So ... how's that discussion about full public disclosure of MP's expenses going? Oh:
Given that the Bloc Québécois says it always supported the Auditor-General’s request, that means three of the four parties in the House of Commons are at least supportive of further talks. The NDP remains officially opposed to the Auditor-General’s request, though that too may change this week as several NDP MPs have called publicly for the party to reconsider.
Why anyone thinks Jack Layton still represents even a whiff of progressive principles these days just plain baffles the fuck out of me. Seriously.
16 comments:
Isn't this the point where a Blogging Tory says, "Well...if you've got nothing to hide..."?
To be fair here, Harper hid behind Parliament here saying that it was not his call.
You'd expect someone who openly defies the will of Parliament to actually take a stand to be open and accountable.... but I digress...
The polling must of come back to Harper to make him change his mind.
Iggy changed his mind a few days before because, well, he just seems to be Iggy.
******************************
They had become ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE AND OF GOD...
*******************************
you pushed too much and *CROSSED THE LINE*
and for the rest of you on this GOD FORSAKEN site...
degenerates (PZ) or children (HEMANT) - ATHEISTS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRRg2tWGDSY
do you have anything to say, you STUPID LITTLE F*CKER?
Now let's listen to this *GENIUS*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU
how about I tell you, Mr. Shermer, EVERYTHING YOU THINK ABOUT THE WORLD is
*WRONG*
...
you cannot SILENCE ME... for the idiot called *
FROM NOW ON:
*******************************************
EVERYTHING YOU SAY I WILL DOUBLE ON YOU...
*******************************************
Atheists,
you are going to learn even to TALK about GOD the way you do is going to cost
you your lives...
the writing on the wall...
f*ck you very much!
THE BOOBQUAKE - 911!
http://dissidentphilosophy.lifediscussion.net/philosophy-f1/the-boobquake-911-t1310.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek&feature=related
RUN, ATHEISTS, RUN!!! ca
Huh? DM have we been nipping at the hard stuff earlier today?
I find the NDP's refusal on this inexplicable and inexcusable.
welcome back dm! we missed your damaged squalling and rudimentary multiplication. your god is a lie and everything you say i quadruple on you. that's four times! double your double! loon.
I won't argue that Layton has been anything but disappointingly hesitant to take the lead on MP expenses, but the article you're citing is simply wrong about his position. Here's his official position as of last week:
I am certainly not opposed to having the BOIE continue the dialogue with the Auditor General to improve public scrutiny of MP expenses.
In other words, basically the same as Ignatieff's position. Again that's less than I'd hope for, but it's a far cry from a lone stand against the A-G.
I started loathing Jack Layton the minute he decided to support Harper. Waste of space, that guy.
The NDP in BC has been more right than left for the last fifteen years. It was the NDP that started the welfare to work program and kicked thousands off welfare (in 1996). Thanks to that party homelessness on a large scale was born. I have no clue what the NDP stands for anymore. The Liberal and NDP parties might as well merge since they're both shells of their former selves.
I've been saying for years that Layton is anything but the principled NDP leader type we have been used to having running our federal NDP. That he has taken the hard built proven reputation of the NDP being a principles first party and thrown it away in his quest to supplant the Liberals, that he sees nothing wrong with letting Harper have power (even a majority) if in the end he is able to take the NDP ahead of the Liberals and replace them as the Official Opposition and then alternate governing option of the electorate. In other words just another seats first party like the CPC and Libs.
What makes him so offensive to me is that he continues to pretend he is like his predecessors where defending principles is concerned despite his actions proving otherwise, and worse how many Dippers follow his lead and still to this day seem to think that there is little to no difference between the Harper CPC and the Liberals. Anyone that cannot tell the difference between Harper and any prior PM of either Liberal or PCPC persuasion is bad enough, that they still fail to see that even Ignatief with all of his multitude of flaws (and he certainly has them I never liked him, never thought he should be a party leader, but he is what is the Lib leader these days and still is far less dangerous to Canadian democracy, progressiveness, and social values despite his flaws than Harper) is still a far better choice for a progressive Canada that believes in social justice astounds and disgusts me beyond anything words can describe.
I've been saying for years that the only difference between Layton and Harper is what they seek power for, both are by their actions clearly power before principles or indeed any other considerations first kinds of leaders. Both have placed expediency before all else in pursuit of their goals, and have on more than one occasion worked together to destroy the Liberal party's ability to regenerate and recover because it is in neither of their electoral interests (although in terms of principles it is clearly in the interest of the NDP to stop Harper at all costs if they actually are more concerned with defending their principles than they are winning seats because Harper is something unlike anything we have ever seen in this country where the destruction of those principles and values are concerned) to let the Libs recover.
Yes, the Layton NDP, defenders of their holier than thou attitude and deceptive claims to be a party of principles first. And yes, I am very bitter about this, I resent that when they are most needed in their history to act in defence of those principles being under the worst threat they ever have faced from a PM they are instead more concerned with protecting their goal of replacing the Liberal party, a party that is nowhere near the threat the Harper CPC is. Yes, I resent that a lot and the bitterness gets stoked with every time I hear Layton and Dippers play that holier than thou principles first claim when their actions prove that it is so much vacuum.
