Just saw a guy coming into St. Mike’s Easter Mass wearing a French Connection U.K. sweatshirt. If I were the priest, I’d punch him in the face.

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It’s always dangerous to regard “the national newspaper” as having any insight whatsoever into the nation. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, they do.

The grey old Globe and Mail has recently pronounced that, generally, West beats the East. And, specifically, Quebec is Loserville.

Exhibit One: Here’s Prof. Jeffrey Simpson, under the headline “Canada’s political reversal is complete,” declaring that Calgary is now the political centre of Canada, and Montreal is within the Ninth Circle of Hell.

“Since the late 1980s, Canadian politics has been shaped, more than anything else, by the dialectics between Montreal and Calgary (which is the West’s) political centre,” declared Simpson, possibly wearing a Stetson as he did so. “After being in opposition for so long, Calgary is now in power — and after having been in power for so long, Montreal is now in opposition.”

Exhibit Two: Margaret Wente, another charter member of the Globe punditocracy, has decided that the West is Boffo, and Quebec is stink-o. Writing about the pugilistic Liberal MP Justin Trudeau, Wente — who has lived for decades in the shadow of the CN Tower, and wouldn’t know what a Richardson ground squirrel was if it alighted on her plate at a Bay Street bistro — proclaimed thusly: “(Justin Trudeau is) from Quebec, which is a fatal liability. The economic and political power of the country have all gone West.”

Exhibit Three: Gordon Pitts, an actual Westerner, wrote a lengthy exegesis in the Globe, declaring that there has been a “a critical exodus” from Quebec, and that “corporate Canada’s heart now beats in the West.”

Got all that? Calgary good, Montreal bad. West the summit of all wisdom and power, East wants in, etc.

Now, it’s boring when columnists write about other columnists. And it’s particularly boring when columnists pick on the Glib and Frail. That’s something Maclean’s head whiner, Paul Wells, does all the time, and it’s hard to get more tedious than him.

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…is the cause of the other.

Me? My view’s unchanged: he has too much baggage, and he couldn’t lift the party out of third place when our competition was Ms. Turmel. We need new faces, new blood.

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You decide.

Danielle Smith has some explaining to do, however.

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Interesting analysis by my Carleton U. friend Pete. Worth a read.

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Well, not really: I’m the “et al” they refer to, apparently.

But a win’s a win!  “Dismissed with costs,” and, per tradition, without reasons given. After 16 long years, the CBC and I have finally emerged victorious: former diplomat and far-Rightist Ian V. Macdonald, meanwhile, has lost.  Our thanks to the fine legal minds of Scott Hutchinson and Brennagh Smith at Stockwoods.  They kick ass.

Now, who’s going to buy me a celebratory drink?  It’s almost the end of Lent, and I can swill ale again!

Woot!

UPDATE:  Ottawa Citizen story here.

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Coming from Quebec is “a fatal liability.” Who knew?

What about you guys? Did you know being a Quebecker is “fatal” in politics?

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We’ve won at every court level for more than a decade: we’ll see if we win at the high court, soon enough!

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Since I was a kid – since this day in 1972, in fact, when I started writing a daily journal – I have always taken note of April 4, and said to myself:  “April 4.  Dr. King.”

Today, 44 years ago, Martin Luther King was murdered by a racist in Memphis.  Dr. King was a giant of man, the one who – as I write in my upcoming book – anticipated the message at the core of the Occupy movement, among other things.  While his message continues to resonate across the decades, the violence of racial hatred continues unabated, too.

It’s April 4, and so I give you some of his most remarkable speech.  Surveying the pygmies who now crowd the public stage, I don’t think we will see the likes of him again.

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Don’t be fooled by their bullshit: the Ontario PCs and NDP want to have an election.

They’d better be careful what they wish for. They just might get it.

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