“I think you can be constructive, I think you can be strong, but you don’t have to be angry,” said Ambrose. “I do think that my colleagues have sent the message loud and clear that we want to be effective and constructive but leave the nastiness behind.”
But, she’s only the interim leader and so, it doesn’t matter.
You are right, Lance. If they don’ t stand against anything, they won’t be able to stand for anything either.
Funny but I didn’t perceive Harper as being the slightest bit nasty. Ambrose doesn’t have a clue. She doesn’t realize that the Liberals consider Conservatism and governing responsibly to be the nastiness.
Ambrose’s mistake is that she’s using the Liberal media as the barometer of what her own gov’t represented.
If you let them define you, you’re dead.
Exactly.
I’ve always seen Harper as cool-headed especially against May and Trudeau. I would have been very nasty.
If Ambrose is going to roll over, she should call it quits.
I don’t like that she’s letting the media define what the Conservative Party was to Canadians. I don’t like her toadying attitude. She served in the government. Does she or does she not believe that it was a good party that stood for good things. BIG disappointment to me.
PM Harper allowed the nastiness meme to be developed by the opposition and media without making any particular effort to combat it. Remember how surprised everyone was when Laureen Harper had Yo Yo Ma at an Ottawa concert and Stephen Harper got on stage, played the piano and sang and showed a human and warm side that SHOCKED the entire liberal/left elite because it ran so counter to their theme of coldness and callousness?
So maybe Rona Ambrose’s comments are just a ruse. If you know you audience believes something strongly, there is no point wasting time fighting old battles as to how they came to believe it. You have to pivot to something that creates a new theme then try to persuade them you’ve got THE SOLUTION to ALL THEIR PROBLEMS (or at least the solution for about 40% of them, which seems to be the new bar for winning a majority government).
It’s all about marketing and market share. And the Conservatives under Ambrose or under the star yet to come must get used to packaging conservative principles in a way that connects with the millions of voters needed to win.
All of which leaves for historians why PMs like Harper and Mackenzie King and a number of others ever won office, much less kept it for so long………..
Good grief hasn’t Ambrose noticed that for lefties any recitation of facts by a conservative is conscrued to be a display of ‘anger. I’m beginning to think the Conservative’s poor performance in the election was because in their heart they had begun to believe all the negative crap that had been thrown their way.
Ms. Ambrose, you want to see nasty? Did you see the debates where Mr. Trudeau was, at one point, badgering Mr. Harper virtually non-stop?
What a portion of the Canadian electorate was fooled by was Mr. Trudeau’s smile. What I see is a velvet glove hiding an iron fist.
Just you wait.
Well, so much for Ms. Ambrose.
Just another example of a modern phenomenon, that conservatives are mostly stone stupid.
No doubt one of the reasons the left dislike B. Netanyahu is that he is a conservative and he is not stupid. Well, not very stupid, at any rate. Trusting the Yanks was stupid but I gather that he trusted them less than other prominent Israelis.
What a portion of the Canadian electorate was fooled by was Mr. Trudeau’s smile. What I see is a velvet glove hiding an iron fist.
…and what I see is a sock puppet hiding George Soros’ fist (and that of Mo Strong, and a whole cadre of other UN globalists).
Good move by Ms Ambrose, tell the presstitutes whatever they want to hear.
Time to copy the Obamination/Alinsky playbook.
Dear leader smiles for the camera hand mouths sweet nothings, meanwhile the paid activist wing, slimes, smears,slanders anyone who questions dear leaders lies.
No reason we conservatives can’t indulge in a little snark and snigger.
Point here is we do not need to fabricate any slander, the Loving Liberal Coalition provide endless material.
We need a medium that works on the natural doubt of the taxpaying citizen.
The tax taking side is lost to fiscal conservation, until the parasites are starved they will recognize no limit to what they can steal..
Top down bureaucracy cannot be reformed, in my opinion.
There are no levers for the working citizen to bring kleptocrats to account.
So unless we return taxation to local control the chaos will only grow.
Think how your community would change if your taxes were paid locally and only a percentage of that treasure was paid on to the province.Who then pay only that same percentage to the Fed.
Certainly your local leaders would get looked at very hard.
possibly the provincial government could be cut by 7/8th and the feds forced to shrink.
Certainly the EI, welfare and disability frauds would be much harder to conceal.
Who knows maybe communities could afford healthcare that works again.
Insanity is doing the same thing endlessly expecting different results.
Who in any political party speaks for property rights, liberty and independence from government ?
Right now I see only various levels of statist control and property theft.
