On polar opposites

Of course, there's plenty of cringe-worthy material in the Globe and Mail's plea of "Please, Corn Cob Kory, don't hurt us!!!". But one passage particularly cries out for demolition:

Mr. Teneycke's grandparents were dyed-in-the wool supporters of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a precursor to the NDP, while their grandson has moved from the Progressive Conservatives to Reform, the Saskatchewan Party, the Ontario Tories under Mike Harris and the Harper government. Yet Mr. Teneycke doesn't consider this such a jump from the old-time CCF.

“It wasn't about running deficits(.) They were fighting rail monopolies and eastern banks; they were standing for a very traditional set of values and protecting the little guy.”

So let's take a look at the scorecard for the Harper Cons compared to the exact opposite of the values Teneycke rightly associates with the CCF/NDP.

Running record deficits? Check.
Fighting for rail monopolies against farmers? Check.
Fighting for eastern banks against the "little guy"? A thousand times check.

Naturally, I'd be entirely happy if Teneycke had the slightest interest in putting genuine CCF values into a modern context. But nobody should be fooled into thinking that the Cons are anything but Canada's most fervent political opponents of each and every one of them - so as long as Teneycke is shilling on behalf of the Harper government, his attempt to claim the CCF's populist legacy deserves to be laughed out of the building.