Silly Little Country

Canadian Entertainment

Our new sport over the last few years has been having elections, always ending in minority governments.
For the last year or so the main opposition party, the Liberals, have dodged an election by voting with the government, most notably withdrawing from the brink last winter during a rather stunning mini-constitutional-crisis, which in Canadian style evaporated into nothing.
Now the Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff (someone who seemed to have a life once), has announced he is throwing down the gauntlet and planning to vote against the government, possibly forcing an election (this requires all the other parties to join in on his side). There are NO public policy issues that are behind this decision, and the opposition has given no hint of what the government is doing wrong; we seem to be staggering out of the recession as well as most others. The main issue would seem to be that the opposition party leader is turning into an apparent wimp.
So the Liberals are now running ads.
Here is the first to be exposed to the English speakers of the country.

I am not sure which voters are targeted by this.
The background makes me vertiginous as it drifts about (was the green screen being blown on?), and Ignatieff has a rather nasty black aura about him, which is hardly what anyone wants. Moreover, what is it with that message, "I know Canada can take on the world and win"? WTF? Who is it we need to "take on"? I would prefer simply to work with a reasonable rest of the world, trade with them, and I know of no way to tell whether "we" won specifically. He gives ominous suggestions that for us to win we need a government that "thinks big", i.e. takes our money and gives it to a LOT of its friends. That is the LAST thing I want.
I am substantially unhappy with our current Conservative government, that is indistinguishable in behavior that I can see from its Liberal predecessors except for this fatuous rhetoric. I like the fact that we hardly see Harper at all (our Prime Minister).
And as for our lack of stature on the world stage, about the only place I see Harper and his ministers is in news reports about things like the G-20, where, unfortunately for Ignatieff, even the BBC reports that the world has Canada-envy.
And I do think this is a great place to live.
Also, I am a great admirer of the Michael Ignatieff who existed prior to becoming the leader of the Liberal party in Canada. I think this is a choice he made that is good for neither party (sure, pun intended).

posted by Alan Adamson @ 11:24 AM