WhatFinger


The odds are astronomical that the Liberals will elect a new leader who will be just as or more inept that the departing Stéphane Dion

Stéphane down, Steve to go



With the announcement that Liberal leader Stéphane Dion will be stepping down, what can we expect in the future? Well, the Conservatives are not the Liberals. A Conservative majority or even minority government in Canada tends to be the exception rather than the rule even though it is difficult to think of the Libs as the Natural Governing Party these days. Conservatives like Mike Harris and Ralph Klein easily won majorities when they talked and acted like real conservatives. The chance of a federal Conservative leader doing that is extremely remote.

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The Conservative Party in the long run would have been better off if the Liberals and Dion would have obtained a minority government. On the next election day voters or at least those that could still afford shoes after paying all of their carbon taxes would have gone to the polls in droves to give the Tories a majority that would have dwarfed those of Brian Mulroney. But unfortunately, Canadians are stuck with reality. The next election will be far tougher for the Tories. The odds are astronomical that the Liberals will elect a new leader who will be just as or more inept that the departing Stéphane Dion. Then again, a lot of us thought that the party couldn’t come up with a worse leader than Paul Martin Jr., but somehow they managed to do just that. The reality is that a Conservative majority was in reach this time; Stephen Harper just couldn’t deliver and it’s time for Harper to seriously consider stepping down.  Harper won back to back minority governments in a country that prefers to elect left leaning governments, but he has pretty well accomplished everything that he is ever likely to.           Regardless of Conservative policies and the total ineptness of the Liberal leader, a lot of Canadians never warmed up to Stephen Harper. When viewed from afar on their television screens, he simply does not come across as a likeable guy. Perhaps that should not be an important factor but it is; witness the strong appeal in the US for Barack Obama. And turning Harper into something he’s not; a warm and fuzzy guy in a sweater talking about his children simply didn’t cut it. And it’s not likely to do so in the future. Harper is what he is and there is a limit to how far he can go when it comes to winning elections.           Conservatives, back to their Reform Party and Canadian Alliance days suffered from various and sundry MPs and candidates putting their foot in their mouths and saying something that cost the party votes. Harper did a good job of muzzling his candidates during the recent campaign, but unfortunately he was responsible for the gaffe that cost his party its much sought after majority. When the arts community was whining over relatively minor cuts to arts funding, Harper shot back that they were complaining from government funded galas that they were attending. Harper’s comments about cuts to this funding were taken in Quebec as an attack on their culture that resulted in the Tories’ relatively poor showing in La Belle Province. And Steve didn’t endear himself to many ordinary and scared Canadians when he talked about how the stock market tanking provided some good buys.           Stephen Harper should be commended for the work he has done in uniting the right into a viable political party and for winning two consecutive minority governments. But it’s time that he moved on.


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Arthur Weinreb -- Bio and Archives

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. Arthur’s latest book, Ford Nation: Why hundreds of thousands of Torontonians supported their conservative crack-smoking mayor is available at Amazon. Racism and the Death of Trayvon Martin is also available at Smashwords. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com,  Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

Older articles (2007) by Arthur Weinreb


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