I get mail....

Received today, from my ever eager Conservative MP for Nepean-Carleton, Pierre Poilievre:

Stand up for Canada - Let the people speak

Two months ago, Canadians elected the Prime Minister with a strengthened mandate to address the global economic crisis.

Now, a Socialist-Separatist-driven coalition is attempting to overturn the results of the last election and impose a Prime Minister that Canadians rejected.

The Socialist-Separatist-driven coalition is:

• An attack on Canada
• Separatist participation and a Separatist veto on national decisions
• An attack on Canada’s democracy
• Canadians resoundingly rejected Stéphane Dion as Prime Minister
• An attack on Canada’s economy
• The Liberals themselves called the NDP “economically-damaging”.

Canada’s Government will use every legal means possible to:

• Protect Canada
• No Separatist Participation and No Separatist Veto
• Protect Canada’s democracy
• No imposition of a radical new Government without the people’s consent
• Protect Canada’s economy
• No economically-damaging agenda for the country

During a global economic crisis, Canada needs leadership. Canadian leadership. There can be no Socialist-Separatist-driven coalition without the people’s consent.

It’s time to Stand up for Canada.

It’s time to Let the people speak.

Contact Info for the leaders of this Coalition:

Stephane Dion

Phone:-613-996-5789

Fax: 613-996-6562

Jack Layton

Phone: 613-995-7224

Fax: 613-995-4565

Contact Info for the Governor General:

Phone: 613-993-8200

Email: smcook@gg.ca

Isn't that swell?

Here's my response:

Dear Pierre,

Shut the hell up.

There is nothing illegal or extra constitutional about the Liberals NDP and Bloc forming a coalition. Two months ago, the people of Canada elected their MPs to Parliament. We don't elect the Prime Minister, Parliament does. The Prime Minister is the person who can maintain the confidence of the House. Under normal circumstances that is the leader of the Party with the most seats, by convention. During a minority, it requires that the person acting as Prime Minister works with the other parties to ensure maintaining that confidence. If he loses that confidence, the government falls and we either have an election OR someone else in Parliament can try to for the government.

Well, Stephen Harper thought it better to take advantage of an economic crisis for crass,partisan political opportunism to try and destroy his political enemies by means outside of the ballot box. THAT is undemocratic.

Harper took a gamble and he lost. In a gl;obal economic crisis Canada does indeed need leadership - too bad Stephen Harper choose not to be that leader, but a petty bully with no vision or plan.

I'd like to point out that the proposed coalition represents more than 50% of the population and commands 163 seats in the House of Commons. It represents the 63% of Canadians that specifically didn't vote for Stephen Harper. It is by definition, legal, constuitutional and representing the will of Canadians.

If you don't understand how our system works, why are you an MP? If you don't like this system, propose a meanful systemic change or leave. Just stop the lying and fear-mongering. It merely shows how desparate and child-like you are.

Your points specifically:

"Socialist-Separatist-driven coalition"

Yawn. This kind of belicose language might play in the US or, but not in most of this country. Every party to the coalition is a legitmate federal party with seats in Parliament.

• An attack on Canada
• Separatist participation and a Separatist veto on national decisions

No, the Bloc has laid out its conditions and signed an accord that states very clearly what it will do. It says nothing about vetoing national decisions. I might point out that the Bloc represents more than just "separatists"...many non-separatist Quebecers vote Bloc because they provide good representation.

• An attack on Canada’s democracy
• Canadians resoundingly rejected Stéphane Dion as Prime Minister

No, that is a bald faced lie. This move is totally within the rules of our Parliamentary democracy and actually has precident, both federally and provincially, in Canadian history. "Canadians" did not reject Stephane Dion as PM because Canadians didn't vote for Stephane Dion - they only voted for their MP. STop confusing our system with the American Presidential system. Or stop purposely doing this to confuse people who may not know better. No Canadian voted for Stephen Harper either, except those people in Calgary-Southwest. He is the Prime Minister because under our rules of Parliamentary democracy, he currently has the confidence of the House. The same reason why Stephane Dion will be Prime Minister next Tuesday morning.

Stop lying and misleading.

• An attack on Canada’s economy
• The Liberals themselves called the NDP “economically-damaging”.

Sure, whatever. Propoganda. I do not like the NDP much either, but they will not be holding any key economic cabinet positions. I'd also like to point out that the NDP has a long record of balanced budgets when in power provincially (though not always).

Red baiting is so 1960's. Grow up.

"Canada needs leadership. Canadian leadership."

So the members of the Coalition are not Canadian? Or just the Bloc members from Quebec? Nice littel dog whistle to the anti-Quebec and anti-French base. Well done.

"There can be no Socialist-Separatist-driven coalition without the people’s consent."

Earth to Pierre, the coalition is made up of duly elected Canadian Citizens, elected fairly to the House of Commons 6 weeks ago and together the represent the majority or the electorate and the majority of the seats in the House.

The people have spoken, you just don't like what they have to say.

So really Pierre, this is pitiful. Outright lying, hyperbole and exaggeration, 60's style red baiting and baseless fear mongering. All so you can maintain your grasp on power.

