Predictions -- What Was that Man Smoking? -- Historical revisionism, Japanese Comment & Steven Fletcher

The no-confidence vote--a few predictions

1) The Gomery Inquiry won't conclude in the fall. Rather, the Martinites will find a legal loophole to forestall an election. Something along the lines of "Gomery can't issue his findings because it would interfere with the criminal trials of Guite et al. Therefore they must wait."

2) The attempts to buy voters and opposition members will continue unabated. With the latter, re-election is always uncertain; holding a gravy train Senate position is anything but.

3) The Belinda defection will be a pyrrhic victory. Her Cabinet appointment will rankle the old Liberals. The animosity that the more deserving have kept in check during the last week will surface and the knives will come out. Martin will also discover what the term "a high maintainance woman" really means.

4) Rather than tightening up our criminally lax immigration / refugee system, it will be even further weakened. They may be welfare bums, anti-Western fanatics and escaped deportees, but by cracky, they will vote Liberal. The charge has already been made in Quebec, that preceding the separatist vote, the Liberal Party started fast-tracking Quebec immigrant applications.

5) This is the worst case scenario, but the Chretien-appointed federal judges might just have Gomery's Inquiry and all its testimony thrown out. Martin will be shown tearing his hair out, while Cotler shrugs and says, "The judges have spoken and our hands are tied." Then, of course, Martin's promise to hold an election when the Gomery results come out will be a moot point.

6) One final prediction that I would bet the baby on: the CBC--major mouth-organ for their Liberal masters--will start a manipulative drumbeat to defeat the Conservatives.

© Bud Talkinghorn



Paul Martin's speech after the razor-thin vote--what was that man smoking?

Paul actually ran verbally amok. Not only was this the best thing for Canada, but he thought his near-death win would have global implications. Other countries around the world would see how he is governing and weep in envy. Talk about grandiose delusions. It reminds me of Hitler telling his military that the collapse of their eastern front would prove to be the rallying call that would ignite all Germany to win the war. If the PM were to lose the Labrador by-election he could be defeated in the next no-confidence vote. On top of that, each new witness to the Gomery Inquiry hammers another nail in his electoral coffin. Oh yes, and the voters are going to thank him for having to drive to the polls in a blinding snowstorm, rather than in the summer sunshine.

© Bud Talkinghorn



Historical revisionism--the Steven Fletcher "scandal"

The Conservative MP, Steven Fletcher, has been called on the carpet because he characterized the Japanese army in WW11 as "Jap bastards". This utterance occurred when he was addressing a group of veterans. He was recalling his grandfather's capture and torture by Japanese soldiers. Pardon me, but just how should he have characterized the barbrism of a former enemy that slaughtered 400,000 civilians in Nanking, experimented on prisoners with biological germs, and dashed babies' heads against hospital walls when forced to retreat from Manila? From The Bataan death march to their forcing thousands of South Korean women to become their sex slaves, the entire history of the Japanese from 1935 to their defeat in 1945 was one of complete barbarism. I think referring to these soldiers as "Jap bastards" was an understatement. What's next, being forced to refer to Nazi concentration camp guards as "just ordinary soldiers doing a necessary job"? The riots that occurred in China recently was over this same issue. The Japanese, unlike the Germans, have never come to terms with their murderous, barbaric past in the war. So long as Mr. Fletcher was referring to the Japanese war record, I have no problem with his words. The Liberals and their media buddies will toe the politically correct line as expected. Give me a break.

© Bud Talkinghorn