Monday, May 21, 2007

Right Back Where We Started From

To see the latest polls showing the Tories barely ahead of the Grits, you would expect panic in the Conservative ranks, and jubilation amongst the Liberals.

The lack of such response on either side is indicative of the recognition that what's happening now is the usual mid-to-late term malaise of any government that has accomplished most of its stated priorities, faced the usual initial scandals and problems, and is now casting about to set its next election platform. Certainly no joy for the Tories, but also no joy for the Grits, who have both exhausted much energy to end up treading water.

Which is why Stephen Harper won't be taking much of a summer holiday. The summer is a perfect time to draft the next election platform, with bigger and bolder ideas, active as opposed to being merely reactive.

But such is the problem of a government that accomplishes most of its stated objectives: so much energy gets invested in doing so that there's not enough left to deal with the problems that arise almost out of nowhere.

No party can win power without a platform, but no government can just stand on its platform, either.

Source: Globe and Mail

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harper & Co need to find a way around the MSM. The MSM is now trying to show its strength even when its strength is based in dishonesty.

Anonymous said...

Both parties are hobbled by weak leaders. At the core of their weakness is the selling out of stalwart supporters in order to pander to Quebec voters.

The problem isn't the MSM. Harper is utterly adrift. Many policy positions he advocated before he became PM have been abandoned. frankly, I have no idea what Harper stands for, except that every move seems to be calculated to increase his standings in the polls (and it isn't working)

Harper can't possibly be out of ideas like a late term party. He has only been in power 17 months (after waiting for 13 years!). I thought there was a lot of Liberal policies to be undone.

Luckily for Harper the Liberal leader is weak. Dion is too honest and understated to play against the conniving Harper.

LOYALIST said...

Friday, July 07, 2006
Behind Bars, Before The Bar
Believe it or not, even the Bar has some standards for joining it. Something about not bringing the profession into disrepute.

Stop snickering.

Even the Quebec Bar didn't want this guy, but may be forced to take him:

He left the country after being repeatedly denied enrolment in the Quebec bar admission course because he stabbed his mother to death when he was younger. But Sébastien Brousseau has finally prevailed in his decade-long campaign for the right to become a lawyer.

The Quebec bar says it will not appeal a decision this spring by a panel of judges who ruled that Mr. Brousseau is sufficiently rehabilitated that he can practise law without hurting the reputation of the legal profession.

....

Mr. Brousseau was 21 when he killed his mother, Micheline Sévigny, in their home near Montreal, stabbing her 40 times. According to psychiatric assessments cited in court documents, his parents had separated and he lived with his mother, often feuding with her.

The night of Nov. 16, 1990, according to his account to a psychiatrist, Mr. Brousseau got into an argument with his mother and she swung at him with a baseball bat.

He said he remembered defending himself with a kitchen knife but did not recall how often he stabbed her. He said that she was in agony when he came to his senses, so he slit her throat to end her suffering.

Despite the lurid details of the slaying, the ruling noted that the Crown changed the indictment against him from murder to manslaughter, on the advice of psychiatric experts.

After being paroled in 1992, Mr. Brousseau attended law school. By the time of his fourth attempt to register in the bar exam school in 2001, he had obtained a pardon.



A pardon may wipe away a criminal record and all of the usual consequences of having one, but it cannot undo a man's past.

The absence of a criminal record is neither sufficient nor necessary proof of good character, according to just about any Bar.

Had Brousseau's past offences been fraud or any other breach of trust, the Bar would never have given him a chance. Even if he had only faced civil judgments for same, and never any criminal indictments.

Had his crime been drunk driving, the Bar wouldn't have cared as long as he hadn't killed or maimed anyone.

In any event, his may be a hollow victory yet. The Bar can close ranks against anyone with a firmness and discipline even the Mob would envy. He may have to be admitted to bar school, but no firm is obligated to hire him for articles, without which he cannot be called.

And even if he should find and complete articles, he will still have to demonstrate that he is of good character, to the Bar's satisfaction, again.

And it will find any excuse to keep him out, now.

But even if, despite all this, he is admitted, no firm in Quebec will obligated to hire him, nor the Bar help him hang out his own shingle.

When the Bar wants you out, it will move heaven and earth to keep you out.

Source: Globe and Mail
Posted by Loyalist at 7:10 AM
67 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks. I will try to prove you wrong. By the way, I already did my exams and have a job.

Sebastien Brousseau.
7/11/2006 11:57 PM