Kyoto’s Blog

August 8

Stéphane, I hate to be the bringer of bad news here, but we just aren’t getting it done.

You may be planning to prance around Québec to deal with these numbers. But as any dog would tell you, watch out for the wolves. In this case, the wolf in American clothing. He is looking lean and hungry. And he appears to have put you on the menu.

But remember: Wolves hunt in packs. He will find other wolves to help him hunt you. So be careful and watch your tail. Trust me, he isn’t interested in being your beta wolf.

Stéphane, we’ve come so far so fast. You can’t let the wolf undermine your power as the Liberal top dog.
Kyoto

July 17

The image makeover tour isn’t going very well for Stéphane. It hasn’t exactly turned out to be the tour de force that Janine had been planning.

You see, it was all supposed to go like clockwork: Stéphane would spend the summer touring BBQs across the country showing Canadians how adept he is at eating a hotdog with a fork and knife and… Voila! Stéphane’s polling numbers would shoot through the roof of the dog house.

But here we are with the makeover tour in full swing and Stéphane’s polling numbers are still not par excellence. In fact, the Jack Russell Terrier has extended his lead as Canadian’s second choice for Prime Minister.

As Stéphane’s éminence grise, I keep telling him to stop spending time at the dog park hanging out with the haute couture crowd. It isn’t exactly the best way to connect with the average Canadian. But, then again, he didn’t take my advice on how to eat a hot dog either.

I’m going to stop howling at the moon for a moment: During the whole makeover tour Stéphane has been barking about how great Facebook is. So I’ve decided to check it out. I’m so busy with the makeover tour that I don’t have a lot of time for blogging. Stéphane assures me this Facebook thing doesn’t take up a lot of time though. So throw this dog a bone and add me as one of your amis de Facebook!
Kyoto

June 21

Finally, the Dog Days of Summer™ are here! With the dog house finally rising, its time for Stéphane and I to hit the image makeover circuit.

As Stéphane’s éminence grise, I have prepared “Kyoto’s Top 10 Pieces of Advice” for him during the tour:

10. Stop calling yourself a “hero”. Face it, Stéphane: you’re a politician. Politicians are not what people would typically call a “hero”.

9. Practice changing a few light bulbs. By the time we’re back you’ll be able to show Janine that you can be left in a room alone!

8. Stop asking the media what your own Liberal Senators are up to these days. It’s nice that you want to stay in touch, but what kind of leader does that?

7. Pay off the $500,000 campaign debt. This is really starting to make it look like you are in a compromising position. And don’t ask me for the cash either. I’m not mortgaging the dog house.

6. Don’t stay away from Ottawa for too long. Jamie Carroll can’t fend off a coup de grâce all by himself.

5. Grow a moustache – seems to work for that Jack Russell Terrier who is more popular. After all, you’ve already had a beard.

4. Don’t brag about your sea birds award. Dumpster-diving sea gulls aren’t as popular as you might think.

3. Work on some new banter with Iggy. This whole “we didn’t get it done”, “this is unfair” shtick doesn’t make you look very good.

2. Stop eating hotdogs with a fork and knife. The BBQ circuit isn’t going to be stopping at the Louvre this year.

1. Buy me a friend and name the puppy “Stéphane Dion is a leader”.

C’est tout! I don’t know if I’ll be able to find the time to blog very much this summer. I will be so busy carrying Stéphane’s fork and knife from BBQ to BBQ. But I will try and check in every now and then.

June 20

I really hope the dog house rises soon. Before things get even worse for Stéphane.

Bark on the street has it that the Liberal Senators have gone and done it. Those bull dogs actually shelved S-4 even though Stéphane supports term limits for Senators.

And it sure didn’t help that Stéphane spent all that time asking the media what his own Liberal Senators were going to do. Over on the old stand they are starting to speculate about his leadership being emasculated. Sacré bleu!

Stéphane needs to get out on the image makeover tour quick. His leadership has become the chew toy du jour here in Ottawa!
Kyoto

June 19

Why can’t Stéphane just let sleeping dogs lie? Just last week it looked like he might have been able to bury this whole leadership mess with the Senate in the backyard. Now he’s going out and digging it up all over again!

I read yesterday that Stéphane is now declaring the Budget a free vote. But just a few days ago passing the Budget was “the law”.

How many times have I told Stéphane that you can’t be caught out in public making all these flip flops? When something is declared a test of your leadership, the last thing you want to do is go out and fold like a cheap deck of cards.
Kyoto

June 18

Finally, Stéphane has been able to do it! After days of waffling, he has gotten Liberal Senators to… say they might if they manage to find the time, pass the Budget!!?! Whatever happened to “it’s the law”?

