New poll suggests PQ's "Charter of Values" may help them form a majority government

From The Globe and Mail:

After months of playing wedge politics, the Parti Québécois has inched high enough in popular approval to be within reach of a majority government, a new poll suggests.

According to a Léger Marketing survey released on Monday, support for the government of Premier Pauline Marois is at its highest since it won a minority mandate in September, 2012...

...The PQ has benefited from a hardening of the support for the charter, with 48 per cent of respondents (57 per cent among francophones) backing the charter, compared with 43 per cent (49 per cent among francophones) in September.

The most controversial aspect of the charter, a proposal to ban public-sector workers from wearing conspicuous religious garments, is even more popular, with 60 per cent support (69 per cent among francophones).

Support for Quebec independence remained soft, with 37 per cent saying they would vote Yes for sovereignty if a referendum was held now, against 50 per cent who would vote No.

Amid corruption allegations, union members want to know how dues money is spent

 

OTTAWA - Union funds used to rebuild a biker strip club, false expense claims sometimes totalling $4,000 in a day for a single executive and plenty of connections between top union officials and organized crime. These are just some of the shocking revelations to come out of Quebec's Charbonneau Commission into corruption in that province.

The allegations might also explain why union bosses have fought so hard against disclosure laws that their members support in droves.

More HERE 

Satan needs sacrificial cats! Huntingdon, Que. Mayor Stephane Gendron says he deliberately runs over cats, SPCA investigates

Huntingdon mayor Gendron's car, with which he claimed
to run over cats, is adorned with Satanic symbols

Stephane Gendron, the mayor of Huntingdon Quebec, says he was joking when he claimed that he deliberately runs over cats with his car.

An aficionado of Satan who has the number 666 on his vanity license plate, Gendron may indeed have been joking.

But on the other hand, for someone who demonstrates a fondness for Satan, and who deplores Christianity and Israel, sacrificing innocent domestic animals to Beelzebub wouldn't entirely be a shock, would it?

If Satan and Vladimar Lenin had a love child,
it might look like this

If 'Tin Foil' Tom Mulcair doesn't have the stones to stand up to backbencher Alexandre Boulerice, how could he run the country?

Canada`s New Democratic Party has reprehensible Communists sitting in Parliament

Alexandre Boulerice isn`t the only communist hiding behind the `progressive` mask worn by Canada`s so-called New Democratic Party, but he may be the stupidest of the lot.

OTTAWA -- The NDP is in hot water over an MP's writings that praise communist pacifism and criticize Canada's participation in the First World War.

Writing on a left-wing Quebec blog, New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice mocked the conflict as "a purely capitalist war on the backs of the workers and peasants.

"The only ones to have refused this butchery, to have rejected the call of the 'sacred union' within each nation, were communist activists," Boulerice wrote in his 2007 posting on the blog Presse-toi à gauche (Hurry to the left).

Boulerice also sniped at Canadian soldiers involved in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, claiming that "thousands of poor wretches were slaughtered to take possession of a hill."  Almost 3,600 Canadians died in the battle to take the strategic Vimy Ridge from the heavily entrenched German forces of Kaiser Wilhelm on April 9, 1917.

This is not the first time the fanatic Boulerice has embarrassed Canada`s socialist Opposition party. Last year, as a rookie MP, he endorsed the terroist-enablers on the Sea Hitler Gaza boat who attempted to break Israel`s arms blockade of the Iranian-proxy terror group Hamas. When the support of the new MP for the Quebec riding of Rosemont la Petit-Partie became public, under pressure from NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, Boulerice withdrew his endorsement, but left no doubt about where his sympathies lay.

"Tin Foil" Tom Mulcair selling out Canada

Stupid is as stupid says

Justin Trudeau - the great, doltish, disingenuous divider



The Liberals do need a Quebecer to lead them. But not anyone named Trudeau. They need Marc Garneau.

UPDATE - A desperate Justin Trudeau tries to claim his remarks were taken out of context. But he hasn't yet figured out what context doesn't make him look like an idiot.

And remember folks, le Dauphin Trudeau thinks it's not nice to call honor killings barbaric because it might offend those nice people who commit honor killings. Justin is going to suck up to them next month. (h/t Scaramouche)

How to tell your protest movement is full of douchebags

It's got lots of men wearing coolats

Way to go Quebec!

