Swompdonkey

Politique

My "priviledged" position as a someone "in the know" on certain policy trends currently making waves in the Government prevents me from commenting at length on what I have observed in the past couple of weeks.

But that don't mean I can't hop up on my soapbox to talk politics for a minute or two...

First off, the Dingwall thing. I gotta wonder why they can't just cut the guy loose sans severance. From what I gather, this guy is a second-rate Cape Breton political hack, grown fat through his abilities to exploit the patronage culture that pervades Atlantic Canada (yeah, I said it). A thoroughly unremarkable MP and mediocre cabinet minister under the Chretien regime, I doubt he is in tight with the Martinites. Why the kid glove treatment? Paul Martin didn't hesitate to sack several other Chretien appointees when it suited him, including another former bag-man, Alfonso Gagliano. Does this guy know where the bodies are buried?

Next, Pete McKay. I like the guy, don't get me wrong, but I wonder if he made the right decision in staying with the Federal Conservatives instead of jumping to the Nova Scotia Tories. Full disclosure: we lived on the same floor of one of those awful downtown Ottawa apartment buildings a couple of years ago --the kind that Edward Norton referred to as a filing cabinet for young professionals and old ladies in The Fight Club. Back then, when I asked the then-deputy-leader of the PCs what he thought of the Alliance, he scoffed "Regional Protest Party! No vision for the whole country." If he pulled a Jean Charest, he could be premier of Nova Scotia within weeks, if not months. Instead, he will continue to be second-banana in a perenial second-place party that has stalled out in the polls and appears to desperately need a shot in the arm. It's looking bad on the right side of the political spectrum in Canada right now, folks. Don't believe me? Ask THIS GUY. Maybe Elmer's boy, with visions of a Mulroney-style renaissance (OK, maybe not quite Mulroney style!), is taking the long view and biding his time as his party languishes in the political wilderness.

Finally, pizza. What is the deal with Liberals and controversial pizza? First we had Judy Sgro's problems with the pizzaman, and now, it is outrage over a certain Minister's famous $136 pizza. If this trend continues, stay tuned for a kinky panzerotti sex-scandal to complete the italian-food-scandal trifecta...