How very Paul Martin Liberal of you.

What can we expect next, Pierre? Dark, forboding TV ads:

"Socialist. Spearatists. In our streets. I'm not making this up"

You really want to Stand up for Canada? Sit down, shut up and take your lumps like a man. In the game of politics, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives lost. Maybe you ought to be question the judgement of your leader in instigating this, instead of wasting your breathe lying and trying to scare people into supporting you.

BTW, good luck with that RCMP investigation into the illegal recording of the NDP caucus meeting. Since you were a party to the distribution, I'm sure they'll want to talk to you. Law and order, remember.

Enjoying your misery thoroughly

I despise liars and opportunists. I really don't care if the Coalition or the Conservative are in power. I dislike them both, on principle, but I especially dislike parties that emulate the tatics and divisive thuggery of fascists. In this case the Conservatives are the guilty ones.

Make no mistake, if and when the Coalition is the government, I'll be going oafter them for their bone-headed wastes of money in bailing out the auto-sector. Or cheap make-work projects. Or the continuation of low interest rates that are at the basis of the current market problems.

I loathe dishonesty and pandering and I don't care where it comes from.

Instead of the Coalition or the Conservatives, can we pick none of the above and just fire the whole figgin' lot of them?

Update:

In case any frothing Conservative boobs like Pierre or members of his staff are reading this after a google alert, I'll let James Laxer school you on our system of government. Now stop lying.

Inundate him

Conservative MP for Nepean-Carleton Pierre Polievre:

Constituency Office:

250-B Greenbank Road
Nepean ON K2H 8X4

Phone: 613-990-4300
Fax: 613-990-4333

Parliamentary Office:

433 West Block
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6

Phone: 613-992-2772
Fax: 613-992-1209

Email: poilip@parl.gc.ca

Fell free to tell him this.

A message for Pierre Poilievre

For you, Pierre:




As a constituent, I am disgusted, but not entirely surprised by the latest shenanigans of Conservative MP for Nepean Carleton Pierre Poilievre. Now, it seems, he is on the warpath against the Ontario government's latest decision to reinstate the funding of sex reassignment surgeries under OHIP.

He says:

"Wait times are still too long and we need to ensure that every single dollar goes to medically necessary treatments," - Pierre Poilievre MP for Nepean Carleton (Con)

He seems to want to claim this is fiscally irresponsible but a close look at the facts shows it to be a little different than he is letting on. To put this into perspective:

• The expected annual cost is less than $300 000. When the Mike Harris Tories removed this from OHIP in 1998, it was costing about $120 000. That works out to roughly $40 per person per year for every person in Ontario. Or about 77 cents per week, less than a small double-double.
  
• The Center for Addictions and Mental Health deems this surgery medically necessary. One might note that OHIP covers the costs for "medically unnecessary" surgeries all the time - removal of cysts, fixing of protruding ears etc.
• The procedure IS covered in most other provinces, including Alberta, Poilievre's home province (he represents an Ottawa riding only after living here for 3 months after dropping out of school...and there are questions as to whether he really lived in the riding at the time), so Ontario would only be joining the rest of the country.
  

So the question is, why, if this procedure is cheap, deemed medically necessary by the medical community and is covered by virtually every other province (save Quebec) is Pierre railing against Ontario? Do you suppose he is trying to pile-on with Jim Flaherty in attacking the McGuinty government for purely partisan reasons? Do you think he is trying to deflect his social conservative base away from his troubling double speak in the In and Out Scandal, including his possible invovlement? Do you think he is trying to change the channel on his own despicable treatment of Gen. Romeo Dallaire last week? Is it possible that he wants people in his riding to forget that his many announcements about getting funding for a bridge were just announcements of funds that the city had already secured, long before, without Pierre?

I'm having trouble understanding why he would make hay out of something that the CPC has traditionally argued, ad nauseum, is the sole purvue of the provinces - health care - other than to pick a fight that riles the base. I can only think that Pierre, in his typical fashion, is trying to manufacture an issue so people won't notice that his is an incompetent demagogue and an idiot.

No wonder people in this country don't like any of the parties and no longer want to vote.

PS Pierre, feel free to pass that message above on to Jason Kenney too, mkay?

Note:

As a libertarian, I do not support a state monopoly on health care, so I am not arguing for that position. I am arguing that Pierre's seeming 'fiscal conservative' concern over this is nothing of the sort. If this were not sex re-assignment surgeries for icky transsexuals, he wouldn't care. If this were not Ontario he wouldn't care (as is clear by his not caring that Alberta and the other western provinces fund this procedure). He only cares because he thinks he can use this to his political advantage, there is no principles involved.

I would prefer a truly free system where doctors aren't subject to artificial caps on their numbers and people could choose to get health coverage from both insurance companies AND from non-profit or not-for-profit organizations (like professional societies, unions, service clubs etc). Where choice is real and the market isn't slanted by state regulation in favour of corporations over cooperatives. But that is the subject of an entirely different post....