Month: May 2004

Today is likely the last day of the 37th Parliament and Paul Martin is expected to call an election during the Victoria Day weekend for a June 28th election. Some MPs will not be running for re-election and among them is the Right Honourable Joe Clark.

The former Tory Prime Minister is a man who has always stuck to his principles, and to him, he believed that governing properly should supersede that tricky game that parties play called partisanship.

Regardless of his status as an independent parliamentarian, Joe Clark always spoke his mind and has done so with an enviable degree of eloquence. The 2000 debates, I remember, allowed the electorate to see the stark contrast between Mr. Clark and former prime minister Jean Chrétien for this very quality. Yet, statesman he was, effective leader he was not. Clark, with his stubborn focus on his ideas (the right ideas in his opinion) never allowed him to effectively maintain a coalition of opinions. A party with a narrow and refined vision was the only party that Mr. Clark could comfortably lead and therefore he could never effectively and comfortably attain steady leadership on the governing side of the House of Commons.

Another example of the Liberal push for a peripheral route to persuade voters is the recruitment of Bono, the lead singer of U2.

Bono is to appear (cue fanfare) at the federal government’s AIDS spending announcement to make a beautiful day for Paul Martin and to provide elevation for him (and his mysterious ways) in the polls for the upcoming election which, as Mr. Martin tells us, will occur in a little while. The One party asserts that it is not stuck in a moment and will be in power until the end of the world (or until the last night on Earth) even though voters are numb from Adscam. Do the Liberals really think that Canadians haven’t been paying attention and are just staring at the sun? Paul Martin has said that he’ll get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal, however, he still hasn’t found what he’s “looking” for.

Seriously Bono, please stick to music and stay out of Canadian politics.

And now, some Bono quotes:

“My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them” — Bono

“The less you know, the more you believe” — Bono

Daniel Girard of the Toronto Star reports today that the executive of the Liberal riding association of Burnaby-Douglas has resigned over the strong-arm tactics of Mr. Martin’s appointing of his own candidate in that riding instead of one chosen democratically by members via a nomination meeting.

The board of directors went so far as to say that Paul Martin’s actions have shown a “lack of democracy”. Two men who were to compete for the nomination are Tony Kuo and Tony Lee. These Liberals have said that Paul Martin is discriminating against Asians.

Conversely, last election the conservatives proportionally ran the most multicultural slate of candidates in comparison the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc. Furthermore, no candidate is appointed in the Conservative Party of Canada. Every riding must hold a nomination meeting if contested.

It is unclear what Paul Martin meant when he said he wants to eliminate the “democratic deficit” (his words) in federal politics.