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Harper’s government reacts with overwrought rage when other Canadian politicians express opinions outside Canada. So which way is it? By: Tim Harper | Toronto Star, Published on Fri Apr 19 2013: OTTAWA — Stephen Harper was representing Canada at the funeral of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in London this week. Was [...] The post Stephen Harper takes partisan politics abroad appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. The day after Justin Trudeau was elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, as predictably as the sun rises in the East, the Conservatives did what the Conservatives do – they released negative personal attack ads. It’s all they know how to do. And it has worked for them before (see Dion, Stephen and Ignatieff, Michael). Will they make it a hat trick? Time will tell, but it was interesting, as these ads were released, to read a new poll from Ekos. I said the other day to ignore the polls, and that advice holds, particularly the . . . → Read More: A BCer in Toronto: Justin Trudeau won’t be so easy to ill-define Last night I wrote a post about how the Harper regime is turning CIDA into the Con International Development Agency. I was also planning to mention how the Harperites have turned the CIDA website into another branch of the Con Ministry of Propaganda and Disinformation. With the picture of Julian Fantino, and the ads for the Porky Action Plan, and "Responsible Resources Development," and even the War of 1812.But I had to cut it out for length reasons, and now I see others have beaten me to this scandal.Read more » Mulcair gave a speech on Friday to the Canadian Club on the NDP’s vision for economic growth. If you read through, I don’t think you’ll find much that is particularly visionary. The point was probably not to fly too many flags but rather to portray the Mulcair NDP as pro-business and not at all scary. It was rather mundane. Talking about “partnership between industry, labour and government,” for example, is not exactly surprising from an NDP leader. Investing in youth is something you might hear from all parties. There might also be the hint, as you read through, that Mulcair . . . → Read More: Impolitical: Mulcair does Bay Street Best lead in to a Mulcair quote in recent memory: Mulcair interrupts his oyster eating. “You know far too much about Quebec politics, “ he says bluntly “to think that the Trudeau brand carries any weight in the province of Quebec.” Yes, put down that oyster for a moment, man. Come now, the Trudeau brand doesn’t carry “any weight” in Quebec. None? That’s setting the bar a little low, I’d say and it probably isn’t unwelcome expectation setting. And isn’t this exactly the kind of attitude Liberals used to have about New Democrats in Quebec? If anybody still thinks that the Con regime is not out of control, the sight of Peter Van Loan in Question Period today should have been enough to cure that delusion. For there was Tubby, as his friends call him, filling in for Stephen Harper, clutching a piece of paper with his scripted lines marked with a yellow highlighter. Sweating like a pig, bellowing like a bull, and turning farce into satire.Read more » The Victoria, B.C. MP says her doctor gave her a “health warning” this spring. She plans to leave politics and devote herself full-time to her family. 
