Category: Other

Jack Layton ratcheted up the rhetoric a notch yesterday when he declared that Paul Martin is directly responsible for the death of homeless people in Toronto.

“I believe that when Paul cancelled affordable housing across this country it produced a dramatic rise in homelessness and death due to homelessness. I’ve always said I hold him responsible for that.” — Jack Layton, Leader of the Jack Layton Party (the NDP)

Paul Martin says it’s a low blow and says that Mr. Layton’s comments reflect more upon Mr. Layton than they do upon him. Stephen Harper says that Layton’s comments were over the top.

This is not the first time that Layton has politicized dead homeless people against the Liberals. I remember watching a waterfront announcement by Liberal incumbent Dennis Mills (who, by the way, is running against Layton for the same seat). The press conference was upstaged by a throng of ‘activists’ making lots of noise. One reporter immediately suspected a Layton stunt and asked one woman about it. Her response? “Jack Layton? I don’t know uh… PEOPLE ARE DYING IN THE STREETS”. This woman not only yelled it, she howled it. Mills’ response to the demonstration? He calmly tried to explain that the money has been earmarked for the homeless, it just has to go through the bureaucracy first.

The stunt was particularly obvious and particularly sickening.

The issue of homelessness is concerning to everyone, yet there is a forum for constructive debate of the issues. Jack Layton’s brand of guerrilla activism and outlandish personal attacks debases not only the issue of homelessness, but also the very people at the centre of it.

Team Martin will find it difficult to distance itself from Team McGuinty’s controversial budget and tax increase according to reports from the Toronto Star.

Robert Benzie reports that the McGuinty’s people hired top Martin adviser, David Herle, to do pre-polling and give advice on a budget which handed down the first tax increase in Ontario in about 10 years.

According to one senior Liberal insider:

“The McGuinty Liberals knew that the budget had to contain tough measures. They also knew they’d receive complaints about those measures from their federal cousins… So they made the smart strategic move of hiring Martin’s campaign co-chair to work for them… On the subject of health premiums and breaking (election) promises, Paul Martin’s closest adviser said: ‘Go ahead and do it.’“

McGuinty and Martin both play for “Team Liberal” and Martin’s top adviser gave advice to break Liberal election promises.

While Paul Martin may say that Harper “wants to do to Canada what Mike Harris did to Ontario, which is cut taxes prematurely, then have to cut social services to pay for them and leave the province very heavily indebted.”, Andrew Coyne notes:

“In the immediate aftermath of the McGuinty budget, Martin tried to turn it to his advantage, saying in effect, Mike Harris made him do it, owing to his “premature” tax cuts. The suggestion was that Harper’s tax cuts would force some future PM to do the same thing. Yet it’s just statistically untrue that Harris starved Ontario of revenues: The Harris government collected more revenues, even as a percentage of GDP, than either of its predecessors, and more than any government in Ontario history in real dollars per capita. You can look it up:

Average Revenues/GDP, fiscal years 1986-1995 (ie Liberal and NDP gov’ts): 14.6%

Average Revenues/GDP, fiscal years 1996-2004 (ie Conservative gov’ts I & II): 14.7%”

Vote Stephen Harper and you get fiscal conservatism. If you vote Paul Martin, which of his promises will be broken? (or “abandoned” as that is now the Liberal party’s preferred euphemism)

It seems that both the Conservatives and the Liberals, like most of us outside of Calgary, are jumping on the Calgary Flames bandwagon. I, for one, can include myself in this group of fans eager to see Lord Stanley’s Cup returned home for the first time in 11 years. A solid performance by the Flames was cheered by all tonight as they confidently pummeled the Lightning 4-1.

My favourite political laugh of the day came from, of all place, the San Francisco Chronicle:

Calgary Flames President Ken King’s cell phone rang in the final minutes of the playoff-series clincher over the Sharks. He was told it was Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, calling to congratulate the first Canadian team to make the Stanley Cup Finals in a decade. According to the Canadian Press, King responded, “Yeah, I’m Daffy Duck and I’ve got a hockey game to watch here,” and hung up. (The PM did call back.)

Ahem, we now return you to regularly scheduled Stanley Cup Final (and politicizing thereof)