The normally very conservative Colby Cosh has written a delicious piece defending Jack Layton‘s position that he will continue to try to work with the government on the NDP’s ethics reform package, protection for pensions and the environment and a renewed commitment to public health care. Stephen Harper is trying to paint Layton as a sell-out, and Cosh is having none of it. He writes "on the premise that a party leader cares most about the ideas for which his party stands, no position other than Layton’s is remotely practical". And he concludes with:
I don’t think anyone would hold it against him for too long if he (Stephen Harper), like Layton, were to present the Liberals with a list of ideological policy demands. But maybe that’s the real question: do today’s Conservatives actually have a wish list? (One, I mean, beyond No Queer Weddings In My Backyard?) Harper, after all, ran tacitly for the Canadian Alliance leadership as the man who was willing to treat the party as a vehicle for ideas rather than as a professionalized cabal of jobhunters hoping to win an elaborate game of Red Vs. Blue. It seemed like a good idea to some of us at the time, but somewhere along the line Harper accepted the values of a national press corps capable of comprehending and covering politics only as a spectator sport.
Does anyone have a spare petard around to lend Stephen Harper? Some hoisting is clearly called for…
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
