At Home in Hespeler

Now that the election is over, some Hesplerian thoughts:

I agreed back in February or so with Gerry Nicholls that a Conservative majority was coming. Why? It struck me that Michael Ignatieff had lousy political instincts and would be terrible in a hard election. Contrary to the media meme that he ran a good campaign, he was terrible. On day one he wouldn’t answer a simple question about coalition, all the while insisting he was answering it. It was obvious to anyone watching he was evading, and he wasn’t good at evading.

By the end of the first week, we had the absurd, red door blue door quote to make fun of. By week two it was “Rise Up!” which we on the right were busy making fun of, but the Ignatieff campaign kept repeating. The Liberal candidate in my riding was using a #riseup hashtag on his tweets. Guys, when they are laughing at you, stop making the joke.

Then there’s the debates. Jack Layton clearly knocked out Michael Ignatieff in both debates. Not speaking french, I’ll leave discussion about that to others. The english debate, however, was in hindsight all Jack. It wasn’t the suggestion that Ignatieff doesn’t show up to work, although it was a good shot, but Ignatieff’s response that killed him. Here’s the right response:

First off Jack, your numbers are wrong, I have not missed 70% of the vote. Secondarily, as leader of the opposition, I have responsibilities beyond normal Parliamentarians. Those responsibilities reasonably keep me out of the house sometimes. It’s far more reasonable for the leader of the opposition to miss some votes than the leader of the third place party spend almost $1m of taxpayers money transporting himself and his wife all the way to Toronto.

Here’s what you don’t say, especially when the label the opposition has placed on you is arrogance:

I don’t need any lectures on democracy from you.

Ignatieff went for the latter response, and today the Canadian Forces are dumping the corpse of his political career over the side of a frigate off the coast of Peggy’s Cove.

Stephen Harper’s best move was one he was heavily criticized for. He offered to debate Ignatieff one-on-one, then withdrew the offer when Ignatieff jumped at it. At to that Ignatieff’s response to Layton in the debate that (and I paraphrase) he should stop acting like he has a chance at forming government. The opposition groups were working together, trying to unseat Stephen Harper. What Harper did by offering the one-on-one debate was put the fox in the hen-house of the coalition. Ignatieff confirmed that indeed, some pigs are created more equal than others in any possible coalition/co-operation. The game was on, and the NDP helped take down the Liberals.

Champagne notwithstanding, the NDP has a real problem. It is now the party of Quebec, having gained only 8 more seats outside of Quebec. Half their caucus is from one province. Quebec voters have long memories and don’t forgive perceived insults. So what do you call it when a party runs a bunch of inexperienced kids? If some of these very lightweight politicians emerge to show what they are not made of, Quebec voters may well turn on the NDP. And controlling political amateurs who have nothing to lose by going off reservation is going to be a Herculean task. The expression herding cats comes to mind.

Beside that, Quebecers will expect Layton to stand in the house and speak for Quebecers. It’s what is done. When he goes in to his “I speak for all Canadians,” schtick, Quebecers won’t be happy. But if he stands and starts doing Gilles Duceppe’s old “I speak for all Quebecers,” schtick, the rest of the country will notice and note. He will also now have to make up his mind on a number of issues where he said one thing on Quebec and another elsewhere, particularly out West. You can’t play two sides of the fence in Parliament. It will be a delicate balancing act, and one if he gets wrong, could be very bad for the NDP next time around.

***********
Note: Ruth Ellen Brosseau is already a problem

What’s next for the Liberals? If I were the Liberal Party of Canada, here’s what I would do.

First off, disregard any talk of Liberal/NDP merger. Not this time, not with the NDP having the trump cards. A Liberal/NDP merger only works for Liberals if it is the NDP being absorbed by the Liberals, not the other way around. Like the PCs before them, they will need more than one drubbing to get the hint.

That said, the goal is rebuild. And like a hockey team, the best rebuilds are youth movements. I am not a Liberal, and I don’t pretend to know everybody in the party. Insiders would be better informed on the talent within, but I would shoot with a guy like Justin Trudeau. Yes, I know what the detractors say: his father’s charisma, his mother’s brains. That may be so, it may not, but I would risk it all on him, or someone like him.