Quebec's self-entitled brats

Nobody has to like it when the price of a product goes up. One of the reasons that free-market capitalism is so good for consumers is that competition provides a natural incentive to maintain low costs.

But Quebec's post-secondary school system bears no resemblance to the free markets, nor evidently does it do a very good job of teaching it to the bulk of  its students.

Quebec's self-entitled generation of spoiled students see their government sponsored university education as a right, not a privilege. It is a perceived right they expect the taxpayers of the province and the rest of Canada, through transfer payments to subsidize.

Quebec's youth have the inalienable right to be stupid,  and tens of thousands of them have been exercising that right for the last month in street protests. Outraged that the lowest tuition fees in Canada will continue to be the lowest tuition fees in Canada but not quite as low, they have rampaged throughout Montreal, smashing property and clashing with police.

Feeling their right to be aggrieved supersedes the rights of those students who want to go to classes and receive an education, they have violently prevented the operation of universities. And while this domestic terrorism has been applauded by radical left party Quebec Solidaire, the spineless provincial government of Jean Charest has continued to cower in the face of mob rule.

That attitude explains why Quebec is a world leader in very few areas aside from the production of maple syrup.

There is a recent national culture of protest gripping parts of the Canadian spectrum and nowhere is it worse than in Quebec. These perpetual protests, be it about student fees or G20 meetings or the intellectually vapid Occupy Movement all have one thing in common. The protesters are for the most part ignorant people who do not understand the issues they are protesting. The best illustration of that was the declaration of wanna-be protest icon Brigette de Pape, the ridiculous former page who marched onto the floor of the Senate with a homemade "Stop Harper" sign. She subsequently declared to the media that part of her motive was the need for Canada to have an "Arab Spring," betraying that she did not comprehend that Canada has for generations already achieved and surpassed every democratic goal the so called Arab Spring is attempting to reach.

But that's all immaterial to what the protests are about, which is protest for its own sake. The protesters may hate the Harper government, they may hate capitalism, they may hate that most of them are destined to unsuccessful or mediocre lives, but that isn't why they are on the streets. They are there for the chance to be part of something. The fact that they don't understand what that something is makes no difference to them, but it should to the rest of us and the democratic governments we elected.

Mulcair won. What next for the NDP?

Leadership contests are, by their nature, extremely divisive contests. They force parties to highlight their own divisions and in the process, provide ammunition to other political parties that they can save for elections.

The NDP is conscious of that and for the most part, the leadership convention that just elected Thomas Mulcair with over 57% of the vote was a restrained process. The one candidate who faced the harshest criticism from rivals was the one who emerged victorious.

So the first order of business under such circumstances is always to consolidate the victory. The fact that it took four ballots for Mulcair to win means that he will want to shore up support. That in turn means that there will be no drastic changes in the short term. To hammer home that point, Mulcair, in his first major interview as NDP leader, told the CBC's Peter Mansbridge that he will retain Vancouver East MP Libby Davies as Deputy Leader.

The relations between Davies and Mulcair could be described as toxic. Many sources indicate the rotund Health Critic Davies despises Mulcair as a "neo-liberal" Blairite, while the Outremont MP is contemptuous of Davies, whom he considers an unintelligent, radical fanatic that is a liability to the party's ability to reach beyond its base. Davies launched vicious proxy attacks against Mulcair  through rabble.ca. That radical website is published by Davies' same-sex spouse, Kim Elliott. Mulcair is keenly aware of the rabble/Davies connection and he was the only one of the NDP leadership candidates who refused to be interviewed by that neo-Marxist online outlet.

Once Mulcair's grasp on the party tightens, look forward to Davies being consigned to the back benches within two years. The decline will be gradual, with her first being shifted out of the Deputy Leader and Health Critic positions to a lesser portfolio. Depending on her ability to refrain from a major blunder, a degree of restraint that Davies has seldom exercised for long, she may hold on to a job as Critic of a minor Ministry., But just as likely, once Davies, who frequently behaves like a petulant child in public, contradicts and criticizes the new leader, she'll be roosting up in the Opposition bleachers.

