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Friday, August 28, 2009
Manitoba Premier Resigns
Gary Doer, who has been the Premier of Manitoba since 1999, has decided to resign. A new NDP leader, and therefor a new Manitoba Premier, will be selected this fall.
Jim Cotton at ManitobaPost.Com had a good summary of some of the activities under Gary Doers tenure.
- was elected on a promise to fix hallway medicine in 6 months, it never happened
- scandals, such as Hydra House, and the crocus fund ponzi scheme where Manitobans lost millions and Doer sweep it under the rug
- street gangs took a strong foothold in Winnipeg
- Winnipeg became the car theft and murder capital of Canada
- tuition freeze that choked post-secondary institutions of money
- dozens of children who murdered while under the watch of Child Family Services
- raised taxes by increasing fees on many services,
- the debt has risen every year since Doer was in power
- the Photo Radar scam, where Doer refused to refund thousands of illegally issued tickets
- Rebategate, where Doer and his party defrauded taxpayers and gave the head of Elections Manitoba a massive raise to cover it up.
- closure of 18 Emergency rooms in rural Manitoba.
And today the news has come out that Gary Doer is going to be the next Canadian ambassador to the United States.
Only in government do you get rewarded for failures.
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I welcome feedback and I ask for civility in the exchange of comments. Vulgarity is discouraged. Please express yourself creatively with other language. We discuss ideas here, attacks on a person are discouraged.
Posted by Freedom Manitoba on August 28, 2009 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink
Comments
That's pathetic, The NDP has been very good for Manitoba and a hell of a lot better than the alternatives. The conservatives are just as fascist and police state loving as the Harperites. I am no fan of Gary Doer myself, but he sure beat the alternatives. I always found him to be a little too far right for my liking, hopefully we get a new leader who isn't so cozy with Harper. I remember Doer once commenting on how if the 420 protesters at the legislature were breaking the law they should be arrested. I lost respect for him after that. Doer likes his booze and I always thought he was a hypocrite for supporting enforcement of cannabis law.
I would far rather have the NDP in power than the cons. Maybe the manitoba liberals would get my vote if they had any chance of forming a government. I will be a delegate at the leadership convention and plan to make it very clear to all the candidates that the considerable ammount of supporters who I have influence over will support the candidate who does NOT support the drugwar.
Posted by: DrGreenthumb | 2009-08-28 12:44:19 PM
This is a rather general pattern for the NDP, so no surprise.
Posted by: Alain | 2009-08-28 1:20:57 PM
An avowed socialist and political criminal.
A perfect choice to represent our country to a system he seems well qualified to deal with.
Business as usual....
Posted by: The original JC | 2009-08-28 2:11:58 PM
Scott,
According to Wikipedia (and Wikipedia never gets it wrong...) the NDP with Doer as Premier "consistently led all other parties in public opinion polls from 1999 until 2005" and "Doer was rated as Canada's most popular premier in polls taken in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, scoring a 77% rating in March 2006" and he led the NDP to "a convincing majority in the 2007 election" and as of "April 2009, the NDP once again held a ten-point lead" over the opposition. So that suggests one of three possibilities:
(1) Your list of Doer's "activities" is innacurate or leaves out a lot of real accomplishments; or
(2) As bad as Doer was, the alternatives would have been much worse; or
(3) The majority of Manitobans are very very stupid.
"Only in government do you get rewarded for failures."
Seriously? Surely you heard of the corporate executives who ran their companies into the ground only to be rewarded with huge bonuses. It was in all the newspapers.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-28 3:46:16 PM
This Doer guy, or maybe we should call him Mr. NotDoer, sounds like an American liberal. Are we sure he hasn't been running Detroit?
Posted by: GeronL | 2009-08-28 3:51:47 PM
I'm disgusted! Obviously this was in the works for some time. With all the upcoming talk about CCS - what the hell is the Government thinking????
Now, I'm just depressed......
Posted by: libertybelle | 2009-08-28 4:01:17 PM
Will they let me run for Premier? Can I do it from Texas? Will they check my birth certificate?
"If Doer didn't do'er, Looney can get'er done!"
Posted by: GeronL | 2009-08-28 4:06:41 PM
"NDP with Doer as Premier "consistently led all other parties in public opinion polls from 1999 until 2005"
That doesn't take away from their failures.
"So that suggests one of three possibilities:"
Or the forth, most people don't pay attention to politics and wouldn't necessarily know about the broken promises and cover-ups.
Posted by: Freedom Manitoba | 2009-08-28 6:53:07 PM
Scott,
"Or the forth [sic], most people don't pay attention to politics and wouldn't necessarily know about the broken promises and cover-ups."
If this is the case, it suggests one of two possibilities:
(1) Government does not matter much, so worrying about what Doer's government did wrong is pointless; or
(2) Government does matter, in which case anyone who doesn't pay attention and does not know about the broken promises and cover-ups is an idiot. Furthermore, people who say they like the government they have or Doer as Premier despite being ignorant of what they have been doing are doubly stupid for opining on that which they know not (and ought to know that they are ignorant of).