To be sure I’m talking about a long-term project. Your new guy has to be willing to go riding to riding, Liberal to Liberal and shake hands, discuss what’s important to them, and convince them to leave a few dollars in the collection box on their way out. Every riding, every Liberal need to shake your guys hand, look him in the eye and connect (note: I am using the masculine here, but it could just as well be a woman. The prose was just getting too bloody awkward trying to neutralize the gender).

This strategy depends on one uncomfortable fact: you have to be prepared to lose the next election. Not that you can’t win it – 4 years is a long time in politics – but that winning it is not your aim. Rebuilding the party, developing policies, improving the finances, those are the goals. Two election from now, and we are talking 6 – 8 years, you are looking to win. By then you have a veteran leader who has been through the wars, he has made his mistakes, and he’s ready to lead. That’s the route I would take and it is, I think, the only way to avoid the end of the Liberal party.

Of course, you could disagree and make 64 year-old Bob Rae your leader, just as the PC’s went back to Joe Clark. That worked so well for them, after all.

Ruth Ellen Brosseau lives in Ottawa and works at a student pub, does not speak french and has never been to Berthier-Maskinongé. During the campaign, she went on holiday to Las Vegas, and had to be called in Vegas and told to come back, because she was winning. The voters of Berthier-Maskinongé elected her to Parliament anyway: can we now do away with the myth that Quebecers are more sophisticated voters?

election '11 Jack Layton, Joe CLark, Justin Trudeau, Michael Ignatieff, Ruth Ellen Brosseau, Stephen Harper,  Berthier-Maskinongé

Michael Ignatieff said it, Justin Trudeau sent an email approving of it, Bryan May, my Liberal Party candidate, tweeted it:

If you get the grades, you get to go.

"One! One-Thousand Dollars a year"

The Canadian Learning Passport is the Liberals policy announcement of the day: $4,000 tax free over four years to every high school student who pursues post secondary education, $6,000 for low income earners. That’s $1B a year in students pockets to spend on tuition.

Of course, it’s only $1,000 net if tuition fees don’t increase. Education being a provincial responsibility, the federal government have no say whatsoever on tuition fees. They can throw money at schools, students and books, but they cannot control the cost side of the structure. No problem, I hear you Liberalizing, we’ll work with the provinces.

Yea, well, about that. Here’s the problem. Premier Dad, Dalton McGuinty, has 68% of his budget goes to health and education spending. Of a $113B budget, $77.4B disappears in those two line items. Next up is debt financing (interest on the debt) at $10.3B. There’s no money in the kitty.

Now your Dalton and the Feds just came up with $200M to throw into one of your big 2, your education system. Do you let the kids keep it? Or do you pull $200M from the budgets of the post secondary institutions and let them make it up in tuition?

That’s the problem The Canadian Learning Passport policy has. It will ultimately be, have to be, an indirect transfer payment to the provinces. Once it rolls out, tuition fees will likely go up across the country. It won’t be the students who benefit, or their parents, it will be the schools and the provincial treasuries.

The real problem with education is supply and demand – especially in university. Too many students are going, many who really don’t belong – creating huge demand for the few spaces. That drives the price of those spaces up.

At the other end, of course, too many kids are running around with degrees, to the point where car factories hire university graduates to work on the lines – and those graduates are glad to get those jobs. And it’s not that tuition is so expensive, it’s that jobs coming out of college don’t pay enough to pay off that debt in a reasonable time. Dentists leave school with $100,000 debt, but it is not a crippling debt due to their earnings when they get out. Social work majors may leave school with $25,000 debt, and wonder how they’ll ever pay it off.

Too many students means too expensive going in, not enough payback coming out. And giving kids $1,000 to go is going to push more kids in, raising the cost, lowering the reward.

Good governance is not just throwing money at people and problems, assuming those issues away. Good governance is understanding the direct and indirect impacts your policy will have. The Canadian Learning Passport is the former, with no consideration given to the root of the problem or the result of the spending.

Uncategorized Bryan May, Canadian Learning Passport, Education, Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff

Michael Ignatieff “channels Bob Dylan,” according to the Globe and Mail’s Jane Taber. He has used it in his speeches, and sent it in an email to supporters:

It’s like Bob Dylan sang: “You’ve gotta serve somebody.” Let’s show Stephen Harper what that means

Bob Dylan’s Serve Somebody, from 1979’s Slow Train Coming is a great song. It won Dylan a Grammy and brought him back onto the charts after years of being off them. But what does it mean?

