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Premier Dexter enthuses over Harper election promise
April 3, 2011 - 10:35pm
It was love at first sight.
Support for the cable
Of course, Dexter is only Asshole #2.
Asshole #1 was Premier Jean Charest, who immediately blasted Harper for promising money to someone other than Jean Charest.
KenS can't get a single post past the spam filter, so he PMed me and asked to post the following reply on his behalf:
My reply to Ken:
Why did Dexter have to praise Harper? Because he takes it for granted that Harper will win and make good on his promise? Why didn't Dexter just say, "I'll wait to hear the positions of the other leaders on this issue before commenting"? Or why didn't he say, "I don't understand - I didn't see this in the budget speech - what's up here?"?
My answer to these questions is that, obviously, he is not someone who has the best interests of the Canadian people at heart - that he is someone who is willing to sell what small bit of a soul he may have left for dirty short-term political advantage.
Ken, being closer to the situation, may have far better answers to the questions I just posed. I promise to post them on his behalf as they come in.
I've tried 6 times to post something this morning and they've all been turned down. Let's see if this one works. What's up with this site??????
There's a secret way to get past the spam filter. For obvious reasons, I'm not at liberty to post it here.
Oh really?
Like the Kelowna Accord?
And national child care?
Wait a sec. Does that also mean the F-35 purchase is a "done deal" no matter who wins?
Ken, you didn't answer a single one of my questions.
1. Why wasn't this in the budget? How can it be a "done deal" if it wasn't in the budget?? And why didn't Dexter raise that question?
2. Why didn't Dexter seek the same commitment from the other party leaders? Why would a premier, of any party, thank someone campaigning for power for an election promise??
And here's another question. Is it in the best interests of Nova Scotians to see Harper regain power? What has Dexter said on that issue? Has he supported the federal campaign?
You see, many of us have spent many years under NDP governments. It's not like the federal scene, where all you have to go on is promises. What the NDP does provincially, it should be counted on to do federally. Is that unfair? Or is it plain old simple realism?
Dexter is a disgrace. He was elected on a promise to cut taxes. Now he intervenes in an election campaign to thank Harper. He should be thrown far away at the earliest opportunity. We knew this before. We know it better now.
Another fine reason to formally disconnect the federal and provincial NDPs. It just leads to problems.
WAIT!!! I screwed up Ken's last post, so I'm posting it here without my usual reply. SORRY!
Harper playing Dexter like a fiddle - it's worth a thousand words:
Ottawa is only providing a loan guarantee for this project. The project will be funded by a partnership between Nova Scotia Power's parent company, Emera, and Nalcor Energy, the Newfoundland government's provincially owned electric power company. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland governments had to lobby our stooges in Ottawa to do their jobs, and that's not always an easy thing to push and prod them into doing with Charest's bunch whining about NAFTA and "market" issues.
Congratulations goes out to Nova Scotia's NDP government and Newfoundland for a job well done.
You are absurd Unionist.
Hey it worked, I got through.
Dare I committ myself to write a reply, only to be snubbed by Captcha thug?
A loan guarantee would never be in the budget.
And it is not remotely like the Kelowna Accord, or the fighter jets or all those other things that everyone knows are contingent on the promise making government being re-elected.
Let me be clear: you are making stuff up that maybe this was done because Dexter worries about the promise being kept. This sort of a promise is a done deal: because it is cheap, is not a long lasting expenditure commitment, and would be suicide for any government to renege on. You don't get it. More like you refuse to get it: Dexter didnt get commitments from the other party leaders because they are irrelevant. Everyone who pays attention, and isnt looking for something to concoct, knows that the commitment will be honoured by any government.
As to provincial governments overtly and explicitly speaking for or against any federal government- its just customary that it isnt done in Canada unless the Prime Minister has done something specific to that province. What it does to them 'as Canadians,' is just treated as something you do not get into.
Doug: "Another fine reason to formally disconnect the federal and provincial NDPs. It just leads to problems."
I would certainly like to see the federal party more disconnected, in practice, with or without the formal disconnect.
But Unionist making up 'embarrasments' is not a reason for doing so.
For that matter, the fact that provincial NDP governments limit their comments about federal politics is a measure of the de facto policy disconnect that already exists between provincial and federal levels of all the parties. And a formal disconnect would not change anything, because most people are goin to take the sensible approach that if they both use the same label, they are at least very closely related. Duh.
The reason I want to see the disconnect is so that the federal party is not organizationaly dependent on the provincial sections and their priorities.
Like I said, a formal break is not going to change the optics of the policy conflicts between the two levels.
Oh, pardon me for not realizing that Harper's promise of a loan guarantee "or equivalent" (because, Ken, for your information, he has not promised a loan guarantee) is solid, while when Paul Martin actually signs the Kelowna Accord while in power, it means nothing. What are you trying to say here??
I never said that. Not once. You're the one concocting, inventing, misreading. I asked the question. My accusation against Dexter, if you read carefully, is that he is an asshole who doesn't even have the decency to not drool and slaver over some bullshit promise made by Harper - that he is an opportunist - the same Dexter who came to power promising to cut spending and taxes. He has not changed. No wonder he is hugging and kissing Harper.
Oh, by the way, why don't you actually read what Dexter said, rather than claiming he was just being minimally diplomatic:
Having an f-ing orgasm, if you ask me. What a creepy cheerleader for Harper. And people here can defend this bastard? This is the most unprincipled behaviour imaginable. Looking for short-term gain and risking putting Canada in peril.
