Right on Course

Historical Basis for a Liberal-NDP Merger?

2011-10-03T00:00:00.003-06:00

There has been much speculation in the weeks following NDP Leader Jack Layton’s death regarding a possible merger between the NDP and the Liberal Party. There have been outspoken proponents for merger on both sides, most notably being Denis Coderre and Pat Martin. At first glance such a proposal would appear to be ideal for both parties, at it could push the new pan-left party into government. Dippers, left out in the cold for decades would have the reigns of power, and the Grits would once again have what is theirs by right.

This is of course is a simplistic view of politics that has no real basis in reality. Over the next few posts, I will go into depth as to why such a political merger would be difficult to achieve, and why it won't. This week I am going to look to see at the historical connection between the Liberal Party and the NDP and compare it to the PC-Alliance merger of 2004.

The comparisons between a possible NDP-Liberal merger and the PC-Reform/Alliance merger do not make sense for a number of reasons. While the Reform Party was initially envisioned as a pan-political populist party by Preston Manning, it quickly became the vehicle by which disaffected Western conservatices who had become angry with how the Mulroney PC government was operating, and how they were being ignored by the PC Party. In essence, a large portion of the PC Party up and walked away to form a new political party. Following the PC Party’s decimation on the 1993 election, the Reform Party (later Canadian Alliance) and the smaller PC Party squabbled over the same pool of conservative voters over the next 11 years until cooler heads prevailed and the two halves of the conservative family got together to form the Conservative Party.

The NDP and the Liberal Party have no historical connection. The NDP was not born from an offshoot of disgruntled Liberals. Instead it grew out of a socialist 1930s Western populist movement (Tommy Douglas’ CCF). It had no real ties to the Liberal Party save for the few leftist Liberals that crossed over to join the new party which was more in line with their political views. The fact that Liberals and Dippers regularly switch parties (Dosanjh, Rae, Mulcair) isn’t an indication that the parties have that much in common, rather it shows that there is some overlap between the two parties on the left side of the political spectrum. The Liberal Party is made up of Blue Liberals (Liberal version of Red Tories), centrists, and some leftists while the NDP tends to be made up of mainly leftists and socialists. This is hardly indicative of a shared historical connection, or that the two parties have much in common.

The Insanity of the CBC

2011-09-20T12:36:00.000-06:00

It is really quite galling how the CBC acts with our money. I know that is the understatement of the year, but it is true. The CBC receives $1.1 billion per year from the federal government for it to operate; a number that continues to increase even with a Conservative government in power duing a recession.

The CBC is supposed to use this money for its day-to-day operations, infrastructure, and programming. The problem with this is that the CBC does not appear to spend that money in a wise manner. Sure the CBC makes boatloads of money on Hockey Night in Canada, that goes without saying as it's a national institution (one that is being slowly butchered in my opinion). But it also wastes money on crummy in-house programming that often doesn't make it past one season, but sometimes does if it is a pet project of someone high up in the organization.

Not only that, the organization that is supposed to promote Canadian culture (even though it's french wing employs many separatists) often shows programs that are not Canadian at all. A number of years ago, the CBC outbit CTV for the Canadian broadcast rights to Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Aside from Alex Trebek, neither of thoe two shows sport Canadian content. It has also broadcast Coronation Street and The Simpsons for years now. Not very Canadian, eh? When it comes down to it, the CBC doesn't really care about promoting Canadian culture as much as it is trying to compete against private Canadian broadcasters, something that it was not envisioned as doing when it was first set up.

In addition to programming, the CBC also wastes money in many other ways. The most notable recent example of this was George Strombolopoulos' ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive party during the Toronto Internation Film Festival. The CBC claims that this was a marketing expense, but having a ritzy party at one of Canada's most expensive and exclusive hotels was nothing more than an ego trip for someone that the CBC had previously poached from a private broadcaster (Much Music).

The CBC simply throws massive amounts of taxpayer money down the drain every year, and yet they have the audacity to claim that they don't have enought money to pay for the technology that they need in order to make the mandated, and long-planned, switchover to digital tv. How on earth can they claim that they don't have enough money when they receive $1.1 billion annually? It's astonishing.

In addition to this, all the public funding that goes to the CBC comes with absolutely no oversight and accountability for how it is spent. And this is something that the CBC is actually fighting to maintain. CBC President Hubert Lacroix is on record as saying that the CBC will only reveal is financial numbers if they are ordered by the court to do so. Not even if the Heritage Minister of Parliament requests it. This, coming from a Crown corporation is appalling. I cannot think of any other Crown corporation that maintains that it is above the law and is not accountable to the government that actually owns it. It's time the Conservative government do the right thing and stand up to the CBC in the interests of the Canadian taxpayer.

Campaigning: Post-Mortem Style

2011-09-15T12:07:00.006-06:00

The Ontario NDP are now coming under increased amounts of attention for the apparent use of Jack Layton's name, likeness, and words in order to attract both support and money during the Ontario provincial election. This is not isolated to individual campaigns, rather it also appears that the NDP's war room may have sent out a fundraising letter invoking Jack Layton's words from his final letter to Canadians.

This is extremely disappointing, to the point of being disgusting. The man has not been dead for a month, yet some within the NDP are attempting to capitalize on Jack's post-mortem popularity surge. Is this a sign to come from provincial and federal NDP candidates? I sure hope not.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath needs to back up her words from yesterday and puts an end to the opportunistic use of Jack Layton by the NDP in Ontario.

A Most Dangerous Game

2011-09-12T00:31:00.003-06:00

News last week that a federal NDP staffer Patricia Chartier is going to be a candidate for the Quebec separatist Quebec Solidaire, in an upcoming Quebec provincial by-election, should come as no real surprise. After all, it seems like most of the Quebec wing of the NDP share the same sentiments as Ms. Chartier.

The revelations over the last few months regarding the separatist leanings of various people within the Quebec wing of the NDP have been nothing less than disturbing. From rookie Quebec MPs that are self-admitted separatists, to interim Leader Nycole Turmel's long-time affiliation with the Bloc Quebecois and Quebec Solidarie, Her Majesty's 'Loyal Opposition' is starting anything but.

However, this is really a problem that is of the NDP's own making alone. Jack Layton made a deal with the devil when he decided to reach out to soft Quebec separatists and nationalists in order to grow his party in Quebec. This was a critical mistake that was made by Brian Mulroney in the 80s, which eventually led to the formation of the Bloc Quebecois.

Short term gain through pandering to Quebec Separatists is a very dangerous game. One that the NDP should have stayed away from. As Mulroney found out, undertaking such a course can significantly harm a party, maybe even kill it.

Farewell Jack

2011-08-22T19:48:00.004-06:00

There are many people who come into the political life whom may not be all that they appear to be on the outside. Jack Layton was not one of those people. You may not have agreed with his politics, I sure didn't, but you have to admit that he truly was one of the nice guys in politics who really cared about Canadians. I've heard many personal anecdotes from people who met Layton, including from my fiance who was once a Conservative political staffer in Ottawa, who have said that he was always kind and personable with anyone he met (regardless of their political stripe). He didn't hate conservatives; after all his dad was a former Tory cabinet minister.

It was his ability to connect with the everyday person which made people gravitate to him. This allowed him to catapult the NDP from a fringe fourth place party in the House of Commons to become the Official Opposition within 9 years. Who knows what could have happened had Layton managed to beat the cancer again and stay healthy. He could very well have become the next Prime Minister.

Nevertheless, Jack Layton has earned himself an honoured place in Canadian history. He will be missed. Farewell Jack.

French CBC: Fighting the Good Fight for Quebec Independence

2011-08-17T00:47:00.000-06:00

The French portion of Canada's state broadcaster, the CBC, has hired a columnist in the form of former Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe. Yes that's right, Canadian taxpayer money will be going into the pocket of Duceppe so that he can continue the fight for Quebec independence on the sidelines as a journalist.

Normally I could care less about which former politician gets a new gig as a commentator in the media, but this is different. The CBC should have a special mandate within the province of Quebec in terms of promoting federalism within that province. However, it appears that Duceppe, and other separatists have found homes within French CBC in order to help the cause of Quebec independence.

This is unacceptable. There needs to be a house cleaning over in French CBC. But will James Moore do anything about it...

Jack Layton's Biggest Mistake

2011-08-02T12:29:00.001-06:00

Aside from the 2008 federal election, where he turned all of his attention on Stephen Harper and the Conservatives instead of hammering away on Stephane Dion and the Liberals (they would have become Official Opposition back then if they had done this), Jack Layton may have made one of the biggest mistakes of his political career when he appointed Nycole Turmel as the interim NDP Leader while he temporarily steps back to focus on his fight with cancer. It has now come out that Turmel, up until months before the last federal election, held a membership with the Bloc Quebecois for five years, as well as a membership with the small Quebec Solidaire provincial separatist party. Oops!!!

Ms. Turmel has explained that she held the Bloc membership in order to support a friend who was involved with the party, even though she says that she is a federalist and has been involved with the NDP for years before that. Right, and the membership in Quebec Solidaire doesn’t mean a thing? Most Quebec federalists don’t typically want to hold a membership in any party that whose goal is Quebec separation, but Turmel wants us to believe that this is the case.

This sounds more like a case where Turmel is simply a soft Quebec nationalist who was content to have her feet in both sides of the Quebec separation pool. And now that she is temporarily in charge of the federal NDP, the Liberals and Conservatives now have an opportunity to appeal to Quebec federalists who may have switched their vote to the NDP in the last election. The same goes for the Bloc Quebecois who lost many voters to the Orange Wave in that province.

Somewhere Thomas Mulcair must be screaming.

Desperation Moves

2011-07-26T23:27:00.002-06:00

I understand that economics isn't one of Dalton McGuinty's strongest suits, considering how badly his government has managed the Ontario economy to the point where the province is now a have-not province collecting the most equalization behind Quebec this year, but man does he need a lesson in how the system actually works. After all, he's been using the money to irresponsibly fund highly expensive environmental schemes and pork-barreling programs.

Last week McGuinty, in his ever-increasing desperation as he heads towards certain electoral defeat in the upcoming Ontario provincial election, claimed that Alberta has been for years sponging off of transfers from Ontario to help pay for the oil sands development in that province. The time honored Liberal strategy of playing regions of the country off on one another for their own benefit. The problem with this assertion is that the last time Alberta took any transfer payments from the equalization program was back in the '60s. Since then the province has been a net contributor to the program, just like Ontario was up until 3 years ago.

This sort of desperation shouldn't come as much of a surprise given that the Ontario Liberals are headed towards sure electoral defeat. After all, it is really bad when they are bringing Bob Rae, the worst Ontario Premier up until McGuinty took office, out to help the cause.

Vindication

2011-07-14T19:07:00.001-06:00

A report from the Ethics Commissioner has sided with Prime Minister Stephen Harper over his handling of the Helena Guergis affair. It turns out that the Prime Minster did the wise and correct thing when he turfed Guergis from Cabinet over unspecified ethical breaches (at the time) and referred the matter to the RCMP.

The Ethics Commissioner reports that Guergis used her office in a manner that benefited her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer's business interests when she wrote a letter in support of his business partner. This finding effectively destroys the Opposition's claims that Harper treated his former MP unfairly and without due process. Even though they would have been screaming bloody murder had he decided to keep her on board after the revelations first broke.

Even though Ms. Guergis is no longer an MP, it's still a small measure of vindication for the Prime Minister well after the fact.

Heading for the Exits

2011-07-05T01:28:00.001-06:00

Needless to say, I'm not surprised by what is being described in the following article relating to bleeding support from the Wildrose Party (formerly the Wildrose Alliance) back to the Alberta PC Party.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Disaffected+Wildrose+Alliance+supporters+head+exits/5038114/story.html

The move of former Ted Morton supporters back to the PCs in order to help get Morton elected as PC Leader, the meddling by a party inner circle and their operatives (this I really believe given some of the personalities involved), and a host of other factors are likely to blame for this move back to the PCs by many Wildrose supporters.

Ant-Terrorism Conference Borders on Farcical

2011-06-26T17:02:00.000-06:00

What can be more farcical than the Durban anti-racism conference that routinely turns into an anti-semetic hatefest? Well the anti-terrorism conference that is currently underway in Iran, one of the countries that is labelled as one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world, that's what.

Watching Iranian President Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad and other leaders of states that sponsor terrorism talk about how to fight it, while at the same time bash the United States and Israel, is sickening.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-terrorism-20110626,0,5332719.story

Canada Post: Told You So

2011-06-25T15:07:00.001-06:00

What is a very real possible negative impact of the Canada Post strike and subsequent NDP filibuster? A further weakening and decay of Canada Post. And now experts are coming out and confirming this belief.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110625/canada-post-delay-hurts-industry-110625/

Can I say told you so?

