National Post blog: Jack Layton finds his NAFTA groove — Harper approves

[tuvor]

Question Period is, infamously, not answer period in Canada's House of Commons. Yet the posturing that takes the place of honest debate can sometimes be revealing in themselves.

Thursday's exchange in the House of Commons between the Prime Minister and NDP leader Jack Layton generated a rather amusing exchange -- one aimed at scoring points against Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.

Mr. Harper, despite a barrage of pointed questions from the NDP leader about the NAFTA leak, was full of praise for Mr. Layton's acumen because he has focussed on the Obama-NAFTA scandal whereas Mr. Dion has been chasing the Cadman affair which is losing its currency.

Of course Mr. Harper has good reason to promote the NDP leader and deflect questions about the Cadman incident. Every seat the NDP takes in the next election will almost certainly be taken from a Liberal. On the other hand, Jack Layton made it to MSNBC and will apparently appear on CNN's Lou Dobbs Thursday night. One political truism is that Canadian pols that are in demand in the US media are in demand in Canada's.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/03/06/john-turley-ewart-jack-layton-finds-his-groove-harper-approves.aspx

And just two days ago I received an email from the NDP, with the subject line an indignant "What will Dion help Harper do next?"

:eyes:

I don't know if political parties read replies to their spam, but I couldn't help telling them to quit calling the kettle black.

[Spazito]

1. My, my, quite the love-fest we have going on between harper

and layton, it positively nauseating, imo, but not at all surprising.

[tuvor]

2. Globe and Mail blog: Too cute by half

...

If you're the leader of an opposition party, and the Prime Minister is saying nice things about you in Question Period, it's pretty obvious you're not doing your job properly.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080306.WBwbradwanski20080306162028/WBStory/WBwbradwanski

[Clintonista2]

3. I was watching this in question period today... dion had a great response

Harper said to Dion something like "While you've been chasing this conspiracy theory, the NDP has been on top of this NAFTA issue, and has been asking some solid questions." and Dion replied "You have so many scandals, it's hard to decide which one to go after"

[Caradoc]

4. Layton

Jack's fast becoming a total joke. The NDP have always excelled at making the principle and the idea their goal. He's taken them totally off target. He's also ignoring Canadian political history: when it's dumping time, Canadians go for the party that'll dump the sitting government quickest and that's never been the NDP. He's hoping for a 1990 Bob Rae moment (where the NDP won a majority government in Ontario through an incredible splitting of the liberal and conservative vote), which occurs with less regularity than Halley's Comet.