Separatist Péquistes keep Federalist Grits bacon alive undemocratically for pork barrel politics

Separatist Péquistes keep Federalist Grits bacon alive undemocratically for pork barrel politics on a $61 billion dollar budget with $161 million in additional spending in an elitist 11th hour deal, as Parti Québécois interim leader François Gendron states that 33 or 34 of its 38 representative members of the PQ will sit out and abstain from voting in Friday's budget vote to allow minority government to survive by a vote or two, thus giving Jean Charest a mandate to push forward whatever changes are planned and anything done within his government that may or may not be negative.

Once more the true third way comes out as the only positive principled political alternative, Action Démocratique du Québec never did any special backroom dealstowards demands for greater health care and education spending and lower tax cuts, wouldn't deny bringing out a full slate of representatives to all those constituents being made voiceless and refused to play the game of politics as it really is over in the province next door as they only wish to kill the massive Québec debt, which has risen from $111 billion when Charest's Liberals was first elected in 2003, to $122 billion this year alone!

Mario Dumont has made the best effort to show what kind of a statesman he can be, he didn't create nor was consulted on a bad unbalanced budget that would have triggered a summer election less than four months after Québécois went to the polls, however true it really is that Québécois didn't want to go through another election so very soon is honestly unimportant, instead what matters here is that 35 ridings of the 125 total in Québec will have a silent voice tomorrow as their MNAs play sick absence and thus had a silent vote in the last election on this budget - is that democratic?

Alberta byelections to say give them Liberals, Alliance or Independence

John Rew of Craigmyle will be on the ballot in Drumheller-Stettler as the Independent candidate in Alberta for these upcoming byelections, joining him on that ballot is Dave France of the Alberta Alliance, with Jane Greydanus running under the party banner in Calgary-Elbow. The Western or Albertan Independence Party movement seems to have captured former Reform MP and current Alberta Senator-in-waiting Cliff Breitkreuz, who had worked once within the Western Alienation/Albertan Separatist movement under 29 year old former Reform activist Cory Morgan, now Policy Director for the Alliance, along with attention from MPs and Senators-in-waiting Myron Thompson, Darrel Stinson, Bert Brown and Ted Morton in the early 2000s.

Exactly 25 years ago, Gordon Kesler was elected to the Alberta Legislature in a by-election in Olds-Didsbury for the separatist Western Canada Concept, though Alberta lacks a credible separatist voice at present, many hope the Alberta Alliance can hold the standard by sticking to the basics of their Alberta Agenda, which gives Albertans a minimal protection against Ottawa's attack on the cash.

If these real reformers with the Alliance and soft separatists with the Independence cause enough wave, these byelections may actually become the perfect storm provincially there, enough to elect a seat or two in the opposition for change to its status quo Albertocracy if the people can play their political cards right.

It really is a test of mettle for Ed Stelmach, as one watches to see if he will be like Charles Stewart, Richard Reid and Harry Strom before him, or set up for a future Herbert Greenfield, William Aberhart or Peter Lougheed. The Liberals, Greens, Social Credit and New Democrats also look to fight for a sensible shot at the title, but remain in the fringe of Albertan grassroots thought, despite all making gains in the last few years especially the federal Greens, plus the open door possibility of a Party of Alberta being reserved last year by a 26 year old Rhys Courtman.

Now having the Mayor of Calgary and outgoing Youth President of your own party after you to deal straight with the power or get lost, one has to wonder how all of this is weighing upon Unsteady Eddie's mind, or even in a greater sense, his very own political conscience.

Winning the budget but losing the election

While Jean Charest may be on his way to winning the upcoming budget, he truly has lead himself down the road to losing the future election. The PLQ can either work with the ADQ or the PQ to make it pass, but simply in doing that, they give up their agenda and mandate to the party they do finally decide to work with. Stephen Harper, as a proxy of Brian Mulroney, owns Charest, the Conservatives in Ottawa pay the political bills Québec incurs and thus own the Liberals those Québécois just vote in to be their voice back out to Ottawa. While André Boisclair quickly defeated himself and his équipe du tonnerre with lesser ideas of consultation publique de la souveraineté to reconstruisons notre Québec instead of the older souveraineté association de la séparation ideal, Mario Dumont was slowly accepting himself to his own culture, using autonomie pour le Québec to his advantage and also finding the middle ground between separatism and federalism. The controversial reasonable accommodationn debate was proof that Charest was on his way out because he was on the wrong side of the political tracks, his politics got too old and now he pays the price that Parti Libéral du Québecc leaders in the past and those in the future have paid and will continue to pay for the price of dirty closed federalism and its even dirtier payoff for separatism.

Charest's Liberals know that Jean's done

This political risk will not pay off for Charest's Liberals, even by tabling a $1 billion income tax cut budget, containing $950 million worth of tax cuts for middle class workers, as even Jean's personal attack, verging on vendetta, on democratic socialist medicare as he readies himself to challenge to the Canada Health Act and its openly federalist principles just to prove the Québécois that he is beyond the status quo he protects and preserves as Philippe Couillard right beside him nods in agreement.

