RCMP Investigation: Lousy timing for the Liberals

Being subject to a criminal investigation during an election being fought largely on the question of ethics sounds like something from a sitcom.

It's hard to imagine a worse possible time:

The RCMP have begun a review of reported heavier-than-usual trading in income trusts and dividend-paying stocks ahead of an announcement last week that the federal government was increasing the tax credit on corporate dividends.

NDP finance critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis sent a letter of complaint to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police earlier this week requesting the probe into whether Bay Street insiders received advance knowledge of the announcement, Staff Sgt. Paul Marsh told Bloomberg News.

"The RCMP will review the information provided to determine if there is a basis to proceed with a criminal investigation," Marsh said.

"It would be inappropriate to speculate what action may or may not be taken."

Not just the RCMP, but other stock market regulators as well.

Finance Minister Ralph Goodale denied allegations that information was leaked.

Expect a lot of airplay, as well as some very pointed questions aimed at Paul Martin from the other party leaders during the leadership debates.

You have to wonder if maybe the Prime Minister should have taken the opposition up on its offer to start the election in mid-January.

The Liberal Party gets "bucked"

OK, I'm trying to coin a new term here, and I'm certain it will fall flat.

There was a pretty lousy but thoroughly enjoyable TV series in 1979 called "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" starring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray. If you are in your late 30s like me, you'll remember it.

In the pilot episode, Buck infiltrates the enemy mothership which is secretly carrying a wing of small attack bombers with which to attack Earth during a peace conference. Buck hides an explosive in each of the bombers' engines. The attack begins, the mother ship starts launching the bombers, the bombers immediately explode after clearing the launch bays.

Buck Rogers, rugged individualist, saves the day.

Why was I recalling this bit of silliness? Because it seems to be happening to Liberal Party mothership right now.

Funny thing is, the person most likely playing the role of Buck Rogers in this little play is not someone you'd expect.

The Abotech Affair: More leaks from inside Consulting and Audit Canada

More detailed information seems to leaking out from inside Consulting and Audit Canada. Is the information accurate? Some of it is. For the rest I can't say one way or another.

But it seemed so detailed and so damning that I'll post it -- you decide for yourself.

Belinda's friends

I was checking Belinda Stronach's new digs on the Web, and it strikes me that she has some interesting new friends to help her out with her campaign.

I guess she needs new ones since many of her former campaign workers are so angry with her that they're working hard to make sure Lois Brown, the new Conservative candidate, wins the riding of Newmarket-Aurora.

The Conservative Party Blog -- a comparison

I gave the Liberal Party Blog a rough ride for being a bit too much on the cute side.

Some people thought I nailed it; some thought I was missing the point.

Well, at the risk of sounding partisan, here is the Conservative Party Blog, and I think it strikes the right note, at least for me:

Welcome to the Tour Blog at conservative.ca. Over the next several weeks, I will attempt to provide an "inside" look at Stephen Harper's national tour as we cross the country speaking with Canadians about Stephen Harper and the positive Conservative vision for Canada. As a tour staffer, I hope to offer you a perspective from "inside the bus" as the Leader visits all corners of the country. Be sure to check back each day for the latest news from the road!

One staffer's log of the events and experiences of a campaign. No attacks or insults delivered in mocking tones, but insight and perspective written with respect for both the subject and the reader.

Sounds like the two blog capture perfectly the choice being presented to Canadians.

But then maybe I'm missing the point again.

Another Pierre Lemieux? And an idea for a blogroll...

From the Great Pumpkin, a tale of two Peters.

One is the CPC candidate for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, near Ottawa.

The other is another conservative figure, an economist and writer for the National Post, the Western Standard, and other major publications.

The first owns the domain www.pierrelemieux.ca, while the second owns .org and .com.

With the election underway, maybe the candidate Lemieux could use a bump up so he gets spotted first on searches, so go visit the site or link him up.

Which gives me an idea. I'd like to construct a blogroll of all CPC candidate websites. I've got one already, the address for candidate Lemieux. Help me out by sending me the links to any candidates you know. Identify what province they're running in. Let's see if we can construct the full list within a week.

And this is what happens...

...when you decriminalize marijuana.

You get The Official Blog of the Liberal Party of Canada:

Wow, look at me! I'm in "cyberspace," where no one can hear you scream. Or maybe they CAN hear you scream but they don't pay attention because they're too busy looking at naked ladies. Either way, stop screaming, would you?

I for one am betting this so-called "Internet" is really going to catch on. It's neato.

That really what's on the blog. No kidding.

Obviously there is a bit of tongue-in-cheek here (the Internet "catching on" is meant to be a joke), but it's also supposed to be a clever way of delivering the Liberal message of how scary Stephen Harper is, in this case, comparing Stephen Harper to the Grinch:

Remember, kids: one is grumpy and has a heart two sizes too small. And the other one's the Grinch.

That's a knee-slapper.

For me, I'll keep to my dry and serious presentation, with a special effort on being news-like. For those who want sophomoric wit and words like "neato" in their political discourse, well, you've got that other blog.

Remember: views expressed on this blog do not necessarily represent the policies or beliefs of Paul Martin. Except when I write about the hypnotic musical stylings of Nana Mouskouri. We're totally in sync on that.

One more thing I don't have in common with Paul Martin. I guess I did learn something from reading it, though it hardly seems to have been worth the effort.

I hope the Conservatives avoid the temptation of going all "cutesy".

[Hat tip to small dead animals]

The Gary Lunn Phone Call: Not so imaginary

Based on some nagging doubts and some solid information, I decided to double check into the story about the mysterious phone calls being made in the riding of Conservative MP Gary Lunn.

As you might recall, there was a story posted at Free Dominion, alleging that people in Gary Lunn's riding were getting calls from someone pretending to be representing Gary Lunn, and during the course of the conversation, dropping the bombshell that Gary Lunn does not support Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper.

That was reported on Sunday, two days ago.

Yesterday, I called Gary Lunn's office and spoke to Logan, an executive assistant, who said he had not heard of this, and that it was not likely to be true. We all chalked it up to an internet myth.

Another day has gone by. I just got off the phone with Logan, and the story has changed somewhat. True to his word, he found his boss and talked to him about it. This is what he understands happened. Someone did make a phone call to a constituent. As far as he knows, there was only one such phone call. That constituent heard something during that conversation that made him or her concerned, and then that person called Gary Lunn, who assured the constituent that all was well, including Gary Lunn's genuine support for Stephen Harper (which Logan pegged at 150%, something that, after a moment, caused us both to laugh because it seemed like such a cliche).

So is there a story here? Apparently there is, but what it is, I'm not certain yet. The truth lies somewhere in between the extremes. Something did happen. But was it a dirty trick, or just a confused political discussion?

I'll keep checking. And if you are an MP, or work for an MP of any party, and you are reading this, you might do well to check if there is a pattern of weird mischievous calls being made in your riding.

Lesbians' lawyer lets slip what the "war" is really about

Lesbian and gay rights attorney barbara findlay

In British Columbia, a lesbian couple rent a hall from the Catholic group Knights of Columbus to hold their wedding reception. When the Knights realized it was for a lesbian couple, they canceled the booking and refunded the money.

The couple took the Knights to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, and won a small judgment. Interestingly, the Tribunal made a comment that suggested that a minor amount of extra effort on the part of the Knights to help the couple out after canceling the booking would have turned the judgment in their favour.

That has the lawyer for the lesbians very upset.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics? Add to that damning graphs

BFI trading (click to enlarge)

The allegations of leaks and insider trading with the collusion of the Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's office continue to swirl.

Check out the chart showing the trading on BFI, the garbage collectors. I find this chart one of the strongest pieces of evidence that something rotten was going on.

On Wednesday, just before 6 p.m. EST, the federal finance department officially announced it would cut the tax on dividends and would leave trusts alone. That's the type of news that is always announced after stock markets close at 4 p.m. EST because it would give a boost to those types of securities.

But trading in many trusts and dividend-paying stocks became much heavier than usual in the hour or two before the market's closed on Wednesday, and share prices rose sharply.

At BFI, the trading picked up as early as 2pm. But look at the price per unit. Essentially flat. These buyers wern't reacting to a shift in the market that had happened. They were preparing for a shift that would happen.

Stock exchange re-opens the next day, and in the wake of the announcement not to tax trusts but to cut taxes on dividends, BFI leaps three dollars. There is a bit of profit taking, but the guys in the know hold on to their units instead of devaluing them by dumping them all at once.

That amounted to what looks like 350,000 shares moving for no apparent reason. Not earth-shattering, but a nice piece of change, especially if you didn't actually have to work at it.

The huge spike in pre-announcement volume, followed by signficantly reduced volume post-announcement, is going to be the kind of flag that regulators are looking for.

I wonder if they would care to know that BFI contributed $2,000 to Paul Martin's leadership campaign in May 2003. Probably just coincidence.

A Bright New Future

Stephen Harper tonight:

"This is not just the end of a tired, directionless scandal-plagued government, it's the start of a bright new future for this great country," Harper said.

Well, of course, we're all happy that Carolyn Parrish is not running for re-election...

The Abotech Affair: West Quebec Post article becomes a "clipping" for the Conservatives

A minor bit of interest, but Pierre Poilievre, MP for Nepean-Carleton, has incorporated the West Quebec Post article about David Smith into his web site as a "clipping" to highlight his work representing his constituents' interests.

Of course, Poilievre is not running against David Smith, who represents the riding of Pontiac, but Laurence Cannon is. And Laurence Cannon, the Conservative Party candidate in Pontiac, is certain to be handing out copies of the article throughout the riding.

Will this make a difference? Well, though many of us outside of Quebec don't recognize the name "Laurence Cannon", inside Quebec, it is very well known. He was a communications minister under Robert Bourassa, and he comes from a family of politicians and business giants.

He is one of the Conservative Party's best bets for a seat in this election, and a leader for further gains in elections to come.

And maybe, just maybe, I helped out a little bit.

Dirty tricks in Gary Lunn's riding? Didn't happen

Update: Apparently there is something to this after all.

Yesterday I posted about a rumour going around that constituents in Gary Lunn's riding in British Columbia were receiving calls from someone pretending to be speaking on Lunn's behalf. That person would then chat and let drop the little bombshell that Gary Lunn doesn't support Stephen Harper. The rumour then has it that the person called Gary Lunn's home, presumably unintentionally, and that Lunn has since gotten in touch with the press and the RCMP.

I just got off the phone with Gary Lunn's executive assistant in the BC constituency office, and he says the story simply isn't true. I sent him the link to the original post in Free Dominion, and he's double-checking with the boss, but is certain he would have heard something.

And he made it absolutely clear: Gary Lunn fully supports Stephen Harper!

Cute story. But it looks like this was one crime the Liberals did not perpetrate.

We'll just have to settle for all the other ones.

[Looks like small dead animals is also confirming that this story is just a fabrication.]

Don't open emails from the CIA or the FBI

Unless, of course, you routinely get emails from the CIA or the FBI.

But for the rest of us, there is an email worm circulating that preys on natural human curiousity:

The latest Sober worm, first spotted over the weekend, has generated the vast majority of virus-laden e-mail traffic in the past 24 hours and could cause problems for corporate e-mail gateways, security companies said.

This variant of Sober generates e-mails that purport to be from the CIA or FBI. These messages tell the recipient they have been looking at illegal Web sites and should answer some questions in the e-mail's attachment. If the attachment is opened, the computer is infected, and the virus sends copies of itself to any e-mail addresses found on the hard drive.

So don't worry. Visiting the website of the Conservative Party to study their platform in the hours before an election call might not be something that the Liberal government wants you to do, but it's not illegal.

Anyway, the FBI is not likely to be interested in what you are doing online.

Unless, possibly, your name is Alfonso Gagliano.

[Hat tip to TG]

Smart Government, Smart Car, Dumb Driver

Of course, the nanny state that is Canada loves this idea:

Transport Canada is road-testing cutting-edge devices that use global positioning satellite technology and a digital speed-limit map to know when a driver is speeding, and to try to make them stop.

When a driver hits a certain percentage above the posted speed limit, the device kicks in and makes it difficult to press the accelerator.

[Dr. Peter Burns, chief of ergonomics and crash avoidance with Transport Canada's road safety directorate,] said proponents of such devices are enthusiastic about the potential to reduce deaths and injuries from car crashes, as well as reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, which are greater at higher speeds.

So who makes this equivalent of a backseat driver? A company in Sweden. No surprises there.

Two things come to mind.

Since the system is GPS-based, and requires knowledge of where you are, this is essentially a citizen tracking system. Just one more way for the government to know what you're doing.

The second thing is that this will, of course, generate a whole new black market for devices or modifications to defeat the system. Some will focus on foiling the internal feedback system tied to the accelerator. Others will target the GPS itself, since if the system doesn't know where you are, it won't know that you're speeding.

Then there will be the GPS-jammers. Some will be frauds, doing nothing but filling the pockets of scam artists. Others might work, even partly, and will create havoc wherever they are turned on.

And then the constitutional challenges, perhaps launched by provinces fighting what they see as another federal intrusion on a provincial responsibility.

Government-controlled vacations

A Liberal MP wants the government to stand in judgement of how you spend your free time.

You do the "right" thing, and the government will toss back a bit of your tax money.

Apparently, this will help Canadians learn to love their country.

Right...

Did well-connected Liberal friends benefit in any way?

That's the question being asked by NDP Finance Critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

It'll be a question asked by the chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission.

It'll be a question asked by RCMP financial investigators.

And if there's any justice, it'll be asked by Canadians when they are looking at their ballots.

How would they have benefited? By taking advantage of a convenient leak of a crucial tax decision from Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's office last week:

On Friday, CBC News reported that trading in many income trusts and dividend-paying stocks became much heavier than usual late Wednesday – just before the government announced that it would not tax trusts and would cut the tax on stocks that pay dividends.

And several published reports said investors knew early about the plan, which lowers taxes on some stock returns.

Here's one such "published report". And here is an example of the weird trading patterns.

What was that about the Liberal Party being utterly unlike an organized criminal syndicate?

