Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Oops.
Harvard professor, erstwhile Kerry voter, and furrowed brow intellectual, Michael Ignatieff, led the Canadian Liberal Party to the worst showing by a 1970's style Chevy Impala since Yapphet Koto swallowed the air pellet in Live and Let Die. So far, the betting among the Canadian punditocracy is that Mr. Ignatieff -- whose concession speech should be wrapped by oh, say, next Tuesday (under the Mayan calendar) -- will be headed for a tenured position as a member of the Boston phone directory where he can wax equivocal while wearing embroidered shirts and eating expensive pastries at the same coffee house as David Gergen.
Not to be outdone, former Maoist and hospital orderly, Gilles Duceppe, while mouthing his separatist Bloc Quebecois party slogan "Down with Canada" was seen slinking down the St Lawrence seaway in a bullet hole ridden rubber dingy, with Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Warner Bros crew in hot pursuit. With his party reduced to ceiling spackle in Prime Minister Harper's main floor laundry room, Gilles can spend his retirement years remembering the fate that befell another famous French personality in North America: Blacque Jacque Shellacque.
Not to be outdone on the comedy front, American born Canadian environmental activist "Dizzy" Lizzy May, when not belting out bebop on her jazz trumpet, charms the nation with a seat in the House of Commons where she can regale Canadians with her colorful analogies:
"In the eyes of history, John Howard, George Bush, and Stephen Harper will be judged more culpable than Neville Chamberlain."
Ms. May, in addition to being a former President of the Sierra Club, is a proud graduate of Yale. Rob Long, take a bow.
Not to be outdone, Jack Layton, head of Canada's NDP, will be expanding his outreach to community clinics in our country's inner cities.
Meanwhile, Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper wears glasses.
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Oct '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Pseudodionysius
Not to be outdone on the comedy front, American born Canadian environmental activist "Dizzy" Lizzy May, when not belting out bebop on her jazz trumpet, charms the nation with a seat in the House of Commons where she can regale Canadians with her colorful analogies:
Ms. May, in addition to being a former President of the Sierra Club, is a proud graduate of Yale. Rob Long, take a bow.
Somewhere, a certain University of Idaho graduate is smiling.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Fascinating, PseudoD. I haven't been focused at all on the Canadian elections this month and bet I'm not the only Rico member who's woefully ignorant on this subject. Any links you would suggest for us to catch up?
Sep '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Oh my goodness. There are so many. I will do some digging today and see if I can come up with something to encapsulate the buffoonery for our US friends.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
And which U of Idaho graduate would that be, Mike? Just enrolled in the hirsute but brilliant Professor PseudoD's 21st Century Canadian Politics for The Woefully Ignorant, but haven't gotten my first reading assignment yet.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Muchas gracias, Kitty.
Feb '11
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
I don't know a damn thing about the inner workings of Canadian politics, but your post is a freakin' riot. I admire your writing style.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Diane, the thing you must remember about Canadian politics is that there, even the Conservatives are leftists. Harper and Co. have always been branded as some sort of Trojan Horse that would resurrect Reagan/Thatcher policy in the Great White North. In fact Mark Steyn sells t-shirts with the slogan "Scary Conservative with a Hidden Agenda" on them. But even to them, a 5-month waiting list to see a doctor is a "special essence of what it means to be Canadian." In his acceptance speech last night Harper went out of his way to reach out to "the Quebec Nation." Hey, idiot! It's a province. If it were a nation, the Maritimes would be states 51 through 54.
Jack Layton and the NDP are neo-communists and now in the official opposition. Elizabeth May is a Green which makes her an old fashioned communist wrapped in some sort of organic material.
Michael Ignatieff is now nothing. He lost his seat in the House and reduced the Liberals to oblivion. As of now they have nothing in Ontario except the hope that Anthony Rota will overcome a 14-vote deficit in the Nipissing-Timiskaming riding.
Apr '11
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Love the idea of an "old fashioned communist wrapped in some sort of organic material"......but then I thought they ALL were covered in organic material!
Oct '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Diane, that would be Governor Palin, the bête noire of Ricochet.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Congratulations Kitty, I'm happy for you.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Nice comment; gross name. And welcome BTW.