Who Layton is Hurting by Supporting CUPW

2011-06-24T10:40:00.002-06:00

As Jack Layton and the rest of the Opposition continue their filibustering of the Canada Post back-to-work bill I would like to remind people of who Layton is really hurting as he continues to try to help his overpaid union brethren: people in need of various forms of government or charitable assistance.

Many of the Canadians that fit intorhe following groups aren't computer savvy, don't own a computer, or simply don't want to use direct deposit. Let's take a look.

Seniors: OAS, CPP, GST cheques, miscellaneous payments

Low Income Canadians: EI, GST cheques, universal childcare cheques (where applicable), miscellaneous payments

University Students: student loans, bursaries, scholarships, GST cheques, miscellaneous payments

Aboriginals: treaty cheques, EI, miscellaneous payments

Women: miscellaneous payments

Ethnic Groups: miscellaneous payments

Artists: government art grants ;-)

So much for all that election talk from the NDP about standing up for these groups. What does Jack have to say to these Canadian who he's hurting by supporting a continued halt in Canadian mail service?

Privatization

2011-06-15T12:10:00.002-06:00

What company is twice as big as UPS, three times bigger than FedEx, and used to be a government-owned postal service? The answer is DHL, Germany's privatized mail carrier. And they still deliver mail 6 times a week...

Privatization can work. It is something that the Conservatives should really start considering now that the Canada Post strike has reached the complete shutdown of all mail service phase, due to the crown corporation locking out its workers yesterday.

Source

NDP MP Gets it Right

2011-06-14T12:50:00.001-06:00

I would heartily encourage the federal Conservative government to get behind NDP MP Peter Stoffer's private member's bill that would put restrictions on sitting MPs' ability to cross the floor and join another party.

While the idea of making our elected representatives resign and run in a by-election under their new party's banner has been around a while, it's about time that it got put into law.

This kind of democratic reform is an easy fix to prevent future Belinda Stronachs and David Emersons. Plus, wouldn't it go a long way to improving Parliamentary decorum if the government got on side with a bill coming from across the floor?

I encourage readers to get in touch with their local MP and tell them you want this bill passed.

H/T: Blue Like You (http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2011/06/14/one-ndp-bill-i-can-support/)

The Canadian Spring Delusion

2011-06-11T12:44:00.002-06:00

I wasn't going to write on this, but after nearly a week of hearing DePape and and her lefty allies disgustingly rail against our democracy I had to say something.

When Senate Page protestor Brigette called for a Canadian version of the Arab Spring I couldn't believe it. For one, it shows that DePape has a complete lack of understanding of world political events. Surprising really, considering that part of her degree involved the study of globalization. The Arab Spring (going on to summer now) has been a struggle by ordinary Arab citizens who want an end to their repressive governments in exchange for democracy. They've been willing to die for their cause, and in the case of Libya, fight for it.

To even hint at a comparison between Canada and the despotic regimes of Ben Ali, Mubarak, Ghadafi, Assad, Saleh, and Al Khalifa is absurd. You might not like Harper, but he is the legitimately elected leader of this country. And last time I checked, Canada isn't imprisoning, torturing, or killing up its own citizens for their political or religious views.

The other aspect of DePape calling for an Arab Spring that has me unsettled is what her statement could actually mean or inspire people to do. Why? Because the main characteristic common to most of the countries involved in the Arab Spring has been regime change.

Does DePape want to prematurely end the term of the democratically elected Harper government? Or does she want mass protests that would force the Harper government to abandon the political platform that they ran and won the election with, in favor of policies that will lead to her ideal socialist paradise?

This just really speaks to the nature of the far left in this country. Fine and content when a left-leaning party is in power. But the moment that the Conservatives win, that government is declared illegitimate, and all of a sudden our democracy is "broken".

Never once during the Chretien years did I hear conservatives scream bloody murder and claim that the Liberals didn't have right to govern based on the mandate that they were democratically given by Canadians. Sure we were frustrated and disappointed by our electoral failures, but we accepted the results that democracy gave us.

Now that is something that DePape and her allies don't seem to understand or accept. They simply don't respect our democracy.

Arrogantly Victorious

2011-06-10T08:27:00.001-06:00

"Minutes into former minister Stockwell Day's address to the roughly 2,000 people gathered at the Ottawa Convention Centre, his wife Valerie strode onto the stage holding a red stop sign with the words "We Love Harper."

The bit of political theatre showcased the party's arrogantly victorious mood as it headed into a policy weekend just weeks after winning its coveted majority government, taking 166 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons."

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110610/tory-convention-110610/

Arrogantly victorious mood? Forgive me if I feel that Conservatives have all the right in the world to continue to celebrate and enjoy themselves after 18 years without a majority.

Looks like the media is going to be playing the role of Unofficial Opposition from now until 2015...

The CUPW and the Decline of the Post Office

2011-06-09T00:47:00.001-06:00

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is hastening the demise of Canada Post, and they can’t see it.

The truth is that Canada Post has been dying for years with the advent of the digital age. Because paper is quickly becoming obsolete, so goes the traditional way of transmitting it. Hence, the rapid decrease in the use of postal service over the last number of years. In fact, mail volumes at Canada Post have decreased by 17% over the last five years.

Given this new reality, one would assume that the Canada Post union would recognize this and try to work with the Crown corporation in order to try to help it survive. But no, all the CUPW brass seem to be interested in is protecting their ridiculous entitlements ($24/hr starting wage, banking sick days, etc.) and keeping Canada Post’s technology firmly rooted in the past.

What the CUPW doesn’t realize that it is doing by striking is simply highlighting Canadians to the fact that there are serious problems with Canada Post, and that there are many better alternatives out there to the traditional paper mail system. In fact couriers such as UPS and DHL are rushing to take a bigger piece of the pie, and other companies such as Interac are undertaking campaigns to draw people into using services such as e- transfer that are alternatives to items such as cheques.

I seriously doubt that union has thought about the prospect that many Canadians might not go back to using Canada Post once they have been given the chance to use one of these alternatives. The strike might in fact end up accelerating the decline in the usage of Canada Post by Canadians. And CUPW would only have itself to blame once its workers start losing their jobs under this scenario.

Jack Layton is Playing with Fire

2011-05-28T11:51:00.006-06:00

I have to admit, I've never liked Jack Layton. From the moment he arrived on the federal political scene I could never trust him. He just gave off the used car salesman vibe to me. It didn't help that he has a passing resemblance to Lenin.

For the most part Layton has been relatively harmless. A vocal leader of a third place party that could espouse his party's views without having to actually care about how such proposals would be implemented should he become Prime Minister. Cause you know, we always thought that there would be a slim chance of that happening. Following the results of the last federal election, that isn't so much the case now.

I've been watching Layton with some curiosity during the federal election, and for the few weeks following, and what I've seen has been very disturbing.

During the leaders debate I was screaming at my television because of the policy statements that Jack was making. Expand Bill 101's reach? Throw out the Clarity Act? Reopen the Constitution? These were not the principled promises of a federalist party, these were the cynical promises made by a politician that was willing to say anything to become Prime Minister, and saw Quebec as a means to get there.

Since becoming the Leader of the Official Opposition, Layton has gotten worse. Since most of his MPs now come from Quebec, Layton's rhetoric has taken on a much more Quebec-centric tone. Almost everything that you hear coming out of the man has to do with Quebec. Not such a big deal, say if you're the Bloc, but considering that his party has MPs hailing from other regions of the country I'd say it is a little concerning.

In addition to what he promised during the election, Layton has now made some very frightening comments with regards to what percentage of "yes" votes have to be cast in order for Quebec to cede from Canada (a continuation of his Clarity Act campaign promise). Not a very federalist position he's taking now is it?

He's also started to pick a fight with the Conservative government regarding the upcoming seat redistribution that will be adding an additional 30 seats in Alberta, B.C., and Ontario. This is the same line of argument that the Bloc was taking when Harper first announced the change in 2010.

I don't know, maybe Layton feels obliged to try to represent Quebec more at the federal table now that the Bloc has been wiped off the electoral map, and that over half of his MPs are from there. Maybe he's scared that newly elected Quebec separatist and hard nationalist NDP MPs might cross the floor to the Bloc if he doesn't show them that he'll step in to fill the void left by the Bloc's departure. Or maybe Layton is being the political opportunist that I've always seen him as.

Regardless, he needs to stop it for the good of the country. He's playing with a fire that Mulroney foolishly played with and got burned. I could only imagine the kind of damage that might come out of it this time.

Chretien and the Iraq War: 8 Years Later

2011-05-17T00:10:00.003-06:00

I could say that I was surprised by the news the federal government was secretly supporting aspects of the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq while at the same time publicly shunning the operation, but then of course nothing really surprises me when it comes to the Liberals. The former government of Jean Chretien has to be the most cynically-run ones in decades. After all, how would one explain away such a disconnect between public statements to the Canadian people and back the office machinations that were happening at the same time? Or the tolerance of open displays of anti-Americanism from government MPs?

Well quite easily in fact: everything that the Chretien government did was specifically crafted in a way that would help it get reelected at some point. Exploiting latent Canadian anti-Americanism: check. Playing regions off of one another to your own benefit: check. Crafting policy who's only aim is to play up the myths about your opponents that you and your friends in the media carefully crafted: check.

Governing involves having to lead by principle, and having to make the tough decisions that might not be popular with the electorate. This sure wasn't demonstrated with the Chretien Liberals, but it sure is refreshing to see out of the Conservative Harper government.

I'm Back

2011-05-10T23:22:00.006-06:00

I'm back.

After a two year hiatus, I'm back. Funny how a federal election resulting in a Conservative majority government has the ability to re-instill my passion for politics. I have to admit that my absence from posting on this blog was a result of two things: (1) Political fatigue, and (2) Life happened.

For the record, I am not a fair weather Conservative. Far from it in fact. Five straight years of consecutive Liberal/Conservative minority governments took their toll on me. I just couldn't get excited anymore given the constant threat of another election seemed to be around every corner. As a result I took a step back and cut out politics from my life almost entirely, allowing myself the luxury of relaxing and enjoying life.

Over that same period of time things in my personal life started to come together. I finished my Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Alberta, I started my career, and I got engaged to the love of my life. If you need to ask, the wedding is in November.

Again I apologize for how I abruptly began my hiatus without any warning. All I can say is that I'm now here to stay and I am so looking forward to writing during these next four years. We definitely live in interesting times.

Lets Do a Comparison, Shall We?

2009-12-17T01:58:00.004-07:00

So a commenter on my last post decided to bring up the incident from the 2008 federal election as a way of deflecting the seriousness of the Liberal picture depicting Stephen Harper being assassinated. If you recall the Conservative Party posted a picture on their website that depicted Stephan Dion in a cartoonish shooting gallery surrounded by cartoonish bullet holes. It was around the same time as the infamous puffin incident. For the record I was not happy with the 2008 picture, and at the time hoped that someone got in serious trouble for approving it. That being said, I would like to point out that the two pictures are not in the same league of seriousness. As proof, I'll show you both together.

2008 Tory Photo:

2009 Liberal Photo:
Your verdict?

Simply Distasteful

2009-12-16T19:09:00.004-07:00

So let me get this straight. Pictures that have been digitally manipulated to show the Prime Minister of Canada being assassinated by Jack Ruby, tied to a pole (along with John Baird) in front of a firing squad, and him speaking from his coffin at his funeral, are all acceptable for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to post on their website? When I first heard of the story, I thought that I must have misheard. Why on earth would any sane person, especially someone working for a Canadian political party, think that it was funny to post such photos depicting the death of leader of our country? Luckily for Canada's sake, we as a people never have had to bury one of sitting Prime Ministers due to their untimely death at the hands of an assassin.

But for the web masters over at the Liberal Party of Canada, I don't think that its as much of a case of insanity, but rather one of stupidity. That being said, given how long it took for the Liberals to admit that they had done something wrong, and then to actually apologize (rather than the non-apology originally given by Ignatieff), tells me that they really aren't that sorry about the incident. And to think that a puffin defecating on the shoulder of Stephane Dion on a website in the 2008 federal election was considered such a heinous act by the Liberals...

What's This? Danny Boy is Trying to Make Peace?!

2009-11-16T12:44:00.010-07:00

Should people be surprised by Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams' softening tone when it comes to dealing with Stephen Harper's federal Conservative government? No. There are likely a number of factors that have led the politically astute Williams to move away from his all out war with his federal conservative kin. The first being that he wants the federal government's help in his battle to stop Hydro Quebec from taking over New Brunswick Energy.

