And the award for most insipid insight of the election goes to… | Full Comment | National Post

By Kelly McParland - from the National Post

It’s early yet, but easily the most annoying post-election theme to date is the complaint that “60 per cent of Canadians voted against the Conservatives.”

Please people.

Since 1867, only five elections have ended with the winner attracting more than 50% of the vote. In other words — now write this down rabble fans — the majority of Canadians almost always vote against the winner.

The only prime ministers to ever top 50% (and they managed it only once each) were Mulroney, Diefenbaker, King, Borden and Laurier (note, that’s three Tories and just two Liberals.) Read more...

And the award for most insipid insight of the election goes to… | Full Comment | National Post

Kelly McParland: Tory record on hiring lapdogs needs improvement | Full Comment | National Post

by Kelly McParland - from the National Post

The Toronto Star has a big exclusive scoop on how an agency created by the federal Conservatives to help crime victims was “just a $6 million public relations stunt to score political points.”

Who says? Steve Sullivan, the former ombudsman appointed by the Tories to head the office. The big scoop seems to centre around the fact the office hasn’t released its annual reports in a timely manner. Two of the reports, for 2008 and 2009, should have been released earlier this month, but weren’t. Jeez, no annual reports! That may not strike everyone as the scandal of the decade, but we’re talking the Star here. The paper that ran a death notice from a man whose dying wish was that people should vote Liberal.

While not much of a scoop, the story does point to one of the contradictions of Harper-hatred in Ottawa. While the HH camp keeps reminding us how Mr. Harper wants to stuff the courts, the bureaucracy and other official and semi-official bodies with obedient Conservative lackeys, his record on that front has been anything but stellar. He seems to have trouble recognizing True Blue Tory lapdogs willing to tow the party line (a mistake Brian Mulroney would never have made). Read more...

Kelly McParland: Tory record on hiring lapdogs needs improvement | Full Comment | National Post

Kelly McParland: Liberal remedy to Layton is to look in the mirror | Full Comment | National Post

By Kelly McParland - from the National Post

Here’s something for Liberal party worthies to think about as they pass the long holiday weekend wondering what on earth to do about Jack Layton: Maybe they shouldn’t do anything about Jack. Maybe they should do something about themselves.

The Liberals are caught in an identity crisis, and have been since the old caudillo, Jean Chretien, retired to the corporate uplands. Chretien didn’t stand for much either, other than winning, but at least he was in a position to pull that off. Since his departure, and Paul Martin’s defeat, Liberal strategy has consisted of two streams: painting Stephen Harper as a stooge of the U.S. corporate-military complex, and reminding Canadians that the Liberals introduced universal health care.

Is it really a shock that the recipe has failed to excite people? The 2008 campaign was a disaster, the party having tied itself to the hare-brained Green Shift and a leader who got more incoherent by the day. Since he replaced Stephane Dion two years ago, Michael Ignatieff has been all over the map, a conservative-minded academic running a party that has moved steadily to the left, but which zigs and zags with each new headline. Now Layton appears to have passed them on the left, and taken the NDP into second spot. What to do?

Answer: Quit reacting. Find a reason for the Liberals to exist. Read more

Kelly McParland: Liberal remedy to Layton is to look in the mirror | Full Comment | National Post