LEW MACKENZIE 'GETS IT' ABOUT AFGHANISTAN

Lewis MacKenzie

"Gets It" about Afghanistan

Will Never "Get it" about Afghanistan

As those of you who read my blog from time to time know, I don’t give Tories very much credit. The truth is though that I liked some of the old PCs when it was a kinder and gentler party than the Conservatives are today. I liked John Crosbie. And I liked Joe Clark too. There are several others. There were some good men and women in the old PC party and some great Canadians amongst them. My hat goes off to them.

Today my hat goes off to another old Tory. He ran as a PC under the leadership of Jean Charest in 1997 in the riding of Parry Sound – Muskoka. Alas, he lost to the Grit, but had he won the people of Canada would have been well-served. Just as he served them well as a career officer in the Canadian Armed Forces for 35 years. He is also an author, sometime columnist and winner of the 2007 Diamond Class Ontario Championship for formula Fords - at the age of 67. He is also one Canadian who ‘gets it’ about our role in Afghanistan. I speak of Major-General Lewis MacKenzie (ret).

MacKenzie has written several pieces about Canada’s role in the Afghanistan quicksand, and was one of the first prominent Canadians to see the conflict in realistic terms and have the guts to talk about it. For some time now MacKenzie has told Canadians that this is a very difficult operation requiring far more resources than our NATO allies seemed to be prepared to commit.
In this morning’s Globe and Mail he comments on Canada finally getting its hands on six used Chinook medium-lift helicopters to help us and our NATO partners in the Afghanistan effort. Those helicopters are to be leased for one year at a cost – to you and I - of three hundred million bucks. In his piece MacKenzie notes that among NATO’s twenty-six countries, there are 3,000 such helicopters sitting around airports. However, none have been made available to Canada for the war effort. He questions NATO’s commitment to the project, and calls upon its member nations to either pitch in, or forget about NATO. MacKenzie sees it and tells it like it is.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080811.wwconato11/BNStory/Afghanistan/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080811.wwconato11

Good on Lew MacKenzie – a great Canadian!

PARLIAMENT HILL: THE DAWNING OF A NEW LIBERAL ERA

Bush's pal Steve Harper is not doing well these days.

So long as Steve had a simplistic 5-point program and stuck to it, he did well. But when it came to multi-tasking he had trouble passing gas and blowing his nose at the same time. When it came to putting out fires he was all thumbs with both the hose and the extinguisher.

Harper's problems really began with his flip-flop on income trusts. During the election campaign, unlike the Grits who seemed to be lurking around the next corner to do them in, Stevie had promised to maintain them as an investment vehicle. Once in power however, he fell under the spell of the gurus at Finance, the Bank of Canada, and Bay Street. They convinced him to break the promise. And so, the sly and stealthful pal of Bush's, shamelessly changed his mind. Income Trusts, he announced, would be phased out. The handsome returns they delivered to their investors would be no more. Thusly, he broke his word to a key group of the traditional coalition of Conservative voters - retired people with savings, not to mention, the brokers and financial advisors who feed off of them, together with other business groups. They were all loyal, fair and foul weather Conservatives. Overnight, many became former loyal, fair and foul weather Conservatives.

The front end man picked by Stevie to do the verbalizing dirty work was an arrogant Ontario former ambulance chaser, Finance Minister James Flaherty. Flaherty's hauty demeanor while presiding as the chief executioner of the much beloved investment vehicle, did little but exacerbate Stevie's Government's first major PR disaster.

The next stop along Steve's road to perdition was his Budget. It took about 24 hours for the Canadian people to grasp the essence of it all - an obvious and giant bribe to the Province of Quebec.

The billions transferred over to Steve's pal Jean Charest never had a snowball's chance of passing the stink test. Charest was informed of Harper's largesse of several billion to La Belle Province to correct a mythical fiscal imbalance in Equalization payments near the end of a brutal provincial election campaign which was not going well. And so, in one of the most unsavoury and odious moves in Canadian political history, with the proceeds of his bribe, Charest offered a huge tax cut to Quebecers. He squeaked through with a narrow minority victory.