Take your pick.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-28 7:07:48 PM
"If this is the case, it suggests one of two possibilities:"
or a third; people are apathetic because they have seen the trash that government does and realize that there is little that can be done about it.
Posted by: Freedom Manitoba | 2009-08-28 7:45:25 PM
Scott,
"or a third; people are apathetic because they have seen the trash that government does and realize that there is little that can be done about it."
Being apathetic does not explain why people repeatedly voted for Doer's NDP. Furthermore, the fact that people did repeatedly vote him in still makes my original three options valid: They voted for him because he was not as bad as you make him out to be; they voted for him because, as bad as he was, the opposition would have been worse; they voted for him because they were too dumb to realize that the opposition would not have been worse. If we consider your "voters are ignorant" possibility they look even worse: They voted for him even though they had no idea whether he was the best choice available or the worst choice available - they voted for him ... for no reason at all. I can't imagine that voters are that dumb, so I think one of the three options I mentioned must be the case.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-28 8:18:24 PM
"Being apathetic does not explain why people repeatedly voted for Doer's NDP."
Sure it does. Incumbents get voted back in most of the time, people go to the polls (when they do) and vote for what's familiar, unless they are loyal to a party or pay attention to politics.
Posted by: Freedom Manitoba | 2009-08-28 8:50:43 PM
Scott,
"Incumbents get voted back in most of the time, people go to the polls (when they do) and vote for what's familiar"
Why isn't it dumb to vote for someone who has done a terrible job just because they are familiar? If you are ignorant and apathetic and think you can do nothing to change things, wouldn't the smart thing to do be to not vote at all?
Doer has been very popular overall for the last ten years. So either he is not been as bad as you say he has been; he has been that bad, but all alternatives were worse (justifying his relative popularity); or he has been that bad, there have been better choices, yet people supported him anyway. If the last alternative is the truth, then it seems obvious that the people who supported him are dumb. Supporting someone despite having no idea how good or bad they have been just because they are familiar does not seem to be a very smart thing to do, either.
I think the original three choices are still the only ones on the table: (1) Doer didn't do a bad job; (2) the other alternatives were all worse; or (3) voters are dumb.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2009-08-28 9:58:44 PM
So much for my campaign I guess.
Posted by: GeronL | 2009-08-29 12:58:36 AM
why do votes in manitoba support him more than the voters in any other province? Do you think they are just super apathetic and choose "Awesome job!" in polls because their water if funny or something?
I dont get how voter apathy can explain away a NDP premiers results but never a conservative one's.
Your logic for dimissing his popularity does not seem sound.
Posted by: steven wilson | 2009-08-29 1:49:57 AM
I never said Doer wasn't "popular", and it doesn't matter if he was.
Posted by: Freedom Manitoba | 2009-08-31 12:03:22 PM
How offensive would it be to suggest that voters are simply dumb? ;)
Posted by: Charles | 2009-08-31 1:04:24 PM
I don't think its a matter of the alternatives being worse but rather a case of the alternatives being no better. Better the devil you know than the one you don't as they say.
They system we use breeds corruption just like many others. The only way to have less corrupt politicians around is to have less politicians around.
Posted by: Bret | 2009-08-31 1:24:14 PM
The spelling is PREMIER not PREMIERE!!!
Posted by: Bob Peloquin | 2009-09-01 9:49:53 AM
The spelling is PREMIER not PREMIERE!!!
Posted by: Bob Peloquin | 2009-09-01 9:49:53 AM
You're right, my mistake.
Posted by: Freedom Manitoba | 2009-09-01 11:16:04 AM
The only way to prevent boatloads of scandals is to change up the government on a regular basis. Why do you think the states limits presidents to 2 terms? Changing the government prevents scandals because they know if they do anything to screw around they will get ousted and lose their cushy new jobs and go back to the small time.
The only problem with changing government is there has to be at least a seemingly viable alternative, and people have to consider it. I applaud the idea of sending one of the most corrupt remaining Canadian officials to Washington, maybe he'll fit in better with the crowd and get some things pulled in Canada's favour.
"The conservatives are just as fascist and police state loving as the Harperites. I am no fan of Gary Doer myself, but he sure beat the alternatives. I always found him to be a little too far right for my liking, hopefully we get a new leader who isn't so cozy with Harper. I remember Doer once commenting on how if the 420 protesters at the legislature were breaking the law they should be arrested. I lost respect for him after that."
DrGreenthumb, you're hilarious. You think 420 protestors should be above the law and that the conservatives are fascists or striving for a police state. Which political affiliation led to Communist China, Russia, and Nazi Germany? SOCIALITS. Which Canadian political party are the socialists? NDP! Enough said. Don't forget to take your "considerable ammount of supporters" with you to North Korea.
Posted by: The Mikeness | 2009-10-06 9:07:38 PM
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