Fall is coming, with the possibilities great that his government will be saved by his rivals, Charest Grits commissioned recommendations on how to change the financing of the its public health system, these changes include an idea that it should be absolutely scraped and privitized for its own betterment, a backroom appointment of former Charest backer and Liberal minister Claude Castonguay will likely bring this assessment up as its most favoured option, while advocating for full fledged two tier system that allows for user fees for medical services and expect Ottawa to like it or else.

Supre Mario Dumont knows the Action Démocratique du Québec has to stand against tax cuts, open to changes in medicare or the Liberals win, so he asks for more autonomy for Québec by rejecting the federal transfer payments, paying down its deficit and sticking to its priorities of health care, education and debt reduction, with seems to mean the ADQ is slowly becoming seen as the true third way between the PLQ's failed federalism and the PQ's stalled separatism.

That kind of political realignment, a sort of second revolution of silence, has been going on in the province next door, Ontario, since about 2003, which asks the citizen to escape the right versus left dichotomy, this basic rethinking and redoing of the same old system allows one to break out of boxes created many generations and revolutions ago, slowly creating a new antagonistic of ample propostions that pits the almost united grassroots against the already unified elites on diametrically opposed sides of the political arena.

Now we know the Parti Québécois are in no shape for another election, between interim leader François Gendron and leader to be Pauline Marois, as the March election gave only 36 seats in the 125-seat national assembly to its Péquistes, compared to an opposition 41 for the Adéquistes and 48 for the Liberals, thus memories of André Boisclair must be expunged from the minds of its supporters and replaced by the René Lévesque-friendly vision of Pauline Marois as soon as possible.

Kingston Accord is a go

Half a dozen or more of us grassroots activist leaders, representing groups of concerned citizens between a hundred plus to a thousand plus, gathered for a charity Salvation Army dinner and summit at Martha's Table in Kingston, much was spoken, discussed and talked about, action on many different areas of principle and policy was thought out, three different scenerios were creating an internal lobby group within a currently exisiting federal party as Constance Wilkins and Marc Fournier openly endorsed, create a brand new federal party as Charles Conn backed strongly or build that and a provincial political party here in Ontario.

We agreed on the formation of a political entity that would base itself upon the non negotiable principles of personal freedom, grassroots democracy, prosperity of the individual and justice, the policies of less government through the elimination of departments and staffing, substantial, across the board, tax reductions, referenda, recall, elected Senate and Judges, an end to enforced bilingualism and multiculturalism and the enshrining of property rights in the constitution - which collectively would be called the Kingston Accord.

There was unanimous agreement from the basis discussion that a second meeting would be called, for the benefit of the wider citizen base, to further develop this Accord, as the Democratic Grassroots Coalition of Concerned Citizens moved forward, Anthony Silvestro has promised to send out an open invitation to concerned citizens, frustrated taxpayers and grassroots organizations who want to use common sense to determine the future of our country, especially those who are sick and tired of politicians saying one thing and doing the other and frustrated with all our same old federal and provincial political parties of the status quo.

Beyond the Right with the Grassroots

There is no doubt, Reformers within the federal Tory coalition are ticked right off with their United Right fiasco, one that I personally called at least three times there in the past. One after the 1997 Canadian federal election, when I felt Preston Manning was getting closer towards leaving the original grassroots ideology of Reform by speaking about becoming part of a Conservative ideology. The next was the United Alternative initiative of 1999 and 2000, when Stockwell Day took over from Manning, they began their destruction of old Reform and their beginning of new Tory through their Focus Federally For Reform while I worked along with Ontario's brand of Grassroots United Against Reform's Demise with success unfortunately. Then finally the last rebellion to force the Uniting the Right wing by allowing the upstart Democratic Representative Caucus to split from the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, undemocratically oust and then replace Day with Stephen Harper, allow Harper to take his bring back the real Reform Party of Canada leadership mantra from his speeches back, watch as Peter Mackay lies to David Orchard in their leadership race he wins, cheats their grassroots members from having a chance to keep their own party and undemocratically merges it up the federal Tories with the Alliance in 2003!

I personally started walking away from Reform when this Unite the Right started taking hold, I got back in contact with the federal Green movement by the time the Alliance had started then eventually the regionalist Ontario movement by the time the Alliance had ended. As a Progressive Democratic Reformer from the political Centre of Canada, I understood we had a civic duty to help keep Canada indivisibly united as is through brand new change towards a deal for Re-Con-Federation. Having now worked within the Reform-Alliance movement made me realize there were grassroots citizens who wanted a fiscally, socially and environmentally responsible alternative that was also home to civil libertarians and democratic reformers who didn't necessarily believe they were Conservative Tories from the Right Wing, yes there were principled conservatives, but there were also principled liberals and independents, disillusioned New Democrats and Greens and they all just wanted a greater good government that worked by, of and for the people.

So, now we read in the media about this grassroots political initiative, one that I may add that I am personally involved within, that I am working within this type of movement proves this isn't a gaggle of disgruntled Tories considering refounding the Reform Party, as that was seen then, now still is, as one Western Canadian political vehicle of grassroots political reform for alienated and discontented quasi separatists such as those in the defunct Western Canada Concept, Western Independence Party and reserved Party of Alberta. The argument really could also be made that we are disgruntled grassrooters considering recreating an anti-separatist version of the Bloc Québécois in Ontario. So as we go into the meetup in Kingston tomorrow, can we all just simply keep an open mind so we can try to think big and outside of the box for the sake of Canada?

