I must have been a very good boy because I got another ten-percenter in the post today. Oh boy! And it’s another Liberal one. Two in a single week – I don’t know what I did to deserve it.
Today’s ten-percenter is courtesy of Alexandra Mendes’ office, and the cover flap shows statues of the famed three monkeys – speaking no evil, seeing no evil, and hearing no evil, with the title “In denial?” on top.
Inside, the title is ‘Dreaming in Technicolor’? over a background of urban decay. The text talks about how the Conservatives denied we were headed for a recession, and that they’re now claiming we’ll recover first, while the former Bank of Canada Governor, David Dodge, says they’re “dreaming in Technicolor,” and then it game some job loss statistics. The “survey” question – “Do you trust the Harper Conservatives to deal effectively with the present economic crisis?” And yes, one is given both yes and no options.
I find it curious that all three ten-percenters I’ve received from Liberals in the past couple of weeks have all come from Quebec ridings, and I especially find it curious that they’ve been all addressed as care of Liberal Caucus Services while still qualifying for the same free postage that one gets to send mail to a Parliamentarian – especially when Liberal Caucus Services (doubtless a data mining facility) is not even on Parliament Hill, but rather what I suspect to be the party’s headquarters. I might be curious to see if this is actually allowed, or if they’re being very cute about bending the rules in this way – much the way the Conservatives were when they sent out their flurry of ten-percenters last summer.
That said, I’m quite curious as to why I haven’t seen a Conservative ten-percenter in a while, warning me about how the Liberals will want to let criminals hang out in the comfort of their own homes rather than in jail, or how they want to revoke the child tax credit, or most especially how Michael Ignatieff said that “we will have to raise taxes.” (Seriously – if I have to hear Pierre Poilievre say that one more time in the House…) I’m starting to feel like they don’t even care any more.
On the issue with the Chalk River reactor shutdown looks like it could be very lengthy – if not permanent. But hey, the minister in charge, Lisa Raitt, looks like she’s finally talking to the media about it, like she should have been, oh, back when this whole thing started.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives are doing a bit of jiggery-pokery with the scheduling of opposition days, trying to push the remaining allotment of them to the end of the session, which is coming up fast. The theory of course, is to limit the number of opportunities the opposition has to move a motion of non-confidence, where they might try to bring down the election and call an election. Of course, the later they push the opportunities, the later the election call would be – and if they push the Liberals’ opposition days to June 17th at the earliest, then that also means the earliest an election could be held was July 27th. And as we all know, summer elections are an anathema, because half of Ontario is off in cottage country, and no Canadian wants their summer holidays interrupted by having to vote – our summers are short enough as it is. The funny thing about this was that when Paul Martin did this to try and preserve his government, the Conservatives cried bloody murder – and now the shoe is on the other foot. How very curious indeed.
And this concludes the final break week of the current Parliamentary sitting. After this, it’s the final five weeks of session before they rise for the summer – barring any need to extend it further because of legislation that needs to be passed right away. And considering how ugly an Ottawa summer can get – especially when most of Parliament Hill is inadequately air conditioned – the mere threat of needing to sit longer tends to make things happen faster. So don’t expect the pace of the next five weeks to slow down in the slightest.
Why you can trust Xtra
