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.

Comments (38)

…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.

Comments (26)

You decide.

Danielle Smith has some explaining to do, however.

Comments (17)

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

Comments (8)

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.

Comments (20)

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

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

Comments (36)

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

Comments (5)

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.

Comments (50)

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.

Comments (48)

Hit him again. Put him down. Make him bleed.

Not many of them will admit it, but that’s what a lot of partisans were hoping for when Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and Conservative Sen. Patrick Brazeau squared off in an Ottawa boxing ring over the weekend. Someone said the match had something to do with raising money for charity, but I’m willing to bet no one — not the guys, anyway — gave that part much thought.

This fight was about something a bit more primeval. It was about visceral, gut-level, deep-down stuff that political partisans regularly feel for one another. If you were to say it was about hate, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

Politics, stripped down to its essence, is like boxing. Get in a ring, beat each other to a bloody pulp as people sit on the sidelines and cheer.

That’s why so many guys are drawn to it, and why so many gals are not. It’s a vicious and ugly avocation, one that tries to dress itself up in finery of statesmanship. But women — being smarter than men — know what politics is. It’s schoolyard brawling that pretends it isn’t.

Comments (24)