The Budget also earned the undying enmity of Tory Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland, who came out swinging about what he saw as another broken Harper promise - the promise of not including resource revenues to calculate Equalization payments. Williams remains on the warpath, taking his rip-roaring attack on Steve's character and policies, on speechifying road trips elsewhere in Canada. Premier Calvert of Saskatchewan, notwithstanding that he is a mild gentleman as befits a man of the cloth, has also told anybody within earshot of what he thinks of the conniving Prime Minister. Canadians from across the country cursed the Prime Minister as another Quebec appeaser. Even Quebecers seemed embarassed by the Conservative generosity of other Canadians' money. His support there has dropped like a rock since.

Then comes Afghanistan. The hapless and feckless warrior, retired General and Minister of National Defence Gordon O'Connor, under constant fire in the House, changed his story about the treatment and monitoring of Canadian captured detainees in Afghanistan repeatedly. He was ably assisted in the confusion by Steve himself, together with the grey-matter challenged Liberal gift from the Conservatives that keeps on giving, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

The cuckolded (probably not the most accurate term in hearkening to his treatment by the vamp Belinda, but delicious nonetheless) Foreign Affairs Minister Peter McKay also got into the act. His Department first lied about the existence of a report on conditions in Afghanistan. It then produced a heavily censored version. When an intrepid Globe and Mail reporter produced the original, Canadians discovered that the censored report left all of the good news in, and the bad news out - an odious coverup. Canadians already felt queasy about Afghanistan, there being no end in sight to our sacrifice of lives and money. Now they are left with the firm conviction that the Government does not know what it is doing there. The treatment of the detainees handed over by Canadian troops to the Afghani authorities who tortured them, sounded to them an awful lot like the evil-doers Bush, Cheney Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanomo.

Next on the Agenda was the Global warming issue. This is the one promise that Bush's pal Steve Harper obviously did not want to break - the promise that he would go easier on industry than the Grits' Kyoto policy. The basis of Stevie's policy is the reduction of intensity levels of green house gas emissions, as opposed to an absolute reduction of emissions. A reduction of intensity levels will not necessarily reduce emissions. Canadians understand that in the case of the oilsands, the biggest greehouse gas belcher in the country, absolute emissions will increase regardless of intensity reductions because the production of oil from the oilsands is expected to triple in less than 10 years. The Canadian policy based on intensity reductions is - in the words of Al Gore, the guru of global warming - "a complete and total fraud."

To sell his flim-flam plan, Stevie sent into the battle, his doorman, John Baird - the chippy and burly, highly-partisan political hit man whose Frat boy demeanor reminds one of the anchorman on the college relay beer-drinking team. Yes, Baird was the designated hitter to take on the saintly Suzuki and the immensely popular Al Gore. The Frat boy never had a chance.

And finally, we have the plight of NHL star Shane Doan. Doan, from Halkirk, Alberta, is the highly effective and popular Captain of the Canadian National Team presently duking it out for the world hockey championship in Moscow. He had a dust-up with some NHL officials a couple of years ago, who accused him of making an anti-French slur during a heated hockey game. He denied it. There was an investigation, and he was cleared. But it wasn't enough to satisfy the politicians. Led by the Bloc, a hearing ensued last week before the Commons Official Languages Committee. All of the parties wanted in on this keystone kops act. By God, they were going to fall all over each other protecting our country from racial slurs in the hockey rink. Here, Steve had an opportunity of picking up some lost points. He could have and should have said, 'This is ridiculous. There's been an investigation and he's been cleared. Get off his case." He let Shane twist slowly in the wind until the debate petered out. Stevie just couldn't resist the further pandering to the nationalist vote in Quebec. He said nothing. And he lost more points. The whole Ottawa political scene became even more of a laughing stock than usual. Oh, yes, when it was all over and there were no further real or imaginary points to get, Bush's pal Steve Harper called Shane to congratulate him on a hat trick. Talk about trying to have your cake and eat it. Fortunately, the Canadian people saw it for the crass opportunism that it was.

Today Canadians received further information that the polls, already getting soft for Stevie, have taken an alarming anti-Conservative turn. An Ipsos Read poll released today shows the Conservatives with 35%, Liberals at 34%, NDP at 14%, the Bloc with 9% and Greens at 7%.

