Paul Martin - Prime Minister or Agriculturalist

With the Federation of Municipalities meeting on our province this week, we have been afforded the opportunity to see campaign style visits by the leaders of all three major Federal parties, and what a spectacle it’s been.

I don’t want to take party sides in the soap opera that is our Parliament, and even though there were plenty of sound bytes from the other leaders to fill this article, I would like to focus on Mr. Martin and his band of wise guys simply because he is the one on the Canadian throne at present.

It was almost sickening to watch our Honorable Prime Minister running from venue to venue like a frightened deer caught in Stephen Harper’s headlights. In his address to the delegates he did everything in his power to pressure the leaders of our municipalities into strong arming their local MPs. His approach is to apply pressure on opposition MPs to vote for his budget bill and as a result, prop up his government.

His main tactic of course was the old Liberal dog and pony show of fear mongering and seeding doubt throughout the visit. Something he and his party have become experts at.

There seems to be a great game of fear mongering going on within the Liberal party over the past few months. Fear mongering about the opposition. Fear mongering about the state of the country and fear mongering about everything in between.

The sad part about the use of this tactic is that it’s working.

A good example of this tactic is the way everyone feels about opposition leader Stephen Harper. Just about everyone has some concern about his politics, his motives and his direction. Ask anyone, especially in Atlantic Canada and they will tell you they don’t trust Mr. Harper, not one bit. They will immediately follow this statement with “I don’t know why, I just don’t”.

In my opinion, the reason why is the Liberal Party machine. I’m not saying we should trust Mr. Harper. I don’t trust him myself, I don’t know why, I just don’t.

But…

Stephen Harper has never had a chance to make the kinds of mistakes we all fear that he will, and he has never been given the opportunity to lead us in a direction we might not want. Regardless of this fact, the Liberal spin doctors have made him look like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin all rolled into one and wearing a ten gallon hat. He may very well be the anti-Christ himself, but we really have nobody's word for this but the Liberals. We all know how honest they are.

The Liberals have also used fear tactics to prop up their corrupt government by saying that if the budget bill is defeated then the child care reforms, gas tax for municipalities and the Atlantic Accord deals will die. The reality of the situation is that all the major parties have agreed to support those specific issues even if the government collapses, but of course we shouldn’t cloud the issues with facts. Fear mongering again.

Three Liberal MPs have now threatened to vote against the party line on the budget bill in a protest against Liberal policy on same sex marriage. Again the party fear mongers are saying these MPs should vote with the party or the country itself may split up and life as we know it will end. The reality is that the only result of this move would be the Liberal party losing power. The country would not split up and life would indeed go on.

Somehow the Liberals have gotten into a mind set where they think they ARE the country itself. They are not.

Fear is a great way to rally support from the masses. George Bush has been using it constantly since 9/11. Out of the blue he will have his puppets issue a condition yellow or condition red to scare the general public. When asked why the alerts are issued they simply reply that they "heard some chatter" or that they can't say, “for security reasons". In the meantime everyone is afraid to speak out against the president. They even voted him in after he and his daddy all but stole the previous election and he has them mired in a war they don’t know how to get out of. After all, who wants to replace their leader during a national crisis? Fear is a great motivator.

Keep then off balance and they can’t knock you over.

Yes, fear is a great motivator and Paul Martin has learned this lesson very well. He knows that there are points in his budget that everyone wants to see passed. The reality of the situation is that if the budget does not pass, there is about a 99.7 percent chance (I like making up statistics) that the key points on day care, gas tax and the Atlantic Accord will eventually get through anyway. They might take a little longer, but they will get through. He knows this, but he also knows that everyone hates the idea that these items might, just MIGHT be in jeopardy if the bill does not pass.

It doesn’t take much to sow a seed of doubt. It would appear that Mr. Martin is getting lots of prep time for his retirement and he’s using it wisely. At this point he sure knows how to plant his seeds in the garden of our country and grow exactly the kind of crop he’s looking for.