That's Rich ... !

The governing Conservatives would do well to pick up some pointers from the most successful army on earth at one time: the Romans, who went into battle formation with shields held high to deflect all the slings and arrows their puny adversaries shot their way, to reach resounding success on the battlefield. The Canadian House of Commons resembles nothing so much, of late, as a political - and jejune - battlefield.

The opposition - most particularly the Official Liberal Opposition, with their righteously baying hounds in tow - has been delighting in poring through tired old manuscripts and creaky old audio recordings, to come up with arguments of misdemeanors in carriage attributable to unwary members on the government benches.

The latest is an 8-year-old recording of Jason Kenny, Calgary MP and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian identity being overheard to make a statement based on an inconvenient fact of life, that when it appears politically expedient, ethnic or religious or cultural groups occasionally highlight their particularity by claiming government bias.

That this is a fact of life is without doubt. That Minister Kenny was incautious enough - even in a closed-session venue where he was unaware he was being recorded for 8-year-later posterity - to state that fact of life as a verity, leaves him open to the slamming damnation of racism.

He had stated that "overheated Sikhs" may use "the race card" to profit their arguments.

Imagine. As though other singularly particular groups don't do the same thing on occasion; as though this not-so-subtle cultural-political-voting blackmail has a secret existence unknown to parliamentarians; indeed society as a whole. All seems, in fact, to be fair in the war of politics.

And here's the thing of it. Newly re-constituted Bob Rae, he of NDP Ontario premiership infamy, is the one to really push the issue.

And while Mr. Kenny can state with conviction, "I've devoted much of my time in public life to promoting the active involvement of Canadians from diverse backgrounds in our political institutions, Mr. Speaker. I'm proud of my record", one would like to hear from Mr. Rae on the matter of his time in public life.

For example, his authoritarian mismanagement of Ontario's affairs during an economic downturn that left the education system underfunded and in a shambles; the diminishment of services while raising individual taxes; the slashing of public sector jobs, and the infamous "Rae days" where workers were encouraged to voluntarily take time off for unpaid work days.

And where the problem of skyrocketing health service costs to the province would be handily dealt with by ordering universities to clamp down on medical school enrolment, greatly diminishing the number of graduates to service the population. Leading the province to its current state of critical medical graduate shortages.

And the unions that had formerly been so supportive of Bob Rae and his NDP government, deserting him out of sheer disgust at his union bashing techniques. And his having left a booming provincial deficit after leaving office. Paving the way for Mike Harris and his "Common Sense Revolution" that would further ravish the province.

Coming soon to a ballot box near you, for the next general election ....