Too Cynical for Comfort

The general election of 2011 for Canada's 41st Parliament is over and done with. Whew! And we've attained a majority government. Whew again!

Four years at the least where the government may govern for the good of the country without the constant threat of the opposition parties forming a common front to remove the minority from power. Installing themselves in the process. And infuriating the voting public because what they insist is perfectly legal is still insulting to the democratic process.

After all, if the opposition parties appealed to the electorate as potential governors of the country they would have been voted into that position. People like to think that their effort in attending the polls and voting as they see fit counts for something. It enrages them to think that their vote can be treated so cavalierly.

And in all likelihood the constant threat of the opposition ousting the minority government and installing a coalition helped to elect the current Conservative majority government.

There were some shocks, to be sure. This was an unusual election. With an increased voter turnout. And the truly puzzling lemmings-over-the-cliff phenomena in Quebec, where the horribly irritating and nationally useless Bloc was thrown out on its collective ear, and the NDP which positioned itself as a powerful ally to Quebec's dream of nationality, was given a thorough sweep.

So now there is a 19-year-old Member of Parliament sitting for Quebec, and a woman who couldn't be bothered to campaign and spent her time outside the country instead; only two of many college students and other casual picks who were astounded to find themselves handily elected on May 2nd. The event seemed feckless and foolish, but the voters have spoken.

And that seems to be why most people are inordinately affronted; that should be amended to clarify that the media are offended, the NDP is offended, and several provincial premiers are offended, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he of the majority parliament who may now rule as he will, has done just that.

It is no compliment to the voters who rejected three Conservative candidates, only to see them appointed (and, as the case may be, re-appointed) to the Senate. What could Mr. Harper be thinking? Well, for starters, stacking the deck.

Too cynical for comfort.

Proportional Representation?

Some years back during a federal election Canadian voters took part in a referendum. To signify how they felt about a new potential reform for the Canadian electoral system. It wasn't quite proportional representation, but a modified version of it. And voters turned it down. That hasn't stopped the proponents of proportional representation, however. And isn't it an odd thing that those who urge that such a change occur mostly represent political parties that have never been voted into power by Canada's first-past-the-post system.

Now those who protest our original and only electoral system insist that the majority the Conservative government under Stephen Harper were finally granted by the electorate represents a "false majority". On the basis that under 40% of the electorate voted for the Conservatives - that percentage rises to 48% if we exclude Quebec, and Quebec deliberately excluded itself as it is wont to do when its nose is out of joint; which is a perpetual state.

The protesting groups representing the NDP and the Green parties received far less of the popular vote, needless to say. But the principle that they espouse, that proportional representation would be a fairer recognition of how Canadians tend to vote is one that will not be laid to rest.

It does result, in countries which use that electoral system, in fractionalized governments which, to maintain their integrity must shuffle for support and alliances resulting in a process approximating co-operation, but not always to the best advantage of the country necessarily. The Green party's leader, Elizabeth May, portrays herself and her party as seeking PR from principle.

She won her party's first Parliamentary seat giving her party and herself cause for great celebration. But the Green party, despite fielding 300 candidates won just one seat, after three elections in which they won none. Because the party garnered 7% of the popular vote, a million dollars was doled out in vote subsidies to enable the party to operate and run an election campaign.

That campaign focused on one single seat, chosen because in all of Canada it seemed the most likely to submit to the blandishments of a party focused on the environment. Elizabeth May's previous riding election attempts failed; her reputation and her hubris simply weren't enough to sway voters there to her vision of a new Canada.

How much of a success was her single Parliamentarian win, when the other 299 candidates all failed?

And when, this time around, the Green party garnered a mere 4% of the popular vote? "My concern is less about the number of seats the Greens would have in Parliament, but that the first-past-the-post system has allowed this false Conservative majority when only 39.6% of voters voted for them." There's a vast difference between 4% and 39.6% is there not? Yet she professes unconcern about the lack of seats achieved by the Greens.

The spearhead group, Fair Vote Canada, is now focusing on moving the dispirited, failed Liberals around to their way of thinking, "...because under a proportional system they would have twice the number of seats they have now." Which still would not have given them the lead they anticipated, raising them toward governing status.

Elizabeth May's bravado and sense of entitlement is somewhat galling and insulting to the great numbers of Canadians who voted during this election and feel satisfied that their vote counted as intended. Her contention, "I realize that the term false majority isn't familiar to most Canadians, but the reality is, we will be governed under one for the next four years", makes one groan at the thought this poseur will now sit in Parliament.

The 41st Parliament under Prime Minister Stephen Harper cannot rescind the tax-paid vote subsidy fast enough for many of us. It falsely and insultingly enabled the Bloc Quebecois and the Green parties to assume an importance neither logically and practically were entitled to.

Jack Be Nimble

Jack is feeling his oats. Things have turned out really swell for the leader of the New Democratic Party. His breezy self-confidence was infectious, really impressed people. Particularly the voters in Quebec who liked his smile a whole lot, his spunk and his cane as a prop to remind everyone what a courageous fellow he is.

Why he could have stood a cardboard cut-out resembling a human being out as a candidate in most of the Quebec ridings and still seen a sweep. In fact, that’s just what he did, in effect, given that some of those warm bodies couldn’t be bothered to campaign, to make themselves available for all-candidates’ meetings for public edification, and many didn’t even live in the ridings, much less bother to pop around.

A few absented themselves from the country during the campaign. Nothing seemed to matter; Quebecers, so prone to insult and offence, found nothing untoward in any of this. Out they came in their droves, and drove back the Bloc Quebecois, dropping them from owning 43 seats to a meagre four. In the process astonishing both Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton.

As far as Jack Layton is concerned, he and his party won the election. As far as Gilles Duceppe is concerned, the fact that he was not re-elected in his own riding is a nightmare he has yet to awaken from. The misery of forlorn failure etched deeply in the frowning downturned mouth that presented as a model caricature of abject dejection.

The election, according to Jack, effectively launched a “new chapter in Canadian politics”. For the NDP had been gifted with a “clear mandate” from voters across this great country to represent “hard-working families”. No other political party in Canada has any concern whatever for the hard-working families of the country.

Certainly not the Conservatives who had lowered taxes, given parents additional breaks, and allowed seniors to combine incomes at tax time. The relief that the NDP, given the chance, would offer to hard-working families in Canada would come with higher taxation and greater support for union entitlements.

