John Baird Lacerates My Ears

Democracy requires your complete obedience

I am listening to John Baird wax abusive over the NDP-Lib marriage of convenience in an interview with Peter Vandusen on CPAC's Primetime Politics.

He's pulled out the 'separatists' and 'socialist' taint that will work wonders in Buttfuck, Alberta forgetting that his party also works with the 'separatists' whenever convenient. I remember Harper's promise to straighten out the fiscal imbalance situation with Quebec (a BQ demand), to give Quebec a seat at the UNESCO (a BQ demand), declared Quebec a 'nation' and used their 2006 budget to give Quebec what it wanted in exchange for the BQ support.

As for 'socialist', what could that mean? Universal health care? Social services? State funded education? Progressive income tax? Yeah, baby, it's fucking frightening what the 'socialists' might do if they got hold of the levers of power.

Bob Rae insisted to Peter Vandusen that the letter of agreement with the BQ includes only a promise of support on fiscal measures introduced by a Lib-NDP coalition government. It in no way means a BQ veto over legislation, says Rae; neither does it guarantee support for legislation (which means that the parties will have to work together to come to an agreement on points in common - I suppose the Conservatives would be welcome to add their acidic 2 bits to any proposed legislation). Rae said that the BQ has agreed in writing to support fiscal policies for the next 18 months giving a coalition government stability.

John Baird counters with his insistence that the 'real' agreement (the secret one, the one they're not talking about) between these parties is way more sinister; the evil BQ are working their black arts to suck the political life out of Canada (perhaps possibly going as far as demanding a seat for Quebec as a special delegate to UNESCO).

He says that he is stunned that a 'small band' of 'leftists' and 'separatists' would steal parliament and overturn the recent federal election. When Vandusen countered that they aren't such a small band since they form a majority Baird did not even pause; the velocity of sentence didn't change but it's trajectory did. He was stunned, stunned, he said. This is carte blanche for the 'leftists' to drive the Brinks trucks up to Parliament Hill and start loading up the money.

Poor John. Democracy never looked so confusing for him.