King Arthur Movie Tristan

As Clear Conservative Thought points out tonight, the media and the lefties are deciding for Conservatives that we don't support Stephen Harper anymore.

This blog unequivocally supports Prime Minister Harper, regardless of what acts of treason Stéphane Dion or Jack Layton commit.

As CCT says:

I am calling upon all bloggers who support our Prime Minister to voice it clearly, lets send a message to these hacks that their idea of Harper facing a leadership crisis is absolute bull.

Now that summer is all but over and the kids are spending their last few days of freedom with weepy eyes and furrowed brow, it's time to think election. Specifically a federal fall election. PM Harper has announced that he will summons Stéphane Dion and insist he actively support the Conservatives fall legislative agenda, instead of passively supporting it by declaring the new holiday, Confidence Motion Day, a statutory holiday for all Liberal MPs. Expect Dion to refuse his support. Expect a scary October 31st with politicians knocking on your door offering tricks and treats.

I'm of two minds on this one. As an ideological conservative I'd rather an election call be on issues. Let Stephen Harper decrease the excise tax on diesel fuel, or put forth his bill on Senate Reform and let it fall or pass as it may.

As a follower of the game of politics, however, any Conservative Party of Canada faithful wants an election now. The Conservatives chances of winning an election next fall would appear to be much less so than they are right now. There are various reasons why this is so, why the Liberals may want to wait a year, the Conservatives less so.

First there is The Green Shift, which hasn't won the hearts and minds of the nation outside of the editorial offices of The Toronto Sun. Meant to be Dion's jumping off point for a platform, it appears to have fallen flat with voters.

Second is the budget surplus, which is rumoured to be heading into minor deficit this year. While a small, temporary deficit during bad times doesn't bother me too much (far less than not paying down debt during good times), it's not a position a government seeking re-election wants to be in. The Conservatives may or may not be there this year, but better to go to the polls now and explain a deficit from the position of newly re-elected government than one seeking re-election.

A third reason for wanting an election now is inflation. It has reared it's ugly head around the world and is expected to hit hit 4.3% by early next year here in Canada. The Bank of Canada has an inflation target of 1 - 3%. If the rate stays above 3% interest rate hikes are inevitable. But what if rate hikes don't work? Or as Maclean's pondered a few weeks ago, what if inflation goes higher? It is possible in that a year from now we could see borrowing costs 2, 3, 4% higher. That starts to hurt families trying to make ends meet. And it starts hurting Conservative chances a year from now.

That all said, The Conservatives brought in fixed election legislation for a reason: to stop governments going to the polls for their own political advantage. The dissolving Parliament clause may make it legal but clearly Harper would be breaking the spirit of the law by calling an early election. An argument can, I think, be made that minority governments constitute a different situation than a majority, but for Harper to set the precedent of violating the concept of fixed dates renders the law meaningless. It would be better if he lost a confidence motion. We all know Stéphane Dion is loathe to vote the Conservatives down, but if the Conservatives abstained 1 for 1 with the Liberals, sit 95 MPs out of the next confidence motion, they should have no problem losing a motion based on the NDP and Bloc's vote. Harper could get the fall vote he wants without violating the intent of the fixed election date law.

Personally, I'd rather he kept on governing like he had a majority and let the chips fall where they may, but Stephen Harper leaves nothing to chance, and he doesn't look like he's about to start now.

Prime Minister Harper's much touted consumer protection law announcement this past Tuesday came with the usual editorial comments politicians throw into these things. For at least the 2nd time during his Prime Ministership Harper has uttered the pejorative phrase "the almighty dollar." Here's the quote, as given by the National Post's lead editorial on Thursday:

He detailed new regulation that will "improve our safety and our health," while getting tough with nasty companies "who care more about the almighty dollar than the safety of their customers."

As I pointed out last time he used it, the almighty dollar is the kind of "Hargrovian" comment you would find Michael Moore using. It is a leftist phrase meant to demean scary capitalists like Harper.

