I admit I have been as reluctant to admit this as anyone. My whole career has been based on the proposition that somewhere, under all the insults and lying and general bad behaviour that makes up the bulk of political life, there was some genuine issue at stake: that if you could just strip away the politics, you would eventually get to the policy. It has taken me all these years to understand that, no, it’s just politics all the way down.
However, the Liberal Party has a habit of hot dogging it on ethnicity and culture. They’re still trying to make the claim, after all their stupid mistakes, that Cultural Diversity is a capital “L” Liberal value – still trying to claim that diversity doesn’t find a home inside the Conservative tent. Liberals like to argue that their opinions are informed by facts as opposed to the other side which is purely ideological. Here are some facts for Mr Ignatieff. No games just the facts.
*
case in point:
ex-iggy bff ruby dhalla… not afraid to tell everyone how to be canadian…
“I don’t think that any Canadian out there wants to have these
types of keywords or websites identified which are objectifying
and insulting and demeaning to women.”
*
Multiculturalism is a ‘capital L’ liberal pant load. The liberals CAN rightfully claim that political correctness, reverse racism, censorship and and other anti-Canadian initiatives ARE their core values – and they will toss them aside at the drop of a hat if there are votes or money involved in doing so.
Coyne fails to discuss something very relevant to the decisions that the CPC make, and that would be that when running a MINORITY government you have to compromise. Yes, politics sucks. Yes, trying to stand by your principles cannot always be done because politics sucks. Yes, you have to actually do something that the other parties want you to do because if you don’t do it, they will force an election, and as the press kept telling us, we didn’t want another election! (right? right?)
The bright side, at least PM Harper has not pulled a Joe Clark and handed a majority to the Liberal Party because he acted like he was presiding over a majority parliament.
Cultural Diversity is a capital “L” Liberal value
Not true.
Culture comes from the ground up, it isn’t dictated by Big Government Statism.
BGS is what Liberal Trudeaupia is all about.
Canada was formed as a Confederation of Equal Provinces which would have allowed cultural diversity to develop within Canada at the provincial level.
All my life Liberal Federal governments have been pushing into provincial jurisdiction and enforcing national uniformity over provincial diversity.
Dwayne is right and I guess we will just have to keep holding our nose. The alternative would be a disaster.
Are there any Canadians left in this country? You know- ones who identify themselves as Canadian and don’t troll for votes among Tamil Tiger or Sikh extremist supporters?
Let me know when someone like that is running for office.
Ironically, The Liberals (aka. the Diversity Party) parachuted MI into a riding and bumped out a popular minority candidate,Jean Augustine – former Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Women and first African-Canadian Women MP.
Yeah exactly like the BS the Democrats pile on in the US.
The Party of the Confederacy, the party that opposed emancipation, the party of Jim Crow is represented as the party of the blacks and the little guy is the racist, bastion of the wealthy elites.
Coyne is just another self important Toronto liberal because his friends like Margret Wente and Chantal Hebert and the rest of the “elite lib-sniffer pundits” have told him so. He and all the Simpsons Martins Ibotsons Travers etc are nothing more than the proverbial class bully that would rip a big one in class just to get a response. Oh, what will the comments be to my ground breaking spew, weeeelll Andrew, bugger all. I look at the headlines at National Newswatch/Bourque/Grope/Mcleans just for a daily laugh at the stupidity of the writers, nothing else, headline says it all. “Stick a fork in a liberal day”, will soon be a national holiday when Harper gets his majority.
I really hate the “holding our nose” part of this but expecting the CPC to cut their noses off to spite their faces is also silly. Holding to a position that knowingly will lose you an election is foolish. To demand that a party hold to it is childish and unrealistic.
While I may not like everything that the CPC does, I realize that politics isn’t black and white. I know that a party has to compromise to be seen as “playing nice” on the big stage. I just look at the alternatives and know that even at their worst the CPC is better than the Liberals and the NDP for this country.
If I had it my way the CPC would reduce the size of government, reduce spending on frivolous projects – such as anything to do with the Arts and all forms of corporate welfare. All grants would be gone, why should a government give away money it does not create but confiscates? I would see the transfers to provinces all but abolished and allow the provinces to collect the level of taxes they need to maintain the lifestyle that the province believes it deserves. That would mean that the federal government tax would go down, and collect only enough to service the debt and pay the bills of running the federal government and the military. Get the federal government out of provincial jursidiction by not collecting taxes on their behalf and returning it to them… seems so simple. If a province wants cheap child care they can tax their workers accordingly, and if the workers vote them out because they disagree, so be it.
Oh yeah, get government out of business too. No BDC, the government is not a bank! Let banks determine who to lend money to, or let investors belly up to the bar and put money into projects. This would then allow the government to reduce the number of people it employs in some of these useless places, reducing the cost of running the government, saving more money.
There is so much that the government spends money on that they shouldn’t it would be easy to cut taxes, and spending, accordingly.
I read the Coyne article a couple of times and could not find any argument, only a series of unsubstantiated statements seasoned with cynicism.
