporters tend to by angry old white guys who would come out for him in a hurricane. The supporters Ignatieff and Layton have are more laid-back, and they generally start to pay attention usually around the time of the debates. That’s when the polls will get closer, because Harper isn’t a good debater on TV.”
- Are you working for the Liberals now? “No, I’m not. I was working for Ignatieff for a while, there, but I didn’t like how he treated some people who are friends of mine, so I left. I think he’d be a better Prime Minister than Harper, so that’s why I’ve got that great big Maria Minna sign out front. She’s a friend of mine and is a great MP.”
- I’d vote for her if I was old enough, Daddy.“Good!”
- So you’re still working for Premier McGuinty, right? “Yes, I work for his caucus, we’re up early every day, working hard for him. Yesterday, he pointed out that his main opponent is splitting in two – with progressive conservatives on one said, and some pretty bad people, like racists, on the other. The last time that happened was in 1991, when I was working for Mr. Chretien and Mr. Mulroney’s party split in two. They lost every election for ten years after that.”
- Here’s that video!
New ad from LPC…funny, cause it’s true!
You should link it front page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6hDv6gCe1I&feature=youtu.be
Hopefully the young lady featured in that ad was asked if the LPC could use her likeness.
I’ll wager a buck she’s okay with it.
Ha! Awesome. Kids might say the darnedest things.
I was ^not^ paid to write this.
Chris Alexander thinks poverty has been eliminated in Canada.
Wow, yet another Harperite in the bubble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncUtF2E7D8Y
The actual quote is here:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/06/liberals-promise-greater-honesty-except-on-their-own-web-site/
The only quotes there are from Kelly.
Alexander said that there’s no poverty in Canada consistent with World Bank levels.
I don’t see too many World Bank officials sitting on city streets.
Alexander was stupid to even go down that road and make the comparison.
And the video is honest, it’s him saying what he said…..how is that dishonest?
I’m sure the poorest of Canadians are gleefully starving knowing that they have it so much better than the folk of Afghanistan.
Uh Kelly McPartland. That’s not biased at all. Opinion columns for proof … Weak
Um, no, that’s McParland’s water-carrying spin (which notably HAS no actual quotes from the CPC candidate in q.);
“the actual quote” was transcribed in the LPC website page that McParland was mis-characterizing as being “about as dishonest and distorted a claim as could be concocted”:
The LPC conclusion he objected to was: “Conservative candidate Chris Alexander claimed that there is no poverty in Canada.” And it was based on this exchange at the candidate’s event:
“Anyone who thinks though, that poverty reduction, or poverty elimination, and I believe in poverty elimination in this country, we’ve eliminated it for the levels the World Bank recognizes. We don’t have that kind of poverty in Canada. But we still have low income.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: You’re lying, you’re lying.
CROWD: Groans.
ALEXANDER: Two dollars a day? Two dollars a day? I would ask anyone in this room to stand up and tell me who’s living on $2 a day?”
— so, yes, in his ‘defense,’ the World Bank DOES define absolute global poverty as anyone who exists on an annual income of $2 or less a day. Which is, um, under a thousand — i.e., $730 — a year.
— And so Mr. Alexander concludes — but just assumes, really — that thus there really is no poverty in Canada, period… only Low Income (which is set in the thousandS, here, based on what proportion of your income you spend on necessities: and which b/w about 5 and 10% of the Cndn. population live under, depending on whose measure you use).
Granted, there’s a lot of controversy — esp. as generated BY the National Post and their Fraser Institute compatriots — about whether the “Low Income” cut-offs in Canada should be characterized as a “Poverty Line,” but I don’t see ANY mischaracterization in the Libs pointing out that this candidate’s position is that there IS no poverty in Canada according to the very extreme level of poverty that he prefers to invoke.
I’m really upset about this Chris Alexander BS, because any idiot with an IQ higher than 12 could see that’s not what Alexander was trying to say. He said ‘by the standard set by the World Bank, we’ve eliminated poverty, but we still -” and then switched gears to respond to the hecklers. But his remarks were clearly leading up to a point that there is still *relative* poverty in Canada.
Isn’t it a good thing that a Tory would say that? Isn’t the world we want one where a Tory can talk comfortably in complete paragraphs about his views on poverty without interruption, so they can get used to the idea that they, too, can do something about it? Don’t we want to encourage him to finish his sentence to see where his mind was headed? How can we expect to have an intelligent conversation about complicated issues like poverty if we can’t even wait until a guy finishes his thought before we clip it and mangle it and cut it up, just as the Tories have done to Ignatieff? How on earth is a guy who spend years at risk in Afghanistan in government service, who’s now answering unscripted questions on poverty, how can that be *anything* remotely like Harper and his bubble?
