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Rick Mercer at his best.

About a week ago, we picked up on a subtlety in Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s question to the Prime Minister in Question Period. M. Dion seemed to be suggesting that the 1000 new troops that Canada is seeking from NATO would REPLACE our soldiers rather than REINFORCE them.

The Manley report was very clear that “This added deployment should consist of a battle group (about 1,000 soldiers) to reinforce ISAF’s “clear, hold and develop” strategy in Kandahar…These additional troops would serve to expand ISAF’s security coverage in Kandahar, and reinforce ISAF’s capacity to prevent incursions…To repeat: A successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan requires more ISAF forces.” [p.35]

The report also emphatically encouraged “Early adoption by NATO of a comprehensive political-military plan to address security concerns and imbalances, especially the need for more troops to bolster security…” [p.37]

In today’s Star article, Allan Woods reports “A government motion to extend the Afghan mission to 2011 could be in jeopardy after the emergence of a major difference of opinion with the Liberals on the future role Canadian troops will assume.” According to Woods, deputy Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff is the driving force behind this fracture in the agreement between Conservatives and Liberals. “‘If the government does not accept a clear focus on training and reconstruction, if they believe that they can sneak past Parliament a motion that continues the existing mission … I am afraid that they will have difficulty securing the Canadian consensus that this party is seeking,’ Ignatieff said in the House of Commons.“

There is no doubt that the Conservatives have made large concessions in an effort to find common ground with the Liberals. Both parties have said they don’t want an election on Afghanistan; the Liberals now appear to be backing away from that. This would be extremely divisive for Canada, and our military will be innocently caught in the middle of a game of political football.

An overwhelming majority of military and civilian pundits have criticized the Liberals position of “stay, but no combat” as unrealistic. Even many in the media have openly contended that it makes no sense at all. When you look at how Canadians have died in Afghanistan, it is clear that “combat” is not what has made our soldiers vulnerable.

What has brought about the deaths of most of our soldiers is driving troops and supplies across Afghan roads booby trapped with explosives. As we documented in a previous post, the number of casualties suffered by Canadian Forces in direct counter-insurgency operations that the Liberals are insisting must be discontinued is 10. That represents only about 12% of all Canadian casualties. The other 88% of Canadians died either as a result of being in military vehicles that came under attack, or facilitating reconstruction and training of Afghans when they came under attack.

According to DND briefings, “Sergeant Tedford and Private Williamson were killed when their unit was ambushed near a road development project in the Panjwayi area of Afghanistan, west of Kandahar. This road project is vital to local development and progress.”

In another report from earlier in that month we learn that “Two Canadian soldiers, Sergeant Craig Paul Gillam and Corporal Robert Thomas James Mitchell, were killed today in the Panjwayi area in Afghanistan… These brave young men were working alongside their fellow comrades to clear mines and improvised explosive devices from a route for a future road construction project, when they came under attack…

Our Canadian Forces members in Afghanistan face an enemy that will go to any length to try to undermine any progress made for Afghans to have a brighter future. The courage demonstrated by Sergeant Gillam and Corporal Mitchell speaks volumes to their dedication to our country and to this mission…These soldiers lost their lives in a mission to prevent Afghanistan from reverting to a safe haven for terrorists and their destructive networks. Canada will remain forever grateful for their service, and we are all saddened by this loss.”

The Liberal proposal to keep our troops engaged in “training and reconstruction,” but tie their hands from combat, will do nothing to keep our troops safe! It will in fact make them more vulnerable because the Liberals would rob our troops of the reinforcements they need to provide security on the ground. The only thing more sad than the Liberals forcing an election on this issue is the fact that more brave Canadians might die because the Liberal want to avoid being seen as supporting the Conservative government.

This really says it all doesn’t it? From the politics blog of the Globe and Mail comes news that Liberal MP Roy Cullen is leaving.

The Liberal Titanic has been taking on increasing amounts of water under Captain Stéphane Dion. Once thought to be unsinkable, this party must feel the icy waters of the cold Atlantic closing in over its head. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has now lost close to one fourth of the caucus he was elected with! If his own party is any indication, Stéphane Dion is not a leader.

In stead of running IN an election, Stéphane Dion and his Liberal caucus are running FROM an election this spring. There have been various media reports of widespread dissension and even panic in the Liberal caucus over the prospects of an election being called any time soon. Liberal MP Garth Turner was quoted as saying that some of his peers would prefer having their organs removed without anesthesia to having a spring election.

Although polls are typically seen as “a snapshot in time,” it is the trends that are most telling of future results. A CTV News/Globe and Mail poll conducted by Strategic Counsel was released yesterday and spells nothing but impending doom for the Liberals.