It is just another version of an old routine:
Liberal – “What are your principles for directing Canadians to conform to your vision for Canada?”
Conservative – “We do not believe that governments should direct Canadians. The role of government is to protect freedom so Canadians can create their own country.”
Liberal – “See here! Conservatives admit to being directionless and unprincipled.”
Coyne comes across as a conservative that loathes conservatives, very similar to David Frum. I know that the right needs to have a big tent to be successful but it would be nice to have less friendly fire.
I’ve read Coyne for many years and think he is a bit of a fence sitter. For every column he writes with a positive in the conservative vein, there follows a typical lieberal hit piece, probably after talking to his fellow MSM types over a latte or two. Still, it is refreshing to hear something other than the usual lieberal tripe.
Don Martin is another columnist who’s writing changed after heading to Ottawa Press Club.
There was a reason Preston Manning would say, “Liberal, Tory, same old story”. It’s true.
For all those trashing Coyne’s argument, I have a question: name one major issue facing Canada today where the Tory and Liberal positions are materially different? Coyne’s article isn’t an indictment of the Tory’s, it’s an indictment of our ruling class and our citizenry.
“.. it’s an indictment of our ruling class and our citizenry.”
slaw nails it !!
from the comments in the 1st link:
“When the Liberals were in power, they seemed to spend a lot of time figuring out which way the parade was going so that they could run to the front of it and pretend to be leading it. But they seemed to be a bit more pragmatic than the Conservatives are now. In fact, it’s reasonable to suppose that it has been a fatal lack of pragmatism at key moments that has prevented the Conservatives from obtaining a majority during a time in which the voting public has been extremely unhappy with the Liberals.”
name one major issue facing Canada today where the Tory and Liberal positions are materially different?
Israel
slaw:
Mandatory bilingualism in the Supreme Court
Long gun registry
Long form census
CWB
Crime and Punishment
Universal child care allowance
I haven’t looked but I’d bet that Coyne opposed the conservatives on most or all of these items.
Official multiculturalism is a disaster. It’s an enforced “holier than thou” imposition by White people onto other White people on how they must relate to other cultures. The other cultures didn’t invent multiculturalism — White people did!
Ergo, if you want to truly relate better to other cultures then abandon multiculturalism because other cultures don’t practice it! It’s more genuine and honest to relate to people naturally — with all of your foibles — and members of other cultures can sense that. Which is why conservatives have always related better to the “other” than the White multicultural dictators on the Left.
Of interest, and for no particular reason, please note that AC is the uncle of PET’s bastard love child(ren?)
coyne…meh!…he’s got a corrugated ass from sitting on the fence for 30 years….
NOW he’s going cynical all over!!!…poor baby…
get a life you pathetic prissy mouthed little schmoe…you’re making me blush…ferkrissakes don’t cry my little one..
the silly twat really thinks he’s a member of the elite and he just got raped by reality….
he’s thrown his hands up…his spirit crushed…he thinks he might faint…
gee schmuck…i thought you’d have some understanding how politics works…don’t you know we’re waiting for a majority government ?
oh looky the party lackies have arrived to defend their “dear conservative leader”. One can only imagine what new conservative ideas will come to light. Maybe you’ll call it something original like the “Red Book”. The biggest problem our country has is politicians that have no spine, care NOTHING for Canada. I want CONSERVATISM with a good mix of LIBERTARIANISM – not this hokey pokey vote buyin country destroying BS.
I wonder? Does Coyne believe that Louis Riel is the Father of Manitoba. I tend to believe what I was taught, that he was a murderer, a coward and a traitor. You know what the Jesuits say! It’s always quoted in such a negative manner. I find that people, as a rule tend to retain the truth and reject political correctness.
Coyne is completely right. There is nothing at stake in federal politics. Just as only Nixon could go to China, only the cons could make Canada truly socialist (post-Trudeau). The only domestic issue of real importance where Harper has led a change has been in his insane decision to import the US War on Drug (Users). No surprise that the PMO Palace Guards are upset to get Dear Leader called out. At best, Stephen Harper will be the answer to future trivia games. At worst, our Bush/Greenspan.
Libertarians are dumber, than a bag of hammers!
And then there’s the $40 million stolen under the Cretin regime.
Yawn.
I like things just the way they are, thank you very much.
“I’m entitled to my entitlements”……..yeah things could be A LOT WORSE!
Riel was in fact the father of Manitoba, so it would be neither surprising nor blameworthy if Coyne believed that. Riel was also all those things larben was taught. It’s not that hard to have a nice broad CV like that, if you live long enough.
Today in QP John Baird was defending the decision to deny foreign firms more opportunities to offer their services to Canadian consumers, saying that more flights from the UAE would kill “literally tens of thousands of jobs”. This in the face of questioning from none other than former NDP politician Bob Rae.
There IS a material differences with the Liberals on guns and prisons. But that doesn’t do anything for libertarians and people like Coyne are more properly characterized as libertarians than as conservatives.