Most importantly, the Grits lead in Ontario 44% to 34%. And in Quebec, with the people obviously having more pride than Steve gives them credit for, the Grits are second to the Bloc and ahead of the Tories: The Bloc has 35%, the Grits 25% and the Conservatives 20%. In Atlantic Canada the Grits are ahead with 43% to 32% for the Conservatives. Only in the west, do the Conservatives lead the Grits: in British Columbia, 43% to 32%, in Alberta 66% to 20%, and in Saskatchewan, 46% to 25%.

If the election were held tomorrow, Stephane Dion and the Grits would win, because the overwhelming Conservative lead in Alberta does not translate into enough seats.

Bush's pal Steve Harper is in deep political trouble. What's worse, the Canadian people don't care much for him. Get ready for a Dion Government. You can say you heard it here first.

STEPHEN HARPER AND THE GREAT UNRAVELING

It all looked so easy at first - the new Liberal leader Stephane Dion struggling to get his message across in English, a youthful (if portly) Prime Minister that seemed to stick to his promises and deliver well crafted speeches, a Government party unburdened by scandal, party coffers bursting at the seams, the Premier of Quebec making nice, an economy going gangbusters - shurely, it was only a matter of time and the Conservatives would form a majority Government.

The chattering class by a wide margin interpreted the Quebec election results as boding well for Steve. The public seemed to show strong initial support for the budget - initial polls showed the Conservatives' support spiked to 40%. It all looked so rosy for Bush's pal Steve Harper. It was going to be a waltz. A breeze. A romp. He had the bucks, the brand new hi-tech 17500 square foot, shiny headquarters. And the polls that showed him to be a 2 to 1 favorite as the leader who would make the best Prime Minister.

Well, if I may be permitted to indulge in some trite and hackneyed political truisms, that was then and this is now. Or, dare I say, if two weeks is a long time in politics, one month may seem like an eternity.

Since the Budget was tabled on April 19, its been all downhill for Stevie. It took a few days to settle in, but once Canadians had time to think about the great Quebec giveaway - the billions given to rectify a mythical fiscal imbalance - they were . . . well, they were underwhelmed. Particularly when they thought about Premier Charest - toute de suite, as they would say in La Belle Province -bribing Quebecers with a 700 million tax break upon hearing of of Harper's beneficence on the eve of the Quebec election. Premier Danny Williams, the colourful and fearless newfy and the normally sober and sedate man-of-the-cloth Premier Calvert of Saskatchewan, began leading an attack on the Budget that continues unabated.

Even Bay Streeters, who one would think regarded Stevie as their fair-haired boy, became angry. They were irate over the Budgetary tax change that disallowed Canadian companies deducting loan interest for foreign investments.

The El Stinko Budget seemed to revive that damnable Income Trust issue still festering in the minds of millions of middle class Canadians and income trust business leaders. Harper's shameless broken election promise saw net worths of ordinary Canadians slashed. Cash flows that older families had relied on for their twilight years, thanks to Harper, were now out the window. Furthermore, piranha-like foreign companies were now picking up business assets of the trusts for a song. Ontario MP and Grit finance critic John McCallum was greeted by cheers - in Calgary of all places - as he assailed Harper and his Government for being idiots and morons for trashing income trusts.

But that's not all. Soon to replace Stockwell Day as the gift to the Liberals that keeps on giving, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has been front and center in the Conservative drive to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Former General O'Connor was already in trouble. He had to do an embarassing about face by admitting in the Commons that the Red Cross did not inform Canadian authorities if Taliban prisoners turned over by Canadians to Afghani authorities were mistreated. He had earlier informed the House otherwise. O'Connor was also
under heavy criticism regarding Federal untendered purchasing contracts made between his Department and a company for which he had formerly lobbied.

In recent days O'Connor blithely commented that the Afghanistan war would probably last 15 years. Underlining that statement and in a move indicating Canada would be in the Kandahar debacle far beyond the Commons approved 2009 date, his Department acquired tanks from Holland which will only be delivered in 2009. This comes at a time when plenty of Canadians have become concerned with body bags of our brave young troops, and informed that the good news of our heavy lifting participation in the NATO initiative in Afghanistan is not shared by knowledgeable observers on the ground. The feel-good rhetoric from O'Connor, Day, Toews, and Hillier about success in Afghanistan seems to be shared only among themselves.

