171 yes 133 no

The government has fallen in an historic vote of non confidence. Today we are in a federal election and it promises to be an entertaining 8 (!!) weeks. Although not determined officially until the Prime Minister meets with the Governor General later today, the most popular E-day put forward has been January 23rd, with a short break at christmas. I do not envy the volunteers out canvassing in January.
The vote of non confidence has been in direct relation to the Gomery Report released recently which "clears" Paul Martin of any wrong doing while putting most of the blame on past Prime Minister Jean Chretien. I hope Canadians are paying attention for this one. It will be even more difficult than usual to make an educated decision on which direction to cast your vote. If they bother to vote at all.

Here is what Warren Kinsella had to say on the topic. I think I agree.

Can a political party win by
losing?

In the election campaign that effectively begins
today, that is the question many Liberals are asking themselves. And, in quiet
moments, many of them are concluding that losing power – not for a long time,
but long enough – would be a good thing.
As a former senior Liberal cabinet
minister told me just last week: “We need renewal. We need new people, we need
new ideas, and we need the kind of things that can only come with some time in
the penalty box. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we need to lose.”
It is
not an exaggeration to say that the Liberal Party of Canada is broken. Beset by
a paucity of ideas and energy, struggling with mounting debt and scandals, riven
by infighting and division, despairing of an ineffective cabinet and a dithering
leader, the formerly great party of Pearson and Trudeau and Chrétien is great no
more. Its soul is lost.
No better recent example of this can be found than in
the sad drama that unfolded in the past few days in the Toronto riding of
Etobicoke-Lakeshore. For more than a decade, the riding had been ably
represented by Jean Augustine – an honest, respected woman of colour who would
have easily won re-election in 2006. But last week, as Ms. Augustine cried in
the national Liberal caucus, disbelieving Members of Parliament learned that she
was “stepping aside.” Having endured nearly two years of bullying by Paul
Martin’s aides, few believed that Ms. Augustine was doing so willingly.
This
week, Liberals in Etobicoke-Lakeshore witnessed the astonishing spectacle of
hard-working local Grits being excluded from the process – literally denied
entry to party headquarters, whilst Mr. Martin’s minions inside ignored their
pleas to open the doors. And, shortly thereafter, the locked-out Liberals
learned in the media that Ms. Augustine’s successor had already been decided – a
white man and foreign resident named Michael Ignatieff.
The Globe and Mail
and a few members of Toronto’s brie-and-chardonnay chattering classes have been
championing Mr. Ignatieff for many months, now, talking him up as a successor to
Mr. Martin. Despite the fact that Mr. Ignatieff has not lived in Canada for more
than two decades – despite the fact he supports George W. Bush’s illegal war in
Iraq, opposition to which remains one of Jean Chrétien’s most popular legacies –
Mr. Martin and his bunkered circle of advisors were undeterred.
Mr.
Ignatieff, a Harvard University professor and author, arguably possesses an
impressive curriculum vitae, as do many of the other rumoured aspirants to the
Liberal Party crown – among them former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna,
former Minister of Justice Martin Cauchon, or former Ontario Premier (and former
NDP member) Bob Rae. All of these impressive men (no women among them so far,
another telling indicator of the Liberal Party’s state of disrepair) would be
laudable candidates for leadership.
But – and I say this as one who possesses
no enthusiasm whatsoever for Mr. Martin’s leadership nor the insular group
around him – what the Liberal Party needs is much more than a leadership race. A
leadership race will not attract the sorts of things the Liberal Party of Canada
desperately needs: new ideas, new approaches, new people and a new generation of
leadership. What Liberals need is not just a new leader – what Liberals need is
a new Liberal Party.
Power, which Liberals have been privileged to wield
since 1993, tends to have a corrosive effect on political parties. Cabinet
ministers and Parliamentary secretaries start spending more time in Ottawa than
in their ridings; senior staff and Parliamentarians socialize with deputy
ministers instead of local mayors and community leaders; the opinions of
national media columnists take on a greater significance than the voices raised
in town hall meetings and church basements.
In time, Liberals (and, before
that, Conservatives) find that they have lost touch with the people they were
hired to represent. They start to make mistakes, as they did again in
Etobicoke-Lakeshore. They become, in effect, what they were sent to Ottawa to
change.
Thus the Liberal Party of Canada, circa 2005 A.D. Dispirited,
disliked and divided in much of the country – and spared the loss of power only
by the fact that their principal adversaries are (for now) distrusted by many
female voters. Too many Liberals confuse the Conservatives’ continuing inability
to win an election with enthusiasm for the alternative. One day – and one day
soon, I believe – the Conservative Party will attract the support of enough
Canadians, and Liberals will bitterly rue the day they forsook renewal.
Some
Liberals, and all of Paul Martin’s sect, will dismiss all of this as the carping
of an exiled Chrétien-era Liberal, naturally. That is their way. Their
cloistered arrogance – their near-total inability to make out the country that
lies beyond the Parliamentary precinct – led to the loss of Mr. Chrétien’s
majority and, a few weeks hence, will further reduce the dimensions their
listing, listless minority government. Their opinion, at long last, counts for
nothing.
For the rest of us, however – for a majority of Canadians and, I
believe, for a silent number of traditional Liberals – we know that an election
loss would be a good thing. For the country, and for a once-great political
party, too.