Saturday, April 23, 2011

Listen Liberals ...

This ain't a dig. I'm working on something to explain partisan attitudes in Canada (it's currently in an incomplete form about two posts down). This is, rather, an important reason why the NDP might have a genuine surge in Quebec and why the Liberals are struggling.

Chantel Hebert once decided that stephen harper meant what he said in a speech where he said he now loved Canada's medicare system, and discounted his whole professional life's work attacking it, ... so I will forever take her with a grain of salt, ... but i think she's said something important here:

A Liberal who once was the most prominent New Democrat in the country set the NDP on its upward election trajectory in Quebec.

Until Bob Rae brought the Liberals and the Conservatives together in pursuit of an extended Canadian military presence in Afghanistan last fall, the New Democrats were spinning their wheels in Quebec and going nowhere fast.

Their parliamentary divisions on the gun registry threatened to put their lone Montreal seat in play and an ailing Jack Layton had slipped off the radar.

On the heels of Michael Ignatieff’s well-publicized summer tour, Quebec voters were starting to come around to his party.

But after the Afghan decision, Quebec lost interest in the Liberals. The move put Layton back on the province’s map; it gave him a defining issue to distinguish the New Democrats from the Liberals.

That would be the mother of all unintended consequences wouldn't it? Bob Rae's delusions about Canada's "responsibility" to prop-up a government of rapists and thieves only flew with about 45% of English Canadians, but such stupidity is pure poison in Quebec.

1 comment:

Atlanta Roofing said...

But I thought on Debate night how amazing Layton was and I sensed a certain je ne sais quoi about him. He seemed vibrant and strong and sharp. I thought then maybe there was going to be "something" big about him. He's my pick for winner of the election. Even if he only gets Opposition, he's still the winner. Even if he only grabs a few more seats in Quebec, he's a winner. I've been amazed by him this campaign.