None of these “Honourable members” seem to have any qualms about government by theft.
We must continue at all costs to combat the Media’s and the Liberals (and the other parties) rewriting of the history of the last ten years as lost, dark years. I prefer to think Ambrose is only saying what she thinks will play well, but we need a Ben Carson to call the media on their lies.
“We’re sorry you don’t like us. We promise to be good. Please don’t hurt us!”
Sent to her office:
Hi Ms. Ambrose;
I appreciate you stepping up as interim leader but would have embraced having you consider a run for the leadership role.
However in your interview on CTV, I’m afraid you’ve fallen into the same ‘trap’ as so many conservatives do, by being apologetic and ‘confirming’ that Conservatives – esp. Steven Harper – are at heart, ‘angry’ and ‘nasty’.
Why would you play into their narrative? I have never seen Mr. Harper angry or nasty, despite the initiatives of the media and public service branding him as such.
Your interview mistake should not be made by someone of your experience and stature.
I do not expect governments to be nice or nasty, I expect them to do what they have been elected to do. Mr. Harper and company did that pretty well. The left doesn’t like any competition whatsoever, so nothing short of complete surrender and dissolution of the CPC will please them. The median all unions, the educational industry, all provincial governments east of Sask. everyone under 40, women, indians, half wits, but then I repeat myself …. all aligned against conservatism.
Who is on our side. Some seniors, most small business and western rednecks.
Looks like we’re just gonna hafta join em (gag reflex) or shoot em. ;0)
Pardon me for using this analogy, but Ambrose is acting like a battered woman who promises her next boyfriend that she’ll stop being a bitch who deserves verbal and physical abuse.
Does Rona Ambrose believe that the abusers in this case — the entitled progs who were in constant high dudgeon that “their tribe” wasn’t in power — are going to stop calling conservatives “racists” or “fascists” or “poor-bashers” or any other of the descriptions they use to justify their own mean-spiritedness?
Serious mistake on her part. All she’s doing is proving that some conservatives are delusional enough to believe that vicious slurs against conservatives are the fault of conservatives.
Neil Edmondson on Twitter:
Indeed. He was probably the most gracious, thoughtful, mild-mannered PM in recent memory, despite being constantly vilified — both overtly and between the lines — by the media and opposition parties alike as being a “mean” “fascist”, etc., etc., etc.
“everyone under 40”
GFY
Nastiness? From Harper or any other conservative? My memory must be failing me, I can’t recall a single incident.
But nastiness from the opposition parties, the media, lefty NGO’s, yeah I can remember lost of that, much if it directed at Rona, especially when she was environment minister. I’ve always liked her approach….till now. What is she thinking???
I’ll repeat it again. If you’re expecting a conservative woman, you’re going to be waiting a long time.
I want an opposition that is alert, factual and gets right in the government and media’s face when they lie, cheat, blunder and promote failed policy – because this is what to expect from a rehashed Librano crime family and their media fixers.
LOTS!
I meant “LOTS of that”.
Bingo!
Watch a video of Margaret Thatcher debating in Parliament dismembering stupid ideas and those who advocate them. She eviscerates them.
That is what is needed, Harper did that well, as did John Baird who also had a sense of satire and skewered CBC reporters at will.
To hold the Liberals to account, to inspire and rally Her Majesties Opposition, Rona Ambrose will have to defeat Trudeau in debate and clearly so.
// In 20 years of public life it is nearly impossible to find a picture or video of Harper yhelling/losing his temper. How is that “nastiness”? //
+
We all know how carefully scripted his picture & video opportunities were.
// John Ibbitson records a story from an aide who saw Harper exploding on his campaign bus during the June 2004 election, which he lost: “It was: ‘We are fucking going to do this, and you are fucking going to do that, and I want to see this fucking thing done right now.’ And then he paused and asked: ‘And why does nothing happen around here unless I say ‘fuck’?” //
[…]
// And then there were the tactics that were to attract such notoriety. They reflected the man’s character – clever and harsh – moves that turned a democratic election into a mere sequence of manoeuvres. He learned from the master, Arthur Finkelstein, who had played the electoral game for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. One of Harper’s early allies from the 1990s, Gerry Nicholls, captured in his memoirs the special cynicism of Finkelstein’s will to manipulate the electorate in his dictum: “We have to convince Canadians to drink pig’s piss.” //
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/stephen-harper-master-manipulator
As for general negativity, how about this?
http://on.fb.me/1Qp7UeT 50 sec
Admittedly this wasn’t supposed to be baldly stated in English. It was features in ads aimed at Chinese & Punjabi voters.
