Monday, January 25, 2010

The Liberal Party of Canada is the Milton Bradley of Canadian Politics.

Games, games and more games.

Today as you watch the LPC play more games at their photo-op, covered live by a drooling Ottawa press corps, ask yourself this question:

Are the Liberals there to do the work of the people of Canada or to do the work of the Liberal Party of Canada?

Remember that this is the party that is proud of the fact that they have no policies and that the last budget, the upcoming budget and everything else is not their responsibility so they do not need to have a position. If they are not going to offer up suggestions or alternatives, or even make the attempt to work with the government, which continues to function BTW, what work are they going to be doing for us while in Ottawa on our dime?

In the mean time, while the Liberals are mugging for the cameras, the Conservative government is making things happen.



Update: Sort of related.

It seems that some in the Parliamentary Press gallery believe that they are government employees

From the Globe and Mail.
"PARLIAMENT ON PAUSE

A prorogued Parliament is a massive campus of historic buildings running at half speed.

Last year, the cost of running the House of Commons was $417-million. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to delay today's scheduled resumption of Parliament until March 3 saves some of that money, but most of the employees are on the job whether the House is sitting or not.

NOT WORKING

About 220 people, including:

all staff in the parliamentary restaurant

some of those in the print shop who oversee the production of Hansard, the official record of Parliament

massage therapists

interpreters and translators

WORKING

About 1,870 full-time employees, including:

drivers of shuttle buses connecting key government buildings and the fleet of trucks that bring food, paper and furniture in and out of the precinct

parliamentary pages

maintenance workers

the Parliamentary Press Gallery.''


The PPG, government employees? WTF?


And from the comments : “There is no Liberal Party,” says one lifelong card carrier who has sat at cabinet tables.

“It died a long time ago. It's not completely extinct yet, but there's no there there.” In this lifelong Liberal's eyes, the party has been stalled for years. No new energy, no new ideas, no vision of what it might like to do. The singular advantage of proroguing, this Liberal would say, is that it has put an end to the squirming every time the opposition pounces.

“The ‘gotcha' stuff is out of control,” says the Liberal. “They bring in all these nerdy keener kids from campus and it's some kind of game to them. They're turning politics into pro wrestling
.”

11 comments:

CanadianSense said...

Janine Krieber is one of the canaries in the coal mine.

Here is a great article reinforcing what most people can recognize of what is left of the Party of Twitter.


“There is no Liberal Party,” says one lifelong card carrier who has sat at cabinet tables.

“It died a long time ago. It's not completely extinct yet, but there's no there there.” In this lifelong Liberal's eyes, the party has been stalled for years. No new energy, no new ideas, no vision of what it might like to do. The singular advantage of proroguing, this Liberal would say, is that it has put an end to the squirming every time the opposition pounces.

“The ‘gotcha' stuff is out of control,” says the Liberal. “They bring in all these nerdy keener kids from campus and it's some kind of game to them. They're turning politics into pro wrestling.” The media concentrates on the top, Ignatieff, and on the Hill, but disenchanted Liberals say there is a story to be told far from the now-silenced sound bites of the Centre Block.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/prorogation/passion-over-prorogation-pales-next-to-political-apathy/article1442490/

Calgary Junkie said...

Sticking with the "games" theme ... I remember a reporter once asked Iggy about the notion that Harper is playing chess, while others are playing checkers. Iggy joked that he doesn't know how to play chess, and his son used to beat him at checkers.

Anyway, from watching Iggy play politics, I don't think he has much understanding about strategy, tactics and goals.

In a game like chess, the goal is obvious--checkmate the opposing king. There are many strategies to achieve that goal. And within each strategy, there are many tactics one can use. But let's say your strategy is an all out attack on the king. You don't switch in the middle of the attack, to try and win a pawn on the queenside. That's dumb.

So when Iggy was beaking off last year about "Harper is going to wear this recession". And he was being very aggressive in his rhetoric, it looked to me like he was doing an all-out assault on Harper.

Chretien and others were advising him publicy in June, to force an election, over EI-360. Iggy contemplated over that weekend, promising the reporters he would make a firm decision. But instead, he tap-danced, looked ridiculous, Harper gave him the blue-ribbon panel. Iggy's leadership numbers have tanked since then.

Iggy just cannot play the political game. Certainly nowhere near the level of Harper.

bocanut said...

Today's photo-op
Ignatieff:
" Our party flies it's own flag"

When did it change from the Liberian flag?

wilson said...

While the party of Iffy plays games in Play House,
our Governement makes much needed changes in doling out bucks to NGOs.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/25/national-post-editorial-board-help-not-hate.aspx


But, that is not Iffy's problem.
Iffy's only problem seems to be not having 45 minutes in QP under parliamentary immunity to accuse Canadians that give service to our country, of war crimes.

Ardvark said...

These Liberal games are getting expensive. How much of our money was spent on flying all of these Liberal MPs back to Ottawa just so they could do the photo op?

With Trudeau proroguing 11 times, Chretien 4, Bob Rae 4, and Ignatieff already saying that he supports the power and would not change it, how can this be called anything else but Liberal gamesmanship?

Ardvark said...

That should read Bob Rae 3 and not 4.

Big Red Magnum said...

As Arthur Weinreb points out at CFP, they only sat in Parliament 133 days last yr out of 365 with all their holidays.
Whats a few more days considering the Liberals in those 133 days they dragged themselves to work "might" have voted once last yr and developed no alternative policies?
PS, Dion's wife is right, there is no Liberal political party, just a bunch of suits with no common political philosophy or common beliefs except to gain power for powers sake. It's a bottom feeding mob.

Anonymous said...

Jacko Latrine stole quotes from 2 Republicans on the weekend.
This morning Count Iffy steals the Jacko's perogy recipe.
Are Canadian leftists bereft of any original quotes and ideas?

Anonymous said...

But what about the liberal expert that said the prorogue was costing more? (real conservative)

Ardvark said...

Ignatieff changed his mind AGAIN and is trying to steal the NDP idea on limiting prorogation.

I give him a week before he changes his mind again.

CanadianSense said...

It is good to see Bob's telephone call go through afte all.