Stalin would feel right at home with our electoral system. It can be bought, twisted and manipulated, as Ontario demonstrated recently.
The truth is that people who don’t vote are telling all the politicians, “None of you is worth getting off my duff to vote for!” (I’m quoting a disgruntled voter at the door.) But those people are voting. They’re sitting on their rear ends. Try to tell them that the Conservative and Liberal parties are different. They know that those parties are a two-headed horse going in the same direction. The NDP isn’t even in the land of probabilities. All three major parties proudly trumpet a pro-abortion, anti-family and secular-humanist stand.
Stephen Harper has been metamorphosed from Western Conservative to Reform to Alliance and, lo and behold, a conservative again! How many more transformations can we expect? What about those Western voters who almost totally rejected the Conservative party in previous elections to vote Reform? Did Harper go to the voters – especially Western ones – about this backflip?
No, only the party faithful had a chance to express their opinions after paying for their new memberships. Some even joined both Alliance and Tories parties at the same time! Now, the Alliance has gobbled up the Tory party to advance the prime ministerial ambitions of Harper, MacKay and a few others. In MacKay, you have a politician whose political integrity bank stands at around ground zero. Ask David Orchard. Polls indicate the new party is sagging.
Before the Liberals start cheering the good fortune of having these chumps for opponents, let me bring on my Liberal party oracle, Hortense McGillicuddy, to reveal the Liberals’ dirty dealings and neck-stomping from inside the tent.
“Is it possible, Hortense, to buy the prime minister of Canada’s job?” I asked.
Hortense replied: “Yes. It’s just been done.”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed.
“No, but the first thing, if you have a prime ministerial thirst today, is to have millions of dollars that you don’t mind frittering away chasing the dream. Your venture will also attract scads of people who have more money than you have and company jets to prove it. They open their wallets and they open doors. Paul Martin needs to fundraise like Bill Gates needs a part-time job. Power attracts power. And power attracts Maurice Strong.”
“Surely, there must be something more?”
“Yes,” said Hortense. “It helps if you’re a charming, pleasant, hail-fellow-well-met person. Being un-ugly helps too. Think of the women’s vote.”
“Surely, you have to have some competence?” I asked.
“It helps, but it’s not that important. Think of a battery of high-priced PR men who will take care of that problem.”
“How?”
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul. And I’m not talking about Paul Martin. You steal from the provinces and balance the federal books and, you being the senior government, have a surplus and they don’t. You look good as a minister of finance. And, you look even better as prime ministerial timbre.”
“But it is possible to stumble along the way,” I suggested.
“Yes, but distance yourself from the gun control laws. Let someone else carry that bag of cement on their back. And when you speak, speak like a good Liberal.”
“How?”
“Fudge. Blur your image so that you’re not clearly defined. Then people who think can’t hate you because they don’t know what you think.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think Dalton McGuinty. Poor Dalton made firm promises when he knew Ontario was $5 billion in the red and now he can’t keep those promises. It’ll be tough getting the egg off his face.”
“What would be your advice to a future prime minister?”
“Dan McCash, as we say in Liberal party lingo. Dan McCash any Brutus who is an MP or has or is after a Liberal nomination.”
“You mean steal it from them?”
“Yes, although I don’t like that word … Well, I’ve got to go now, Frank. I’ve got to write a cabinet minister’s speech. It’s got to be a barn burner, but not too big of a barn.”
“Hortense, what about me as a future prime minister?”