Jack is celebrating the “clear mandate” given to the NDP, though. “It’s a mandate that Stephen Harper is best to not ignore”, Jack crowed. For as the leader of the official Opposition, someone who is now entitled to move into Stornoway as an extension of living off the taxpayer which Jack and Olivia have had great run experimenting with in Toronto’s assisted housing, he and the NDP are on a roll.

Of course, being so completely focused on the startling success of the NDP in capturing 103 Seats in Parliament, with 58 rookie Members of Parliament from Quebec alone, mentored by the single experienced Quebec MP, the fact that Canada now has four years of a majority Conservative government appears to have escaped his notice.

For a majority government has carte blanch to comport itself in a manner commensurate with a confident minority government, without the acidic suspense of the opposition parties continually threatening to shut down the government and take it over themselves.

But there’s Jack, expressing his joy and jubilation and warning Stephen Harper that he will personally hold him “accountable”. The NDP alone represents a party that protects Canada’s health care system, cares about improving senior pensions, doing right by the environment and stopping corporate interests in their tracks.

“Together, we’re going to hold Stephen Harper’s government to account. Together, we’ll continue to grow our movement, reaching out to more Canadians and more communities”.

Go to it, Jack. And while you’re at it, just remember all those things you promised Quebec to persuade voters there that there was no need to maintain the Bloc in Parliament, for the NDP stands prepared to badger Canadians and threaten the country to respect the collective will of French Canadians as uniquely deserving of very special attention in recognition of their extravagant claims and superior entitlements.

Standing On Principle

It is sad, and rather unfair to see a good man who had contributed much, exit the scene. Politics is a hard game that claims victims during times of elections when no one can quite predict, despite the over-use of polls and focus groups just how the electorate, that volatile beast, will cast its votes. Who could have predicted that the Quebec electorate would toss out the Bloc, and replace it with the NDP?

Perhaps it's feasible enough that French Canadians were fed up with the performance of the Bloc Quebecois in Parliament, with its constant posturing and prodding and percolating demands. Deciding in its stead to vote for a nation-wide party that would represent their interests. Pity that their interests do not quite mesh with those of the rest of Canada.

On the other hand, this past election of 2011 did demonstrate something very useful; that a majority government could be brought to office without the support of Quebec voters. A refreshing realization, one that has been too long in arriving on the scene. Quebec's national arrogance, and its entitlements and its rashness will come back to haunt it.

But it should never again be permitted to think of itself as the most important province in Confederation, one that could go on forever challenging the federal government for its favour, and believing that it held the key to government for any party that it deigned to favour. Quebec voters spurned the Conservatives but in the final analysis they have harmed themselves.

Out of spite a Member of Parliament whose function and performance was beyond reproach has been left out of this 41st Parliament. In his place a neophyte politician with a quaint attraction to medieval arms, a government employee with no past experience. Who won Lawrence Cannon's seat - the past Minister of Foreign Affairs - with a handy 9,000 vote advantage.

"I wouldn't change one iota from what we did. We stood on principle. Our overriding goal was to protect and advance the prosperity and the security of Canada and Canadians and to promote freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law around the world. That is a difficult, sometimes even dangerous, mission, but it is a noble and important one." Lawrence Cannon

One Fallen Swoop

The very most basic of qualifications for a political candidate for public office is to provide some kind of evidence of commitment, both to the service of the country and to the political party under whose banner they plan to run.

And then there is the appeal to the constituents of a riding. First off, that the individual proffering themself as a candidate has a connection to the riding. And is capable of communicating to the public in the common language. And presents themselves for public scrutiny of self, qualifications and stand on matters of public and social interest.

When none of these most basic of qualifications have taken place, and yet the candidate, who has never even visited the riding in question still not only obtains enough votes to win the candidacy, and win by a huge margin, it is questionable whether this is an expression of democracy or sheer public idiocy.

Who knew that behaving like an imbecile was contagious? How else explain that like a herd of mindless sheep people simply flocked to emulate one another in stupidity?

A young woman of 27 who works at a university, student-operated bar, agrees when asked to present her name as a warm body in the quest for enough candidates to cover all ridings in a federal election. This is a casual acquiescence with not even the barest modicum of commitment.

How else explain that during the election campaign not once did Ruth Ellen Brosseau turn up in the riding in question, much less present herself at an all-candidates' meeting. A largely unknown individual, with none of the voters having any idea what her personal platform was.

The so-called "orange crush", simply swept her along on the tide of blind votes because of lavish and irresponsible promises made to the province of Quebec by the leader of the NDP to satisfy all of its desires, however divisive to the rest of the country, inclusive of sovereignty, that his party would be invested in, to please exceptional French-Canadians.

In their rush to shut out the Conservatives, the one party with whom the province should have made an alliance, as the only party at this juncture that could and might very well, accommodate some of the demands of Quebec, the investment of voters was to park their votes with the NDP. Which party shot up in membership from one, to 53, sweeping the province, and ushering the NDP into opposition status.

Heaven help Canada.

Muslim Charities

Aren't Canadians curious about the fact that funding of terrorist activity is carried on as a quasi-legal action within this country? All the more so that our security services have tracked down precisely how this occurs? And that it is permitted to continue?

Mind, the federal government has taken steps to rescind the charitable status permitted to this fund-raising entity. Which does not, in fact, raise funds, but merely accepts the transfer of funds from a well-known supporter of terror groups, effectively, though transit in Canada, white-washing it, for further transfer to places like the U.S.

Our great good friend, the Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi has long had a penchant for generously advancing cash credit to terror groups around the world.

Islamist groups who conduct a campaign of terror can always count on the largesse of oil money garnered through the thirst of the West for energy sources, for distribution to cells invested in spreading terror by conceiving of plots to challenge the lives of their perceived enemies. The more spectacular and gruesome the plot, the more victims are slaughtered in these atrocities, the finer the outcome.

The World Islamic Call Society - sounds innocent, doesn't it? - is based in London, Ontario.

Imagine that, a world-class Islamic society has chosen to position itself in Western Ontario; who knew we would be so deserving of such recognition? Except that the innocent sounding name represents a sole individual tasked to distribute funding in support of terrorism by a special fund of Col. Gadhafi's named the "Jihad fund". Now that's fairly straightforward; we understand quite well what that refers to.

Financial documents received by Canada Revenue Agency indicate that this registered Canadian charity has transferred thousands to Jamaat al-Muslimeen, known for its rape, torture and murder campaigns. Headquartered in Pakistan, it has associates in various parts of the world, including the United States.