And there remains the disquiet felt by many Canadians about the meanness of the Prime Minister, reflected by his partisan and personal attacks which can only be described as extreme - accusations that Liberals support the Taliban instead of our troops, that a Liberal Sikh MP did not support the continuation of measures under the anti-terror legislation so as to keep his father in law from testifying at the Air India Inquiry, and that Liberals are not a friend of Israel, etc. etc.

There's more. Now we have the attack on Kyoto. Harper's Environment Minister Pit bull, John Baird's over the top doomsday scenario unveiled this week in the Senate hearings has met with derision from all quarters - even including traditional Conservative cheerleader Canwest columnist Don Martin. Senator Denis Dawson referring to Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth,' called Baird's show 'a convenient lie.'

And if all of that wasn't bad enough, now Stephane Dion has begun to find his voice. His environment policy is widely seen by experts to be the most responsible. He and John McCallum have offered up a credible alternative to the Conservative axing of Income Trusts, so as to protect the investments of ordinary Canadians. He has boldly agreed with Elizabeth May not to run a Liberal candidate in the Central Nova Riding that she hopes to win from Peter McKay, and she has agreed to reciprocate in his Montreal Riding. This clears the way for unprecedented cooperation between the Liberals and the Greens (and probably some Green NDP) in the next Federal Election.

The result: a poll released by Decima Research on April 17 shows the Tories at 34% - 2 points below election day in January 2006. The Grits have 31%, the NDP have 15%, the Greens have 11% and the Bloc 7%. And in Quebec, the Budget honeymoon has really gone south: the Bloc has 29% and the Grits lead the Conservatives 23% to 20%. Apparently Quebecers do not liked being bribed. The ND's trail with 10%.

The future is bleak for Bush's pal Steve Harper. With numbers like that he will not win a majority. With a trend like that he is likely to lose if the election is called soon. With gaffes like he and his Government have committed in recent weeks, the result could be a Liberal majority Government. Which of course, I have predicted. Once again, you can say you heard it here first.

BUSH'S PAL STEVE HARPER BLOWS HIS WAD

He's tried it all. He has emulated his neo-con hero-pal George W. Bush by extending a call to arms in Afghanistan. He has a couple of his dim-witted Ministers over there running around telling anybody who will listen that thanks to Canada's role there that things are improving (we lost 6 more of our valiant young soldiers there again today). He tried to solely occupy center stage at the Vimy Anniversary Memorial, by freezing out other Canadian political leaders.

He's ran American style attack ads in both official languages to beat up on Stephane Dion before the bell had sounded. He has resorted to Joe McCarthy tactics to malign opponents.

He tried to bamboozle the Canadian people with phony guarantees of maximum wait times for surgery. He has sucked up to Quebec in truly epic style by purporting to correct a laughable financial imbalance by giving it 3.4 billion of hard-earned Canadian tax dollars - thus allowing Premier Charest to give Quebecers a 700 million election eve tax cut. He cozied up to the Bay Street establishment by torpedoing oil income trusts.

He has stolen a good deal of the Dion Environment policy after dumping poor Rona Ambrose from the Environment portfolio and replacing her with his pit bull John Baird. He reminds Canadians daily of the Grit Adscam debacle.

He has unveiled his Party's cyber-age 17,500 square foot election headquarters. He implicitly or explicitly threatens to call an election every couple of days. Yada, Yada, Yada.

Yes, Bush's pal Steve Harper has tried everything. Every low-life political trick in the book. Blarney, subterfuge, smarmy brown-nosing of Quebec. You name it.

And guess what? SES Research has just released the results of a poll conducted for Sun Media, and it is bad news for Stevie. The poll conducted between March 31 and April 5 has the Conservatives with a 3 point lead - 36% to 33% - over the much maligned Grits. That's about where they started from at the start of the last election. A party has to be at the 40% mark before it is in majority territory.

The Grits are 12 points up in Atlantic Canada, 1 point up in Ontario, only 6 points down in the west and 10 points down in Quebec.

