Boot, Belinda, Boot!!!

Wow... Sometimes being a newshound is a PITA. Other times, it's the most fun thing in the world to be; like today! But before I get to the real topic of my post today, I do have to fill you, dear reader, in on some details, otherwise, you'll not have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

Anyone following Canadian politics lately knows that over the past several weeks to couple of months, something called the Gomery Commission has messed up a nice quiet Liberal minority Government.

The Gomery Commission is essentialy a trial being presided over by Superior Court of Quebec Justice John Gomery. Although, he claims it's not a trial, it's being handled as if it were one. The point of it is to discover what was going on with a whack of money that was mishandled by the last Federal Liberal Government, led by ex-Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and whose Minister of Finance was the current Prime Minister Paul Martin.

The gyst of the whole scandal is that in 1995, the Quebec Government held a referendum which had they won, would have led to the Province of Quebec separating from Canada. The referendum failed. Barely. Jean Chretien and his Caucus decided that something needed to be done to keep Quebec in Confederation (That's what we Canucks call our union of Provinces). And as such the Sponsorship Scandal, I mean Program was born.

The Sponsorship Program was supposed to spend money on advertising and programs that would help convince Quebecers that being part of Canada was a good thing. And as a Newfie separatist living in Quebec, I can personally tell you that it was working. Before the Scandal broke, Quebec was further from separation than it has been since I moved here in 1983.

The problem with Sponsorship, the "scandal" part, is that the Liberal Government took advantage of the fact that suddenly a very large sum of money was put into their hands to vaguely do whatever the needed to do to help further the ideal of keeping Quebec in Canada and this vis-à-vis Quebecers. They absconded with and essentially stole money from the coffers of the Sponsorship Scandal and deliberately didn't keep any records.

So, they launched Gomery to find out the who, whats, wheres and whens... Greed is essentially the why; so that's not important.

Anyway to bring this messy little filibuster around to what is happening today...

The Leader of the Opposition, Steven Harper, the pointy-headed one that I refer to in May 11th's blog; a Confidence Vote, announced today that he is going to back the Liberal minority Government's budget that until yesterday was his motivation for bringing down Paul Martin's Government.

More background...

The pointy headed twit, as I mentioned on May 11th, had decided to climb into bed with the Bloc Quebecois. Now under normal circumstances, this wouldn't bother me, I'm a separatist to begin with, so anything that supports kicking out the Federal Government, I'm all for and I voted bloc in every Federal Election I've been eligible to vote in for exactly this reason.

But... and this is important to understand, Steven Harper is the biggest opponent of the Bloc; has no difficulty labeling Gilles Duceppe, (the leader of the Bloc) a traitor, but then on another day, cozies up to him in Parliament as if they were of a mind, with the simple goal of bringing down the Liberal Government. What's most interesting about that, is that the Conservatives (the Opposition) are just that, conservative, they are blue, blue, blue, right wing, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-human rights, and borderline KKK... well, not all of them, but enough of them anyway; the Bloc on the other hand is very left wing, pro-gay, pro-choice, pro-human rights and anti-KKK, AND horror of horrors, their ultimate goal is to gain enough power in Quebec, to separate the Province from the Country.

Now what pointy-headed Harper fails to realize is that the separation issue is a burning desire of the Bloc, and anything that will move the Bloc closer to that day is a good thing. Thus, the idea that the Bloc will climb into bed with the Conservatives is not only tenable, if it works, it's a great idea for them. Bringing down the house is ok, so long as it's done for the right reasons... ie, breaking up the country. Bringing down the house, because you think an election will make you Prime Minister, especially when your ally is your worst enemy, is wrong... just plain asshole in the rough, wrong.

And Harper doesn't see that.

That said.

Yesterday, front-bench Conservative Belinda Stronach (hence the title of this blog) crossed the floor yesterday, to sit in a plum Cabinet post within the Liberal Caucus.

WTF!

Now I've seen some mind-benders in my time, but this one takes the cake. Belinda Stronach is a die-hard Conservative. She actually ran (and almost won) to become the leader of the Conservative party less than a year ago. So HER crossing the floor, especially at this time, is a really big deal.

Needless to say, the absolute dearth of graciousness on the parts of certain Conservative members, most specifically those of the male gender, has been quite overt. They're all over there whining; she did it for power; she's a "dipstick"; she's whored herself to the Liberals for power and it goes on.

What's most telling is watching this from a position of not really caring how it furthers the Liberal agenda, I can easily realize how easily their reactions to Belinda's stroll, damages THEIR agenda.

Check this out... Here's a Party who for all intents and purposes believes that the Bloc is chockful of traitors, yet doesn't mind climbing into bed with them because they mistakenly believe it will further their agenda... ie, bring down Paul Martin's minority Liberal Government. (With me so far?) Now here in Quebec, they don't mind, because any anti-Liberal vote in Quebec is a Pro-Bloc vote. Mostly because the Cons in Quebec are a bunch of butt-heads who are anti-Quebec and partly because the NDP is virtually non-existent.

Well, what the Conservatives are not seeing; or at least the pointy-headed Harper isn't seeing is that by getting into bed with the Bloc, he's furthering the Bloc's agenda and jeopardizing his own career. You can't go climb into bed with the man who wants to destroy Canada if you're a National Party, the two ideas DO NOT go hand in hand. They just don't.

So here is the pointy-headed Harper trying to bring down the Government by doing exactly what Canadians are horrified of; giving the Bloc validity. So, wonder of wonders, Belinda's good sensibilities get the better of her and there she goes and boots across the floor. But now, Harper and his cronies start whining about her doing this for ambition... What??? How daft is that, of course there is ambition involved, she's a politician.

So here's some info that these pointy-headed conservatives aren't recognizing...

1. Belinda refuses to get into bed with the Bloc. That's a good thing.

2. Steven Harper realizes that he doesn't have a hope in hell of bringing down the Liberals now, so he's going to support the Liberal budget; hypcrite... why didn't he do that BEFORE Belinda crossed the floor??? LMAO

3. The problem that arises over the Conservatives suddenly supporting the Liberal budget is that in deciding to do so, they aren't going to support the good budget, which is the one that got negotiated and doctored into a better budget by the NDP AND the one that Stronach's riding wants supported, but instead, they're going to support the bad budget, the original one! THE ONE THAT PUT THEM INTO BED WITH THE BLOC!!!!

I could go on all day, but ultimately, Harper and his blue Conservatives can whine and bitch and complain all they want, they can be as sleazy as they want calling Belinda names and insulting her with their nasty little inuendo, but any thinking Canadian, and there are fortunately a lot of us, knows that Belinda by booting across the House floor to sit in the Liberal Cabinet, has furthered her career, saved Canada and killed Harper's future in one sweet little political coup.

Well done girl!