— Musings —04.14.2014 08:24 PM
In Tuesday’s Sun: they’re losing
Now that the plague that is Rob Anders has ended – fittingly, and Biblically, just as Holy Week and Passover commenced – let us give thanks and praise to God. And analyze what it means.
Anders, as a long-mortified Canada will know, has represented Northwest Calgary and environs for nearly two decades. As a Reform MP, an Alliance MP and now a Conservative MP, Anders has been a pestilential blight on Canadian public life, more horrible than a week-long Justin Bieber retrospective.
He called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist,” quote unquote. He fell asleep in the House of Commons. He attacked veterans, who had objected to the fact that he fell asleep in a meeting with them.
He implied Thomas Mulcair somehow responsible for Jack Layton’s passing – saying that Mulcair “arm-twisted” the former NDP leader into campaigning in 2011. He was hired as a “professional heckler” by a Republican candidate. He authored a private member’s bill, indelicately referred to as “The Bathroom Bill,” which was aimed at eliminating the threat to children by transgendered people in public washrooms. (He had an unusual degree of interest in what people do in their bedrooms, too.)
He was a fool, in other words. He was the worst Member of Parliament in a singularly undistinguished House of Commons.
Anders’ blessed departure from the national stage – he will probably now take up residence in the Wildrose Party, where he belongs – is welcome news. But what does the news portend for his enablers, like Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney and John Baird?
For years, Messrs. Harper, Kenney, Baird et al. had looked the other way while Anders rolled around in the gutter. Harper quietly endorsed Anders in the Signal Hill Conservative nomination battle. Kenney, meanwhile, was far less subtle, and openly called on local Conservatives to rally around Anders.
And Baird – in between partying with friends at the fancy taxpayer-supported digs of the Canadian High Commissioner in London, and the Consul-General in New York – has professed to be a progressive Conservative. While doing precisely nothing about the toxic presence of Anders in the Conservative caucus for year after year.
Anders’ defeat in Signal Hill is not the first of such defeats for Harper, Kenney, Baird et al. In recent months, the number of Harper acolytes who have ended up under the proverbial bus – from Nigel Wright to Mike Duffy to Marc Nadon – has grown exponentially. (They may soon require a new bus to toss people under, in fact.)
Part of the reason for all of this Conservative unhappiness, to be fair, is a natural consequence of being in power for a long time. When you have been in power for nearly a decade, you become sloppy. Thus, Baird and his unnamed pals partying it up in the High Commissioners’ apartment – or Kenney and Harper endorsing a troglodyte like Anders, who is going down to certain defeat.
With the passage of time, governing parties lose touch. They spend too much time with bureaucrats and each other, and not enough with real folks. They start representing Ottawa to home – instead of representing home to Ottawa.
Rob Anders’ defeat isn’t just his. It’s the defeat of his party’s leaders, too – and it matters.
In his endorsement of Anders’ candidacy, Harper described the afore-mentioned troglodyte as “a strong voice” and “a valued member of the team”.
Not a team I’m interested in joining…
Even Danielle Smith can read the writing on the wall: she suggested Anders take time in the private sector (instead of join her party).
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/alberta/story.html?id=9737951
Amazing. Even the Wildrose sees that their future is not with the people Harper and Kenney support.
In your estimation, Warren, can we expect to see other pugilistic Anders-like cranks sent curbside thanks to nominations meetings between now and the 2015 election?
What I don’t get is that Anders has always been an odious troll – evidently, incontrovertibly – as are most of the Cons (Cheryl Gallant, anyone?). So what does that mean about what we accept as politicians and what does that say about us? Yet, Cons won’t whine a lick about his very generous pension…
Generally agreed. Covered the bases on Ands.
Jason Kenney: the man that ramped up lower-paid temporize foreign workers e.g. McDonalds in Victoria, BC who are firing Canadian workers for TFW. Jason Kenney the guy that sued the Jesuits for allowing freedom of speech – in America. Damn you constitution. Jason Kenney the guy against abortion even in the case of rape and incest – i.e. traitor to humanity. Jason Kenney the guy who is evidently asexual – nothing wrong with that per se – but expects everyone else to be. The guy who just got burned with ISNA (mind, something he shares with JT now.)
John Baird: sort of an odd duck really. Erotically beyond liberal yet works in a milieu of essentially sociopathic accountants.
Stephen Harper: what to say? The slow motion sunset. Cue Waterloo Sunset cover on piano. Fade to black.
Thomas Mulcair can kill by sheer “anger waves.” Tis a fact me boy.
it was nice to see his riding association “snap out of it”. The very fact Baird, Harper, and Kenney support Anders says as much about them as Ander’s behaviour says about him.
Perhaps we maybe rid of this Conservative disease which has plagued our country.
it is doubtful Anders would survive in the real world, so he most likely will try for another riding or run as an independent.
There’s not enough of a drip, drip, drip……… yet, in the country to do more than reduce the CON’s to a minority which they will prorogue their way out of.
What’s needed is a big event of some kind, which erodes their base and/or renders the rest of the voters so disgusted that the resistance becomes a groundswell.
Something like a major cabinet resignation.
Or perhaps another high-profile juicy scandal.
This is looking like the last days of Mulroney, transposed forward 20+ years.
One more thing I forgot to mention is that I remember the exact moment I knew the country had flipped on Mulroney and there was no turning back. I think the same has happened to Harper, that he’s done and that’s that. No more scandals need to happen, nothing so dramatic. The country is just tired of him. Not with a bang but with a whimper, etc.