Stephen Harper the Musician

Following in the path of past world leaders like Brian Mulroney, Ronald Reagan, & Bill Clinton, Stephen Harper provides a surprise performance, singing a Beatles classic:

Harper & Co. Refuse to Give Back Canadians Their Free Speech Rights

The federal Conservatives are refusing to reform the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission. A grassroots campaign is being initiated to help change their minds. If you believe in free speech, please lend your voice!

PM Stephen Harper on Larry Kudlow's Show

Americans could learn a LOT about banking from Canada. Watch our superb Prime Minister on Larry Kudlow's show.

PM Stephen Harper on CNN

A Prime Minister we all can be proud of:

If only he had a majority government!

Conrad Black's Musings on the Canadian Political Scene

Though he's away on "vacation" in Florida, Conrad Black clearly is still closely following what's going on here in Canada. While some despise him, no one can dispute his immense historical knowledge.

In his piece he closely examines Michael Ignatieff and compares & contrasts him with Stephen Harper. Whatever the outcome of the next few elections, all Canadians can rejoice at the fact that the Radical Left elements of the Liberal Party of Canada have been pushed aside, and not a minute too soon IMHO. The good news for Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe is that there'll be much more room in the bed for just the two of them!

Can You Imagine?

Inspired by Lorne Gunter:

Can you imagine the field day the Canadian media would be having if Stephen Harper had lived in the U.S. for 30 years and had written constantly about "We Americans..."?

Yet that's precisely the track record of Michael Ignatieff, the newly anointed leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Yet we don't hear a peep about it.


Note: For the record, it doesn't bother me one whit that Ignatieff spent all those decades at Harvard.

Beware: The Coalition is NOT Dead

The Liberal Party's PR surrogates - aka "the mainstream media" have made it very clear that the Coalition isn't dead. It's just lying in wait to bring down the "evil tyrant" Stephen Harper at the earliest opportunity.

Here's a fascinating discussion with the Globe and Mail's Gloria Galloway (starting at 7:00). Ms. Galloway has a long history of contempt for Stephen Harper in particular and conservative-minded Canadians in general. While she's carefully holding back her venom at this time, this glowing article by her about Michael Ignatieff is a clear sign of what heavy bias we'll be seeing in the media in 2009.

Incidentally, by my count it has now been 2 days since Ignatieff has been the head of the dreaded Coalition, which came very close to taking away the democracy of Canadians. Some Liberal pundits are saying that he was the least supportive of it. If that's true then why has he not spoken out against it as of yet?!

MSM Corruption, Newly Anointed Ignatieff

Charles Adler was on fire today!

Click here and move the slider to 7:00.

Here's one great thread: "But in the main the so-called national press gallery hate Harper and they just can't get over it. They hate him to the point where they omit the fact that most people in this country are not for coalition governments. And they just go on and tell us that this does go on in Belgium. WHO CARES?!? THIS AIN'T BELGIUM!!!"

Absolute Bliss!!

Liberal Elites Selling Out Canadian Democracy

If this were a different country, what would be the consequences for those supporting a failed coup d-etat, be it violent or peaceful? In this audio clip, move the slider to 7:00 to listen to Conservative pundit, Norman Spector, and NDP pundit, Bill Tieleman, discuss all that happened last week.

BOTH were vehemently against the Coalition trying to seize power in the manner which it did. And you will hear some VERY interesting things about Peter Mansbridge and Margaret Atwood, two elites who would now be in prison or worse if this were another country or another time. But in peaceful, kind Canada there are no repercussions for what many would describe as traitorous actions.

Here's a sampling of what Spector said:

"I think what you've got here around The Tyee, and you hear them on CBC, and they're full in the universities, are people who think you change governments by trickery or in the streets. It's the same thinking as in Solidarity or in the BC Teachers' Federation that thinks he can go on strike or call it illegally and call it 'civil disobediance'. It's the same kind of stuff. This one has infiltrated all kinds of people, who don't know what they're talking about in terms of constitutional conventions. But this idea that parties have a constitutional right to take power in this country without an election is balderdash! You've got a lot of people posing as constitutional experts, who essentially are political operatives. They don't like Stephen Harper, which is fine, but if you don't like Stephen Harper the way to do it is to win an election against him. I believe the Left should unite. I've written that. But I think they should unite before an election, not go into an election, tell people they're not going to do this and then turn around and do it. That is simply fraud. To get the Governor General to do the dirty work for them is simply outrageous."

The Magic Number "62"

Pierre Bourque is reporting tonight that a recent poll indicates that 62% of Canadians are angry at the Coalition.

