Canada's PM asks legislator to withdraw comment about 'coalition of idiots

[Nambe]

TORONTO (AP)

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has asked an outspoken Canadian legislator to withdraw her comment that supporters of the U.S. missile shield program are a "coalition of idiots."

Carolyn Parrish, a Toronto-area legislator with a history of anti-American comments, told an anti- missile shield rally in Ottawa on Wednesday: "We are not joining the coalition of the idiots. We should be joining the coalition of the wise."

Martin on Thursday asked Parrish, a member of the Liberal Party, to withdraw the comment, but said she would not be punished. ..

Parrish said her comments were just stating the obvious and that she'd do it again.

"I believe in free speech and I am a colorful speaker. I occasionally will use terms that other people find bold," Parrish said Thursday.

Ride Don’t Drive * * It’s Global Cool

[whistle]

1. Way to go, it seems that Paul Martin may have made a pact....

...with the devil when he threw his hat into the BushCo ring. So, for speaking her mind, Carolyn Parish will now be punished by Prime Minister. Very interesting. Paul Martin is also using the rhetoric of George Bush by inferring that if someone is not with him, then they are against him.

[struggle4progress]

2. Why doesn't Martin like smart women? eom

[zmdem]

3. Her foreign policy echoes Bush

Forget diplomacy, just call 'em names. Fer us or agin us. We're good, they're evil. Of course the PM objected to this.

Smart woman - sure, in the same sense that Bush is a smart man.

[struggle4progress]

4. Nope. She's a thoughtful woman, who has worked hard ...

... on important issues.

Website http://www.carolynparrish.parl.gc.ca/10years/index.html is definitely worth a peek: her foreign policy thinking is rather more substantial than that now current on the Lazy W Ranch.

She didn't pull her punches when speaking at a rally on Star Wars, an important grassroots organizing issue in Canada. Hooray for her! There's absolutely no reason for the Canadians to wander into this swamp with the Bushites.

8/23
<snip>
"(The missile plan) is an accident waiting to happen and I think it's a giant step backwards," said Ontario MP Carolyn Parrish. "None of this has been tested, none of it has been proven to work. Why would we get into something like this?"
<snip>
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1093267706700_16/?hub=CTVNewsAt11

8/23
OTTAWA — If he signs on to the U.S. missile-defence plan Prime Minister Paul Martin may trigger the ire of a vocal and ardent contingent of critics within his own party: Liberal women.

Several women attending the government's annual caucus retreat painted a portrait of near-unanimity among female Liberal MPs against the U.S. military project.

The head of the Liberal women's caucus was coy when asked whether any members of her group supported the missile plan.

"If so, nobody's said so," Winnipeg MP Anita Neville replied today before the group met with the prime minister.
<snip>

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1093344468019&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968705899037


8/18
OTTAWA—Paul Martin will get an earful on the American missile defence plan and the continuing plight of beef farmers when the Liberal caucus meets next week in Ottawa to plot strategy for the minority government.
<snip>

Martin, 65, faces a caucus revolt, however, over any involvement in the $60 billion (U.S.) defence shield, which many believe would set off an arms contest between the U.S. and other nuclear powers, or so-called rogue states.

"I just think it's wrong on every front you can imagine," said MP Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga-Erindale), one of a number of MPs expected to raise the issue forcefully with Martin in next week's closed-door sessions.

She said the U.S. plan is expensive, unproven and a risk to world peace. "It would inspire some countries to design missiles that can get through it, so you are just going to accelerate that whole arms race. Our job as peacemakers in the world is to decelerate that."
<snip>

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1092782107508&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467

[Kool Kitty]

5. Well, she is right about the missile defense system-

it doesn't work.