TAPC

Seize the agenda and succeed
National Post. April 6, 2009.

The following is an edited excerpt of Tom Long’s recent presentation to the Manning Networking Conference and Exhibition in Ottawa.

The dominant Tory assumption has been that the way to victory is to force the Liberals left by moving to the centre. Continue Reading »

Lorne Gunter
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

It never ceases to amaze me how many people have blind faith in the competence and neutrality of government. For instance, recent economic bailouts are premised on the notion that governments — which are really nothing more than conglomerates of politicians, bureaucrats and experts paid to tell leaders what they want to hear –are somehow smarter than investors and consumers at deciding what products and industries deserve help, how much and when. Continue Reading »

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons – a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute – the function of a reasoning mind. Continue Reading »

As we approach the end of a year filled with considerable financial, economic and social turmoil, Canada probably more than most countries may be on the edge of something ominous and transforming. Our country has been predisposed to interventionism from a leftist element for many years. I fear that the “perfect storm” of global circumstances may have now conspired to push Canada into an economic maelstrom from which it will be extremely difficult to emerge, unless our Government stands strong.

I say this not because Canada’s economy is in particularly poor condition. On the contrary, Canada leads the G8 in GDP growth, and is forecast to lead western economies out of recession by 2010. We are not as yet in a recession in the strict definition. The threat is not of an economic nature, but of a political agenda which would push our relatively small country (3% of world GDP) into a lengthy downturn. Continue Reading »

JEFFREY SIMPSON

From Saturday’s Globe and Mail

E-mail Jeffrey Simpson | Read Bio | Latest Columns
December 5, 2008 at 8:00 PM EST

Now that a sudden and violent storm has passed through Canadian politics, people of all persuasions are trying to sort out what precisely happened, why the convulsion came, what damage was done and what lies ahead.

A Conservative government exists. It had won one confidence vote, but could not win another, and so used prorogation to flee Parliament. The Conservatives appear to have the upper hand in public opinion outside Quebec, but have lost ground in that province.

A Liberal opposition exists. It nominally leads a government-in-waiting coalition with the NDP, supported by the Bloc Québécois. But the Liberals, saddled with a politically inept leader, walked into a trap of their own making from which they do not know how to escape.

The political storm reflected badly on Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose decisions ignited it, but even worse on Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, whose impetuous reaction led the party astray. Continue Reading »

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose
you were a member of Congress. But then
I repeat myself. – Mark Twain
………………………………………..
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into
prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill
………………………………………………………..
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw Continue Reading »

In recent years, the day after every national election, the Toronto Red Star has published maps of the Ontario results. Ridings in which Conservative candidates won were appropriately coloured blue and ridings where Liberal or NDP candidates won were appropriately coloured variants of red; ie. deep pink or coral respectively.

The October 2008 election map of southern Ontario (south of the Mattawa River/Lake Nipissing/French River watersheds, or, the 97 ridings from Parry Sound-Muskoka, Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock and Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke south) is a great big blue sea with some red islands in it. However, the population distribution resulted in about a 50-50 split in ridings – 48 blues and 49 reds. Continue Reading »

Bruce Campion-Smith
Ottawa Bureau Chief, Toronto Star, November 16, 2008

WINNIPEG–Federal Conservatives have called for stripping the Canadian human rights tribunal of some powers and a tougher crime agenda, including charges in crimes that result in the death of an unborn child, despite warnings the move will reopen the abortion debate.

Some 2,000 delegates wrapped up a three-day policy convention yesterday after an afternoon session debating policies on topics as varied as human trafficking, health care and crime crackdowns. It was the first Conservative policy convention in more than 3 1/2 years. Continue Reading »

by John Thompson.

‘For civilization is not something inborn or imperishable; it must be acquired anew by every generation, and any serious interruption in its financing or its transmission may bring it to an end.’ Survinging the Elite

Will Durant

Gerry Nicholls

National Post Tuesday, October 21, 2008

With Stephane Dion shuffling off the political stage, the Conservative government must now come to grips with a new enemy. And I am not talking about Bob Rae or Margaret Atwood or a hostile left-wing media. The new enemy for the Conservatives is time; simply put they are running out of it.

Realistically speaking the Conservatives will be able to effectively govern this country for perhaps one more year. After that a revitalized Liberal party led by a shiny new leader, whose name isn’t Stephane Dion, will start to gum up the government’s Parliamentary agenda and perhaps even force an election. And because the Conservatives are running out of time, they have no choice but to abandon the grand political strategy they have been employing for the past two and half years.

This strategy is usually referred to as “incrementalism.” The chief proponent of incrementalism is former Conservative campaign manager Tom Flanagan and it’s essentially based on the idea that the Canadian public doesn’t really like conservative ideas or conservative polices. Continue Reading »