December 8, 2008

You don’t have to be a separaphobic to think that one of the most glorious mug shots in Canadian history is Gilles Duceppe standing by the "Making Parliament Work" at the coalition rally, thinking about whether to sign it. How can you stand there and watch that? This is a sham!
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Mr. Dion’s parliamentary career seems to be like a fiery comet burning through the atmosphere turning into a snowball at the end. A little ice and rock.
He’s had the political shelf life of a fruit fly.
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It’s amazing that when the time comes to speak of infrastructure, it’s public housing for seniors, homeless and Aboriginals when in fact it’s not time to Santa Claus. We need, NEED, environmental and transport lacunae to be address. BC has spent billions of dollars for port reconstruction and road improvement with the ongoing challenges BC has in those fields. There is a lack of bridges and disgraces like Victoria Harbour. This is the very harbour Mr. Campbell, the premier, works day after day. It is full of excrement. Yet, he seems to be blind to this, as are all the other first ministers.
Infrastructure that you can see immediately and that helps the favourite constituencies, is so much sexier than roads. There’s not a municipal edifice like hospitals, schools and roads and sewage treatment that doesn’t need updating in this country. They require billions to improve them. It would not only help the environment but it would help the country economically.
It could be done through a private sector effort rather than through the PPP thing, which is ridiculous. Make people pay for their use of these items. Tolls would work.
Housing is important. But the private sector could do it more efficiently. The government should make more hospital beds available for mental health.
The government should assist Aboriginals to lead normal lives. Most live off reserve because they know that no matter how much money is spent there, they will be administered badly. This won’t change no matter how much money is pumped into the sytem.
It is irresponsible to continue this way. Our seniors are one of the richest interest groups in the country.
I do congratulate Mr. Campbell for recommending changes to RIFFs, lowering taxes, levelling regulation, suggesting open skies and getting rid of economic protectionism between provinces now. I wish more premiers understood his point that the parochial politics of provincial protectionism is hurtful.
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It’s typical of central Canada that Mr. Yakubuski, from the Globe and Mail, a normally respectful man, quoted Jean Charest as being a possible leader for the Tories. Has Mr. Yakubuski been to a Tory meeting lately? It’s not that the party hates Quebec. Francophobia is gone and it truckles favour with Quebec at the cost of support or respect elsewhere.
But why does he think that the rest of the country wants to be governed by a man who presides over the worst large province of the country. Quebec lags economically, financially, socially and in terms of health care and education. It’s gotten worse under Mr. Charest. He has not made a single change to the province’s basket case of an economic union and corporatist system. Mr. Charest does not generate confidence he can lead. That he is from Quebec is his only commendable trait, assuming those from western Canada can forget the vicious rhetoric Mr. Charest dispenses regarding the Tory party. He is a Liberal. We always knew it.
If Mr. Harper were one day to have a freak gardening accident, I would more likely turn to the Liberal premier Gordon Campbell than Jean Charest. And this by a mile.