Category: Other

The first shots of the web campaign were fired today and it was quid pro quo as both the Liberals and the Conservatives seemed to have played off of each other with perfect timing. The Liberal Party of Canada released the website stephenharpersaid.ca while the Conservatives released the website teammartinsaid.ca.

The Conservative website, featuring many quotes of Paul Martin’s Liberal crew, is much more detailed and damning than the effort put forth by the Liberals. The Liberal website features five main quotes of Stephen Harper ranging from the firewalls remark to remarks in support of our troops and in support of our allies.

TeamMartinSaid.ca includes quotes from all of the key election issues such as health care, the UN and the Iraq war.

“Team Martin” will find it difficult to attack the Conservative Party with this quote attributed to Stephen Harper “we support the war effort and believe we should be supporting our troops and our allies and be there with them doing everything necessary to win” when the David Pratt, the Liberal defence minister, was pro-war saying “I think it’s unfortunate that this is the first time where the Australians and the British and the Americans have been involved in a conflict that we haven’t as Canadians. That’s something of a precedent.” and if it couldn’t have been any clearer:

“Should the United Nations fail to accept its responsibility and enforce its resolutions, I believe that this country working with our traditional allies, the United States, Great Britain, Australia and others, should, indeed must, keep its options open in terms of participating in a coalition of like-minded countries to disarm the regime.” — David Pratt, current Liberal minister of defence

One of the more shocking quotes came from Pierre Pettigrew, the current Minister of Health on the issue of Québec after the 1995 referendum:

“I believe in the territorial integrity of Canada and of Quebec, but if Quebec becomes independent, I will then be a Quebecer.” — Pierre Pettigrew

Today is likely the last day of the 37th Parliament and Paul Martin is expected to call an election during the Victoria Day weekend for a June 28th election. Some MPs will not be running for re-election and among them is the Right Honourable Joe Clark.

The former Tory Prime Minister is a man who has always stuck to his principles, and to him, he believed that governing properly should supersede that tricky game that parties play called partisanship.

Regardless of his status as an independent parliamentarian, Joe Clark always spoke his mind and has done so with an enviable degree of eloquence. The 2000 debates, I remember, allowed the electorate to see the stark contrast between Mr. Clark and former prime minister Jean Chrétien for this very quality. Yet, statesman he was, effective leader he was not. Clark, with his stubborn focus on his ideas (the right ideas in his opinion) never allowed him to effectively maintain a coalition of opinions. A party with a narrow and refined vision was the only party that Mr. Clark could comfortably lead and therefore he could never effectively and comfortably attain steady leadership on the governing side of the House of Commons.

Another example of the Liberal push for a peripheral route to persuade voters is the recruitment of Bono, the lead singer of U2.

Bono is to appear (cue fanfare) at the federal government’s AIDS spending announcement to make a beautiful day for Paul Martin and to provide elevation for him (and his mysterious ways) in the polls for the upcoming election which, as Mr. Martin tells us, will occur in a little while. The One party asserts that it is not stuck in a moment and will be in power until the end of the world (or until the last night on Earth) even though voters are numb from Adscam. Do the Liberals really think that Canadians haven’t been paying attention and are just staring at the sun? Paul Martin has said that he’ll get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal, however, he still hasn’t found what he’s “looking” for.

Seriously Bono, please stick to music and stay out of Canadian politics.

And now, some Bono quotes:

“My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them” — Bono

“The less you know, the more you believe” — Bono