I watched the interview. She didn’t say anything about the Harper government being nasty. The writer inferred it. Typical media BS.
Rona isn’t talking to Conservatives about being nasty, this is a dig at the rest of participants in the election campaign, those elected as opposition and those who were not, ie the media and unions and of course those out to kill our economy, econuts.
Great hit, thanks Rona, we can all agree and this was the nastiest ever campaign driven by sheer hatred of a man and party that deserved none of it. It was a disgrace to this country, not our finest hour.
It’s not just Ms Ambrose:
“We got the big things right. We got the tone wrong.” – Jason Kenney
“It was very clear at the doors that the tone and style of how we governed had lost the support of a large number of Canadians.” – Ed Fast
“It was evident and very consistent and frankly it surprised the hell out of me. Every second or third person on the doorsteps said they were voting Conservative but they weren’t happy with Harper. That really surprised me, because I’d thought in Calgary he was almost godlike. And I thought, if it was like that here in Calgary, I can only imagine what it was like in the rest of Canada.” – Ron Liepert
“The prime minister was our greatest asset, for many people, but he was also our greatest liability.” – Laurie Hawn
“Somewhere in the middle of the campaign, we became out of touch with Canadians.” – Deepak Obhrai
“The national campaign was a fiasco. When you’re going after big game you don’t go off chasing rabbits.” – Stephen Fletcher
“I don’t know whether or not our party and our government did a good job communicating with women like me.” – Lisa Raitt
“We need a conservatism that is sunnier and more optimistic than what we have sometimes conveyed. We have to take collective responsibility for that.” – Jason Kenney
Hey, here’s a thought: maybe it’s you.
Getting one’s interim CP Leader mug on national TV via a Sunday morning
CTV fanatically biased pro Lieberal snake pit that no real people watch
would not have been my first priority, but what the heck …
I watched the interview too, and she did say “My colleagues have sent the message loud and clear that we want to be effective and constructive, but leave the nastiness behind.”
She was talking about the role of an opposition, so you could just as easily infer that she was talking about the nastiness of the previous opposition, or of politics in general. She didn’t say one word about the Harper government being nasty. in any event, trying to play nice won’t last any longer with her than it did with Preston Manning when he arrived in Ottawa.
What matters in an election is the voter’s perception of the candidate. Whatever the truth is, enough voters thought negatively about Harper for him to lose the election. That was his fault. He would have fared far better if he had fought the media’s portrayal of him tooth and nail. But he didn’t and we lost. (I will leave aside for the moment that Harper had an opportunity to accomplish serious conservative goals but he chose to play it safe)
Now that the perception is out there that Conservatives are a bunch of meanies, Ambrose has to develop a strategy that will counteract that perception. So now is the time to play nice. Blustering arguments revolving around ideological purity and telling our opponents off to their face will accomplish nothing good and will only reinforce the perception that Conservatives are nasty.
The left always overplays its hand. Patience is needed now and we should let the Liberals inherent stupidity play itself out. Angry Conservatives will do themselves no favour by acting as angry Conservatives. Rightly or wrongly, in Ontario, perverse voters showed that they would vote for a crook and a liar over a perceived “meanie”.
We need to rehabilitate our reputation among voters. If my hunch about Trudeau is correct, he is a one term wonder. There will be a time to do battle but that will come in the forth year of his term. For the next three years we need to woo the media, be patient, let Trudeau and gang make their mistakes, then pounce.
“For the next three years we need to woo the media,…”
You may as well try to woo a rabid rattlesnake on crack. Media are the enemy who want to destroy us and turn the country into a euro like socialist shithole. Straight up, that is it, that is all there is to it, period. If you do not recognize it, and instead convince yourself that if you play nice so will they guarantees you defeat.
Harper played nice and is an honorable man. Worked out perfectly hasn’t it?
The preferred narrative of the media and the CPC seems to be that the CPC lost because people did not like Harper. That may very well be true. But it does not give anyone a direction ahead.
My sense is that Harper didn’t help but the timidity of the CPC when they gained their majority and their unwillingness to embrace conservative ideas in government meant that there was no reason to vote for the CPC for a large number of Canadians.
Here is a test: name one significant CPC accomplishment in the majority years. Sure, there were small accomplishments – the TFSA, income splitting, abolition of the gun registry – but there really was no “Harper Agenda” to defend and extend. The CBC still exists, Canada still accepts the UN version of climate change, pipelines are unbuilt, the government is significantly larger now than it was ten years ago – none of this changed.
I would be happy to be corrected but from where I sit Harper and the CPC irritated the media party without actually accomplishing much.
