05.02.2012 04:20 PM

Canada Live, May 2: one year later

I react with horror and alarm as a giant disembodied hand prepares to high-five the Prime Ministerial forehead.

13 Comments

  1. Appropo of nothing, I happened to see pictures these two guys in quick succession, and Stephen Harper is a dead ringer for Ian Curtis. Both born in the late 1950’s – one departed far too soon, the other persists. The same guy? At the National Arts Centre, S. Harper to Yo Yo Ma: “You should hear my version of Louie Louie, whoa.” Can Harper do the Epilepsy Dance?

  2. Transcanada says:

    Holy robocall, has it been a year already?

    • Jeff says:

      Earlier today I was thinking “ugh, it’s only been a year?”. This government may just drive me to drink.

  3. Steve T says:

    The good: Canada hasn’t been “fundamentally changed”, or whatever similar tripe the opposition tried to allege during the last election. Things in general are pretty much as per normal.

    The bad: It seems that some Conservative MPs have morphed into the same entitlement-sucking, expense-padding morons that they used to criticize when they were in opposition. Seriously, between Bev Oda’s junket and the ridiculous limo overtime for cabinet ministers, this government should be ashamed on how they’ve been using taxpayer dollars. *Sigh* – it seems every government has the same problem.

    • smelter rat says:

      You just aren’t paying attention. The changes are significant and will be long lasting and difficult to reverse. Canada is quietly being fundamentally changed from within.

      • Steve T says:

        Examples please (and examples that aren’t just partisan rhetoric). Sorry, things like removing the gun registry (which is only a recent addition to the Canadian landscape) do not constitute “significant” changes.

        • frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

          I think Michael Harris has spelled out many of the changes quite clearly in this piece…..

          http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/05/02/michael-harris-a-canadian-spring-for-harperland/

        • Conservative Socialist says:

          It will be very difficult to re-implement the gun registry on long guns in a future government after the Conservatives get voted out. Consider the political capital that the Liberals had expended in implementing it, and the number of votes they lost in non-urban ridings as a result of it. So I don’t think the long gun registry will be coming back.

          Take the GST that was cut by two points. It will also be very very hard to raise it back to 7 percent. Any political party that will try to raise it back will more or less be committing political suicide, because nobody really likes to pay taxes. And I think the main reason why the PCs were decimated federally in ’93 was because they implemented the GST in the first place! Never mind that Mulroney actually promised to implement a 9% GST during the ’88 campaign (to replace the 13% manufacturers’ sales tax) and only dropped it to 7% due to public pressure.

          So when political parties say that a decision made by the government is a bad one and be impossible to reverse it just means that they don’t want to expend any political capital (ie: lose popularity) to reverse that policy if they happen to get elected.

    • Conservative Socialist says:

      That’s one of the features of democracy–it’s quite easy to snipe and be holier-than-thou feigning righteous anger at those who have the responsibility of governance. That’s what opposition does–they like to throw a lot of mud by trying to score political points in the hopes that something will eventually stick. And once you get in power on a wave of popular resentment, you ultimately become corrupted by virtue of having access on the inside. Just like the old song says, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

      The Reform Party was quite adamant about being against the gold-plated pensions that long serving MPs were getting. That was until a good number of them started to become eligible for these and they quietly decided that they’d like these pensions for themselves as well.

      Human beings are by their very nature, greedy and selfish. It takes pure sheer will to overcome our natural in-born vices. Human beings have always been this way, we just have more access to technology and instantaneous communication to be able to expose these character flaws a lot more easily (consider Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator” where camera crews capture a parade of morons who think there really are 13 year old girls who like to party of 40 something socially inept losers).

  4. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Good interview, as was the one with Lilly.

    I’m old enough to remember…and I think you are, too…how the NDP took a leap to over 40% in the polls right after Ed Broadbent won the leadership. And the talk was he was going to be big agent of change.

    A couple years later, the NDP got a tad less than 20% in the election, and about 42 seats or something like that, and that was as good as it ever got for them until last year Quebec thing.

    Mulcair is no Broadbent, not by a long shot.

    This honeymoon won’t last long…Mulcair will see to that personally.

  5. JamesHalifax says:

    Oh Geez, Warren,

    Could you not have found a better picture of yourself? You look like you just ate something…and it’s coming back up.

  6. Richard says:

    I thought for a moment this was a screencap of a Facebook Timeline page. The look on your face is priceless, WK.

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