Thursday, November 22, 2007

Small man; small minds

Continuing the 'Small man' spat (which is really quite hilarious when you consider the relative size of Dalton McGuinty vs. Peter Van Loan) . . .

Brother David's compatriots are now rushing to little Dalton's defence. That big bully Van Loan should apologize, according to Stephane Dion. Never mind that the LPC would benefit enormously from any increase in seats in the land of Lemmingville, so his actions are hardly altruistic.

The Post article quotes Dion as saying, "Premier McGuinty is taking his job seriously, and representing the people of Ontario ... The ridiculous comments made by Minister Van Loan are contemptible at best, and disrespectful of the office that Mr. McGuinty was recently reelected to hold."


Yet it is perfectly fine for Stephane Dion to call the Prime Minister 'pathetic', and infer that he is a liar, thereby disrespecting the highest political office in our country:

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is pathetic. Court documents show that he misled the House. Court documents told the truth, not the Prime Minister...

But of course, that is Liberal entitlement.


Meanwhile, Dalton McGuinty tries to keep his hands clean. Other people do his dirty work for him.

He will rise above all this name-calling:
At Queen's Park, McGuinty insisted he had no interest in a petty squabble with Van Loan and warned that Ottawa should look at the bigger picture. "Why is it that whenever we Torontonians Ontarians stand up for ourselves we're accused of being un-Canadian?" he said.


As John Stossel would say, 'Give me a break!'


53 comments:

Red Tory said...

Nice to see you putting partisan politics ahead of standing up for Ontario. Why not argue against the substance of what McGuinty is asserting instead of just flinging poo?

Joanne (True Blue) said...

I think Paul's comment at Wed Nov 21, 11:18:00 AM EST pretty much sums up my feelings on the substance of the argument.

My particular issue is the Liberal feds pretending that this is about Dalton's honour or that all Ontarians will be miffed.

Not this Ontarian, that's for sure.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

BTW, shall we therefore take away seats from Eastern provinces which are relatively over-represented?

Anonymous said...

Looks like the Star has jumped to Dalton's defense as well.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/278759

The only one flinging poo here is poor distressed Dalton continuing his four year whine fest that Ontario has been hard done by Ottawa.

As an Ontarian, I also echo Stossel's "Give me a break" sentiment.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Anon - What can I say? The Star defending Dalton and more power for Toronto.

Beyond predictable.

Tony said...

Another thing too is that Premier McGuinty also has the tendency of demanding of others what he is not prepared to do himself. Is McGuinty prepared to add 22 new Provincial seats in Ontario? I don't think so. It was fun to see him dance around this question when he was asked this.

Anonymous said...

The trouble is that the people of Ontario don't respect or even like Dalton McGuinty so his whining will go unnoticed other than on the CBC, in The Toronto Star or the silly Dion of the federal Liberal party. McGuinty wants Ontario to have the biggest say in the federation, given it is the largest province. Why don't we just eliminate all the seats of other provinces to ensure they remain impotent in the federation and let McGuinty run Ontario and Canada? That's what he wants. Quit whining McGuinty and solve your infrastructure and manufacturing problems rather than worry about whether you have 10 or 20 more seats.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Quit whining McGuinty and solve your infrastructure and manufacturing problems rather than worry about whether you have 10 or 20 more seats.

That would require that he actually do something.

maryT said...

Out of curiosity, what is the area, in square miles, of the average ontario riding as compared to the average riding in square miles in the rest of Canada. What is the area of a riding in toronto. Never mind the population, just the area. We should know the amount of travel an MP has to do to cover his entire riding.
Who are those liberals phoning to run up such huge bills. Any personal calls involved.

Anonymous said...

I would be happy to argue against the (non)substance of McGuinty's whining RT.

1. Number of seats is not solely dictated by population. Some Mp's have fewer constituents but have ridings far larger in size. This places a strain on time, travel, and expenses for those ridings.

2. If McGuinty wants represenation based on population, will he demand PEI lose 3 of its 4 seats as it has a population of roughly 200,000?

3. McGuinty never had any such complaint when the previous Liberal government rearranged the ridings without giving Ontario an amount of extra seats based on population.

4. The increase in projected population is just that, a projection. With McGuinty worrying about trivial things like banning sushi and pitbulls, rather than focus on issues like the tanking manufacturing sector in Ontario, our population here but start decreasing as only so many people want to be telemarketers.

