It was the day Stephen Harper had been dreading. The one that has forced him to keep such a low profile some are calling him the invisible man of Parliament.
Or depending on your point of view, the invisible maniac...
Driven crazy by defeat.
It was the dreaded day Mike Duffy mounted the stand, and pointed the finger at HIM.
Well I knew what he was going to do from the moment he announced that Jim Flaherty would have a state funeral, for no good reason.
And then let it be known that he had PERSONALLY written the eulogy he would deliver.
And sure enough he did turn that solemn occasion into yet another giant photo-op for the glorification of HIMSELF.
I think it's fair to say that he was a better person at the end of his political career than he was at the beginning.
He did reinvent himself from a pit bull to something vaguely resembling a pragmatist.
He did become more human.
And I'm sorry he died before he could spend more time with his family, or on the golf course, as he well deserved.
But it also must be said that he was a prominent member of the worst government in Canadian history, and this is part of his legacy.
It looked like a mob meeting, with big black cars and burly bodyguards to keep reporters away.
Or as Tom Mulcair called it, the gathering of some secretive cult.
But it was only Oily Joe Oliver's hush hush swearing in ceremony.
On my way home this evening I passed by a young guy sitting on the edge of the pier his legs dangling over the edge staring into the frozen lake.
And for a moment, until I checked him out, a horrible thought came into my mind.
Because despair is in the air. You can cut it with a knife. Enough bodies trapped under the ice in the winter, float to the surface in the spring.
And in the darkness of this hideous Harperland, young Canadians are the forgotten victims.
He's a bigot, a bully, a boozer, a beast. He's shaming us in the eyes of the world.
Each time Ford appears in the media, it's another eerie reminder of what we've become: crude, swaggering, bungling, irrational and mendacious. We've reached that staggering moment in a brilliant horror film when our protagonist realises the truth: Rob Ford is the New Canada. He is us.
But I see that Rob Ford has at least one redeeming quality eh?
He's making the Cons fight each other.
Well in case you thought that the Con regime was nickel and diming veterans, and killing good jobs all over the country, because they absolutely HAVE to slay the deficit.
Or as Jimbo Flaherty warned us we could find ourselves in a big black hole, the economy is fragile, the global risk is huge etc etc.
Well forget about that eh? That was last year's last month's last week's story.
Now little Jimbo claims we're heading for an enormous surplus !!!!
The other day I wrote about how Stephen Harper's slide in the polls was beginning to resemble a one-way ride on an asteroid.
Not just a mere tumble through space, but a clear and definite negative trend.
And I pointed out that this blazing trajectory couldn't come at a worst time for the Cons.
So what better time to remind them that pulling out of that death dive is going to be REALLY difficult.
As you know Jimbo Flaherty, the Con man now posing as a Finance Minister, really hates Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
And for all the right reasons.
For proving him wrong over and over again, and making him look like he doesn't know what he's doing.
Nothing Tom Mulcair has ever said scares Stephen Harper more than his claim that the Dutch Disease is killing jobs all over Canada.
Especially in vote-rich Ontario where the next election will be decided.
Because if the people in that province ever realize how much Harper's Alberta First economic policies are hurting them and the future of their kids, the Cons will be out of power sooner than you can say howdy cowboy.
So the Cons and the right-wing conspiracy are always trying to claim that the Dutch Disease is just a myth, and here they go again.
You might think that Jim Flaherty would be satisfied with ramming through his latest Trojan Horse budget.
His ghastly swollen beast stuffed to the gills with toxic waste.
But no. Now he's going after seniors and the Canada Pension Plan.
Oh no. How embarrassing. Just a few days ago he made a spectacular entrance at the G20 Summit, declaring that the whole world should follow Canada's economic model.
Because he's a real economist eh?
But tonight he's riding the burro backwards, as all around him the model crumbles.
