Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Who Is David Kilgour?

A moron, apparently. His two latest reasons for voting against Paul Martin are A) he thinks bringing Belinda in to the party was a bad idea, and B) Canada backed off of the mission to the Sudan.

Well, Mr. Kilgour, this may shock you, but the Sudan is a sovereign country. If they say no, Canada hardly has the muscle to force them to accept our troops. Given that other countries in the region are also non-plussed with the idea of non-Africans interfering in regional affairs, it's a total non-starter unless Canada can get a Security Council resolution. But guess who's acting as Sudan's big brother? China, that's who. No security council resolution is going to pass a Chinese veto, so it's not going to happen. Throwing a hissy fit and blaming Paul Martin for all this is absurd. Of course, I'm not the only one to call him a media whore these days.

And as for Belinda, you're absolutely right Dave - the Liberals should close the door to former Conservatives. Oh wait...
On a historical note, Kilgour has also switched parties. He was expelled from Brian Mulroney's Conservatives in 1990 after 11 years as a member of Parliament, partly because he opposed the GST. He became a Liberal three months later.
If I were Paul, I'd start asking Chuck Cadman for his Christmas List. It's time for Paul to play Santa again...

Sudden thought: At the moment, in Parliament there are a number of "swing" constituencies - the NDP, and several independents. So the budget we'll end up getting will be nothing like the one Ralph Goodale proposed. It's astonishingly like the situation in the US House of Representatives, where there's no confidence attached to money bills, so getting votes requires a positive deluge of pork. By the way, if you Conservatives think a Liberal-NDP budget is bad, take a look at the highway bill in the Republican Congress: $295 billion. With a B. (By my quick math, in Canada that would be equivalent to a $30 billion dollar bill. So far, Paulie has announced less than $10 billion in new spending since the budget.) But thank god those Democrats didn't get in - those tax-and-spenders can't be trusted!

Anyway, yet another reason to love Westminster Parliaments.

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