Stephen Harper is apparently on the campaign trail, saying that Canadians have a choice of a stable Conservative majority or a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition. Seriously!
“If we have one duty to this country, it is to make sure a Liberal, NDP, Bloc Québécois coalition can never govern this country,” Harper told a crowd of a few hundred at the Deer Creek Golf and Banquet Facility…
“The next election will be a choice between a coalition government of the Liberal, NDP and Bloc Québécois, or a stable Conservative majority government for this country,” he said.
Because that’s apparently how elections work in Stephen Harper’s imagination. Also, notice the language – their duty to ensure that they “can never govern” the country. Isn’t that up to the people? Not only that, but such a coalition never did exist, and it is too politically unpalatable to ever exist in the future. What’s next? Tilting at windmills? Fighting more straw men? Oh, wait…
Meanwhile, the backlash over the head of the gun registry program’s reassignment has blown up. Despite the government’s insistence that the reassignment totally wasn’t political, that he just didn’t meet the linguistic requirements of the job (which apparently wasn’t a consideration when they put him in there and hasn’t been a problem for the past year), well, nobody’s buying it – not even the National Post.
Aaron Wherry, meanwhile, lists 12 of the officials who found themselves in hot water after they spoke out against this government.
As for the vote on that gun registry bill, the NDP’s Joe Comartin does the voting math here.
The new Indian and northern affairs minister, John Duncan, made a government apology to the Inuit High Arctic exiles yesterday. But because this was delivered by the minister and not the prime minister, and not in the House of Commons – and without any commitment to fix the trust fund the government set up in 1996 to compensate survivors and their families – this has the feeling of just one more apology the government can cross off their list without taking it very seriously.
And the Senate energy committee has said that there’s no reason for us to ban offshore drilling – provided it’s properly regulated and monitored. But that’s the real kicker, isn’t it? Elsewhere, the Federal Liberals are saying that the government is in denial about the impact the tar sands are having on freshwater supplies in Alberta, and want the federal government to use its authority to protect the fisheries and health of aboriginal communities downstream.
Why you can trust Xtra