The trick is to sustain traffic

I get on average about 1,800 hits a day. Today I'm at 1,180 with three hours to go until midnight.

Why do I mention this? Because even a slow weekend for me is not generally too shabby. I don't know why. But whatever the reason, I'm grateful I haven't fallen to the depths of this famous person.

The Abotech Affair: In French

At Le Blog de Polyscopique, we have much of the text of the West Quebec Post article on David Smith and the Abotech affair translated into French. If you have contacts in Quebec who are interested but have, of course, only had the reports in Le Droit to read in French (those reports essentially cover the same ground as the Globe and Mail articles), then send them the link so that they can get informed.

A negative campaign? Or dirty tricks?

Just who is Paul Martin calling?

Update #2: Retract that retraction! Maybe there is something to this after all.

UPDATE #1: Apparently this story is just so much smoke.

There is a story on Free Dominion that a Conservative MP, Gary Lunn representing the BC riding of Saanich--Gulf Islands, has been the target of a dirty trick.

I have not been able to get any confirmation of this, given that it is Sunday, and no one is in either the constituency office or the parliamentary office to answer calls.

As the Official Opposition Critic of Public Works, Lunn has been a busy man, and probably has more than a few enemies in the Liberal Party.

As I write this, there is a story that his constituents in his riding are getting calls from someone claiming to call on Gary Lunn's behalf.

During the course of conversation, the caller reveals that Gary Lunn does not support Stephen Harper.

How is it that we know? Because the caller made the mistake of calling Gary Lunn's home to deliver the message of infighting between Gary Lunn and the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Well, news of infighting inside the Conservative Party on the cusp of an election call is sure to give pause to any potential voter.

It also gave pause to Gary Lunn himself, when he himself received the call!

According to the account, Gary Lunn has reported the call to the RCMP and to the press.

We'll see if any of the major media outlets report on these shenanigans, or if the Mounties dig up anything.

Is the story true? Are the Liberals behind this? Well, I expect that if they are, they've been careful to avoid leaving any traces back to them. But then maybe they wouldn't have expected to have been caught so quickly, so who knows just how careful they were.

If they're behind this, that is. And if the story is true.

I'll try to find out more tomorrow.

The Liberals give us a reason to keep them in power for twenty years

A successful industry? (click to enlarge)

The Liberal game plan of showing us the benefits of long-term and uninterrupted Liberal government that are put at risk by "politics" is in full swing.

That's always the way with institutional ruling parties. They need time and minimal distractions. And if the voters cut short their time, or distract them with elections and inquiries and such, then they are hurting themselves.

This isn't an election promise. It's electoral extortion.

In this case, it is a threat that unless the Liberals are elected, and maintain power for the next two decades, Quebec's opportunities to enjoy the maximum benefit from aerospace and defence spending will be threatened by the Conservatives and their ally, the free market.

"It's brutal. It's third world. It's unbelievable."

It's also quintessentially Canadian, at least with this tired and incompetent Liberal Party in power.

What is it? It is the ridiculous manner in which tax policy regarding income trusts and dividents was being announced, changed, and leaked over the last week.

Since then, it has been full-scale panic as Ottawa dealt with all sorts of anger from all sorts of people -- market participants, industry executives, retail investors and pension funds.

And the final straw: "The government then tells a bunch of Bay Street insiders what it is going to do so they can profit. And then it does it. It's insane," added the banker.

Read the whole thing at Autonomous Source.

These are prudent fiscal managers? Unindicted leaders of a criminal cartel, more like.

Canadian dislike of elections works against the Liberals

The Liberals have been trying hard to gain traction with the argument that the Conservatives in their lust for power are forcing Canadians into an election they don't want to have.

But in one of those strange paradoxes in politics, the Liberals are likely to be the victims of the blowback from Canadians who are truly irritated by elections.

The Abotech Affair: The story goes into print

Julie Murray of the West Quebec Post has been in regular contact with this blogger over the last week, preparing a story on David Smith and the Abotech affair.

In deference to the people at the Post and their desire not to be scooped, I've kept quiet until today, when the weekly was published and hit the stands.

The questions for David Smith, Liberal MP for Pontiac, are now in print. And not just in print, but in a local paper. The West Quebec Post, with a circulation of about 5000, distributes in David Smith's riding. Don't forget also that Pontiac is just across the river from Ottawa.

So go read the article, and consider what impact it might be having on voters in Pontiac. It'll also be interesting to see if the story gets picked up by another paper, what with an election call days away driving interest. I am personally gratified that Julie Murray was able to independently verify many of the facts I had uncovered, and that I am credited (see the end of the article) for my work on this. She has added much more material as well, with quotes from her interview with David Smith being especially interesting. Thanks also to editor Fred Ryan. I hope wading through my amateurish attempts at journalism wasn't too much of a burden.

As for the role of bloggers, I hope this small example of the synergies that can exist between the new media and the traditional media inspires Canadians to look at bloggers in a new light. It is the sort of thing the folks at Open Source Media PajamasMedia meant when they talked about a "bridge between old media and new".

A misunderstanding in Parliament about "organized crime"

Joseph Massino, boss of the Bonanno mob family, not a member of the Liberal Party

Things are getting nasty in the House of Commons, and when emotions are running high, it is easy to misconstrue the words of others.

For instance, the phrase "organized crime" is a loaded one. It doesn't have to mean "The Mob".

No one is saying that.

Really.

Well, just the FBI.

Official launch of "Rescuing Canada's Right"

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the official launch of "Rescuing Canada's Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution" at the Albany Club in downtown Toronto. If you have't already ordered a copy for yourself, click on the banner at the top of this blog and order yours now. And since Christmas is coming, a few extra copies for friends and family.

Besides the authors Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin (whose parents live a short hop from me, it turns out), I was able to meet such luminaries as Mike Harris, former premier of Ontario, Tony Clement, former Ontario Minister of Health, Gerry Nicholls of the National Citizen's Coalition, and Conrad Black (almost).

Almost because he was surrounded by a scrum of reporters for the duration of his visit. It was actually sort of embarrassing to watch the desperation of these reporters.

A much classier brand of media personality was also present in the persons of Andrew Coyne of the National Post, Michael Taube of the Toronto Sun, and Rondi Adamson, a syndicated columnist.

And then there were a bunch of bloggers located strategically near the food table: Stephen Taylor, Bob Tarantino, and Greg Staples, just to name a few.

Here's hoping for the success of the book, and for more opportunities for conservatives to come together and work for a brighter future for Canada.

The CBC as the purveyor of fair and balanced information to all Canadians

The CBC is looking for people who are "freaked out" scared of the Conservatives. Just the Conservatives.

Maybe balanced reporting means finding a man who is freaked out scared, a woman who is freaked out scared, an aboriginal who freaked out scared, a person who is disabled who is freaked out scared, and so on and so forth.

The Abotech Affair: Frank Brazeau has friends

A series of anonymous posts was received at this blog yesterday, apparently from someone who works with or near Frank Brazeau.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, Liberal Party, PWGSC, Scott Brison

You know it's election season when...

...when Canada's artistic elite start reaching out for the cash that they couldn't get by selling their works directly to the public.

Ungrateful barbarians that we are.

The stake

The stake that is going to be pounded into the heart of this government:

November 22, 2005 — Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest) — That the House condemns the government for its arrogance in refusing to compromise with the opposition parties over the timing of the next general election and for its “culture of entitlement”, corruption, scandal, and gross abuse of public funds for political purposes and, consequently, the government no longer has the confidence of the House.

Come on, Stephen Harper, tell us what you really think.

Contract out on Paul Martin's life

The Sheila Anne

I've avoided commenting on this NealeNews headlining story because I felt tempted to turn it into a joke:

How many suspects? Well, what's the population of Canada?
Why $300,000? Well, how much money was stuffed into those suitcases Chretien had in Shawinigan?

Rick Mercer can come up with funnier stuff than that.

But the RCMP took it seriously.

Gun violence and male responsibility

Canadian soldiers firing an Eryx anti-armour missile. What street thug wouldn't want a chance to do that?

More thoughts about male responsibility, and the lack of it, and the government's responsibility to help fix a mess it helped create.

It's an idea that'll never fly, but here goes.

A woman has a child. Tests show the man to be the father. He has two choices:

• provide financial and parental support for his children
• join the army

Technorati Tags: Toronto, welfare, gun violence

Gun Violence: Government castrates young men

Rapper 50 Cent holding a gun; no role models

Gun violence has been a major concern in Toronto this summer. Last week, at a funeral for one slain teen, another teen was shot dead on the steps of the church, not far from where my parents live.

Needless to say, this is overwhelmingly black-on-black violence.

So where will the black community go for help? The government of course.

Technorati Tags: Toronto, welfare, gun violence

Election time goodies and a separation of powers

Prime Minister Paul Martin

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government introduced $86 million in new spending initiatives yesterday, with several billion dollars more still to come, in advance of what now appears to be the Liberals' certain defeat next week in the House of Commons.

One of the problems in our system is that the man who sets the budget is the man who sets policy is the man who leads the legislative agenda is the man who spends the money.

So as we Canadians are faced with the choice of who to elect to lead this country, to make decisions about Canada's role in international affairs, to set the tone of the administration, we are also faced with the dilemma that the same person is the one who is going to give out goodies.

For many Canadians, that makes it a tough choice (for me too -- diapers are expensive!).

Our prime minister can make financial promises because he controls the budget. In other systems, the head of state (in Canada, the PM is the de facto head of state) can't set budgets. That job lies with a separate, typically legislative, body. Because a legislature is made up of many people, the budget is a group effort, and no one involved has the power to promise much of anything.

An election without promises, at least without unseemly promises of cold hard cash, would be a welcome change.

Trackbacks are back on track

Have you been having problems with trackbacks on this blog? This post is for you.

How to get away with reading porn in the office

A funny story from my past, when I was caught reading porn in the office.

Superman Returns

A new Superman movie, Superman Returns, will be in theatres in 2006.

Michelle Malkin points us to the website for the trailer, and as she says, it's pretty cool.

I've always liked Superman for its theological elements. There's a lot of depth there if you care to look.

Technorati Tags: Superman, Superman Return, Christoper Reeve, Jesus

The threat from nuclear terrorists

Drudge links to an article in the Wahington Times, warning about the vulnerability of the US to an electromagnetic pulse attack:

A single nuclear weapon carried by a ballistic missile and detonated a few hundred miles over the United States would cause "catastrophe for the nation" by damaging electricity-based networks and infrastructure, including computers and telecommunications, according to "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World."

The EMP danger was highlighted recently by a special congressional commission that has received little public attention and is considered a unique way for rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, or other enemies such as al Qaeda, to use nuclear weapons in the future.

Well, the devil is in the details. While North Korea or Iran might be able to manage something like that, I'm not so sure about a terrorist group. Frankly, a proper EMP is a hard thing to pull off.

Scott Brison: A man, and a party, under stress

Scott Brison, Public Works Minister

Not knowing Scott Brison personally, I have to wonder if the extreme behaviour he's been exhibiting recently is normal for him, or indicative of a man under a lot of stress.

Then you have to wonder if the same goes for the rest of the Liberal Party caucus.

Technorati Tags: Scott Brison, Liberal Party, Stephen Harper, Gerry Nicholls, Sandra McGrath, NCC, National Citizens' Coalition

Elected judges and crown attorneys?

Read the story of Shaun Joshua Deacon, and you'll wonder whether we need to subject judges and prosecutors to the wrath of the community every three or four years.

Nine places you'll never hear named in Canadian politics

Can you guess what they are?

GM Layoffs: Politicians are fairweather friends

Another example of why government handouts are stupid. The government should reduce taxes, individual and corporate, across the board.

But they won't. Why? You have a better photo op if you dole the money out in the form of specific loans and grants.

Smiling federal ministers, smiling corporate executives, smiling local mayors, smiling union representatives. Maybe even one of those big novelty cheques for the group to hold up for a group photo to put in the paper.

Of course, if the handout fails in its goals, those same politicians should be front and centre explaining what happened to the money they so wisely spent on our behalf.

That never happens. They're never around for bad news announcements. But that won't stop me from pointing those politicians out.

Technorati Tags: Joe Volpe, David Emerson, Walt Lastewka, Jim Bradley, St. Catharines, General Motors

Red Ensign #32

The 32nd raising of the Red Ensign.

Canadians: Are we sentimental? Or something else?

A rant of epic proportions.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi dead?

Terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

From the Jerusalem Post:

The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Is that all we have? Well, apparently, the terrorists did a number on themselves, leaving the classic question of whether al-Zarqawi might be trying to fake his death in order to take the heat off of himself. From Debka:

A sample of his DNA is in American possession for a match-up.

The bodies they are trying to identify are of 7 men and one woman, who blew themselves up Sunday, Nov. 20, after their hideout in northern Iraq was under siege by a large US force, backed by tanks and helicopters. The bodies are burned black and unrecognizable. Four Iraqi security officers were killed and 10 injured in the operation.

DEBKAfile’s military sources add that also Sunday, US and Iraqi forces raided al Qaeda sanctuaries in Baghdad and captured several suspects. They followed an intelligence tip which confirmed DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s disclosure (Issue 227 Oct. 28) of the arrival of Zarqawi and his top team to Baghdad on Oct. 15.

Still, if al-Zarqawi is really wondering why his 70 virgins haven't arrived yet, and why all those little guys with pitchforks are poking at him, then you've got to admit that this could be a big story, and that it couldn't have come at a better time.

Technorati Tags: al-Zarqawi, Iraq, Mosul, al Qaida, al Qaeda

Minority Hiring at PWGSC: Some advice for Deputy Minister David Marshall

David Marshall, Deputy Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada

From the National Post:

A major federal department has temporarily banned the hiring of able-bodied white men in an unusual move critics say could spark a backlash against the very disadvantaged groups it is meant to help.

Managers in the Public Works department must hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled, except with written permission from their superiors, David Marshall, the deputy minister, ordered in an e-mail circulated yesterday.