Money was wired directly to the bank account of 75-year-old Assem Fadel, president of the sole Canadian franchise of the Islamic Call Society. From Mr. Fadel's personal bank account the money is transferred to the Society for further disbursement to all the terrorist organizations obviously thought to be deserving of this special attention.

Mr. Fadel, for his part, rejects the 'allegations'. "The charity doesn't have a U.S. bank account so the money came to me and I distributed the money as directed by the mother organization in Libya", Mr.Fadel explained. Perfectly clear. He is resigned to continuing the good work funded by Col. Gadhafi less the charitable status now revoked.

For there is a noble purpose to the cause and its funding. For the past four decades that funding has gone to Muslim centres around the world for the purpose of spreading "Muslim culture".

Mr. Fadel also operates a travel agency where he organizes trips to Saudi Arabia. Saudi money also funds terror; the al-Qaeda cultural Muslim association benefits hugely from Saudi generosity, sent directly to its former leader, Osama bin Laden. The funding meant specifically for the purpose of narrowing the gulf of understanding between Western society and Islam.

None of the money has been used to fund terror: "The Muslim faith is the most misunderstood religion in the world, but once Christians sit down and talk with us about the issues, they understand", Mr. Fadel explained, reasonably. It is a canard that the terror group planning the 2007 bombing plot at J.F. Kennedy Airport was funded handsomely by the Canadian charity to the tune of $180,000; calumnies all.

With this knowledge well in hand and well understood, the mystery that remains is why these transactions are permitted to take place at all.

Simply revoking the charitable status of a money-transfer scheme that should never have been granted charitable status to begin with, does not respond to the reality that this is money laundering; taking foreign funds into the country to disguise its origins for later distribution to terror cells in the United States, Europe, and even back to the Middle East.

If the Canadian government is aware of this charade - which it is clear now that it is - why and how can it be possible that this is allowed to go on unobstructed, as an entitlement as a genuine charity under Canadian cover?

An Interesting Four Years

Canada at another crossroad. The political scene has certainly undergone a massive shift. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will now be the relaxed, efficiently reliable administrator of the country's affairs that he is meant to be. He has four uninterrupted years to make his indelible mark on the governance of the country. Building upon the record he has thus far established for steady, reliable and honourable stewardship of Canadian values and traditions.

The initial getting-to-know-you period of minority governments appears to have satisfied the voters' uneasiness about a majority Conservative government. The Conservative-led government has acquitted itself exceedingly well on the home front and abroad. The naysayers keep referring to the 60% of the population that did not vote for the Conservatives, failing to note that a much greater proportion of the voting public opted not to vote for the opposition parties.

The public will now not be forced to live within the irritating suspense of never knowing when another election will be impulsively called by the grudging opposition seeking any opportunity to unseat the government. That represents a situation of greatly appreciated value. We can now permit the government to get on with the business of governing, as it has done up to now more than satisfactorily.

The Liberals have four years to lick their well-deserved, well-earned wounds. From which they will recover in too swiftly a time frame to ensure that they have indulged in a sufficiently-useful collective introspection. Without which it is doubtful they will ever be successful in finally overcoming the disconnect between it and the voting public. They must know that they require a leader with vision and integrity whose foremost interest is the well-being of Canada.

The Bloc Quebecois has finally been put to rest, and no one, certainly not the taxpayers of Canada who have been universally repulsed by its purpose and its spirit of grand entitlement, will miss them. Quebec voters can take the opportunity to self-analyse their collective hysteria in denying themselves representation where it counts; with the Conservatives, in favour of embracing the NDP.

The NDP and its leader, Jack Layton, should itself engage in some deep thought about what, in a free-wheeling spirit of accommodation, was promised recklessly to the Quebec electorate. Just as they should consider the quality of human material they are bringing into the House of Commons to sit as Parliamentarians. That someone of the calibre of Lawrence Cannon was unseated by an unknown neophyte should strike even them as absurd.

As the official opposition in Parliament the NDP has an obligation to the entire country, not merely to the cranky entitlement of one province which went voter-berserk to the point of electing anyone presenting in orange, regardless of residence, experience, age, commitment, communication capability, and intent. Munificent salary, prestige and perquisites aside.

That party too has been given four years to display their talent or lack of it as political professionals capable of tackling the tasks at hand. The initial round-up and details emanating from the campaign trail are not too encouraging.

Veteran Quebec NDPer Thomas Mulcair seems to have gone off the rails in mindless speculation resembling the stuff of conspiracies. There are questions regarding the legitimacy of candidate nomination, and the raw material that the NDP will be training as politicians may do them no favours.

What is emerging will represent, without doubt, an interesting four years.

A Humbled Worthy

The assured arrogance of entitlement that once alternated with a thespian folksiness of an aristocrat submitting to the relaxed demeanor of the man of the people has dissipated. Reality set in with its stunning effects. For no one could really have visualized what the federal election of 2011 for the 41st Parliament of Canada would result in. Certainly not the decimation of that venerable old party, the Liberals.

Fallen now to a historical low. For the first time in its history no longer either the governing party or the temporary set-back of the official opposition. The Liberal Party of Canada has always enjoyed its eternal headquarters either at 24 Sussex Drive or at Stornoway. Now neither of these official residences welcomes it to enjoy yet another stay. Banished to obscurity, a back-handed slap at its manifest destiny.

No longer wither goes Canada goes the Liberal Party.

Canada has veered off on a direction that has left the Liberal party at rather loose ends, confused and forlorn. When the man who has been anointed leader in the wake of too many leadership failures, enticed back home to Canada to deliver the party once again to its natural place of governance is unable to hold on to his own Parliamentary seat, no longer a Member of Parliament, there is nowhere lower to stumble.

Michael Ignatieff delivered a wonderfully heartfelt speech accepting responsibility for the failure of his party to increase the number of its seats, to overtake the Conservatives and install itself back into governance. Surely the responsibility was not all, entirely his alone. The party has failed to ignite itself back into the minds of Canadians, after too many opportunities were worn too thin by a sense of entitlement they were no longer entitled to embrace.

In that regard Mr. Ignatieff was a perfect fit. His constant complaints that Prime Minster Stephen Harper was disdaining democracy reflected his own lapses in spurning democratic action for acclamation. And Mr. Ignatieff's spontaneous warning to Mr. Harper that his "time was up" as prime minister and as his adversary he was prepared to assume that position was stunningly premature.

As was his uninspired decision to lay himself and his party open to disaster through the rash decision to bring down the government on a pretext of censure, when the Liberals were still a long way from being prepared to mount a serious challenge to the Conservatives. When poll after poll demonstrated the insipid rating of the Liberals as opposed to the robust rating of the Conservatives.