Chris Alexander is not some random CPC frat boy; he’s a longtime public servant who’s worked cheerfully and with distinction in countries where severe poverty is the norm. He also happens to be a conservative. If that’s a crime, then maybe I should be voting Conservative in a few weeks after all.
well, except that I gather the full context was that the constituents at that event were asking this uber-patriotic star candidate the CPC brought in to bump out their LPC MP in this riding….
what he and the CPC were going to do to combat the high levels of poverty in that riding, which had been getting worse rather than better over the course of their 5 years in office.
And the candidate’s response: “Meh; there is no poverty in Canada… at least you have something to eat.”
A TORY upset about a quote possibly being truncated to make context an issue? Are you flipping kidding me??? What a joke. Pot? Kettle called.
You’re right – Alexander is no frat boy, which is what makes his decisions to put out his rarified view that poverty doesn’t exist in Canada and to consort with alleged fraudsters really odd.
Oh, and that officially marks the final time I will feed the trolls around here.
except for your next post, right Jen?
Nicely put, and a good message for everyone to keep in mind.
Vote whoever you want to vote for.
Canada’ poor aren’t interest in the World Bank’s definition of poverty and their statistical ranking in relation to it.
Ending poverty in a developed G8 nation is an absolute goal, not a relative one.
Alexander goofed and the LPC was right to call him on it.
Yes — saying we don’t have Third World level poverty isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement that poverty doesn’t exist in Canada. Jeepers.
George seems to have confused the issue, so to clarify, I will say responding to actual interested parties, people with valuable insight, isn’t troll-feeding. But as for the newbies who seem to have shown up since the Conservative astroturfing cattle-call (and they got cattle, all right, complete with the bullshit), nope. No more troll-feeding. I would suggest it’s not a bad policy.
That’s not a way to answer a question.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years criticizing conservatives for attacking Iggy for writing books or “being elitist” or having taught at Harvard or having complex thoughts on global issues that couldn’t be distilled into a single sound bite.
I guess I was wasting my time. I guess we should only defend scripted bots who pander in every sentence to exactly what local voters already know and already want to hear, provided they do it in perfect 8-second clips, of course.
My mistake. Glad it was pointed out to me before E-Day, though.
No: your mistake was in not looking into the circumstances more before leaping to the CPC’s talking point conclusions on this.
Because you’re wrong to describe the audience members he was doing verbal combat with there as “hecklers” or depicting this as a matter of him being ambushed without enough time to defend himself (above).
Because it turns out this was an all-party forum ON the topic of poverty, that was hosted by a Community Development Council at the city of Ajax’s council chambers.
http://urlm.in/hmde (Globe & Mail today) ;
So he wasn’t ambushed, or heckled: he was invited to come to speak specifically on that topic, of what his party intended to do to alleviate poverty in Canadian communities like theirs, and that’s what he came up with: the reverse Crocodile Dundee argument (‘Poor? You’re not poor. They’re poor.’)
And your candidate’s fuller answer when the moderator asked the crowd to quiet down, that you & the CPC complained that the LPC left out, or that the audience didn’t give him a chance to say?
Well, it appears it was just the same rote recitation of the CPC’s talking points that Diane Finley first delivered in QP a couple weeks before this, when the gov’t summarily dismissed all the rec’s of the new Anti-Poverty Report http://bit.ly/fqLHGk that they themselves had commissioned:
“Mr. Alexander said the Harper government has created 500,000 jobs since the peak of the recession. “A growing economy, one of the most successful in the world, is the solution to eliminating poverty,” he said.”
http://www.durhamregion.com/news/ajax/article/173832
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/950023–harper-government-passes-on-anti-poverty-plan
Viz., “Get a job!”
As for your defense by resume: well, fine, let’s go there:
Don’t you find it the least bit troubling that a long-time diplomat and then official Ambassador in a very volatile and culturally sensitive area would be so very UN-diplomatic in his language and interactions with a crowd he should know would be very sensitive about this topic? I do.
So it appears he combines the worst of both worlds: not good on his feet, and not above just peddling the shameless party line delivered by his masters.
That is one friggin’ great video!
Now if it could get a few hundred thousand or million his among our youth.
not a game changer, but this might be
http://www.torontosun.com/news/decision2011/2011/04/05/17887586.html
Yeah, it’s good to see Harper champion the stimulus his supporters say was forced on him.