Does this number sound familiar? It is EXACTLY the same percentage of voters that we were told all week were against Harper and thus supposedly in support of the Coalition. In other words, the Radical Left mouthpieces saw that the Conservatives had won 38% of the popular vote in the recent election, so they pulled out their calculators and did the math: 100% - 38% = 62%

On & on they went:

• 62% of Canadians support the Coalition
• 62% of Canadians elected a Coalition to govern Canada
• 62% of Canadians want Harper defeated
  

Anyone who has worked on a farm knows that bullshit can be shoveled forward for a time but eventually you look down and there's nothing left to push forward.

Such is the case with most everything that comes out of the mouths of Canada's Left these days it seems.

Those "Unbiased" University Professors

Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed the complete B.S. that the media are trying to shove down our throats these days. Charles Adler hits the ball out of the park with his editorial today. You can listen to him reading it at 34:00 here. Please, please do! Here's are a few snippets:

I expect the Governor General to continue to take her prime counsel from the Prime Minister as opposed to the growing gaggle of opportunists, unionists, and academics who want to conquer the National treasury and bankrupt it.

It's hard for us to believe that people in this country will surrender everything we own to TENURED university professors. Why am I saying this? Because the TV airwaves in this country are populated by University Professors who claim not to be political but make it abundantly obvious that they hate conservatives so much that they are willing to clear their throats and hold their noses and rubber stamp this Coalition of the Three Amigos, the Three Jokers, The Three Stooges of Coupscam.

In the meantime, it is up to the rest of us to make sure that if there is a change of government in this land it happens because we voted for it. We don't live in Waziristan. This is Canada, the True North, Strong, and FREE. And we should feel free to express our desire to have our democracy nurtured by the will of the people. Not tortured by the Three Stooges of Coupscam.

Here's one interesting tidbit: In a recent poll, Canadians were asked who is the best party to manage the economy. The results:

• 34% Conservatives
• 14% Liberals
• 7% NDP

Yet all we keep on hearing is that "Canadians have lost confidence in the Conservative government to get us through these tough economic times." It's called Liberal Math.

Stephen Harper vs. Stephane Dion

Latest Video:

The Truth about Sarah Palin, Not the MSM's Narrative

Good on Sarah Palin for not paying any attention to the views of the MSM in the U.S. Apparently she played a major role in securing victory for Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss in yesterday's runoff vote.

It has not escaped my attention that the Canadian media has been using some very similar tactics in order to bring their much hated Stephen Harper down. I hope he pays them no attention either. The don't deserve it.

Canada's French-Canadian Quagmire

With the Bloc Québécois consistently winning a large majority of seats in Quebec (50 out of 75 in the recent election) it has become almost impossible for any other party to win a clear majority.

Listening to Norman Spector this morning he indicated that Yolande Brunelle, who is the wife of Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, recently said that part of the strategy of the Bloc is to block any federal party from ever achieving a majority. She feels that this will eventually alienate other Canadians so much that they'll eventually want Quebec to leave.

Frankly, I think this has already occurred. To be clear, I don't believe that most Canadians want Quebec to become independent but they're tired of Quebecers never being satisfied enough.

And make no mistake, Stephen Harper has gone out of his way to give Quebec an endless stream of goodies that no other province received. But in the end, it was all for naught. The Globe & Mail's Jeffrey Simpson has an excellent, detailed take on all of this.

The way out of this quagmire may occur when extra seats are assigned to Ontario, Alberta, and B.C. to reflect their increased populations. Until then, we're likely stuck with permanent minority governments.

---

Further to Canadian majority governments, on the most recent CBC Sunday Edition show there was a discussion of the aftermath of the recent election. One of the 3 guests was Michael Byers, the failed NDP candidate in my riding of Vancouver Centre.

Byers is a bitter, almost creepy little man. He perpetrated the myth that Canadians don't want Harper's "neo-con" agenda. Precisely what about the Conservative platform is extremely right-wing Lil' Byers did not choose to illuminate us on.

Later on in the discussion the host said to Byers: "Jack Layton kept saying that I'm your next prime minister. He kept saying that we're the only national party to be a possible opposition to Stephen Harper. And yet that didn't play in Quebec or outside of your base either."

Byers responded with this: "But Jack Layton did stop a Conservative majority by winning a number of new seats in Northern Ontario and holding onto a core of seats in British Columbia. And that difference was what kept Mr. Harper to a minority and has enabled us to continue to find ways forward to cooperate and make parliament work rather than having a dictator essentially for the next 4 years...." (The emphasis is mine.)

