The Nitpick Non-confidence Narrative

The Opposition is pushing a new narrative to justify an election lately.  They are aiming at Tory competence by virtue of the pile on of of faux scandals and technical gotcha's.  Its meant to be death by a thousands cuts.  The idea being that a thousand cuts will be equal to the great wound of Adscam.

The only problem is that these aren't cuts at all.  They are barely even scrapes.  They are the sort of scrapes you get from playing with a kitten.  I'd imagine you could play with kittens all day and not be injured in the slightest.

Lets list the spate melodrama's in recent weeks:

• NOT-gate: where Minister Oda modified her own memo to reflect a decision she is fully within her role to make.  Allegedly she lied about it somehow, somewhere in the two years since this decision was made.  Oddly enough, there is no film of it.  You know our media.  It would be everywhere.  We just have to take the word of the opposition.  I'm inclined to think these folks are motivated to willfully misunderstand it.  It's not about what happened.  Its about the gotcha.  When they've gotcha, look out; it's just like Adscam.

• Memo-gate:  Minister Kenny used paper with the Parliament of Canada Logo on it to solicit funds from other MP's.  There are other interesting details to the story of how the opposition found out about the illegal stationary that I found interesting, but the Coalitions main quibble has to do with the letterhead.  For inappropriate use of parliamentary stationary the Opposition is calling for Minister Kenny to resign.  Is this Adscam too?  Its at least as serious as missing the cover page of your TPS reports.

• Speech-Gate:  This has to be the dumbest one of all.  The Prime Minister failed to advertise a speech by Michael Ignatieff during his own speech.  I'm not sure what the protocol is to precede a speech of a Russian aristocrat like Iggy, but Stephen Harper didn't follow it.  The PM was merely opening for Count Iggy and rudely failed to mention the main event.  If you believe Liberals, its surely another Adscam.

• Harper Government-Gate:  This faux scandal embodies the entire position the Opposition Coalition.  It's the Harper Government that they exist to oppose.  The Harper Government is a term coined by the media and opposition themselves.  When the government embraces this term, its another Adscam.  

When the opposition compares these trivial issues to Adscam, it shows you how lightly they regard Adscam not how seriously they take the above.

I could go on and on.  Look at the faux scandals further out:

• UN Seat-Gate:  The institution that gave Colonel Gaddafi a seat on the United Nation Human Rights Council gave a Security Council seat to Portugal.  Portugal is currently on the edge of another bailout while Canada leads the world in economic recovery.  The UN only makes sense to elites who kiss both cheeks like Iggy.  I don't mean the face cheeks.  Mr. Internationalist Iggy said we didn't deserve the seat and while nobody listens to Iggy, he didn't want us to win it.  He isn't here for you.  He's here for himself and them.  What do you know, with all this garbage about our international stature Canada's reputation has favorably jumped under the Harper Government.
• Prorogation... (even though Iggy is the worst offender for skipping out on Parliament)
• In and Out... (spending their own money when it was legal to do so)
• Etc
• Etc
• Etc

I give up.  The nauseating spin from opposition mouths is that there is "a culture of deceit," in the CPC.  Every time they are asked about one of the faux scandals, they inevitably bring up the others to spin their yarns.

Unfortunately for them the tapestry they are slowly weaving isn't one of incompetence.  The pattern emerging is one of Opposition whining and complaining at the slightest imagined misstep.  This isn't a recent development either.  The majority Opposition has consistently cried foul over the last 5 years and interfered in the important work of the Harper Government.    

Ironically the reason they are floating a non-confidence motion to trigger an early election is also the reason to give Stephen Harper's Conservative Government a Majority.  We've had 5 years of Opposition obstruction during some of the most challenging times in half a century.  They obstruct our mission in Afganistan.  They obstruct our justice system.  They obstruct our economy.  They obstruct our security.  They plan to obstruct the budget if we even make it there.  This Opposition takes its function to ridiculous levels.  Our system was never meant to function with a majority Opposition and yet somehow the Harper Government has succeeded on all fronts at the worst of times.

This is the most competent government I've seen in my life.  The Harper Government may well be the best government in Canadian History.  Today Canada sits on top of the world.  Its time we took the training wheels off.  Its time we gave the Harper Government a majority and realized our full potential.  No more petty obstruction.  This is the Canadian Century.  It's time we took the lead.