What is the other factor? Well the fact that his Anybody But Conservative campaign during the 2008 General Election ended coming to bite him in the butt. After all, his efforts to punish the federal Conservatives for not giving him what he wanted in equalization has left 6 out of 7 federal seats in the province being held by the Liberal Party. A party who, as of right now, has no reasonable expectation of forming government in the next federal election, and whose leader is almost, if not more, inept that Stephane Dion. It also hurts Williams that there is no representation of his province within the federal government as the other seat is held by the NDP. This would have been more desirable to Williams than the current situation where the minister responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador is Peter McKay, a Nova Scotia MP.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper should be very careful if they choose to try to make peace with Danny Williams. It may end up being short-lived until Williams determines that it's no longer in his best interests to play nice with the federal government again. That being said, the possibility of trying to make Danny Boy an ally again should not be ruled out as the benefits that both parties would reap might make it worth their while.

Why Are We Going Down This Road?

2009-09-09T12:36:00.002-06:00

Michael Ignatieff has gambled and as the electoral cards are being revealed it is becoming readily apparent that he should have folded this round and waited for better cards to have been dealt to him later. Ever since Ignatieff laid down his plans to force an election only a year after Canadians went to the polls, Ignatieff has made it impossible for himself to back down from his rhetoric this time. The Liberals have come out with ads featuring a scary looking ignatieff (Why does he look mad at me?!) explaining to Canadians that they made the incorrect decision last fall, and that what they need now is the Liberal Party and a Prime Michael Ignatieff running the country. Such arrogance.

But guess what, it looks like Canadians are not buying what Professor Ignatieff is trying to sell. They've seen signs of an economic recovery in the last few months; one that would likely be quashed in the midst of yet another federal election where the Opposition parties will do their darndest to blame the Conservatives for the recession, killing any sort of investor confidence. And what will happen to support for the Liberal Party when home owners find out that the Home Renovation Tax Credit will not actually be available to them because the Liberals pulled the plug on Parliament before it could be implemented? I personally know many people that undertook some sort of home renovation because of the credit, they won't be happy. Even the polls are showing a surge in support for the Conservatives since Ignatieff started talking election.

Ignatieff only came back to Canada for one reason, and one reason alone: he wants to become Prime Minister. He's even said that he would go back to Harvard if he is unsuccessful in his goal. Canadians can see that he only wants power, and will do anything to get it. No one wants another election (the fourth in five years), including many people within his own party. It seems that the only person who actually seems to want one is Michael Ignatieff.

Bits and Bites

2009-05-29T09:58:00.010-06:00

The Edmonton Strathcona Conservative nomination race is now well under way. Although it first appeared that the field of candidates was going to be fairly large, only 3 people were able to secure enough signatures in order to run. Among these candidates are former PMO staffer Ryan Hastman, former Edmonton-Millwoods-Beaumont EDA president Cathay Wagantall, and the Sports Manager for the Royal Glenora Club Linda Blade. It should be interesting to see how the final candidate chosen will fare against Alberta's lone NDP MP Linda Duncan.

As for the situation in Edmonton East, all seems to have quieted down for now. The attempt by Matt Altheim and his compatriots to force a nomination race there against incumbent MP Peter Goldring has created much tension amongst conservatives in the riding, and those rifts may not heal quickly. Which is a shame since the second place candidate from last election, former provincial NDP leader Ray Martin, has announced his intentions to seek the nomination again. Seeing as he doubled the NDP vote in the riding, and the fact that the NDP likely smell blood in the water after getting Linda Duncan elected in Edmonton Strathcon, local NDP activists will likely focus their efforts on Edmonton East. Also, if you include the potential for the splintering of conservative support in the riding, this could mean that yet another riding in Edmonton has the potential to turn orange.

And finally, Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds. After forcing the Conservative government to run up deficit spending, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his party are now calling for Finance Minister Joe Flaherty to be fired by the Prime Minister. Never mind that the Liberals are the one that caused the deficit to grow in such a way. It is also interesting that they also have the audacity to campaign for easier access to EI at the same time.

Edmonton Strathcona Nomination News

2009-05-19T17:19:00.006-06:00

There have been some interesting news coming out of Edmonton-Strathcona in the last little while. A couple of weeks ago, former MP Rahim Jaffer had to publicly drop out of the nomination race when the date for the nomination election was set for later this month. His attempts proved unsuccessful in pressuring the Conservative Party brass to delay the nomination date until the fall. His rationale for such a delay was that he wanted to complete his MBA at the University of Alberta before taking another run at politics.

He likely would have had to change his nomination website as Party rules dictate that a nomination candidate cannot have any depiction of the CPC logo anywhere on their literature or website. I also suspect that his chances of getting the Party to be more accomodating of his request to move back the nomination date after his wife, MP Helena Guergis, sent a ten-percenter into the riding. That, coupled with the fact that there is a danger that an election might be forced before the fall.

It looks like another candidate has officially thrown their hat into the ring in the Edmonton-Strathcona race. Linda Blade, manager of sports performance at the Royal Glenora Club, has declared her intention to run for the nomination (h/t daveberta).

Another young Conservative from the University of Alberta has thrown his name into the ring. Matthew Sztym has declared his intentions rather late into the race, as the cut off deadline looms.

In other news, the attempts to force an open nomination in Calgary West and Edmonton East were unsuccessful. However, I suspect we have not heard the last of Matt Altheim in Edmonton East.

Clarification on the Edmonton East Nomination Fight

2009-04-27T14:41:00.004-06:00

I have to make a correction about a couple of things that I said in my last blog post about the situation in Edmonton East. I received an email from Matt Altheim yesterday outlining a few clarifications that he wanted known.

Apparently he was not asked to resign his position from the Edmonton East EDA Board, but rather voluntarily resigned in order to seek the nomination in the riding. Also, I was incorrect when I said that Ken Solomon had left the Board, and in fact Solomon is still a sitting member on it.

Things Heating Up in Some Alberta Ridings

2009-04-23T17:39:00.003-06:00

It appears that there are a three interesting developments have taken place in Edmonton and Calgary with respect to the Conservative Party's nomination of candidates. After losing his seat to current NDP MP Linda Duncan, former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer on Sunday announced his intention to run for the Tory nomination in the riding of Edmonton Strathcona. However, rather than it being simply a coronation like one would assume it would be for a former MP trying to reclaim his seat, it appears that Jaffer will be in a pretty tough fight for the nomination this time round. There will be four other candidates in the contest, including former PMO staffer Ryan Hastman, former Edmonton-Millwoods-Beaumont Conservative EDA President Cathay Wagantall, as well as two other candidates (I haven't been able to find out their names yet) have all declared that they are also seeking the nomination. Should be interesting.

Meanwhile, things in Edmonton East have gotten pretty nasty. There appears to be a campaign underway in order to force a nomination race against current MP Peter Goldring by a young upstart by the name of Matt Altheim. Matt is the former President of the Concordia College Conservative Association, and was very active in the Edmonton Anti-Coalition rallies back in December. He also used to be a member of the Edmonton East EDA Board until he and one of his key organizers, former EDA President Ken Solomon, were asked to resign from the board because of their efforts to force a nomination. I'm not going to get into too many details, mostly because things have gotten so nasty, but I can say many hurtful things have been said by both sides, and I don't think the rift in the riding will heal anytime soon.

In a story that is somewhat similar to that of what is occuring in Edmonton East, it appears that a group of conservatives in Calgary West are organizing in an effort to try to force an open nomination contest in that riding against Rob Anders. No surprise really if you remember that this is the same riding where the fight over Anders' 2006 nomination went to the courts. In any case, it should be very interesting to see what the outcomes in each of these ridings will be.

Make Your Own Caption 5

2009-04-14T20:38:00.002-06:00

It's time for another edition of Right On Course's 'Make Your Own Caption' series. The subjects this time are Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff and LPC Leader-in-Waiting Justin Trudeau. Remember, keep it clean.

Rehabilitation Job

2009-01-18T11:43:00.003-07:00

It really is quite remarkable to witness the attempted rehabilitation job that some members of the mainstream media appear to be undertaking for the Liberal Party since the Coalition plot collapsed last month. They have also tried their darndest to make the notion of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc Coalition government more palatable to the Canadian public that resoundingly rejected the notion back in December. But that's a topic for another post altogether.

For about a month now we've been hearing all sorts of stories about how Prime Ministerial Michael Ignatieff has been sounding, as well as how worldly and smart he is. I guess worldly is a way of describing a man who lived outside of Canada for decades before deciding to move back to Canada for the sole purpose of trying to become Prime Minister. Also, remember what happened the last time a Liberal Leader was labeled as being smart; he turned out to be smart to the point of being incompetent. In Ignatieff's case, smart means that he is smart to the point of showing his true arrogance and contempt for people he deems as dumber than himself. This, coupled with the simmering anti-Coalition sentiment, could have prevented Ignatieff and the Liberals from gaining any of the usual gain in support that follows the installation of a new Liberal Leader.

Sorry for the short post. I've been very busy for the last month and am a little rusty in terms of blogging. I figured that I might as well slowly wade back into it.

The Varying Motives of the Coup Members

2008-12-06T11:39:00.017-07:00

The Opposition Parties attempt to seize power in a palace coup- I mean forming a coalition government appears to be quickly crumbling in the wake of fierce public backlash and the proroguing of Parliament until January 26. After all, they are now faced with public opinion polls that are pegging support for the Conservatives in the high 4o`s or even in the 50`s, and opposition against a Coalition government above 60%. People don`t buy the Opposition`s excuses, and see the real rationale behind the attempted takeover. Today I'll look into these real reasons.

The Bloc

Some have been surprised by the Bloc's willingness to enter into a coalition that would see them forming part of the government of Canada, something that goes against everything that a separatist party stands for. But if you think about it, Gilles Duceppe is no slouch. He agreed to the Coalition because he saw it as a way to advance Quebec separatism. After all, having a separatist party within government fundamentally weakens that government's credibility when it comes to defending federalism in Quebec. How could they effectively combat separatism when they made a deal with the devil in order to achieve power? This is why you saw PQ leader Pauline Marois, and former PQ Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau singing the praises of the proposed Coalition government earlier this week. This is obviously something that Jack Layton and Stephane Dion overlooked when they made their decision. They were just so desperate to obtain power, that the consequences didn't matter to them.

The NDP

Which leads us to Jack Layton. The move to form a Coalition was proposed and spearheaded by Layton. But why? Because he was desperate. Layton knew that he had monumentally screwed up the greatest chance that the NDP had ever had to become a big time mainstream party that actually had a chance at forming government. But because of the tactical and strategic errors that he and his inner circle made during the last federal election campaign, that opportunity was squandered, and the NDP was once again relegated to the position as the third place national party. Layton knew that the spotlight was soon going to descend upon him, and people within his party were going to bring his leadership into question.

Layton probably decided that the only way to fend off any potential leadership review was to enter into a Coalition, give the NDP the power that it had dreamed up for decades, and for him to become Deputy Prime Minister in the process. Never mind that in waning days of the 2006 federal election he publicly rebuffed then-Prime Minister Paul Martin's overtures to form a coalition government. The only question that exists for the NDP, now that Layton's dream for a Liberal-NDP-Bloc Coalition is disintegrating, is how to get rid of their leader and repair the damage to their party's credibility caused by his reckless actions.

The Liberals

The party that stood the most to gain from the Coalition coup attempt was the Liberal Party; specifically Stephane Dion. Blinded by their lust for a return to power, the Liberals were more than eager to accept Jack Layton's proposal. This insatiable desire also blinded them from seeing the awful truth: that Stephane Dion would become Prime Minister, making it virtually impossible for them to replace him with someone else. In the aftermath of the last federal election, it looked like the Liberals were ready to cast off Dion as Leader in a leadership convention that was scheduled for May 2009. But then they made another big mistake when they allowed Dion to stay on as interim Liberal Leader. How so? Because from that point on Dion was looking for something, anything, that would allow him to keep his job as leader and become Prime Minister. It just so happened that Jack Layton served it to him on a silver platter.

When Layton approached the Liberals with his plan, Dion thought, rightly, that if he became Prime Minister by going through the back door. When that happened, it would be very difficult for the Liberals to get rid of him. Could you imagine a situation where the governing party was trying to dump the Prime Minister because they didn't want him as their leader anymore, and that he wouldn't go? It would wreak havoc. This is why Dion quickly ran with the Coalition idea, even giving Elizabeth May the same offer for a Senate seat and the position as Environment Minister that he had promised her during the last federal election.

The other issue that the Liberals had to deal with was that the Liberal Leadership race was playing itself out again during the Coalition coup attempt. The Liberals` biggest backer of the plan, after Dion of course, was Bob Rae. Some have speculated that Rae believed that he would either be appointed as the new Liberal Leader (and thus Prime Minister) or he would win the Leadership race because of his good work in helping bring together the Coalition. Who knows, maybe he even thought he could successfully negotiate a possible merger between his old party, the NDP, and the Liberals. Michael Ignatieff however, was much more wishy-washy when it came to the Coalition. At first he was for it; probably because, like Rae, he thought that he would be appointed as Liberal Leader. But when it became apparent that Canadians were overwhelmingly dead-set against the Coalition, he began to distance himself from the plan.