Choosing their time badly; when the economy was just recovering and on a steady course; when the party was still in disarray; when the electorate clearly had not reached a flattering opinion of Mr. Ignatieff; when Canadians stated unequivocally they were content to permit this effective minority government to continue - for no one wanted the imposition of an election.

The outcome of this election, under those circumstances, with its $300-million price tag, can only be described as "just desserts". But Mr. Ignatieff's speech was humble, and moving, and beautifully and earnestly delivered, a tour de force of quietly passionate remorse.

Jack On The Dole

NDP Leader Jack Layton, accompanied by his wife, Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow, arrives at the East End Children's Centre during a campaign stop in Toronto on Sept. 17, 2008.ANDREW VAUGHAN/The Canadian Press

Smilin' Jack is beside himself with delight. Throw in some glee; who would've thunk it?

Himself, that's who. Because if there's something Jack Layton is well endowed with, it's a vigorous sense of self-entitlement. We just thought that Michael Ignatieff was stuffed full of himself, in the belief that he would make an excellent prime minister. Or that Stephen Harper felt entitled after his minority-government apprenticeship to an opportunity at full-steam-ahead majority status.

Come-from-behind Jack knows of a certainty that it was time his brilliance as a politician was appreciated. And the public appears prepared to support him in that belief. Will wonders ever cease? And will Canadians finally - actually, yet again - get the government they're deserving of? Which is to say, are there really that many delusional voters dazzled by the fancy hobble-work of Jack-the-survivor to vote him into 24 Sussex Drive?

Jack and his estimable wife are accustomed to tax-subsidized digs. They felt equally entitled to life-support in Toronto in subsidized rent-scaled-to-income living arrangements. Never for one moment considering how peculiar it might look for two well-remunerated politicians taking away housing from those who really do need it; they just felt kind of comfortable there, anything wrong with that?

Well, yes. There is, a whole lot wrong with it. Something analogous to being the high-spending duo in Parliament out of the entire Member-of-Parliament contingent. A rather extravagant $1.6-M total expenditure annually for office expenses, travel and what-not, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. When asked to justify that huge sum in an interview with a nosy reporter, Olivia Chow simply said "it isn't illegal".

It should be. But there's an honour system in Parliament. We figure that those whom we elect to public office have a care about how they spend-and-claim taxpayer-funded largess. After all, our lawmakers are important to the political health and social well-being of this country. If we cannot trust them to be sensible and prudent with the country's welfare uppermost in mind, then who can we trust?

Well, Jack of course. He has great plans for this country. He and the unions that support him want better bargains for union workers. They're not sufficiently entitled. An already-bleeding industry sector better get ready to bleed more jobs as manufacturers decide to re-settle offshore. Ditto for foreign investment, when Jack decides to raise corporate taxes. Employment heading south....

As for viable candidates, Jack promises more women in his caucus and Cabinet than any other party. Olivia Chow for Treasury Board by way of Finance. And those NDP female candidates who absented themselves in Las Vegas and France and just elsewhere-who-knows-where, to prove their commitment to the party and the country, will be slipped into office by voters suddenly enamoured with the NDP.

And then there's Quebec, and its special status; very special under Prime Minister Jack Layton. Feel like extending Bill 101? Right on. Restrict English, sounds like a sound business choice. And no, there will be no Supreme Court judges appointed under his rule who are not efficiently bilingual. Nope, no English-language studies for Quebecers who think they may slip through the barriers. As for Quebec independence, why not; a simple majority will do; rescind the Clarity Act.

Who needs the Bloc when they've got Jack Layton and the NDP in the PMO? Got those moving vans busy at 24 Sussex yet?

A Socially NDP Canada

We preparing for a clean sweep this time around? All the devoted followers of the NDP set to shout in unison: "Prime Minister Jack Layton!" And all the newly engaged suddenly seeing in nimble Jack - who can turn any perceived advantage on a dime toward the NDP and his personal cause to steer the country- the social progressive we've been waiting for all these years.

Middle-class families (who even knew the NDP cared beyond the low-waged, the welfare recipients, entitled trade unionists, and oh yes, the odd academic here and there, and hard-put-to-pay-tuition students?), the retired, small business, UNIONS (sorry, didn't mean to shout it out), Quebec nationalists (separatists, that is) and (disaffected) Muslims.

Joining them in a hugely enthusiastic group hug, none other than Bloc organizers who are now encouraging those who might normally vote Bloc to transfer their allegiance to the NDP, so they can have a real voice in Parliament, a federal party which is prepared to give Quebec everything it hankers after.

Gilles Duceppe may be feeling betrayed, may have his nose slightly out of joint with disbelief at the traitorous turn of events, but if Pauline Marois obligingly steps aside he can always vent his outrage at the helm of the Parti Quebecois and learn to love partnering with Prime Minister Jack Layton who will be most pleased to grant all his demands, in spades.

Inclusive of waving 'bye-'bye, when Quebec decides finally it's time to shove off. They'll do it, taking with them those parts of the province that don't want to go, would prefer to stay with Canada, but then they're just aboriginals so who gives a damn anyway? They'll also manage to keep a comfortable level of transfer payments because being on the dole is so addictive.

And here's another constituency falling all over itself to endorse the NDP and get out the vote. It's the Holocaust-denying contingent of the Canadian Muslim community who don't much like Stephen Harper and his corrupt, perverted view of justice and morals, standing in solidarity with Israel's right to defend itself against the ongoing attacks by Hamas against Israeli citizens.

Welcome to the fold, all. Of course the NDP's extravagant plans to alter Canada's vision of itself, and to irremediably change the economic landscape resulting in a gangbuster of a green economy and bruised corporate interests, and a failing job market and steeply rising taxes, and failed investments, and a very happy Quebec, will alter this country beyond recognition.

Canada, the country that deserves to hobble along the same track as the failed Italy, Greece, Iceland, Spain, Ireland; we'll be in noble company.

Premier Qualities

Has quite the spectacular ring to it, got to admit it: "Prime Minister Jack Layton". Jack thinks it's about time. Members of the NDP do, too.

They've worked long and hard in the background of Canadian politics and feel justified in claiming they deserve the chance and the opportunity to prove themselves. It is perfectly true that the tireless nudging and badgering and background manipulation NDP-effect on various Liberal and Conservative-led governments can be traced to the adoption of some of Canada's more progressive social welfare programs.