Of further worry to Stevie is that the margin of error of the poll is within 3.2% 19 times out of 20. SES called the last election to within one-tenth of 1 %. They're good.

The only region where the Tories have significantly increased their numbers is in Quebec. Now, is there anybody in the country who is willing to bet against the Liberals improving their standing in Quebec during a Federal Election?

How about when the Conservative leader is an Anglophone raised in Toronto and grazing in Calgary, and the Grit leader is a home town francophone? How about when the Conservative leader has been an arch-rightist most of his adult life, is a pal of Bush's, frolics in international adventurism and until recently did not give a damn about the environment? And suppose the Grit leader has an impeccable reputation for integrity and brains, occupies the center, does not cozy up to Bush, is cautious about sending Canadians into war, and has led the environment debate with a comprehensive policy from the beginning?

I like the sound of the phrase - "Prime Minister Stephane Dion." Get ready. We're going to hear it a lot more often. You can say you heard it here first.

FAST EDDIE AND THE GATHERING STORM

Bad news. Its all bad news. That's what Premier Fast Eddie must have thought last night as the Quebec polls rolled in announcing big changes in the offing for La Belle Province.

At least part of Bush's pal Steve Harper's Nation of Quebecois spoke pretty clearly. They wanted change. As a result, Mario Dumont's Action Democratique du Quebec came out of nowhere to vault to second place, the PQ dropped to a dismal third, and Jean Charest squeaked to a slender minority victory.

Fast Eddie must be asking himself and his other paid flaks that loiter about his office - Olsen and Stanway come to mind - Is the desire for change in the Provinces catchy? Will it catch on in Alberta?

If they are honest they will say, 'dern right!' or 'dern tootin!' consistent with the hayseed lingo of Eddie's new Government. Why? Because first of all, Alberta has profound problems that are affecting everyone. Lack of Hospitals, dirty Hospitals, inadequate health care, lack of schools, crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded universities - you name it. It would be surprising if they did not want change, given how the chickens have come home to roost as a result of the do-nothing boys of the Klein years - one of those boys being Fast Eddie himself. Fast Eddie was a Big Stick for Ralph during those dark ages (See Darryl Raymaker Blog, January 27, 2007).

In addition, the new Premier's record since he blew Dinning and Morton away has been less than stellar. His Ministers are not singing from the same song book, he's been seen as graspy respecting fund-raising, and is now widely regarded as being slow to respond to the Province's woes.

Furthermore, he seems to have no clout with his fellow-traveler, Bush's pal Steve Harper, who
in his recent Budget included resource revenues for the purpose of calculating equalization payments - an idea long considered to be heresy in the Tory establishment in these parts.

The upset in Quebec follows closely upon an ominous poll taken recently by CTVglobemedia. The results were announced last thursday. In the poll, more than 1200 Calgarians were questioned about Fast Eddie's performance to date. 20% of them thought he was doing a good job, 64.5% said it was too soon to tell, and 15% thought he was doing a poor job. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Edmonton, a Liberal stronghold, was a little kinder to Eddie. 34% said he was doing a good job, 56% said it was too soon to tell, and 10% thought he was doing a poor job. The poll is considered accurate to within 2.5% 19 times out of 20.

The Grits are gearing up for two by-elections, one in Calgary Elbow - the Riding vacated by Klein - and one in Drumheller-Stettler. In Calgary, even Ralph's bosom buddies are predicting the Tories will lose the seat. In Drumheller, all reports indicate that farmers and ranchers are on the warpath against the Tories respecting water supply and other long-standing issues, and are for the first time taking a long long at the Grits.

All of which is bad news for Fast Eddie. The good old days when a Tory didn't even have to campaign to win are gone.

Is change catchy? Dern Tootin!

BUSH'S PAL STEVE HARPER: EVEN BRIAN COULD BEAT HIM

Brian Mulroney was a pretty good politician. He had charm. He had the gift of the gab. He spoke the official languages with equal facility. He had the pizzazz and tools to keep his caucus loyal. He was Prime Minister for nine years.

Oh, he wasn't perfect. He was misguided and rash on some issues - i.e. Meech Lake and the Charlottetown Accord come to mind. He had some sleazy friends who to this day haunt him still. He pandered to Quebec.

