Apolitical Staples

Jean Chrétien, for all his faults, understood the dynamics of the whole issue.

You give an inch to the separatists, they will take a yard.

You have to take a hard line stance. You have to say “all or nothing”. You cannot flinch, or else you lose.

Bob Rae, having been exposed to this issue as an elected politician, understands this.

Ignatieff is so pie in the sky.

Mulroney tried to work with nationalists. Why didn’t it work? Because that’s not ultimately what separatists want. This is all a hollow symbol, almost a sham. It’s not about distinct society. If you give in to Distinct Society, next they’ll be asking for their own embassies.

While I accept all regions are different, it’s extremely important that Canadians stands as CANADIANS, not hyphenated Canadians, whether by ethnicity or province. In fact, one of the reason why the federalist side in Quebec has such trouble is that the whole business of being Canadian often seems fake to the average Quebecker. This is because most institutions in Quebec are highly nationalist and separatist, and loving Canada is perceived to be a betrayal to true Quebec identity. If you give in to that nationalism, you are giving in to the premise of the premise that you can’t be a true Quebecker and a Canadian, and that just plays into the separatist hands. Canadians must stand as Canadians (including Quebeckers) that Canada is a united country,period. Whatever the inter-family disputes.

I grew up in Quebec for the first 25 years of my life. I was a foot soldier in the 1995 referendum. People like Ignatieff who are far from the issue bug me. I have Quebec politics in my blood. The separatist/federalist issue is visceral for me, as it is for many Quebeckers. It’s a kind of war, it’s not a “nicey-nicey” thing. You can’t give in. The two sides are like East and West. You simply have to fight and hold your ground until you win.

I should say “politicians who are far from the issue and pontificate on the subject of separation bug me.”

Lord knows there are things in our constitution that need fixing, but I think the big reason attempts to fix the constitution failed in 1982, 1990 and 1992 is because we tried to create a perfect system.

You’re never going to get a perfect system. The question you should be asking is, does a particular change you propose improve the system, or not?

If we reopen the constitution, let us reopen it in a very limited way. Let’s talk about the Senate and nothing more. Or another pressing issue, and nothing more. If we focus on a particular subject, and nothing more, we actually stand a chance of resolving that particular debate and coming up with a solution that most of us, if not all of us, are happy with.

Why can’t we just do amendments like the US? why do we have to “re-open” the thing? I don’t get that.

Let’s talk about the Senate and nothing more.

An elected senate will not protect Canadians from being plundered and welfared to death by parliament - it will only add another weapon to the plunder- and welfare-seeking faction.

The external form of government bears very little relationship to the freedom and wealth of the governed. People who have a strong conception of their individual and private rights and freedoms will demand and receive them, no matter whether it is a king or a commons who presumes to make their laws. People who think of themselves as helpless, debauched infants always have been and always will be treated as such by their government.

If you feel that you and your friends have the energy and the will to make Canada a better place, then please use it to make Canada better in definite, concrete ways, instead of wasting your time (and my money) turning a body of weak, ineffectual socialist blowhards into a gang of powerful and destructive socialist blowhards. A hundred Andrew Thompsons are better than a hundred Ted Kennedys.

In general I find that the constitution of Canada is such a weak document and the fights over its meaning are so uninformed and pointless that I prefer to simply ignore it and concentrate on convincing people of what I know to be right in my heart. After all, it’s just a piece of parchment. It means nothing to the federal government who violate it in order to expand welfare programs, and it means nothing to the separatists who violate it in order to create foreign embassies. It means nothing to the judges who project their own leftist law-school fantasies onto it. Look beyond this tissue of lies and hyprocrisy and focus on the real world.

Speaking of Quebec separatists: I have come to have a fond place in my heart for those red-wine-drinking, tabernacky little demagogues. While to most outward appearances they seem bent on creating a smaller, more ethnically pure socialist paradise, the fact is that when they succeed, they will be fiscally restrained to the point where they will either have to give their people real freedom, or perish.

Screw senate reform. How any conservative can sign on to Harper’s fiasco is beyond me. Elected senators will have to make promises to the people who elect them. That means pork out the wazoo and not just by the leftwing senators as the above commenter erroneously states. All you have to do is look at the American senate to see the truth of it.

You know Harper hit pay dirt after reading the riot act to the senators “we don’t want a report we want action” when you get of all people Robert McClelland losing sleep over it.

Rob, just so you understand the mechanics of whats happening here, Harper is creating a scenario where the senate no longer can hide in the red chamber, their legitimacy is going to be called into quesiton if they hold up the Accountability Act, which only provides (on a silver platter) justification for Harper to push back.

I’m hoping the red chamber of past PM appointtees will resist, much to their own disadvantage.

Sucks to be them.

Holy crap,

McClelland made a pursausive argument:

Elected senate = massive new layer of buracracy = wasted tax dollars via porkbarreling

Robert, you should use that more often (as opposed to the hateful rhetoric and such)