 Alberta Premier, Alison Redford, Bev Oda, Blog, Breaking News, By-election, Canada Politics, Canadian Politics, Denise Savoie, Deputy Speaker, Health and Fitness, House Commons, jack layton, May 2011 federal election, Member of Parliament, NDP, NDP leader, New Democratic Party of Canada, New Democrats, News, parliament, Politics News, Tom Mulcair Holy hee haw. Lasso me like a baby steer. I can't believe that Alison Redford is still snubbing Tom Mulcair. Redford said no meeting with Mulcair is on the books. "Nobody's asked me to meet with him and I'm quite busy Stampeding and speaking to Albertans about what matters to them." Because she's got better things to do eh? Like flipping pancakes at the Redneck Rodeo, or watching horses die.Read more » Calgary Herald: NDP Leader Mulcair says oilsands access should be opened up, but not with new pipeline Yes. A better/cleaner/safer plan all around would be to process this stuff in Canada (preferably closer to the source IMHO) and then ship out the refined material. Also, collect more royalties from the companies that are extracting the oil (the royalty levels are insanely low right now) and use those to help the manufacturing industry across Canada. And make the extractors pay for the clean-up of the waste products and the pollution they create. Makes sense. This is more or less what (Read more…) Golly. Talk about a study in contrasts. There was Tom Mulcair flashing a winner's smile. While in the other corner, there was Stephen Harper looking absolutely AWFUL. As if he'd just seen the grim ghost of his political future. Or somebody had just asked him whether he REALLY likes handcuffs. Opening his mouth, showing his teeth, and grinding them gently together. And who can blame him eh? It was his most horrible day.Read more » The NDP leadership campaign sparked considerable interest among Canadians and saw NDP membership soar, rising over 50% in six months to 128,351 on election day. Many of these first time members, such as myself, may well be interested in the NDP but may not be long term loyalists. After the campaign, the key is to convert as many of these members as possible into loyal NDP followers who can advocate for the party long into the future. A perfect way to entrench interest in the NDP is to use the massive emailing list of new members to send out positive, . . . → Read More: Progressive Proselytizing: NDP leadership election campaign debt It’s a Mulcair day on the blog, it appears! How on earth did that happen… I find it hard to get too excited about this. Released just after the parliamentary session has ended, what’s with that? Come now, Conservative war room, timing is everything. Unless it is part of a wider concerted effort to get serious now about diminishing poll standings, à la Harper in Quebec yesterday and news of his meeting with the forbidden one and all. Adding to the lack of excitement, it’s an internet ad, after all, reports the Globe. Likely to have little impact then except . . . → Read More: Impolitical: New Mulcair ad OMG. Mothers hide your children. It appears that Stephen Harper has set out to try to woo Quebec. Stephen Harper and more than a dozen of his cabinet ministers chose Quebec to kick off the Tories’ political “summer of love,” wooing support with their economic plan and a pledge to work with the Parti Québécois if it is elected to govern the province. And what an absurd spectacle it was. Great Ugly Pretty Lover Leader and half his Con cabinet gathered in Saint-Narcisse-de-Beaurivage (population 1,000) mumbling sweet nothings to the separatists. While his flunkies played the fiddle.Read more » This is audio from an interview Mulcair did with Michael Enright on CBC radio this weekend where the eurozone financial crisis came up: That is a brief excerpt but I think it might indicate that the Conservative p.r. effort on Europe against the NDP may have worked. Mulcair mocks the Conservatives as having made the question of contributing to the IMF funds into a domestic partisan political game, rightly so. But he nevertheless refuses to take a position on it by stating it’s not about a “bailout,” it’s about being at the table. A central question though, of the . . . → Read More: Impolitical: Mulcair on the euro crisis I knew that the NDP's support in Quebec would improve as soon a Tom Mulcair became leader. Nobody hates the Con regime more than Quebecers do. And they know a fighter when they see one. But this is still stunning. Read more » Since Tom Mulcair was chosen to lead the party back in March, the NDP has maintained a strong support across Canada, which has continued to grow. The opposite is true for the Conservatives. Their support has been steadily dropping. Canadians are becoming more aware of the scandals plaguing them. And the exposure of the omnibus budget bill has not helped the Conservatives either. The Liberals are maintaining their support in the low 20s. Of Significant Note: Some things of significant note about the latest poll numbers from Forum Research are that the NDP are now ahead of the