CTV’s Bob Fife reports on the poll’s findings (video)

CTV’s Bob Fife on Canada AM with more details (video)

Key findings of the poll were:

“Which party would you support?” - Conservatives 39%, Liberals 27%

Support in Ontario - Conservatives 42%, Liberals 34%

“Which party is best able to handle an economic slowdown?” - Conservatives 38%, Liberals 25%

“Who is best able to handle the Afghanistan mission?” - Conservatives 36%, Liberals 21%

“Who has the best plan for military and defense?” - Conservatives 37%, Liberals 19%

“Who would spend taxpayers money most wisely?” - Conservatives 32%, Liberals 14%

“Which party’s values most reflect your own?” - Conservatives 28%, Liberals 21%

“Who has the highest standards of ethics/honesty?” - Conservatives 22%, Liberals 10%

(source - CTVNews)

Perhaps the most telling figure to come out of the poll is that fully 54% of Canadians say they would trust Stephen Harper with a majority government! Even on Dion’s hallmark issue of the environment, Canadians indicated that they would trust Prime Minister Harper every bit as much as M. Dion to tackle climate change. Despite having more than a year to explain himself to voters, support for the Liberal leader has been consistently slipping rather than climbing.

This does not bode well for poor old Brian Murphy. The hapless MP has apparently hitched his horse to the wrong wagon, but we don’t see him offering to cross the floor any time soon. When the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe riding unveils their candidate for the next election, the freshman MP from Moncton may well consider his options like retiring to the farm with a comfy appointment. After all, why take time away from a successful law firm to spend years in opposition?

In the next election, we believe that voters in Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe will see what others across Canada have already clearly determined: The best leadership for Canada, both domestically and around the world, is Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party.

Reported on Mike Duffy Live tonight, a CTV News/Strategic Counsel poll reported that 60% of Canadians think that our country is on the right track. That is up from a low of 38% when the Liberals were in power in 2005. According to the report, the 60% figure is unheard of; and of course this doesn’t say much for the relevance of the NDP which is constantly saying, “The government is taking this country in the wrong direction.” That is just not so according to most Canadians.

CTV News reporter Graham Richardson asked Liberal Finance Critic, John McCallum, “If the Conservative government is really so terrible, then why not defeat it? What about that 60% number?” McCallum’s mumbled reply was something like, “Of course we wish that number were lower, but…”

When it comes to who Canadians most trust to lead the Afghan mission, the Conservatives again post numbers nearly double those of the Liberal party. When you consider the ‘position du jour’ style of leadership from M. Dion, there is little wonder. If this kind of populist support will translate into votes on election day, it is no wonder that Stéphane Dion is running away from voting against the Budget. The Liberals have lost so much credibility, even the NDP’s Tom Mulcair has said they no longer have the “moral right” to call themselves the Official Opposition.

With the Liberals in such disarray, they have no hope of forming Government any time soon (Greg Weston, Ottawa Sun).

To his credit, Stephen Harper has displayed a steady, moderate hand of leadership that should attract all but the most partisan liberals. If you want real leadership and effective representation in Ottawa in the next term, vote Conservative.

Respected Hill Times reporter Angelo Persichilli brought out some interesting facts about a possible spring election today:

“The Conservatives, being in government, technically cannot pull the plug because of the new legislation that doesn´t allow the Prime Minister to dissolve the House before four years. The next election is fixed at October 2009. Of course, they can provoke an election by presenting bills that the opposition cannot accept, but still it´s up to the opposition to pull the plug.

The bottom line is that the decision to dissolve Parliament is solely in the hands of the Conservatives and the Liberals, meaning Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion. Will they send all of us to the polls? Media are reporting the Conservatives will be defeated on March 4 on the budget. I´m also hearing that both the Prime Minister and the Liberal leader are willing to put an end to this legislature and go to the people.

The reasons are the same: Harper and Dion both are running their respective organizations as a minority. Harper is in a minority position within the Parliament, Dion is in a minority position within the Liberal Party. Every decision they make is challenged and it´s becoming increasingly difficult to do their job. Both believe that an election will put an end to it, one way or another.

Of course, for Harper an election is less a gamble than it is for Dion. Internal polls in both parties show that Harper has more chances to get what he wants than Dion does. The popularity of the Liberal leader has never been so low. He´s trailing his party´s popularity.”

“Is there any room for improvement for Dion? It appears Dion has no homeopathic cure from within. His only hope is that the Conservatives will make a huge mistake.”

“Of course, Harper has the best shot at winning the next election and internal polls confirm that.”

Of course this is just one pundit’s opinion, but it does not portend well for M. Dion. It also reinforces the need for an excellent ground organization. We have been thrilled to see conservatives stepping up to the plate in local election readiness. Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe deserves real leadership on both the local and national scene.