My analysis is complete. That being said, I do admit that it is very satisfying to see the public backlash to the Coalition, and the resulting chaos in the Opposition parties that has resulted from it.

Layton's Leadership Needs to be Scrutinized

2008-11-26T14:39:00.002-07:00

In the wake of the last federal election the leadership of two of the national party leaders have been called into question. One, Stephane Dion, has already bowed to pressure and announced that he will be stepping down as Liberal Leader after the party has elected a new one next year. With this, Dion has become the first Liberal Leader in decades to not have become Prime Minister. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has encountered troubled waters within her party following the release of her self-serving election post-mortem. However, it appears that one national party leader has, for the most part, escaped scrutiny for their performance during the last election. And that leader is the NDP's Jack Layton.

The 2008 federal election marked the first time that the NDP spent to the allowable limit. This made sense as the abysmal performance of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion had opened the door to a glorious opportunity that the New Democrats would have been foolish to not try to exploit. That being that they could have leap-frogged the Liberals in electoral success, and become the Official Opposition. They could have moved from a fringe perennial third-place party to the viable mainstream party that could one day become government. However, this was not to be thanks to the serious tactical errors that were made by Layton and the central NDP campaign team. Because of these errors, the NDP's dreams of moving to the mainstream were shattered, only to see the party's popular vote go up by only a couple thousand votes, and the number of MPs they elected increase marginally. Seeing as the NDP went into debt in order to achieve these mediocre results, the tactical errors turned out to be very costly in nature.

From the get-go Jack Layton's strategy was so wrongly backwards. The day the writ dropped, he focused all of his attention on Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, while ignoring the targets that he should have been attacking: Stephane Dion and the Liberals. I know, the ultimate goal of being a federal party leader is to become Prime Minister. But for a leader of a third-place party has to take an incremental view rather than going for the gold right away. But instead Layton chose not to go this route, and decision that turned out to be wrong in many respects.

First, by not attacking Dion and the Liberals, Layton gave them the opportunity to regroup and partially rehabilitate their image. This was seen in the second last week of the campaign when it looked possibly as if Dion was about to do the unthinkable and ride momentum to victory. The NDP forgot one simple formula that has developed in Canada through the decades: in order of the New Democrats to do well, the Liberals have to do poorly. Because Layton went easy on the Liberals, the NDP was unable to successfully steal votes away from them. Instead by focusing all of their attacks on the Conservatives, they only succeeded in driving votes away from themselves, and towards the Liberals who left-leaning voters often see as a more viable means to stopping the Conservatives than the NDP.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Quebec. Because the NDP spent so much attention on attacking the Conservatives in that province instead of attacks on the Bloc and the Liberals, progressive voters there parked themselves with the Bloc rather than the NDP. As an aside, the greater-than-expected attacks on the Conservatives in Quebec, thanks to the NDP, threw a kink in the Tory plan in that province, leading to the lack of increased success they sought there.

Thanks to Jack Layton and his inner circle's planning, the NDP let the Liberals off the hook and failed to replace them as the Official Opposition. Yes, Layton was claiming that he was running to become Prime Minister, but he should have been cognisant of the reality that the NDP needs to take a step-based approach in order to become anything better than Canada's perennial third place federal party. And for that Jack's leadership deserves to be called into question.

May Causes Green Party Infighting

2008-11-13T11:08:00.014-07:00

Elizabeth May's leadership of the Green Party appears to be increasingly called into question by many within her own party since the end of the last election. An election that saw their share of the vote increase, but also saw them lose their one and only MP (floor-crosser Blair Wilson). However, it looked as if the Greens were poised to win at least one or two seats, but because of the actions and words of May in the latter stages of the campaign, this did not happen. Maybe it was May's call for strategic (Liberal) voting just before election day, something that her own party then had to publicly refute. Or maybe it was the fact that May allowed Green fortunes to decline in favour of focusing all of her efforts solely on trying to get elected in Central Nova.

The internal divisions within the Green Party were brought to light following the distribution of a narcissistic election postmortem memo in which she took no personal responsibility for what happened during the election, and blamed almost everyone else for not getting her elected. This of course didn't sit too well with many within the Green Party, causing them to lash out at May, criticizing her and her loyalists for the way in which they ran the last campaign as well as the way in which they are running the party. Of course May's supporters, many of whom are personal friends of May whom she has appointed to important positions within the party, didn't like this and have unsuccessfully attempted to silence her critics.

So what does this mean? Well for one, it sheds some light on what May's true intentions for the Green Party actually are. Her memo shows that her goal was mainly getting Elizabeth Elizabeth May is not concerned about the Green movement in Canada. She is only concerned with attaining power for herself through any means that she can find. May elected as an MP, and that electing Green Party MPs was a peripheral concern to her. After all, it has already previously been shown that May may have received an offer from Stephane Dion's Liberals that they'd make her Environment Minister (either as an MP or Senator) if she endorsed the Liberals, and they then became the government.

Hopefully for the Green Party, the anti-May dissidents will be able to gain enough traction to dump Lizzy. In order to achieve electoral success they need a leader who is competent and deeply committed to the party. Elizabeth May is not that leader.

Make Your Own Caption 4

2008-10-25T17:46:00.005-06:00

For this edition of Right on Course's series "Make Your Own Caption" the subjects are the three pillars of the Liberal Party of Canada: Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, and Stephane Dion.

The Greens Must Dump the Liberal Operative May

2008-10-19T15:29:00.007-06:00

This post is directed at supporters and members of the Green Party of Canada. Many of you didn’t want to believe the Stephen Harper and the Conservatives back in the April of 2007 when they said that Elizabeth May was selling out your party for her own personal gain, when she made her now-infamous pact with Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. You also didn’t believe them during the 2008 election campaign when they were arguing against her inclusion in the Leaders Debates, claiming that having her there was tantamount to having two representatives from the Liberal Party there. Given her behaviour in the last two weeks, it has become readily apparent that the Conservatives were right about May.

Elizabeth May is nothing but a Liberal operative who has taken over the reigns of the Green Party and is using her power as its Leader to assist the Liberal Party. In the closing days of the campaign, she advocated for Green supporters to vote strategically (a.k.a. Liberal) against Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party, thus destroying much of the gains that the Greens had made during the election. Sure, the Green Party increased its vote totals from the last federal election by 50%, but those numbers would have been much higher if May hadn’t endorsed the Liberals. Also, this week we saw her come out in support of embattled Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, calling him “the best Prime Minister Canada never had”. Do Elizabeth May’s actions and words indicate that she is deeply committed to the Green Party, or rather the Liberal Party?

If the Green Party is ever going to become a mainstream political party within this country, rather than having to sit on the sidelines and see the Liberals and the NDP steal their policies, they must get rid of Elizabeth May and elect a new leader that is truly committed to the Green movement in Canada. May has shown that she is more concerned about herself than the party which she leads. She made the deal in 2007 with Dion so as to make it easier for her to be elected to the House of Commons. It was also revealed during the campaign, it came out that the Liberals had offered her the position of Environment Minister in a Liberal government, and a seat in the Senate, if she endorsed the Dion and the Liberals. Which May then proceeded to do.

For the sake of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May must go now!

Mission Impossible: Uniting the Left

2008-10-17T22:18:00.000-06:00

Following Tuesday's election, like clockwork, various figures within Canada's left wing parties have already starting calling for a "Unite the Left" movement to begin. Most notably amongst those figures is Green Party Leader, and Liberal agent, Elizabeth May. Fresh off of killing her party's chances by endorsing the Liberals in the last days of the campaign, May is now calling for a grand coalition of left wing parties, including the Bloc Quebecois, to form to oust the Conservatives in power (she has also recently come out in support of embattled Liberal Leader Stephane Dion). Apparently preventing the Conservatives from gaining another mandate is more important to May than saving this country from separatists who wish to see it torn apart.

Elizabeth May's idea aside, a Unite the Left movement is something that would never be successful. Why? Because Canada's left wing parties share absolutely no common history. The Unite the Right movement worked so well because both the Reform Party, and later the Canadian Alliance, were formed by a split from the Progressive Conservative Party. This is why the Alliance and the PCs were able to find some common ground. The NDP and the Green Party, on the other hand, were never a part of the Liberal Party. In fact it would be safe to say that the Liberal Party and the NDP hate each other, for varying reasons.

So expect to see a fractured Canadian left wing for some time to come.

What Did May Say?

2008-10-03T02:47:00.002-06:00

During last night's televised leaders debate something that Elizabeth May said struck me as puzzling, as she was the last person at the debate that I would to say it. During the 'economy' section of the broadcast she stated that the federal government needed to bring back the manufacturing sector and pulp and paper mill jobs (predominantly in Ontario) that had been lost over the last couple of years.

Yes that's right, the environmentalist Elizabeth May said that she wants to help two sectors of our economy that pollute our air and cut down our trees. All in an attempt to garner support in vote-rich Ontario. Hypocrisy at its finest.

The Liberals Hit the Panic Button: Call For Strategic Voting

2008-09-28T12:05:00.004-06:00

You know things are going bad for the Liberals when they are already resorting to calls for strategic voting to stop a Conservative majority, even before the televised leaders debates happen. The last time we saw them use this tactic it was in latter days of the 2005-2006 election when Paul Martin was desperately clinging to the hopes that he could somehow salvage a win. It didn't work then, it especially won't work now.

For one, such overtures show the Canadian public just how desperate your party is. Instead of bringing over undecided voters, or NDP and Green supporters that are poised to see their parties make real progress in this election, it will end up scaring support away from the Liberals. It shows that the Liberals are desperate and are now pleading for support. People will not vote for a party that is desperate; especially one which has had such an awful election campaign thus far.

Pleading for support will only accomplish one thing: it will end up costing the Liberals votes on election day. And for a party that is now tied for second place with the NDP, losing those precious votes is something that they cannot afford.

Computer Troubles

2008-09-24T01:25:00.002-06:00

I have to send out an apology to readers of my blog. I know that an election is the most frenetic time for political bloggers, but there is a very good reason as to why I haven't been blogging very much over the last while. My laptop computer is currently in the shop as I've been having power management issues for some time now. The problem has been pinpointed to an issue in the motherboard (damn). I assure you, I'll try to get posting as soon as the technical difficulties have been remedied. Thank you for your patience.

Garth Gets Busted

2008-09-16T00:10:00.005-06:00

With Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party going into week 2 of the election campaign, their goal was to reverse the sinking popularity of them and their leader. What has ended up happening was Dion's supposed 'communications guru' Garth Turner bringing them off-message by creating a scandal that is entirely of his own doing.

Turner was featured on one of CPAC's shows where they followed him around door-knocking in his riding. However not all was what it seemed. As it turns out, the first house in which he visited, and got a favourable response from the resident, was actually owned by the son of his campaign manager. This story was brought to light by Steve Janke, and has obviously got the attention of the blogosphere, and now CPAC themselves. Just watch how Garth squirms and tries to make excuses for this outrageous attempt at dishonesty.

I have previously called Garth Turner Stephane Dion's greatest mistake, and I still think that this is the case. Garth Turner has lied to his constituents, and now to every Canadian who watched the farce unfold on CPAC.

Tough Road Ahead for the Liberals

2008-09-06T13:22:00.004-06:00

Tomorrow the writ will drop, signalling the beginning of yet another federal election campaign. And from the looks of it so far, it will likely be a disaster for Stephane Dion and the Liberals. Just a few weeks prior, the Liberals were plagued by a rash of candidate resignations, causing a great deal of embarrassment for their already weakened leader.

Thanks to the brilliant election timing on the part of the Prime Minister, the Liberals will not get their quarterly allowance from Elections Canada that they were planning their election campaign around. Thus, their limited resources will be stretched to the limit, paying for such items as an antiquated gas-guzzling airplane, while the Conservatives are in a financial position to focus a lot of resources on a pre-writ advertising blitz. Coupled with an NDP leader looking to spend to the full election spending limit for the first time in the party's history, things don't look good for the Liberals going into this campaign.

On Vacation

2008-08-22T08:13:00.002-06:00

As you can tell by the title of the post and the above picture, I'm heading out for a week-long vacation in the tropical paradise of.... Manitoba. Well, that's not entirely true as there will be a brief sojourn out to Kenora, Ontario. Because of this I won't be blogging for all of next week. Look out for new posts starting around Labour Day. In the meantime, have fun and stay safe!

Dalton For Leader?