We grant them that. They've been a background social conscience, as it were. And they've always been able to think of expensive social welfare programs that the reigning parties haven't signed on to, as well. Just a hopeful wish list. Their enthusiasm for social engineering and welfare and progressive stances on everything to make for one great big happy federation cannot be denied.

And there have been provincial NDP governments that haven't done too badly.

While others, like those that prevailed for a short while of temporary disorder in Ontario and British Columbia proved that the NDP had a great potential for screwing up right royally. Funny thing about that; in both instances the former NDP premiers after being tossed ignominiously out of office turned to the Liberal Party, which welcomed them warmly, and where they then set out to practise what they preached there, too.

Jack Layton performed exceedingly well at the Leaders' Debates; fluently bilingual, just a nice guy. And he really laid into Michael Ignatieff, pricelessly slaughtering him with the lines that pointed out that you've got to be present in the House to cast your vote and to demonstrate your dedication to your chosen profession to be counted in. "You know, most Canadians, if they don't show up for work, they don't get a promotion. You missed 70 per cent of the votes."

Point well taken, Jack. Can we assume too that if you're running for office during an election your candidates should be there, at the ready, prepared to return calls and emails, and show up at all-candidate meetings, and knock at doors and generally be there in the riding as a kind of signal that they're really, truly interested in being elected? The Canadian public was advised that only the NDP really invested heavily in encouraging female candidates.

So what's this? The NDP candidate for Berthier-Maskinonge chose to go on vacation to Las Vegas? Rather inconvenient, isn't it? I mean is this the way a candidate for political office demonstrates commitment? Good thing Cedric Williams was available as NDP Quebec campaign spokesman to give a reasonable explanation. "It's just that in this case she needed to go, and she couldn't get refunded." Oh. Good for Ruth Ellen Brosseau, She has her priorities.

Hey, another one: The NDP candidate for Richmond-Athabasca couldn't make an all-candidates debate because she is currently in France for three weeks? Isabelle Maguire has decided that being in France for three weeks tops sticking around home just because she's running for public office. And Cedric Williams is on top of that one too, he's in the process of verifying her whereabouts. He'll get back to us with another excellent explanation.

But they're not just in Quebec. Nicole Yovanoff, the NDP candidate running in Don Valley West is kind of ... not there ...? No telephone number, no campaign office, does not return emails, chose not to attend all-candidates' meeting. That's a peculiar kind of commitment, but then who knows? That's the thing about the NDP, their pluralist-socialist-ideology attracts the young and the untried; lots of university students opting to run while writing exams.

And then there's the mild embarrassment of candidates who suddenly decide, looking around at their opponents' energetic programs that it's just too much of a stretch to get out there and contest the seat, after all. Throwing in the banners and the posters and resigning their nomination, preferring to throw their support to a worthwhile rival - say the riding's Conservative nominee, as a better fit?

You'd think that would be enough to give the party and its dauntless leader a fit, but no, Jack is as chirpy and as self-assured as ever. He keeps studying his profile in the mirror, squinting a bit, and saying to that reflection, full-face, "now say after me, Prime Minister Jack Layton".

State-Funded Child Care

The Liberals and the NDP decry the Conservatives for not having launched a universal day-care plan, which both the Liberals and the NDP have mused about for a decade. Something that might be modelled after the Quebec day-care option, with $7-a-day, government sponsored and defrayed day care. Which the Conservatives years ago turned around and opted instead for a far less costly and less-intrusive yearly child-care support to parents to decide for themselves how the funding should be spent.

It's a nominal sum, serving as a recognition that some parents prefer to raise their children with one parent at home, rather than farm their children out to day-care providers. It is a tip of the hat to standard, old-fashioned parenting, in fact. And an admission that the Conservatives see it as impractical in the sense of becoming too great a financial burden for the taxpayer to support the concept of affordable, regulated, universal day-care. The public education system exists as a needful model of state-subsidized education.

As for the supposed effectiveness of state-subsidized day-care for the country's children, leaving parents not only free to get out into the workforce, but seeming to insist that they do so, since they have been freed by the state to do just that; parents feel the obligation they are under to leave the raising of their children to others. The end result of which can be far different than what those who encourage and demand it might anticipate, given the experience of a country which devoted itself to that very concept.

Sweden, with its long history of admired and often-emulated social welfare, had its universal, state-subsidized child-care system evaluated and the resulting study published in 2006 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked Sweden at the top and Canada at the bottom in child care provision. The comprehensive, affordable day care available in Sweden, and its history of gender equality has resulted in a very high percentage of women joining the paid workforce. After all, the demanding occupation of child care has been removed.

Because of a policy of generous parental leave of sixteen months after birth, mothers look after their babies for the first year-and-a-half. After that fully 92% of Swedish children from 18 months to five years are looked after in a day-care setting. Day-care subsidies are set at $20,000 annually per child. Which, among other things, explains why Swedish taxes represent among the highest in the world. The day-care system was initiated in 1975, and it took until the 1990s for an evaluation of the success of the program to be undertaken and recognized.

What was recognized was that Swedish health-care professionals cite the lack of parental involvement in their children's upbringing, and the parents' unfamiliarity with child rearing techniques as being responsible for socially dysfunctional children. Swedish youth are exhibiting psychological problems and disorders at a rate far accelerated over their European counterparts. As for educational progress in Swedish schools, they have descended from the top 30 years earlier to average among OECD nations.

Problem behaviours in Swedish schoolchildren far outdistance those of their European counterparts. The ratio of teachers to students is also increasing with deleterious outcomes. Quality service and care has been impeded by the simple fact that Sweden has been involved in a financial crisis. The bold and progressive experiment in state child-rearing has proven to be a failure.

Canadians should have no interest in going down that same dismal road.

Rise Up!

Sounding like a passionate, mind-addled Evangelist, Michael Ignatieff chanted to an attentive crowd during an election stop, a fusillade of Obama-like inspiration: "Rise Up!, Rise Up!, Rise Up!" One suspects that in a self-induced trance of hubristic entitlement he felt not the least bit embarrassed. There were some onlookers to the event who must have doubted his sanity.

A temporary unhinging of the mind, that's all. He was restored to his usual self-assured, folksy attitude, no longer resembling an outright imbecile, in short order. Must have been something he had for lunch, or a nightmare he experienced the night before that horrified him with a technicolour vision of a majority government for the Conservatives.