These are all valid reasons to dismiss McGuinty's whining. But here is the #1 reason why he looks like such a hypocrite on this. When Ontario was changing it's provincial ridings McGuinty dismissed calls by the opposition for fairer representation by population. Van Loan made mention of this in QP yesterday, and McGuinty's sidekick brother had the deer in the headlight look when he heard it, probably because dear brother Dalton failed to mention it to him.

So apparently he thinks Ottawa should base ridings on population but when its his government he feels its not neccesary.

Is that a fair arguement against the substance of his whine?

paulsstuff

Anonymous said...

A little off topic but another problem I have with McGuinty is some provinces are moving to ban cell phone use when driving. McGuinty won't go along.

Pretty much every study I have ever seen has indicated cell-phone use increases the risk of accidents with drivers being distracted.

So Dalton, you wnated to ban sushi, did ban pitbulls, won't allow the sale of whole milk, all for our own good, so why won't you ban cellphones.

Surely it has nothing to do with the parties donations from BCE, Rogers, and Telus?

paulsstuff

Anonymous said...

That would require that he actually do something.
-Joanne

You mean something constructive for the LONG term benefit of Ontario and it's hard working, taxpaying private sector people? Like Mike Harris tried to do?

No, that would be again'st McGuinty's own voter base: The unionized and other myriad of TAX SPENDERS of, how did you call it again? Lemmingland?

Ontario is screwed...So is much of the rest of Canada...Too many Pauls depend on robbing Peters.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Paul, that surprised me too, and I would have supported it. Cell phones have been proven to be distracting; even hands-free.

The other thing that surprises me is that he seems reluctant to advocate in favour of folks wanting to hang out their clothes to dry in their backyards where it is contrary to condominium rules.

The one thing he is doing that I support is looking into a ban on plastic baby bottles. If it is proven to be harmful, I think they should be banned.

Anonymous said...

Yep, I've never understood the bans on clotheslines. Here in Ajax you can't even have those aluminum ones that stand on a poll in the ground. Considering the demands for electricity in the summer it seems like a no-brainer to change this.

And the clothes smell nicer:0)

paulsstuff

Anonymous said...

The same Lemmings and their supporters who ban clotheslines (It's only for visual esthetics) are the same ones the most vocal about AGW.

Anonymous said...

To get to the crux of the debate, I agree fully that over the last four years and through the last election, Dalton has shown himself to be a small man. His lack of character (see lies and misuse of monies), lack of accomplishments (see increasing health care decline and worsening of our educaiton standards), and lack of ethics (see use of lies, encouragement of religious biggotry and deception during the election while supporting segragted (by skin colour) schools now that he doesn't need to win an election) all point to one thing. Peter VanLoan was correct. He is a small man.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Anthropogenic Global Warming. Right.

The credo of unionized teachers in their little gated communities.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Ron, I agree, but you're preaching to the choir there.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Maybe Dalton's time would be better spent banning 8 year-olds from buying cars.

Just a suggestion.

Anonymous said...

paulstuff wrote:

"When Ontario was changing it's provincial ridings McGuinty dismissed calls by the opposition for fairer representation by population."

"So apparently he thinks Ottawa should base ridings on population but when its his government he feels its not neccesary."

What Dalton needs for his latest disingenuous, hypocritical PR stunt is another one of his government's famous slogans. How about:

"Do as I say, not as I do"

Anonymous said...

Van Loan is using a formula - seats for every 105,000 voters in all other provinces but Ontario. Here he's using 115,000 - fair? Not in the least.

Hey, think about how much tax dollars because of population goes to Ottawa.

You hate McGuinty so you are clouding your view.

Van Loan should be FIRED - he's a federal government minister and should not be insulting Premiers - not appropriate and not statesmanlike.

You want to settle for second best go ahead but I doubt very much the rest of Ontario is happy with this.

I'm watching to see just how much the Ontario Conservative MP's support their own province.

This blog has a reputation for being nastily partisan and narrow-minded - I heard about it and have checked it out and what they're are saying is true.

Anonymous said...

The people of Ontario bought themselves four years of McGuinty arguing with federal and municipal government, simply to try and make himself look better than them.

Ontario, 'yours to recover' indeed... but we'll have to wait.

Anonymous said...

