Tag Archives: The Monarchy

Meeting George Takach

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On my travels last weekend, I wound up at an event that was attended by a number of Nova Scotia Liberals, and along the way, had my first encounter with bottom-tier would-be Liberal leadership candidate George Takach (who at last check has not officially declared). Takach, a Toronto-based lawyer who hasn’t run for public office before but has apparently worked on Parliament Hill, was out trying to meet some prospective supporters at the event (as the current rules now allow anyone who totally swears they’re not a member of any other party – really! – to vote for the next Liberal leader). I should note that Takach doesn’t appear to have a website in place for his putative leadership bid either – just a Twitter account and a Facebook page, neither of which actually has a biography. That, I had to find through a Google search and came up with the page from his law firm. So, yeah, points for having a place to drive prospective supporters with a coherent platform or policy ideas in place. Or not.

Just as an observation, let me say that Takach wasn’t exactly working the crowd. Even among a smaller group of fairly prominent local Liberal organisers – you know, the kinds of grassroots organisers who have networks and who can mobilise people to support a leadership campaign – he didn’t pro-actively engage them and waited for people to come to him. And when people asked for his leadership “elevator pitch,” he got bogged down along the way numerous times, not to mention made his foundational platforms – like school meal programmes to help kids get a good start in life – things aren’t actually areas of federal responsibility. Oops.

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Bernier can’t identify our Head of State

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Our nation’s lack of civic literacy truly has reached crisis proportions when ministers of the Crown can’t even identify the very basic parts of our system of government. I’ve written before about the public’s general lack of understanding of the Canadian monarchy, and our need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the monarchy is somehow “foreign” because the Queen doesn’t live in the country full-time. It’s an issue of education and awareness. I get it.

But when a minister of the Crown can’t even make this distinction, there is a problem. And a really big one at that.

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Roundup: False plots to take away votes

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There is no set by-election in Etobicoke Centre yet – in fact, the Supreme Court has not yet decided if they will hear the appeal – and the ground war in that riding is already heating up. The Conservatives have been calling voters to warn them that the Liberals were plotting to “overthrow” their votes, and that their votes would be “taken away” by the court decision. Which is a complete distortion, but all’s fair in war and politics, or something like that. Not that the Liberals haven’t started fundraising in preparation for the by-election there either, though not using such patently false claims it should be noted.

Thomas Mulcair blames Stephen Harper for east-west divisions, not his own comments. Shocking, I know. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall has some concerns over the “Dutch disease” comments, as does Dalton McGuinty. McGuinty says that the high dollar does pose challenges for the manufacturing sector, but it’s not “Dutch disease,” which really, when you actually weigh what’s going on, is more the case.

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Disabusing the notions of foreign monarchs

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Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, have completed their Royal Tour (Diamond Jubilee Edition), and all is well in the land. Support for the monarchy is on the rise in English Canada, the Prince’s Charities are getting off the ground nicely, and Diamond Jubilee medals are being affixed to lapels everywhere.

But as with any royal tour, one starts to get a bit wary of the kinds of depictions used about the Canadian monarchy, and that there remains this ingrained media perception that it is somehow foreign. One CBC anchor event went so far as to call Charles “The future king of England” – never mind that the position of “King of England” hasn’t existed since 1707 with the Act of Union, and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which later became the United Kingdom. What these anchors, and many of the talking heads in the media, seem to forget is that Canada has a separate and distinct monarchy, which just happens to have the same head of state as the United Kingdom and several other countries.

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