Comment of the Day

The best thing about the leak of the PMO's "Talking Points for Dummies" memo is that most of the ConBots appear to have been struck dumb in the comments section for fear that they may be caught cribbing.

One conservative who did manage to find his own words had this to say:

Tom Radcliffe from Kingston, Canada writes: As a true conservative--that is, one who values the traditions of Canadian parliamentary democracy, which have proven sound in over a century of Canadian practise and many more centuries of practise and evolution in Britain before that--I am appalled by the Harper government's radical and innovative interpretation of our representative democratic process.

Governments must have the confidence of the House. If the government of the day loses the confidence of the House, the Governor General may ask any group of MPs who can plausibly claim to have the confidence of the House to form a new government. This is the traditional, conservative, way that Canadian parliamentary democracy works, and anyone who calls it undemocratic is either ignorant of Canadian history and politics, or some kind of wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth radical who certainly does not deserve the name "conservative."

That the Harper government is choosing to engage in this kind of childish, anti-democratic, radical brinksmanship in a time of great economic uncertainty is clear proof that they are far more concerned with party than country, and it is a good thing that they are going to engage in a campaign this weekend to clearly announce that to Canadians.

Canadians aren't stupid. If we are forced back to the polls by this bizarre game of political chicken we will remember whose government created that situation, and why. That knowledge will quite probably be reflected in the election's outcome.