"Van Loan should be FIRED - he's a federal government minister and should not be insulting Premiers - not appropriate and not statesmanlike."

So what about Dion's comments about the PM? Chretien and Martin's comments about Mike Harris? About Ralph Klein? About Ernie Eves? Which memebers of the previous Liberal government were fired in regards to these comments?

"Van Loan is using a formula - seats for every 105,000 voters in all other provinces but Ontario. Here he's using 115,000 - fair? Not in the least."

Once again because apparently you never read the previous comments before posting. It is not strictly based on population. Factors such as size of ridings and population concentration play a part in it.

Now seeing as you have made your patisan accusations about people on this blog, please tell me why McGuinty:

1. Never complained when the Federal Liberals changed ridings without giving Ontario seats based on population.

2. Never mentioned this during the recent election.

3. Was AGAINST using the population formula when the government he is in charge of changed the provincial ridings, despite being asked by the opposition to do exactly that.

Actually, you know what, just answer #3. And tell me why Dalton refuses to answer that very same question.

paulsstuff

Greg said...

My particular issue is the Liberal feds pretending that this is about Dalton's honour or that all Ontarians will be miffed.

Not this Ontarian, that's for sure.


But Joanne, what about the issue of equal representation based on population? I know McGuinty is a hypocritical goof, but the issue itself has merit. Do you at least agree with the principle of rep by pop?

Joanne (True Blue) said...

This blog has a reputation for being nastily partisan and narrow-minded - I heard about it and have checked it out and what they're are saying is true.

Spoken like a brave little anonymous troll.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Do you at least agree with the principle of rep by pop?

I'm not entirely sure, Greg. What are my options?

Anonymous said...

"This blog has a reputation for being nastily partisan and narrow-minded - I heard about it and have checked it out and what they're are saying is true"

Not sure how but he got this blog mixed up with Garth Turners:0)

paulsstuff

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Not sure how but he got this blog mixed up with Garth Turners:0)

Paul, you're hotstuff today!

OMMAG said...

Haha ... I needed a good laugh today!

Someone thinks Dalton McGuinty has "substance" !!

Good one ..... really .... really .... a gut buster.
Not even minding the coffee on the keyboard ;)

Anonymous said...

Greg at 12:40 ... Rep by Pop will NOT be acheived unless the Constitutional guarantees for the territories (must have at least 1 seat) for PEI(must not have less than number of Senators - 4), Sask and Manitoba (not less than the number they had in 1979), NFLD & Labrador, Quebec etc. All of the conditions must be eliminated before Rep by Pop can be achieved.

Ask McGuinty if the Liberal members in PEI would be willing to give up 2 seats towards his additional 21 he wants. It just will not happen.

West Coast Teddi

Joanne (True Blue) said...

WCT - Good points. Thanks.

Red Tory said...

Wow. A lot of sour grapes here.

Greg said...

Greg at 12:40 ... Rep by Pop will NOT be acheived unless the Constitutional guarantees for the territories (must have at least 1 seat) for PEI(must not have less than number of Senators - 4), Sask and Manitoba (not less than the number they had in 1979), NFLD & Labrador, Quebec etc. All of the conditions must be eliminated before Rep by Pop can be achieved.

My understanding is such amendments are only necessary if you take representation away from PEI or the others. No one is saying that. Ontario would settle for additional seats to bring it up to its proportion of the population. It still won't be perfect rep by pop, but we don't have to change the constitution either.

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

"Never mind that the LPC would benefit enormously from any increase in seats in the land of Lemmingville..."

Never mind that the CPC benefits greatly by giving Alberta and B.C. their proportional level of seats while continuing to under-represent Ontario, and only Ontario (to the tune of 11 seats). I'm sorry, but when B.C., Alberta and Ontario are all under-represented in the House, and the Tories introduce legislation which gives Alberta and B.C. enough seats to match their percentage of the population, but still leaves Ontario almost a dozen seats short of fair representation I can't buy the line that "we can't treat Ontario fairly, because that's a partisan trick of the Liberals!". The paritsan trick here is giving Alberta and B.C. fair representation while continuing to short-change Ontario. It's not even a very clever trick. Is blatant and TRANSPARENT.