Obama was supposed to be a one term wonder.
We don’t need to be mean but firm and absolutely relentless about their lies. I agree no one will listen to us for the next while but waiting till year three would be far too late.
Meanwhile I fear world and domestic terror will soon have the country missing a mean leader.
The Media sure do a good job of accusing their opponents (non “Libranos) of doing exactly what the opposition and Media do. PM Butts, his trained clown Trudozo in lock step with the Media and the Unions ran a vicious hate campaign against PM Harper, yet its opposite world according to the Media. The Media portrayal of PM Harper as a mean nasty divisive ideologue is simply the Media projecting their own sociopathy onto those they HATE. Alinsky tactics, isolating the target with relentlessly dishonest attacks. Cuddling a viper to your chest will not make it your friend.
CTV can afford to be generous and accomodating to Ms Ambrose, because they view her an an anti-dote to Stephen Harper, and presently no threat to their own leader Trudeau Jr. Were she to become leader of the CPC, and oppose many of his Liberal ideas, she would quickly become the demon of Canadian politics. It is the conservative philosophy that is abhorrent to these media people, whoever tries to espouse it. Remember some of the attacks on Candice Bergen,Deb Grey or even Ambrose herself when Environment minister. It is the message the media is against,not the tone.
The election campaign was all about stopping Harper, many of the twits had no clue why, they were paid or union driven to vote ABC. The election gave credence to the adage “nice guys finish last”. It was down to what’s in for me which doesn’t bode well for the common good, we will reap what’s been sewn. Canada will have a late wake up call when our economy is in a shambles, thanks to provinces like Ontario and Alberta whose voters have proven to be irresponsible, setting the bar at an all time low on every level.
It will be interesting to see where the Liberals will find equalization money for all their die hard supporters in the Atlantic provinces where they rely heavily on the dole.
Bel, I take your point that she may well have been referring to the general nastiness of politics, but in the vernacular of CBC, CTV, Global, etc., including people like Bob Fife, words like “nasty” and “mean” and “angry” are bespoke descriptions of the Conservatives exclusively, so it sounds like she was referring to that.
Fife, her interviewer, went on an absolutely appalling rant on election night about the “mean-spirited” conservatives, so Rona Ambrose’s repudiation of nastiness doesn’t sound like a reference to anything else.
I’m a Rona Ambrose fan, btw, (she’s my local MP, we’re lucky to have her) and I don’t think her cheery, relaxed, good-natured tone during the early days of this transition period is doing any harm.
Jay I share your evaluation of Harper’s missed opportunities. Harper was his own worst enemy. How much more could he be hated by the media if he would have say opted out of the UN or gutted the CBC, and made it again a news organization rather than a political organization, or given Canadians real property rights, or end all Indian treaties and make all Canadians equal, or enacted right-to-work-legislation to deal with unions, or used the not-withstanding-clause to put the political Supreme Court in it’s place or put a limit on abortions. He had the opportunity to fix many things but instead defaulted. The devil laughs when you think that being nice will help your cause.
It’s not a strategy, it’s what you say. Every politician has a mean streak, every politician accuses the other of having a mean streak.
I’m male, 67, and I do recall when the teacher would ask, ”who is the Prime Minister of Canada,” and the answer was ”John Diefenbaker.” Dief was ”diefeated” in 1963, it would take 16 years before the people of Canada elected the short lived minority Conservative government of Joe Clark, and another 5 years after that before Brian Mulroney cleaned house. That’s 21 years without a majority win!!
The article states that, ”Harper, who stepped down as Conservative leader on election night, had an adversarial relationship with the media, restricting access and rarely using the National Press Theatre in Ottawa.” (End of Quote)
I think that’s the nastiness that needs to be talked about. I know the CBC was extremely nasty towards Mr. Harper and the CPC, as they were towards previous Conservative leaders and governments. However, the CTV, Sun News and the National Post were quite positive towards the Reform, Alliance and later on CPC right up until the 2011 election. It was Mr. Harper and Co. who turned their back on them.
We can discuss this for another decade, and lose a couple more elections, or we can take a new stance, leave the past behind and get to work with a new plan for the future of the Conservative party of Canada.
Bingo!
Jay Currie @ 7:33, exactly, and this has been lamented here on this blog by many for years. I suspect that the progressive wing kept a lid on any significant policy changes.
In case there are any Conservative big brass monitoring this blog, Rona’s progressive suck up to the Liberal auxiliary media start to the loyal Opposition role has for the time being convinced me to keep my wallet firmly in my pocket until I see where this is going.