Pierre Teotonio, a department spokesman, said last night the order was prompted in part by a precipitous drop in the number of employees hired from the designated groups this year. The proportion of female, disabled, aboriginal and non-white new hires fell from one in eight this March to only one in 20 by September, he said. The federal benchmark just for the hiring of visible minorities is one in five.

Oddly, David Marshall could kill two birds with one stone -- address the question of the quality of aborignal hires and clear the air about the Abotech affair.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, PWGSC, David Marshall

Intelligent Design: Why it doesn't worry me

Fr. George Coyne, SJ, Chief Vatican Astronomer

Intelligent Design is the theory that holds that the universe is so complex that it could not have achieved this state of complexity without an intelligence somehow directing it.

It is creationism by another name. But since it tries to infer God by semi-observable means, that is, by passing some kind of judgment on the complexity of the universe, some Christian groups in the United States want it taught as a scientific theory in opposition to classic Darwinism.

Recently the Roman Catholic Church has weighed in, and today we have a report that the Vatican's top scientist, Fr. George Coyne, says that intelligent design is not science, and belongs in a history or culture class, not in a science class.

But then the Pope is on record as criticizing those who say that the universe was created without direction.

The Pope wins, right? Well, no, and that might come as a surprise to many people, Catholics and non-Catholics, who might have a simplistic view of the role of the Pope and the range of his authority.

Technorati Tags: Intelligent Design, George Coyne, Pope Benedict XVI, Christoph Schoenborn, Roman Catholic Church, papal infallibility

The Abotech Affair: Smokescreen

This is not a new post, but I thought the closing remarks of this other post deserved a spot of their own, if only to help me organize my thoughts.

Basically, I'm wondering if I've been pursuing the wrong line of inquiry in the Abotech affair, or perhaps more acccurately, one of lesser importance to the real problem behind this scandal.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, Liberal Party, RCMP, pensions

The Abotech Affair: An open letter to the Ethics Commissioner

It has been suggested by several people via comments and personal emails that I make the Ethics Commissioner aware of the material relating to David Smith collected on this blog.

I've attached an open letter to the commissioner. I'd like some feedback, and if it is positive, I'll send him a copy.

Also be aware that a key post got deleted. It was the the one that revealed a whole twist on the Abotech affair related to the RCMP Pension Fund. I've rewritten it, along with new information. It's called "A twist in the road".

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Abotech, Liberal Party, Bernard Shapiro, Ethics Commissioner

The Abotech Affair: A twist in the road

Update: This twist might, in fact, be the road we should be following. With the release of the Auditor General's report in November 2006, suddenly the role of Abotech makes a lot more sense. Read this update to understand why.

This post is a recreation of the original Morneau Sobeco post. Somehow that post has been deleted, and while I'm trying to retrieve it, I've decided to re-write it from scratch. I'm using the post I made for small dead animals as the basis for this version.

My chase of what appears to be an aboriginal company shell game has run smack into an iceberg.

David Smith, who sits in Parliament for the riding of Pontiac and claims to be an aboriginal, ran a company called Abotech, a computer consultancy firm, out of his home. Now the company is run by his wife, a nurse. Smith insists he has no idea what is going in Abotech.

For a full list of posts related to this scandal, check out the Abotech archive.

Abotech has been caught up in a KPMG audit at PWGSC. Several contracts between Abotech and the federal government have been terminated. Why? No one is saying. Also, a bureaucrat named Frank Brazeau has been suspended without pay in connection with the audit. Frank Brazeau is also David Smith's cousin. Why was he suspended? No one is saying.

The theory is that Frank Brazeau directed contracts meant to go to an aboriginal businesses to Abotech. Frank Brazeau was the consultant at Consulting and Audit Canada who help implement the Procurement Strategy for Aboriginal Business. Smith took his cut, and passed the work to a non-aboriginal firm.

But then came news about a $30 billion lawsuit going forward against the Liberal government. Unions representing 300,000 public servants are suing to recover pension surplus money that Liberal finance minister Paul Martin took to pay down the government's debt.

What does that have to do with Abotech?

Quite a bit, as it turns out.

The Abotech Affair: Ethics investigations during elections

Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro

David Smith, the Liberal MP for the riding of Pontiac, is subject to a formal investigation with regards to his company Abotech, and the contracts it had with the federal government, contracts that have since been terminated.

The question that confronts us is how do an ethics investigation and an election interact? As it turns out, the answer is murky, and potentially a controversial subject in if itself.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Abotech, Liberal Party, Bernard Shapiro, Ethics Commissioner

Paul Martin and the difference between Christmas and Easter

Crowds shopping in Maine last Christmas; the sign of a truly important religious event

Paul Martin impresses us with his knowledge of the important religious festivals:

Prime Minister Paul Martin warned the three opposition leaders today that they could offend religious and ethnic groups by forcing an election over the holiday season.

Martin told reporters en route to this port city for an Asian Pacific summit that the timetable he set for an election in March or April would allow Christians and Canadians of other religious faiths to celebrate their religious holidays without interruption from politicians knocking on their doors.

Here is the calendar for 2006:

• Ash Wednesday is 01 March
• Palm Sunday is 9 April
• Good Friday is 14 April
• (Western) Easter Sunday is 16 April
• (Orthodox) Easter Sunday is 23 April

Well, as we all know, Christians don't really care all that much about Easter. If they did, they'd make it into a big shopping holiday, with gifts and gaudy decorations and an Easter Tree (or something).

Clearly, Christmas is the more important religious holiday.

Paul Martn: Is it time to pull out the "Yikes!" sign yet?

Paul Martin claims to have saved us from this.

From a speech Prime Minister Paul Martin gave to the Empire Club and the Toronto Board of Trade in May, 2005, discussing what other G8 countries thought of Canada in 1994:

Their view of Canada was clear: our fiscal recklessness over decades was a giant boulder plummeting down from above. And we were the coyote, holding up a little umbrella and a sign that said: "Yikes!"

Never again can we allow government to live beyond its means like that. The penalty is too great. We must be vigilant and we must be disciplined, for that is the eternal price of fiscal freedom.

My government's plan begins, today and always, with an unflinching commitment to fiscal responsibility.

Paul Martin takes credit for steering Canada away from the fate of Wile E Coyote, to be flattened by the boulder of fiscal recklessness.

I wonder if he has that "Yikes!" sign handy? According to this ex-civil servant, he's going to need it.

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Liberal Party, Wile E Coyote, Harry Swain

Open Source Media

Known as Pajamas Media during the ramp-up, Open Source Media, or OSM, officially launched yesterday:

Readers unfamiliar with blogs are sometimes puzzled by the concept, thinking that they are mere online "diaries," where egoists and sentimentalists record their thoughts and feelings. But the phenomenon of blogging is much more than that; it’s the modern equivalent of the Gutenberg revolution, a way of putting not just published material in the hands of the public—but publishing itself.

Where journalists once gave us "experts say," blogs give us the experts themselves. And where faceless, "objective" editorial boards once handed down opinions and endorsements, bloggers sound off, the numbers on their public sitemeters lending them unassailable credibility as voices for the rest of us.

OSM’s mission is to expand the influence of weblogs by finding and promoting the best of them, providing bloggers with a forum to meet and share resources, and the chance to join a for-profit network that will give them additional leverage to pursue knowledge wherever they may find it. From academics, professionals and decorated experts, to ordinary citizens sitting around the house opining in their pajamas, our community of bloggers are among the most widely read and influential citizen journalists out there, and our roster will be expanding daily. We also plan to provide a bridge between old media and new, bringing bloggers and mainstream journalists—more and more of whom have started to blog—together in a debate-friendly forum.

In the 1960’s, the medium may have been the message, but in the new century, it’s time for the medium to get out of the way. Call it the blogosphere, call it citizen journalism, or call it (we hope) Open Source Media—but the next phase in the democratization of ideas has begun. Stick around, read some blogs, and come back often. Our door will be open.

Visit the site, check out some of the excellent blogs listed, check out the blog archives and the "blogjams", and watch the media reinvent itself.

Technorati Tags: Open Source Media, OSM

The Arrogance of a Rhodes Scholar

Bob Rae, former NDP premier of Ontario

Bob Rae, former NDP premier of Ontario and more recently the author of a major study on post-secondary education, gave a speech in which he sung the praises of a post-secondary education.

Along the way, he manages to insult and belittle anyone who, by choice or by circumstance, did not get a university degree.

Technorati Tags: Bob Rae

Get set...

Conservative leader Stephen Harper

On your mark...

Get set...

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Canada

Where to find Angry tonight

At 9pm Eastern, I'll be on The World Tonight with Rob Breakenridge of CHQR Radio in Calgary.

Wish me luck. This will be my first live interview.

Update: Oh crap. I was awful! I need more practise at talking off the top of my head. But some of the feedback seems good, so I guess it's not as bad as I thought.

The Abotech Affair: Turning up the heat on David Smith

David Smith is now subject to a formal investigation by the Ethics Commissioner.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, Liberal Party, Bernard Shapiro, Ethics Commissioner

Routine theft and routine audits

From small dead animals:

Mr. Jeremy Harrison (Desnethe--Missinippi--Churchill River, CPC): Mr. Speaker, yesterday we learned that over $600,000 was looted from the St. Phillip's school account of the Keeseekoose First Nation while a former Liberal candidate was in charge. We have the records for the school's bank account, which document a long list of charges made directly from this account to places like Zellers, Bata Shoes, Athletes World, Mark's Work Wearhouse and the Regina casino.

Why is it that Liberal candidates can get away with taking money from schoolchildren to spend it at the casino?

Why should he get away with it? We all know that the casinos are run by the government, and that the profits and winnings go into education. So in a way Mr. Quewezance, the fellow in question who the Liberals recruited to run in 2004 even though complaints were made as far back as 2002, was really moving the money back into education.

The shoe thing? Eh, that's harder to explain.

So what's going to be done?

Hon. Andy Scott (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, audits are conducted routinely. If those audits find things that should go to the RCMP or other agencies, that is exactly what happens.

So we're going to wait for a routine audit. Makes sense, when you think about it. When theft of taxpayers' money by the Liberal Party and its agents becomes a routine occurence, depending on a routine audit to catch them makes a certain sense.

Technorati Tags: Liberal Party, RCMP

An important promise of accountability from the Conservatives

Ralph Goodale, Liberal Minister of Finance

Yesterday I posted about the frustration many people have about how the Liberals seem to have trouble with numbers.

Ralph Goodale, our Finance Minister, pleads poverty until election time, then suddenly reveals "unexpected" tax revenues that increase the surplus by a factor 16!

With all this new found money, promises are made to the electorate, contigent, of course, on the Liberals being re-elected.

At this point, I don't even trust that the surplus is really there. Which would make the first weeks of a Conservative government a major disappointment to many when the cupboards are revealed to be bare.

Real or not, the surplus shenanigans are shocking and must stop. I suggested that the Conservatives make it a promise to create a version of the GAO in the United States. The GAO reports to Congress and provides an independent view of the government's financial health.

As it turns out, Stephen Harper has already been made that promise, and it fits the bill exactly.

Technorati Tags: Liberal Party, Ralph Goodale, Conservative Party, GAO, Stephen Harper, Federal Accountability Act

The Abotech Affair: A twist in the road

There has been an administrative screw-up on my part, and the content of this post has since been move to "A twist in the road".

Ralph Goodale: "I forgot to carry the one"

Ralph Goodale, Liberal Minister of Finance

Somehow a surplus of $500 million has become a surplus of $8.2 billion! Just in time for an election, of course, and now Canadians will see all sorts of new spending.

But only if they re-elect the Liberals, of course.

Funny how that always seems to happen around election time. Well, it's long past time for that to stop.

Technorati Tags: Liberal Party, Canada, Ralph Goodale, Conservative Party, GAO

Another blog fix to suggest

Well, the overlapping problem cropped up again. So I took a different approach to reduce the length of the home page. I changed the <MTEntries> tag in the main index HTML file to read <MTEntries lastn="10">. That resticts the home page to the last 10 entries.

Seemed to clear up the problem nicely.

Next step: switch to daily archives from weekly, to avoid the problem on weekly pages.

Scratch that. Keep the weekly archives, but avoid the "too long problem" be re-writing the template. Now for every day of the week, list each entry, the title of which is a link to the individual archive. Print the number of comments and trackbacks to give a sense of the amount of activity for that posting. Finally print the excerpt to give a taste of what the entry is about. I think it works.

Solution to the overlay problem? Reduce the length of the home page

I thought I'd share what I learned from my break from blogging to deal with technical hiccups with the blog.

The major problem was a text overlay problem. Helpful readers sent screen shots, and finally I was able to glean what was going on from one shot in particular, where I was able to see which posts were overlaying each other.

The blog was too long, or more specifically, the main page of the blog was too long. For some people using Internet Explorer, the tail end of the main page was wrapping around and overlaying the topmost entries.

I have no idea why this was happening, but the fix is easy -- I need to be more careful about using extended bodies to reduce the length of posts. A couple of weeks ago I got lazy about it, and the problem started cropping up.

I've since gone back and used extended bodies to reduce the length of the home page (known as the "main index" page to a blogger), and I've been told the overlay problem has gone away. I plan to step back through the blog and continue to shrink log posts and add Technorati tags as an ongoing effort.

So for bloggers who write essays instead of blurbs, keep it in mind. Hopefully I've just saved you two days worth of work.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Paul Martin: Shamelessly two-faced

Paul Martin shows himself to be as two-faced as any person whose moral compass is pointed neither at right or wrong, but only at power. At least with right or wrong, you have to be reasonably consistent.

But when you are driving after power, you take turns and twists guaranteed to drive any observer to distraction.

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Liberal Party, Canada, Gomery

Quebec teeters?

As an election looms, it's time to watch how the media spins the news.

In this case, the Liberals are depicted as "teetering in Quebec".

An election in January: A proposal or an ultimatum?

The opposition parties are telling Prime Minister Paul Martin to call an election in the first week of January, or face an immediate vote of non-confidence.

Is this a proposal or an ultimatum? It makes a difference.