2008-08-21T10:05:00.000-06:00

No election has been called yet, but it looks like some pundits don't think Stephane Dion has any chance when it does come. So much so that there is more speculation as to who will succeed Dion as Liberal Party Leader, rather than their chances of winning an election. There are the usual names being bantered about: Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, Martha Hall-Findlay, etc. A new name that is starting to make the rounds now is none other than Dalton McGuinty.

Apparently the man who bears a large part of the responsibility for Ontario's economic free fall, and has oversaw the province's downward spiral towards have-not status, is apparently would be the right person to take the Liberals back to the promised land. Correct me if I'm wrong but he doesn't sound like the most qualified person for the job of Prime Minister, the ultimate goal of anyone who becomes the leader of a political party (aside from the Bloc).

I do have to admit that he does seem to have all the credentials to be the next federal Liberal Leader... he lies to voters, blames others for his mistakes, and makes sure that his buddies are well looked after.

The Ghosts of Stippergate

2008-08-20T11:50:00.001-06:00

Remember Strippergate?

Well some of the remnants from that 2004 scandal are still causing some problems in Ottawa.

"Federal Immigration Minister Diane Finley had almost $15,000 worth of security equipment installed at her residence and riding office because of concerns over her personal safety, Sun Media has learned.
Security measures for the minister were tightened in the wake of threats received due to her efforts to stop women being brought to Canada to work as strippers, sources told The Canadian Press last spring.
No details have been given on the nature of these threats, but the same sources confirmed they were directly tied to the Conservative bill that aimed to deny entry into the country to strippers, and that organized crime was behind them."

It makes one wonder whether or not Judy Sgro's decision to fast-track the controversial immigration applications, when she was Immigration Minister, was influenced by the same sort of individuals that are now making threats against people in the ministry office...

Not Bowing Down to the Chinese Dragon

2008-08-19T12:18:00.002-06:00

Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien has managed to crawl back into the public eye when he recently criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper for snubbing the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. This, even though Minister David Emerson and Secretary of Sport Helena Guergis were both sent to represent Canada in his place.

Seeing as Chretien has had a cozy relationship with Asian dictators in the past, it should come as no surprise. After all, it is viewed as taboo by the Liberals, as well as some on the left wing, for Canada to have a warm relationship with the United States, but it is okay to be close to murderous despots such as Cuba's Castro or China's communist dictators.

Prime Minister Harper did the right thing when he chose not to go to the Beijing Olympics. Jean Chretien and the rest of the Liberals just don't seem to understand what China is really like. That, or they simply choose to ignore it. Why do the Liberals think that Canada should ignore China's human rights abuses, just so that we don't anger the Chinese and possibly hurt Canadian business interests there?We shouldn't

The following Youtube video illustrates many of the reasons why the Prime Minister did not want to become part of the giant propaganda exercise, otherwise known as the Beijing Olympics. Sorry, but the embedding option for the video was turned off, so you'll have to follow the link to watch it.

WATCH IT HERE

Atoning for Past Pop Culture Crimes

2008-08-19T09:20:00.006-06:00

Should it be the responsibility of a previous generation to apologize for the crimes it committed against pop culture in the past? Specifically Gen-X for the phenomenon that was late-80s / early-90s pop music that they hoisted upon the world.

Well Junker at Celestial Junk thinks so, and so do I.

Candidate Resignations: More Bad News For the Liberals

2008-08-18T14:10:00.006-06:00

The last two weeks have not been kind to Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party, as they saw five of their nominated candidates quit. The rapid succession in which the announcements were made public is one of the most amazing aspects of the whole thing. For a political party to lose that many candidates in such a short time is almost unheard of. But could it be a sign of a larger problem for the Liberal Party?

So far the list of the latest Liberals to quit their candidacies are: Robert Morrissey in Egmont, Garry Oledzki in Palliser, Parrissa Aujla in Pitt Meadows–Maple Ridge–Mission Liberal, Buffy Baumbrough in Okanagan-Shuswap, and Jake Gray in Langley. Aujla and Baumbrough's resignations must have been a particularly hard pill for Dion to swallow, as it strikes a blow against his affirmative action plan of having 1/3 women Liberal candidates for the next election.

Evidence is quickly piling up that suggests Morrisey and Oledzki both quit their candidacies partly due to the unpopularity of Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan in Maritimes and Saskatchewan. It'll be a tough sell to Prince Edward Islanders who are already paying high energy bills and high fuel prices. As it must also be to people from Saskatchewan, who are now enjoying their new found prosperity that has resulted from the development of their province's energy industry.

The reason for the two B.C. resignations may have a simple explanation. Both Aujla, Baumbrough, and Gray likely dropped out because they realized that if they ran in an election under the Liberal banner, they were going to lose by large margins in these three strong Tory ridings. It also doesn't them that Dion is campaigning for a carbon tax, a similar policy to the unpopular one that Premier Gordon Campbell hoisted upon British Columbians earlier this summer.

Any way you slice it, the bad news continues to pile up for Stephane Dion and the Liberals. En masse candidate resignations is just one more sign of how troubled the Liberal Party currently is.

Make Your Own Caption 3

2008-08-15T13:15:00.003-06:00

The subject for this edition of Right on Course's Make Your Own Caption is this photo of Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff sharing a close moment...

American Military Deserter Ordered Home

2008-08-14T14:15:00.002-06:00

The court ruling, and subsequent deportation of US Army deserter Robin Long last month appears to have set a precedent with regards as to how Canadian Immigration officials deal with the so-called 'war resisters', who are in this country, claiming to be refugees. 'War Resisters' is the term given to them by their leftist supporters.

It now appears that fellow deserter Jeremy Hinzman is going to be sent back to the United States by the end of September. This, after the Mississauga immigration office and Immigration Minister Diane Finley both rejected his application to stay in Canada as a Conscientious Objector status refugee. He has until September 23 to leave the country voluntarily, or face deportation. Of course he's already stating that he's going to appeal the ruling, but the outcome of such an appeal will likely be not to his liking.

The tide has finally turned against these foolish individuals, and their Canadian leftist anti-American allies. They have wasted too much of Immigration Canada's precious time trying to send them back to the US. It's about time the rest of them are sent home too.

Do Santa's Elves Vote Liberal?

2008-08-13T09:55:00.006-06:00

The completely unequal treatment that Elections Canada gives with respect to the Conservative Party and Liberal Party continues. And this time it's taken an almost bizarre turn.

Conservative Queen has managed to find donation returns that the Liberals submitted to Elections Canada back in 2006. Among the donors that are listed, 6 of them were listed as having the postal code HOH-OHO. Yes, apparently these Liberal donors live up at the North Pole with Santa.

Of course there was no investigation or action taken by Elections Canada with regards to the donations. If it was the Conservatives who had done something like this, there likely would have been a full-scale investigation into the entire Conservative Party donation structure. But when it comes to Elections Canada, unequal treatment is now the name of the game.

Mayrand and his buddies surely deserve a lump of coal for Christmas this year.

ht: Conservative Queen

Indian America?

2008-08-12T11:40:00.004-06:00

Just when you thought that Comrade Chavez couldn't get any crazier, he comes up with his latest idea: change Latin America's name to Indian America.

The idea makes sense to me. After all, South and Central America can only flourish once the last vestiges of European imperialism are removed. This includes the name by which they are collectively referred to by.

Or maybe, just maybe, the answer is removing the stench of corruption, poverty, and dictatorship that continues to emanate from certain nations on the continent. Venezuela being chief amongst them.

Doug Finley Booted From the Ethics Kangaroo Court

2008-08-11T12:43:00.004-06:00

The House of Commons Ethics Committee kangaroo court seems to have taken a turn for the bizarre when Conservative Party political operations head Doug Finley showed up two days early for the Liberal inquisition into the 'In-and-Out' scandal. Seeing as this would interrupt the Liberals' meticulously planned witness list (to make the Tories look bad), and the fact that Finley refused to leave, Chair Paul Szabo had security escort Finley out.

The media of course are saying that Finley's appearance today was a carefully orchestrated move by the Tories in order to try to create controversy. And yet, they still refuse to call this a media stunt.

More Absentee Senators

2008-08-08T16:09:00.001-06:00

It's that time of year again... time for that annual article that comes out showing how awful the attendance records for some of this county's unelected Senators really are, and frankly it looks like the same old story once again.

"A third of Canada's senators fail to show up as much as half of the time, claiming business and sick days as an excuse to miss work.

A review of the Senate's attendance records from October to May reveals that 29 of the current 91 senators for whom the Senate clerk's office has records have an attendance record ranging fromzero to 7 5%.
...

Some of the absences are for fact-finding trips abroad to study finance, justice or similar issues in other countries.
"A lot of them are just globetrotters, let's face it," said Martin"

Of course there are some Senators that do take their jobs seriously and show up for work on a very regular basis. Senators Gerald Comeau and Fernand Robichaud, both of whom have 100% attendance in the Red Chamber, are just two examples.

That being said, the fact that this is an ongoing annual problem with the Senate. I am curious as to the identities of the Senators that have managed to wrack up an impressive 0% attendance record (getting into Paul Martin's territory there), and why on earth the Clerk's office accepted their absences.

Expect to see calls from the NDP to abolish the Senate, and demands for Senate reform from the Conservatives, on the heels of this latest review. The Liberals, however, will simply argue that there is no need for change when it comes to the Senate; they don't see a problem. It also isn't in their best interest to see the Senate reformed or abolished, as they would lose one of the instruments of power that they have managed to co opt for themselves.

While Senate reform or abolishment has been overdue for quite some time. But thanks to the Liberal Senate majority, the changes (ie. term limits) that Prime Minister has already tried to enact have failed.

Nothing has changed... the Liberal Senators believe that they are entitled to their entitlements.

Servants of God?

2008-08-08T08:28:00.003-06:00

Do these people look like they're true servants of God?

Luckily border officials did the right thing and blocked these nutters from entering the country to protest beheading victim Tim McLean's funeral. Between these freaks, and the whackjobs from PETA, this case looks like it's only going to become more of a circus from here on in.

Elections Canada's Double Standard

2008-08-07T15:07:00.000-06:00

Marc Mayrand and Elections Canada have given the Liberals yet another gift. Today, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, like the leadership candidates he defeated, was given an extension to pay off his leadership debt. As it now stands, Dion must be debt free by the end of 2009. So after the 1 1/2 years which he had already been allowed to try to pay off his debts, Dion now has been granted an additionall 18 months as well? How does that work?

According to election laws, extensions can be permitted if Elections Canada deems that there are reasonable grounds to do so, as well as if there is a pre-approved debt repayment plan in place. Based on this, as well as the extensions given to the other leadership candidates, it appears that the system is an arbitrary one wherein the decision depends on the opinion Marc Mayrand and his bureaucrat compatriots have of the candidate and of the party to which they belong to.

Do you think that such an extension would have been given to a Conservative leadership contestant? Given the biased and overzealous way in which Elections Canada has gone after the Conservative Party for an election financing practice that is not illegal, and which all the other federal parties practice, I highly doubt it. Any Conservative candidate that would miss the deadline likely would be fined, not given a little warning and an extension.

Aside from an inability to raise funds, there is no reasonable excuse as to why Dion and the failed Liberal leadership contestants should be given extensions. In fact, it has become readily apparent that there has been a general lack of desire within the Liberal Party to quickly pay of the leadership debts. Could it be that they were under the assumption that an election would be fought and won by the Liberals before the deadline came about? Did they see a scenario where, if they became government, party fundraising would pick up, allowing the leadership debts to be quickly paid off.

In any case, Elections Canada is quickly showing Canadians that there is a double standard based on which political party they are dealing with.

PETA Crosses the Line

2008-08-07T08:51:00.004-06:00

For me, coming from a family of veterinarians, I have a special place of hatred in my heart for PETA and the loons that support it. But even this has to be the sickest thing that I've ever heard them try to do.

PETA's beheading ad spurned

Nice to know that the Loony Left would trivialize such a story of human tragedy to try to promote their extremist cause.

h/t Halls of Macademia

Toronto Area Mosque Accused of Ties to Terrorism

2008-08-07T08:27:00.003-06:00

The mosque that is helping accused terrorist Abdullah Khadr, brother of Omar Khadr and son of Ahmed Said Khadr, fight his legal battle may itself have links to terrorism.

