AN OPEN LETTER TO MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: YOU'VE EARNED YOUR STRIPES!

Dear Michael:

After today’s development I have no doubt but that the next letter I write to you I will properly address you as Dear Prime Minister.

It was just last Saturday that I had the temerity to offer you some sound political advice on the basis of hard earned experience grinding it out for the Liberal Party for years in the hardscrabble and mean streets of Calgary.

I told you that you had to unite the party in order to fight an election campaign and warned you about the dangers of internecine warfare. By God, you listened. You overruled your Quebec Napoleon wannabe warlord and he packed it in and got out of town. See:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090928/coderre_quebec_090928/20090928?hub=TopStoriesV2
Talk about a huge, but delicate and inflated ego! He went up in a puff of smoke, as if David Copperfield himself might have had something to do with it. But now, as a result, the party is more united than it has been for a very long time! Good on you!

I told you keep all of the grass roots happy and to honour our tested veterans and not stand in their way if they wished to serve. And you did just that for Martin Cauchon. Bravo! And I know you will do the same for Stephane Dion and others who are in the great Grit Hall of Fame. Thus, you are well on the way towards keeping all of the grass roots happy. Kudos again!!

I told you to be guided by good advice. And by Jove – as Jacques Parizeau used to say – you listened to some Ontario wise men so we’re told and they gave you some good sound advice. Because of it you decided to give Cauchon a crack at Outremont! I toast you and your wise advisors! Keep them close to you – they’re really good!

I told you to stop appointing riding candidates, and you are doing just that. Cauchon has got to run for the nomination. It will be good for him and good for the party. Look what it did for Justin Trudeau in the last election. It gave him instant credibility and stature. He ran for the nomination, won it, built up his organization and proved his mettle by winning a tough campaign! Exactly the way it should be done.

And finally I told you that you were the boss and to put misguided underlings, power trippers and other riff-raff in their place. You did just that. You overruled your portly field marshal because you thought he was wrong. It took a while, but you did it and that is the main thing. Next time it won't take you as long. You did just what a boss should do! He was so distressed he quit. That’s the kind of guy Michael you never want to have in the trenches beside you, because when you need him most he won’t be there. Either that, or he’ll offer to support you in the event you win or tie.

All in all, an excellent day for you, sir! Now its onward! Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes! Keep up the good fight! Sleep well tonight knowing that during the last couple of days you have proved yourself a leader!

Your Pal

Darryl

"DOING A DION:" RECOGNIZING THE AUTOCRAT AND STOPPING HIM IN HIS TRACKS

In this morning National Post columnist Don Martin shed crocodile tears over the departure of Stephane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party. See: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=9168b47e-017b-411c-b600-f1a5fa477d62&p=2

He found multiple tragedies of Shakespearean proportions in Dion’s political career and the manner and timing of his leaving the center stage of national politics.

Ah, but as the radio commentator Paul Harvey might say, you haven’t heard ‘the rest of the story.’

Before becoming national leader of the Liberal Party, Dion ate separatists for breakfast. He publicly and rationally beat up on the likes of Lucien Bouchard, Jacques Parizeau and Bernard Landry to the point where much of the Quebec population thought he was too mean to them. In the process Dion gave Canada the ‘Clarity Act,’ which forever demolishes any argument that Quebec can leave Canada as a result of a small victory in a referendum on a confusing question. Canada had been through the wringer in two such referendums precipitated by firebrand separatists in Quebec. The Clarity Act brought a stop to such foolishness. As a result, the separatist threat has subsided and Canadians feel far more confident about the unity of the country. By any standard, this stands as one of the great contributions to Canadian unity in the history of the country.

In addition to his masterful accomplishment on national unity, Dion was the first leader of a major political party in Canada to focus on the environment as an issue of the greatest importance and deserving of the utmost priority. This was another historic accomplishment in Dion's fine political career and another major part of his legacy.

Martin also attempts to coin a new phrase in Canadian political lexicon – “Doing a Dion.” According to Martin, “Doing a Dion” means “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

I submit that “Doing a Dion” will mean something much different in Canadian political lexicon.
“Doing a Dion” will come to mean, “Recognizing the autocrat and stopping him in his tracks." This is what Dion did to Prime Minister Harper. He recognized Harper the autocrat. He banded together with the NDP and the Bloc – the only thing he could do in the circumstances – threatened a coalition, and stopped the autocrat in his tracks. This is another great component to Dion's legacy and is likely to enhance in significance in the years ahead.

It begs the question, what will “Doing a Don Martin” mean historically? It will mean the same thing as “Doing a Joe Clark” and “Doing a Stephen Harper.” It means not being good at math. It means confusing the terms “majority” and “minority.” It means not being able to count, or figure out percentages. It means not being able to identify what is over 50% or under 50%.

If you wish proof of the above proposition, read once again this very prescient piece: http://darrylraymaker.blogspot.com/2008/10/harpers-minority-government-remember.html