You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

You Got to Serve Somebody is not a song about public service, not a song about Maritime daycare for single moms who want to be heavy equipment operators. It is a song about service to God. Michael Ignatieff would be just as well to quote Onward Christian Soldiers. And of course, if Stephen Harper sat at the piano and started singing it, Jane Taber would know that.
******************

The fall of 1978 was a low point for Bob Dylan. His career was sliding: record sales were down and reviews for both his records and his live performances were terrible. Even the Village Voice, which is a sort of home town paper to Dylan, had a recent edition which printed four negative reviews.

The current tour was also taking a physical toll. Dylan played a gig in Montreal in October with a temperature of 105. On November 17th, Dylan was playing in San Diego. He still did not feel well, and it showed:

Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd… knew I wasn’t feeling well. I think they could see that. And they threw a silver cross on the stage.

Dylan, uncharacteristically, picked up the cross off the stage and put it in his pocket. Travelling to Tucson, Dylan was feeling worse. Nothing he tried was working, and he felt he needed something different.

I looked in my pocket, and there was this cross…

…and he had a vision of Jesus, and became that scariest of modern day creatures, a born again Christian.

Michael Ignatieff is being a clever, average hippy quoting Bob Dylan. He could have quoted Einstein (The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule); or Tolstoy (The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity); or John Adams (If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve). He chose Dylan for a reason, to appeal to the baby-boomers. Let Stephen Harper sing the Beatles, he’ll out groovy him and quote Bob Dylan like a second rate literature professor.

Unfortunately for Ignatieff, unlike Tolstoy or Einstein, he doesn’t understand the context of the Dylan lyric. Being a square, not an average, groovy kind of guy, Ignatieff didn’t really now what he was saying.

Pompous Igghead Bob Dylan, Einstein, Jane Taber, John Adams, Michael Ignatieff, Serve Somebody, Tolstoy

The scene unfolds easily in front of you. The Government has fallen, a minority Parliament ends in a vote of non-confidence. The governing party is reeling from scandal, yet the polls say the election will end much as it began, with the current Prime Minister returning to Ottawa with a minority mandate. Radio shows ask the question: why would the opposition force an election they can’t win? Why waste this money on a vote that will end in the same Parliament as it began?

The leader of the opposition was on the defensive. Canadians don’t want this election, don’t need this election. His patriotism had already been called into question and he was gaffe prone. On day one of the campaign he makes, the media assert, another gaffe. Without prompting, without a clue, he says there will be a free vote on gay marriage in the house under his government.

Why, why would Stephen Harper give such a gift to Paul Martin? Why would he make it about his scary agenda instead of Paul Martin’s corrupt, bag of money under the table, Liberals?

In reality, what that statement did was take the question of gay rights out of the debate. It took from the Liberals the, “those scary Conservatives and their hidden agenda want to take away your human rights,” attack. It saw what was coming, and neutered it. It was a well thought out strategy, and served warning that the Conservatives were ready and serious about the 2005/06 campaign.

They ran a brilliant campaign focusing on five core policies and announcing one new policy initiative every day. They were lean, they were direct, and they spoke to voters with simple policies that resonated. And when the going got tough, when the very nasty Liberals personally attacked, they ignored it and stayed on message. It worked, and the Conservatives won.

Now the roles are reversed, the Conservatives have the dirt of governance on their hands, the attack ads, the scandals involving accounting tricks with their own money. Things are so bad in Ottawa, even Jack Layton is indignant. Yet the polls say the Conservatives will be back, probably with a minority. Why would the opposition risk so much?

Like Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff is going to answer to charges he has a scary hidden agenda. In Harper’s case it was a social conservative agenda. In Ignatieff’s, it is the question of forming a coalition that includes the Bloc. It is there, it will be in the ads, and Ignatieff had better answer the question directly and honestly right off the bat.

Day 1:

• blue serge suit dry cleaned – check
• non-confidence voted – check
• have answer to sticky question ready…

There is a blue door, there is a red door. We’re gonna elect a Liberal Government.

Here’s a hint Mr. Ignatieff. The answer to every single question you ever get asked in politics is not a quote from Go Dog Go!

Day 2:

Someone please, get on the phone and explain to the Count that it is a yes or no question: If the Conservatives get a plurality, but not a majority, will you enter into a coalition with the NDP and Bloc? Yes/No.

And here’s a tip, the right answer is no. The worst answer is, “The light is green now, Go Dogs Go!”