I asked you - why didn't he say, "I'd like to know where the other party leaders stand on this." And your answer is to make excuses for this piece of waste? Why are you doing this?
What a farce. Like commitments to get out of Afghanistan?
What a load of bull. "Customary". Are you serious? A premier can't say, "Don't vote for Harper", unless Harper has done something bad to his or her province? And you're defending this nonsensical thesis? The premier stops being Canadian when elected? Stops being entitled to voice an opinion??
Dexter voiced his opinion. He talked to Harper on the phone! A royal f*ing audience!! And Harper said "I'll give you MONEY!!" What a "win-win", says Dexter!!
Fidel can't even bring himself to say, "HARPER is only providing a loan guarantee for this project" - because then it might seem that Dexter had a phone chat with Harper and got some money! Which doesn't help Fidel's theory that any little thing Dexter (whom he's never met, I'll bet) does must be great, because he heard somewhere that Dexter, even though he hugs and kisses Harper, is from the NDP!
What a farce.
How much money did Harper give to Dexter's NDP Government of Nova Scotia for this power project? (Not a trick question.)
You're the one making it sound like the money is coming from the Conservative Party's own purse not me. And that's simply not the case. There isn't even any money coming from the general vicinity of Ottawa. Nothing as in not one thin dime.
I know that our two old line parties have been generally politically impotent over the last 35 years or so, but they are merely doing their jobs this time around. This loan guarantee thing is nothing extraordinary for a federal government. Electric power is necessary for industrial expansion and economic growth in general. The risk is small for financing electric power capabilities to provinces in short supply.
This isn't the same as the Tories backed by Liberals shovelling billions of dollars in corporate welfare handouts to profitable oil companies in Alberta needlessly. It's not that kind of political favour.
I liked it better when I couldnt post.
Does this mean that all of Stephen Harper's election promises made during this campaign are binding on the Liberals and the NDP if they should form the next government, whereas campaign promises made by Iggy and Jack are NOT binding on the Conservatives if they form the next government?
Have I got that right?
Very selective quoting. Even though it is in the same paragraph, you left out the answer to your "question".
Just noticed that Unionist earlier took the same thing out of context in the same way:
Great principles act alike.
A few days ago Duceppe said Quebec paid for its hydro development with Quebec money - this loan guarantee gives the perception that Ottawa is subsidizing Hydro-Quebec's main competitor.
ETA: Harper hydro plan 'an attack' Duceppe says
excerpt:
In Quebec City, Premier Jean Charest said Thursday the province has nothing against the hydro development, but stressed it won't let Ottawa get involved.
ETA: Darn - CAPTCH'd again!
Harper is the one who sent Flaherty's budget off to the printing presses without consulting Canada's democratically elected Parliament.
And any coalition deal between the NDP, Liberals, (and Bloc) would also necessitate negotiation of specific policies and legislations on a case by case basis. This is another example of how democracy is supposed to work.
But this FPTPian political maneuvering is all in someone else's mind. This has nothing to do with democracy or extracurricular government spending not mentioned in the budget. It's not real.
This thread is a farce.
Listen to yourself. When the Ontario NDP expelled Basil Hargrove, can you recall the charge? Was Paul Martin running for premier of Ontario at the time?
That's the answer to my question?
I guess that means that if Iggy or Layton makes campaign promises that are cheap and not long-lasting expenditure commitments, Harper would be committing suicide if his re-elected government "reneged" on them? Or to be more specific, if Iggy (instead of Harper) had promised to guarantee the financing loan, Harper would be bound to honour the commitment?
Harper is done. After he fails to win a phony-baloney majority this time around, his Bay Street handlers will yank him from the top party job. Harper's future as head stooge ended when Layton and company pulled the plug on the phony minority Tories' bathwater.
Impossible to have a discussion with people who twist your words repeatedly.
Question: can we discuss the tensions between Quebec and Nf/Lb over the Lower Churchhill here, or does that belong in a separate thread?
And from another thread:
The Lower Churchill issue has been circulating on and off in the news for some time. How much longer should Atlantic Canadians wait for opposition statements of support? Until after the federal election to avoid mucking up their Quebec pandering strategies? Dexter may well indeed be deluded in accepting promises from the Harper regime at face value, or else he's laying it out on the table to see if anyone else will drop in for a bite. I would have thought you might appreciate that sort of pragmatism.
For example, when Bob Rae's ONDP Government provided loan guarantees to a steel mill facing bankruptcy in Northern Ontario in the early 1990s, Mike the Knife Harris' bunch couldn't or did not do anything about it after they were elected in 1995. The steel mill in Sault Ste Marie turned its situation around. The company gradually returned to profitability in lockstep with Ontario's economic recovery, which was recovering at a greater rate than any other provincial one by 1994 and provincial books on-track for balanced for by 2000. That was until Harris' bunch were elected in 1995, and they made sure to throw us back into deficit mode even though economic recovery was underway before they tookover.
Whatever party forms the next federal government, it would be silly for them to remove loan guarantees from a financial deal already set in motion. Why? What purpose would it serve? Are there any real world examples of it ever happening?
And not only that we might ask ourselves, what is the real meaning of life? Fabulous prizes in store for the best answer.
From the link I provided upthread:
In Quebec City, Premier Jean Charest said Thursday the province has nothing against the hydro development, but stressed it won't let Ottawa get involved.
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