And he talked too much. According to Mulroney, Canada was not only in debt. It was 'bankrupt.' If the rest of Canada rejected Meech Lake, they would 'humiliate' Quebec. On the verge of getting Meech Lake approved by the Provinces, he bragged about knowing when to 'roll the dice' to win the day. Holdouts in Newfoundland and Manitoba read about the braggadocio, and promptly scuttled Meech Lake. For further proof of this unfortunate penchant, one need only quickly skim Peter Newman's 'The Secret Mulroney Tapes.' As a result, Mulroney blew his cherished but (probably) misguided dream of being a constitutional giant as was his idol and bete noire at the same time, Pierre Trudeau. Quebec never did get 'a distinct society' designation in a Constitution finally containing its signature.

Mulroney's tongue got him into more trouble than enough. Most certainly it helped shorten his political days in the sun.

By 1993, Canadians were sick of him. They threw out the Tories leaving them with an embarrassing 2 measly seats. Thirteen years later, they edged back into power almost by default but this time with the Party changed and leaning decidedly far more towards the lunatic fringe right.

Bush's pal Steve Harper, the current Prime Minister, is certainly not a clone of Mulroney. Where Mulroney was charming and witty. Harper is brittle and humorless. Mulroney wanted to govern for everybody. Harper, in his heart of hearts, wants to govern for an economic elite.
Whereas Mulroney could usually exercise enough discretion so as to avoid being attacked for bribing Canadians with their own money, Bush's pal Steve, has no such fetters and just last week bribed the people of Quebec with new Equalization funding which supposedly addressed a 'fiscal imbalance.' In fact, it was a gift of Canadian taxpayers' money which Quebec Premier Jean Charest promptly used to give his people a 700 million dollar tax cut, designed to improve his fortunes in next week's Provincial Election.

Neither was Mulroney mean-spirited. He could debate with the best of them. He could make his points forcefully and with humor. Never in a public forum was he mean-spirited or nasty. With Mulroney it was Marquis of Queensbury rules all the way.

Yes, Steve Harper is no Brian Mulroney. The current Prime Minister is not only witless and humorless. He also has a very nasty side. In Steve's world, it's alright to accuse Paul Martin of supporting child pornography, or to accuse leading Liberals as being anti-Israeli. Its also OK for him to accuse, with the protection of privilege in the House of Commons, a Sikh Liberal MP of voting against the extension of Anti-Terror legislation to protect his father-in-law who was on a supposedly secret RCMP list of potential witnesses respecting the Air India Inquiry. And just last week Stevie found it fitful to accuse the Liberals of being more supportive of Taliban prisoners than Canadian soldiers.

Nasty, indeed. But it also shows the Mulroneyesque fault of both rashness, and not being able to keep his mouth shut.

What all this is leading up to is this. Stephen Harper has most, if not all, of Mulroney's negative attributes, but few if any, of his positive ones. While Mulroney had wit and charm. Harper has neither. While Mulroney was civilized and fair, Harper has a McCarthyesque penchant for character assassination. While Mulroney had a good relationship with the press most of the time, Harper's press relations are poisonous. While Mulroney handled the public finances with considerable discretion, Harper has no compunction of blatant vote buying beyond a scale seldom witnessed in Canada. While Mulroney actually tried to keep promises, Harper casts them aside with undue haste and little concern (Income trusts, resource revenues not to be included in Equalization). Whereas Mulroney appeared to be human, Harper appears as a highly partisan and nasty robot.

On the negative side, they were both reckless - Mulroney with Meech and Charlottetown and over-the top rhetoric, and Harper with his 'Quebecois as a Nation.' And both talked too much - Mulroney with his personal aggrandizement and 'roll of the dice' type bragging, and Harper with his reckless accusations against his competitors.

And so, I like the chances of Stephane Dion being the next Prime Minister of Canada after the next election. Bush's pal Steve Harper has had a pretty easy ride of it for the past few months. But any day now, the press and the Canadian people are going to wake up to the fact that he can't even be positively compared to an un-laundered Brian Mulroney - let alone to a man of impeccable character, honesty and brains. Then, they will reject him.