Coalition of the Treasonous, Pompous Igghead, The Count Coalition, Michael Ignatieff, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper

Interesting piece by John Ivison in today’s National Post: Jack Layton apparently has his sights sets on leader of the official opposition.

The task looks Herculean – the Liberals polled an average of 29% in the four polls this month: the NDP just over half that…

It may seem nuts, but I like Layton’s chances, just as I like the Conservatives chances of forming a majority. The truth that’s not being told is, Ignatieff has never been a big player in a high level campaign. He ran one leadership campaign, was way out ahead when it began and blew it: the more Liberals saw him, the less they liked him.

His second leadership campaign he won by backroom manoeuvring, taking the decision making out of the hands of Liberal party members and their inconvenient votes.

You can’t backroom your way through a general election.

Everytime I see Ignatieff, my spidey senses tingle the same little tingle: when the going gets real and tough, this guy will fold like an Ikea chair at an overeater’s anonymous meeting.

Jack Layton is right (yes I wrote that: Dec 15, 2010, mark it on your calendars), Michael Ignatieff is very vulnerable in a campaign. He talks about a campaign on leadership, but what he means is he thinks Ignatieff isn’t up to the job of winning peoples minds and hearts when it counts.

Jack Layton Jack Layton, Michael Ignatieff, National Post, Stephen Harper, Stornoway

Remember when Liberals bragged about “the toughest and most ruthless machine in Canadian politics,” not whined about it.

Frankly, I’m still trying to get my head around Jean Cretien publicly using the words NDP and leadership together, thus giving them credibility they really don’t have.

The more I watch of The Count, the more I believe that, regardless of what this or that poll says, when an election is on and everything counts, Harper is going to wipe the floor with this guy.

Michael Ignatieff, Silly Liberals, The Count Michael Ignatieff

for whatever reason, I don’t tend to feel sorry for you. Ever.

One question for Margaret Atwood, The Barenaked Morons (or any coked up ex-morons), Quebec and everyone else who protested that Conservative cuts to arts funding was the end of culture in Canada:

Do you, or do you not believe that Erica Basniki’s tax dollars should go towards paying for Homegrown, a play about Toronto 18 terrorist Shareef Abdelhaleem?

You at the back… yes you, Michael Ignatieff… Your first.

Michael Ignatieff, Pompous Igghead Barenaked Ladies, Culture, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ignatieff, Shareef Abdelhaleem, Stephen Harper

training program?

I wish more people had come out

Michael Ignatieff Michael Ignatieff

Canadians can smell the whiff of sulphur coming off this guy

Hugo Chavez Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has set out on his summer barbeque tour

Uncategorized Hugo Chavez, Michael Ignatieff, Stephen Harper

“Come on, let’s see that letter from Guy to Mary Dawson,” a senior Ignatieff official says. “I sincerely believe that the Giorno letter is at the heart of this thing because it will show the true nature of Stephen Harper – because he obviously approved it.”

Unlike, say, those nice Liberals, who wouldn’t publicly accuse someone of “unethical or criminal activity…” or of associating with organized crime:

…you don’t get cocaine at a corner drug store, right? You have to get it from somewhere, from someone and usually that means organized crime.”

h/t neocon

Silly Liberals, Stephen Harper Conservative Party, guy giorno, Helena Guergis, Liberal Party, Mary Dawson, Michael Ignatieff, Stephen Harper

A few elections ago then Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton said of the electricity market: It’s too important to be left to the private sector. A few people I knew agreed with this, to which I always answered, just hope Howard Hampton never notices how you buy your food: the last time some one decided food was too important for the private sector, the Russian people were relegated to 50 years of cabbage soup and black bread. Well don’t look now but…

Michael Ignatieff, who, of course has cake, has proposed a National Food Policy. The Government of Canada would get in the farmers market and local food game. Fourty-million dollars here for a national healthy start (breakfast for brats) program, eighty-million dollars there for a buy local fund and pretty soon your talking real money. Then there’s this:

Reward farmers for environmentally sustainable initiatives such as setting aside land for wildlife habitats or carbon sequestration (emphasis theirs… and mine)

The Liberal government will spend untold millions, hundreds of millions more like, to pay farmers to not grow food. This plan talks of spending $170M, but has hundreds of millions more not factored in. Government food programs in action: more money out the door, less food in.