This is really getting out of paw now. How many times am I going to have to tell Stéphane? If you are going to put out a press release: don’t issue one that says your Senate caucus is thinking about listening to you after days of indecision.

What’s next? Is Stéphane going to start issuing these press releases after every caucus meeting saying he thinks they still support him? The way he’ll be burning through paper, no wonder more people think that guy with a mustache would make a better PM than Stéphane.
Kyoto

June 15

I feel terrible! As much as I enjoy scarfing down kitchen table scraps, I knew I shouldn’t have stopped chaperoning Stéphane at the end of the session reception at Stornoway the other night.

You’d think that as the Liberal top dog, Stéphane would already know if Liberal Senators are going to delay the Budget. Au contraire, mon amis. He was actually asking the media what his own Liberal Senators would do!

As Chantal Hebert noted, I keep telling Stéphane, when 52% don’t want you to be PM and there is a growing concern that you aren’t in control, you can’t draw attention to the fact that you really are not in control!

I might have to lend Stéphane my muzzle before the upper dog house becomes another example where he just “didn’t get it done”.
Kyoto

June 14

I got a new radio for my doghouse yesterday! As you know, I’ve been really down in the dumps reading about Stephane’s leadership issues and sagging poll fortunes in newspapers and magazines. But I’ve got news for you though, the radio wasn’t much better.

Yesterday they were barking about Stéphane’s leadership on CFRB. Quelle horreur!

Hopefully, Liberal Senators won’t hear about Stéphane’s dirty laundry being aired out in the open like this. They’ve been acting like Pitbulls. He told them that they have little choice but to pass the budget because it’s the law! But they refuse to listen to him. Just like they didn’t listen on Senate term limits.

Stéphane just can’t seem to get them to heel!
Kyoto

June 13

I am going to have to stop reading the paper. These polls are making Stéphane look more chewed up than his loafers did after I got a hold of them.

This morning, I read that 52 percent of Canadians don’t want Stéphane to become Canada’s top dog. Sacré bleu! He’s about as popular as I would be at a squirrel convention.

I keep telling Stéphane. You can’t go around calling yourself a “hero” when more than half the population don’t see you as one. But what do I know? I’m just a husky named after an environmental accord.
Kyoto

June 12

Zut alors! I nearly choked on my kibble when I saw the July Chatelaine piece on Janine this morning.

It makes Stéphane look like the aide-de-camp here at Stornoway. According to the article, she does pretty much everything – even pick out his underwear. And all this on the heels of that article where she says he can’t even change a lightbulb!

As Stéphane’s éminence grise I keep telling him that this has to stop happening. Franchement, you can’t go out in public and admit difficulty setting priorities, with Senators pushing you around like a pack of junkyard dogs and then have articles like this appear. It just adds to the growing belief that Stéphane isn’t the top dog in the Liberal pack.

Next time Janine leads Stéphane and me out for our walk I’m going to have to have a little tête-à-tête with him about all this. If something isn’t done soon even dyed-in-the-fur Liberals are going to start going on the record with comments like this.
Kyoto

June 11

To be honest, I’ve never actually thought about running for office before. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the tummy rub Paul Jackson gave me this weekend. He suggested that I stand a better chance of being elected in Alberta than Stéphane!

Make no bones about it, if I did run there are some things I would do differently than Stéphane! So, without further adieu, here is my campaign strategy:

1. I won’t make the central focus of my campaign an issue where I “didn’t get it done.”

2. I won’t run up a half-million-dollar debt or owe any money to my party’s executive director. After all, that would be put me in a compromising position.

3. When I campaign, I’ll avoid complaining about this and that being “unfair”. Nobody likes a whiner.

4. And should I win, I won’t fill key positions such as Deputy Leader, Platform Chair and Election Readiness Advisor with folks who have a personal vested interest in seeing me lose.

That’s it. See, it is easy to make priorities! Now if I could just get rid of my chew toy running mate…
Kyoto

June 8

A $500,000 leadership campaign debt!!?! Zut alors! Stéphane must have been handling the campaign coffers himself. It’s getting so bad Stéphane even said last night that we might have to mortgage my dog house to pay it off.

It’s ok that when it comes to fundraising Stéphane is like a bloodhound that won’t hunt. All he has to do is block Bill C-54. Then he can keep playing fetch with his benefactors.

It will be like the dog days of summer around here again. Joie de vivre!
Kyoto

June 7

Déjà vu: another poll! Looks like poor ol’ Stéphane isn’t exactly the cause célèbre in Montréal. Or the rest of Québec for that matter.

So what if Francophones and Non-Francophones think he is not a leader and pick the Prime Minister as the top dog over Stéphane? Madame May still thinks he is the crème de la crème.

