The Tory Meltdown

On Saturday, lifelong Tory Sean Ahern quit the party over the party's recent decision to tax income trusts.

“If the Liberals promise to leave things the way they are for existing unit holders, I'll vote for them. I've never voted for a Liberal in my life. But I will vote for them,” said Mr. Ahern, a financial planner in his 60s who has been a Conservative party member since he was 16.

“There will be hundreds of thousands of people who will never forget this. Because every day you look at your bank balance and you say, ‘those sons of bitches.'”

In a long and angry letter yesterday to the Prime Minister, Mr. Ahern said the government's actions on income trusts this week have “permanently” reduced his net worth by a “substantial” amount. Neither the increase in the seniors tax credit, nor the plan to allow pension-income splitting between spouses — both of which were announced in conjunction with the income-trust changes — will compensate for the loss, he said.

“Just so you know how it feels, I insist that you and [Finance Minister Jim] Flaherty take an immediate and permanent 20-per-cent cut in your salaries. What's fair for me should be fair for you,” Mr. Ahern wrote in his letter to Mr. Harper.

“The net result of my anger is that I can no longer be associated with a politically inept, incompetent political party that hurts small and medium sized investors and that doesn't live up to its promises.”

Friday, on CTV's Mike Duffy Live, two representatives of Alberta's oilpatch appeared to discuss how the income trust issue has impacted their sector. The result of last week's Tory decision was an overnight loss of some $10 billion dollars. Correspondent Craig Oliver then mocked those guests when they left - and surely not many people would shed a tear over oil companies having to pay their fair share of taxes - but the federal Tories ought to be nervous about how this move may affect their political future, even in the most Conservative province in the country. Energy companies asked for a reprieve, fearing foreign takeovers, but that is unlikely to happen. And when Albertans start making comparisons to the hated National Energy Program (NEP), you know there could be hell to pay for the Tories:

That may fuel anger in Alberta, where some see a Tory reincarnation of the Liberals' much-despised National Energy Program (NEP) in the early 1980s.

John Brussa, the architect of the first energy trust, says some Conservatives are tearing up party memberships in protest.

"This is akin to the NEP," said Brussa, a director of Progress Energy Trust, chairman of Penn West Energy Trust and partner with Burnet, Duckworth and Palmer in Calgary.

"It's a bunch of people in Ottawa making decisions that severely affect peoples' lives here," he said.

The NEP still gets mentioned on right-wing talk radio practically every day as if it just happened last week. Albertans have very long memories when it comes to how the federal government impacts the energy sector. So, when people here are talking about the income trusts taxes and the NEP in the same breath, you can be damn sure there will be blowback against the feds. It would take a political earthquake to change the minds of Tory voters in this province and Harper may have just caused the fissure to shift.

Meanwhile, while Harper has been pissing off the oil sector, he also managed to once again anger those who are concerned about global warming and climate change by cancelling the upcoming Canada-EU summit because thou shalt not criticize the Dear Leader:

OTTAWA — Stephen Harper has surprised and annoyed European Union leaders by cancelling a planned Canada-EU summit, where he was going to be criticized for abandoning this country's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Mr. Harper told Finnish Prime Minister Maati Vanhanen yesterday by telephone that he would not be able to attend the summit scheduled for Nov. 27.

The Prime Minister cited the need to remain in Canada as much as possible while the House of Commons is sitting, because the Conservatives enjoy only a minority government.

However, Mr. Harper still plans to travel to Hanoi later this month to attend a meeting of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) leaders. He will also be in Riga, Latvia, at the end of the month for meetings with the heads of NATO.

It was the decision to attend the NATO meeting while cancelling the EU summit that has European officials miffed, because the Prime Minister is going to be in the neighbourhood anyway.

The EU summit, in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland, occurs only two days before the NATO meetings, and Finland is a short flight from Latvia.

“The undertone is pretty bitter,” stated one European official who asked not to be identified.

Yes that's right Steve - run away instead of facing your critics. Coward.

At the rate his government is going, it looks like we'll only have to put up with them until 2007 and the demise of the Tories can't come soon enough.

Update: Hundreds of protesters demand PM act on Kyoto

Hundreds of protesters gathered in cities across the country on Saturday to demand the Conservative government support the Kyoto Protocol and fight global warming.

In Ottawa, about 200 protesters rushed the Parliament buildings to demonstrate their anger over Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Clean Air Act, which they said sends the signal to the world that Canada has given up on its battle against greenhouse gases.

Rushed the parliament buildings? How about 'stood outside and protested'?