{"id":396,"date":"2005-07-04T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-04T18:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=396"},"modified":"2005-07-04T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-04T18:41:00","slug":"summer-in-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=396","title":{"rendered":"Summer in Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"

With parliament done, I suspect most of the summer\u2019s political news will be confined to Stephen Harper\u2019s exploits on the dance floor and his ever-improving hamburger flipping technique (\u201cnotice\u2026he now can flip with his left hand\u2026and his elevation has improved\u2026this man should be our Prime Minister<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n

But, luckily the Hill Times is here to provided gossip from Ottawa. Among the (free) stories this week:<\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>Election Speculation<\/strong><\/a>:<\/strong> It now appears that several Liberals want Paul Martin to break his promise of calling an election 30 days after Gomery. D\u2019oh! I think it\u2019s fairly safe to say that even Paul Martin isn\u2019t dumb enough to do this. The article is still worth a read, if only for the so-stupid-they\u2019re-funny comments from Liberal backbenchers. Among the highlights is Allan Tonks who believes all parties would support this and Jim Karygiannis who says voters \u201cwill freeze\u201d if they go to the polls in the winter\u2026as if Canadians can\u2019t handle a 2 minute drive to their polling station.<\/p>\n

I do however, still think there\u2019s a good chance for a fall election. The final Gomery Report will be harmless enough since it will detail ways to prevent future abuses in the system \u2013 yawn<\/em>. The juicy interim report might still come out November 15th and I can\u2019t think of a more appetizing prospect for the opposition parties than a report like that being announced in the middle of an election campaign. So the temptation to bring down the government in October to force a, say, November 28th election will be very real.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>Tony Valeri<\/strong><\/a>:<\/strong> Valeri has been drawing a lot of praise in the press for his performance this session. In my opinion, the jury is still out. Sure, the government survived, but this man has poisoned relations with the opposition parties to the point where he won\u2019t even talk to Jay Hill. A lot of the tactics used to ensure survival were heavy handed and little was accomplished. We also saw Valeri take a page from his boss by repeatedly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. This parliamentary session had to go into overtime to get anything accomplished after months of filibustering their budget and dithering on SSM. But they\u2019re still standing, and for a government that has switched slogans from \u201cThe Politics of Achievement<\/em>\u201d to \u201cThe Politics of Survival<\/em>\u201d, that\u2019s saying something.<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Jean Charest<\/strong><\/a>:<\/strong> There\u2019s no real substance in this article but the fall of Jean Charest has been remarkable to watch. In a province that always gives Premiers two chances, it\u2019s really hard to explain. I know a few of the regular visitors to the comments section of this blog live in Quebec, so I\u2019d be very curious to read their thoughts on why Charest has turned into such a dud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With parliament done, I suspect most of the summer\u2019s political news will be confined to Stephen Harper\u2019s exploits on the dance floor and his ever-improving hamburger flipping technique (\u201cnotice\u2026he now can flip with his left hand\u2026and his elevation has improved\u2026this man should be our Prime Minister\u201d). But, luckily the Hill Times is here to provided […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396"}],"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=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}