Oh, I remember Ignatieff on his feet urging the gov’t to supply stimulus money – several times in fact. I do believe that the people you hear crying the deficit tune are the same ones who voted for the short-term stimulus to see the country through the world-wide economic challenge….that vote included the Liberals in favour. Was Ignatieff even IN the house for that vote?
No, that’s not a game changer… it’s a Hail Mary.
First, it actually undermines Harper’s Chicken Little / ‘Chaos is Lapping at the Shore’ message, because the OECD’s prediction is that our economy is humming along, thank you very much, and will be regardless of who’s in power… and it’s almost all due to our exports being bought by the rest of the world again, as it recovers.
Second, it’s JUST a prediction, by a Think Tank; and a pretty rosy one, at that. The BMO thinks these forecasts are over-stated (OECD says 5.2% GDP growth this current quarter, BMO says 4.4%; OECD says 3.8% next quarter, BMO says 2.3%)… and warns that they were both judging on the basis of what was happening in Dec., BEFORE the Japan ‘quake/tsunami, and the spike in food and Oil prices, which could set our exports back considerably.
http://www.thestar.com/business/markets/article/969530–oecd-bullish-on-canada
Third, very little of this has anything to do with what the CPC did — or wouldn’t have done w/o being pressured into doing, by the Opp. Arguably, it would have all happened w/o ANY gov’t in power,* that we took a hit when our customers economies all suffered when their greedy, negligent bankers precipitated a financial meltdown…. and our business would pick up again when their govt’s bailed them out & spent their way out of that mess.
*(Conrad Black is delighted to point out that the Parliamentarily grid-locked Belgium has gone nearly a full year without a gov’t, now http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Campaigning+between+yard+lines/4547980/story.html
Canadian dollar charging ahead…the TSX doing fine and last week’s GDP was better than expected.
But, but, but King Stephen said an election would destablize the econonmy.
And this clown has an MA in Economics?
uh-oh….
http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2011/4/6/4789362.html
At least Ignatieff has called a full investigation and has said he’ll turf the candidate if it’s true.
What he didn’t say was that staff runs the campaign and hide from the media.
It’s called leadership and accountability.
“Ignatieff said that, if he learns that what Forbes said is true, he will not be a Liberal candidate.”
OTTAWA – The Liberal party is considering dumping one of its Quebec candidates – a former spokesman for the Association for the Rights of Whites – for allegedly making disparaging comments against aboriginals.
Leader Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday morning he planned to take swift action against Andre Forbes if a party investigation supports the allegations.
“The remarks that have allegedly been made are utterly unacceptable. They stand against everything a Liberal has always said and believed,” said Ignatieff. “So I am asking for a report on those remarks. If they prove true I will take decisive action this very day.”
http://links.visibli.com/links/cd80d1
I just learned that the LPOC didn’t field a full complement of Liberal candidates in all ridings across Canada. Why?
Cuz contrary to one of Harper’s many lies, they DIDN’T intend to have an election now; and because the deadline for nominations hasn’t been reached, yet.
But they’re 96% there: there are 295 candidates listed at http://www.liberal.ca/candidates/ — ^NOT incl. Andre Forbes (so, just 13 more to go, whereas a few weeks ago they apparently had 81 to fill: http://www.punditsguide.ca/2011/03/election-readiness-at-the-point-of-no-return/
So, how ’bout the CPC — how many do they have in the field right now? You sure / can you prove it? Cuz I can list the LPC’s by riding, now.
It’s a regrettable lapse in their due diligence, to be sure (assuming that’s the right guy & the offensive assertions were his rather than ones he was critiquing), but isn’t it interesting that:
– the damaging revelations were unearthed & made by the war room of the supposed coalition partner, the NDP, but,
– NOT by the CPC’s, which is too busy screening the general public to protect their leader from being confronted by a real person with dissenting views, to do their actual job of Oppo. research, despite being the best financed party in the land.
An unfortunate one-day hit, but we should actually thank the NDP for tbringing this to light, because it’s far better to weed out the bad apple now than to let him become a Cheryl Gallant or Shelly Glover style MP who’d continue to cause black eyes for their Party.
“H/T from David Akin
Liberal bubble? #LPC supporters couldn’t get in to @M_Ignatieff rally in QC: http://bit.ly/gss87P #elxn41″
The Liberal war room provides this explanation this morning:
We were delighted to have supporters greet the arrival of our tour bus. We were meeting local social advocacy groups in their very small office space. Media were pooled (and we held a scrum outdoors after the event for all) and due to very tight space constraints, we couldn’t bring our supporters inside their offices. This was not a rally or a town hall event.
http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2011/4/6/4789354.html
uh, huh. Well, again, it says right in there (altho’ its buried in this hostile piece) that there wasn’t enough room to squeeze in the late arrivals.