Like an all-star wrestler, Tasha Kheiriddin, the Conservative pundit on the panel, bitch slapped Bitter Byers down with this immediate and calm response: "I want to know why it is that when a Conservative is threatening to get a majority, one calls him a dictator. If Stephane Dion got a majority, Michael, I don't think you'd be complaining about a dictator being in parliament. Our parliament works best when there is a majority government, which is able to put forward a clear agenda. That is our tradition and while we've had some successful minority parliaments but also some very disastrous ones. And in this case our country is facing a major worldwide financial crisis and we have a minority parliament and it's not clear how efficient or effective a government is going to be now dealing with this."

Aftermath of the 40th Canadian Federal Election

Jonathan Kay has the most brilliant take of all, asking why the 4 left of centre parties refuse to bond together for a common purpose. Here are the killer parts of his piece:

With a few notable exceptions, Stephen Harper’s opponents agree on just about everything. The NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals (in their leftist Dionista variant, at least) are all pro-Kyoto, down-the-line socially liberal, anti-American, weak on crime, culturally nationalistic, and fiscally redistributionist.

There are differences, too, of course. The Bloc wants to break up the country. The Liberals want to impose a carbon tax, while the NDP would achieve the same customer-soaking effect though carbon cap-and-trade. Dippers are explicitly anti-corporate in their tax platform, while Liberals at least talk the language of the free market (except when it comes to oil companies). But putting aside the Bloc’s separatist pipe dream, the vision all these parties have -- and which they could be expected to act upon as part of a coalition -- is more or less the same: a left-wing, hyper-environmentalist, multilateral, culture-subsidizing, prisoner-coddling, Ameriphobic welfare state.

Scary stuff. And here’s the scariest part: About two-thirds of Canadians voted for this vision on Tuesday.

David Frum and Mark Steyn also offer their thoughts. As does the National Post, in this editorial.



If you want to see some real sour grapes, visiting the comments section of this CBC story.

Grassroots Campaign in Canada

There are less than three weeks until the election, an election that will decide the next Prime Minister of Canada.

The person elected will be the Prime Minister of 'all' Canadians, not just the Liberals or the Conservatives. It's time that we all came together, Liberals and Conservatives alike.

If you support the policies and character of Stephen Harper, please drive with your headlights on during the day.

If you support Stephane Dion, please drive with your headlights off at night.

Together, we can make it happen!

Stephen Harper and the Mysterious $86 Billion

Our friends on the Left in Canada are getting desperate. They know that most voters aren't buying their nonsense so this last week in the election campaign they're going to paint Prime Minister with any combination of the following:

• Scary
• Neo-con
• Bush-lite

And you may also hear about Harper cutting "$86 Billion in Arts Funding". When you do, require that the speaker or writer provide you a careful tally of how they arrived at this number. Then read this and this. You may very well come to the same conclusion I did: Artistic talent and basic math skills can't seem to fit into the same brain.

Stephen Harper Tells It As It Is to Liberal Elites

Throughout this past month I've carefully documented the vicious, repugnant attacks against Sarah Palin from liberal elites, including some here in Canada. In her inaugural speech, Palin spoke of breaking through a glass ceiling. She should have gone further though. For what she is really breaking through is a glass cocoon that all ordinary people have been kept in by the elites, treated no better than a neglected pet in a cage.

Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, helped smash that cocoon a little further when he spoke out against the cultural elite, who "he characterized as government-subsidized whiners".

Bravo Mr. Harper, BRAVO!!! You are stating what I believe the vast majority of Canadians have felt for a long, long time!

On a closely related note, I encourage you to read something I wrote about how Arts funding really works here in Canada.

Quick Primer on the Current Canadian Political System

A cool woman with a very popular blog decided to link to my piece on Heather Mallick's recent hateful diatribe. This has caused a lot of cross posting to her many readers, most of whom I assume to be American. I decided to bring them up to speed with what's going on politically up here and thought it worthwhile to repost some of what I wrote there.
Canada has a left-right divide similar to the U.S. but is shifted about 30% to the left of America politically.

Both countries have political divides along urban/rural lines. The Conservatives have a lock on most every rural riding in the 5 Western provinces (B.C. to Ontario). The 4 Maritime provinces are a little different and Quebec is its own strange bird. But in the 3 biggest cities - Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver - the Conservatives have almost no MPs.

Why? There are several reasons:

1. We've had massive immigration in the past few decades. Most of these people have moved to the large cities. The Liberals have done a good job at convincing many newcomers that voting for them is the ONLY option. If you believe I'm making that up then I will introduce you to Asian and South Asian friends of mine and let them explain it to you. IMHO if people are dumb enough to blindly follow such advice then so be it.
   
