Boy oh boy, this’ll set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons.

“I should be able to speak my mind on political issues, but I’ve found members of the Conservative party seem to be more sensitive to criticism than other parties,” she says. “They make it very personal.”

That was much-quoted political scientist Heather MacIvor speaking to my friend Linda Diebel, and it got me nodding my early-morning head, big time.

It’s true.

More than any other partisans, Conservatives can’t take a punch without crying about it. They can’t. They will flood your inbox, or your comments, with angry and abusive emails.  They’ll call others a “Lie-beral” and a “leftard” and whatnot, for sure, and they do that sort of thing a lot. But if someone like me actually gives them some of their own medicine in a column or on a TV panel or what have you, they’ll start shrieking like babies about the “lamestream” media’s “left-lib” bias, how they are always being unfairly targeted, blah blah blah. Happens without fail.

I’ve been doing this web site thing for a decade, and I can tell you that it is very, very rare for a Conservative to actually say “yeah, you’re right” when they are on the receiving end of a criticism. Most of the time, they go completely apeshit – Hell, all the National Post does, most days, is rush to soothe the hurt feelings of conservatives, and defend every bloody thing they do, no matter how idiotic. It’s like Prof. MacIvor says: they can’t take it.

When it comes to criticism, partisan Conservatives are sucky sucky babies. They’re the Touchy Tories.©

Now, let’s see how they react in comments, shall we?  This will be interesting.

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Holy smokes!  This morning, there sure are a lot of pundits saying there’ll be an election in 2011! The Globe, in particular, has gone slightly bonkers.

If  a lot of this seems familiar to you, well, that’s because it is:

• Globe editorial, January 11, 2010: “With Canada on the brink of a federal election in 2010…” blah blah blah.
• Globe editorial, July 21, 2009: “Canada might have a general election in 2010…” blah blah blah.
• Globe news story, January 1, 2010: “The best prediction now is for a trip to the polls in the autumn, before the Conservatives are forced to bring down the 2011 austerity budget…” blah blah blah.
• Globe news story, January 2, 2010: “Sooner or later in 2010, an election is likely….” blah blah blah.
• Globe news story, January 4, 2010: “There might even be an election…” blah blah blah.
• Globe column, March 5, 2010: “It’s a government that wants to get re-elected with a majority – and that means having an election if possible before the 2011 budget…” blah blah blah.

That’s just one newspaper.  It took five minutes to find.  The rest of them are just as bad.

Everyone take a frigging Valium.  Jesus.

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Casting an anxious eye toward’s Sun TV’s debut, perhaps, the CBC told me on the weekend they wanted to start trying out new folks for Power and Politics. No probs, said I.  Understandable.  Go for it.  Fill your boots.

This afternoon: CTV called!  Until Sun TV starts up, they are apparently happy to offer me a stool from which to pontificate!  CBC doesn’t want me, but CTV does!

Meanwhile, the Sun – for whom I happily work, typing columns read by my mother and, er, my mother – doesn’t mind me doing anything with anybody.  Nobody intimidates them.  Interesting, that.

TV politics sure are weird, sometimes.  No wonder I read newspapers.

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Some days, you feel like you’re living in la-la land. Take yesterday, here in Ontario, for example.

For a while now, Ontario has had a Green Energy Act. A popular one, with around 22,000 people signing up in the first year. Thousands of jobs have been created or are soon on the way.

And across rural Ontario, farms are diversifying their income by making renewable energy.

Then along comes Tim Hudak, the Tory leader, quoting all these so-called facts. Facts that come from sources even the Wall Street Journal — owned by the same guy who owns Fox News — question. About how renewable energy is so bad for our economy. A study supported by climate change deniers and supporters of California’s controversialProposition 23. The US government has also debunked the study, citing flawed methodology, contextual oversights, and a lack of transparency and supporting statistics.

I’m all for an intelligent debate about energy policy. And if people disagree with Ontario’s HST, that’s their right. Anyway, back to la-la land, where people like to have their cake and eat it, too.

Because you can’t scrap a job-creating, farm-income-generating law without being honest about everything that will happen next.

So what’s Tim Hudak’s plan for all the farms receiving farm income?

For the Niagara Falls church putting in solar?

For the new manufacturing plants in Windsor, Guelph, and more?

If Mr. Hudak wants to shut these down, then say so.

But renewable energy simply is not behind the electricity price hikes Ontario has seen. And the jobs, farm income and cleaner air that more Ontarians are enjoying deserve a better debate than what we’ve seen on the HST. A tax Mr. Hudak opposes but will keep.

See what I mean about la-la land?

Dr. Rick Smith
Executive Director

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OMG this is so awesome.

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Zero, zippo, zilch.

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…then I guess one’s own record on treatment of women should be spotless, eh?

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That was the name of my 1992 book that described an alliance between dangerous anti-Semites and outlaw Arab nations.

Now, almost 20 years later, there’s been a change of roles: Jews (including one whom I like, and is a friend) apparently making common cause with racists – because they all hate Muslims. It all came to a head this week, in Toronto.

As the above-linked column describes, some in Canada’s Jewish right wing – in this case, the JDL, but which also now includes the Canada Israel Committee – have started to make friends with white supremacists. It’s a bizarre, it’s wrong, and it’s a real-life extension of the “enemy of my enemy” aphorism.  Among other things, it makes me very sad.

For the Jewish community, it is more than an unholy alliance. In my opinion, it is a disaster.

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