Dear Prime Minister Harper: Are You Feeling Well, Sir? What the Hell Were You Thinking?! Most Disappointingly, You Weren’t…
Right after I appeared on Brian Lilley’s exceptional Sun TV show just one week before the last federal election (May of 2010), I was removing my mic and fighting with the bit of make up that ended up in my eye, when a former Sun colleague listening to the interview emailed me:
“Are you sure about your prediction of a Conservative majority? There’s little chance of that, don’t you think?”
“No, they’ll have it,” I wrote. “My only concern is that, as per every single historical implosion at that level, some entirely self-absorbed asshole in the backroom, who views Einstein as a lightweight, will advise the Prime Minister to do something incredibly stupid, that will end the majority support–beginning in BC and if it happens–followed by acrimonious finger-pointing, the party will split again, I assure you. Just watch. The idiots on the far right are as stupid as those on the far left–neither can escape their own detonation radius. But I have faith in the Prime Minister, he’s a very good man. When it comes down to it, it’s his decision that’s final. Though, if he blows a few key ones, it’ll be tough to recover. The ego will get in the way, naturally, and you can forget pulling the nose up…it’ll be one huge induced swan dive…let’s see happens, anyway. But the first six months will tell the tale”
Sometimes, I hate being right.
It’s been six months exactly, if you deduct for short holidays on both ends of the fall.
The Tories, far from perfect ball, have had a fairly easy ride considering the Fiberals and the Dippers continue to shoot themselves in both sets of feet.
But I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. One which I think speaks volumes about how unfortunately prophetic the reply to my former colleague was.
Without getting into the minutiae of the Tory tenure, thus far, they’re slipping on key issues.
• The marijuana legalization dunces (I know, this is redundant) have come out swinging (waving a half eaten slice of pizza). No coordinated reply from the government; no stats (ample as they are) to show how wrong these idiots are, nothing. No national drug strategy. Just what’s in a crime bill that in some parts is too hard and in others too soft. The Grits have handed them a golden opportunity with the passing of their insane legalization motion at the convention over the weekend, and NOTHING from the government that ran on protecting your families from crime. Not a peep about addiction, not a single effort to corral the dozens of addictionologists across the country clamoring for an audience the mainstream press refuse to provide.
• A contradiction in how provincial independence will work. Lots of talk about regional autonomy, but little real work on that file except window dressing. A classic example is the Enbridge pipeline, which is completely wrong-headed and absolutely certain to cost the Tories seats in BC, where they can ill-afford to lose them. In fact, with the Liberals taking a decided left turn on the weekend–most appealing to La Belle Province, and the NDP holding at least half the Quebec seats they gained last May, where is the other province the Tories can make gains in? Are they annexing Michigan?
• Nevermind the idiotic alarmism last week about gay marriage being revisited (it’s not and never will be)–no one consulted a lawyer but instead relied on the CBC’s extraordinary bias–and in this case, fiction. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s reasonable and appropriate comments on social issues, the idea that there be no party solidarity behind NOT reopening abortion or gay marriage has spawned various backbench dwelling imbeciles and their archaic brains to spout bone-chilling codswallop about when life begins and ‘gayness’ that can be “corrected” through some church in Edmonton. Honestly….
• On the one key issue they ran on, the economy, their strategy–too simple by half, seems to be holding spending while praying the tax breaks they instituted will buoy our bottom line enough that we simply tread water. This is visionary? What if the United States dips again? If they develop the flu once more, we’ll have to come running with our emergency life support unit, never mind the Kleenex box. Then what? While the HST sits, nothing is moving and no plan exists to hasten the unfairness of the current circumstances. I’m hearing from staunch Conservative circles in this province that inside complaints to Ottawa are falling on deaf ears. Goodness, they sure forgot our numbers rather quickly after we secured them a majority.
But there in no greater crazy-making by the federal Tories than what I’m about to show you.
