Thursday, June 19, 2008

A Grain of Salt

I've never been quite so shocked in my life.

I don't think that I had noticed it before, but the media around the country has finally started calling Stephane Dion's liberals "Grits" again. It's music to my ears guys, the symbolic nickname is back and the Liberals are once again looking like danger red instead of muted pink.

Why did this happen?

My guess is that due to the recent events that have been piling up against the Conservatives in the past few days; like the Cadman Affair, the Conservative HQ raids, and the Bernier scandal, coupled with the fact that Dion has finally started to show his policy zing again is the reason behind the long forgotten but much loved jargon. Harper is losing control over what happens in Ottawa and Dion finally has a clue.

The new Liberal Carbon Tax borrowed from their provincial counterparts in BC looks like it could sell. Tax energy and electricity but not fuel, seeing as the price of that is already high enough. The plan is promised to be revenue neutral as well, giving Canadians a tax break with the green loonies and putting some of the cash towards environmental technologies.

It's the kind of thing where you ask yourself, "Hey, why didn't anyone think of this before?" Well, someone probably did, they just had to clear it with 50 different people first, look at five hundred different test runs and opinion polls to see if it would fly with the public, and get the forms signed in triplicate by every single party bureaucrat you could think of, and their mothers before the kids brought the forms back to school late the day after it was due, except that it was a long weekend then Marty had this thing in Montreal that couldn't wait and....sorry I'm ranting. But seriously, the Carbon Tax idea was probably thought up six years ago and Dion liked it. But things just take so long to get rolling in politics that it hasn't even seen the light of day until yesterday, or whenever it was that the Grits introduced that policy.

And it still might not become reality. Obviously, the Liberals aren't in government, so they can't really get it passed until they get there. Of course, they could talk to all the other parties for reinforcements, but in that case we'd probably have an election.

And we know how skittish Dion is about calling those.

But, there's a gleam in his eye, a spring in his step and a sparkle to his smile that hasn't been seen since he won the leadership contest.

So look out Harper. It's blue season and you're in the crosshairs.