It’s in my lexicon for a reason. Liberal Prime Minister Paul (”we lead the world”) Martin’s bombastic utterances know no bounds.
Robert Fulford at the National Post doesn’t let it past him either.
[…] And he went farther still. Having barely saved his government and his career, having spent weeks conniving and conspiring to achieve this slimmest of all possible victories, he not only bragged about his triumph but insisted that it would have global consequences.
“We didn’t just vote for a budget,” he said. “What we voted for was a vision of a Canada dynamic and leading the world. We will set the standard by which other nations judge themselves.”
Is there another politician anywhere who could make a statement so detached from reality? No one expects political rhetoric to accord strictly with the facts, but Martin carries hyperbole to the point of self-intoxication—and never more than when he has compromised himself, as he did to get NDP support for the budget.
He seems to speak from another universe, a place where, in the words of a hit song from the 1930s, Wishing Will Make It So. Does he imagine that across the globe, from Indonesia to Uzbekistan, politicians will stop in the course of writing a law to ask themselves: Is this measure, however admirable we consider it, really up to Canadian standards?
Of course he imagines no such thing. He just takes Canada-flattering to new levels of absurdity. Politicians love to tell us we are a wonderful people, world-beaters at damn near everything. They believe we expect this sycophantic blarney, and perhaps we do. The phrase “Canadian values” summarizes this posturing. The values of Canadians, when examined, usually turn out to resemble values from many other places. But that never stops a politician from talking about Canada as if it were unique. […]
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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