{"id":3046,"date":"2011-05-22T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-22T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=3046"},"modified":"2012-06-04T14:27:47","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T18:27:47","slug":"great-moments-in-spin-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=3046","title":{"rendered":"Great Moments in Spin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If there are ever &#8220;spin awards&#8221;, Tim Powers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehilltimes.ca\/dailyupdate\/view\/pms_senate_appointments_boggle_the_mind_but_could_spur_hot_support_for_senate_reforms_says_tory_pundit_powers_05-19-2011\">deserves the statue<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: arial;\">PARLIAMENT HILL\u2014Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s inflammatory decision to stuff two failed Conservative election candidates back into the Senate on Wednesday does \u201cboggle the mind,\u201d Conservative Tim Powers admits, but argues the storm of controversy will focus public attention on the unelected Upper Chamber, stir up a \u201chornet\u2019s nest,\u201d and spur support for Mr. Harper\u2019s plan to reform the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mr. Powers admitted to The Hill Times the impending appointments are an absurdity\u2014which continued to draw rising criticism on Thursday with two provincial premiers attacking them and backroom Tories in the Senate even raising eyebrows.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr. Powers blamed the minority Liberals in past Parliaments for the spectacle, saying they delayed Senate reform measures that Mr. Harper has been proposing since 2006. Mr. Harper also announced his intention to send another defeated Conservative election candidate, former intergovernmental affairs minister Jos\u00e9e Verner, to the Senate, but the ire of critics was focused on the two former Senators.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s no surprise the Liberals are to blame, but that kind of obvious spin won&#8217;t win you awards. Where Powers really brings it home is when he postures about Harper&#8217;s strategy to do &#8220;mind bogglingly&#8221; awful things as part of a master plan to stir up the hornet&#8217;s nest and spur on support for senate reform.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe this has been Harper&#8217;s strategy all along. He shuts down Parliament so that Canadians <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/2010\/01\/26\/always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life\/\">learn a valuable lesson about democracy<\/a>. He destroys the Census so that Canadians learn to appreciate it. He takes the country from surplus to deficit, to spur on public support for fiscal responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>Brilliant!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there are ever &#8220;spin awards&#8221;, Tim Powers deserves the statue: PARLIAMENT HILL\u2014Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s inflammatory decision to stuff two failed Conservative election candidates back into the Senate on Wednesday does \u201cboggle the mind,\u201d Conservative Tim Powers admits, but argues the storm of controversy will focus public attention on the unelected Upper Chamber, stir [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[983],"tags":[1169,1168],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046"}],"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=3046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3699,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046\/revisions\/3699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}