Reader Survey [Updated]

Apparently there are still some people out there who are having trouble seeing this blog, with text overlaid on other text.

If you are experiencing problems, leave a comment here, preferably with an email. What I need to know what operating system you are using, what browser with version, and what resolution. Better yet, send me a screen capture too, directly to my email.

Also, if you can remember, when did the problem start, if you can recall.

Update: Thanks to everyone who responded. Based on what I've seen, the problem lies entirely with users of Internet Explorer (and Windows 98, I think). No other browsers reported issues. Further research has revealed that IE is not capable of rendering XHTML properly, and probably never will. So much for all that work making my tags XHTML compliant. So I switched from XHTML 1.0 to HTML 4.0 and re-did all the tags. I'm not sure that this will address the float problem, but it gives me a more solid baseline from which to go forward.

For what it's worth., I did not choose to write in XHTML. The template for the blog came that way. It seems that a lot of people put XHTML headers in their pages, without considering that IE does not understand XHTML very well, or worse, without actually writing XHTML 1.x pages, but plain old HTML 4.0 pages! Something for you to consider if you are a blogger.

Regular blogging will commence momentarily.

Technorati Tags: blogging

The Dean Factor

Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean

Republican Party Chair Ken Mehlman

From Drudge:

The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from exclusive sources that Democrat Party Chair Howard Dean turned down Republican Party Chair Ken Mehlman's last minute offer to appear together on NBC's MEET THE PRESS this morning.

Moments before taping was to begin with host Tim Russert, Mehlman asked Dean outside the NBC studio's green room: "There's still time for us to go on together Governor." Dean declined with a shrug of his shoulders and an uncomfortable cackle and then proceeded to walk away into the green room.

DRUDGE has learned MEET THE PRESS producers have been working to get a head to head Dean/Mehlman appearance on the program since Dean was named chair back in February. Dean and his handlers have repeatedly turned down the request. The former Vermont governor only agreed to do this week's program if they appeared in back-to-back interviews.

Clearly, it looks like either Howard Dean, or his handlers, or both, are afraid of having Dean in an uncontrolled situation, especially one in which emotions might run high. Dean has a reputation of crazed outbursts.

At some point, however, the reticence is going to become an issue of its own. If Howard Dean becomes a liability (or to be accurate, more of a liability), we might see a fight within the Democratic Party to oust him. With mid-term elections less than a year away, time is short if the Democratic Party leadership wants to avoid having to deal with the Dean Factor while trying to oust the Republican majority in Congress.

The irony for Howard Dean is that to eliminate this one issue, his apparent fear of Ken Mehlman, he'll have to make that appearance. But knowing Howard dean, he's just as likely to say or do something that will seal his fate.

Technorati Tags: Howard Dean, Ken Mehlman, Democratic Party, Republican Party

The Abotech Affair: Another notable absence at PWGSC?

Recall that Frank Brazeau, the bureaucrat at Public Works and Government Services Canada, suspended over the Abotech affair, has had his entry in the Government Electronic Directory expunged.

The Abotech affair involves questionable contracts handed to a company once run by David Smith, Liberal MP representing the riding of Pontiac. David Smith's wife now runs the company, which is run out of the family home. Frank Brazeau is David Smith's cousin. Something was discovered, but not revealed yet, during an audit that caused Frank Brazeau to be suspended without pay and Abotech to lose contracts.

Curiously, at the same time that Frank Brazeau's name disappeared from the directory, a co-worker and presumably his supervisor, Marc Carriere, assistant director in the same office, also disappeared from the listing. I speculated whether the two were linked.

On a hunch, I called who I assumed was Carriere's boss, Bill McCann, Director General at Consulting and Audit Canada. McCann remains in the directory, but the outgoing message on his voice mail states that he would be out of the office from October 20 to November 4, returning November 7.

The outgoing message was recorded by a woman, clearly not McCann.

It is now November 13, six days past his return date.

If he has a secretary recording his outgoing voicemail messages, then I would assume she would record a new outgoing message on his return as part of her regular duties.

Why has a new outgoing message not been recorded? Did something happen while he was away that made adjusting the outgoing message a moot point? I'll follow up on Monday to see if McCann is actually in the office.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, Liberal Party, Bill McCann, Marc Carriere, PWGSC

Picture headaches

One of the things I've wanted to do for some time is to use pictures a bit more liberally. Just a photo of a major player in a story, or some other image that seems appropriate. Add some colour. Give the blog a more professional magazine-look.

Well, I learned that no little improvement is simple.

I added code to create a small floating paragraph enclosing the image and caption (or multiple images and captions). The intent was that the paragraph would float to the left, and the text would flow down and around the image block. Worked brilliantly in Firefox. Sucked big time in Internet Explorer.

In Firefox, the paragraph would float to the left, but in IE, it floated to the left and up. That meant the image would underlay the title and other header information for each entry.

After some research, I stumbled onto the solution. Include "position:relative" in the tag stream for the enclosing paragraph. This makes no sense, but the entry I read about fixing up IE floats is that a number of apparently unrelated problems are solved in this way.

I have learned that IE is rife with problems in the way it renders HTML. In fact, many developers curse Firefox for doing it correctly, since it means that hacks that they routinely put into web pages to work around well known IE shortcomings sometimes have bad side effects in Firefox (because Firefox is doing it right).

Thanks to all the readers who have been bringing problems to my attention, and supplying me with screenshots so that I knew where to go to look. I now check my page with both Firefox and IE, and I hope I'll catch errors before you do.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Riots in France: In neighbouring Belgium...

A car burns in Paris, November 8

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Some 3,000 police fanned out around Paris on Saturday to counter feared weekend attacks on high-profile targets such as the Eiffel Tower as the number of vehicles torched overnight rose slightly elsewhere in France, officials said.

In neighbouring Belgium, 15 vehicles were burned overnight, including a bus torched near the eastern city of Liege, officials said Saturday. But the government there played down fears of the kind of unrest that has hit France.

Just 15 cars -- a blip or a spark?

One question is whether these were rioters from France who moved across the border in Belgium in order to cause trouble, or if these are home-grown troublemakers. The answer will have implications across Europe with regards to the question of the trouble spreading, especially when you recall that though Liege is in the French-speaking Walloon Region of Belgium, the city is clear across the country, near Germany border, far from the French border.

Imported from France? Seal the border, and hope that not too many of these people have already dispersed throughout the rest of Europe.

Local boys? Then each country will have to take a serious look at their particular situation and consider just how closely their situation with immigrants and their families mirrors that of France.

The good news: the violence seems to have throttled back and plateaued.

The bad news: the relief at the reduced violence runs the risk of being translated into tolerance for a new reality. In a month, people in France will comment, "Only 200 cars tonight? Not too bad."

Technorati Tags: Paris riots, France, Belgium, Liege

The Abotech Affair: An unexpected change at PWGSC

Scott Brison, Liberal Public Works Minister

Here is a listing of the staff in the office of Project Management Services at Public Works and Government Services Canada:

Brar, Kalvinder; Senior Consultant; (613) 992-6809
Brazeau, Frank; Consultant, CAC; (613) 947-2897
Carriere, Marc; A/Director; (613) 996-6526
Cloutier, Diane; Principal Consultant; (613) 996-7221
Courtney, Joe; Principal Consultant; (613) 995-4178
Fisher, Corrin; Consultant, CAC; (613) 944-4950
Inglis, Gordon; Senior Consultant; (613) 996-7120
Reid, Bill; Principal Consultant; (613) 996-0584
Spanner, David; Principal Consultant; (613) 943-8217
Yip, Jill; Consultant, CAC; (613) 996-0036

So they've gotten around to updating the database, removing Frank Brazeau, the bureaucrat implicated in the Abotech affair.

As you recall, my theory is that Abotech is a shell company created by faux-aboriginal David Smith, Liberal MP for the riding of Pontiac. Abotech, with the help of now-suspended bureaucrat (and cousin of David Smith) Frank Brazeau, lands contracts from the Procurement Strategy for Aboriginal Business program, run by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, under the leadership of the Honourable Andy Scott, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-Status Indians. The work is then handed off to one of David Smith's former firms to do the actual work, after David Smith takes his cut. Jaguar Solutions was one of those firms. It has done work for aboriginal contracts in the past.

I've been watching to see if Frank Brazeau's would eventually be purged from the Government Electronic Directory.

But why did the name of Assistant Director Marc Carriere disappear as well? A search of the directory confirms he has not been moved to another office. Is there a link? Will others disappear as well?

As a mere consultant, it seems strange that Frank Brazeau was the "inside man". Could he have had the power to direct PSAB contracts? Or would signing authority from a higher-up in the office be required?

As an assistant director, you have to wonder about Marc Carriere. Did he have a role in all this?

Perhaps Public Works Minister Scott Brison can answer that question in Question Period, since it goes to the management of his ministry, and thus is fair game in the House of Commons.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, Liberal Party, Marc Carriere, Scott Brison

More updates to the look of Angry in the Great White North

Minor things really. The original template I used from eris designs used unordered lists as a way of making some of the sidebar boxes. I've removed that, rationalized and unified the way the boxes are made, and allowed unordered lists to default to their regular behaviour, which is a good thing, since I use lists in my posts.

I've also upsized the fonts across the board to help make the blog more accessible. I've linked the line-height attribute to the font-size attribute so that the squished look that typified this blog will be a thing of the past, even if I tweak font sizes further.

I haven't changed the font type. Any preferences out there? Times Roman? Helvetica? Or stick with Arial?

Some more clean-up under the hood. Nothing apparent to the naked eye, but annoying to me, knowing that they were there.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Spitting on the Commonwealth

News that the Prime Minister is not going to attend the upcoming Commonwealth conference. This is the first time ever that a Canadian prime minister has skipped the conference. People are shocked.

They shouldn't be. It seems pretty clear to me why Paul Martin is not going.

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Liberal Party, Canada, Pierre Trudeau, British Commonwealth, Francophonie, Quebec

Sponsorship Program II: [Fill in the blank]

Let's make this a contest.

First, read this news article from CFRA News Talk Radio in Ottawa:

Some members of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party want to revive the federal sponsorship program.

A motion to be debated this weekend calls on the Liberals to put into place a program to promote Canadian unity.

Prime Minister Paul Martin scrapped the sponsorship program in 2004 following revelations of systematic abuses.

A riding association president says the idea is to offset the "propaganda" being spread by the 54 Bloc Quebecois MP's in the House of Commons.

Sponsorship Program II: Chuckie's Revenge

OK, that's lame. Not eveyone will get the Chuck Guite reference on the first try. But add a comment with your idea for the title for this sequel.

Seriously, I doubt this motion will pass. I'd be surprised if it is even discussed. But I would not be surprised if such a program were created if the Liberals win the next election. I would not be surprised if such a program, rife with the same abuses, were in place right now.

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Liberal Party, Sponsorship Program, CFRA, Bloc Quebecois

Hey Alberta! Get a load of this!

Jean Lapierre, Liberal Minister of Transport

From CP:

Quebec will get upward of $500 million more in federal transfer payments next year, Transport Minister Jean Lapierre said Friday.

[Quebec Premier Jean Charest] has long complained about a so-called fiscal imbalance between what Quebec taxpayers contribute to the federal treasury and what is returned in transfers for social and other programs.

Got that, Alberta? Quebec was coming up a half-billion short!

But don't worry Alberta. You'll get your turn:

Lapierre said other have-not provinces could anticipate similar terms to the deal negotiated with Quebec.

Did I say you'll get your turn? Sorry, I meant you'll be getting seven more turns of the screw, one for each so-called have-not province where there are votes to be bought.

Technorati Tags: Alberta, Quebec, Jean Lapierre, Jean Charest

The Abotech Affair: New information and new possibilities

I've dug up some new information on the corporate history of Abotech. A small thing, at first glance, but when you think about it, it suggests all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech

Hans von Sponeck? It's German for "self-serving money grubbing lying hypocrite"

Hans von Sponeck

From Davids Medienkritik, the story of Hans von Sponeck, peace activist:

Von Sponeck is frequently quoted in the German media (and sometimes in non-German media) as "expert" on the Iraq war. His criticism of President Bush and the U.S. Iraq policy is aggressive and polemic, and as such of course highly welcomed by his journalistic counterparts. In 2003 he received the Bremen Peace Award for the resignation from his UN post in protest "against the sanctions policy of the Security Council and in particular the USA, responsible for the death of several hundred thousand Iraqi children" (no mention of Saddam's responsibilities, of course).

So what did he do after leaving the UN on principle? Why, worked for peace, of course.

And on Saddam's dime, I might add.

As it now turns out, Hans von Sponeck also pursued other interests in Iraq after he left the UN:

"Mr. von Sponeck solicited financial contributions for his sanctions-related work from corporations seeking to do business with Iraq under the Programme (Oil for Food) ... (a business partner of Mr. von Sponeck) recalled that - after he enlisted Mr. von Sponeck's assistance - Iraq granted his request for additional oil under the Programme. ... Mr. von Sponeck's activities should have been subject to post-employment restrictions in order to safeguard against a possibility of an actual or apparent conflict of interest..."

Just another person of great moral stature working for world peace against the evil and rapacious Americans and their lust for oil profits.

Does anyone believe that nonsense anymore?

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Hans von Sponeck, Oil-for-Food, United Nations

Veterans stay in barracks; just who screwed up here?

A scandal over how our veterans have been shamefully treated! And yet, I think someone is not telling the whole truth.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Remembrance Day, veterans, Connaught Range, Albina Guarnieri

Doesn't this count as a non-confidence vote?

Ralph Goodale, Liberal Minister of Finance

Monte Solberg, Conservative finance critic

Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP finance critic

True to form, on the eve of an election, the Liberals are preparing to buy the votes of Canadians using the money the Liberals took from those same Canadians:

This year the Liberals are expected to announce they are running an underlying budget surplus of between $10.2-billion and $12.5-billion and will unveil a multi-year package of promises including: cutting taxes for low- and middle-income Canadians, reinstating at least $2.3-billion of corporate tax cuts excised from the February, 2005, budget and enacting an education investment package that could top $1.5-billion.