"The centre has raised $50,000 for his bail through community donations, and has offered Khadr an office job. The board of the centre has also agreed to pay for the electronic monitoring device for two years, said Abdul Ibrahim, the manager of the centre. Ibrahim rejected the Crown's attempt to show the centre is an inappropriate workplace for Khadr. The Crown claimed it's a venue often frequented by individuals with links to terrorism.
Lead prosecutor Howard Piafsky told the court that the Khadr patriarch Ahmed Said Khadr, who was believed to have close ties to Osama bin Laden and many of those charged in the so-called Toronto 18 terrorist plot, often visited the centre and used its facilities.
Ibrahim said the mosque is open to everyone, and has a congregation of thousands. "Anyone is welcome to pray. We don't say no to any Muslim," he said. When asked about his own relationship to one of the Toronto 18, Ibrahim denied knowing the man. However, when shown a passport application where he signed as a guarantor for the man, Ibrahim changed his answer, saying that he knew "a lot of people.""

I wonder if the centre also gets funding from Saudi Arabia as well.

The Oprah Effect Touches Politics

2008-08-06T16:17:00.005-06:00

Is it me, or does it seem wrong that so many people would cast their vote for a Presidential candidate just because one person told them to do so?

Study: Oprah endorsement worth 1 miilion votes to Obama

The Embarrassment of Being a Liberal

2008-08-06T12:06:00.005-06:00

It must be truly embarrassing to be federal Liberal these days. Here are four quick reasons why the party is in serious trouble:

1) Leadership

Stephane Dion has shown quickly in the time since he was first elected as Liberal Leader that he is not a leader, and thus is incredibly inept at his job. He has become a national joke, who continues to lose respect amongst Canadians days by day. As a result he has slowly started to become nothing more than a figurehead within his party, as leadership hopefuls are actively undermining him, and people within the openly party mock him.

2) Debt

The Liberals are swimming in debt from both the their 2006 leadership race and from the substantial loan which was taken out just for the party to stay in operation. Because money is such a precious commodity within the Liberal Party these days, the national party has resorted to emptying the coffers of local Liberal EDAs in order to pay off the party's loan. Not helping the situation are the former leadership contestants' efforts to pay off their debts, and how they are competing directly for funds with party.

3) Lawsuits

Adding further strain on Liberal financial resources are the two separate lawsuits that have been launched against the party. One has been filed by Prime Minister Harper for defamation, while the other is from the environmental consulting firm Green Shift over the issue of trademark violation. Both lawsuits were completely avoidable if not for Liberal arrogance and stupid decision making.

4) Fundraising Problems

The Liberal Party's fundraising structure is broken and utterly useless at this point. Jean Chretien's final parting shot at Paul Martin outlawed the traditional way in which the Liberal Party raises money (from the rich and corporate Canada), and has created a climate where the Tories are outpacing every single party money-wise. Because of this the Liberals are having trouble raising funds, and it has become near impossible to pay of the party's debt and fight multi-million dollar lawsuits. The possibility that the Liberals might eventually be forced to declare bankruptcy becomes ever more real as time passes.

For the party once known as "Canada's Natural Governing Party", things are not looking good.

Should the Bay to be Carved Up?

2008-08-06T10:30:00.007-06:00

Should the new owners of HBC be considering carving up the company and selling it off in chunks, in a real estate play? Well Sean Silcoff of the National Post thinks that the company as a whole is beyond saving, and that they should treat it like a Thanksgiving turkey (story).

If The Bay were to be divvied up as Silcoff recommends, it would be a shame and a huge loss of Canadiana.

Dion is Starting to Back Down

2008-08-05T15:09:00.000-06:00

Many people, including myself, may have made the mistake of taking Stephane Dion's latest ruminations of forcing an early election as genuine. It now appears that Liberal strategists have told Dion that he needs to back off the early election rhetoric, as the Liberals are in no shape to fight an election. Advice that Dion should, and probably will, heed in the end. Just wait for the next round of mass-abstentions by the Liberals from confidence votes this fall.

All of this really should come as no surprise. After all, Dion has become notorious for building up his personal election bravado, only to back down in the end when he has been brought back to reality by higher-ups within the Liberal Party.

In fact Stephane actually tends to follow a cycle when it comes to his embarrassing election waffling. As Steve Janke puts it so eloquently, Dion follows the 'Stephane Dion Election Cycle'. We are in the process of witnessing this pattern yet again.

What an embarrassment.

Maybe They Really Liked Her Music

2008-08-05T09:22:00.005-06:00

Long before she put out so much bad music... long before she used taxpayers money to prop up her career by way of hundreds of television specials on the CBC...Rita Macneil was a feminist musician in the 1970s who was spied on by the RCMP.

Maybe the RCMP just really liked her music that much...

Have a Great Long Weekend

2008-08-01T15:50:00.006-06:00

Have a great August long weekend!

Or depending on which province you live in have a happy British Columbia Day / Heritage Day / Saskatchewan Day / Natal Day / Civic Holiday long weekend!

The Tories Are Daring the Liberals to Get on With It

2008-08-01T13:24:00.001-06:00

The other day I commented on how Stephen Harper's Conservative government might be considering playing a game of 'Parliamentary chicken' with the Liberals, daring them to either pass the Tory agenda or force an election this fall. From the looks of it, that is exactly what the Prime Minister has intends on doing.

From all accounts the Conservatives are willing and ready to fight an election, and now are essentially daring the Liberals to bring down their government this the fall. By placing key pieces of legislation on the ledger for the fall session Harper is setting the stage for either another embarrassing incident for the Liberals, if they back down, or a fall/winter election. An election that he wants, and in which he sees as a way of finally destroying the Liberals' image as 'Canada's Natural Governing Party'

From the looks of it, the Liberals are looking for any way of getting rid of Stephane Dion that they can find... even if it means handing another mandate the way of Prime Minister Harper.

Will Dion and the Liberals take the Conservative's bait?

Castro: "Edmonton has become a dumping ground"

2008-08-01T12:00:00.003-06:00

Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has labeled Edmonton a 'dumping ground' following the defection of two junior baseball players, who were in the city to play in an international baseball tournament.

Frankly, as an Edmontonian, I take it as a badge of pride that a bloodthirsty third world communist dictator mad at my city.

"He Doesn't Look Like All Those Other Presidents"

2008-08-01T09:36:00.008-06:00

It looks like Barack Obama himself is throwing down the race card.

Here's some advice for Obama: Don't say that McCain's campaign will be using racial attack against you in the campaign, wait until it actually happens (I doubt that it would). Otherwise you just come across looking like a fool that is trying to smear your opponent. Oh wait... nevermind.

h/t: Hot Air

Holland's Ten-Percenter Rage

2008-07-31T11:07:00.002-06:00

So 'Sticky Fingers' Mark Holland, Liberal MP for Ajax-Pickering, is upset at the Conservatives for sending partisan government-funded ten-percenters into his riding. So much so that he's making a complaint with the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy. Apparently he doesn't like the idea that his seat is being targeted by the Conservatives for the next election.

However, I bet he's not making winning any brownie points amongst his colleagues in the Liberal Party though. Why? Because the Liberals, in addition to every single party with elected MPs, sends out the government-funded mailers for partisan political purposes into ridings they do not hold. Essentially the same thing that Holland is complaining about.

Take a Liberal ten-percenter that recently was mailed out to constituents in Edmonton Centre, sponsored by none other than Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. It just so happens that the riding is not held by the Liberals, but is currently represented by Conservative MP Laurie Hawn. As Edmonton Centre is Anne McLellan's old riding, it is currently on the Liberal target list for the next election. Dion's mailer is not unique as other prominent Liberal MPs have also sponsored ten-percenters that have been sent to Edmonton Centre constituents.

The subject of this particular ten-percenter was the environment, and it discussed how poor the Liberals believe Conservative government's environmental record is poor, and explained why the Liberal plan was supposedly better. Instead of asking the constituent for feedback, as most ten-percenters do, the one Dion sent out simply asked if the reader wanted to sign up for Liberal Party updates.

Pretty partisan I'd say.

The IOC's Chinese Censorship Deal

2008-07-30T16:06:00.002-06:00

It was widely known that the upcoming Beijing Olympics are going to be nothing more than propaganda for Chinese Communist Party. We're meant to see the sanitized and false image of life in China, while the ugly truth remains hidden under the surface.

The International Olympic Committee, by aiding Chinese government censorship, has now lost the remaining credibility that it still possessed, and because of it, the Olympic games themselves are nothing but a sham.

Story: IOC admits to media censorship deal with China

Parliamentary Chicken

2008-07-30T11:20:00.000-06:00

With Stephane Dion making public grumblings about forcing an election in the fall, and with the Marc Mayrand allowing the Liberals to focus on party fundraising instead of leadership debt retirement, the Conservatives are now gearing up for an election. This leads me to ask the question: are the Conservatives going to play yet another game of 'Parliamentary chicken' with the Liberals again?

After successfully playing the game earlier this year with their first round of 'tough on crime' legislation, Stephen Harper's Conservative government appears to be moving forward with plans for a second set of crime legislation reforms, just in time for the fall session. Coincidence? I don't think so.

The Conservatives were perfectly content last spring to have possibly been brought down on their crime legislation. However, at the last minute, and after much fireworks and in-fighting, the Liberals capitulated and allowed for the Tory crime bill to become law. It only makes sense to wait and see if the Liberals are actually serious about having an election, and try to bring forward yet another round of unpalatable (for the Liberals) justice reforms, and daring Dion to bring them down over the issue of crime.

In this scenario, if the government falls on the new crime legislation, the Tories would not only have the ability to campaign against Stephane Dion's 'tax on everything' carbon tax, but they would also be able to campaign on the issue of crime. Crime and justice are of course the policy areas where they are viewed as stronger on than the Liberals. The other outcome would be equally favourable, allowing the Conservatives would see their new justice bill become law, embarrassing the Liberals in the process.

Let's see if Stephane Dion and the Liberals chicken out again.

Another "Chow Chow" Incident

2008-07-29T14:51:00.003-06:00

Do we have another "Chow Chow" incident on our hands? Coming from the Guelph by-election, the nephew of the Liberal candidate has called CPC candidate Gloria Kovach a seal, using a picture of one to boot.

h/t Christian Conservative

Dion's 'Green Shaft' Will Worsen Poverty

2008-07-29T13:46:00.004-06:00

What is the most effective way of combating poverty? Could it be a suite of massive anti-poverty programs, administered by a unwieldy bureaucracy, funded by funneling resource revenues from specific regions of the country to Ottawa, while killing those industries in the process?

Stephane Dion's 'Green Shift' (not to be confused with Green Shift Inc., whose name was stolen by the Liberals) carbon tax plan is an attempt to mask a tax grab as an environmental initiative, in order to fund Liberal social spending programs. In essence, the Liberals are trying to accomplish what I just described. However, the Liberal Party does not realize that the carbon tax will increase the cost of living for everyone, especially for those who are in the low income tax bracket. No series of tax cuts for these people will allow them to recoup the extra money they will be forced to pay on every single expenditure. It will end up further weakening their economic position.

The "Stop The War On The Poor" campaign in the United States understands this sort of relationship, and that's why they see Alberta's Oil Sands as a way to help the poor. They are currently advocating for increased Oil Sands production as it might help lower the already high energy prices in North America; something that is hurting the poor. Dion's plan would have the opposite effect as this.

But then again, it is the Liberal modus operandi to make Canadians dependent on federal government social programs, and thus the Liberal Party. Dion's 'Green Shift' tax grab would certainly go a long way to accomplishing this. A vicious, deliberate cycle.

The Alberta Government's Stand on Human Rights Commissions

2008-07-29T11:02:00.003-06:00

You want to see what the Alberta government's position on the kangaroo court known as the Alberta Human Rights Commission? Check out the response Hunter from Climbing Out of the Dark got from Premier Ed Stelmach's office when he wrote an email regarding the issue here.

Make Your Own Caption 2

2008-07-29T10:34:00.002-06:00

The subject of this edition of Make Your Own Caption is none other than Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. Doesn't he look spiffy in that bow tie and suit? Enjoy!

My Trust Has Been Lost

2008-07-29T09:07:00.003-06:00

If this is fair, then how can this and this be fair?

I never thought that I would see the day when I would lose faith and trust in the public institution charged with ensuring that our democracy is preserved. However, in light of the gross bias that Elections Canada has shown with regards to how it deals with the Liberal Party in comparison to the Conservative Party, I can say that I have.

Stephane Dion's Leadership is Merely a Formality

2008-07-28T12:12:00.006-06:00

There is more evidence that Stephane Dion is not really in charge of his party anymore?

Today's Hill Times contains an article reporting on scheduled meetings that Dion has made with top Liberal next month. The discussions will be about bringing down the Harper government, and triggering an election this fall . However, for an article supposedly about Liberal planning for an election, the topic quickly turns towards the question of how forces within the Liberal Party are already planning for a new leadership race.

An anonymous Liberal MP is quoted in the article as saying:

"The MP said he was surprised by the question, but also said it appears that Liberals have accepted that Stéphane Dion's presence at the top of the party is just a formality and that activities for positioning in anticipation of the leadership convention are becoming more and more evident."