Then there’s the City of Toronto. I have spent considerable energy on this blog highlighting the folly of the City of Toronto and it’s elected representatives. So it is with some shock I report, they are on to a good idea. Yesterday’s Sun reports the City is considering allowing people to keep chickens in their backyard. Frankly as long as there’s no health hazard – and there isn’t – why it’s the City of anybody’s business if you keep chickens I have no idea. None the less if the chicken lobby gets it’s way, soon you’ll be able to have a couple of chickens producing fresh eggs in a coop on your very own property in Toronto. A few years down the road when the eggs stop coming it’s Ann Boleyn meets Colonel Sanders and dinner has never been so fresh.

Alas, this is the City of Toronto, the people who could screw up letting street vendors sell food. All chickens would have to be registered. That’s right, a chicken registry which, surprisingly, isn’t in Michael Ignatieff’s plan. Presumably the chicken registry is not in case some chicken goes wild and it’s owner needs to be identified, but so that City Hall can tax your free eggs. No doubt you’ll need their permission before putting Betsy in the deep fryer.

Sad to say this scheme also falls under a food plan, in this case the “urban food strategy” that Toronto Public Health is putting together.

The politicians have noticed: look for less food, less selection and higher prices in the food market in coming years.

Economic Fundamentalism, Food Ann Boleyn, chicken, Colonel Sanders, Food, Howard Hampton, Michael Ignatieff, National Food Policy, NDP, Toronto, urban farming

…As long as spending is kept under control.

That’s according to Glen Hodgeson, chief economist as the Conference Board of Canada. Despite what opposition leaders and opposition media will tell you, this makes sense. I was never a fan of the stimulus spending. Became less of a fan as I spent hours this summer in stimulus jams on the 401 as they scraped up perfectly good pavement and lay down other, just as good pavement. In fact, my first post at Gerry Nicholls’ LibertyPost was about the economic porn of stimulus spending.

That said, stimulus spending is by it’s nature, temporary spending. The government created a big deficit by spending on re-facing the 401 and other such useful-alities. Once the stimulus spending stops, the budget should return to normal. That is, assuming spending is not increased by, say, introducing a vastly expensive new social program.

The federal Liberals are promising to put a national child-care program at the forefront of the next election campaign and any future government, with leader Michael Ignatieff describing it as a “legacy” item for his party.

“Mr. Ignatieff is making grand promises that he absolutely refuses to cost out, or say how he’ll pay for them,” (Human Resources Minister Diane ) Finley said.

Where will Michael Ignatieff find the money for his new popcorn-and-beer-care? Actually he’s already said where. He has indicated it will take tax hikes to bring the deficit back in line. This is not true, as the economists who met with Jim Flaherty have noted, unless you take the expanded stimulus included budget and consider it the new normal. If your spending doesn’t decrease when the stimulus ends, you need new revenue to pay for all that extra spending.

What we now have is a clear look at Michael Ignatieffs plan. He is going to spend like it’s 2009 by adding daycare to the public budget, and he will blame Stephen Harper for the tax hikes he needs to pay for it.

Silly Liberals, The Count Child Care, Jim Flaherty, Michael Ignatieff, Stimulous

If I recieved an email from info@email.liberal.ca that was politicizing the Haiti catastrophe, I would be all over the Liberals, so it seem fair to offer kudos to Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals for using their mailing list to send a message asking people to donate to Haiti relief. Equally, consider this At Home in Hespeler’s call to donate what you can.

Friend–

It’s time to stand with Haiti.

The scenes of devastation beamed from Port-au-Prince and elsewhere have shaken all of us. But they have also reminded us that our first instinct as Canadians is to ask “How can I help?”

Our ties with Haiti are strong. We have a Haitian community in Canada that has contributed so much to our national life, and Canadians across our country are connected to Haiti through friends and loved ones living and working there.

I know that you were just asked to donate on Monday. But this is not about politics.

In these exceptional circumstances, now is a time to come together as people. Now is a time to act.

That’s why I am asking you to please support the relief effort in Haiti by clicking on one of the links below. Yesterday, we asked the government to match funds given to charitable organizations for relief efforts and today the government announced that it would – which means that your giving power is now twice as strong.

Canadian Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Oxfam Canada
Oxfam Quebec
Centre for International studies and Cooperation (CECI)
CARE Canada
The Humanitarian Coalition

Let’s show that we care. Let’s help Haiti in this time of need.