But I'm sure the Tories western base is totally irrelevant to the government's decision-making. It's a total coincidence that the Tories have come up with a plan that roughly gives every province a propotion of the seats in the House reflective of their population EXCEPT for Ontario. It's a total coincidence that they're using Quebec as their base-line, and it never occured to ANYONE in the Tory brain-trust that Ontario is the only province larger than Quebec, and therefore the only province to get totally screwed by this new formula. Ontario's leaders should just shut-up about the fact that the new formula gives Quebec, B.C. and Alberta representation in the House reflective of their populations, and every other province over-representation to the extent that Ontario (and only Ontario) is short-changed.

Sure.

Greg said...

Ontario would settle for additional seats to bring it up to its proportion of the population.

I should say relative to the other big four provinces (Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario). As I say, it won't be perfect, but at least Ontario will be treated the same as the other big provinces.

Anonymous said...

The only argument I have heard to justify this is that sparsely populated areas are too large to cover for one MP, so they should be smaller (i.e. fewer people in the riding).

But with today's communications technology, I don't see how that can't be overcome. Just because it is called a "riding", you don't have to be able to literally ride a horse across it in a day.

They could simply provide more funding for large ridings so they can have the staff to serve it. Some ridings already have more than one office staffed and maintained by the MP. They deal with most of the constituents anyway.

Another alternative is more staff. The CPC was quite willing to make Sharon Smith their "liaison" to an NDP riding. Perhaps they can supply someone like that (and pay them) for each big riding.

Anonymous said...

All valid comments from both sides here, but not one person here backing McGuinty has explained away the fact he voted against rep by pop for Ontario provincial ridings since he has been in power, nor nary a peep when the federal Liberals added seats and Ontario came out worse off than under this Conservative proposal.

Anyone?

If its bad when the federal government does it, and its giving Ontarians the finger, did Mcguinty not do the exact same thing against certain areas of Ontario by refusing rep by pop?

Looks more like Liberals want the focus off Dion and onto anything but him. Ooooh, now the whining makes sense
:0)
paulsstuff

Anonymous said...

Joanne, you're so sick with hatred of anything Liberal I suggest, in order that you feel better, that you move to Alberta. You'd be every so happy there.

You are so negative - take a prozac

Anonymous said...

Move to Alberta? Give me a break. Moving anywhere else is looking much better these days than getting fleeced in Ontario.

Hate McGuinty? as suggested by anon. 12:22pm - it's worse than that I don't respect him, or trust him.

Möbius said...

McGuinty is right on this.

Would Chretien or Martin have given more seats to Alberta, in a similar scenario? Of course not.

The CPC is not interested in giving more MP's to the Liberals, and I understand it from a political point-of-view, but the provincial Libs are right to insist on equivalent representation.

McGuinty is wrong on a lot of things, but not this one....

Möbius said...

This blog has a reputation for being nastily partisan and narrow-minded - I heard about it and have checked it out and what they're are saying is true.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

If you want nasty partisanship and narrow-minded opinions, go visit Liblogs.

Möbius said...

The only argument I have heard to justify this is that sparsely populated areas are too large to cover for one MP, so they should be smaller (i.e. fewer people in the riding).

Try taking MP's away from people and listen to the screaming. Let's take 1 away from Newfoundland & Lab, or a few from Quebec. We could be served by fewer MP's with current technology, but it always seems to be increasing the MP count that everyone obsesses about.

Möbius said...

All valid comments from both sides here, but not one person here backing McGuinty has explained away the fact he voted against rep by pop for Ontario provincial ridings since he has been in power

No argument there. But, just because McGuinty is a hypocrite, doesn't make him wrong, in this particular case.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Möbius - I'm having trouble with your last comment. If I say a particular principle applies to everyone else, but not to me, how does that make it valid?

Just wondering.

Möbius said...

Möbius - I'm having trouble with your last comment. If I say a particular principle applies to everyone else, but not to me, how does that make it valid?

I mean that McGuinty is correct to fight on proper rep-by-population for Ontario. He's a hypocrite on the issue, but he still must make the effort. I didn't say I like him any more, but not everything he does is wrong. I can give you a list of the wrong things, if you'd like(?).