The interesting developments will be where people like Nathan Cullen end up. His surprising 3rd place performance in the leadership race means that he has party support, but despite Cullen's expressed desire to move the party to the centre, his policies are even further to the left of Jack Layton's, suggesting the bald man from British Columbia is not someone to be trusted.

The next general election isn't likely to be before late 2015, so in that time, the NDP caucus who can act like centrists and behave intelligently will be moved closer to the top. Look for more of a say from the Quebec caucus, who though fresh now, will under Mulcair's tutelage show more gravitas and leadership. Whether the NDP and its new leader have the talent and skill to give Canadians confidence in their ability to govern depends largely on whether the party purges the Davies faction and shows it is finally being run by grown-ups.

Huntingdon Mayor Stephane Gendron's attacks on Israel could be an act of worship

Huntingdon Mayor Stephane Gendron, the co-host of Quebec's V-Tele network's  "Face-a-Face" has, on many occasions, made imbecilic, hateful comments about the Jewish state. He accused Israel of "genocide" suggesting he doesn't actually understand the meanming of that word. At least stupidity is a constant for Mr. Gendron. He also accused Quebec Premier Jean Charest of being a "murderer,"  and a public letter he posted on his blog to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggests Gendron may actually be mentally unhinged.

But perhaps the fanatical hostility Gendron exhibits towards Israel is not based so much on hatred of Jews as it is an act of service to one that he loves and admires.

The Bible describes the children of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph as God's chosen people; selected by The Almighty to receive His law. The Bible also contains references to an opponent, Satan, whose purpose is to lead man on the path away from God.

If Satan and Lenin had a baby, would it look like this?

So is it any wonder that a person who is an admirer of Satan would be an enemy of God's chosen?

Posted to Gendron's facebook page

On his facebook profile, Gendron has posted a number of photographs sugesting he has a tremndous affinity, not only for Israel's temporal enemies but also their spiritual commandant, The Prince of Darkness.

This mockery of Christian belief was uploaded to Gendron's facebook profile

Le car du Mayor w/ personalized license plate

His taste in photographs indicate an obsession with The Number of The Beast, "666."  Balding and sporting a devilish goatee that makes him look like the sickly love child of Vladimir Lenin and Old Nick himself, Gendron has adorned both his car and his ring finger with Satanic emblems and has a number of photographs that insult Christianity and pay tribute to the legendary source of all evil.

Jew hatred seems to be a common act of devotion by those subservient to The Evil One. Hitler's Nazis shared Gendron's obsession with crackpot occultism and symbolism. Hitler also shared Gendron's apparent contempt for Christianity, thinking it was a Jewish plot to conquer the world.

Gendron's wearing his pentagram on the wrong finger

Who knows what actual demons possess Stephane Gendron. But whoever they are, the citizens of Huntingdon better hope he doesn't figure out which ritual he needs to perform to conjure them out of Hell.

h/t Blazing Cat Fur

NDP MP Pat Martin complains about "right-wing" Toronto Star as socialists go into spin-out mode over Quebec caucus separatist skeletons

The NDP' is keeping a lid on its Quebec caucus clown show for fear of more embarrassing revelations.

OTTAWA—New Democrats and their supporters quickly dismissed their interim leader’s membership in two separatist parties as no big deal, but individual Quebec MPs have been slower to share their own views on national unity.

 More at The Toronto Star.

Conservative majority means that Canada can finally return the finger Quebec has been giving the country for two decades

An insightful column from the always astute Angello Persichilli in the Toronto Star discusses how Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty have changed the way Parliament can deal with Quebec's parochial politics.

Ignatieff's Liberals were the New Coke of Canadian politics

The Liberal Party of Canada hadn't processed a lesson the Coca-Cola corporation learned the hard way back in 1985, with the brief reshaping of the brand to New Coke, which bore more similarities to a rival (Pepsi) than its successful historical product. The result was an overwhelming public rejection, and the lesson was: it's generally not a good idea to mess with a winning formula.

The Liberals were the most successful political party in the free world during the 20th century for a simple reason - they played the centre.