Thank you,
Michael Ignatieff

Uncategorized Liberal Party, LPC, Michael Ignatieff

OK, we’ve all seen the Stephen Harper assassination picture and can all agree it’s harmless: not like they had a bird pooping on him or any such major indignity. It was stupid, and the collective MSM yawn in lieu of howls of indignity, as they do every time a Conservative speaks ill of a Liberal, was embarrassing for them. Pity they don’t have the common sense anymore to realize they’re embarrassed.

Remember this picture next time you hear howls of Stephen Harper being a mean spirited, nasty bully.

But the Stephen Harper assassination fantasy/crime, and the Stephen Harper arming a cow (in the not with a gun context) picture aren’t the only graven images in the Liberal Party Stephen Harper Photoshop contest and hate-athon currently underway at Liberanos.ca. There are six finalists now showing and they range from the childish (Harper as Waldo, Harper in a bunny suit) to reasonably clever (Something rotten in the state of Denmark), to the dammed racist if a Republican did it with their President (the monkeys) to the disturbing: one with Harper riding a bomb, and this one

Seeing as Hitler pictures are so darned hard to find and David in Ottawa only had 45 or 50 seconds to do his entry, a quick slice of Harper into the Communist Party poster, because we all know how vile the communists are. Isn’t that clever? Why there’s Lenin. And Stalin and Mao, the two worst mass murderers in the history of the world. Oh, and look, there’s Uncle Fidel in the back…

Uncle Fidel?

Wait a minute, that uncle Fidel? Virtually the only world leader to make an appearance at the last Michael Ignatieff’s funeral? I thought the Liberals liked him. As for Mao, wasn’t last weeks big scandal that Harper can’t get along with Chinese Communists? In fact, if we imagine a party like the one pictured above, wouldn’t MM Chrétien and Trudeau be the Canadians most likely to RSVP in the affirmative?

What exactly is the message the Liberal Party is trying to send with this picture? That Stephen Harper is really a closet Liberal? Well, he did jack up the deficit, increase spending and stuff the senate? But it seems an odd message for the Liberals to be putting out none the less.

Maybe the message is they didn’t think this contest through very well.

Silly Liberals Castro, Chrétien, Communist Party, Conservative Party, Fidel, Hitler, Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lenin, Liberal, Mao, Michael Ignatieff, puffin, STalin, Stephen Harper, Trudeau, Where's Waldo

The party base understood in 2006 and Canadian citizens are understanding now. Ignatieff’s supporters didn’t do their homework. They didn’t read his books. They contented themselves with his ability to navigate the cocktail circuit.”
“Some of them are enraged today. I hear: ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us about him?'”
“We told you, loud and clear. You didn’t listen.’

and

 “But they (party members) didn’t accept the 26 per cent (of the popular vote in the last election). Now we’re at 23.”

It’s worth saying that it’s not that they didn’t try and read his books but, like me, they picked up The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, and slept like a baby for two weeks, unable to keep their poor weary eyes open for more than a page and a half of his pompous drivel.

 Then the front thrusts:

Ross Rebagliati, former Olympic snowboarder with the Clitonesque excuses, now running for the Liberal party in  Okanagan-Coquihalla BC, gives an interview to McLeans:

McL: …did the Liberals approach you, or did you approach them?
RR: They approached me. It came up over lunch and I thought about it for a few minutes, and by the end of the meal, I had decided to do it.

RR:… We’re sending our Canadian soldiers overseas to create a democracy in a foreign land, and a lot of them are paying the ultimate price. And we can’t even bring ourselves to vote here, when we have that right and privilege? To me, that’s unacceptable.
McL: Have you been a regular voter?
RR: No I haven’t.

McL: Are there other politicians you admire?
RR: Sure, Trudeau… he had a cool car and all the girls liked him.

McL: What will you be doing during the Olympics this February?
RR: I’ll be in both Whistler and Vancouver… but I don’t have a single ticket. But as far as I’m concerned I’m just going to flash my gold medal. (Note: he’s entitled to his entitlements).

McL: Are you in favour of legalization?
RR: I’m not really going to go there right now. I think the media obviously has a big opportunity to corner me as a one-issue guy, but I don’t want to be that guy.

McL:…What’s your campaign theme song going to be?
RR: I like the Bob Marley song Get Up, Stand Up.

When your star candidates are this good, what can go wrong?

Silly Liberals, Uncategorized Janine Krieber, Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, Parliament Pub, Ross Rebagliati, Stephane Dion, Warren Kinsella