Or, quite simply, a recall of his predecessor, the estimable Stephane Dion, declaring at the 2006 Liberal party convention: "We must get back to power as soon as possible." Possibly, Michael Ignatieff has been haunted by those words ever after. Particularly as, having assisted in ushering Mr. Dion off the stage, and manoeuvring himself into position, "as soon as possible" seems to have eluded him.

And then, there's that statement by M. Ignatieff's nemesis, Stephen Harper who said: "We're in the election to win, and all I can say is serving my party and serving Canadians in my capacity as leader and prime minister is a great honour, it will always be a great honour". Precisely, it is that, and more, and S. Harper is clearly undeserving of that great honour.

It is one that Michael Ignatieff, an aristocrat born, yearns to savour. And that detestable S. Harper stands stolidly in his way. What could conceivably be more intolerable. He has presented the electorate with his plan, put voters on notice.

"What I'm prepared to do is talk to Mr. Layton or Mr. Duceppe or even Mr. Harper and say: 'Look, we've got an issue here. How do we solve it? Here's the plan I want to put before Parliament, this is the budget I would bring in, and then we take it from there'". Clear enough; the issue that is. Being Mr. Ignatieff's insatiable thirst for power. Take it from there.

The proceedings of a democratic election will not faze him. The presentation of another minority government a heaven-sent opportunity to thumb his entitled nose at the electorate's choice. Haven't the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc already pledged to reject another Conservative budget? Ergo, the House has no confidence in the minority government.

Or, as Mr. Harper says: "So there will either be a Conservative majority or it will be a majority cobbled together between the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois." "It's very, very clear", said Bob Rae, "You form a government because you have the most seats, and if you win the confidence of the House of Commons ... you continue in government.

"And when you lose confidence, you lose." Rise Up!

Denials Notwithstanding

Well, at least now it's out there, in the open. A frank admission, finally, by the leader of the Liberal Party expressing his sincere anxiety not to allow an opportunity to pass, grasping fortune if it wags its beckoning little finger at him. Should, then, the Conservatives be voted into yet another minority government, the stage will have been set for another try at wrenching government administration from the Conservatives to the Liberals.

Without going back to the polls. That's the thing of it. Voters do not view the Liberal party and its current leader as their choice to lead the country. They have expressed their opinion fairly loud and clearly in the past three elections. Not that loudly, admittedly, as to be without equivocation, since a majority continues to elude the Conservatives. But, fourth time around it may not.

Yet Mr. Ignatieff has no hesitation now in spelling out a winning strategy for himself.

He cannot possibly win any other way. Since all polls indicate the relative positions of the Conservatives in public opinion vis-a-vis the Liberals, unmistakably favouring the Conservatives. When is a win not a win? When the loser decrees it to be a loss; not for himself, for the winning party.

He will take it upon himself to toss the Canadian voters' preference into the trash heap of rejection and offer up a prize instead - himself.

We've seen this little playbook before. When the majority of Canadians politely responded by saying, "thanks, but no thanks". Guess Mr. Ignatieff's head is so stuffed with his ambition that it went right by him, failed entirely to register. On the other hand, there are some people so beset by their ambition that they feel they cannot possibly be wrong; just a little arm-twisting here and there to satisfy the Democratic ideal.

If the Tories think they can ascend once again to the seat of governance, they've got another think coming, he huffs righteously. The voters may place them in that position, but the House of Commons is required to validate that position, and he will see to it that this does not happen. With a little help from his friends. Two can sing that ditty.

No coalition, though. Trust him. Do not - repeat - do not listen to the twisted warning issuing from Stephen Harper's lips. The man cannot be trusted.

The bloody nerve, claiming that the Liberals' goal is to form a coalition government. No need, no need at all. Support, that's all. Mr. Ignatieff will not be indebted to the NDP, let alone the Bloc; perish the thought on that last tag, for he loves Canada, a united, unified country.

"We owe it to the people to be absolutely clear and to make it clear afterwards so when the people make up their mind they know what the route here is", he stated, explaining his "two-stage" process of obtaining what a free and fair democratic vote could not give him.

After all, he became leader of the Liberals bypassing a democratic vote, so why not Prime Minister?

That's the way his system works.

Extortion And Separation

It is nothing short of infuriating that a Canadian province has a population that maintains a provincial party whose intention it is to lead the province out of the federation, and that it votes into power another, supporting party dedicated to the same intolerable mission. What makes this such a damnable situation is that both the provincial and the federally-designated parties squeeze and demand out of Canadian taxpayers one concession after another and the funding to go with them.

Their immense sense of entitlement to match their sense of aggrievement that they are an island of French-speaking, French-cultured first-founders whose specialness is never adequately recognized is a source of constant friction between the majority English-speaking population of the country and the hubristic French-speakers. The Province of Quebec within the federation of the provinces that make up Canada is, in fact, a self-selected apartheid state.

They consider themselves nationalists, aspiring to achieve nationhood for their province. And they scorn those francophones in the province who consider themselves federalists, content to have their province remain within Confederation. And while Quebecois in the majority do seem to feel they would prefer to remain within Canada, they have not been averse to playing Devil's advocate.

They support the Bloc Quebecois to send it as an irritant to sit in the House of Commons, much like an oyster hosts a grain of sand that irritates the oyster compelling it to cover the speck of sand with a material that eventually turns into a precious pearl. For Quebecers that pearl is extravagant transfer payments and other monetary considerations in reflection of Quebec's expertness in turning the screw of ransom.

The rest of Canada is so anxious to retain Quebec within the federation, so eager to please Quebec, that it agrees to permit itself to be held to ransom, and this state of affairs has continued over the years to the point where finally many in the rest of Canada are beginning to question the utility and the futility of it all. Why bother? They want to leave; leave and be done with it.

The verbal atrocities emanating from the just-concluded Parti Quebecois conference that resulted in a resounding re-affirmation of its leader Pauline Marois with a 93.1% vote of confidence, is reflexively gagging. Ms. Marois stating that Ottawa would be judged harshly by resisting Quebec's demands for more power. By whom? The ever-resourcefully-blackmailing Bloc?

There was a defeated proposal to outlaw English on commercial signs. The time is not yet ripe for that initiative; it is yet to come. Bill 101 will receive a proposal to incorporate an additional restriction disallowing francophones and the children of immigrants to choose to attend English-language colleges. All in the name of cementing into law the primacy of the French language.

Delegates to the conference voted to ensure French is "the priority language" in all provincial courts and tribunals in Quebec, inclusive of those under federal jurisdiction. And the language police will be further instructed to become more diligently vigilant and more intrusive and more offensively aggressive.