Not admitting people into an over-crowded room is a pretty far cry from pre-screening & then ejecting even admitted people after a second wave of screening. (Like the guy who got ejected after they spotted an NDP bumper sticker on his car.)
(let’s see if this quote from the cyberpresse article gets by WordPress’s accent police:
“Le refus de laisser entrer militants et journalistes locaux a été expliqué par un manque d’espace à l’intérieur.”
Because not allowing people in to comply with fire codes and selecting individuals from a room based on some sort od screening process are the same, right?
Yet another student from another Harper event has come forward about being kicked out after properly registering and not causing a disturbance.
“David Akin;
Liberal candidate called aboriginals “Featherheads”, says they’re lazy. Over to you , Mr. Ignatieff.
Robert Fife chokes – “Ignatieff orders immediate inquiry into Lib candidate Andre Forbes who once headed Assoc of Whites.”
Who’s the knuckledragger now, Bob?” (SDA)
enough crap on all sides is seems.
Uh oh, look what the “cat” dragged in
WOW, don’t the Liberals “vet” their own? I thought the Liberals were all pure as fresh fallen snow
At least Ignatieff doesn’t blame his staff unlike Steven “the buck doesn’t stop here” Harper. That’s called accountability, maybe you’ve heard of it
Sure, they have: they’ve got a One-Act Play about it.
I am still waiting for the “Game Changer” in the Toronto mayoral race to take affect…The left always need a “game changer” and I understand Warren it is your job to feed the left their daily piece of red meat but come on, why are the Liberals not talking about the great new “Red Book”? We both know why…because the platform is left of the NDP and no matter how they try to sell it no one isn’t buying it, well except for the Liberal bloggers of course
Buy me another car company Dr. J
Is the J for jerk or jackwad?
there it is….why the name calling?
Cause I’m a nasty SOB.
You’d think Harpo would be my hero.
Mr.Montreal…I do remember that,when the Pm literally save the automotive sectoe in Ontario, This is when Iggy stated in BC he would not help the car industry in Ontario, however in Ontario he stated he would help the car industry….love the Iggman, his is a pure gift. As far as the name calling goes……thank you very much
No worries, glad that you prefer state intervention over free markets deciding its fate.
Smaller governmnet means expanding the PMO yearly and fiscal conservatism means running bigger deficits.
Dr. J please remember “We have always been at war with Eastasia”
You missed some talking points, but, still: Cha-ching!
There’s plenty of time left in the campaign to talk policy, yet… at this point, we’re just delighting in watching you guys keep scoring on your own net.
Trolls are now being fed by the minute instead of by the hour. Con war room has kicked in.
A Liberal listening to the CBC? Tell me it isn’t true!!
Why have the Liberals moved so far left. Ignatieff sais the Libs wee a “centrist” Party. The Big RED Tent is getting smaller.
Typing skills really bad today!!
That’s okay – you’ll still get paid.
Cha-ching!
This is a story primarily about racism not leadership.
Well, except it’s both, equally: it’s about what the leadership does when hearing about racist people in their party; and it’s something that the CPC leadership also had to deal with in its previous incarnation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_Canada#Public_controversies_regarding_Reform.27s_policies
…and something they’ll most likely have to contend with again (sure that none of the new CPC candidates won’t prove to be embarrassments, as well? Again, don’t bet the farm on it.)
Oh, look: According to the Landowners Randy is still running for leader! http://72.29.74.183/~ruralrev/website/
Watch this issue slowly sink into the abyss now that the truth comes out.
http://blackrod.blogspot.com/
Yeah, sure, the presses will stop, because that fringe windbag blogger is on the case, and figures he has the goods on why at least one or two of the turfed youth were activists who, um, don’t belong at political rallies. Even though they wouldn’t be allowed to ask questions, anyway, unless they were one of the 5 accredited, vetted, pre-selected members of the media permitted to speak per event.
Say Warren, you would know the answer to this: The local radio here in Vancouver (CKNW) keeps calling Steven Harper “Prime Minister Steven Harper”.
After the vote of no confidence and the subsequent dropping of the writ, is Steven’s position as prime minister no longer applicable? Did not the Speaker, after the non-confidence vote address Steven Harper as “Member” and not “Prime Minister”?
You heard it here first, folks: Canada is currently without a Prime Minister. Harper was right: chaos is reigning!