The Liberals are expected to table legislation in the wake of the update to give effect to at least part of Monday's announcement, a senior federal official said.

Interestingly, the opposition parties are studying the idea of preventing Finance Minister Ralph Goodale from appearing in front of the Finance Committee:

The Conservatives are trying to block Finance Minister Ralph Goodale from releasing his economic update at a parliamentary venue next week, even as they moved to force an election campaign in January.

Conservative finance critic Monte Solberg said the Liberals have no business using Mr. Goodale's planned House of Commons committee appearance Monday as a forum to showcase what's expected to include a multi-billion-dollar package of pre-election pledges.

He's served notice that the Conservatives will ask the House of Commons finance committee to adjourn that day before Mr. Goodale can deliver the fall update.

NDP finance critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis said her party will back the Conservative motion to stop Mr. Goodale from presenting his update and package of promises at the Commons finance committee.

The Conservative motion to bar Mr. Goodale from the committee will need the support of the Bloc Quebecois, which said yesterday it is still studying the idea.

Opposition parties are trying to deny the Liberal update and any spending promises the legitimacy of Parliament by shutting them out of the finance committee. Mr. Goodale could try to present it in the Commons but the Bloc is expected to tie up debate Monday with a filibuster.

Seems to me that refusing to allow the government access to the mechanisms required to spend public funds is as good as a non-confidence vote. Maybe not technically a non-confidence vote, but an honourable government face with this sort of concerted opposition would table its own confidence motion at the earliest opportunity on the floor of the House.

Expect the Liberals to cling to power instead.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Ralph Goodale, Monte Solberg, Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Canadians realize they've been on the road paved with good intentions

Canadians don't trust the government.

Finally!!

Technorati Tags: Canada

A busy day

Sorry for the lack of blogging, but I've been working on a nagging problem that has been plaguing some readers, in which when the blog was accessed via the main URL, text was overlaying other text. When individual entries were accessed, for example through the Blogging Tories, everything looked fine. Clearly there was a problem with the main index template.

After some poking around, I decided to take a blunt approach and simply run the home page through an XML checker. On the first try, I got over 900 errors! Clearly there were problems.

I've got things sorted and have reduced the list to exactly 100 89 problems. A significant portion are coming from imported blogrolls, so I'm stuck with those. Others seem to be issues with limitations of the XML checker. A few are clearly boo-boos, but browsers seem to be rendering the page as desired, so I'm leaving them for now. Feedback from some readers indicates that the blog is rendering correctly, so I'm going get back to blogging until I understand some of these XML tags better.

Sorry, no explanation yet for why the comment pop-up is not remembering data, while the individual archive pages do remember data. My plan is to phase out the pop-ups altogether, and move to a single page scheme similar to Captain's Quarters.

Update: I have eliminated the pop-ups and gone to a single integrated page for managing comments and trackbacks.

Update: More of a change notice. I'll be endeavouring to include more graphics, but in a subtle way. Nothing gaudy. Just a picture of the major players in a story, or some other relevant graphic. I'm improving my skills at flowing text around photos, so hopefully you won't notice any signficant increase in the size of articles. Also, graphics will be optimized for web use, at 5k or less per picture. Pictures help pique interest in a post, and adds a sheen of professionalism.

Finally, I'm moving to a new blog editor, ecto. It is more versatile and functional than w.bloggar, including support for Technorati tags.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

The Main Stream Media and the T-word

The T-word!

What is it?

"Truth"

You'd think that the main stream media would be devoted to the concept, and yet, here are two examples where journalists insist it really isn't all that important.

Technorati Tags: Mary Mapes, Jimmy Massey, CBC, Killian memos, 60 Minutes

There's a word for it now?

Someone I linked to yesterday noted a major spike in his traffic, and was pleased that he had been subjected to an "Angrylanche".

Angrylanche?

Heh. No wait, that's what the other guy says.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

On your mark...

From CP:

Jack Layton sent the Conservatives the clarion signal they have been demanding, stating unequivocally Tuesday that he is committed to helping them bring down the government at the next available opportunity.

The NDP leader moved to assuage Tory fears that he might be a fickle ally and abandon any effort to topple the Liberals over the coming weeks.

His guarantee came after Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said he would discuss toppling the government only upon receiving an iron-clad commitment from Layton.

The first thing that went through my head when I read this was whether this promised only covered motions that explicitly and exclusively express confidence, or any vote that doubles as a confidence vote, such as a spending bill.

Turns out the next sentence answered that for me:

Layton went a step farther than Harper, stating that he would also vote against the Liberals' supplementary budget estimates Dec. 8 or any other confidence matter.

Wow, sounds like Jack Layton is pretty mad.

Now the furious calculations begin. One thing for certain, Paul Martin's ability to govern has been severely curtailed, if not removed entirely.

Technorati Tags: Jack Layton, Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Canada

French rioters a textbook example of racial harmony?

Apparently the rioting in France is not the work of disaffected Muslims. The rioters are, in fact, an example of racial integration in action.

Don't I feel silly.

Technorati Tags: Paris riots, Gwynne Dyer

Jack Layton: The linchpin gets squeezed

That's the problem with being a linchpin.

A linchpin keeps a wheel from coming off an axle. A good thing in general, but when that wheel is spinning out of control, the linchpin runs the risk of getting snapped in half.

The wheels on this Parliament are coming off. Jack Layton and his NDP formed the linchpin that kept this Parliament rolling along through the worst of Gomery, but now they are feeling the pressure:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper turned up the heat on NDP Leader Jack Layton Tuesday, saying he would support efforts to bring down the Liberal government on corruption issues but he won't let his party be used as a “bargaining chip in a political poker game.”

Mr. Harper's comments left Mr. Layton feeling the pinch from both sides. In Ottawa earlier, Prime Minister Paul Martin dismissed any suggestion that the Liberals would go back to the table on health-care.

Responding to the situation Tuesday, Mr. Martin told reporters that the Liberal's health-care proposal stands.

“We set out a very clear proposal to Mr. Layton,” he said.

If Jack Layton pulls the pin too quickly (to continue the metaphor), the NDP runs the risk of being less than fully prepared to fight an election. If Jack Layton waits too long, Parliament might dissolve without his help (for example, Paul Martin might decide to engineer a confidence vote defeat if he thinks the polls are in his favour), which can leave the people with the impression that the NDP was supporting the Liberal Party right to the very end (in other words, the linchpin was left in place) with all the potential blowback if the corruption debate flares up dramatically during the election campaign.

Maybe it takes an engineer to think in terms of linchpins, but whatever metaphor is going through Jack Layton's mind, it all comes down to timing, and the real danger to the NDP if he times this wrong, a danger he created when he decided to support the Liberals.

Technorati Tags: Jack Layton, Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Canada

Polls shift again -- Liberals take a lead -- Or not!

Well, there has been more analysis of the poll that I discussed first thing this morning, showing a shift to the Liberals.

I suggested that the numbers had to be taken with a grain of salt, given that we didn't know the questions being asked. Stephen Taylor has analyzed them since, and shows us how the questions lead the subject to a particular conclusion.

Meanwhile, at The High Places, I have been accused of panicking, along with Political Staples. I beg to differ -- I thought I was quite clear that the numbers looked suspicious at worst, and weak at best, and that the Conservatives were doing better than the poll suggested, even if (and that's a big "if") we took the numbers at face value.

But it doesn't change the fact that The High Places has a great round-up of the most recent polls and the analysis of them. Check it out.

Technorati Tags: Stephen Harper, Canada

Canada: Trending away from the US and towards France

Canada tends to sit somewhere between the United States and Europe is just about any measure. More gun control than the US but less than Europe. Higher taxes than the US but less than Europe.

What does this pattern mean given what we're seeing with the riots in France?

Technorati Tags: Canada, Paris riots, France, United States

Hans Island: Canada is preparing the groundwork to lose it

It looks like Liberal government is trying hard to lose Hans Island to the Danes.

Polls shift again -- Liberals take a lead

As we lurch towards an election in Canada, small shifts in our polarized electorate are given great significance, perhaps undeservedly so.

Catholic Carnival LIII

The Catholic Carnival LIII is up at DeoOmnisGloria.com.

French Riots: The Perfect Storm

I was glancing over the the Drudge Report, and it occured to me that a perfect storm could be brewing that could spell the end of France, and perhaps Europe, as we know it:

• Nearly two weeks of non-stop riots in France
• A flu pandemic is just a matter of time
• Euro hits a low

Each by themselves is manageable, but if this or another cycle of unrest were to coincide with a major flu outbreak, while the economy continues to tank, the centre can collapse. Masses of people abandoning the cities to the rioters and disease racing through the closed-in population. Refugees making their way to other European countries, hoping to find safe haven with fellow Europeans. But with travel restrictions in place to control the flu, the internal borders are closed, causing even more unrest, anger, frustration, and violence. Add to that the economic upheaval as France evapourates out of the tightly integrated EU economy, and world history takes another dramatic turn, but where? Your guess is as good as mine.

[Check out the roundup]

Liberal MP: I don't know why people aren't giving us their money

A revealing look at party finances. Not only are the Conservatives comfortably in the lead when it comes to raising money to fight an election against the Liberals, the fact is that they are raising money not from corporate lenders, but from individual Canadians. On that measure, the Liberals are far behind.

If you're not willing to give money to a party, why would you vote for it?

Technorati Tags: Liberal Party, Conservative Party, party finances

The Gomery Report: The 18 Club [Updated]

The Bloc Quebecois is demanding to know the 18 ridings in eastern Quebec that received dirty money during the 1997 election. That they received the money is a conclusion reached by Justice Gomery, and Prime Minister Paul Martin has said that he accepts the report without reservations. This isn't just about settling old scores. It may be that some of those MPs are sitting in the House of Commons today.

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Liberal Party, Gilles Duceppe, Bloc Quebecois, Gomery

rabble.ca: Gomery? Election? Minority government? Huh?

Checking out rabble.ca, the "news for the rest of us", Canada's site for progressive and socialist thinking and opinion.

Just to see what they think Jack Layton should do. Kill the current sitting of Parliament and go into an election, or continue to make deals with the corrupt Liberals, and hope the stink doesn't rub off on the NDP?

This is a tough question to answer, and you'd think the great minds of Canada's left would be all over it.

Well, I thought they would, but there's nothing there. Here are the headlines (well, my version of the headlines):

• A story on how free trade was dealt it's first blow in Quebec City
• Gay rights in schools
• Environmental naughtiness in Canada
• Some bad stuff in Haiti
• Some bad stuff in Nigeria
• Helping starving Africans by having an art exhibition
• George W Bush is bad
• Something by Heather Mallick -- something about hitting judges, I think
• George W Bush is very bad

No wonder Jack Layton is confused as what to do next. His supporters have gone AWOL.

I wonder why. The forums are abuzz with unintelligent mudslinging (Harper is a liar, Harper is scum, ya-da, ya-da), but the main page is bereft of any consideration or commentary about Gomery and this crossroads in Canadian politics.

It's rather disappointing, really.

Stephen Harper vs Buzz Hargrove: A contrast in honesty

Auto union boss Buzz Hargrove has some advice for NDP leader Jack Layton:

"No election!"

He says an election would be a waste of time, that we'd end up with just another minority government. But clearly not all minority governments are the same.

Technorati Tags: Paul Martin, Liberal Party, Jack Layton, Buzz Hargrove, NDP, Stephen Harper, Conservative Party

Paul Martin: Even if you think we're corrupt, leave us alone -- there's important work to finish!

What a strange argument from Prime Minister Paul Martin:

Mr. Martin charged this weekend that any party itching for an election before Christmas is putting at risk the important international and domestic business Mr. Martin has on his agenda for the coming months.

Now think about this. The Conservatives, the NDP, and the Bloc have all come out to call the Liberal Party systematically corrupt. Not just the Chretien years, not just the Prime Minister's Office, but the whole structure of the party, and quite possibly elements of the civil service that have been forced to work with corrupt Liberal ministers for far too long.

So Paul Martin's message is that this is not a good time to throw the Liberals out, because of all the critical and far-reaching items on the agenda: an international conference of Kyoto, a tax plan in a mini-budget, a first ministers meeting about aboriginal issues, energy rebate legislation.

But if these are important issues, the effects of which could outlast the government, perhaps for years, isn't it even more important that these issues be managed by an honest government? What makes Paul Martin think what he said would cause the opposition to hesitate for even a moment? Indeed, Paul Martin is waving a red cape in front of the opposition with a statement like that.

I'm not sure if Paul Martin is being dumb or brilliant.

Gene Robinson: A mixed message hides the deeper truth

Gene Robinson, Espicol bishop and openly gay man, has some words of harsh criticism for the Roman Catholic Church and it is because the Church is cracking down on having homosexuals in the ranks of the priesthood. Ostensibly, this is in response to the sex scandals in the past, but I think the Church is rooting out a fifth column looking to rewrite Church doctrine. I think Gene Robinson's elevation in the Episcopal Church has precipitated this move, and I think Gene Robinson knows it.

French Riots: The insidious effects of multiculturalism

The insiduous effect is not how multiculturalism, or the lack of it, is influencing the riots in France, with the burning cars and attacks on buses. Instead it is how it is affecting the reporting of that news of that situation that the rest of us are reading.

Technorati Tags: Paris riots, France, CBC, multiculturalism

Noam Chomsky assassination attempt?

Anyone have any news on this? Posted by reader "gers":

BREAKING NEWS: ATTEMPT ON CHOMSKY'S LIFE

A journalist Emma Brockes working for the newspaper Guardian was arrested following her assasination attempt on well-known author and media-critic Noam Chomsky last Tuesday. The Guardian has issued a clarification that the journalist was hired with no previous criminal history and was sent on an assignment to interview Mr. Chomsky.

Mr. Chomsky appeared to be shaken by the ordeal and he said that he didn't expect an interviewer to be an assassin.

An unidentified source in The Guardian said that Emma Brockes has been previously associated with a right-wing BNP and has been an active member of the Israeli Likud Party. Ms. Brockes was also the guest speaker at the AIPAC convention in Los Angeles last January.