It was never a secret that yesterday's Canadian election that resulted in a Conservative majority was a power-grab by Michael Ignatieff's Liberals, who hoped to form a government with the support of the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois. To do that, former (and soon-to-be again) professor Michael Ignatieff, who was generally viewed as being a right leaning Liberal, shifted his party so far to the left that there was little daylight between his platform and that of Jack Layton's socialist NDP.

Stephen Harper's success came from being not a party of the right, but that of the centre-right. He put a lid on the far-right in his party who want to ban abortion, oppose Gay rights and impose a social Conservative agenda. By being a fiscally Conservative party with centrist social policies, Harper was able to capture the middle which has always been the key to electoral success in Canada.

And he captured it from the Liberals, whose former supporters were placated by Harper's responsible leadership as Prime Minister since 2006, and fearful of the radical left (a.k.a. "progressive") shift Ignatieff was steering for the Liberals.

The Liberals lost in 43 ridings where their members were incumbents. They lost 27 of them, about 63 per cent, to the Conservatives. They didn't take a single riding away from the Tories. The only new riding they took was from an NDP incumbent. The NDP's success in raising their seat count to 102 and becoming Official Opposition for the first time shows that when offered the choice between "the real thing" and a copy of a competitor, like Coke drinkers, Canadians prefer the genuine article.

Former Ontario NDP leader Bob Rae, the most prominent Liberal to survive last night's election, is now hinting at an upcoming  'merger of the left'. That would be political suicide for the Liberals and eliminate their chance of a resurgence in the future. Rae evidently missed the message that the Liberals' loss wasn't because of a splitting of the left vote. The Liberals' catastrophic defeat was a rejection of their shift to the left.

Canadians have traditionally voted for a party of the centre. When the Liberals decided to cease to be that,  Canada chose the centrist alternative, which Harper was more than willing to provide. Harper made that explicit in the final days of the election campaign in his appeal to Liberal voters concerned about the possibility of an NDP-led government.

There is always going to be room for a centrist party in Canada to rise. If the Liberals want to commit to being a party of the left, it will help the Conservatives in the short term, and create  an opportunity for a new centrist party to emerge to fill the vacuum in the centre that the Liberals have abandoned.

But the Liberals do have an alternative. Layton's NDP now has more than half it's base in Quebec, the province that for most of Canada's history was the cornerstone of Liberal support and success. The NDP is a party of radical socialists, 9-11 conspiracy theorists, and buffoons. They have avoided serious scrutiny for a long time because, as the perennial 3rd or 4th party no one took them too seriously. All that will change with Layton's occupancy of Stornoway. Now the NDP will be subject to intense scrutiny and they will almost certainly collapse under the weight of their own incompetence.

The NDP has done the country a favor by demolishing the Bloc Quebecois, but their ineptitude will eventually lead Quebec to reject them. The next election will be the opportunity for the Liberals to retake a position of prominence in their former base. By rebuilding a centrist party that can appeal to voters in Quebec and outside that province, the Liberals can rebuild itself into a party that can represent Canada from coat to coast.

But the Liberals have to understand what the opportunity is and not squander it. Because if they do, others will emerge to take their place.

Bernier's courageous stand on language is of immense value

MONTREAL - Maxime Bernier said what many Quebecers who speak French or English know to be right. Everyone in Quebec should learn to speak French and be able to use it in everyday life. But the world is too small for ambitious Quebecers to be able to live their lives entirely in French, and it impoverishes Quebec to deprive them of the chance to learn English.    

The parts of Bill 101 that regulate the display of commercial messages in English and that regulate the use of languages on commercial Internet sites are small-minded, vindictive and foolish.

Read the entire column in The Montreal Gazette

Quebec MP Maxime Bernier on Bill 101

"..people know who they are and that it’s not the government’s role to create and protect a national identity. I used Quebec as an example and said that we don’t need Bill 101 to protect the French language.  

I did not expect to create such a storm by expressing my belief that we should let people act like free and responsible individuals, including when it comes to protecting their language, instead of relying on government coercion to do it for them.  

This has since generated several denunciations from public figures in Quebec and a wave of angry comments on the Internet.  

Some people say I am not a “real Quebecer” and are accusing me of “attacking Quebec” simply because I want to be more popular in the rest of Canada. They seem unable to conceive that it’s possible to have a different position than theirs on the basis of fundamental principles.  