There you have it, Stephane Dion's position as Leader of the Liberal Party is merely a formality at this point.

Supporters of both the Ignatieff and Rae camps are now moving against one-another, trying to position their candidates for a leadership race. There might even be concerted attempts to wrestle control of the party apparatus away from Stephane Dion's people. Such would be the case if Alf Apps, a key Ignatieff strategist and organizer, is elected to the position of Liberal Party President.

The question now becomes: does Dion really want an election, or is he being forced into triggering one by factions within the Liberal Party? Those who just want the party to suffer an election loss so that a new leadership race can begin.

The Liberals Go Tax Crazy

2008-07-25T14:58:00.002-06:00

Stephane Dion really intends to tax everything under the sun if he ever becomes Prime Minister. In addition to his proposed carbon tax on everything, which would raise the cost of living for Canadians across the board, he now wants to impose a carbon tariff on goods manufactured in high polluting countries. With such a tariff in place, he hopes to convince countries such as India and China, high polluting countries which are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol, to change their ways and move towards 'greener' behaviour.

Yeah right.

In comparison to the United States and Europe, Canada comprises a relatively small trading partner with whom these economic giants do business with. To think that Canada can change India and China's environmental practices (or lack thereof) is both ignorant and arrogant. These powerhouses would likely shrug off any such attempt, maybe even retaliate with tariffs of their own.

When faced with the new higher prices, because of the tariff, importing firms, would simply pass the extra cost on to the consumer, as Chinese-manufactured goods would still be cheaper than Canadian-produced ones. If Dion had any intention of producing another tariff program in the mode of Sir John A. MacDonald, to force the West to be the market for Eastern-produced goods this would be a failure. Canadians have seen that goods can be produced cheaper in other countries... and this tariff would still not make up the difference. This would add even more strain on Canadian families, who would already by paying higher prices because of Dion's carbon tax. Could there even be the case where double-taxation where Dion's carbon tax would end up taxing products that have already been hit with the carbon tariff?

It looks like Stephane Dion is already having a hard time selling the carbon tariff to his own caucus. How is he going to sell it to Canadians, whom he's having trouble selling his carbon tax plan to? Like the carbon tax, the carbon tariff is nothing but a form of taxation meant to fund Liberal social spending, aall the while lying to Canadians about how it will help the environment.

Seems as if it is the Liberal Party with the 'hidden agenda'.

Make Your Own Caption

2008-07-25T11:27:00.002-06:00

How about a little fun? Make a funny caption for the following picture of Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff, taken at the Liberal leadership convention in 2006. Be as creative as you can!

And They're Off!

2008-07-25T08:37:00.005-06:00

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just dropped the writ for the three by-elections, scheduled to be held on September 8 (story).

It looks like this cuts off any chance that Stephane Dion had for bringing down the government in the fall. After all, how can he justify such a move after three expensive by-elections would have just been decided just a month earlier?

Dion's Election Reasoning

2008-07-24T12:02:00.004-06:00

Why is Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party posturing themselves to bring down the government in the fall? They have put themselves in this position before; but the result has always seen them back down and allow the Conservative government to survive, embarrassing themselves in the process.

Yesterday I stated that one of the reasons why Dion is now eager to go to the polls is because of his belief that his carbon tax plan will propel the Liberal Party to victory in an election, even though the opinion polls indicate otherwise.

Some of the commentors on yesterday's post mused about different possible reasons why Dion may be gearing up to try to bring down Stephen Harper's government in the fall. I will analyze a couple of them and give my opinions.

Dion wants to go into an election in order to fend off any sort of confidence vote on his leadership that could happen in December.

I'm not sure that this would be a strong enough reason for Dion, who has already built up a false impression of his own leadership skills and popularity. He is likely be working under the assumption that he would win any leadership confidence vote. Besides, I'm fairly certain the Liberals are willing to go into an election with Dion at the helm. A defeat would grant them a better, less embarrassing, reason to dump Dion rather than doing so prior to an upcoming election.

This is Dion's last chance to bring down the government before it gets too close to the 2009 October fixed election date.

I agree somewhat with this point. Dion knows that the longer the Conservatives are allowed to govern, by the Liberals propping them up, the harder it is for him to claim that Harper's government bad enough for Canadians to make a change in favour of the Liberals. I could just see Dion during the debates, squirming to try to explain why his party propped up the Conservative government for almost three years before finally pulling the plug. It wouldn't go well for him. The Conservatives know this, and will use it against the Liberals during an election.

Whatever myriad of reasons Dion is using to justify his latest election threat are based on false assumptions. An election defeat, which there is a high likelihood for the Liberals, would devastate the party for years to come. Donations would dry up, support would bleed away to both the Conservatives and the NDP, and the Grits might even be forced to declare bankruptcy.

Also, isn't it strange that the Liberals are giving the Conservatives this much advance notice before possibly bringing them down? After all, they are allowing the Tories time to prepare for a fall/winter election if Dion follows through with his latest threats.

But who ever said that Dion's Liberals are strategic wizards?

We've Heard This Before

2008-07-23T13:39:00.011-06:00

We've all heard Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's many rumblings about forcing an election. Every threat in the past has led to embarrassment, and then backing down from their posturing. This has allowed Stephen Harper's Conservative government to keep governing, and this time will be no different.

Dion has told Canadians that they want an early election. This assertion is downright arrogant, and flies in the face of reality. Every single poll which has asked whether Canadian voters want an election has come back with the same simple answer: NO.

So why does Dion think he wants an election now? Probably because he is under the delusion, possibly as a result of his smarter-than-everyone complex and his advisors's bad advice, that the Liberal "Green Shifty" carbon tax plan will resonate with Canadians and lead the "natural governing party" to an election victory. However, as has been shown over the course of month since the plan was first released, this is not the case.

Dion may be leading the Liberals into a slaughter if he follows through with his latest election threat.

Human Right's Complaint: Update 2

2008-07-23T09:53:00.002-06:00

There are some new developments in my friend's human rights complaint with the AHRC for the language discrimination she encountered when trying to find a doctor in Alberta. You can read the original post describing her story here. It turns out after doing a little more research, that the clinic that she attempted to go to bills itself as being Alberta's only bilingual facility. Not one that is specifically for French speakers only like they told her.

After talking with a human rights lawyer from the Commission on the phone, she downloaded the complaint form off the internet and filled it out. It can be found here for your viewing pleasure. As you can see, the form itself isn't very long or complicated at all, which is interesting as some of the human rights complaints that the Commission sees can get very complicated.

On the form, there is a place where a box is to be checked for the type of discrimination the person has experienced. What was concerning is that there is no box for discrimination based on language in that section. Interesting...

But we'll have to see where this goes now. The complaint has been submitted, and now we wait.

"There's No Smoking Hot Spot"

2008-07-22T12:57:00.003-06:00

Australian scientist David Evans, a former global warming alarmist-turned-skeptic, has dealt a heavy blow to the greenhouse gas theory in the Australian newspaper The Australian. You can read the article he wrote here.

Evans is the man who created the model that Australia uses to measure their CO2 emissions for Kyoto compliance. In essence it is the Australian equivalent of David Suzuki changing his position on climate change. Here are some key excerpts from his article:

"There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming."

...

"The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling."

...

"The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect."

...

"The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory."

And finally, a warning for the Aussie Labour government and their proposed carbon tax. Maybe Stephane Dion should heed it as well.

"The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it."

Al Gore, David Suzuki, and the rest of the environmental left must be fuming right now.

Paul Martin Watch: Spotted!

2008-07-21T09:52:00.004-06:00

Former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin has been spotted once again, this time arguing in favour of reforming the International Monetary Fund. He believes that the current credit crisis in the Western nations shows that these nations no longer have the 'moral authority' to control the world economy through organizations such as the IMF.

Aside from the utter hypocrisy of this statement, coming from a millionaire former Canadian Prime Minister, I argue that Paul Martin has lost the moral authority to continue holding his position as an MP.

Rather than represent his constituents in the House of Commons, the job that he was elected to do in 2006, the disgraced former Prime Minister has been absent from his seat since the election. Instead, he has been engaging in activities that regularly only former PMs only do after they have ceased to be MPs. In the meantime, he collects a nice MP's salary for doing almost no work, while adding to his already fat MP pension.

Not a bad gig apparently.

Robin Long Given Glimpse of His Future

2008-07-18T15:04:00.001-06:00

Robin Long, the US Military deserter deported to the US after years of fighting for refugee status in Canada because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, has been given a glimpse of what kind of military justice he might face at his upcoming court martial. Fellow 'war resister' James Burmeister, who returned to the US earlier this year, has been given a dishonourable discharge and sentenced to 9 months in military prison (story).

Such cruelty!

It's hardly the kind of cruel and unusual punishment that Long has claimed that he would face if he was deported.

The Ethics Kangaroo Court

2008-07-18T12:17:00.000-06:00

The Ethics Committee is set to become a sort of perverse kangaroo court, with the Liberals acting as judge, jury, and executioner. A kangaroo committee if you will.

Paul Szabo, Liberal MP for Mississauga South, chairs the committee and has displayed a sickening amount partisanship when it came to choosing witnesses for the committee's investigation into Conservative campaign financing practices (the In-and-Out scandal). Of the 78 witnesses selected by Szabo to testify before the committee, all of them were referred by the Opposition parties. That's right, not a single Conservative witness was selected; meaning the Tories will have no one appearing before the Committee to testify on their behalf.

Imagine that you have been charged with a crime and your case is before the court. Now imagine that the judge has ruled that you cannot call any witnesses to testify for your defense; only the prosecution can do so to bolster their case against you. Not very fair or just is it?

This is exactly the kind of scenario that is unfolding here. Essentially the proceedings will consist of a series of Liberal hand-picked witnesses coming forward to tell the Committee that what the Conservatives did was wrong and illegal, without a single dissenting view in support of the Tories' position being heard.

Thanks to the Liberals and the other Opposition parties, the Ethics Committee's investigation will be anything but fair... or for that matter, ethical.

The Liberals desperately want the Conservatives to be found "guilty" by the Ethics Committee and are willing to use any unethical means to ensure that this is the outcome. Even though the other federal parties engage in the same sort of election campaign financing practice employed by the Conservatives in the In-and-Out scandal, and that there are no laws against doing so, the Liberals and their buddies at Elections Canada are out to politically embarrass and damage the governing party.

It's the same cynical politics that the Liberals are all too well known for.

Iggy's Pride

2008-07-17T12:54:00.004-06:00

Something tells me that Ignatieff didn't feel very comfortable being at the Toronto Gay Pride Parade....

Zytaruk Forced to Testify

2008-07-17T11:26:00.002-06:00

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's legal team won an important battle yesterday in the defamation lawsuit between Harper and the Liberal Party. An Ontario Superior Court judge granted an out-of-province subpoena which will force Tom Zytaruk to testify in the case. And when that does happen, Harper's lawyers can question Zytaruk regarding his now-suspicious taped interview between himsel and the Prime Minister, who was Leader of the Opposition at the time.

However, the most important aspect of the judge's ruling was the order for Zytaruk to produce the original tape and recorder on which the interview was recorded. In only this way can an audio analysis can be conducted on them to verify whether the original recording was doctored, or if just the subsequent copies were themselves manipulated.

I also suspect that Mr. Harper's lawyers have a something up their sleeves for Zytaruk's testimony. After all, he has been acting like a man that has something to hide, possibly with regards to the tapes themselves. Perhaps they have information that will completely blow the case out of the water, and show that the Liberal Party of Canada willfully and/or recklessly defamed the Prime Minister for cheap political gain.

Hint guys: if you're outside the House of Commons, you're not protected by parliamentary privilege anymore.

If it is shown that this was the case, then the Liberals could be faced with paying extremely large compensatory damages, and possibly even the PM's legal fees. This will devastate their already weak financial situation. However, this is something that they would have brought on themselves for foolishly building their house of cards on a shaky foundation.

Mugabe Is Excused

2008-07-16T15:35:00.009-06:00

This just in: Mugabe's excused for being a murderous tyrant because he stands up against West!

And just because Margolis doesn't check his facts: Mandela was on the US terrorist list for his activities before he renounced violence during his imprisonment. The United States hadn't removed him from the list until now.

Leave it to Eric Margolis to show us how looney the Looney Left can really be.

The Liberals and Regional Politics

2008-07-16T12:04:00.007-06:00

Now what was that about Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan not being used by the Liberals to play regional politics?

After all, the provinces that he's trying to pit against one another for his own political gain are already fighting over the issue of climate change. Alberta and Saskatchewan, the targets of the Green Shift' carbon tax, oppose the course of action that Quebec and Ontario want to take, the main beneficiaries of Dion's plan.

