{"id":1219,"date":"2006-12-15T00:56:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-15T05:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2006-12-15T00:56:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-15T05:56:00","slug":"at-issue-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1219","title":{"rendered":"At Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National did their year end At Issue roundtable to look back on the past few months. Here’s a run down of what the panelists had to say, with my own two cents (off the top of my head – I’m sure I’m missing some good answers):<\/p>\n

Best Political Play<\/strong>
Chantal Hebert: Dion taking ownership of the environmental issue
Andrew Coyne: Kennedy endorsing Dion
Rob Russo: Kennedy endorsing Dion
Rex Murphy: Yup. Make it three for that.
CG: Gotta agree with the majority on this one. Gerard’s walk to Dion’s box was definitely the political play of the past few months, both for impact and drama.<\/p>\n

Worst Political Play<\/strong>
Coyne: Harper’s nation motion
Russo: The Tories handling of the environment issue
Rex: Volpe’s kiddie donations
Hebert: Ignatieff wading into the nation debate since it shows he doesn’t understand the Liberal Party. [hmm…I seem to recall many a columnist who claim to understand both the Liberal Party and Quebec claiming this was a brilliant play on his part <\/a>back when it happened…]
CG: I’ve got to think Ignatieff’s “war crimes\/losing sleep” comments and Harper\/Ambrose’s handling of the environmental file take the prize.<\/p>\n

Significant Event of the Fall<\/strong>
Russo: Clean Air Act
Rex: Dion’s win
Hebert: Nation motion
Coyne: “Decapitation” of the LPC old party establishment at the convention
CG: The nation motion or Dion’s win are the obvious choices here, but I am surprise no one mentioned the Tory flip-flop on Income Trusts<\/p>\n

Under-Reported <\/strong>
Rex: Nation motion
Hebert: Elizabeth May
Coyne: Ontario Citizen’s Assembly of electoral reform
Russo: Economic changes in Canada
CG: The disappearing wait times guarantee fifth priority<\/p>\n

Underrated Politician<\/strong>
Hebert: Pass
Coyne: Starts off on Rona Ambrose, saying the Tory plan wasn’t that bad but settles on Jim Prentice
Russo: Rob Nicholson
Rex: Dion, who is underrated by the Tories
CG: Given who was just sworn in as Premier of Alberta today, it’s hard to think that Ed Stelmach wasn’t completely underrated by everyone <\/em>over the past few months.<\/p>\n

Overrated Politician<\/strong>
Coyne: Ken Dryden
Russo: Lawrence Cannon
Rex: Jack Layton
Hebert: Gilles Duceppe
CG: Some interested choices all around. Instead of making my pick, I’ll refer to what I said back in June<\/a> when they asked this question: “The Jim Dinning bubble is going to burst and it’s going to be beautiful when it does<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

‘Sup with Afghanistan?<\/strong>
Russo: Big because the Quebecois nation are sending troops over in June
Rex: This will be a huge issue!
Hebert: Duceppe’s proposal was panned in Quebec
Coyne: Rex is way <\/em>off base
CG: Elections rarely are based on foreign affairs in this country, but it’s hard to see how this won’t be an election issue<\/p>\n

When do we Vote?<\/strong>
Rex: Spring
Hebert: Spring
Coyne: Spring…maybe February
Russo: NDP saves the Tories bacon
CG: Like I said on the hotstove, later rather than sooner…my prediction is early 2008.<\/p>\n

Who is this lady?<\/strong> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

None of the four panelists got it, although I’m proud to say I guessed right. Admittedly, it was a guess though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National did their year end At Issue roundtable to look back on the past few months. Here’s a run down of what the panelists had to say, with my own two cents (off the top of my head – I’m sure I’m missing some good answers): Best Political PlayChantal Hebert: Dion taking ownership of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}