After using the phrase twice, and after Tuesday's legislation and yesterdays aerospace announcement, I'm beginning to think Jean Cretien was right all along, Harper has a scary hidden agenda - if your conservative.

As indicated by the last couple of posts, and possibly the next one, I wandered over to the neighbouring community of Guelph last night to hear the Prime Minister speak at a function for Guelph candidate Gloria Kovach. Guelph will be the site of the next federal by-election (along with a Quebec riding, I believe), a by-election that must be announced by Oct 10 - a lifetime for this government. Gloria Kovach is the Conservative candidate in that by-election, as well as being somebody I know, however informally, from outside politics. She in fact, used to work with Lady Hespeler.

Last nights event started off with the run through the usual cabal of protesters heckling the people entering the event. God bless their sincerity, it was a cold wet night to be standing outside being ignored for a couple of hours, but they kept with it.

Inside the hall, my MP Gary Goodyear kicked things off with a warm up speech that was, in my father-in-laws words, as entertaining as it was empty. But really, nobody was there to hear what Gary Goodyear had to say, so he got the meaningless lines and a chance to poke fun at the Liberals.

Next up was Gloria Kovach herself, who said little other than to introduce herself, thank everybody for their support, and introduce Prime Minister Harper. The two introductory speeches didn't take ten minutes of the evening I am sure.

Then came the Prime Minister. He gave a fairly long speech, in the neighbourhood of half-an-hour I would estimate, and covered a lot of ground. He took a few jabs at Stephane Dion, particularly good was when he outlined all the times Dion swore he was taking down the government. But mostly he talked of the governments accomplishments, and what the Conservatives would like to do moving forward, including more crime legislation and senate reform. I thought the best line of the night was the most important (paraphrasing a little): in the by-elections Monday we did something very unusual for a governing party, we took a seat away from the opposition.

Overall it was a good effective speech for a partisan crowd. He hit all the right buttons, said most of the things a conservative crowd wanted to hear, and got an agreeable reaction. The night concluded with an opportunity to shake the PMs hand and get a picture with him. A nice opportunity, in which as I indicated earlier, I asked him where his wife was (I was hoping for a picture with her, actually). It resulted in a small, pleasant conversation about the kids schooling. I'll tell you I had a far better chat with him (if 30 seconds = a chat) than if I'd asked him about tax policy or the Quebec question. If I ever get a chance to meet him again, I'm asking about Ben's hockey

What would you ask him?

Me, I asked him where his wife was...

I'll give details of the meeting tomorrow, including a few good pictures.

Street hockey on the driveway at 24 sussex.

Sean O'Donnell, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks' defenceman who is an Ottawa native, brought the Cup to the house (24 Sussex Dr.) on Thursday.

"He got to take the Cup anywhere he wanted for 24 hours and we were fortunate to have it here for an hour and a half," said Stephen Harper's wife, Laureen. The Harpers invited friends and their son Ben's hockey team, and people from the neighbourhood, to touch the Cup.

"We had over 250 people line the driveway with hockey sticks," Mrs. Harper said in an e-mail. It was a private event with no media. While waiting for the Cup to arrive, the Harpers served hot dogs and ran a mini hockey tournament on the semicircular driveway outside the house.

"We had three street hockey games going. It was fun," said Mrs. Harper...

Mr. Harper and his son attend NHL hockey games together, he goes to Ben's games at the local arena, and his kids and their friends play street hockey outside the home on a regular basis.

Three street hockey games were played on the driveway at 24 Sussex, Ben's friends play street hockey there, "on a regular basis."

One question, where's the pictures and video? This is the kind of story the PM's image needs. Why haven't his people got it out there better?

Maybe Jack Layton is right, maybe the time to pull out of Afghanistan is right now. With polls constantly showing a majority of Canadians want our forces out of Afghanistan, with a Parliamentary majority making it clear that extension of the mission will not be supported, and with Stephen Harper saying a Parliamentary majority will be needed to extend the mission, why should anymore soldiers die in a lost cause?