Under consideration is the investigation of whether anglophone hospitals and municipalities serve sufficient numbers of anglophones to justify continued English-language operation.

"It is another way to show how sovereignty is necessary for our identity, for our language and even for the development of our cultural economic and social programs", Ms. Marois exulted. For none is as exceptional as francophones. In the interests of solidifying its position Quebec is prepared to invoke the notwithstanding clause to override the Charter's protection of rights and freedoms.

In other words, leaving anglophones, allophones and immigrants with few choices but to accept the mandated status quo. Quebec is close to a provincial election. The currently-ruling Liberal party is at an extremely low popularity level. Cue the Parti Quebecois.

Which is prepared, once it is re-installed in power, to insist from the federal government on new powers and control respecting language, environment, culture, economic and regional development, and immigration budgets. There is never enough funding for Quebec, which prides itself on its social programs paid for courtesy of the rest of Canada.

And the once very-catholic Roman Catholic Church-dominated province moves ever closer to complete social secularity, for a new Parti Quebecois government will be prepared to put religious orthodoxy in its public place, barring public servants from wearing conspicuous religious symbols.

And the Bloc, its partner in secession?

"More united than ever. We have only one task to accomplish: elect the maximum number of sovereigntists in Ottawa and then we go to the next phase. Electing a PQ government. A strong Bloc in Ottawa. A PQ in power in Quebec. And everything becomes possible." Gilles Duceppe

The unconscionable part of all of this is that the Canadian taxpayer across this great country is paying for the PQ and the Bloc to perform their nasty little dance of extortion and separation.

The Last Word

There's a lamentable paucity of women in Canadian politics. Politics is, admittedly, a rough-and-tumble game of one-upsmanship, of agitating and finagling, demonstrating and cajoling, advantage-seeking and provocations. It has always been a man's game, evoking a spirit of competitive action, akin to participatory team sport and intellectual warfare. Women have got to be tough to compete, to be treated like 'one of the boys'.

And tough women don't weep and wail and defend themselves by invoking pity and compassion as a wronged and helpless woman, one who has in her arms a gurgling new baby, isn't he cute? So none of this is fair, this characterization as politics as primarily a man's occupation and not a woman's. Too much hinges on participation by both genders to truly represent the interests of an entire society.

Just as men have to tough it out when the game gets rough, so too do women. It is hugely unfortunate that the Prime Minister chose not to courteously set time aside in his busy schedule to permit a brief interview with Helena Guergis either before or after he decided to remove her from her portfolio and from the Conservative caucus. One might suppose decency and civility required at least that on behalf of a former colleague.

On the other hand, it could also be assumed that Ms. Guergis, when she was still being defended for her many gaffes by Stephen Harper, had enjoyed previous little chats where it may have been established that her deportment and attention to her job might be improved, be less exasperatingly irritating to her political coevals and Cabinet colleagues.

Patience is not extended forever, not on anyone's behalf. When questionable new irregularities arose, compounded by unsubstantiated allegations, it may have become evident to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet that patience sometimes runs thin when the rewards are not forthcoming, and there comes a time to pull the plug. Ms. Guergis went down with the bathwater.

Tales told out of class may be rumours, but the rumours that attached themselves to her through her husband's finagling and misuse of his former position with the Conservatives and her current insider position of trust and entitlement within that same party simply ran afoul of expectations and adherence to rules and regulations.

She had her opportunity to exact a bit of revenge, but the simple facts of inattentiveness to party discipline and expectations due from a Cabinet minister however modest in nature, and her unfortunate pairing with an unprincipled, entitled former politician led the way to her dismissal. She still had her elected position, and she is now re-contesting it.

Her constituents will have the last word.

There's a Stretch

Smirking George Galloway is at it again. Things have been too quiet for him. He's ready again to raise a stink. Easily enough done in his presence; a baleful odour of malice emanates from his persona; it has the stink of righteousness in the mind of an anti-Semite. A natural enough alliance with groups who claim Jews represent the oppressors of the world, and Palestinians the perennial victims.

He admires and seeks to promote the vision of Hamas, a terror group outlawed in many Western countries, including Canada. While a sitting member of Britain's Parliament representing the Labour party, he took it upon himself to travel to Gaza and personally meet with the Hamas leadership. He defends Hamas as a responsible political group waging a war against the 'terrorists of Israel'.

Handing over cash and vehicles and other representative items of his great esteem for their purpose and their work, George Galloway proudly presents as a supporter of Hamas, an adversary of genocidal Israel whose military slaughtered untold numbers of innocent civilians to hear him tell it, during Israel's incursion into Gaza to halt rocket attacks against its population.

And now George has identified another adversary. The Government of Canada, and its Immigration Minister under the Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Jason Kenney, invoking his authority as a Minister of the Crown responsible for issuing visas, denied one to Galloway on the basis of his support of a terror group.

A decision which was later overturned by a Canadian federal court which insisted that it was too much of a stretch to label him a Hamas supporter merely because he delivered an 'aid convoy' and money to Gaza in care of Hamas. That the ban on permitting him entry to Canada to speak at an anti-Israel rally was unwarranted.

And thus, George Galloway has launched a lawsuit, suing Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney for defamation. Holding him responsible, through his Toronto lawyer, of being the cause, by alerting British media of Canada's barring of his entry to Canada, of his later loss of his seat through a failed re-election to Parliament.

The Blair government of which he was once a part, tossed him out in 2003 for opposing Britain's role in the Iraq war. And when he ran as a candidate in his riding for the left-wing Respect party in 2010, he was voted a remote third. Which proves that he is singularly unpopular in his riding, not that his refusal of entry to Canada a year earlier motivated voters to deny him his seat.

Obviously, his political antics, his vainglorious search for publicity, his identification with terror groups and his slander of Israel have not endeared him to that particular voting public. Unless we assume too much of the discriminating voters in the riding he sought to represent.

Snipes and Exchanges

Testy little verbal episodes revealing the ambitions and studied agendas of the participants. In the 12 April leaders' debate televised for the instruction and entertainment of Canadian voters all three opposition party leaders trotted out their disdain for the Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

All made an effort to portray him as anti-democratic, an ambitious schemer, a hard-right-wing diehard ideologue with a hidden schedule not yet embarked upon because of his insecurity as a minority parliament Prime Minister. Patiently biding his time for a majority government when all the evils of a corrupt mind intent on destroying Canadian values would be unveiled.