During the BC Liberal leadership race, the Prime Minister’s office asked Premier Clark’s very close pal, Mr. Boessenkool (a senior Tory stroker) and now Chief of Staff, to cool his tummy-rubbing of the dimwitted one. Federal Tory hierarchs would NOT take sides, they were told, and the Prime Minister’s closest people, past and present, were also told to forget making endorsements or providing support. No congress, of any kind, please, we’re Conservatives…
Well, what a difference almost a year makes. Ms Clark, having once again cheated to win, is now the Premier. Previously, when she was an afternoon embarrassment at CKNW radio, Mr. Clark routinely PUMMELED Stephen Harper, black and blue, and always without a stitch of reason or purpose.
Then, when she ran for the leadership, other than the smidge of cocktail conservatives that remain (I believe there are still a few left in the dupe troop), she surrounded herself with what was left of the FEDERAL LIBERAL crew Dave Basi and Bob Virk expertly put together for her, to once again win the Indo Canadian community, and the usual FEDERAL LIBERAL retreads her ex-husband, FEDERAL LIBERAL operative Mark Marissen cobbled together, to carry the day.
In the first nine months of her incumbency as Premier, Ms. Clark has gone from one monumental gaffe, where the federal Tories are concerned, to another. Be it agreed-to joint announcements that she went off and did on her own, or claiming credit for federal decisions that had nothing to do with her or her failing government or demonstrating her lack of intelligence when speaking of the Senate, Christy Clark’s been a colossal nightmare (just have a look at the tape of her deer-in-the-headlights comments today on national health matters followed by Premier Redford of Alberta and her articulate brilliance–more ignominy at the hands of the most unqualified person to ever hold public office in BC).
Not to mention Premier Clark’s ongoing denials about how she never had anything to do with the sale of BC Rail (Chapter One: giving away Cabinet secrets to admitted bribers of public officials, who were your friends and associates, may be viewed as grounds for charges of breach of trust–but not by politically bias prosecutors or the feckless RCMP in this province).
And now that the BC Conservatives (led by a former Harper caucus member no less) are EVEN in the polls with her free-falling BC Liberals, excuse me, Christy party/government, here is how the Prime Minister of this land–a man whose whole electoral byline screamed ethics, morals, values, ideals and virtues not eight months ago, comports himself.
This, unbelievably, is a picture of the Prime Minister of this land, who ran on an ample platform of ethics in government, sitting next to the most spectacular phony and fraud in BC political history. They attended the weekend hockey game of Ms. Clark’s pawn, excuse me, son, Hamish Clark-Marissen. The request came from the Premier’s office and the complete morons running the show for the PM, well, I’m told most of them. agreed (although a few, are livid). If only you knew the firestorm of anger this has caused many long-time and prominent supporters of the Prime Minister in BC. An incredibly stupid move if there ever was one. The only silver lining is that it, once more, verifies what a political whore Ms. Clark is.
And again.
Young Hamish must have saved that goal, but the real winner of the game in the stands was Ms. Clark, who managed to use the federal Tories post-election arrogance to her advantage. Of course she wants to stem her party’s bleeding by being seen as ‘a BC conservative’ since those very same people have sensibly left her corrupt party and precisely because of her and her incompetent, shameful team. Of course the idiots who advise the Prime Minister and agreed to this think anyone but the NDP in this province would be better for the feds (not smart boys, think it through again…) and of course Mr. Boessenkool, whose federal Tory work is reportedly uneven, helped concoct such a coup as getting the PM to show up sitting next to Premier Clark, for yet ANOTHER shameless photo op (these pictures were splattered across her twitter and facebook pages–TWICE).
And the Prime Minister fell for it, every bit of it, hook, line and sinker. For shame, Sir. For shame.
Corrupt is, as corrupt does. If the federal Conservative meatheads (both in downtown Vancouver and in Ottawa) that allowed for this treason, think some of us will stand idly by while they sell this province to the absolutely unethical group that has infested Victoria along with Ms. Clark, then you can count this blog as unfriendly territory if I see this nonsense happen again.
And that’s not a warning shot.
Check your bow. Not fazed? Neither was Sam Sullivan.
Or Christy Clark.
I don’t give a damn about your pipeline.
There is nothing more important that a full public inquiry into the sale of BC Rail.
) there will be some very interesting moments in the House and in caucus:
