Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has taken Conservative fear tactics to a whole new level with his very political and ridiculously odd and partisan speech in Ottawa on Tuesday, September 21st 2010 say I and the Leader of the Official Opposition, Michael Ignatieff.
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| Time to go for the 'Juggler' |
Speaking to the Canadian Club in Ottawa (which is not usually a particularly partisan crowd) Jim Flaherty, using his best pirate metaphors, lashed out at the prospect of an opposition “Ignatieff Coalition” government and said that the Conservative government wasn’t suddenly going to become “warm and fuzzy.” (Actually, I can't see them as warm, but they have always been a bit fuzzy!)
The Finance Minister also said that only Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government could provide the stability that Canadians need. (? ? ? ~ Spoken like a drunken but very ambitious First-Mate)
Jim Flaherty's speech - Sept. 21, 2010
Ignatieff, talking to reporters the next morning, portrayed Flaherty’s speech as bizarre, but in keeping with the Conservatives’ style of leadership.
“I don’t know what they put in his coffee,” Ignatieff said. “This is the way these folks govern. They first try to make Canadians afraid of the census … They tried to make us afraid of Russian planes up in the Arctic. And now, amazingly, they’re trying to make Canadians afraid of an election". "They’re trying to make Canadians afraid of Democracy.”
Michael Ignatieff certainly was not the only one puzzled by the odd tone of Jim Flaherty’s speech – pundits, critics and commentators are wondering in the wake of the speech why the Finance Minister chose to make his speech so rhetorically political, and whether it was a precursor of an election that the Conservatives may want to have. Try to keep in mind the Conservative's constant "Unnecessary Election" rant of the last two years?
He appeared to be comparing the opposition to Pirates – a silly extended metaphor in his speech that threatens to become powerful fodder for satirists and government critics (I guess that explains this blog, eh?) in the coming days, weeks and months.
Progressive and 'not so progressive' writers from all across the country have framed the speech as either; "a declaration of war" or "fear-mongering," while columnists and reporters covering the actual event referred to the speech as a "diatribe" and many have noted the “stony silence” of the lunch-time crowd.
Deputy Liberal leader Ralph Goodale, a former Minister of Finance himself, lambasted the Flaherty speech as a “sad spectacle.”
“It was pathetic to see a Minister of Finance reduced to such a degrading spectacle,” Goodale told reporters Wednesday.
Flaherty said, for instance: “The coalition led by Mr. Ignatieff has its own agenda ~ power, power, power…. and that any coalition that would give the NDP access to taxpayers’ wallets should strike fear in regular Canadians.” (Don't that just "Shiver yer timbers?")
On the Macleans’ magazine blog page Wednesday (Sept 22nd), former Liberal government speechwriter Scott Feschuk did an annotated version of the Flaherty speech, in which he joked that Conservatives were trying to tell Canadians that the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois would “give us scurvy and ravish our women folk.” (AAAAARRRRR!)
Flaherty’s exact words were: “In the global recession, the ship of state has had a difficult voyage. But we can see the harbour lights. And that’s just when a would-be captain and his ragtag crew are trying to storm the bridge. If they seize the wheel, ladies and gentlemen, they’ll have us on the rocks. And that’s not how this voyage should end.”
Goodale said that he is convinced that the hyper-partisan speech was written by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and that it will surely damage Flaherty's already shakey reputation in economic circles.
“That text was not written by any serious person within the department of Finance,” Goodale quipped, suggesting that when Flaherty speaks in the future on 'serious' economic matters, observers may assume he's delivering more oddly partisan spin. Flaherty has “degraded the currency” ~ Goodale
( I agree Mr. Goodale, it sounds to me like it came from the Propaganda and Mis-information Office)
Bob Rae, Liberal MP for Toronto Centre agreed that it's a mistake for a senior minister to be so partisan.
“This isn't the kind of speech a Minister of Finance should be giving,” Rae said.
Rae also added that "no one at caucus was quaking in their boots" as a result of Flaherty's speech.
"It was just really dumb." ~ Ralph Goodale
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Every time the Conservative ~ Reform ~ Alliance Party (as they were (unbelievably) officially named for just over 24 hours) uses the term 'Coalition', they deserve to be reminded in no uncertain terms that they are a coalition in the formal sense of the word.
It should be obvious that Any use of the term 'coalition' to smear others is just CRAP!
~Excerpt from the CBC.ca article linked above:
"The founding convention was held in January 2000. But, the PC party under former leader Joe Clark concluded that Manning's dream of a united right appeared to be far closer to Reform's values than it was to the party of Sir John A. Macdonald.
At that convention, delegates tried to pick a name that had a little more voter appeal than the United Alternative. Thus, the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance was born. But when the word 'Party' was added, the movement acquired an unfortunate acronym: CCRAP." (now that is a Big C crap)
Really MSM, what are you waiting for? I mean seriously, if ever there was a time when a mutany was justified, this is surely it!
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