We can already see a spoof on the memorable Capital One commercials showing up on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Stéphane Dion and the Liberal caucus will be scurrying around while the Auditor General tracks them down. “Whose hand is in your wallet?” the announcer will intone.

This week Liberal leader Stéphane Dion made a pledge to apply all but $3 billion of an unanticipated budget surplus to infrastructure in cities. That sounds wonderful we’re sure to mayors facing increasing challenges in that area, but how will he pay for it?

In today’s National Post, columnist John Ivison writes:

” Mr. Dion has already made so many spending commitments that any Liberal government is going to be flirting with financial disaster if it follows through on all of them. The dilemma of what to do with unanticipated surpluses is likely to be the least of the Liberal leader’s concerns.”

But M. Dion is firm, “This new approach is nothing less than a contract between a Liberal government and the Canadians of today and tomorrow,” he said in his speech to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in Ottawa.

This is nothing more than a contract for disaster in a slowing economy. The article records that “Liberals have made commitments costing more than $80-billion over a four-year period. They include $5-billion to honour the Kelowna Accord; $11-billion to live up to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change; $20-billion over four years to fight the war on poverty; another $5-billion over five years for the national daycare plan and so on.” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on the other hand has already committed to avoid deficit spending.

With the Liberals “contract with Canadians” a deficit will be unavoidable - unless…

Mr. Ivison points out that the Liberals “are already blaming the Conservatives for having left the cupboard bare by making ill-advised tax cuts, such as the two-point reduction in the GST.” “Are the Liberals going to rescind those cuts?” Ivison asks. “If not, how else do they intend to pay for their long list of promises?” (The Conservatives GST cuts are currently saving an average NB household over $600/year!)

Reversing the GST cuts has already been alluded to by Stéphane Dion. If they continue to try to spend their way into the hearts of Canadian voters, you might as well kiss those tax cuts good bye! As for Mr. Ivison, his assessment of M. Dion’s plan is “one of those political promises that garner headlines but are in reality meaningless.” He even pulled out a pithy quote by American president, Abraham Lincoln: “The plan is as thin as homeopathic soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that starved to death” the president once said.

Tuesday in Question Period, Stéphane Dion demonstrated once again a fundamental lack of understanding of the Afghanistan conflict. Just a few weeks ago he suggested that NATO troops should invade Pakistan. Now he is suggesting that Canadian troops should leave as soon as NATO reinforcements show up.

Here is what M. Dion said to PM Harper:

“We thought the Prime Minister did not believe in the rotation principle. Will he say today that, under the rotation principle, the additional troops that NATO should provide will enable our troops to be replaced in their combat mission, their offensive mission, and allowed to focus on a new security, training and reconstruction mission?”

This is not at all what was called for in the Manley report. The Report was very clear that NATO reinforcements were needed to bolster the Canadian security presence in southern Afghanistan.

The Manley Report stated on page 35:

“Therefore, Canada’s military mission in Kandahar should be conditionally extended beyond February 2009—the extension to be expressly contingent on the deployment of additional troops by one or more ISAF countries to Kandahar province. This added deployment should consist of a battle group (about 1,000 soldiers) to reinforce ISAF’s “clear, hold and develop” strategy in Kandahar and to accelerate training of Afghan army and police units. These additional troops would serve to expand ISAF’s security coverage in Kandahar, and reinforce ISAF’s capacity to prevent incursions from Pakistan and facilitate Afghan training. To repeat: A successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan requires more ISAF forces.”

The Manley Report also stated on page 37:

“We recommend…Early adoption by NATO of a comprehensive political-military plan to address security concerns and imbalances, especially the need for more troops to bolster security and expedite training and equipment for the Afghan National Security Forces;”

Clearly what the Manley Report is calling for is more troops to reinforce our Canadian soldiers – making a larger force. If, as the Liberal leader suggests, Canadian troops are replaced by the incoming NATO forces, then there is no net gain to the security and training capacity! The issue is clearly not enough ‘boots on the ground,’ and M. Dion’s suggestion is to have 1000 less Canadian soldiers working in the area they have fought so hard to “clear, hold and develop.”

This is yet another example of the Liberal leader’s fundamental misunderstanding of the mission. His fixation on “end of combat operations” has been widely panned by a number of military experts and media. He seems to be implying that Canadian casualties will be reduced if we just cease being hostile to the Taliban. As long as we are in their country wearing a western uniform, we are a target of opportunity.

