1. Pundit power couple. Deb Solberg is part of a group pressing for former Reform Party leader Preston Manning to be Canada’s next Governor-General; her husband, Monte, wants Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals to move on from Rahim Jaffer and Helena Guergis’s “annus horribilis.”
The couple is seemingly ubiquitous these days, emerging as a force of punditry on the right in this country. Monte is the former Reform/Conservative MP and Harper cabinet minister from Alberta. He consults and also writes a column for Sun Media. This weekend, he was the host of CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup. His topic was the rising loonie – “How has the high dollar affected you?”
His wife, Deb, is very active on Facebook, putting up articles she finds interesting (ones in line with her point of view) and recommending them to others. Her latest campaign is trying to create a buzz around her husband’s former boss, Preston Manning, to be the next Governor-General.
“Preston Manning for Governor-General 2010: With the Governor-General's term up in September it is likely the Prime Minister will appoint a new GG this year. There is not a better Canadian for the job then Preston Manning!”
She invites you to join the fan list; so far there are 189 fans. And then fans are asked to contact the Prime Minister’s Office “and let him know that you think Preston should be the next Governor General of Canada.”
In his most recent column, meanwhile, Mr. Solberg sarcastically writes of Mr. Ignatieff’s absence last week from the House of Commons.
In doing so, he’s following talking points from the Tories that accused the Liberal Leader of proroguing himself after spending so much time criticizing Stephen Harper for shutting down Parliament over the winter.
And he takes aim at the Liberals for not talking about the economy, for their obsession with the Afghan detainee story and their drubbing of his friends, Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Guergis, for their poor behaviour.
Mr. Jaffer was fined $500 for careless driving; more serious charges of impaired driving, speeding and cocaine possession were dropped. Ms. Guergis had an unfortunate outburst in the Charlottetown airport last month.
“Personally, I would have ranked the economy a smidge higher in importance in question period than conspiracy theories about Rahim’s plea bargain. Then again, I’ve always been a skeptic about any of the insights that Liberal MP Anita Neville regularly receives via her tinfoil hat,” he writes.
Ms. Neville, a Winnipeg MP, had been aggressive in her questioning of the Jaffer sentence.
Mr. Solberg says he believes in justice and mercy. “Please don’t hate me for saying this but I want Rahim and Helena to learn their lessons, pull themselves together and have a good life. The rest of us should move on, too.”
On Mr. Ignatieff, his absence from the Commons, his cross-Canada tour to promote his upcoming policy conference in Montreal and the Afghan prisoners, Mr. Solberg writes: “Iggy is out there having rap sessions with real people who are undoubtedly talking his ear off about making sure that those Taliban prisoners were being well treated.”
2. Playing in tar nation. Watch for it: A new video game is being released today with a decidedly political twist allowing players to spray great big blobs of oil on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
It’s kind of inane. But the Polaris Institute, a public-policy advocacy group, is trying to make a point, highlighting the support of Canadian politicians for “the destructive tar sands.”
Indeed, the game is situated in a cartoon-like landscape that is supposed to be an oil refinery. Every second or so a caricature of Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff pops up and the idea is to shoot oil on them forcing them out of the tar sands.
The game is to be released on Facebook and elsewhere online today. The institute is holding a press conference on Parliament Hill this morning to talk about the game and their campaign – the game also includes an electronic letter tool that directs players to the send emails to the Prime Minister and Mr. Ignatieff.
