Prime Time Crime

John Pifer

Having had a few days to digest the dogs breakfast that was the election result in Canada on Monday, herewith some observations and comments for your consideration:

·       It is said that we get the government we deserve, so obviously we deserved to be punished and left in political limbo. Having equal seat totals of the Liberals with the NDP and the Conservatives with the Bloc Quebecois will likely mean Canadians will return to the polls within 14 months or so.

·       How unfair, unjust and downright stupid it is that one party (the Greens) can get more than half-a-million votes and not get close to even one seat, whilst another (Bloc Quebecois) can get 54 seats with only 1½ million votes!

·       If you ever wondered if Ontario voters are fickle flakes, just look at the results there three-quarters of the seats in the province were handed back to the Liberals, truly the least-deserving gang of political bandits in our history. They showed the Canadian trait of being afraid of change, let alone the supposed bogeyman of Stephen Harper.

·       Speaking of the Conservative leader, he conducted a good campaign  until the last seven days, when he appeared to be too cocky and far too arrogant. He was not firm in dealing with the rants of Randy White, who should have been removed as justice critic immediately (at least for a little while). Nor did Harper and his handlers deal with the whole child pornography slur against Paul Martin with any class. It never should have arisen, let alone be a nasty, unfounded attack on the beleaguered PM.

·       Harpers other major mistake was in taking BC votes and seats for granted. For three of the five weeks of the campaign, he did not bother even to visit to rally the troops here, and it cost him five seats, and nearly eight.

·       As for Martin, this oleaginous double-talking, smarmy snake had the nerve in his victory speech to lay claim to being steeped in honesty, integrity and respect, absolutely none of which apply to him and the Liberals and their nasty, negative campaign. Talk about disinformation!

·       Watch for the NDP's equally-smarmy Jack Layton to push his socialist agenda onto the minority government of Martin, who will be desperate to cling to the power he so nearly lost altogether. Some of the NDP's wild ideas about death taxes and changing the voting system to suit them may actually gain ground from the pack of frightened Liberals.

·       If you wondered whether political bribery turned into an art form by the Liberals over recent decades  was alive and well, just look at the results from Atlantic Canada. So many people there owe their existence and their livelihood from Liberal handouts that they could and did  turn a blind eye to the corruption and outright thievery through the Chrétien/Martin years.

·       How ironic it is that the politician who should be stepping down for his cack-handed election campaign  Mr. Martin  now acts like the saviour of the country, while Mr. Harper is the one who seems to be toying with the idea of throwing in the towel.

·       If there is one sure thing you may count on from this half-assed result in Canada, it is that your tax dollars will continue to be mismanaged and misspent, will continue to be used to buy votes for the next time around, and will not results in improvements to health care or education. (It seems fair to predict that companies run by liberal friends, insiders and financiers will continue to rake in many of those tax dollars, one way or another.)

After all, Paul owes them, big time!

Veteran B.C. journalist/broadcaster John Pifer may be reached at jwpifer@shaw.ca.