As we have demonstrated previously, the vast majority of Canadian casualties have not been the result of “combat” but simply driving on roads that we don’t have enough soldiers to patrol. Canadian soldiers are right now fighting to take back areas that were overrun by the Taliban when NATO forces pulled back. The cost has been too great to abandon the field now; we need to finish the job.

Here are some fast facts on the benefits of NAFTA in Canada:

• Canada’s merchandise trade with its NAFTA partners has increased 122% since 1993, reaching $598.7 billion in 2005.
• Canadian merchandise exports to the United States grew at a compounded annual rate of 6.0% between 1994 and 2005.
• Our NAFTA partners account for 84.7% of Canada’s total merchandise exports.
• Our trade in services with the United States reached $81.2 billion in 2005, up from $42.3 billion in 1993.
• Approximately 57% of Canada’s services exports go to our NAFTA partners.
• Close to 3.1 million net new jobs have been created in Canada since 1994, representing an increase of 126.6% over pre-NAFTA employment levels.

(Source: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, “Overview of the NAFTA“)

It is widely known that both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have been campaigning against NAFTA and for increased American protectionism. In a recent speech in Janesville, Wisconsin (to a group of auto workers), Barak Obama is quoted as saying:

“You know, in the years after her husband signed NAFTA, Senator Clinton would go around talking about how great it was and how many benefits it would bring,” said Obama. “Now that she’s running for president, she says we need a time-out on trade.”

The same article goes on to report: “Democrat Barack Obama has been complaining off and on for months about the North American free trade deal in a bid to curry favour with worried workers…Obama slammed the deal as one reason the country is facing economic turmoil and issued a rebuke to Clinton, whose husband pushed hard for NAFTA over the objections of many Democrats…Last year, Obama told a forum that he’d immediately call the ‘presidents’ of Canada and Mexico to try to amend NAFTA“

While stopping short of promising to end the free trade pact, Obama’s “CHANGE” is certain to reflect negatively on the Canadian economy - for that matter, so will Hillary’s. Considering the media love affair with the charismatic Senator, he is likely to be the Democratic candidate and perhaps the next President of the United States. To all those wishing for the antithesis of George Bush, be careful what you wish for - change can be good OR bad.

We don’t often mirror an entire article, but this Canadian’s opinion is both troubling and insightful. Appearing in The Province newspaper today, it is a thought provoking challenge to the credibility of enviro-alarmists. True science never needs to be justified by rhetoric.

David Suzuki deals a devastating blow to his climate-change cause
John Martin, Special to The Province
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Regardless of what the actual state of climate change may or may not be, Canadians who are adamant that we are nearing the point of no return have a problem on their hands. It would appear their highest-profile spokespeople have serious credibility issues.

Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion never misses an opportunity to demand urgent attention to global warming. However, it has been well-documented that greenhouse-gas emissions increased under the previous Liberal government, including during the time Dion was environment minister.

It has also been revealed his party never had any intentions of meeting the Kyoto Protocol it so unabashedly championed.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May was expected to become a major player on the federal political scene as climate change dominated the public agenda. But her insistence that those who don’t agree with her are reminiscent of Nazi appeasers makes her look desperate and irrelevant.

And now B.C.’s very own David Suzuki, a Companion of the Order of Canada, wants to throw politicians who question his climate-change thesis in prison.

The celebrity scientist dropped the bombshell while addressing an audience at McGill University. He urged students to seek ways to incarcerate elected officials who are “committing a criminal act by ignoring science.”

This was no slip of the tongue. According to the National Post, he said very much the same thing during a speech at the University of Toronto last month.

Both ludicrous and dangerous, it’s this type of talk that causes many to wonder just how legitimate the science in this area actually is.

To even joke — and there’s nothing to suggest Suzuki was trying to be funny — about jailing dissenters is an outrage. The pursuit of scientific inquiry has always welcomed informed skepticism. Otherwise, there is no science, only blind faith.

It’s very difficult to attribute even a modicum of credibility to someone who would put forth such a frightening notion. Throughout history, the most oppressive and brutal regimes have locked up those who dared voice dissenting views. Thousands of Canadians have given their lives fighting the very type of society Suzuki appears to desire. He has clearly forfeited his leadership on the climate-change file.

Yet, as disturbing as his words are, there is something even more troubling. It was reported the audience of 600 students cheered wildly at the suggestion to throw non-believers in the green gulag.

In fairness, Suzuki may simply be exhausted. Or perhaps frustration with what he perceives as inaction is clouding his judgment.

But when an auditorium full of university students vigorously applauds a reckless and brutal ideal that is at the core of totalitarianism, we may soon face a problem much more serious than a couple of degrees Celsius in one direction or the other.

Contact criminologist John Martin of the University College of the Fraser Valley at John.Martin@ucfv.ca.