Posted on 04/13/2005 12:43:38 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
Martin prepares to make national unity campaign theme, links Tories and Bloc
1 hour, 25 minutes ago
ALEXANDER PANETTA
OTTAWA (CP) - Liberals will revive the national-unity debate as a campaign theme and paint their opponents as twin partners in the dismantling of Canada.
Top party strategists have indicated in recent days the long-dormant issue will return to the forefront if there's an election this spring. The predictions rang true Wednesday when Prime Minister Paul Martin, his deputy prime minister, his cabinet, his party's MPs, and top strategists all sounded the same alarm bells.
One senior government official warned that a Liberal defeat would help propel Quebec towards independence.
The federal Bloc Quebecois is poised for a sweep in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois is preparing to return to provincial power - and the Conservatives are virtually non-existent in the province, he said.
"You have to ask yourself whether we're flirting with winning conditions (for independence)," the official said.
"Well, Canadians care. They are not prepared to see Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe become this decade's answer to Brian Mulroney and Lucien Bouchard."
The last unity crisis that led to the 1995 Quebec referendum was triggered by the collapse of an alliance between then-prime minister Mulroney and nationalists like Bouchard.
If the Conservatives win a weak minority government their survival will likely depend on support from the Bloc.
Martin delivered a similar message Wednesday in a closed-door speech to his caucus, and then in a statement to reporters outside.
"If Stephen Harper and the Bloc Quebecois are going to come together to force an election, then there's going to be an election," Martin said after the meeting.
The Conservatives are aware of Liberal intentions. That's why they say they won't topple the government in a non-confidence motion put forward by the Bloc.
Tory sources indicate they hope to inoculate themselves against Liberal attacks by getting NDP support if they topple the government.
But the attacks were already being mounted.
"It's an alliance of the Alliance (Conservatives) and the Bloc. Two very provincial, separatist-type parties," said Joe Volpe, the Liberals' Ontario cabinet lieutenant.
"So the choice is Canada or them."
Volpe says he's put his organizers on standby for an imminent election amid reports the call is expected within weeks.
"This is the time. It's looks like we might go," is how he described his message to organizers.
"Go through the logistical things - the mechanical things of the campaign. You have to find a location, you have to get signs, you have to start putting together the electoral machinery, you have to get phones."
The likelihood of an election mushroomed when the Conservatives darted past the Liberals in the latest public opinion polls.
The Liberals were driven down to their worst survey results in about 15 years after vivid testimony about kickbacks and bribes at the sponsorship inquiry.
Deputy prime minister Anne McLellan said she would be "disgusted" to see the Tories and Bloc band together to take her party down in the middle of the inquiry.
"It's political opportunism taken to a new level to see the Bloc and the Conservatives working together," she said.
"Of course national unity is an issue. The unity of our country is absolutely key - it's at the very heart of everything we do."
Liberals also warned that important measures to benefit Canadians won't pass if the government falls.
One casualty would be the budget implementation bill. That, said Labour Minister Joe Fontana, would mean no money for social housing, no extra resource revenues for Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, and no spending to keep Canada's commitments on the Kyoto Accord.
"A lot of things die on the order paper," Fontana said. "Kyoto, the agreement with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (on resource revenues), the child-care (initiative)."
Peter MacKay, the Conservative deputy leader, suggested Wednesday a decision on whether to force a spring vote will have to come soon.
"There's a window of opportunity that's there, certainly, and it may close," he said on his way into a Conservative caucus meeting.
"We have to be cognizant of that."
ooh nothing like reminding Canadians of the "Unity" slush fund scam aka Adscam day after day after day, eh Paulie?
I see the Liberal spinners must have been up all night or they've had this prepared for months
well, that IS what our next election is about anyway.
Yep, it is a sense of desperation on their part. An all-out revolution is necessary if this succeeds.
Someone ought to ask Martin about Oil For Food, what he knew and when he knew it.