My position is this: Yes, it’s important that Quebec remain a predominantly French-language society. And ideally, everyone in Quebec should be able to speak French. But we should not try to reach this goal by restricting people’s rights and freedom of choice."

Read the whole thing at The National Post

Time for our government to start an open dialogue about Multiculturalism

First Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and now Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken out against the failure of multiculturalism as a state policy.

As the fractious nature of groups which resist integration into the mainstream has shown, state-sponsored multiculturalism has been a divisive force rather than strengthening for those societies which employ it.

America's Melting Pot does not seek to rub out immigrants' ethnic and cultural identities. As the world's top destination for immigrants, The Unites States has vibrant communities reflecting cultures from all over the world. The difference is that they come to America to be Americans, rather than immigrants who come to Canada to be, for example, Venezuelans in Canada.

Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau made Canada the first country to adopt multiculturalism as official policy. As Liberal member of federal parliament John McKay observed:

"Mr. Trudeau’s vision of official multiculturalism was largely a bi-product of his constant struggle against Quebec separatism...Trudeau .. saw official multiculturalism as a useful tool in his ongoing battle to diminish the threat of Quebec separatism, because in disentangling culture from language, he hoped there would be less emphasis on the notion of Canada being composed of ‘two nations/deux nations’, and more focus on Canadians as individuals whose first languages may be English and French, but had various different ethnic origins. In effect, he used immigration and multiculturalism to further his own political agenda for the country."

Many Canadians now agree that what began as a strategy to diminish separatism has backfired. The Quebec separatist movement is still strong. In some measure, it remains so as a backlash against the idea of Quebecois culture being further diluted by multiculturalism.

For English Canada, what was intended to be a policy to promote inclusiveness has deteriorated into a tyranny imposing minority values on the majority.

Within schools, where history is now a subject barely addressed, multiculturalism is taught as an enshrined characteristic of Canadian identity. In a nation that defines itself by the ways in which "it is not American", multiculturalism, by virtue of not being the American Melting Pot,  has become a religion whose dogma cannot be questioned.

But the apparent failings of multiculturalism have raised questions that cannot be avoided.

It's the responsibility of the government to have an open discussion about policies that affect everyone in this country. If we are on the wrong course, it is our duty to correct it, not continue simply because it's the way things have been done for the last two generations. If, as a nation, we can't adapt to contemporary realities, we will be destined to get swept away by them.

Canadians who want to see our government seriously examine whether we should enact changes to official multiculturalism should let Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca)  and Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism  (kennej@parl.gc.ca) know how they feel.

Quebec legislator Amir Khadir joins communists in anti-Semitic event and harasses store owner

Khadir: Just add an "i" to a name known best for jihad and terror..

The Montrteal Gazette reports:

Quebec solidaire leader Amir Khadir made no apology yesterday for asking people to boycott a family-owned shoe store in his riding because it sells shoes made in Israel. 

"Just because a business is in my riding, I am not going to abandon my principles," Khadir, the National Assembly member for Mercier, said in a phone interview yesterday. 

Khadir took part in a demonstration last Saturday in frontof Le Marcheur on St. Denis St., handing out flyers and asking customers to boycott the shop until it stops selling Israeli-made shoes.

The demonstration was organized by Palestinian and Jewish Unity, a Montreal based human rights group that advocates for the right of Palestinians to live in safety. 

Khadir said he was asked to join the demonstration by PAJU, and that he has participated in other PAJU demonstrations.

PAJU has held regular pickets outside Le Marcheur since October, because the store sells Beautifeel shoes, a brand made in Israel.

The store's owner Yves Archambault said he was "sickened" to learn his own MNA was picketing his store. "I was sickened to see him distributing flyers and stopping people who were coming into the store to tell them they shouldn't support a business that sells Israeli products. In Quebec we have free enterprise, and as long as it is legal, nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot sell in my store," he said.

Le Journal de Quebec reported (translation by Google translate):

Embarrassed by its active presence in a demonstration urging a boycott of a shopkeeper in his constituency, Mr. Amir Khadir tried to explain yesterday, citing a "terrible misunderstanding" between him and the shoe salesman Yves Archambault.  