The CPC doesn't want to give Ontario more seats, because they would end up in the GTO, not fertile territory for them. Quebec's not happy either, that Alberta/BC would likely have more combined seats than them, so it may die anyway. Never underestimate the "smallness" of any province, when they think their toes are getting stepped on.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

O.K. Möbius. That was probably the most non-partisan comment I've ever read, but point taken. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

The problem with McGuinty's stance is that all the reasons I have posted previously were ones used by McGuinty when he decided against rep by pop. I listed the a few times to see if the usual suspects would dispute the reasons, seeing as how they were from McGuinty. Is he a hypocrite? Hell ya. But the bigger problem is in the last few days he has refused to answer the question of why he was/is? against it provincially, but for it federally.

Dalton, are you for it or against it provincially?

Dalton says: Mike Harris bad, Ernie Eves bad, Jim Flaherty bad, Stephen Harper bad. I banned pitbulls, yada yada yada. Next question.

I'm sure the fact that seats in Ontario would go Liberal had some effect on the Conservative legislation. Of course the real reason McGuinty was aginst provincial rep by pop is that those new ridings would have been in rural areas more likely to vote PC.

Politicians, you can't live with them, but I sure as hell could live without them.

paulsstuff

Ryan R said...

Really, after the behavior of Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams since the last federal budget came down, I think that it's fair to say that all gloves are off on federal/provincial relations.

Is that ideal?

Probably not, but it's not like the Premiers are entirely innocent in all of this.

As for the actual seat formula being discussed, I'm inclined to agree with the previous anonymous poster. Politicans, whenever they can, will typically gerry-mander the seat formula to benefit their party as much as they can.

The Liberals did it for years by not giving greater seat counts to Alberta, and BC, and now the Tories are doing it by turning it back on Ontario.

It's not right of either party, but that's unfortunetly the situation these days.

Anonymous said...

Even with the 10 more seats Ontario is getting, absolutely nothing guarantees us better representation because of it....nothing.

Do folks here really believe we're getting good representation from now from our Ontario reps.?

If you do you seriously need help.

Greg said...

If its bad when the federal government does it, and its giving Ontarians the finger, did Mcguinty not do the exact same thing against certain areas of Ontario by refusing rep by pop?

Is McGuinty a hypocrite? You bet. But, let me submit it is a pretty lame argument to say that you are allowed to act badly because your opponent is as bad as you are. To say "Sure we are screwing Ontario, but McGuinty did it too", is not going to go over well, here in Ontario.

McGuinty may in fact, if he keeps this up, get caught in a trap of his own making. If I was an opposition party in Ontario, I would be bringing the issue of rep. by pop. up in the leg. all the time.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

If I was an opposition party in Ontario, I would be bringing the issue of rep. by pop. up in the leg. all the time.

Speaking of that, this is a rather long time-out for the Legislature, don't you agree?

Möbius said...

O.K. Möbius. That was probably the most non-partisan comment I've ever read, but point taken.

I think you have to pick your fights. This is the wrong one for Harper, in my opinion.

As much as I hate to say it, he's learned a lot from Chretien, a man who missed no political opportunities. Harper will not lose a seat from this issue in Ontario. He could even argue that he will prevent the House increasing by another 10 or so, by holding Ontario back.

Ontario loses either way. The Libs ignore us when in power, because the GTO always gives them a seat base, no matter what, and Harper believes he can't make inroads, so why bother.

N&L gets much more representation than we do, but will they offer to lose a seat or two?

maryT said...

How many of you have ever been involved in a redrawing of riding boundries, or drawing a new riding. I have. It is an interesting and educational experience. It also takes several months to get all your ducks in a row. The one I was involved with had lots of attention, opinions, suggestions, petitions etc. However, when I went to the meeting with the head honchos who would make the decision, and hold a public meeting on it, only 3 people turned out to make a presentation for or against.
I won my case, and we got moved to another riding.
The interesting thing was the information the committee brought to the meeting. A huge book with stats can info, from every town and city in the riding. Maps, infrastructure info and much more.
In the discussion on more seats, not one poster from Ont has said where new ridings should be, what ridings should be divided up, or given any intelligent reasons why they need more seats, other than, we are bigger.
How many of you are prepared to put in the hours to study this.
If you think all your ridings will stay the same, think again. They will be cut up. Your sitting mp might not be in your riding next time, unless you move.
Start by taking a map of TO and all areas included in TO ridings.
I imagine some of those 10 new seats will be in that area. Start drawing the new boundries.
The name of the committe is the Boundries Commission, and they also had the results of elections past of every poll in the riding.
I await you replies.