To be blunt, Joe Clark lost the PM's job in 1980 because he can't count. He called a vote on a budget when he didn't have the bodies in the House to ensure its passage, and the Liberals gleefully shot it down before marching back into the halls of power. And thus we endured the National Energy Program, gratis Joe Clark.
His campaign that year included a promise to get tough on the deficit by raising gas taxes ten cents a gallon. Solving problems by raising taxes is, of course, the liberal solution to every problem that group has ever faced. That the Liberals then gave us the metric system and raised them even more just means they're all cut from the same cloth.
In 1986, in his incarnation as foreign affairs minister in the Mulroney government, Clark gave the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime of Ethiopia $60,000,000.00, the same year that government spent $100,000,000.00 on arms to suppress its own citizens. One cannot help but wonder how many deaths in that politically motivated famine resulted from our minister's misguided benevolence. Not long thereafter, Captain Canada spearheaded another disaster: the Charlottetown Accord.
Question: How can a conservative be so misguided, so often?
Answer: When he's not a conservative.
In 2010, Joe Clark, Jean Chretien and Ed Broadbent got together to discuss the merits of creating a united, left-wing party to take on the Tories. So Joe's conservatism is a facade and, judging by his record, always has been. This paper is not about Joe Clark.
It should terrify Albertans that Premier Allison Redford is a long-time, avid supporter of the man and has been involved in many of his campaigns. This can mean only one of two things: Either she's a dim-witted conservative who can't see past the end of her nose OR, like Joe, she's masquerading as a conservative in order to implement another agenda. Judging by her list of accomplishments, which are legion, it's apparent she's no fool. Which leaves the option of a hidden agenda.
Did Ms. Redford, for instance, say word one during the P.C. leadership campaign about lowering the allowable blood alcohol level to 0.05%? Does implementing it almost immediately following that race not constitute a "scary hidden agenda." It does if you're inclined to stop for a beer with your mates after work.
She and her minions claim that law is not about going after social drinkers, but two beer and a sandwich (yes, yeast increases bac) will push some people over that limit. So I'm not sure what their definition of social drinker is, but I'm sure I don't share it.
Your humble scribe was up in the North West Territories on business recently where he saw enough people hunting from the side of the road that he had to assume it was legal. In Alberta the government doesn't trust us to be able to smoke and drink coffee or even eat a doughnut behind the wheel. Or, if Ms. Redford has her way, stop for a beer on the way home from work. To paraphrase a line from a popular commercial being aired these days, the way to get tough on drunk on drunk drivers is to get tough on drunk drivers, not make defacto criminals out of responsible, law-abiding citizens.
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