Last Saturday, the member of Québec solidaire visited the shop the Walker Street Saint-Denis for distributing leaflets calling for a boycott of the family business of Mr. Archambault, on the pretext that it contained a few models Israeli brand of shoes.   

In the Journal interview, the dealer said he was "horrified" at being thus harassed and intimidated by his own deputy.

Below is a first hand account of attempting to buy a pair of shoes at Le Marcheur in Montreal:

My mother just came back from purchasing Israeli-made shoes from the store in down town Montreal that is being subjected to a boycott because it sells Israeli-made shoes. Twenty people showed up to buy shoes after Eric Duhaime called on Montrealers to show solidarity with the embattled store owner. She, with others, was greeted by about a hundred threatening Arabs with Hezbollah flags shouting anti-Semitic slogans and blocking the street completely. She says that several intimidating Arabs took her picture as she was going inside and one was even filming. One young Arab called her a Jewish sow. The store owner is getting death threats and is seriously depressed. He said that he won’t give in to these terrorists’ demands. But how long can he keep it up before going out of business? Montreal in 2010.

In le Journal de Quebec, journalist Eric Duhaime lets us know the following about Khadir (google translation from French):

Surprise Saturday: Amir Khadir joined the demonstrators, along with his comrades Jafar Khadir, a former member of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Quebec, and William Sloan, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada.  

RADICAL POSITIONS 

A member, paid by your taxes, tries to harm a single trader who sells his riding legally products from a country with which Canada has an agreement of free trade and cooperation agreements Quebec. 

For his activism group "Islamo-Marxist terrorist scored his public support for George Galloway, propagandist paid by Iranian state television, Khadir is not at its first controversy with his extreme views on issues of Middle East. 

Non-practicing Muslim, Khadir does not support certain causes by Islamist religious belief, but rather contributes to the alliance "anti-imperialist struggle" between the far left and Islamists who forges throughout the West. 

LONG LIST  

Following the September 11 attacks claimed by al-Qaeda, Khadir raised the possibility of a conspiracy by the CIA. 

In 2006, amid armed conflict initiated by Hizballah, Khadir was not the only politician to condemn Israel without saying a word against Hezbollah. 

Last March, Khadir receives the National Assembly Jamal Zahalka, the Arab-Israeli political leader advocating the dissolution of Israel. 

Last September, Khadir participates in the commemoration of the martyrs of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance. [ed- - a group designated as a terror organization by the Canadian government]

h/t BlazingCatFur

Marc Garneau: The Future of the Canadian Liberal Party?

Marc Garneau and his team do not want this story published.

I know that because his media representative explicitly told me so.

Eye on a Crazy Planet recently ran a poll asking readers who they would like to see as the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party. The poll was unscientific and the response was much lower than the previous poll asking about whether the US should bomb Iran (a resounding 'yes' from a big majority of you on that one).

This poll very intentionally listed only 3 candidates by name. That was because there is a dearth of potential leaders who excite the public among the group who have vied for the top position in the Liberal party since Stephane Dion's unsuccessful term which began in 2006.

Two in the poll were the ones most frequently associated with the current Liberal leadership, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, and a third, Quebce MP for the riding of Westmount--Ville-Marie, Quebec, Marc Garneau.

While none polled well, Garneau polled better than either Ignatieff and Rae. And looking to the future, the Liberals need to consider looking past the leadership of Michael Ignatieff.

Ignatieff is an intelligent, honest leader with sound policies. He is also uncharismatic and has failed to excite the Canadian electorate.

Bob Rae is a nice guy. He's a smart guy.His policies are thoughtful and reasonable. Enough time has transpired since his unsuccessful term as Premier of Ontario that a lot of that baggage has been shed, along with his old NDP membership card. But in my assessment, his time to lead the Liberal Party of Canada has passed. That time should have been in 2006 when the Liberals made the incomprehensible choice of Dion. The reactions to Rae nation-wide suggest that he could not win a national election.

So who does the Liberal Party have? None of the leadership contenders from '06 show any real promise. The two strongest of that crop, among those not already mentioned, would be Gerrard Kennedy and Ken Dryden. Kennedy's policy positions have always made him a much better fit for the NDP than the Liberals, but his ambition took him to the party where he felt he could achieve more power. He would be a disastrous Prime Minister.