Duceppe goes back to Québec while Boisclair goes back to Harvard

Ontario must act now to counter Québec

Beau Risque Blowup

Multilingual word for a Multicultural world

Canada has the multilingual word for a multicultural world, as demonstarted yesterday through Justin Trudeau speech to elementary school teachers in New Brunswick, "No, I am not for bilingualism," he stated pausedly, "I am for trilingualism and quadlingualism. This is more and more the reality of where we are headed." and it would seem we are truly looking at the future creation of a real Official Languages Act.

Later, he called out separatists as whining and complaining kids, something I suppose he believed his audience knew much about, "Quebec will never separate, ever," he maintained painstakingly, "separatism is a mythology that has been created." to which Trudeau seems to have made his claim electorally quite plain.

New Brunswick has always been friendly territory for the Liberals, just as Nova Scotia has been friendly for the Tories, but as New Brunswick is the only constitutionally bilingual province in the country, one has to wonder why would Justin make such an over the political top statement like that in such a politically sensitive region, especially as his federal party leader, Stephane Dion, has just started to get over his cold start at the helm and the answer is simple - Trudeau is about changing this society towards his own justice as he sees it.

Liberals and Green, Tories and Bloc and those lowly New Democrats

Money but not Monarchy welcome in Québec

While those running Ottawa are planning to mark the 2008's 400th anniversary of the UNESCO heritage site Cité Québec with celebratory fireworks, flowers, flags, banners, exhibits, circuses and a Québec theme at Winterlude in Ottawa, the spending will not even compare to the $225 million bash planned in Québec, with $110 million spent alone on new infrastructure within the Province du Québec and only within the Province du Québec!

We had learnt awhile back that Queen Elizabeth the Second of England was not welcomed at this historic shindig, as an archaic symbol who should stay home according to Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, with both the Quebec Sovereignty Council's Gérald Larose and the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste's Jean Dorion agreeing that demonstations in protest would be in order as federalists are trying hard to hijack the joyous occasion, saying their Québécois remember the Queen's last visit in 1964 on Samedi de la Matraque or Truncheon Saturday and will act once more accordingly (though she did make a brief trip to the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa in October of 2002 and not a minor scuffle was made on her or her entourage).

Why they believe as Larose does that "Canada wasn't founded in 1608, what was founded in 1608 was the Québec nation and this has nothing to do with Canada." is when federalist Charest Liberal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoit Pelletier joins in the chorus for the abolishment of both Hons. Lt.-Gov. Lise Thibault, Gov.-Gen. Michaëlle Jean and their Monarchy and asking another favour of the Québec friendly Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper (who has said he will replace the high spending vice regal appointed in 1996) and now we see whether the same man that gave Québécois a nation will now take away a monarchy?

May Day Grey Day

Yeah, it is one May Bruce-Grey Day for sure, great to be right back home from its benevolent deep green rural farmlands to its friendly grey, brown and black urban townproperties up here in the Lake Huron and Georgian Bay region of this great province. Conversations, gladhanding and listening what those I visit with have to say on the issues that are important to them, their families and friends is also important to me, but moreso the community at large at the end of the day and a caring and compassionate community of citizens like you and me. We must sustain through grassroots political action the individual rights, responsibilities and freedoms our collective society solidly strives for, making it one that is for justice, fairness and equality and fights against the kind of short term greed for one that does not bring forth long term prosperity for all (unlike the under 50 ranking Canadian Business Online, MoneySense and Profit's contest for Canada's Best Places to Live gives our own Owen Sound)!


One of our best cyber initiatives we have in the area is the Saugeen Community Blog, which has become a friendly forum for the discussion of economic, social, and environmental sustainability in the Counties of Bruce and Grey, started up all through the powers of its moderator Shane D. Jolley. Just after last year's Grey-Bruce-Owen Sound Green-Up, Shane had contacted me to sit down, have a talk with him and some local political activists about the local scene, we simply did just that, having a great time and getting to know each other even more. After explaining how I was asked by some local high school students to run for the same Green Party nomination he ended up winning unanimously, we found so much common ground on so many similar issues, he ended up inviting me to join him as a regular contributor on the regionally syndicated by the community weblog and the offered possibility of working on a local future election campaign whenever its time comes.

Ultimately, we as Grey-Brucers need to stick together, we are each strong individually, making up a stronger collective that is this region, an accountable area that honestly wants to do what is right over what is wrong and transparency is key to all citizens here. That is why we do respect the rights of others yet make sure we reserve the responsibility to clean our own backyards before we attack someone for the upkeep of theirs and do for others as you wish done for you. We are a people who act locally so we can speak globally, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you each and every day, all and any way, about the positive and negative ways life deals with us humans - because without this chance to change your choices in life at critical stages like today, how does one speak to and act against what is wrong and speak of and act for what is right?