Another Nail In His Coffin

Stephen Harper, the self-professed economist (can you call yourself that when you don't have a Ph.D.?) who 'claims' such sterling management to the economy, has received another blow to his exaggerated and unwarranted reputation of competence:

A European Union analysis of the just-completed trade agreement with Canada suggests the EU gained more than it expected — and might have settled for less had Ottawa pushed harder.

The internal document, obtained by The Canadian Press, indicates EU exporters expect to make great inroads in the Canada market. Negotiators hope the gains can be used to their advantage in other trade negotiations, including talks with the United States that have just begun.

Could that be the real reason the CETA negotiations were conducted in such unprecedented secrecy?

Will He Or Won't He?

2015 is not very far away. It may be the year of liberation, the year Canada reclaims its collective soul, or it may be the year in which Canadians elect to continue their enslavement to the neo-conservative agenda. (Please forgive the rather overblown rhetoric in the previous sentence, but in my heart it sums up what lies before us.)

The question of whether Stephen Harper will run in the next election is on many people's minds. Some are entirely convinced that he will, while I am of the view the public opinion surveys and their consistency will be a heavy influence on his decision. If they suggest that he is held in wide and consistent public odium, I suspect he will choose to forgo another election. Like Brian Mulroney before him, and the detested former Ontario premier Mike Harris, whose massive egos didn't blind them to the likelihood of defeat at the polls, I suspect Harper will decide to cut and run (the contemptuous term Harper always used to when anyone suggested we get out of Afghanistan) rather than confront the truth about himself: that despite his delusions, he is a leader who has failed abysmally in inspiring anything but division, rancour and selfishness within the country he was elected to serve.

A letter in today's Star offers this view:

Re: Harper resignation no longer a far-fetched notion, Aug. 25

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not risk the humiliation of losing the next election as the momentum is building against him across the country. Harper will not run in the 2015 election.

He may be able to prorogue Parliament to avoid a confrontation in the House of Commons and the intense questioning over Senators Pamela Wallin, Mac Harb, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau. But he cannot prorogue the fact of his alienating Quebec.

He is unable to prorogue the 2015 election and will not want to preside over the break-up of the country.

Robert G. Sheehan-Gauthier, Ottawa

Of course, my political instincts are not what they once were, and I could be completely wrong. For a more nuanced and detailed analysis of the factors that will influence Harper's decision, take a look at the CBC's Greg Weston's piece here.

Your Saturday Smile

This morning in her column contrasting Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, The Star's Heather Mallick offers this hilarious observation:

I am only now recovering from the photo of Harper posing in a red hoodie with Inuit rangers who look normal, even attractive, in a red hoodie, but Harper is playing with what appears to be a duck puppet. Spot the white guy.

'Nuff said.

Another Guest Commentary From The Salamander

In response to a post I wrote yesterday, The Salamander left one of his trenchant and masterful commentaries on the myriad deficiencies of the Harper regime. So that it has a wider readership than a comment would usually garner, I am featuring it as a guest post. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did, replete as it is with excoriating allusion, simile, and metaphor:

.. always good to hear from Peter MacKay on matters that have somehow seeped or leaked through his stolid or squalid dura mater .. I'm certainly not the brightest knife in the drawer, so surely most of Canada is noticing that MacKay is about as useful as a paperweight made of dried fake canada goose snot.

Unfortunately, his snotworthy 'legacy' is blowing in the downdraft of imaginary helicopters, churned by stealth snow MacVehicles and about as blustery and bogus as that of Treasury Tony Clement and the late lamented zombified other Peter.. Petered out Kent .. our dear and caring environmentalist

Why everyone is piling on poor Pammy Wallin or Mikey Duffy.. when they are simply ornamental and plump red Alliance herring with wings and double chins is beyond me.. In the field of opportunity, the really plump turkeys are out there gobbling & strutting in plain sight..

Fantino would be a fantastic feast.. and his lovely mysterious PMO compadre Stephen Lecce too.. plus the red goatee robo dude from Alberta

Keith Ashfield is a complete documented disaster waiting for a journalist or Frankie James to fricassee

Kenney rhymes with and lives with Mummy .. enuff said

Baird is getting a free pass for being gay .. Policy wise he's a glib asshat bullyboy
with the ethics, courage, morality and usefulness of a leaky septic tank located near a lake

That leaves us with petro circus barker, stock broker, lawyer, millionaire energy pimp Joe Oliver, Flaherty.. and strutting master Stephen Harper, his zombie trolls in the PMO and, the electoral dataminers and lesser quislings and remoras that like Peter MacKay.. thrive on eating Stevie's easterner shite .. along with the dung beetle Flanagans, Jenni Byrne's, Arthur Hamilton's and REAL Women et al .. those paramours and pretenders of Canadian Western Values that stand up for a political party that is a holding tank for swimming mutating unsentient creatures that define political animal evolution in swine excrement excellence..

Deary me.. I hope I haven't been too hard on Peter Mackay..
but swapping this pimply arsed entitled poser off from Defense of the land and China, to Justice left me gasping at the poetic brilliance of Stephen and Ray Novak..
So why not shuffle Fantino to pro-China Environment too ? He's an expert at 'containment' after all

And .. how did American Tom Flanagan fall so far he never made it to Great White Ottawa Chief of Indian Affairs and related treaty exterminator/fumigator ??

My goodness .. !! We haven't even gotten to the closets at Sussex Drive..
Who's clothes are those.. in the Royal Harper walk in closets ? Incroyable !!

How all these so called Canadians line up against Canada and Canadians and defend the toxic tainted deceits of Torontonian Stephen Harper simply blows me away.. I really have yet to comprehend how a sniff or whiff of power makes creating, then eating .. shite, acceptable.. or leads to appearances on the front page of magazines

Hee Hee Hee

Despite the misspelling in the caption, I rather like this cartoon, probably for obvious reasons.



As well, you may enjoy these letters from Star readers who have an even less flattering view of Mr. Harper as it pertains to his northern junket, escaping the heat via prorogation, and his ongoing senate 'problems.'

Not Again!

I just got back into town and heard the news. I have a simple message for our gutless 'Prime Minister':

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

Many years ago I read a novel by Jimmy Breslin called The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, which dealt with profound ineptitude within a certain New York mafia family. It would seem a worthwhile novel to revisit, now that there is a real-life gang operating in Ottawa that seems to have caught the incompetence bug. Once known as a tightly-focussed and disciplined cabal answering to a 'Mr. Big' at the top of the organization, the group has lately veered into a series of farcical errors that have substantially eroded its 'street-cred' and caused considerable restlessness amongst rank-and-file members.

You can read all about it via The Huffington Post and The National Post.



One wonders if a revival of the Ted Mack Amateur Hour can be far behind.