Well, remember that the accent(s) of french-speaking Canadians differ from those of France, much as people in New England don’t sound the same as people from England. When I worked for the European Space Agency, the French-from-France people there often commented on my distinctly Canadian accent.
Dion grew up in Quebec, but his mother was from Paris, and he spent time in Europe. How much his accent may have been influenced by this mix, I cannot say.
I’d wanted to start a thread on this topic in the Pit, but you beat me to it, RickJay. Thanks for coming up with much better scathing commentary on those politicians than I could ever put together.
You’re pitting them for their lack of integrity for the most part. I’ve long been cynical that anybody in politics has any integrity, based on the evidence over my voting lifetime. I pit them for their inability to play political games properly. For crying out loud, these people are supposed to be good at getting people to vote for them on the basis of their actions in public. Their advisors are telling them all how to breathe based on polling results updated every 30 minutes or so. They are supposed to be experts in negotiating with each other and manipulating themselves, their opponents and the system to get results. The only thing these guys are experts at is convincing Canadians that none of these idiots should be allowed to say anything in public.
It’s been frustrating watching Amateur Night on the HIll.
Well, I did say “arguably.” 
So now Harper wants to stack the Senate with 18 new Conservatives despite the House being prorogued so that he can avoid a non-confidence motion. If that isn’t the Senate electoral reform he has campaigned on for years, I don’t know what is. :dubious:
I’d love to play poker with Steve. Dude bets a pair of 4s after the flop like it was kings full.
I’m just waiting for one of our Parliamentary players to finish his next brilliant scheme by yelling “Triple stamp it, no erasees, black magic King’s power!”
I don’t get it. The vote he needs to win isn’t taking place in the Senate. How does appointing senators help him?
Guesses:
Power grab, or at least blocking the Liberal-NDP coalition from making the appointments.
Any future bill Harper (or his political brethren) want to introduce to reform the Senate needs to pass the Senate. He needs as many sympathetic senators as possible to have that happen. He might lose his ability to appoint senators in a few weeks, meaning it’ll be a while before he can appoint people who like his ideas on Senate reform to the Senate.
The political situation is crazy enough already that this departure from his advertised principles on Senate appointments might not be what people remember most. His opponents already hate him, while his supporters (and even some of his opponents) are crying loud and long against the coalition. So, they might be willing to overlook this little act as something Harper had to do to fight off the Socialist Separatist Coalition from grabbing Senate seats and putting back the cause of Senate reform.
It’s just in case he loses a non-confidence vote in the new year - he wants his chance to pay back some favours and/or have some people indebted to him. Getting appointed a senator is a pretty plum job. I’d take it. Hey Steve!! Over here!
I think the mindset works like this:
“Ignatieff wasn’t enthused about the coalition. I can get away with another poke in the eye and set the tone that I’m in control until I choose to dissolve the House and call an election that I can win. If the coalition holds together, I can ask the GG for dissolution. I’ve done a good job of spreading FUD about the coalition, so I could win an election now. (Besides the other parties are broke and we’re flush. We may get a majority just because people are tired of elections.) If the GG doesn’t accede, I can make the House toxic with impugnity, leading to an election I can win. And with a ‘working majority’ in the Senate (the majority don’t work, after all) Parliament can be tied in knots. And, besides, I gave out all of the great patronage jobs the day after the economic update.”
Ya think there’s a recurring theme here?
I think he’s overplaying his hand badly. Ignatieff may rival him for warmth and fuzziness, but he’s not able to be ridiculed as Dion was. I don’t like him (right wing Liberals annoy me), but he’d be a much tougher opponent in TROC than Dion and Harper has utterly alientated Quebec.
Iggy might not fancy a coalition, but I somehow think he might like to fight an election. Just because he isn’t keen on being allied with Jack and Gilles doesn’t mean Harper will get past a confidence vote.
What’s FUD?
The coalition was very unpopular essentially from the moment it was announced. Harper hasn’t really had to do anything there.
If he needs lessons on how to auction off Senate seats, we’ve got a soon-to-be-unemployed guy here in Illinois who could help.
The primary weapons of Microsoft: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
The USA gets a new leader who impresses by starting with an organization of inclusiveness, thoughtfulness and attention to priorities in a very difficult time for the nation.
Canada gets the same old Stephen Harper with the same old priorities: mean-spirited pettiness, grumpy combativeness, petulant flip-flops as a reaction to any opposition.
He is a man who is far better at strategizing against real and perceived enemies than he is at making friends.
And, yes, Dion and all the others are total losers too. We’ve got nothing right now… maybe Ignatieff will surprise us.
Which is entirely why I have NO problem with the fact that he spent most of his life outside Canada. Maybe it’s a good thing?
Every single one of them simply sucks, and all equally? You all think that? No one up there could ever possibly want to enter public service for non-venal motives, or, once in, could ever possibly do anything worthwhile there? You all think that?
What a *great *way to excuse yourselves from accepting responsibility as citizens for your democracy. :rolleyes: Straightforward, clear, requires no thought, makes you feel self-righteous, all the good things a simpleminded attitude has …
Fortunately, I know there are many more Canadians who reject the form of childishness we see on display here.
So, do French-Canadians in general speak English with that curious accent, or is it just Dion?
I think that the “every politician” part was obvious hyperbole, considering he listed every party leader and what specifically was pittable about them.
I strongly support the sentiment that we should not treat all our politicians like we expect them to be shit, because if we do then they will rise to our expectations. I usually object to blanket statements like this one because they often reflect poorly on people who aren’t involved. I support decent people who are politicians, and I can list representatives of all major parties who I respect enormously. The problem is, the decent people who enter public service for non-venal motives don’t get face time. A bunch of them were convinced to drop out of the Liberal leadership race, for instance. Whoever they are, they do not have leadership roles in federal parties in Canada right now. While I respect that there are good reasons for this, the fact remains that examples of integrity and commitment to public interest are quite lacking in Canadian politics right now.
For whatever reason, in Canada right now, every single big player on the federal scene* is, to some extent, a disgrace. Lots of us have nobody to support. This is the worst crop of leaders I’ve ever witnessed.
It’s all especially frustrating to go through all this while we watch the US enter such a progressive time.
Dismissing sweeping generalizations with… a generalization? Interesting tactic…
When I was back in school, something one of my political science professors said one day really stuck with me. He said that ultimately, politics is about power – acquiring it, keeping it, and wielding it. No one goes into politics without the specific intent of imposing his/her will upon the masses. But here’s the catch: people who are really good at acquiring and using power go into business and make the really big bucks – the people who go into politics are second-rate business people who could never get power through “normal” means (take, for example, George W. Bush – how many companies did he bankrupt before he went into politics?). It is an almost universal reality of our modern, democratic world that the people in government are not the best-equipped people to be in charge and, in fact, are usually only qualified insofar as they want to be in charge and are motivated to pursue that station, not that they actually have any real skill.
What we are seeing right now in Canada, is a perfect, sad example of that in action. We are being governed by a bunch of clods who really want to run the country, but haven’t the faintest idea of how to effectively do so. That hardly divests the population of their responsibility to elect the best people for the job; it does, however, leave us in a situation where we are forced to choose the least incompetent for the job, which is frustrating to no end.