I was talking this over with a friend last night. Andrew Coyne hits it with this:

“All in all, it would be hard to pick a worse time to call an election, as far as the Liberals are concerned: divided internally, stalled in the polls, in the midst of the biggest scandal in modern Canadian political history. All of which raises a troubling question: Why are they calling an election? How much worse are they expecting things to get? If, as bad as things are for them at the moment, they would still rather go now than wait until fall or even next year — if this is the best-case scenario — what on earth do they fear is waiting down the road?”

Whoever’s doing the casting for Al Quaeda is doing a helluva job. I mean, a hook AND a lazy eye? eeeevil. Do you think maybe he got the hook first, and one morning when he was waking up, he went to rub his eyes and… awww christ.

Spammer Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison. booyah. something tells me this won’t put a dent in the 100+ emails I get each day… but it’s good to see some kind of progress.

Good point. Why are the Liberals making health care their number one priority in this election? They don’t know the first thing about it. Medicare is constitutionally a provincial jurisdiction. The only thing Ottawa gets to decide about health care in Canada is how much money they’re going to throw at it. And in that, it seems, all parties agree – they’ve all promised to restore billions of dollars in federal funding (let’s not forget who cut the billions in the first place).

So why is this a priority? It’s not. It’s a distraction. The Liberals are running scared right now, especially in light of recent polls that peg Liberal support in Ontario at 33%. At this point, the Grits will do anything to draw attention away from Adscam, the gun registry and other billion dollar boondoggles, and their relationship to their provincial cousins.

Just in case you thought the Federal Liberals were any different from their Provincial counterparts, guess who consulted with Premier Dalton McGuinty on the recent Provincial Budget. David Herle, Paul Martin’s campaign co-chair and most trusted adviser and his firm, Earnscliffe Strategy Group, did consulting and polling work for Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara.

Let me put it another way. When the provincial Liberals were deciding whether or not to break every promise they made in the run up to the last election, they consulted with our current PM’s most trusted adviser and strategy group.

Let me put it another way. Our current PM, who is making all kinds of big promises in the run up to the coming election, has as his most trusted advisers, the same group of people who advised the provincial Liberals in their recent budget. You remember, the one where they broke all of their promises.

Christina Blizzard has a great editorial today about Paul Martin’s health care policy and how it pretty much mirrors what Mike Harris was doing 8 years ago. His one roadblock? The federal Liberals and then-finance minister Paul Martin.

“When all those federal candidates come sashaying up the walk looking for your vote, remember this: Martin can scaremonger all he wants. You got more health care for less tax money in Harris’ Ontario than in McGuinty’s.”

“Newline cinema presents: that asian guy from American Pie and that Indian guy from Van Wilder.” Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle

Boohbah Zone

Paul Martin’s Liberals are running a campaign on Health Care and uh, fear. Fear and Intimidation are the words of the day as Martin continues painting Stephen Harper as un-Canadian for suggesting that middle class families deserve a tax break, while finance minister Ralph Goodale has been telling Western Canadians that they’ll be shut out of the corridors of power if they don’t vote Liberal.

Will Canadians put up with this kind of arrogance for another term of Liberal governance?

So the Liberals would have us believe that to be a Canadian, one must be a Liberal. That’s the predominant message coming from Paul Martin’s camp in these early days of the official campaign. Check out their first ad.

Today Martin promised to inject $11 billion into Canada’s health care system. Which he says he’ll do without raising taxes. uhh… where have I heard this before?

And before his graciousness goes and paints himself as the saviour of health care, let’s not forget that the only one ever to cut health care spending was St. Paul Martin! Remember that medicare started as a 50/50 deal between Canada and the Provinces. Until the feds under then-finance minister Martin decided to balance their books by cutting transfer payments to the provinces who now pay 86 per cent to the feds’ 14. (In Ontario, Mike Harris’ Conservatives actually increased health care spending from $17B in 95 to $29B in ’03 – and who’s now getting blamed for gutting Ontario’s health care system?)

In all his efforts to demonize the Conservative tax cut plan, it seems St. Paul has conveniently forgotten that he was the finance minister who not so long ago was bragging about having brought in the “largest tax cut in Canadian history.” Valued at $100 billion, that cut was more than double what the Conservatives are proposing now. So when a Liberal cuts taxes, it is to be seen as compassionate, but when a Conservative proposes tax cuts they’re trying to destroy the very fabric of Canadian society?

Which Canadian values are the Liberals such shining examples of? Deceit, Lies, Corruption, Hypocrisy all spring to mind.