Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

From Paul Well's blog on Maclean's:

But now the fun is just beginning. Because this is quite a bit bigger than beer and popcorn. So now we get to find out whether anything is a firing offence to Paul Martin, besides working in Jean Chretien's PMO of course.

What is Paul Wells talking about?

Get a load of this screen capture:

That was posted by Mike Klander at his blog, now deleted in its entirety. The woman is, of course, Olivia Chow, Toronto city councillor, federal NDP candidate, and wife of federal NDP leader, Jack Layton.

Here are some other gems from the Liberal Mike Klander. For instance, some choice items from his stop ten list of things that will make Klander sick:

• The terms "culture of entitlement", "adscam" or "whistleblower"...blow this!
• Harper being flanked by the sexy Rona Ambrose at every opportunity
• Harper being flanked by the ethnic Rahim Jaffer at every opportunity
• The 10 day break during Christmas...I celebrate Christmas for two, maybe three days, it not like we're fasting in the desert or something
• Olivia Chow

Or these reasons why the Liberals will win:

• Our jet is bigger than theirs
• Layton is a weasel
• They have Ralph Klein
• We have Earl Provost

Who's Earl Provost? Never mind. The size of someone's jet?

From April 22, the grand strategy of the Liberal Party with regards to delaying the election until the second Gomery Report:

In the end if Harper actually does hold off then the public will have 7 more months of Gomery...just enough time to get bored of it and more time to move on to important issues.

Important issues? Got that? $350 million of your money flushed by the Liberals to enrich their friends and recharge their coffers isn't an important issue. The Liberal Party just has to wait long enough for the stupid electorate to realize that.

But there's more. So much more.

Remember that picture of Harper and Duceppe taken at the Holocaust memorial service last spring?

Here's Klander's caption for a post entitled "Bed Buddies?":

Yes indeed, politics does make for strange bedfellows...but is there more to it?

I would bet that his wife couldn't make his eyes roll back into his head like that.

Always leave it to progressives to descend into homophobic jokes. Just how important is same-sex marriage that the gay community will put up with this crap?

Let's move on. When Conservative MP Steven Fletcher suggested to Liberal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh that they continue a heated discussion about health care funding outside of the committee room, Klander had to share his insight:

Mr. Dosanjh: Let me respond to your platform . . . Your current leader wants to commodify health care and not have the health care one currently finds with the Canada Health Act. . . . Your party continues to say one thing in their public policy platforms and has said many other things prior to the public-policy platform.

Mr. Fletcher: It is the Liberal Party that has a hidden agenda on health.

Mr. Dosanjh: In fact, I'm happy to repeat those lines for you if you forget.

Mr. Fletcher: We could take this outside. I would be happy to. [Mr. Fletcher is a strapping 6 foot 4 and weighs 220 pounds. He is also a quadriplegic who uses a wheelchair.]

Mr. Dosanjh: I'm not a physical kind of guy. [Mr. Dosanjh is 5 foot 8 and tips the scales at 170 pounds.]

Mr. Fletcher: Neither am I, but don't be surprised if you find yourself with tire marks.

Now what did Klander think of this? He thinks a cripple in a wheelchair getting mad is funny.

This is funny so stop pretending that its [sic] not...stop being so politically correct will you?

It's not funny. Fletcher is angry. Fletcher is furious. Fletcher wants answers. As a guy who knows the inside of the health care system far better than most, he has a right to know. Klander is dismissing Fletcher's indignation because he is in a wheelchair. This isn't about political correctness. This is about ridiculing a person because of his physical infirmities, precisely because that person would likely be hard-pressed to use physical force to compel others to listen to him.

Political correctness is about giving someone more deference than they deserve for fear of offending them if they were treated like everyone else. Klander is extending Steven Fletcher far less respect than he would anyone else because he is crippled (and perhaps Klander feels superior and less threatened as a result, but there I'm just speculating).

Oh, and for people in "vote-rich Ontario" who are thinking of voting Liberal, this is what the Executive Vice-President of the Ontario wing thinks of you, at least those of you outside of Toronto:

Check out the Live 8 website and the list of all the concert venues: Hyde Park, London; Circus Maximus Rome; Red Square Moscow, Palais de Versailles, Paris; Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Siegessäule, Berlin and finally Park Place in Barrie (everyone time I say that I can't help but using the Monster Truck announcer voice - PARK PLACE IN BARRIE)

Barrie! Where the hell is Barrie? You know, London, Rome, Moscow, Berlin and Barrie. I'm sorry but I don't even know what the hell the Siegessäule is, but it sure sounds more impressive than PARK PLACE.

Barrie is north of Toronto, on the shores of Lake Simcoe. Nice place. Very prosperous. Easy to find on a map.

Currently represented by one of Klander's Liberal friends, Aileen Carroll. Perhaps readers who live in Barrie and are represented by Ms Carroll can drop her an email and ask for her opinion. Oh, and don't forget to email the Conservative candidate, Patrick Brown, and the NDP candidate, Peter Bursztyn.

I bet Brown and Bursztyn will both tell you that the Conservative and NDP party organizations were thrilled to hear about Barrie's good fortune to be selected to host this event, with the economic windfall it represented.

Hey, Barrie might be a Conservative riding this time around, at least if the nice people in Barrie hear about Klander.

Now to why he is an executive vice-president and not an elected member of parliament:

People who are involved in politics are inevitably asked the question: "Do you think you will ever run for office?"

I say NO...not because I don't think it's noble profession or because I think the commitment is too great...and NO not even because you have to be nice to really stupid people.

I say NO because at any moment, at any place, in any pose or any situation, your picture can be taken and broadcast to the world...if you don't think that's a good enough reason, than look at this roster of winners.

OK, so the electorate is stupid (perhaps concentrated in Barrie), and you might look silly in a picture. Good reasons to avoid public office instead of dealing with stupid constituents and having your picture taken. But to harbour those attitudes and try to get other people elected?

Seems hypocritical to me.

Finally, we'll end it with an example of how the second-in-command of Paul Martin's team in Ontario sees Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP. Remember that the Liberals want to court NDP voters, to make them feel welcome in the Liberal Party, so as not to split the "progressive vote" and allow the Conservatives to come up the middle in tight ridings:

I'm not sure how best to describe how I feel about this guy: an asshole? a weasel?....hum...perhpas both...a weasel's ass!

Desparate attempts at being relevant are fading fast...

I apologize for sounding so bitter but he's also my MP so I have to live with it on a daily basis.

I'm curious. Are any NDP supporters in Ontario (presumably NDP supporters in Barrie need not answer) feeling welcome in the Liberal Party? Like their concerns will be considered if they decide to vote strategically and deliver the Liberal Party back into power?

Maybe it's just me, but with the attitudes expressed by this high-ranking member of the Liberal Party, I think I'd leave my vote with the NDP.

The question is not about Klander's views, as such, or his right to hold them and express them publicly on a blog for over 7 months, but how the Liberal Party thought it appropriate to make him the executive vice-president of the Ontario party machine.

Did they not know? Or did they not care? Or did they share his attitudes? Good questions, probably best posed by people who have donated to the Liberal Party. Let's hope they start asking some hard questions.