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Stephen Harper, Belinda Stronach, and Tony Clement |
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Nothing But Junk Food Left |
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| Edmonton - Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - by: Ron Thornton Marriage, Be It Same Sex, Same Family, Same Harem | |||||||
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no |
I once thought of politics as sports for grown ups. You get the scores on election night, the stars hit the airwaves nightly, and you get someone to cheer for in a competition that affects your life in a much more meaningful and direct way. However, instead of a smorgasbord of healthy political delights to chose from, we seem to faced with what amounts to as political junk food. | ||||||
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cycle |
For example, once again we hear that no matter how the Conservative Party's leadership vote turns out, we could still end up with yet more parties on the right. A new Progressive Party is being touted by some former Progressive Conservatives though, like the P.C.'s before them, funding could be a problem. We now live in a time when Joe Taxpayer is expected to carry the freight and cough up the bucks to the federal parties based on which was loved best four or five years ago rather than who is worthy of support today. It is interesting to note that while some view a Stephen Harper leadership win as a sign of a Canadian Alliance takeover of their former party, it should be noted that the Canadian Alliance itself was created by a band of Reformers and Progressive Conservatives. In short, the P.C.'s were taken over by their own with the help of their own. Many former Reformers can relate. | ||||||
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no |
Some are saying that there could be a repeat of the exodus that occurred between 1988 and 1993 in the nation's western frontiers should Ontario's wealthy Belinda Stronach come through victorious. I would hope no one really would be foolish enough to try to rise up a party its own leadership and membership torched just a few short years ago. For the life of me, I can't see the value in any regional party, unless it offers at least the prospect of disassociation and how such a vision might be better than the status quo. With no meaningful consequences to offer up to give reason for the rest of the nation to pay heed, then there is no point. I have had enough of paper tigers. | ||||||
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not |
Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Alliance, some are asking as to just what is wrong with the Conservative Party? A lack of imagination might be a place to start. As much as Reformers called for a Triple-E Senate, they never called for the banishment of the House of Commons. People do matter. Not in the Conservative Party, where we have thousands of paid up and active members from constituencies in various parts of this country having the same clout as a handful of instant members in Quebec, for example. La Belle Province is the land where whoever can buy 100 memberships (a bargain at $1000) can take a riding association leadership vote tally in a landslide. Know of anyone with deep pockets? Me, too. So much for representing the will of the people. | ||||||
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a better |
Incidently, a Reformer would have done things differently. That plan would been to offer up 30,800 "points" equally divided among 308 constituencies, along with another 30,800 to be divided based strictly on the actual number of memberships held among the Party's riding associations. I guess there weren't enough Reformers left in the end to bring that little tidbit to the table. Pity. 61,600 "points" would have been up for grabs, representing each member equally and each riding association equally. Whoever claimed 30,801 of the "points" would have taken the prize. If you learned anything in elementary school, you could do the math. | ||||||
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poster |
Three candidates are vying for that leadership, but it would appear that brains and experience matter for not as neither former Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper or ex-Ontario government cabinet minister Tony Clement are viewed as charismatic enough. This is quite a statement when one considers that the likes of Mike Bullard and Sean Cullen make a decent living in this country as supposed "entertainers." Then again, maybe one's magnetism in Canada can now measured according to the size of one's bank account and television exposure. That would explain the polls that show Paul Martin as "Mr. Popularity" and the media reception for the third Conservative leadership candidate, Belinda Stronach. She has little political experience, appears to have received her position in the world primarily due to being the daughter of a wealthy man, and whose personal vision for this country seems about as void of substance as the one presented by John Turner twenty years ago. Sounds like a winner to me. Maybe, at 37, she just needs more seasoning. History shows that no one who has yet to hit their mid-40's lasts very long as a federal party leader, never mind as Prime Minister. Today, I'm afraid she may be just the poster child of a band of political operatives. | ||||||
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defeat |
With a spring election forecast for this spring, Conservatives must hope they are being offered a leadership entree that promises to offer among the desserts someone who is both nourishing and sustaining for their political future. Should they fail in that quest, to fail to select a leader who can at least achieve some credible results from the electorate in a few months, we could well discover nothing but continued Liberal servings on our plate for years to come. | ||||||
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