Memory nudges there to the Liberal Chretien government cutting back on transfers to the provinces for health and education when Paul Martin was finance minister and bringing down the deficit was more important than maintaining the integrity of Canada's social values. That too was the time when the public service was targeted for cut-backs to an extent no Conservative-led government would ever have presumed to initiate.

But the thing of it is that the Prime Minister has been governing as though he had a majority. Boldly and with vision, both of which have been dreadfully upsetting to the opposition. Who, in their criticism of everything that Stephen Harper and his well-placed Cabinet have done, from immigration to the economy, to health care and international affairs, also managed to overlook the fact that he has not unleashed his secret agenda.

No strenuous efforts to alter the social agenda of the country's social fabric and values, from universal health care to access to abortions. Many of the initiatives, in fact, that the Conservative-led government has undertaken have had the support at one time or another, when it suited their own agendas, of the various oppositions; from investing in infrastructure funding to decreasing corporate tax rates.

And there was Michael Ignatieff hammering away at the democratic ideal which he insists the Prime Minister has insulted. He would promote democracy abroad, he avers, as prime minister. "But to that you have to believe in democracy at home and Mr. Harper has betrayed democracy at home", he claimed.

And then swallowed hard when the rejoinder from Mr. Harper was that Mr. Ignatieff's clinging to the idea that he is entitled to bring down a duly elected government - referring to the 41st one this time - should the Conservatives be re-elected with another minority, as soon as he might conceivably manage it; as a reflection of the latest effort.

"That's not how our system works. The party that wins most seats forms the government. The alternative is to allow a party dedicated to the break up of the country to decide who gets into power. That's not good for the country", said Mr. Harper. And most Canadians seem to feel the very same sentiment; they want the result of their vote to be respected.

Despite which, Michael Ignatieff made no secret of his intention to reject the budget which Mr. Harper said he would re-introduce if he is once again elected. The budget was rejected, and led the way to a no-confidence vote in the government on a pretext that the government had acted prejudicially in contempt of Parliament - by not supplying the costs demanded for the prison and the F-35 initiatives.

Which the Liberal-led governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin also engaged in, with their majority-led governments. But obviously what is sauce for that goose wasn't so for this gander. And Jack Layton's reproach to Michael Ignatieff was rather precious: "Why do you have [the] worst attendance record of any member of the House of Commons? If you want to be prime minister, you'd better learn to be a member of Parliament first."

With Ignatieff's huffy rejoinder that "I don't surrender to anyone in my respect for the institution of Parliament or my obligation to the people who put me there, so don't give me lessons on respect for democracy", rounding out the entertainment quotient of the evening's debate.

Debatable Intent

Michael Ignatieff's main thrust during the leaders' debate was a cut-and-paste from his usual electioneering declarations that Stephen Harper stands out as a Canadian politician with no respect for democracy. And that's kind of fascinating, coming from a man who decided the best route for him to take personally was to ascend to the leadership of the Liberal Party without a democratic vote.

But these are inconvenient details, of course.

The Prime Minister was imperturbable throughout, sticking with his message of having presided over successful minority governments, representing Canada's best interests, and bringing the country relatively unscathed out of the global recession. The democratic deficit wouldn't go away, however, as Ignatieff made scathing note of a young woman being turned away from a Conservative election rally during the campaign.

As though Stephen Harper personally ordered her removed, and not a volunteer functionary who helped set up the rally. And it was more than a little interesting to read an illuminating column written by Lorne Gunter and published in the National Post a day after the event, describing how common it is for all political parties to engage in such scrutiny of event-attendees; engaging someone to be alert to their presence, prepared to usher them away from the event.

What was so very fascinating about that revelation was that Mr. Gunter mentioned that he had himself been hired to do just that during election campaigns; set his sights on those who looked as though they might spell trouble for the candidate during the rally, identify them and invite them to leave the premises. That he was hired to do this by the Liberal Party itself, speaks volumes.

Mr. Harper's firm message that he has comported himself well in his position of Prime Minister, in the best interests of the country, and that the only reason Canada was now in the throes of an election once again, is that the opposition parties defeated him not in the best interests of the country at the core of their argument, but from sheer political opportunism reflected reality.

As for the election promises spilling forth from all the political parties, seeking to woo the electorate, whose is the most compellingly reasonable? The Liberals and the NDP whose billion-dollar-plus promises for additional health care spending, education, family support, small business, elder-care and other irresistible carrots would beggar the treasury and bury the country deeper in debt, or the Conservatives who proffer programs that would only be launched once the debt has been paid down?

If For No Other Reason....

The relatively new funding of political election campaigns in Canada through taxpayer-funded allowances reflecting ballots cast for each party, valued at $2 per vote to fund political parties isn't such a great idea, even if its supporters consider it the most democratic way to go. Political parties are capable of raising their own funds from their own supporters. They should be left to do so.

While at first blink it may seem like a good idea to dispense largesse to enable Canadian political parties to relax about raising funds for election campaigns and focus their attention on conducting the campaigns themselves, a closer look should be given to the protocol. Elections Canada already dispenses roughly $29-million in reimbursing for qualifying election expenses.

Is it really all that great an idea to dispense an additional $28-million to match the number of votes each party receives in a campaign? It mightn't actually be all that bad an idea to continue the practise - if it were not for the existence of a province-specific political party whose sole purpose is to battle Confederation on behalf of an independent, sovereigntist Quebec.

Why in the world would Canadian taxpayers be expected to fund a political party intent on (1) extracting all the benefits and funding conceivable through transfer payments and by additional extortion and blackmail to further entitle Quebec, and (2) continue encouraging Quebecois to support the battle for complete independence from Confederation.

We permit a sovereigntist group to sit as a 'nationalist' federal political party which has constituents in one province only. We accord that party full Parliamentary privileges and democratic respect, when it is completely disinterested in the future of Canada, and wholly dedicated to dividing the country. Must we also generously fund that party to enable it to conduct its campaigns?

The Bloc Quebecois depends on the per-vote subsidy for about 50% of its funding. French-Canadian voters reward that party with a majority, sending it back to Parliament, rather than supporting a national federal political party, to maintain their edge and successfully barter for increased privileges. If they're so dedicated to that party, let them fund it with their donations out of their own pockets.

Remove the public subsidy, then the test to challenge the Bloc's complacency and financial integrity would be halfway met. The $2.8-million that the Bloc received after the 2008 election results were in is an affront to Canadians and the values they hold dear. Primarily the wish to hold the country together as a whole, not fragment it as the Bloc is determined to do.