Mar '11
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Sweet.
May '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
And my joy is now complete. Trace just called Kitty Kitty.
Sep '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
FeliciaB
And my joy is now complete. Trace just called Kitty Kitty. · May 3 at 9:00am
Its not quite as manly as my Navy Seal codename.
Edited on May 3, 2011 at 9:19amMay '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Michael Ignatieff has resigned as Liberal leader and says he wants to teach Canadian students. No word yet on how many of them he is going to sneak across the border to Harvard.
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Alas, this result is less about rising tories but more about the rise of the socialist NDP.
Aug '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
No, I don't think so. The big rise of the NDP is mostly due to the collapse of the Bloc Quebecois. Pretty much all of their support and all of their seats went to the NDP.
If anything, the NDP will now be seen not so much as a Canadian national party, but the Quebec Socialist Party. And with all the ex-separatist and wacky loons that were elected to the NDP last night, Jack Layton's going to be spending the next four years herding cats and trying to shut up his more idiotic members before they say or do things that further beclown his party.
No, the real story last night was that the Conservative Party is now the only truly national party left in Canada. The Liberals only won three seats west of Ontario.
As for even Conservatives being far to the left - if Canada is so far to the left, how come we have lower taxes, a lower deficit, lower debt, and a sound retirement system?
This isn't Trudeau's Canada any more. We shrunk government more in the last 20 years than any other western country. We led the way in welfare reform.
Mar '11
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Dan, you're right about the NDP in Quebec. Half of them entered on a frat house dare, the other half will show up in Ottawa wearing tin foil hats.
Everyone's current favorite is Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the Quebec NDP candidate who doesn't speak much French and spent part of the campaign in Vegas. Be sure to look at her Facebook page before NDP party officials scrub it. Yes, bachelors, she's a community activist whose activities include "poker, black jack, vacation, bar, running for MP and not giving a f***." The photos of her recent vacation don't seem to have stayed in Las Vegas.
But I respectfully disagree with your other analyses. Fifteen years ago, we hit where the US is now -- junk bond status. Our taxes are lower, but so are Ireland's. Our debt & deficit are still too high. And government has not shrunk, it just hasn't grown as much as in the US & Europe. It has actually increased in size under Harper.
Aug '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Yes it has - because of the recession. But our 'stimulus' was much smaller than Obama's - he actually begged Harper to add more stimulus, and Harper refused.
Our government was 53% of GDP in 1992. It shrunk to 35% of GDP by 2007, and has only come up (to around 40%) because the recession stopped GDP growth for a year and the government engaged in a relatively small stimulus. Harper's fiscal plan will have Canada in surpluses again before the end of his term if he sticks to it.
Our situation is nothing like Ireland's. In many ways, Canada has always been more conservative than the U.S. For example, we never engaged in the kind of wholesale social engineering the U.S. tried with home mortgage deductions and we never had a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac goosing the real estate market by buying up mortgage derivatives and encouraging sub-prime loans. As a result, we didn't have the kind of real estate bubble the U.S. had. Our banking system is more conservative, and our central bank more cautious.
Canada has the strongest, most stable economy in the G8, due to essentially conservative attitudes.
Aug '10
Re: Canadian Liberals Rise Up
Ireland's debt is 94% of GDP - that's why Ireland is in trouble. The U.S's debt is about 70% of GDP. Canada's? About 30% of GDP. While I agree that we should lower it more, we actually have one of the lowest debt ratios in the world. And the U.S. and Ireland are increasing their debt rapidly - the U.S. deficit is almost 10% of GDP!
Canada on the other hand has a deficit of about 3% of GDP, which is the lowest in the G8 and is also below the rate of GDP growth, so it is actually sustainable indefinitely (not that we want to sustain it). We simply do not have the kind of debt and deficit problems that Ireland and the U.S. have.
In addition, we reformed our retirement entitlements by means-testing them, and we're now solvent. We led North America with welfare reform (starting in Alberta), and we reformed unemployment insurance to get rid of seasonal pogey.
Our remaining challenge is health care spending, which is growing at twice the rate of GDP growth - but it's a problem faced by every country in the world.