AS NATIONAL MISSIONS GO, WE PREFER MEDICARE

Belgian waffling (Anne Dawson, Ottawa Citizen, October 20th, 2004)

Prime Minister Paul Martin scoffed at Conservative leader Stephen Harper's national unity plan to make Canada more like Belgium, while Conservative MPs revealed yesterday they were not consulted on the controversial scheme.

And while Mr. Harper's top aides downplayed his Belgian proposal, saying it is at an "embryonic stage" and "may not even go anywhere," their leader went full-steam-ahead to promote his idea.

"I think the role of the prime minister of Canada is not to build a better Belgium, it's to build a stronger Canada," Mr. Martin told reporters.

He later joked about Mr. Harper's newfound preoccupation with Belgium during question period after answering the Conservative leader's question about the sponsorship scandal.[...]

In Quebec City, Mr. Harper promoted the Belgian model, where federal authority is divided among linguistic communities as well as geographic regions.

Mr. Harper said rather than just giving away more powers to the provinces, the federal government should consider working with the provinces, particularly Quebec, to establish francophone and anglophone community institutions in areas such as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CBC, the Francophonie, the Commonwealth, and UNESCO.

Our conservatives are stupider than your conservatives. Much stupider.