Canadian Political Hypocrisy

[Thanz]

As a break from all the threads on Islamic cartoons, lets talk about Canadian politics. Newly elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his cabinet, and boy is it a doozy.

For those of you who don’t know, Harper ran primarily on a promise to clean up government in the wake of a scandal that saw millions of dollars diverted from public monies to Liberal friendly ad agencies in Quebec, with some of the money then kicked back to the Liberal party itself. Much of this money came from the Ministry of Public Works when the Liberal Party was in power.
Harper complained not only of the scandal, but of how political appointments were made by the Liberals. Their platform complained how Liberal insiders were appointed to important public offices, and vowed in the future to consult with the whole House of Commons on such appointments.

Lastly, the campaign also included a promise to move to an elected (rather than appointed, as it is currently) Senate.

So, what does Harper do when announcing his cabinet? Well, he takes one of his Conservative Party cronies, who has never been elected, appoints him to the Senate, and puts him in charge as Minister of Public Works. Way to clean up the gov’t, there Harper! I fail to see how this could be any more hypocritical.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060207.CABFORTIER07/TPStory

[Jas]

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Corbella_Licia/2006/02/07/1429006.html

A different perspective:

It's also true that the Conservatives' election mandate was roundly criticized because it did not have any representation from Canada's three largest cities -- Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Ontario-based professors, politicians and pundits -- clearly in need of geography lessons -- called it a rural-urban divide, as if St. John's, Ottawa and Calgary, to name just a few, are rural.

...

Remember what happened to Calgary after it shut out Chretien from gaining any seats in 1993? Chretien didn't try to include Calgary in some way. Instead, Chretien became vindictive and punitive. He decided to remove Calgary's Canadian Forces Base and give it to Edmonton -- which had elected Liberals Anne McLellan and David Kilgour. The move was a blow -- culturally, historically and financially -- to Calgary and cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion for the move, money the military could have desperately used.

Harper's action yesterday is the exact opposite. He's sticking his neck out and taking a lot of political hits to embrace those who wouldn't vote for his party.

His actions are inclusive rather than punitive. He's ensuring that Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto are represented, not just in caucus, but at the cabinet table.

That's a 180-degree turn from the way the Liberals operated.

Nevertheless, these two appointments appear undemocratic and in the case of Emerson, opportunistic and unethical.



Licia Corbella - sometimes she's cracked out, other times hits the nail on the head. Personally, I don't have a problem with the appt of those two to cabinet. I maybe don't like the individuals themselves, but I think Harper's motivations behind them were pretty clear, in that he's trying to get representatives for all regions in his cabinet.

Although yesterday, listening to the CBC at lunch, you could see the bias. The interviewer was going off, "I can't believe that he would appoint someone as Minister of Defense who used to be in the military and was a military contractor at one point. That's a lot of baggage." Of course, the response was - do you want someone with NO military experience?

Or on another appointment, "I can't believe he would appoint someone who's friendly to Israel." Again, the response (I believe she was interviewing someone from the Western Standard), was, "Considering that the Palestinians elected Hamas, it's pretty hard to be anything but."

Overall, I think the cabinet is a good team:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060121.wxtorycabinet/BNStory/specialNewTory2006/national

ETA: Okay, so I'm not that keen on Peter MacKay's appointment. But, time will tell, I suppose. His profile is hilarious to me, for some reason:

Mr. MacKay, 41, also plays rugby.

[Glite]

harper did what he did to have cabinet representation for areas where the consevative party did poorly in the election. some a$$hat wrote a letter to the toronto sun today complaining and said something along the lines of "whats next, is he going to make paul martin minister of finance?". and ya know what? that probably wouldnt have been such a bad idea considering the guy does seem to have a flair for the job. the people complaining about this are conservatives who only want a BIG C gov. and liberals who cant see past the end of their nose, whom consider compromise to be a dirty word.my opinion is that if he can try to create a sence of balance by offering cabinet positions to those in the "red" cities and to those who are going to do the job well, then he has taken a step toward a canada that is non-partisan and has a government that doesnt fight like school children.

i dont care if cabinet is a mish mash of left and right, as long as they can get the job done.

[Thanz]

Licia Corbella - sometimes she's cracked out, other times hits the nail on the head. Personally, I don't have a problem with the appt of those two to cabinet. I maybe don't like the individuals themselves, but I think Harper's motivations behind them were pretty clear, in that he's trying to get representatives for all regions in his cabinet.
I'm all for regional representation in Cabinet, and what Chretien did to Calgary is beyond petty BS. I don't have a problem with Harper for the BC appointment - any issue there is between the MP and his constituents.

I do have a problem with him campaigning on a clean up gov't platform, then giving the Ministerial responsibility for the Ministry at the centre of the sh!tstorm to his appointed patronage Senate appointment buddy. Especially when you campaign for an elected Senate. I'd be much more comfortable with the position that others from Quebec can protect Montreal's interests - like he is doing with Toronto.

Although yesterday, listening to the CBC at lunch, you could see the bias. The interviewer was going off, "I can't believe that he would appoint someone as Minister of Defense who used to be in the military and was a military contractor at one point. That's a lot of baggage." Of course, the response was - do you want someone with NO military experience?
That is kind of dumb. It's not like the first Harris cabinet that had a used car salesman as Minister of Transportation and a high school dropout as Minister of Education.