Ken Dryden's personality as a politician is a lot like that of...well.. a goalie.He is exceptionally bright, but as a speaker is dull and uninspiring. As in his previous life, he's great at preventing the other side from scoring goals against him. But winning a game requires more than just not losing. It requires someone who can score and Ken has never been that guy.

There are some who have mentioned Justin Trudeau. Trudeau the younger has none of his father's adroit political skills. He's basically a name and a good haircut.

Marc Garneau, the Liberals' Critic for Industry, Science and Technology, is someone who may represent the best hope the Liberals have for regaining the national leadership in the foreseeable future.

He has the obvious necessary criteria of intellect, speaking ability and thoughtful policy positions.

But he has a lot more. All the successful Liberal Prime Ministers since Confederation, with the sole exception of William Lyon Mackenzie King, were Quebecois, like Garneau. For the Liberals to be able to get an effective majority, they need to be able to win over a large part of the Quebec electorate and Garneau, who is the chair of the Quebec Liberal Caucus, can do that.

But he also has to be able to win over much of the rest of Canada and as Canada's first astronaut, Garneau is and was a national hero before his entry into politics. He is a popular figure across the country who already has had two schools in Ontario named after him. The Liberals under Garneau would be able to win seats in every province, and could easily take their traditional majorities in both Quebec and Ontario. Something that no Liberal has done since prior to the 1993 election.

It should be clear that Garneau's staff has emphatically denied that they have ambitions or are thinking this way right now. They say they are solely focussed on being part of Michael Ignatieff's team and that they fully support his vision and the way he has put together a team of great parliamentarians who will be able to go out and win the next election.

They also say the think Mr. Ignatieff is doing a "great" job as Liberal Party Leader.

Okay. But for the sake of argument, let's assume the polls are right and the rest of Canada doesn't agree with that assessment of Mr. Ignatieff.

If that's the case, then while Marc Garneau may not be thinking of positioning himself for the Liberal leadership, he should be.

John Baglow chooses the 40th Anniversary of the October Crisis to sarcastically complain that the government is mishandling and overstating the threat of domestic terrorism

From Baglow's column in today's National Post, titled The terrorists in our midst:

Vic Toews, our Minister of Public Safety, is quoted as saying:

"[I]t’s so very important that we have cooperation from the groups where these individuals are coming out of so that our security authorities can better assess the situation and protect Canadians."

He was referring specifically to the case of three Muslim students who have gone missing. There is suspicion, and only suspicion at this point, that the three are training somewhere in Jihadistan and planning to come back to Canada as fully-trained terrorists.

The article continues:

The minister, who represents a southern Manitoba riding, urged groups that have spawned extremists to report their suspicions and held up Somali Canadians as an example.

Balgow soon gets into his mendacious sarcasm:

I know, at first hand, that communities can spawn radicalism. And I want to do something about it. 

The first hurdle to overcome is to figure out which community gave rise to me. The white community? The Christian-in-name-only (United Church) community? The anglophone community? The central Canada community? The NDP community? All of the above? Still more?

I ask only because I demand to know what leaders were accountable for me, and disgracefully dropped the ball, allowing me to flourish in their midst. 

Once we have that one figured out, I’ll know where to begin. As a conscientious citizen who believes in the rule of law, I want to keep an eye on those in my community who might be up to no good.

It probably escaped Baglow's attention (or maybe not) that today is the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the October Crisis. For those unfamiliar, that was when a Quebecois separatist group, the FLQ, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. Laporte was murdered by these fiends.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act to declare martial law in Quebec until the crisis was resolved.

Canada is currently in a war in Afghanistan fighting the jihadists that Baglow stupidly underestimates.

The reason that terror plots in Canada can be dismissed by Baglow in the way he does is because CSIS, the RCMP, local police and agencies working under the aegis of the Department of National Defence are doing their jobs well.

We live in a democracy. We are the government. So when the government asks us for help in preserving our own safety, we can choose to mock and do nothing like Baglow, or we can provide what help we can when those opportunities arise.

Baglow and his friends on the fringes have become increasingly shrill as his ideology has become more marginalized within the mainstream of Canadian society. It must be hard for him to sit on the sidelines, knowing how much better things would be if only people outside the NDP's Socialist Caucus took him seriously.