On comical positions

Andrew Scheer's response to the NDP's call for legislation against ATM fees would have been asinine enough on its own:

Banks aren't an arm of the federal government, countered Conservative MP Andrew Scheer, who represents the Regina-Qu'Appelle constituency.

"I think the last thing that Canadians would want to see is a government that decides to regulate every industry," he said Saturday afternoon.

One would think that Scheer has a long enough history as a political hack to have some clue that chartered banks are a highly-regulated industry within the scope of federal power. But it's particularly amusing that just after Scheer went to such pains to proclaim the Cons' do-nothing approach to the banking industry, his party's finance minister publicly criticized banks for their lack of generosity:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he's going to bat for the widows of Canadian soldiers caught up in a mortgage-insurance fight with financial institutions...

Flaherty responded that he was "shocked" to hear about the situation and said he has already taken action.

"I made it clear to the banks today that I expect them to be generous in their treatment of all widows in this country. I await their response and I will be pleased to report to the House with respect to their response as soon as it is received."

Now, it's theoretically possible that Flaherty's call for action was backed up with nothing more than a threat to talk to the banks again. But it seems far more likely that Flaherty and most other people with at least a vague knowledge of how banking works would be aware enough not to pretend the federal government has no role in regulating the industry.

Which would mean that Scheer's silliness was completely and rightly contradicted in a matter of days by one of his party's top-ranking cabinet members. And that can only make Regina-Qu'Appelle voters wonder both just how clueless their MP is, and how quickly they can replace him with somebody with a better grasp of reality.