Partisan Politics

Last night on the CBC's nightly newscast, The National, Rex Murphy had a few thoughts he wanted to share on what is happening in Ottawa these days.  All Canadians should listen to it.

I agree completely wth his statement that the shenanigans are all driven by partisan politics and have nothing to do with Canada's interests.  Our politicians are so out of tune with the citizens who elect them.  They are focused on the political process and what loop holes might exist to allow them to grab power.  Political parties exist for their own sake not for the sake of the citizens who foolishly elect them.

All Politics, No Government

You can read the transcript below (which I copied from this CBC website page) or you can watch the video by clicking here.

Rex Murphy Point of View
December 1, 2008

Political scientists will stagger gibbering witless to their graves trying to figure out why the Prime Minister decided to kick off a brand new session of a civil parliament, in the middle of a world economic crisis, by the most lethal partisan jab at the opposition in the history of Confederation.

It's either or. He's either dumb or arrogant. Those are the only options to explain why he pitched a live grenade into the underwear of the opposition parties last Thursday, within, as it were, five seconds of the new Session starting. Either too dumb to know the furies he was releasing, or too arrogant to care.

Either way, now we have an entirely artificial partisan showdown in Ottawa, and make no mistake, this is partisan warfare at its most intense, and nothing other, because Mr. Harper saw a series of belts, and decided he just had to deliver a vicious kick beneath all three of them.

We're in a crisis now, and it started with Mr. Harper, feeding his apparently insatiable appetite continuously to do in the Opposition, and abusing last Thursday's financial statement to kill the financing of his rivals.

That got their attention; and it's worth holding in mind, that without the effort to lop off their funding - not some other higher-minded issue - we wouldn't be where we are today. Don't accept the alibi that this crisis is about the financial statement itself. It was triggered by the threat to political funding.

But that's just the beginning of the most absurd and embarrassing train of political maneuvers to take place in a self-respecting country that I can recall.

For on the other side we have the almost unimaginable farce of a so-called Coalition, complete with its own signing ceremony, being concocted under the weirdest set of conditions in modern politics.

The latest bulletin has Stephane Dion installed as Prime Minister, a man who, after the 77 seats Mr. Dion brought home in the election, the Liberals couldn't wait to boot out of the leadership. They were speculating on it election night. Now, he is good enough to be Prime Minister.

Let's get a look at this. A party looking for a leader itself, wants to install the leader they're ejecting, as the country's leader.

But this farce is very much an improvisation in progress. There's been a round of consulting with Jean Chretien and other impresarios of our national destiny. Every crisis gets the think tank it deserves.

So we're to have a Coalition - not a political party be it noted - as our federal government. Enabled - key word - by - shield your children - the only dedicated separatist party in the House of Commons. Canada's federal government will owe its existence to the one party that doesn't want Canada to exist. When that happens, we've entered the terminal stages of national decline.

A federal government enabled by a separatist party is a contradiction in terms, in logic, and in national honour.

What this manufactured crisis demonstrates is that Canadian politics is not Canadian politics. It's partisan politics. Remember about 8 days ago, this was going to be the civil House of Commons. Yeah; and roses are blooming even as I speak in on the green lawns of Bonavista.

To call all this undignified is to give it too much dignity. What's going on in Ottawa today is pure madness, a scramble for advantage on all sides.

All politics. No government.

For The National, I'm Rex Murphy.

Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!