No source for this text was identified.

Weird. Nothing yet at Drudge or CNN or Fox or the BBC.

Here's Brockes' c.v.:

Emma Brockes is a feature writing at the Guardian, she studied English at Oxford University where she edited Cherwell, the student newspaper and won the Philip Geddes prize for journalism, graduating in 1997 with a double first. She worked at the Scotsman newspaper as a feature writing for three months before moving to the Guardian. In 2001 she won young journalist of the year at the British Press Awards. In 2002 she was voted feature writing of the year, one of the award's youngest ever recipients. She is currently the Guardian's main interviewer, writing a weekly interview with people ranging from the prime minister to Naomi Campbell. In 2004 she was shortlisted for interviewer of the year. Outside the Guardian she has written a short play The Prompt, which was performed at the Old Vic theatre as part of their New Voices season. Her short story, Visiting Time, was published this year in the British Council Anthology of New Writing and she has contributed to various Radio 4 programmes. Channel 4 made a half hour programme about her as part of their From The Top series.

Hardly the profile of a jihadist or a Mossad assassin.

Strange, if true.

Stranger still since the interview appeared last Monday, October 31, in the Guardian:

"The beauty of concision is that you can only repeat conventional thoughts." Being smart, he believes, is a function of a plodding, unsexy, application to the facts and "using your intelligence to decide what's right".

This is, of course, what Chomsky has been doing for the last 35 years, and his conclusions remain controversial: that practically every US president since the second world war has been guilty of war crimes; that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren't as bad as everyone makes out; that during the Bosnian war the "massacre" at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)

Well, I know if I was in the same room as a guy dismissing the slaughter perpetrated by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in their attempt to create a communist utopia, I'd probably reach over and give the idiot a sharp slap upside the head. But assassination? I think someone got their wires crossed.

Or maybe it was a piece of satire by a Chomsky fan who thinks any criticism of the compulsive revisionist as a form of character assassination. But no matter what the truth, it gave me an excuse to read the interview and let everyone enjoy a bit of classic Chomsky.

ACLU: Cowardly

Word that the ACLU is preparing to file suit against a town if it votes to restore its town seal to its original form, even though that old design incorporated a cross.

Of course, in the eyes of the ACLU, this suggests favouritism of one religion over another, and full force of the law must be engaged to protect Americans from...something...honestly I'm not sure what.

But going after a two-bit town no one can find on a map? What cowardice! There are bigger targets sure to earn the ACLU some real publicity.

There is the state flag of Alabama:

What's this? St. Andrew's cross, according to the description. A saint? A cross?

Worse yet, consider the state flag of Hawaii:

Hawaii was once an independent kingdom. (1810 - 1893) The flag was designed at the request of King Kamehameha I. It has eight stripes of white, red and blue that represent the eight main islands. The flag of Great Britain is emblazoned in the upper left corner to honor Hawaii's friendship with the British.

As we all know, the Union Jack is not one, not two, but three crosses! And each named after a saint!

Azure, the Crosses Saltire of St. Andrew and St. Patrick, quarterly per saltire, counterchanged Argent and Gules, the latter fimbriated of the second, surmounted by the Cross of St. George of the third, fimbriated as the saltire.

Oh, the divinity!

Maybe the ACLU can file three suits, one to get rid of English contribution, St. George's cross, the Scottish component, the cross of St. Andrew, and finally, most insidiously, the cross of St. Patrick, representing those Papist lackeys, the Irish.

But then why not go after the big prize: Florida!



There's that cross again! But there, in the seal, as big as all the outdoors, the word God.

"God". Out there is public. Where children might see it.

So why isn't the ACLU going after Alabama, Hawaii, and Florida? And with Florida, you get a two-fer. They get to eliminate "God" and symbols of Christianity from the seal of Florida, regardless of the historical context. But as a bonus, they get to take on Jeb Bush, brother of the evil President George W Bush.

[Stop the ACLU has the original story, as was as a quote from the guy whose job it is to keep an eye out for crosses. No joke.]

Stephen Taylor's Time Machine -- Tomorrow's Speech from the PM

Stephen Taylor has a leaked copy of tomorrow's radio address to be delivered by Paul Martin. I'm knee deep in babies here, but hop over and check it out. I'll be over later.

More political germ theory

Dr Dawg, a trade unionist, a progressive social liberal, a writer of poetry, and despite all those things a really nice guy, has taken my tongue-in-cheek viral theory of the Liberal-NDP relationship (see here and here) and continued it in a different direction, consistent with his particular position on the political spectrum.

Nice to see an idea take hold and grow in ways I never really considered. Maybe it'll become a bona fide meme! But then a meme is a sort of organism rendered in thought form, isn't it?

He ends off with a consideration of an entirely different metaphor -- a shuffling zombie under the control of the CLC. I like it. I'll file that one away for another day.

The Liberals help the Conservatives

One of the weirdest stories this week was the accusation that Conservative leader Stephen Harper pulled a Dingwall, that is, played fast and loose with the rules covering lobbyists:

Public Works Minister Scott Brison says he has filed a complaint with the federal registrar of lobbyists to investigate Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for what Brison says is a failure to register as a lobbyist during his time as head of the National Citizens Coalition.

Brison's request comes on the same day Harper unveiled an integrity package in a speech to his MPs on Parliament Hill.

"The National Citizens Coalition is a lobbyist organization," Brison said. "Mr. Harper was a lobbyist but he did not register as a lobbyist."

Even the Prime Minister's Office got into it:

Scott Reid, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Paul Martin, told Canadian Press that lobbying is defined as trying to influence public policy, which is what Harper did while at the NCC.

"If Mr. Harper wants to play sheriff, he can start by slapping handcuffs on himself," he told CP.

The Conservatives and the NCC vigourously denounced the accusations and demanded an apology.

Ask and you shall receive:

Liberal MP Scott Brison has officially apologized for the malicious and false statements he made about the National Citizens Coalition.

Dear Mr. Nicholls:

Thank you for your letter dated today concerning my statement regarding the NCC.

I wish to acknowledge that my statement was factually incorrect in two ways:

* I was in error to say that the NCC was charged six times with violations of the Elections Act.

* It was premature to say that there was a contravention ofthe Lobbyist Registration Act. In order to resolve and clarify the nature of these activities, I have asked the Registrar of Lobbyists to investigate. I was provided with incorrect information, but I accept responsibility for my statements. I regret my errors, and I withdraw those statements categorically. Please accept my apology.

Sincerely, Scott Brison

A decent apology. Normally, as per my policy, I would leave it here.

But in this case, the original accusation is interesting because of what it says of the Liberals. Is this the beginning of a new, and possibly final, phase of the Liberals' hold on power? Bereft of ideas, and denied moral credibility as a result of the Gomery Report, they can no longer hope to stand tall against the Conservatives. So the only tactic left to them is to attempt to cut the Conservatives down. With the next election looming, there is no time for surgical precision in the accusations, or for rumours to work through a grapevine of Liberal proxies before reaching the media (important to allow the Liberals to stand away from the mudslinging).

Instead crude accusations are flung by cabinet ministers. Not only does it look desperate, but when it backfires, as this one did, the Liberals are worse off than before. Not only do they look bad, they have immunized the Conservatives against the next accusation. Both the media and the Canadian people will be inclined to dismiss the next accusation as a yet another smear not backed by the facts.

This has been a bad week for the Liberals. The question is whether it can get any worse. Strangely, if it does, it'll probably be the Liberals' own fault.

Can you buy an impeachment?

The President of the United States can be impeached for serious crimes:

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Moreoever, the process is elaborate and designed to eliminate frivolous impeachments:

The Impeachment Process in a Nutshell

1. The House Judiciary Committee deliberates over whether to initiate an impeachment inquiry.

2. The Judiciary Committee adopts a resolution seeking authority from the entire House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry. Before voting, the House debates and considers the resolution. Approval requires a majority vote.

3. The Judiciary Committee conducts an impeachment inquiry, possibly through public hearings. At the conclusion of the inquiry, articles of impeachment are prepared. They must be approved by a majority of the Committee.

4. The House of Representatives considers and debates the articles of impeachment. A majority vote of the entire House is required to pass each article. Once an article is approved, the President is, technically speaking, "impeached" -- that is subject to trial in the Senate.

5. The Senate holds trial on the articles of impeachment approved by the House. The Senate sits as a jury while the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over the trial.

6. At the conclusion of the trial, the Senate votes on whether to remove the President from office. A two-thirds vote by the Members present in the Senate is required for removal.

7. If the President is removed, the Vice-President assumes the Presidency under the chain of succession established by Amendment XXV.

Note that the House of Representatives has sole power to indict. The House represents the people, so the implication is that the majority of the people must be satsified that a high crime or misdemeanor has been committed (note that "misdemeanor" does not have the modern meaning of a crime lower in severity than a felony), meaning each member of the House voting on an impeachment indictment must consider what their constituents believe.

Understanding that, consider this new political action committee (PAC) created by Democratic activist Bob Fertik, called ImpeachPAC:

ImpeachPAC will support Democratic candidates for Congress who support the immediate and simultaneous impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for their Iraq War lies.

The PAC is collecting money, with a goal of immediately raising $100,000 dollars to implement this plan to decapitate the executive branch. Note that if the President and Vice President were both removed from office, the Presidency goes to the Speaker of the House, John Dennis Hastert. Hastert has never held an executive position, being a legislator for his entire political career, having entered politics after leaving his post as a high school teacher in Illinois.

So if you support impeachment, money collected from across the country will be used to support your election effort. If you don't support impeachment, that money will be used to support your pro-impeachment opponent.

What else would the $100,000 be used for except to influence particular House races?

Impeachment is not policy, like drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. It is a constitutional mechanism designed to deal with a federal official who has committed a serious crime. Is it appropriate, or even legal, to use money as a means to push for an impeachment? Even if it is legal (or at least not illegal), what obligation is there for the money to be thoroughly vetted? Can well-heeled Democrats like George Soros and Michael Moore buy an impeachment? Can money be snuck in from beyond the borders of the United States and used to depose a sitting president?

Something seems wrong here. Maybe someone with a more detailed understanding of American constitutional law and the regulations covering PAC donations can explain why I shouldn't be worried.

Why isn't Jack Layton leading the ethics charge?

From the official NDP plan for cleaning up politics, called "Cleaning Up Politics", an image of the first page:

I'm probably finding significance in something that isn't significant, but why doesn't Jack Layton's image grace the front page? Instead we have a picture of, and a quote from, Ed Broadbent.

In fact, the plan is credited to Ed Broadbent and the NDP.

Jack Layton's name appears at the bottom, along with the name of the party, with no specific link to the plan.

On the other hand, the Conservative Party's plan, called "The Federal Accountability Act" is not specifically credited to anyone, but states on the front cover that the act forms Stephen Harper's commitment to address the problem:

Heck, Stephen Harper even signs the front page. Like a contract he intends to be held to, personally.

It just seems curious that Jack Layton would hand off the leadership on this issue to someone else in the party. Not that Ed Broadbent is not an ethical guy, but that's not the point. Ethical behaviour is as much about leadership and setting an example as it is about rules and audits.

When the Conservatives issue a document that puts Stephen Harper's personal commitment on the front cover, it speaks to the critical importance this issue holds, and the fact that the Conservatives intend to lead by example.

The buck stops here as it is. For the NDP, the ethics buck seems to stop with Ed Broadbent. Jack Layton seems to worrying about other things.

Seems like a strange message to send.

Just wondering.

Jack Layton: Political virus as a nightmarish reality

I suggested that as a virus, Jack Layton and the NDP should be very worried about the health of their host, the federal Liberal Party.

I was speaking metaphorically. But now I wonder if an actual virus is acting in the body of the Prime Minister!

Here is a picture of the virus:

A crafty little marvel of genetic engineering. Who could have created such an abomination? Well, uber-socialist Dr. David Suzuki is a geneticist by training.

But how was it delivered into the host? Fortunately, not only is the explanation simple, it was caught on film!

Here Jack Layton watches, worried that the host might not imbibe the water, the delivery vector for the insidious viral package:

But he doesn't need to worry, as the host eagerly swallows the from the doctored bottle:

As the virus begins its work, Jack Layton smiles in smug satisfaction.

This is why I only drink Coke from cans.

Jack Layton: Political virus as a metaphor

The funny thing about the NDP is that in order to implement policies that it insists Canadians want, but for some reason are not willing to vote for, the party needs to inject itself into another larger political organism.

Like a virus in the body politic.

The NDP virus needs a special sort of host -- a left-of-centre governing party in a minority situation, or at the very least, a left-of-centre main opposition party with enough seats in combination with the NDP to influence government decisions.

The virus found that sort of host in the Liberal Party desperate to avoid an election last spring. Jack Layton attached the NDP to the Liberals, and the NDP platform started to inject itself into government policy, like a retrovirus rewriting Liberal DNA. It was a gamble, because for a while there, it looked like the host would die. But instead, the Liberals survived the spring by bribing Belinda Stronach with a cabinet post and by ignoring several non-confidence votes until they had her support.

Not only did the Liberals survive, they grew stronger.

Until last week. Now the Liberal host is dying as a result of the Gomery Report, so the Layton virus is in a lose-lose situation.

If Layton causes an election to be called right away, and the Conservatives and Bloc win enough seats to make the Liberal-NDP coalition meaningless, the NDP loses.

If Layton delays, and the Liberals continue on a downward slide, then the NDP will slide along with it, and the result of the inevitable election might be even worse.

Either way, host and virus die together.

From the CBC:

NDP Leader Jack Layton said he's "disappointed" with the package of health care changes the Liberals gave him Thursday night, but gave no indication whether the issue will force a quick election.

If he thought that the NDP could be an effective force without the Liberals in power, the election would have been called already. But Layton knows the NDP, like any virus outside of its host, would become inert and irrelevant.

So the only plan for the virus is to stay attached. Layton puts off the decision to withdraw support to a future date too close to Christmas:

An NDP spokesperson has said the party won't support the Liberals beyond Nov. 15 if there's no deal.

