gdp's Comments

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:57:16 +0000

Sure, Wilson did the paperwork; he just never sat in the House as a Green MP. And when did the consortium announce that it based its decision on Wilson? I seem to recall that the threat of a court challenge was a stronger motivation.

Macleans.ca : Duelling War Rooms: Ignatieff's RESP thing redux

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:50:51 +0000

"Hey! The anonymous executive committees of some student organizations like our plan! And you guys suck, anyhow". The Libs really kicked ass and took names on that one.

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:16:41 +0000

Blair Wilson never sat in the House as a Green MP; moreover, the consortium never cited Wilson’s affiliation as the rationale for May’s eventual inclusion, nor did May ever cite Wilson in support of her right to be included.

Macleans.ca : The bubble

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:58:58 +0000

That’s correct. The next set of questions is due to be posed at around the time the government plans to have met its emissions reduction target.

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:06:20 +0000

I take it the consortium is unacquainted with the concept of “precedent”. Are they implicitly admitting that they made the wrong call last time around, or are they implying merely that their decisions on this matter have been arbitrary and provisional?

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:03:15 +0000

…one can only imagine how less iconic the Kennedy-Nixon debate would have turned out…. You mean JFK would have had a harder time winning the debate by way of a fresh tan and good makeup? Yeah, the American people dodged a bullet there (so to speak). In point of fact, the debate was almost entirely barren of ideas of substance. Its impact on the election was exclusively (and literally) cosmetic.

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:54:41 +0000

It wasn’t that five were too many; it was that they were the wrong five.

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:52:11 +0000

A free and open democracy is not dependent on forcing privately owned media to cater to fringe political parties... Fortunately, the CBC and Radio-Canada, comprising almost half the consortium, are publicly owned.

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:48:28 +0000

Whatever happened to the media as defenders of democracy? Oh, nothing. It’s still the self-serving myth it always was. The only thing media are prepared to defend is market share.

Macleans.ca : No need to RSVP

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:43:23 +0000

…the leaders of the Marxist-Leninist and Christian Heritage Parties… …each of whom, like May, routinely score circa 11% in national polls, don’t you know.

Macleans.ca : The Bull Meter: Michael Ignatieff on his family’s flight from Russia

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:39:23 +0000

Agreed. This post scores a "bullness" of 85 Sir Francis odas (SFOs), unfortunately. Not altogether auspicious.

Macleans.ca : The Bull Meter: John Baird on the bills that died because of the election

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:43:25 +0000

Better be under construction near Darlington. It'll need nuclear power.

Macleans.ca : The bubble

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:31:26 +0000

Per geological era.

Macleans.ca : Welcome to the Bull Meter

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:27:56 +0000

Excellent initiative, but we need a unit of measure. Given the nature and object of the scale, I suggest the "oda". Thus, a statement containing a precise half-truth would weigh in at 50 odas. Given who lies behind the inspiration for the unit, I suggest an inverse ratio be applied to its expression. Thus, a totally false statement would come in at 100 odas, whilst a completely true statement would rate 0 odas. What say you, good people?

Macleans.ca : The bubble

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:13:39 +0000

Journalists who are travelling with his campaign are, as a group, only[sic] allowed to ask four questions… …none of which has so far been, amazingly, “Mr. Harper, why are we not allowed to ask more than four questions?”.

Macleans.ca : Poll shows Canadians still leery of Liberal-led coalition

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:54:05 +0000

…there is only one way that it can be prevented… …by re-electing a “Conservative” minority propped up by socialists and separatists.

Macleans.ca : The '04 leaders debate

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:09:13 +0000

If people are ready to believe that the two agreements are exactly the same thing (which is false)... “Exactly” the same? Perhaps not. Then again, no two things are exactly the same. But are they sufficiently similar to make Harper look like someone who was perfectly eager to do a version of what he now says is totally abhorrent? And does Harper now regret banking so heavily on the “coalition” meme? I certainly think so.

Macleans.ca : Is Canada a nation?

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:25:10 +0000

I agree with virtually everything Mr. Coyne said, but what I’m reading here seems very much like buyer’s remorse. Eric Kierans and Dalton Camp felt similarly after their continentalist careers. It was too late for them, alas, and it’s too late for Mr. Coyne. I fear it’s too late for us all. To be sure, a new nationalism could emerge, like that of the early Seventies, but it would not run for long before being shredded by the lacerating ridicule of Mr. Coyne and Co. And who wants to feel like an antagonist of the eloquent, the powerful, and the influential?

Macleans.ca : Is Canada a nation?

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:10:48 +0000

It appears Mr. Coyne has been paying insufficient attention to the last twenty-five years, during which time Canada's government, media, and corporate elites have been busily dismantling the historically unique institutions of Canadian nationhood and replacing them with generic continental ones. Are we a nation? Gosh. Let me see. Would a real nation elevate to federal leadership a man who once gleefully bashed his own country in the most odious terms to a laughing gaggle of foreigners? Would a real nation allow its armed forces to be operationally swallowed by those of a foreign power and placed under perpetual foreign command and control? Would a real nation tolerate watching control of its borders be signed away by its prime minister, without the slightest Parliamentary debate, in a private meeting with a foreign head of state? Canada is arguably the only country that actively discourages patriotism and where “conservatism” usually implies passionate anti-nationalism. Patriotism, an absolute necessity for an aspiring American politician, is politically toxic here, where nationalists are reflexively derided as either Stalinist autarkists or 19th-century throwbacks. Ask David Orchard what it’s like to put country first, to base a political appeal on sacrifice and the fundamental importance of the national community. Or, better, ask Mr. Coyne to reiterate his own assessment of Orchard: what was the modish phrase bandied about after the 2003 Orchard/MacKay pact? Ah, yes: the “deal with the devil”. Charming. Coyne’s bitter excoriation of nationalist Red Toryism, written some years ago, makes for fascinating reading as well. Nationalism is there described as “kitsch”, I believe. The fact is that the iron-clad elite continentalist consensus that has developed over the last quarter-century and that clever, articulate agenda-setters like Mr. Coyne have used to flog less rhetorically resourceful and socially privileged dissenters from the heights of their bully pulpits has made the effective political expression of national community almost impossible. I doubt we shall ever again see a prime minister (or Opposition leader) defined by the uncomplicated Canadianism that animated our Diefenbakers, Stanfields, and Trudeaus. The cultural prerequisites have disappeared.

Macleans.ca : The summer of 2004

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:03:12 +0000

For most of the time, yes. Not for all of it, sadly. Thus, when Harper was losing the confidence of the House (before he ran away and cowardly prorogued), the Opposition discussed the formation of a collaborative executive, just like Harper did in 2004. Harper liked coalitions when he was an Opposition loser. Then, he discovered he actually didn’t like them when he became a government loser. It’s a classic case of being for something before being against it that would reveal Harper as a hypocrite as well as a liar had he not already amply demonstrated an admirable commitment to those two pathologies.