All of this to shove the liberal definition of marraige down your throat.
oh and the no money threat - we all knew that was coming by the last budget, they claim they've increased spending in all these key areas like the military, to make themselves popular with the electorate, knowing full well their government wasn't going to last long enough to actually spend any of this money and if they win a majority, please, it's too cruel a thought, you can bet all the spending will indeed be gone.......
clever though I hadn't thought of the reverse move, if you don't elect us you won't get all this money
but please Canada never had the money for Kyoto in the first place, Alberta told Ottawa time and time again.....
That's correct, and also to try to maintain a sense of dictatorship.
Frankly I think it is time to call Quebec on its bluff, they want to go, bye bye, and if they aren't bluffing, I'm at the point when I'm willing to suffer the economic pain it will cause in the beginning because paying this blackmail money constantly is already costing the rest of Canadians too much
heck let Quebec go, build up a proper army and we could occupy Quebec in 24 hours, make the Blitzkreig look slow......
eh? If Quebec leave, they'll suffer. They need Canada for the gravy train. As a matter of fact, you and I will be 10x richer! :-)
So would the other 25 million Canadians, and the 300 million Americans!
Bad idea. Western canadians are too smart for that. Look, Canada is not the problem. Ottawa need to be nuke.
Canada: A state without a people.
or maybe Alberta and BC should start playing the blackmail card too, hmmm,
yep I willing to call the BQ's and PQ's bluff...
there is a new party in Quebec, provincial, smart kid is in the party, he's their leader or spokesdude and I like him because I heard him say, sovereignty is a non issue, Quebeckers have a sweet deal in Confederation, come on, are you kidding me, so let's just focus on making Quebec a better place,
now I see he might have been referring to the massive mismanagement and corruption in Quebec that has risen to the federal stench......
I cannot remember what percentage of the vote that party got but it was a spanking new party
18% supported them. They went high in the polls briefly but they quickly fell because they were deemed "too scary" and "would undermine Quebec values" (which are business subsidies, high taxes and socialism)
You're hitting pretty close on that one, Martin owns a LOT of shipping of course none registered in Canada...bet he could end up with his nuts in a vise over that one if they dug deep enough, Chretien took his money and ran...
He'd never answer the question ... just like he NEVER gives a straight answer during Question Period in the Parliament.
(Byron York in Hugh Hewitt show on his book The Left Wing Conspiracy)
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...I found a source in Hollywood who had access to that information, and gave it to me, for Fahrenheit 9/11. And what we found out was that Fahrenheit 9/11 did very well in the few places you would expect it to do well. It was a big hit in San Francisco, big in New York, big in Boston and Washington, D.C. And it was also a runaway hit in Canada.
HH: Yup. Very much so. That is very striking.
BY: Exactly. You know, when you hear on Monday morning the news story, you know, this movie or that movie won at the box office this week, they're talking about North American grosses, which include Canadian markets. Toronto is the fifth largest market in North America. And Fahrenheit 9/11 was huge in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, all across Canada. And those were the places that it did well. But on the flip side, all those red states that Michael Moore said it was doing well, it wasn't doing well at all. It underperformed by 42% in Dallas. By 40% in Houston.
HH: It was a bust. It was a bust by industry standards. I've got to ask you before our last great, Byron. Robert Greenwald also, you would have thought he was a prince among filmmakers. You expose him, again meticulously detailed, as almost a fraud. It just...he had no impact.
BY: You know, the interesting thing is, almost all of these guys got a really fawning profile in the New York Times Magazine. You know, Al Franken got one before Air America went on the air. And Robert Greenwald got on...he produced what they call the gorilla documentary. He produced one called Outfoxed, and the other, he produced a documentary on the reasons for going into the Iraq war. And these were very, very big with the MoveOn crowd. And they were virtually nowhere anywhere else. Uncovered, for example, this is his documentary on Iraq, which was played at the opening of the Center for American Progress, you know underperformed by 76% in Atlanta. By 67% in Cleveland, which was a swing state. It did poorly almost everywhere.
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Now Calgary is already the most conservative Canadian city. If even it received Fahrenheit 9/11 this warmly, you can see it the Canadian right is practically no different from its left on WOT, etc. I can't help but be cynical that the Canadian disease is too deep that it is incurable.
If that is what Canada is defined as, Canada should fall...
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