Let me be clear. I support this mission, I think we should be there until the bitter end, however long that takes. I think Afghani's want us there, I think we are doing what's good and right and I think we are making Canada safer by being there.

The results of pulling out? Well, we lose, we are at greater threat. Those who pretend to understand history, and recite the mantra that we created these guys in the late 70's and through the eighties, need to understand this: We did not create them by helping them; We created them by discarding them as soon as they served our needs. Not finishing the job is what got us into this mess, much like not finishing the job in Iraq in the 90's opened us up to the current war there. Not finishing the job in Viet Nam led to Pol Pot's Cambodian massacres of the mid-late 70's, not finishing the job in Korea in the 50's led us to a world were an insane lunatic like Kim Jong-il has the bomb. Not finishing the job in Afghanistan will be a disaster. Anyone who doesn't think pulling out will increase, not decrease the terrorist threat in Canada, anyone who doesn't understand that these terrorists prey on the weak, and a pull out is a show of weakness, is an idiot of the simpering variety.

But we, as a country, seem determined to not finish the job. Yesterday six soldiers tragically lost there lives in Afghanistan. If it is a lost cause, then the tragedy is greater yet. And if it is a lost cause, then every soldier who dies hence will be that much more tragic.

So Jack Layton is right. If we aren't going to finish the job, then lets get out now.

David Asper has a piece today in the National Post about honouring international law. Entitled Our Hypocrisy on the World Stage, Asper does a nice piece on UN treaties rights ignored by Canada. What set Asper off was a piece in yesterdays post regarding the un-elected Senate's recent report, Children: The Silenced Citizens.

What interested me was Asper's part on Private Property Rights:

The granddaddy of them all is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It was followed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966. Canada has ratified both of these documents...

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, confers a right to own property. But property rights are not included in the Canadian Charter of Rights.

I have been on this issue before, back when Paul Martin was blathering on about people who "cherry-pick rights":

If you are talking rights, and things like 'fundamental human rights' we need to know what are human rights. Which leads us to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Note, this is from the UN's Commision on Human Rights and has been in effect for 57 years now. Here's a little something from the preamble:

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

'Member States have pledged themselves to achieve...human rights and fundamental freedoms'...

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

... Rights are fundamental and cannot be cherry-picked or they are not. Property rights has been clearly spelled out in international law...

When people like myself, or maybe Gerry Nicholls' complain about the Conservatives not acting conservative, here's what we mean. From the founding principles of the Conservative Party of Canada:

The Conservative Party will be guided in its constitutional framework and its policy basis by the following principles:

... A belief that the best guarantors of the prosperity and well-being of the people of Canada are:

• The freedom of individual Canadians to pursue their enlightened and legitimate self-interest within a competitive economy;

• The freedom of individual Canadians to enjoy the fruits of their labour to the greatest possible extent; and

• The right to own property;

It's a UN right, it's a conservative principle and, as Asper points out, it's our obligation under international law. Further more, we are one of the few jurisdictions in the world that doesn't guarantee property rights.

Why does nobody ever want to tackle this important issue in this country? Where is Canada's John Locke?

I went to Ottawa last Thursday, and when I got back this blog was down due to converting to *new* blogger. Not again. Last time, you may remember I was down for over three weeks, the time before ten days. A repeat, and I don't think I would have returned, at least not in the form of At Home in Hespeler.

Once again, migration got stuck, and I wound up in the help groups where, to their credit, the blogger employees do their best to problem solve. As you can see, this time the fix was quick, and effective, as I am posting from the *new* blogger template.

Meanwhile I will be writing about Ottawa, but here's a favourite moment. This little fellow was running around Parliament Hill.
I kept thinking, Prairie Dog? Gopher?
Either way, apparently they are getting a bit more respect from "Canada's New Government."