Captain’s Quarters [1] has some of last night’s developments up north. The Captain’s been keeping as good an eye on things up there as anyone on the web. Go read it and then come back.
–Read it? OK….
OK, like I said last week, Martin is burned toast, and so too is the liberal party, itself. There are now far too many leaks in this dike for Martin to plug, and this thing is gonna come crashing down with a fair force of water behind it… and Martin’s play for time last night will not work. There’s no question in my mind; We’ll see June elections.
But there seems to me other fallout, too.
In watching the CBC coverage last night…(Yeah, I know, I know…) an interesting shift at the CBC seems to be occurring. The tone is different at the CBC as of last night; The shift was to me rather dramatic; Now that the Liberals are toast, they seem to be leaning toward the NDP, and Jack Leighton, or so it seemed to me. They certainly, it seemed to me, tried to paint the picture that Canadian voters were doing so. They went to great lengths to play up Leigton’s call for Martin to remove the so-called suprise corporate tax cuts form Martin’s proposed budget, and get it out to the floor for a vote. Just what you’d expect from the socialist NDP, I suppose… Leighton has a history of never meeting a Job killing tax he didn’t like.
Still, this whole situation is a bonanza for Leighton of course, if he plays it right, and even without the CBC suddenly changing aim. No matter what happens, he and the NDP come out stronger, as those to the left end of the Canadian Liberal party seek a new home. It’s true, Leighton can only gain seats out of this, unless, as I say, he screws this up.
But despite the picture being painted here by the CBC, It’s Harper’s conservatives that really stand to gain. And that scares the living crap out of the socialists at the CBC. Or so I picked up last night.
But there’s other impacts here, too and far more than a simple shift in party loyalty among the Canadian Left. The wild card here, it seems to me, is the Bloc, and the entire question of Quebec. The Bloc is literally screaming that they were cheated in the most recent referendum on sovereignty, which if I recall right was in 1995 or ’96.. and the leader of the Bloc last night stood up and demanded Martin offer ..”an apology to the Quebec nation. ” (Emph mine)
Well, gee, boys and girls… Guess what these Bloc people are planning on doing? No matter who gets the seats, the Bloc will be pushing for yet another referendum on sovereignty, and this time they’ll be table pounding even worse than before (Bad as they got the last time out), and will demand things the rest of Canada simply will not even consider, particularly given the rise of the Conservatives in the wake of the Liberal’s behavior and their resulting fall from grace.
I dare to suggest to you something I’ve not seen others do….that the Canadian federation itself is threatened.
Let that sink in a moment.
I offer congrats to the Liberal party of Canada; If they have not utterly destroyed Canada as a country; they’ve come damnedably close to it.
There’s impact here for the US as well… and Americans should be watching all of this with a wary eye, I think. If the liberals have been successful in destroying the federation, then it seems to me we here in the ‘States have a major security issue on our hands. Canadian border security has long been non-existent. For good or ill, this was a conscious choice on the part of both countries. Of late there have been tensions between Canada and the US as regards Canada’s immigration policy, given that because of the lack of real security along the US Canadian border, Canadian immigration policy becomes the Defacto, back-door US policy.
What will that Canadian border policy become when Canada is itself in such disarray?
If the Canadian federation goes belly up, our security situation, along our largest border becomes dire, indeed. We need to prepare for that eventuality.
Update:
One reader writes me today with the comment that he was a bit shocked Martin hadn’t tried to toss Cretien to the hounds last night.
I noted that too, but I take that as damage control, within Quebec. After all, a goodly amount of the reason Martin has a job is because of the Quebec voter… who if you’ll recall, supported Cretien pretty strongly. Consider Martin’s problem, here. As unpopular has Martin is elsewhere in Canada, he’d be in even worse trouble overall if he alienated French speaking Canadians by being seen as dumping on Cretien, to save himself.
(Re-edited for clarity)