Crooked in Canada

Never a day has passed lately where it doesn’t look like Canadians have faith in a future Liberal government with Stephane Dion as its leader.

Day after day it would appear that Canadians are dissatisfied with Stephane Dion and his Liberal Party (mostly Dion though) than they are with any of the other party leaders in this election campaign. Based on that fact alone I would have to say that Canadians have all but resigned themselves to the fact that Liberals are not going to leading the land of the Maple Leaf anytime soon. They are just too stubborn to admit it. Even the polls are pointing to a bleak result for the Liberals in this election.

I wonder how many Liberals are kicking themselves in the ass for not challenging leadership in the more than two years he has been at the helm of the party that has never been able to regain any ground after the sponsorship scandal that brought them down. I also wonder which Liberals from within the party ranks are going to be able to survive within their own party once Dion resigns, or fired from his lame duck leadership. When Dion goes, there will be some changes, and if you’re a Liberal Party supporter you can expect some changes like the Liberal Party has never seen before.

That said, there is evidence that suggests Canadians in “battleground ridings” do not have high expectations of Stephane Dion in upcoming televised debates scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Ottawa. While voters in the 45 battleground ridings don’t speak for all Canadians, a recent survey by Strategic Counsel shows that a mere 8 per cent in those ridings expect Dion to out-perform Stephen Harper, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and Elizabeth May. Of that same group only 7 per cent think Duceppe and May will out-perform their rivals, while 42 per cent think Harper will out-perform his rivals. Twenty per cent think Jack Layton will do same.

While the aforementioned numbers don’t really mean much when it comes to the final outcome of the election, those numbers could mean that Canadians think Dion is just too stupid to tackle issues that will be discussed at the debate, and it that is the case, is he the man Canadians really want running the country? Too stupid to tackle issues in a debate, too stupid to tackle those same issues as Prime Minister.

I have always believed that despite his education, Dion hasn’t exactly been the sharpest tool in the Liberal Party toolbox, and I am not surprised in the least that he is gets bagged in almost every poll out there, but what causes me the most concern is that there are still people who believe that Dion and the Liberals can run the country. What does Dion have to do for Canadian voters to get it through their thick heads that an inept party leader leading a party still reeling from the scandal that saw them defeated in the last election isn’t up for the job of Prime Minister of Canada?

Again, and I can’t put it any more straightforward than this, “He has done nothing for his own party, so what makes everybody think the can do anything as Prime Minister?”

Since he has taken over the leadership of the Liberal opposition, there has rarely been a day go by where Dion wasn’t acting like a kid in a schoolyard whether he had the floor in the House of Commons, holding a news conference, or speaking at a fundraiser for his party. He has spent most of his days as leader either defending himself or his party, and when he has had the odd day here and there where he didn’t have to do that, he was in the House of Commons stalling government proceedings with threats to topple the government, or criticising the Conservatives on anything and everything the put before the House. When it came to his party working in the best interests of Canadians, Stephane Dion at least to my knowledge, never took a bi-partisan approach to anything in the House of Commons.

And to think NDP leader Jack Layton has expressed interest in forming a coalition government with the Liberals.

All up, the reality of this election is that the Liberals under the leadership of Stephane Dion are going to take a beating, and whether the Liberals reach out to women voters or not, the Liberals are going to suffer at the polls on October 14 like they have never suffered before.

One other thing I want to touch on today is one of Dion’ promises. He says he is going to cut corporate taxes, but what I want to know since when do corporations pay taxes?

Corporations are tax collectors aren’t they? Sure they pay tax, but they collect that tax from consumers. Taxes go up for them, the cost of products and services they provide to consumers go up. Taxes come down for them, consumer gets nothing in return. Its not like corporations are going to low the cost consumers pay for their products and services right?

The taxes they currently pay is coming out of the consumers pocket, not out of their big fat profit margins.

Cutting corporate tax serves no purpose, in fact others will suffer for it in the form of a tax hike of some sort, or a budget axing to offset the tax cut.

As for Jack Layton, I have noticed a similarity with his election platform compared to that of Australia PM Kevin Rudd’s (Australia Labor Party) election platform that helped the ALP defeat John Howard. He too focused on working families.

In a heads up to the NDP, if in fact they are taking a page out of PM Rudd’s book, they should tread very carefully when reaching out to working families, and perhaps look into what has happened to the working family in Australia since “Rudd the Dud” took office ten months ago. He talked the big talk when it came to working families during his election campaign last November, but since taking office he has barely walked the walked, and working families are not as supportive of him as they once were. He might be a one-term Prime Minister, that’s the consensus around here anyway.

Don’t make the same mistakes Prime Minister Rudd is making Jack, because if you do your party will pay for it in the federal election after this one. Put up or shut up Jack even after your campaign is over. In other words; say what you mean, mean what you say, and stick with promises you make to working families in this election campaign, even after October 14.

Low expectations for Dion in televised debates: poll

NDP platform focuses on ‘working families’