But then to Dippers I am a Liberal supporter, I have to be because otherwise I wouldn't have been making this argument about Harper all along. No, I can't be someone who is a swing voter traditionally that sees Harper as the single greatest threat to the progressive Canada we have all built (conservative, Liberal Dipper) through our 142 almost 143 year history). No, not possible. (last paragraph is dripping with sarcasm for those that need it pointed out)
Scotian,
I typed a long reply to that on your blog that got killed with a Blogger statement "we cannot complete your request" ... I wouldn't say that you're a Liberal hack. I would ask that you maintain an equal disgust for both parties, Liberal and NDP. "Holier than thou" and arrogant self-righteousness are fine Liberal traditions.
The government system is not controled by we, the electorate, it is controlled by the self-interest of bureacrats for the bureacrats and the elected MPs who have become bureacrats instead of our representatives.
Sick.
Funny thing about Canadian progressives: A lot of them like to sneer at the NDP for lack of "progressive principles" - yet they'll support the Liberal Party of Big Business.
Wayne, no, I wouldn't say we're run by bureaucrats as much as we're run by big business and now the Evangelical Christian far right, much like U.S. Congress.
Stimpson, Liberals are for big business, but if NDP actually got into bed with say the Harpercons (and I still believe that's a more likely scenario than them getting into bed with Liberals), they too would be owned by big business.
Scotian, I'm with you there. Steve is a PM like none other we've ever seen in history and hopefully, will never see again. He is by far the most terrifying and dangerous PM that ever walked at Parliament Hill. Iggy and all his faults; at this point, I don't really care who leads the Liberals, the fact that they're not Steve the totalitarian theocrat is enough for me and it should be enough for every other progressive.
There's a lot of reason to suspect that Layton may well be collaborating with Harper. It seems all too often that his arguments echo the PMO issued talking points on various issues.
As for principled? None of the party leaders in Ottawa are have any principles beyond the acquisition of power (except possibly Duceppe - and even he's a little suspect at times)
thwap:
I would point out that most of my disgust is aimed at Harper and the CPC at my blog and elsewhere actually. The reason the NDP gets the majority of my remaining scorn is because from where I sit not being a partisan of either the NDP or Libs what I see is the NDP swiping at the Libs almost every chance they get even when they are supposedly on the same side on an issue against the Harper CPC. I see far more aggressiveness from the NDP towards the Libs these days than the reverse, that much (not all, but more than half in my observation as a regular watcher of politics) of the fire I see from the Libs at the NDP is defensive retaliation in response to something initiated by the Layton NDP.
I apportion responsibility as I see it, not to suit some sort of false equivalency/balance/evenhandedness but the reality as it appears to me. The reality as it appears to me is that the NDP has spent much of the past four years being more concerned with attacking the Libs instead of the CPC and especially in the first couple of years of Harper's government seemed more inclined to be supportive of the Harper CPC's destruction of the Liberals than they were in working with the Libs to keep Harper in check in a weak minority.
I'm sorry if this offends your delicate sensibilities about your preferred choice of political parties thwap, but from where I stand as I said at Saundrie and DD's to you the NDP are at least as responsible for the rise and staying power of the Harper government as anything else in no small part because they refused to stop acting like Lib Tory same old story combined with seeing their chance to finally break out of the box they have been in to replace the Libs.
Harper relies on the NDP not being willing to really work hand in hand with the Libs against him both in election cycles and the rest of the time. If the NDP had truly placed defeating Harper as the only real priority they would have stopped with the constant sniping of the Libs, which in turn would have made it a lot harder for both the lazy media and the CPC war room to make it look like there is nothing to the language that cites Harper as the most dangerous thing to progressive principles in our history. It is also the NDP that needs to accept it is the subordinate position because of what the election results have repeatedly said, also a point I have repeatedly made.
Oh yes, MgS may have a point, I've noticed that pattern too over the last four years, how NDP media supporters and spokespeople somehow tend to agree more with the CPC side whenever any chance comes up to bash the Libs than they ever do with the Libs against the CPC. That looks a lot like deliberate collusion too you know.
Bottom line thwap is that I have been a Harper opponent with that as my total focus/partisanship, everything has flowed from that. That so many Dippers prefer to pretend otherwise and have declared me a Lib operative and such for years instead of recognizing that I don't write in support of Liberal leaders or policy is irritating indeed. I will hold the NDP under Layton as responsible for the changes Harper makes during these minorities because whether you like it or not the blunt truth of the matter is the NDP is. Which is why I am bitter about it, because I was used to getting better from the federal NDP before Layton took over, and I thought more of the party's supporters actually believed that defending their progressive principles really were the more important thing instead of their envy/hatred of the Libs.
Layton has been an opportunist since was on Toronto City Council. Dippers need to stop behaving as if Ed Broadbent were still running the party.
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