   
2. The bigger cities in Canada generally have a large percentage of people who will only ever vote for the Liberal and NDP parties. Most of my friends across the country fall into this country, so I understand their mindset very well. Some think that the Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, is "scary". Some believe he will take away abortion rights of women. Others just feel that voting left puts them "on the side of angels". I disagree on all of these fronts, of course, but most such Canadians don't want to listen to a reasoned argument. And in the end equation, each person is free to vote however they want.
   
   
3. The mainstream media has been highly effective in shaping the minds of the masses (read "sheep") toward their own liberal mindset. CBC, which is our public broadcaster, is the most biased of all (I think you actually have to prove you deeply hate Americans in order to work there!). But other media outlets have different degrees of a left-wing bias too.
   

Since October 2004 Canadian politicians have been in a stalemate of sorts with a division of votes across 4 different political parties. This is mostly due to the existence of the Bloc Québécois, a Quebec separation party. It has prevented any one party from getting a clear majority. As such, being in a minority situation, the ruling party has to make significant compromises on most every piece of legislation in order to get enough opposition members to support it. Some suggest that this "improves all legislation". I disagree. Just like a committee is well known to make poor decisions, often based on politically correctness, so does legislation get watered down in a minority government.

An election was called on September 7th, to be held on October 14th. The results of this election will determine who forms the government in the 40th Parliament of Canada.

As we're so early into this election it is not yet certain whether the [Sarah] "Palin Effect" will influence Canadians. Clearly I hope it will help give the Conservatives a majority government!

Canadian Federal Election Called

We interrupt our regular scheduled programming to report on another election campaign that has just started in that far off country of Canada. Unlike the American election campaign that seems to have been going on for 2 years, ours will be just 5 weeks long, with the vote held on October 14th.

The only discussion I could find on it this morning was on CBC Radio 1. Of course, they had their usual version of a fair & balanced panel: Left, Further Left, and Extreme Left. It would be fair to surmise that not one of the panelists has ever voted for the Conservatives in their entire life. The discussion mostly centered around two issues:

1. Should the election have been called? (aka Is Stephen Harper wasting everyone's money?)
   
   
2. Will the environment be at the forefront of the election campaign?

#1 would never have been asked of a Liberal prime minister. Proof positive is when Jean Chretien called an election after just 3.5 years into his mandate (June 6th, 1997).

#2 will likely be an election issue, only because Stephane Dion has made it so. His Green Shift policy is nothing more than a massive tax grab at Western Canadians. How anyone in the West could vote for such a thing is beyond me!

Upon dissolution of the current Parliament, here's the breakdown of seats:

• 127 - Conservative
• 95 - Liberal
• 48 - Bloc Quebecois
• 30 - NDP
• 3 - Independent
• 1 - Green
• 4 - Vacant

Total Seats: 308

So to achieve a majority, Stephen Harper's Conservatives need 155 members elected. Can they achieve this? It'll be tough. The keys to success will be these:

• Make Westerners aware of just how incredibly punitive the Liberal's Green Shift plan will be to their bank accounts.
• Work at bringing Quebeckers back into the fold of Canada, hoping they'll realize how pointless their vote for the Bloc Quebecois is.
• Hope that more than a few voters in the '416' Toronto region realize that they don't have to vote Liberal to remain in Canada.

A few final thoughts:

1. The single Green member is a controversial figure in West Vancouver named Blair Wilson. The Liberals booted him out (wisely) and so he made the desperate move to become Canada's first Green Party member. Prediction: He will not win and will lose badly.
2. The NDP's Jack Layton announced that he is running to become Prime Minister this time round. God Bless his optimistic attitude! Prediction: The NDP's only hope is for a complete meltdown of the Liberal campaign. With Dion, anything is possible, but I don't believe the NDP can achieve any more than 50 seats.
3. Lorne Mayencourt, previously a provincial Liberal MLA, is running for the Conservatives in my riding of Vancouver Centre. He is trying to unseat the most useless MP in the history of Canada aka Hedy Fry. But she has traditionally had a stranglehold on the large gay vote in the riding. Mayencourt himself is gay, so perhaps he'll be able to achieve electoral success just like he has done successfully at the provincial level.
4. It'll be most interesting to see if the popularity of Sarah Palin amongst Americans has any side-effect to help the Conservatives here in Canada. Melanie Phillips, a prominent writer in Britain, has suggested that Palin's success in the U.S. may very well help the Conservatives in the UK. Interesting times!