By that date, an election is unlikely, so the Conservatives and the Bloc will hold off pulling down the government. That gives the host at least until January, and possibly beyond if the decision is made at the point, the depth of winter, to wait until March.

The virus will remain attached for the duration, regardless of what that spokesperson says.

This plays into the virus' only hope, that the host regains its strength iduring this delay, as it did in the spring. If that happens, the virus will be happy enough to continue to use the host to pursue its own agenda.

Of course, none of this bodes well for the host. It either dies now, and takes the virus with it, or it lingers on, and the virus kills it.

Canada vs Iran: Games mullahs play

From the National Post:

Iran has launched an attack on Canada at the United Nations, claiming Ottawa is in no position to censure the Islamic republic over its human rights record.

Canada is due to propose a motion at the General Assembly next week that calls on members to pass a resolution demanding Iran enact reforms, including bans on torture and execution by stoning.

Now Iranian officials have combed through the results of numerous human rights inquiries in Canada to come up with evidence of human rights abuses across the country.

You can ponder the absurdity of Iran lecturing another country on human rights. You can admit that Canada is not perfect, but then wonder what country is.

For me, what strikes me as interesting is just how pointless this whole exercise is to the mullahs who rule the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran. Not because the mullahs are evil or wicked, but because from their point of view, they meeting the only obligations that matter with regards to human rights.

When the UN passes a motion like this, it is putting forth an opinion shared by many nations of many different cultures. As such, UN motions are necessarily agnostic. The institution sees humanity as intelligent animals, leaving questions of theology out of the equation, for the simple reason that the answers to those questions are not universally shared.

So it calls on a ban on execution by stoning (but not on executions themselves) because just about everyone can agree on such a ban regardless of their culture. That's because just about everyone separates (formally or otherwise) their metaphysical beliefs and customs from formal secular governance.

But an Islamic nation is different, and Iran is probably the purest example of such a nation in existence today (now that the Taliban are gone from Afghanistan). As we all know, Islam makes no distinction between church and state. Indeed, it is not even optional to consider making such a separation, at least in the way most Muslims seem to read the Koran. A properly managed nation is an Islamic theocracy -- anything else is imperfect and thus the people under such a system a suffering needlessly.

When the push was on to get Islamic family law incorporated into the Ontario judicial system, don't be fooled. The ultimate goal was to have such laws apply to everyone, all the time, with no exceptions. Ontario dodged a bullet when the idea was shot down.

So if the Koran says such a person should be stoned, or have some body part lopped off, or crushed under a wall, then that's what's going to happen. The bleating of the UN is meaningless, because the UN itself is meaningless. The Koran did not create that institution, nor does the UN conform to Koranic principles. The UN is just so much noise.

So I wonder why Iran is reacting so angrily. Why go to all this trouble? Why not airily wave all criticism away, confident in the knowledge that soon the crescent banner of Islam will be flying over all the nations of the world, especially once Iran gets the Bomb?

Some of it is realpolitik. The crescent banner is flying over pitifully few countries today, so meaningless or not, the UN represents nations some of whom wield a great deal of power. The UN might be easily ignored, but raw power cannot. Hence the rush to develop nuclear weapons.

Another reason is pride. It is easy to say the UN is meaningless, but human nature often drives us to confront criticism, sometimes violently. I can only think that it is worse in the case of Iran, because any criticism of their government or judiciary is implicitly a criticism of Islam, and that cannot be tolerated in silence.

But I think a part of the reason is simply for fun. If the UN is a big waste of time, and one of the first things to go when the forces of Islam finally vanquish the heathens across the planet, then why not have a bit of fun with it until that happy day comes. Canada is about to propose a motion on human rights? Well, those foolish Western nations have their free press. In an Islamic paradise, the press knows its role is to support and praise the government, and in doing so, support and praise Islam. But a heathen government deserves no such loyalty, and indeed, their press criticizes their governments shamelessly. So we'll dig up every "human rights" complaint printed in their press and throw it back at them.

I might be wrong, but I think the mullahs are actually enjoying this.

Stephen Harper: Some good ideas and long term implications

Just announced by Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party:

"Cleaning up government begins at the top," he added, accusing Prime Minister Paul Martin of deflecting blame whenever the taint of scandal touches him.

"Under Paul Martin's watch the waste and mismanagement and corruption has continued."

But Harper said things would change under his leadership, beginning with the introduction of a "Federal Accountability Act," as soon as the Conservatives form a government.

Highlights of the proposed legislation include:

• more powers to independent officers of Parliament, including the auditor general and ethics commissioner;
• measures to ensure federal grants and contracts "provide value for taxpayers' money;
• "real protection" for whistleblowers;
• reform of access to information laws
• merit-based appointments to public office;
• a complete ban on corporate and union donations, and an annual cap of $1,000 on individuals' donations to federal political parties;
• a mandatory five-year break before former ministers and other senior public officials can lobby government;

"We must clean up corruption and lift up the veils of secrecy that have allowed it to flourish," Harper said, promising to "replace the culture of entitlement with a culture of accountability."

In a minority government situation, the ban on corporate and union donations is interesting. The Conservatives, though seen as pro-business, actually get most of their donations from individuals. The Liberals get most of their donations from corporations, and the NDP still depends heavily on unions.

So depending on the numbers in a new Parliament, if the Conservatives and the Bloc combined can't outvote a Liberal-NDP coalition, this idea might die. On the other hand, if the Conservatives and Bloc together outvote the Liberals and the NDP, the Liberals and NDP might end up voting for the package since they can't block it, and since it'll look bad to vote against such a reform.

Here's a question. Does a Conservative government put forward this package if the Liberals and NDP outvote the Conservatives and the Bloc, and make it a vote of confidence? In other words, is this a hill to die on? Planning to put the bill out first is clever, since it puts the Liberals and the NDP in the position of potentially causing an election to be called almost immediately after the last one. That won't be popular with the public, and depending on the party finances, might not be popular with the MPs either.

So maybe the Liberals and the NDP end up with no choice regardless of the numbers, and this reform will pass. For the Liberals frozen out of Quebec, cut off from their corporate donors, unable to use the treasury to bribe voters with social programs, and potentially facing a lawsuit to recover funds from Adscam, this could be financially disastrous. Going directly to the people for money might be a tough job for the Liberals, given that the public perception right now is of a corrupt party that cannot be trusted with money. This means that the Liberal Party is hobbled financially for a few years at least, and thus in no mood to fight an election. That could mean a stable Conservative minority for some time.

Or it forces the Liberals to engage in even more financial shenanigans to avoid complying with the new rules, with the risk of being found out. If they were found to be cheating again, even in opposition, the Canadian voter might decide that there is no political wilderness remote enough into which to exile the Liberals, and the Liberals collapse as a party. That shifts the electoral landscape dramatically, especially in the traditional Liberal strongholds in central Canada. Imagine Ontario seriously in play, and not just voting to punish the Liberals.

Imagine the plight of the NDP if the Liberals collapse, with no major party onto which to attach themselves. Or do they win in this scenario by collecting a large number of former Liberal votes? Or do they split into two parties? A new version of the Liberal party formed by those in the NDP with a pragmatic desire to govern along with ex-Liberals that are not too tainted. The radicals and socialists unionists and other uncompromising true believers go in a different direction, forming a new rump NDP if they can find enough common ground, or if not, dispersing to the Greens and the WWP and other smaller groups.

If the Liberals go away, we might even see room for the Greens and others to enter Parliament.

Could be a very interesting time in Canadian politics in the weeks, months, and years to come.

The Liberal Party talking to a mirror

From the Globe and Mail:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper will sue the Liberal Party to recover more misspent sponsorship funds if he comes to power in the next election, saying this week's $1-million reimbursement by the governing party is far from enough.

"If the Liberal Party is willing to turn over $1-million before it's even pursued, that tells me they think they're getting a pretty good deal. I'd suggest that we put the squeeze hard on them," Mr. Harper said in an interview.

Interesting tactic. The idea is that in the court of law, there would be even further legal discovery than in an inquiry.

For example, as I recall, the much vaunted Kroll audit did not check the personal accounts of many of the major players. And yet millions are unaccounted for, so the obvious place to look is in those accounts.

But the Liberals are dismissing court proceedings as a stunt:

A spokesman for Prime Minister Paul Martin called Mr. Harper's litigation idea a stunt.

"Stunts and smears -- that's all Mr. Harper offers," Scott Reid said. "Now this latest gimmick."

I note that they don't present an argument as to why such a lawsuit would be illegal.

But they are arguing that the money has been repaid:

Public Works Minister Scott Brison said the Liberal Party has already repaid $1.14-million to the government in accordance with Judge Gomery's findings, and that everyone should be satisfied with that.

"The fact is that our party has repaid the Canadian treasury every penny that was received inappropriately," Mr. Brison said. "The Liberal Party has paid the money, so why would we sue it?"

Why indeed? Well, as Stephen Harper points out, we don't really know what the appropriate amount is. I mean, who came to the conclusion that $1 million was the right amount?

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler provides the laugh-out-loud answer:

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said the Liberal government and the Liberal Party have come to a common understanding that $1-million is appropriate.

What the...?

One of the root causes of the Adscam fiasco was the close relationship between the government and the Liberal Party, which has evolved into the institutional governing party of Canada. Many in the Liberal Party see it as their natural right to govern Canada, and the difference between party and government has become blurred. I suppose we should be grateful that the kickback scheme was a "scheme", suggesting that the Liberals still, on some level, know that simply writing cheques to themselves from the treasury would be wrong, or at least unacceptable to the public.

But that doesn't keep them from seeing the treasury as the party's own election fund, whether it is in election-timed tax breaks, or custom-designed social programs for special interest groups, or corporate welfare for Liberal-friendly firms in key ridings, or special budget provisions with which to bribe the NDP, or kickback schemes like Adscam.

So to them, it seems perfectly logical that the Liberal government and the Liberal Party come to a mutual understanding about how much money to "give back". They see themselves as being responsible.

We see something entirely different. We see Paul Martin standing in front of a mirror, talking to himself, taking a million dollars out of his left pocket and putting it into his right pocket, then telling everyone that he has spoken to the government and that the money has been put back where it belongs.

Open Trackbacks for Gomery Posts

Everyone is welcome to post trackbacks to this entry on anything related to Gomery. And for those who don't use trackbacks, feel free to put your URLs in the comments instead.

I'll keep this post at the top for the next 48 hours. New posts will appear immediately below.

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Gomery

The Liberals: Delay, delay, delay

An Ipsos-Reid poll has brutal news for the federal Liberals:

While Federal NDP leader Jack Layton flirts with the possibility of pushing a Christmas election, an exclusive Global National/Ipsos Reid poll shows the Liberals taking a heavy beating in popularity, dropping seven per cent since the Gomery Report was released Tuesday.

According to the poll national vote support for each major Federal party current sits at:

• 31% for Paul Martin and the Liberals (-7 points)
• 30% for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives (+4 points)
• 19% for Jack Layton and the NDP (+1 point)
• 5% for Jim Harris and the Green Party (unchanged)

As for the Paul Martin being exonerated from all responsibility to the Sponsorship Scandal?

• 54% agree that “the findings of the Gomery Report show that the Liberal Party is corrupt and does not deserve to be re-elected”, versus 38% who believe the government deserves to be re-elected and eight percent “don’t know”.

Some things are clear.

Obviously the argument that the problem was in that Liberal Party and not in this Liberal Party has failed to convince 54% of the respondents.

The Liberals lose 7 but the opposition gain 5. So people are leaving the Liberals, but are hardly flocking to the Conservatives or the NDP. Even the support that the other parties have gained is probably soft. That means that the Conservatives can't expect to win merely by pointing out that the Liberals are corrupt. The peope know that, but will by default stay at home instead of voting Conservative. That hardly guarantees a Conservative win. The Conservatives will need to win votes by offering a program of their own.

That's not necessarily surprising. On the other hand, the Conservatives can take advantage of the corruption angle to argue that Liberal policy itself -- big government, lots of tax money flowing around, centralized power in Ottawa -- is part of the reason for the corruption. This is an opportunity to sell real conservatism as a legitimate, even necessary, alternative to traditional Canadian liberalism.

The NDP have hardly moved amidst all this movement in voter preference. This puts the lie to the notion that the "people" want Jack Layton to blackmail the government into implementing NDP policy. So the NDP has a choice. They can abandon the Liberals and go into an election. But the numbers suggest that they will lose their position as holders of the balance of power. On the other hand, they can continue to support the government and get more of their policies implemented (or at the very least, make sure their enemies are punished). But that path is fraught with danger too. If the Liberal numbers continue to slide amidst the stench of corruption, at least some of that smell will stick with to the NDP. Moreoever, if the people begin to demand an election, the NDP run the risk of being punished if they are seen to constantly thwart that desire. And if the NDP sees that tide turning, and Jack Layton decides to be stubborn, then we might even see a party revolt.

The challenge for the Liberals is to keep the NDP on board. Why? Because delay is the only tactic left open to them. Blaming Jean Chretien is not working. So the Liberals have to delay, as they did in the spring, and hope that the polls shift back. But the second report is coming in February. And Jack Layton is getting antsy. So what will save them?

The NDP can be bought off, but what about that pesky second report, and the promise to hold an election after the report is delivered? The answer might ironically come from Jean Chretien. If his legal challenge leeps the report from being written or tabled, then Paul Martin can continue to hold on until the polls show a solid lead, then go to the polls regardless of the status of the second report.

More polls to follow...

Shameless self-promotion

Over the last few days, I've been doodling on Photoshop, designing a new logo for Angry in the Great White North:

But I haven't rolled it out in no small part because I like the fast loading time of my image-lite blog. Plus it's a bit too vertical. But when the "Banned for Life" buttons started selling, I figure, what the heck, I'll create a bunch of products with the AGWN Logo. So in a fit of shameless self-promotion, and because my tip jar has been filled with nothing but dust bunnies for months now, I'm directing readers to the right-hand panel. There you will find the two logos which will link you to the online store where you can buy these goodies. I've selected low markups, so there is little danger of me making Dingwall-like income and running off to Bora Bora. But if you like the blog, and you or someone you know would get a kick out of having something a bit offbeat on the desk at work or wearing something different the next time you're at the gym, this might be something you're interested in.