As far as wooing the media, As Colonista says @ 7″18, you might as well try to woo a rattlesnake. The MSM wants a Marxist country.
“I would be happy to be corrected but from where I sit Harper and the CPC irritated the media party without actually accomplishing much.”
Wow just wow. Not accomplishing much? Let’s see, Mr Harper has navigated Canadian economy though severe global economic recession better than any other western leader. He did so despite media, provincial governments and foreign interests actively and consistently sabotaging his efforts. And unlike any other western leader he has balanced the budget. You do not think it is a lot? Well to realize how different and indeed exceptional political economic landscape has been under Harper observe that balancing the budget is not even a campaign issue anymore throughout most of the western world. Had a liberal leader achieve that, the mediots and presstitutes would be singing hosannas while simultaneously orgasming. Just recall their behavior when Paul Martin balanced the budget during the time economic prosperity by gutting the military and dumping healthcare costs on provinces.
Ms AMBROSE, heed my direction… embrace OSOYOOS BC FIRST NATION CHIEF CLARENCE LOUIE… get his expertise and get ALBERTA OIL SANDS OIL EAST OR WEST.. by PIPELINE to world markets.
eminent domain ……OIL PIPELINES CARRYING ALBERTA OIL EAST & WEST
All the while KICKING LIBERAL TRUDEAU ASS!
YOU GO RONA !
“…and what I see is a sock puppet hiding George Soros’ fist (and that of Mo Strong, and a whole cadre of other UN globalists).”
Yep! I think Trudeau sees being Prime Minister as his birthright; he was ripe for the picking by the U.N. globalists and assorted rich ‘users.’
So what did they accomplish, toward rolling back the progressive destruction of individual and property rights of canadian citizens?
Yes they slowed down the decline, slightly, but what separates working for a living and slavery by government here in Canada?
I say they, government, are slavers. Thus doing more damage than good to productive society.
Jay’s question still stands, I would like to know, what did the CPC achieve to leave canadian citizens better off?
Besides slowing the train wreck briefly.
Your comment above illustrates while arguments with doctrinaire libertarians are a waste if time. Ask yourself this: how does the left win? Though revolution? Nope, almost every time they try it they lose. They win incrementally. By imposing gun registries, by forcing people to sell their agricultural products though a state monopolist (ring a bell?), by forcing people to provide detailed information about themselves to the government on mandatory surveys (how about this one?), by letting unelected bureaucrats act as jury, judge and prosecutor in regulating free speech in Canada (how about this one?) and so on. That is what Harper was doing except in the opposite direction, he was slowly pushing the center to the right. Step by step. But that is not enough for you. Of course not. You wanted him to fundamentally rearrange the country to create a libertarian utopia. There was one way he could have done it. He could have went Pinochet. Short of that he could not have done more than he did. Would you like him to go Pinochet? I would, wiht no reservation, provided he had good chances of succeeding. He hand’t. And if he failed there would be no right left in Canada.
Two points.
First, Rona Ambrose has been on the job for 3 days. Give her a break.
Second, those of us who were Reform Party members or read Alberta Report knew that Steven Harper had personalty problems and did not play well with others way back then.
Well the Trudeaus fired Harper’s chef -apparently he was to keep his mouth shut as telling anyone is belittling the Trudeaus . As for Rona Ambrose ,she will not be able to do anything right .The press is to busy at the moment patting themselves on the back to sharpen their daggers. Give the a couple of days .For the first time in history we will see the opposition under more scrutiny than the government. They have to keep the distorted narrative going.
Ditto!! Lets not lose track of the fact that 48 hours into his new position, PM Trudeau lost the Keystone XL deal. Look at it whatever way you like, he didn’t fight for Western Canada, not one single word. We in the west have yet to suffer the consequences of the ”Dirty Oil” campaign that was started by Omama, Jack Layton and Co.
Rona Ambrose is in fact a Conservative, Westerner, Albertan, and has served in federal Cabinet at least six times. What more do we want? Whoever defends our oil, our pipelines and our Western way of life needs to be of blue prairie blood, especially when going up against the Trudeau clan that has been after Western oil since the 40’s. She speaks English, French, Portugese and Spanish, and last but not least, she is darned cute!
“Lets not lose track of the fact that 48 hours into his new position, PM Trudeau lost the Keystone XL deal.”
I don’t think Zoolander lost the Keystone XL deal. I think Obama never had any intention of allowing the pipeline to cross the U.S./Canada border on his watch.
Obama just didn’t have the guts to kill it while Stephen Harper was PM.