So it is only natural for the Liberals to try to play off these regional differences in order to win votes. How else can you explain why they have already offered special side deals to some provinces? I wonder what Danny Williams will have to say when he realizes that Dion's carbon tax will devastate his province's hot resource-based economy?

Luckily, the cynicism of the Liberal carbon tax plan is becoming more and more obvious to people across the country, due to the Liberals being their own worst enemies up to this point.

Robin Long Deported

2008-07-16T10:33:00.001-06:00

Robin Long's delusional fight for refugee status in Canada has come to an end. Yesterday, federal government officials deported the US Army deserter to the United States. This is a huge setback for the Canadian anti-Iraq War activists who had been working to obtain refugee status for Long and the other American military deserters. They wanted to embarrass the United States government, and now one of the ways in which they were hoping to accomplish this goal has slipped away.

Hopefully more of these 'war resisters' find themselves on planes back to the United States in the near future.

Galloway's Liberal Connection

2008-07-15T13:38:00.004-06:00

The apparently the cozy relationship between two prominent members of the media (Kady O'Malley and Gloria Galloway) and the Liberal Party, revealed by the blogger Conservative Queen, has the issue of political bias in the media yet again. However, Conservative Queen was unaware of an important fact that would put the story into a better context. Galloway is married to the Liberal Party official in the pictures.

You read correctly. Gloria Galloway is married to Mark Dunn, one of the senior Liberal Party strategists responsible for advising Stephane Dion. Something that CTV and the Globe and Mail have failed to disclose to the public.

Yet Galloway remains a 'non-partisan' political observer while writing her grossly biased political commentary. Her articles are often meant to attack the Conservative Party or undermine their credibility, while at the same time overlooking the glaring flaws of the Liberals.

Galloway routinely uses 'anonymous sources' as a means of attempting to look like she has insider Conservative knowledge. She has even gone to great lengths of trying to create controversy where there is none. All in a concerted effort to hurt the Conservative Party.

Somehow Galloway still manages to maintain her credibility as a 'unbiased' journalist.

The Embarrassment of the 'War Resisters'

2008-07-15T09:58:00.007-06:00

The final chapter in the case of US Army deserter Robin Long could be very well be unfolding, as his latest appeal to stay in Canada was rejected by a federal judge on Monday (story). This case could impact or influence the futures of other US Army deserters in Canada that are claiming to be refugees for refusing to fight in an 'unjust and illegal' war in Iraq.

Does Robin Long look like a refugee to you?

This situation with these so-called 'war resisters', as Long and his fellow deserters are called by their anti-American and anti-Iraq War counterparts, has gone on far too long. It is also embarrassing that some people in Canada actually believe they are, as their hatred of the United States and George W. Bush has blinded them so completely.

The deserters will not be persecuted when they are returned to the United States. The US is not a third world dictatorship where Long and his compatriots will be shot or unjustly imprisoned the moment they step off the plane. It is a Western, liberal democracy with a legals system based on the rule of law. The 'war resisters' voluntarily signed up for military service; they were not forcibly drafted against their will. These individuals ran away from the commitment that they made, and now the US military wants to hold them accountable for their actions.

When Long et al. finally are deported to the United States, they will face court marshals for their actions. These military charges normally either carry a penalty of a short jail sentence, or as is generally the case, a dishonourable discharge. How horrific!

What is astounding is that Immigration Canada officials are spending man hours dealing with this situation. when they could be working on the cases of actual refugees, who move to Canada for an opportunity to build a better life for themselve. But instead they are wasting time, money and energy trying to deport these clowns.

The Democratic Party of Canada?

2008-07-14T12:23:00.006-06:00

Michael Byers, the NDP's star candidate in Vancouver Centre, has recently come out in favour of changing the party's name. A name which the party has held since its inception in 1961 when the CCF and the CLC decided to become a single socialist party.

Here are some excerpts from the Globe and Mail where Byers advocates for the change.

It's time for the NDP to take on more maturity, he says, and drop the "New." He wants it to be called simply the Democratic Party, which would link it to the U.S. Democrats. "It's something that I'm personally proposing and will pursue," says Mr. Byers. "I've been talking to people. It resonates."

...

Just calling them the Democrats would also widen the party's reach, make it sound more accessible. "It will be an indicator of the maturity of the party," Mr. Byers says. He likes the U.S. connection. "In many ways, Barack Obama's platform is close to Jack Layton's platform."

Byers is correct, the 'New' in New Democrats is somewhat paradoxical for a party which celebrated its 47th birthday just last month.

However, one of the justifications that Byers gives for his proposed name change is very interesting. He wants the New Democrats to become associated with the US Democratic Party, and by default Democrat US Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Trying to link a socialist anti-American party from Canada with an American liberal political party absolutely smacks of political opportunism. The only reason why Byers wants to the NDP to have this kind of superficial connection is because of Obama's popularity amongst Canadians.

Byers also thinks that his proposed name change would be enough to re-energize the party and propel it to political success:

Without a breakout issue, the party needs an attention-getter, which a new moniker would provide. For years it has toyed with the idea of name changes, but has always backed away.

Give Canadians more credit. They will readily see through such a charade, as they have in the past. Other political parties have tried it, and without success. If this is one of the main reasons for the NDP to change their name, then they're in trouble.

If the New Democrats truly want to become a mainstream party, then they have to completely reinvent themselves. Simply using a band-aid solution such as a name change will not reverse their political fortunes.

Greenwashing and Smear Tactics

2008-07-14T08:47:00.003-06:00

Saturday's blog post seemed to cause a little bit of a stir amongst some of the supporters of the Dion carbon tax. In that post, I pointed out that a blog post, written by Thunder Bay - Rainy River Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff, regarding the 'Green Shift' tax plan, was further evidence that the tax was not about saving the environment. Rather, he wrote the plan was more about transferring wealth from one region of the country (Alberta and Saskatchewan) to be used for Liberal social spending. You can read what I wrote here.

Everyone's favourite turncoat MP Garth Turner quoted me in a blog post where he defended what Boshcoff said. In the same post, he went about trying his best to paint those concerned about Boshcoff’s comments as paranoid conspiracy theorists. He called me a foaming Tory to boot.

It unfortunately appears to be the case that the supporters of the Liberal carbon tax plan view any Albertan opponent as an extremist and an Ontario hater, and as someone who cannot let go of the past. Since when does voicing opposition to a plan you believe will destroy your province's economy, using evidence that comes right from the horse's mouth, count as paranoia? For the record, I do not hate Ontario and its people. I just dislike liberals, socialists, and those that would like to tear this great country apart.

But it's not just Alberta-based bloggers that have stated that the carbon tax is designed as a massive wealth transfer scheme. Non-Albertan conservative bloggers such as Steve Janke, Dr. Roy, Blue Blogging Soapbox, and Paul from Celestial Junk have already made similar assertions as I have. They see the tax for what it truly is. When you peel away all the layers of 'greenwash' and PR hype, the ‘Green Shift’ perpetuates the same old regional politics the Liberals have become famous for, and something that will hurt our country. This is all under the false pretenses of helping the environment…a 'greenwash' if you will.

The True Nature of Dion's 'Green Shift' is Revealed

2008-07-12T16:26:00.011-06:00

Although in Garth Turner's 'apology' he states Albertans should get over a 28 year old policy aimed at destroying Alberta's economy for the sake of winning Eastern votes, it appears that Albertan fears have been confirmed by means of an op-ed piece written by a Liberal backbench MP.

Ken Boshcoff, the MP for Thunder Bay - Rainy River, wrote the following statements regarding Stephane Dion's 'Green Shift' carbon tax program:

"The Liberal Party’s Green Shift announced on June 19th marked the most
aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The ‘shift’ will transfer
wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and
from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.

...

The Liberal Party’s Green Shift announced on June 19th marked the most
aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The ‘shift’ will transfer
wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and
from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.

...

I invite and encourage everyone to visit www.thegreenshift.ca to see how
this comprehensive plan will benefit low-income Canadians. I will continue
to work collaboratively with my Liberal colleagues towards a fairer, richer,
greener Canada."

The rest of his op-ed piece is available here.

So Albertans, and now Saskatchewanites, ought to worry, 28 years later, about the Liberals introducing a plan intended to destroy their economies in order to secure the Eastern vote. This time, the plan entitled: 'Green Shift', will transfer wealth to the east under the guise of environmental stewardship.

Say hello to the National Energy Program's successor.

Dion's plan will transfer wealth from hard-working people, in a region fueling the country's economic growth, into Liberal social spending. These are the same programs Stephane Dion has already announced, but did not offer an explanation as to how he would pay for them.

It has become readily apparent that Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party have been lying to Canadians about the true purpose of the 'Green Shift' carbon tax plan. Switch-and-bait tactics that play one region of the country against another is a time honoured Liberal tactic. You want to see how mad Western Canadians can get? Wait and see what would happen if Dion and the Liberals have the opportunity to implement their plan.

Stephane Dion and the Liberals must be stopped.

Edit: I realized that I had mispelled Boshcoff's name as Boschoff. I have made the necessary corrections to the post.

Harper is Accused of Attacking the Freedom of the Press

2008-07-11T14:41:00.006-06:00

By chance Tom Zytaruk has come out today with an op-ed piece for his newspaper, Surrey Now, the same day I wrote my blog post on him. In it he defends both himself and the integrity of his tape that he claims is the full interview that he had with Stephen Harper regarding the supposed attempted bribery of Chuck Cadman (story). He lashes out at the Prime Minister and Dona Cadman, claiming that neither of them are telling the truth. He is also claims that Harper's legal team is systematically persecuting him and making his life a living hell.

What is surprising, however, is one defense that Zytaruk has decided to use with regards to this issue. He claims that the Prime Minister, by attacking the authenticity of the tape, as well as calling him to testify before the lawsuit against the Liberals, is himself attacking the freedom of the press.

What a joke! There's nothing to suggest that is the case here. Harper is not going after Zytaruk in the lawsuit, he is suing the Liberals. The tape is THE integral part of the case, and if Harper can show that it was doctored, then the Liberals' defense gets blown out of the water.

By wrapping himself in the banner of the freedom of the press Zytaruk has managed to cast suspicion on himself, and his motives, in my opinion.

H/T: JDot

What Does Tom Zytaruk Have to Hide

2008-07-11T12:03:00.003-06:00

After having the authenticity of the taped interview between himself and Stephen Harper called into question last month, author Tom Zytaruk has been strangely quiet. Aside from his initial protestations that the tape was not doctored, and his comments about how he was disappointed in how Dona Cadman has now refuted his story, he has been almost silent. In fact, throughout the whole 'Cadman Affair' he has acted much like a man with a political axe to grind rather than an impartial journalist (if there is such a thing anymore).

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's legal team now wants Zytaruk to appear in court to testify in the defamation lawsuit between the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party. They have already publicly released expert evidence that the tape was edited, and have a signed affidavit from Dona Cadman which contradicts the story that Zytaruk's has gone on the record time and time again with.

But do Harper's lawyers have something up their sleeves that they could use to deal a crippling blow to the Liberals' legal case? And why do they need Zytaruk to do it? Does he know something that he's not telling?

What does Tom Zytaruk have to hide?

Dion Should Tell Hargrove to Buzz Off

2008-07-11T10:18:00.002-06:00

Buzz Hargrove, the outgoing President of the Canadian Auto Workers, has managed to foray back into the world of politics. The last time he did so he ended up campaigning for the Liberals in the 2006 federal election, and thus against the Conservatives and the NDP. I'm sure you remember his infamous quote where he advocated for Quebecers to vote Bloc, rather than the Conservatives or NDP if they would not vote Liberal?

Now Hargrove is contemplating running for the Liberals in the next federal election, resulting in another tough test of Stephane Dion's leadership. Hargrove, at first glance, may seem like a pretty tempting star candidate for the Liberals to bring in. But trust me, he will end up being more trouble than he is worth.

If you thought Garth Turner was a headache for Dion and the Liberals because of his inflammatory statements and propensity for causing controversy, Buzz will be ten times worse. His poor public performance during the 2006 election illustrates my point perfectly. And when he does not get his way, as is sometimes the case for anyone involved with a political party, he will likely end up making a very public temper tantrum. Hargrove also cannot be trusted. The NDP found this out first hand, and booted him from their party for it. It would likely not take long for Buzz to start undermining Dion's authority.

The Liberals are desperate and are having a difficult time finding good candidates to run for them in the next election. However, that doesn't mean that they have to take in a 'star candidate' of the ilk of Buzz Hargrove. If Stephane Dion had any leadership skills, he would decline Hargrove as a Liberal candidate and send him on his merry way.

But then again, Dion has made this type of mistake before.

I Have Confidence

2008-07-10T14:31:00.003-06:00

Seeing as today is a slow news day, I'll leave you with this cartoon.