A rchive Date
[ 20-08-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[The mouth strikes again
By RICHARD CLEROUX -- CNEWS Politics
The Canadian Alliance finally dumped its "John Rocker" backroomer, party pollster John Mykytyshyn this week after disgraceful remarks he made about Maritimers to the news media in British Columbia.
He was booted off the party's National Council after calling people from the Maritimes "lazy" and saying they are only looking for government handouts.
This he did in the middle of a major byelection campaign in the Nova Scotia riding of Kings-Hants when party leader Stockwell Day took the time and trouble to make his way out to Atlantic Canada to convince voters to forsake Joe Clark and the Conservatives and instead vote for a political party which really cares about them. With friends like Mykytyshyn, Stockwell doesn't need adversaries like Joe Clark.
It wasn't Mykytyshyn's first bout of foot-in-mouth, but most likely it will be his last from inside the Canadian Alliance boardroom.
Mykytyshyn first gained fame last year when he conducted a questionable opinion poll in the provincial Thornhill riding on behalf of Ontario Premier Mike Harris' Conservatives.
Mykytyshyn went around asking people if they would vote for a Jew.
It just so happened that the local Liberal candidate in was Jewish.
Nice job, John.
The Canadian Jewish Congress noticed. So did everybody else. Harris had no choice but to can Mykytyshyn. Harris got his hatchet man Tom Long to do it. So out went Mykytyshyn.
Mykytyshyn landed over at the Canadian Alliance, which apparently chose to overlook his past indiscretions and made him a board member. By the way Long landed over at the Alliance too.
Nice bedfellows these Tories and Alliancers.
After his debacle in Thornhill, Mykytyshyn wrote a grovelling letter to the Canadian Jewish Congress admitting that his "sensitivity was lacking in respect to certain questions within this poll."
Seems his sensitivity was "lacking" once again. Now, he's issued another groveling apology.
There's no indication to which party he may be headed now.
ROCKER-MOUTH LOOK-ALIKES?
Before the Liberals get too worked up laughing their heads off at the Canadian Alliance's current problems with John "Rocker-Mouth" Mykytyshyn they might want to look up their own past record.
Last June it was Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin who was telling the news media that aboriginal leaders in Labrador are "alcoholics" Tobin tried to present it as simply a caring concern on his part for problems within the aboriginal society in Newfoundland But to Assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine, it sounded like Tobin was only trying to perpetuate the old stereotype of the drunken native.
And wasn't Jean Chretien himself, before he became prime minister who once took a run at people on welfare and described them as sitting at home on the sofa in their muscle shirts drinking beer on Saturday afternoons and watching television?
So before the Liberals laugh too hard at the Alliance rednecks, they might want to have a look in their own backyard.
KEITH MARTIN ON HIS WAY OUT
Dr. Keith Martin, the mildly progressive Esquimalt-Juan-de-Fuca MP who never did fit in with his turnip-truck colleagues in the Canadian Alliance Party is reported on the way out of the party.
Doc Martin is everything that leader Stockwell Day is not on social issues, such as abortion, capital punishment, and gays.
Apparently Martin can't quite reconcile himself to the new leader. Stockwell axed Martin out of every major job in the new Alliance caucus as quickly and efficiently as if Martin had been a bad tumor cut out of an ailing patient.
The handwriting on the wall is clear for Martin -- cross the floor and sit as a Liberal, or worse still, a hated Tory or an insignificant independent MP, or else accept a free ride back to the West Coast at taxpayers expense.
Stockwell's bunch are hoping that Martin heads for the Coast. The last thing they want is Martin crossing the floor on the first day back for Parliament this fall, to spoil Stockwell's big entry into the Commons.
The bad blood between Doc Martin and Stockwell goes back a long way. Last June Martin decided to run for the party leadership despite warnings from Stockwell's bunch that Martin was only splitting the anti-Manning vote.
Worse still for Day, Martin went around saying that if the Canadian Alliance could not "shake its fixation" with such issues as abortion and capital punishment, it would be "doomed."
That made it clear enough where he stood.
Now it just happened that Stockwell got himself elected leader of the Canadian Alliance by relying heavily on the support of the anti- abortion and pro-capital punishment faction in the party.
Who knows the turnip-truck bunch best, Martin or Day? Day won the leadership easily with more than 50 per cent of the vote and Martin was knocked off on the first ballot with less than 10 per cent of the vote.
Luckily for Martin there's a provincial election coming up soon in British Columbia and Martin may be weird and wild enough to tackle veteran Dipper Moe Sihota in his own back yard. It would be an interesting contest.
LIBERALS LOOKING FOR MULRONEY
The Liberal backroom boys are looking hard these days for any links they can prove between the new Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day and former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
They know that Day has gone to Mulroney in Montreal for advice and some kind of help on at least one occasion earlier this year.
They know that any link they can uncover will help them in the upcoming federal election, especially in Western Canada where Mulroney's name is still reviled in many Canadian Alliance circles.
The idea of Day courting the very Quebec politician whose presence led to the creation of the Reform Party in the first place.
Mulroney's right-hand man, Peter White, helped found the Canadian Alliance Party. White is also Conrad Black's right-hand man. It was Black's National Post and Southam chain newspapers that vilified Conservative leader Joe Clark repeatedly during the past year and has praised Stockwell Day and his Canadian Alliance Party to the heavens.
Meanwhile Stanley Hartt, known as Mulroney's left-hand man, was a major operative in crossover Conservative Tom Long's Alliance leadership campaign.
And Conservative MP Jim Jones was instrumental in setting up Mulroney's coming out speech at Jones' riding association golf tournament in Markham, Ont. this summer. And then Jones announced he would be running for the Canadian Alliance Party as well as the Tories in the next election, until Joe Clark told Jones to make up his mind.
Right now the Liberals have no idea how far all this goes, but they do know that in their wildest dreams, the best would be for them to find out that Mulroney is trying to use the Canadian Alliance Party to come back into politics through the back door.
Dream on, Grits.
BROKEN LIBERAL PROMISE
The Liberal government was reminded last week in letter from a senior United Nations executive that Canada has not kept a promise it made four years ago at the World Food Summit.
Canada, along with 180 countries promised to reduce by at least 50 per cent the number of hungry people by the year 2015.
That wasn't asking a lot considering that for only $60 billion, the entire world's hunger could be eliminated for a single year.
That's the combined wealth of the 15 wealthiest Canadians, not that any of them should be expected to want to give up their fortunes just to save people from starvation.
Even $20 billion a year would keep 200 million children around the world from starvation. That's just about how much Stockwell Day wants to give out in tax cuts should he come to power.
Instead of keeping its promise to increase foreign aid, the Liberal government has gone the other way.
Under Finance Minister Paul Martin foreign aid has plunged from half a percent of Canada's gross domestic product to about a quarter of a per cent of GDP.
Chretien had promised to increase foreign aid to about three- quarters of one per cent. His excuse that he's under a lot of pressure to cut taxes from the business community, the Canadian Alliance, and the Conservative Party, may satisfy some people, but it doesn't put food in the mouths of starving kids around the world.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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