December 26, 2008
Canada Too! Conservative PM Harper Has Cash for the Big Three, Rogering for
Taxpayers
This past Saturday
morning, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen
Harper appeared live on national television
to give both himself and the voting public a
rogering so intense that I was surprised it
wasn’t censored as pornography. After
holding out as arguably the last truly
conservative world leader on the bailout
issue, he announced just over $3 billion USD
in “repayable loans” (I regretfully gave a
friend one of those, once) for American auto
makers. It’s $3 billion for General Motors,
$1 billion for Chrysler and a credit line
for Ford. The only thing missing from the
announcement was the post-coital cigar.
“This is a regrettable but necessary step to
protect the Canadian economy,” Harper said.
So he’s throwing a few million at a company
(General Motors) so “broke” that it just
opened a $300 million plant in St.
Petersburg, Russia.
Two months ago, he was
pointing out the idiocy of America’s
spending orgy: “We don't need a Parliament
that acts and functions like the American
Congress . . . We're not going to get into a
situation like we have in the United States
where we're panicking and annunciating a
different plan every day.”
So what happened? Well,
the Liberal opposition party threatened to
bring down Harper’s government over the lack
of bailouts, and could attempt to do so
again at any time. So Harper reduced the
daylight between himself and the opposition
Liberals on this issue, and in doing so,
tossed away his biggest trump card.
According to an Ipsos-Reid
poll, 58 percent of Canadians oppose the
bailout package. Yet Harper, who had a
stellar approval rating during (and largely
because of) his bailout opposition, has now
been goaded into walking right into the
Liberals’ buzz saw.
It really wasn’t even
that difficult for him to maintain an upper
hand on the economic issue. To wit, here’s a
glimpse of his competition:
-
The Liberal Aboriginal Affairs Critic,
demanding bailout money for Native
Indians: “During good economic times the
Conservatives gutted funding for First
Nations, Métis and Inuit. The
Conservatives cannot be permitted to use
the weakening economy as an excuse to
abandon Aboriginal Peoples.” (When
did the perpetual bailout of Natives
actually stop?)
-
The Liberal Finance Critic, criticizing
Harper for suspending Parliament to
prevent getting kicked out over his
initial bailout refusal: “Mr.
Harper locked Parliament’s door,
delaying action for Canadian families,
solely so he can save his own job. Mr.
Harper has walked off the job, instead
of working to protect Canadian jobs.”
(In the event that Harper fails in
“working to protect” meaningless
rhetoric, Libs have that covered.)
-
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion (recently
ousted by his own party for appearances’
sake), begging the Queen of England’s
representative in Canada to let him
become Prime Minister: “A month without
a government that commands the
confidence of the House is too long
during these times of economic turmoil.
Who can predict what urgent intervention
by the government will be required?”
(Yes, what ever would the free market do
if the government isn’t around to
urgently intervene? It might actually
function properly.)
-
The Liberal House Leader, informing
Canadians that the man they just elected
Prime Minister is “completely out of
touch” with them: “While Stephen Harper
wants to keep Canadians and the world in
the dark, the Liberals are putting
partisan politics aside and working with
the other parties to create a plan to
put our economy and Canadians first.”
(And by “a plan to put our economy and
Canadians first,” we mean that we have
“a plan to get back to our rightful
seats at the trough.” And it involves
stealing an election we lost. Also,
attention world: If you’re wondering why
you’re “in the dark”, blame Canadian PM
Stephen Harper.)
-
The Liberal House Leader, again: “At
a time when every other Western
industrialized nation is moving forward
with packages to stimulate their
economies, all the prime minister has
brought to the table is ideological cuts
and attacks on the rights of Canadians –
nothing to help our economy.” (For
example, Harper made cuts to the “Status
of Women” office and forced some useless
feminazis to find productive employment.
Sounds like a sound economic plan to
me.)
Gems
like these make it obvious that if Harper
thinks he has succeeded in quelling the
Liberal noise machine simply by paying lip
service to their bailout demands, he’s
wrong. He is still going to hear about how
he isn’t giving out enough treats, and how
the auto bailout dispensed hard-earned
taxpayer cash to certain select industries.
And you know how Liberals fix that, right?
By giving some to everyone else!
So
where are the bailout critics in Canada?
You’d be hard-pressed to find them. First,
the Canadian media is rife with leftists and
gutless wonders whose spines could be
covered with a piece of dental floss. And
party politicians in Canada are not free
agents like they are in America. Each party
has a position called the “whip”, whose job
is to keep party politicians in line. If you
speak out of turn or against the Prime
Minister, you risk getting demoted (backbenched),
losing your portfolio, or even being kicked
out of the party altogether.
The burden falls
largely on me to take the Canadian Prime
Minster out to the woodshed every so often.
That’s all right – I could tell from his
bailout announcement that he likes it rough.