Federal Happenings

This past week has seen a flurry of activity in Ottawa. Despite the Senators showing off their fine form in the Nation’s Capital, the media have, instead, been focusing on the war of words between Stephen Harper, Jack Layton and Paul Martin. After a few days of drama and posturing the NDP announced it would no longer support Martin’s corrupt regime and while stating unequivocally that the NDP would support a no-confidence motion if Stephen Harper brought one forward on his official opposition day on November 14th. Showing that his backbone had taken a long walk (if he ever had one), Harper stated that such a statement from the NDP was not good enough and he would not have a Conservative motion be used as bargaining chip for future NDP/Liberal negotiations. This, of course, is complete nonsense. Harper didn’t want to take credit for forcing a Christmas election, which the media had already spun as something that the Canadian electorate absolutely, positively do not want (although I’m not sure how they know that exactly. I am sure they haven’t actually asked many people if this is true or not. Maybe the media has a special ESP meter set up to somehow know exactly what the public wants…I wonder how much that service costs?)

In any event, the past few days have been interesting. Layton has looked a little indecisive, Harper has looked like a bumbling liar (and more or less incompetent), and Martin like he is ambivalent to public demands for accountability. With this as our choice, no wonder voter turnout is so low these days. I wonder if we could vote for Duceppe?