C’est la vie, I say. As Stéphane’s éminence grise I told him months ago he should have named me “Fiscal Imbalance”. N’est-ce pas?
Kyoto

June 6

I warned Stéphane about getting into the dog house with Madame Elizabeth May. Now that she has his endorsement in Central Nova, how is Stéphane going to explain this one to the Mrs here at Stornoway?

Hardly a day goes by without Madame May doing or saying something that reminds us why this red-green pas de deux is doomed to fail. Woof on the street has it that yesterday Madame May wigged out and proposed a “New Energy Revolution”. Except her idea of a revolution is to increase gas prices by at least 12 cents per litre!!?!

In the name of Gaia, what on earth was she thinking? 12 cents a litre for the average driver would mean hundreds of dollars more per year. I’ll have to ask the Mrs here at Stornoway if Stéphane has run this past her. She deals with all our finances, you know.

I just hope she doesn’t take it out of my kibble budget.
Kyoto

June 5

Politicians always say they don’t read polls. Well, let me tell you, their dogs sure do. And as any dog would know, if you’re not popular around your own block, you are definitely not the leader of the pack.

Voters in Quebec put Stéphane down as their last choice for Prime Minister. Across the country he only managed 13 percent.

I guess it could have been worse: they could have polled Liberal Senators. They really don’t think Stéphane is a leader. They’ve ignored Stéphane for over 15 weeks since he announced the Liberals would back term limits.
Kyoto

June 4

Noticed that the PM is off to Germany this week for the G8. Maybe this can teach that old dog Stéphane some new tricks. There, the Red party and the Green party formed a coalition before the last election. Didn’t work out too well. Maybe Stéphane should think twice.

But then again, he does owe Madame May the kibble. She did absolve him of his Kyoto sins! Amen.

And bien sur. Stephane didn’t get it done on climate change but he did win an award for the seabirds.
Kyoto

June 1

Stéphane was moping around Stornoway all last night. He still hasn’t gotten over being booed off stage by the very union activists he was trying to court.

I feel for the guy: he doesn’t take criticism easily. It can be ruff for him to deal with sometimes.

But seriously, can’t the radical left throw Stéphane a bone? He did name his pet turtle Trotsky after all.

Oh well… The weekend is coming up and that means I might get to go to a BBQ with Stéphane! I just pray he doesn’t eat his hot dog with a knife and fork again.
Kyoto

May 31

Poor Stéphane, he’s been having a rough go of it lately. First, he gets blown off by his own Senators over Senate terms limits. And yesterday afternoon he got booed off the stage by the very unionists for whom he was proclaiming support. Ouch! It’s a good thing he didn’t get onto the topic of how much C-288 would cost their industry. He’d be singing soprano for a week!
Kyoto

May 30

Stéphane was very upset when he came home from the Hill today.

It’s those new Tory ads about the Liberal Senate blowing him off on term limits. He was whining like a homeless mutt. “This is unfair!”; “You don’t know what you speak about”; “Harper is a bully.”

What a complainer!

It was so loud I thought I was in a poodle kennel. Good thing Harper didn’t point out Stéphane’s record on greenhouse gas emissions. That would have had him howling for mercy.
Kyoto

May 29

On days like today, I wish we were in France!

Spent the morning lying on the couch in Stéphane’s office listening to him pleading with Liberal Senators to pass the Government’s term limits. He said the Tory ads were making him look weak and powerless. Again. “Eight years and out? No way!” they said. He moped around all day muttering about how unfair life is.

Yesterday I was taking the master for a walk when I spotted the Prime Minister’s cat strutting down Sussex like she owned the place. Can you imagine? She’s not even purebred. I gave chase, dragging Stéphane down the street. He kept shouting “No Kyoto! Stop it!” Madame Elizabeth May happened by and almost had a coronary. She thought he was talking about the Accord.

Ignatieff came by the other day. He grimaced at me and told Stéphane he preferred big bald eagles to dogs. When I barked in protest he lectured me about the appropriateness of torture in “certain” situations. So I showed him my fangs. “Yikes,” he said, “when are you going to get this dog trained?” Stéphane barked back: “You don’t know what you speak about!” and asked Ignatieff: “Do you think it’s easy to make priorities?”

Tonight Stéphane tried to get me to listen to that stupid joke he told on TV last year about the world’s shortest bedtime story. “You know Bam the dog?” he said. “The car goes by, and bam, the dog. Now go to sleep.” Then he laughs, like it’s funny. Gives me nightmares. I whined and cowered until he apologized. It’s a trick I learned from him. Now that’s funny.

Time for bed. I’ll dream about France. Stéphane tells me we will move back one day but I’ve heard him flip-flop too many times before so I’ll just keep dreaming for now.