Conservatives in (Read more…) Whew. I see Tom Mulcair managed to gallop into Alberta today, cast his eyes upon the darkness of the Oil Sands, and make his getaway without dropping the dreaded T word. In his first-ever visit to the Alberta oilsands as NDP leader, Mulcair was about to substitute “tar” for “oil” when he hastily corrected himself. “They’re bitumen sands because the chemicals are neither oil nor tar,” he said at a news conference hours after being taken on a tour of the mine and tailings pond reclamation process by Suncor Energy of its site in northern Alberta. And without giving The latest Forum Research poll (Forum Research results, National Post story) shows the NDP in the lead nationally, in Quebec, Atlantic and BC, and almost tied with the Conservatives in Ontario and the Prairies. The only province that the Conservatives hold a strong lead in is Alberta. Poll standings: Canada NDP 36% Con 32% Lib 20% Green 6% Bloc 5% Ontario NDP 34% Con 35% Lib 25% Green 5% Quebec NDP 40% Con 18% Lib 14% Green 5% Bloc 21% BC NDP 40% Con 31% Lib 18% Green 10% Alberta NDP 16% Con 61% Lib 15% . . . → Read More: Driving The Porcelain Bus: Federal NDP Continue To Edge Towards A Majority Government A popular, recently re-elected Redford speaks in a manner that is non-partisan, clear and likable on the dust-up that has escalated this week over Mulcair’s “Dutch Disease” comments. Contrast it with Mulcair’s posture yesterday and on a level of visuals alone, it’s not difficult to see how this week has gone. And that’s the thing. This has become less about the substance of the argument than the politics of it. Most reasonable people support a price on carbon, yes. But it’s a sizable political battle that national leaders who want to realize it have to go about carefully and smartly. . . . → Read More: Impolitical: Redford on Mulcair Great post by Erin Weir – The Progressive Economics Forum: “Mulcair has articulated a balanced approach to resource development that would generate more public revenue, a more competitive exchange rate, and more manufacturing jobs. Saskatchewan is well positioned to help implement and benefit from this approach by raising provincial resource royalties.” Read the whole post here. So much of the MSM are focusing only on the Conservative party talking points – oh, Mulcair and the NDP are against the West and against developing oil and resources. This is so much hogwash. Mulcair and the NDP are FOR development and . . . → Read More: Driving The Porcelain Bus: Going To The Wall In Defense Of Mulcair “‘Sad and pathetic’ anti-Mulcair salvo lacks punch of past Tory attacks.” That’s the spin from NDP spokesman Karl Belanger on the new Conservative website that was just launched as a putative attack on Mulcair and his NDP cabinet. To use my favourite phrase of the past few days, this looks like a tick the box effort from the Conservatives. A website that doesn’t even warrant a cheapie YouTube ad that might make it fly a little further? Come on, they aren’t really trying. They didn’t even use up all the shadow figures on the page. They’ve got room for . . . → Read More: Impolitical: Not sponge worthy Okay, wouldn’t it have made sense for Hyer to discuss his concerns with Mulcair BEFORE taking an extreme action that he now obviously regrets? All of this only shows poor judgment on Hyer’s part. Hyer was really just sore because he wasn’t picked for a shadow cabinet position. Of course he wasn’t – because he voted against the party on a key issue, more than once. And, regarding that key issue – the Long Gun Registry. The NDP’s aim was and is not to support it as-is (was), but to improve it so that it both serves the purpose of . . . → Read More: Driving The Porcelain Bus: NDP MP Bruce Hyer Quits and Then Wants Back In Paul Wells on how it’s best sometimes to simply shut up and let your opponent’s own negative momentum take them down: Harper is certain to keep portraying the NDP as the only bunch of witless ideologues in sight. In quiet moments Conservative strategists say that, if they ever tire of whacking Bob Rae, they will seek to portray the NDP as either extremist or incompetent. And indeed the newest feature on the Conservative party website is about “Mr. Mulcair’s NDP Team.” But in the Commons, it is not the NDP who have been looking like circus geeks. . . . → Read More: bastard.logic: In Praise of NDP PR Jiu-Jitsu Two polls were released today: Forum (April 25 – sample of 1744), and Nanos (April 18 – sample of 1200). The Forum poll, having a much larger sample, is the more accurate of the two. It is also more recent, so it will give us a better picture regarding recent events in Parliament. Forum poll findings The findings here are that the NDP is now in the lead, and Tom Mulcair’s popularity has shot up. Comparison between March 30 and April 25 Forum Polls: Party – March 30 – April 25 – change NDP – 34% – 36% – +2% . . . → Read More: Driving The Porcelain Bus: Tom Mulcair And NDP In The Lead, Confidence In Harper Plummets |
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