And it's advertising for me!

Cheers!

Angry in the Great White North -- The Shopping Experience!

The reaction to my "Banned for Life" button was so positive, that I've decided to make it available via CafePress.com.

If you are interested in any of these fine items proclaiming your desire to be counted among those not welcome in the Liberal Party of Canada, then go visit "Angry in the Great White North -- The Shopping Experience!" and start ordering your buttons and mugs today.

Remember, the election is just around the corner...

An honest error and compounding the mistake

Michelle Malkin relates an incident in which a Washington Post writer, Emily Messner, imagines the celebration among conservatives inspired by the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court:

“Nonetheless, it is amusing to imagine Charles Krauthammer doing a touchdown dance.”

Charles Krauthammer has been a paraplegic for over 30 years, so clearly seeing him dance would be far more than amusing.

It would be downright miraculous!

Is Messner guilty of gross tastelessness? Of course not. She did not know about his physical condition. Perhaps she should be lauded for not knowing. That might be a bit of a stretch for a professional writer in Washington as Malkin argues, but Marked Up makes that point.

The same could not be said of Larry Johnson, and I was happy to tear into him.

When Messner was made aware of what she had done, she re-wrote the column to substitute George Will for Charles Krauthammer (which does evoke a genuinely amusing image) and added what sounded like a genuinely heartfelt apology.

Malkin makes a final point:

And imagine the uproar if a conservative writer had made the touchdown remark about Max Cleland or the late Christopher Reeve...

I have to say that I'm disappointed that Malkin ends her piece on this note.

First, we don't need to imagine what would happen -- we've got plenty of examples of double-standards applied to conservatives.

But it is my policy to give full credit to anyone who makes a sincere apology for their actions, especially when those actions were not motivated by malice. Messner made a mistake, she apologized immediately, and clearly felt mortified. Her apology should be accepted with good grace, and we shouldn't make her feel worse by using the incident as a cheap club to whack at liberals.

I think that compounds the error, instead of letting the unfortunate incident pass for the benefit of both Messner and Krauthammer.

Just the way I see it.

Desmond Piers: A life distilled into a moment

For a life that spanned 92 years, it seems unfair to remember a single moment. And indeed the life of Rear Admiral Desmond William Piers DSC, CM, CD, D.sc.Mil, Klj, RCN (Ret'd) is best remembered for this remarkable moment on the eve of D-Day:

From Macleans:

Late in the afternoon of June 5, 1944, Able Seaman Andy Irwin, 19, joined his HMCS Algonquin destroyer shipmates on deck to hear the news from their captain, Lt.-Cmdr. Desmond "Debby" Piers. Just a few hours earlier, Algonquin and hundreds of other vessels had left scores of English ports. "Debby came down from the bridge, hopped up on the torpedo tubes and told us that the following day was D-Day, the invasion of Normandy," remembers Irwin, now living in Mississauga, Ont. Piers's mission was to lead 10 other destroyers, two troop ships and more than a score of infantry and tank landing craft to the edge of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. The captain ended his dramatic announcement with a Nelsonian flourish: "If our ship gets hit near the shore, we will run the ship right up on the beach and keep firing our guns until the last shell is gone."

They rode the waves to the edge of Hitler's Atlantic Wall, and Algonquin fired salvo after salvo to support the brave soldiers hitting the beaches. She came under fire, but no shells struck, and the rest is history.

It bears mentioning that as a young lieutenant, Piers was involved in another in-shore action which saw the first time a Canadian ship fired on the enemy in World War II. In a quirky turn of fate, that historic first action saw Canadian naval destroyers take on not the Kriegsmarine, but the Wehrmacht and German panzer tanks.

Tanks?

It was June 1940. HMCS Restigouche and HMCS St. Laurent were taking part of the evacuation of the British Expeditionay Force at the famous Miracle of Dunkirk, taking on troops near St. Valery. Piers was sent alone to shore to find out what was holding up the 51st Highland Division. Piers took his launch to the beach and found the general on the nearby ridge. The general refused to abandon the position, as he was holding the flank against advancing Germans, and wanted to provide the most time possible for the rest of the troops to escape. Piers reported to the ships by signal light, then got into his launch to return. As his boat was being hoisted by Restigouche, the Germans overran the general's position and the panzers appeared at the top of ridge. They opened fire on the Restigouche, which had come in close to shore to help recover Piers. Laurent returned fire with her 4.7 inch guns, followed moments later by Restigouche, and the Royal Canadian Navy was well and truly in the war.

The general and his men were taken prisoner and spent 4 years as POWs.

As for Piers, his naval career was long and illustrious, and as recently as last year, he was still being recognized as one of Canada true war heroes, inducted into the Legion d'Honneur in June 2004, on the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Desmond Piers passed away yesterday in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, at the age of 92. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Janet (Macneill), daughter Anne Baker, three grandsons, six great grand-children, brother Walter Harrington Piers and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

Do you want to be banned for life?

As we all know, the Liberal Party has taken action in light of the Gomery Report:

Mr. Martin received his copy of the Gomery report on Monday evening. After it was made public yesterday, Mr. Martin announced that 10 former supporters of Mr. Chretien, including former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, a former provincial cabinet minister from Quebec and two former directors of the party's Quebec wing, had been banned for life from membership in the Liberal Party.

Banned for life?

All I can say is: Those lucky bastards!

Based on an idea from reader Larry Joe:

I bet this button will be all the rage soon enough.

Michael Moore: Capitalist pig!

From the Union Leader:

Michael Moore, the biggest mouthpiece of the anti-hypocrite left, constantly denounces Republicans as racists for opposing affirmative action. Schweizer reports that Moore almost never hires black people. Moore insists, "I don't own a single share of stock." He denounces clever Enron style schemes to conceal wealth and rails against Haliburton as the Mother of All Evils. He told C-Span's Brian Lamb in his best prolier-than-thou voice that he wanted nothing to do with the stock market. "That's the rich man's game."

Well, it turns out Moore's got another game going. As Schweizer reports, Moore told the IRS his home is the headquarters of his tax-free foundation, to which he contributes some of his millions for the write-off. The foundation, in turn, not only bought stock - its holdings are a Who's Who of "greedy" corporations, including Halliburton.

So how is the hard left taking this?

Not so well:

I wouldnt be surprised if this is just the latest lie from the Right, but IF its true, MM needs to FOAD. [ed. "f*** off and die" in case you are wondering]

Ill just say this one thing and then back out of the thread for the most part as Im probably going to be flamed to hell, but MM is wrong to own any stock that benefits one of the primary sources of corruption in this administration. He can no longer claim the high ground and this reeks of hypocrisy.

Face it, if true (and that is a big if), this is hypocrisy.

Sorry, but it looks a lot like he's been caught with his pants down on this one. [ed. sorry about the imagery; very, very sorry]

If you want to spend on personal conviction, give it to charity, and if you want to spend on Halliburton stock, shut your pie hole about how evil they are.

MM's telling the truth...He doesn't one one piece of Haliburton stock. He owns a lot more than one piece of Haliburton stock.

Its still not right. We can make excuses for him all day long, but it still looks like hypocrisy. $10 says that within a week he will announce that he is selling off the stock to put the issue to bed.

And then there are those who show that David Hannum was right when he said, "There is a sucker born every minute":

You can't fight the system from the outside. Know your enemy. Sun Tzu was big on that. Michael Moore can do what he wants in my book, he's done helluvalot for the cause.

That last one was from someone called "Loonman".

Hey, Loonman, remember that Moore bought that Haliburton stock using money you spent to see his movies and buy his DVDs. Still think Moore was thinking of Sun Tzu when his enormous royalty cheque came in the mail, and he handed it over to his money managers with the instructions, "Go make me an ever bigger pile of money!"?

Democracy, Canadian-style

A study in two approaches to democracy, where people are supposed to have a say. Both are highlighted by the news organization of Canada's own CTV.

From CTV, an excerpt of a profile of the nominee to the US Supreme Court:

He has served on the federal appeals court since his nomination by then-president George H.W. Bush in 1990. The year after he assumed his spot on the appeals court bench, he voted to uphold all restrictions on abortion in Pennsylvania law.

The ruling requiring a woman to notify her husband before an abortion was subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court in a decision that reaffirmed America's landmark Roe v Wade case.

Before his appointment to the federal appeals court, he served three years as U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. During the administration of republican president Ronald Reagan, Alito was both assistant solicitor general and deputy assistant attorney general.

A Roman Catholic of Italian descent, Alito was born and raised in New Jersey.

Now back to CTV, the profile of the nominees to fill the opening on the bench of Canada's highest court:

Are you getting that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know you live in a democracy? I'm not. I wonder what it's like.

Why don't we know anything? Because we don't need to. We're just citizens, after all:

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has come up with a half-dozen candidates for the Supreme Court of Canada and handed their names to a blue-ribbon advisory panel for further vetting.

The identities of the potential judges remain confidential, however, and the panel members have been sworn to secrecy.

The funny thing is, in Canada, this secret closed-door process is considered an improvement!

It's the first time Ottawa has used such an elaborate process to appoint a judge to the top court. In the past, prime ministers have acted largely on their own, with only sketchy and informal consultation with the legal community.

Not that it matters -- the Prime Minister can still do whatever he wants.

Recall the words of our ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna, delivered in the presence of American ambassador David Wilkins:

"But it was anticipated that it would be established as a country in which there would be a check and balance on the exercise of power. And I can tell you categorically that what has been institutionalized instead is total gridlock. The government of the United States is, in large measure, dysfunctional."

Let's see, in the United States, a bad nomination, Harriet Miers, is stopped cold, while a more appropriate nominee, is going forward under careful scrutiny.

In Canada, for all we know, David Dingwall is up for the bench appointment. Or Jean Chretien. And we won't know until after the deed is done.

I think we need to get McKenna a dictionary. I'm not certain he knows what "dysfunctional" means.

If we're going to be obvious about it, maybe we should just start using the N-word

Yeah, the N-word. That seems to be the level of discourse used by the left in the US:

Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.

Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an "Uncle Tom" and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.

Apparently, to categorize these as insults and attacks is wrong. This is a case of pointing out the obvious:

"There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names," said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Colored people? Well, that's also rather obvious, isn't it. Just another words for n*****.

Hey look, Mfume is a n*****. That's obvious too. A lot more obvious than calling this man:

an "Uncle Tom" or an "Oreo cookie", which is really a matter of opinion. Like this opinion:

Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black.

"Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community," she said. "His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people."

Well, not in the best interests as Marriott sees it. That's why we have elections. To enlist the collective wisdom of the people to decide who's right.

But apparently my idea of using the N-word is misguided:

"That's not racial. If they call him the "N' word, that's racial," Mrs. Marriott said. "Just because he's black, everything bad you say about him isn't racial."

But didn't she just finish using a slave comparison, the black-on-the-outside-white-on-the-inside metaphor, the anti-black slur?

Sounds like everything she's saying about him is racial. If it weren't for his race, they wouldn't be saying these things.

The subtlety of her thought processes are lost on me.

So should we start using the N-word? No. Not because we'd be dropping to their level, though that would be reason enough not to do it. Not because it's offensive, because sometimes being offensive is an effective tactic. But because then we'd be focusing on race just like they are, and missing the point. That point is that a person's political agenda needs to be evaluated on its merits. Special rules don't apply because the person proposing that agenda happens to be black. Being black does not mean that certain ways of thinking are out of bounds for you, and that should you consider these approaches to political and social questions, you deserve to be attacked and insulted.

Seems to me that it is the Democrats in the US who are fixated on keeping the black man in his place. Marriott and her kind should stop to consider who is behaving like a displeased master.

It's certainly not the Republicans.

[Round-up at Michelle Malkin. More at Captain's Quarters]

The Gomery Report and the Election

If Jean Chretien proceeds with a court challenge against the Gomery Report conclusions, what does that mean?

If Chretien wins, is the second report immediately rendered meaningless since the recommendations are based on the faulty conclusions of the first report?

If the second report is nullified, does that nullify the promise to hold an election?

How quickly will the federal court be able to hear Jean Chretien's case?

If the court can't hear the case immediately, can delivery of the second report be delayed by means of some sort of injunction?

Will the government itself seek such an injunction on the basis that the second report is of questionable value until the challenge is resolved? Or will the government simply refuse to table the report in Parliament until the court challenge is resolved?

If the court hears the case immediately, will the second report be delayed because of the distraction fighting a court case?

If the second report is delayed for any reason, and that in turn delays the promised election, how will the parties in Parliament react?

Is Jean Chretien doing Paul Martin a favour, even inadvertently, by challenging the Gomery Inquiry now?

The Gomery Report: Still criticism without specifics

Jean Chretien is planning to fight the report's findings in court:

Former prime minister Jean Chretien launched a spirited attack on Justice John Gomery's sponsorship report, saying he will challenge what he sees as its flawed findings in court.

Chretien's lawyer, David Scott, said the grounds -- "with the utmost respect to (Gomery's) judicial office" -- are two-fold:

* That Gomery showed a "reasonable apprehension of bias," towards Chretien, and
* His findings didn't have an evidentiary foundation in several key areas, Scott said, without going into detail.

Without going into detail. Admittedly, the plan might be to hold off on specifying those details until they're in court, but then the report is already written, so if the sections are lacking now, they'll still be lacking later.

This is the second time we've heard from the Chretien camp of the report being factually deficient without someone pointing at a line in the report and demonstrating how it is not supported by the transcripts of the testimony heard at the inquiry.

From there too, we would need to see if that mistake has any substantial impact on the conclusions, but one step at a time.

Taking issue with Justice Gomery's conclusions, or with his choice of which conflicting testimony to believe, is one thing, but to suggest factual misrepresentation? That should be an easy one to prove. I hope someone does it soon, because if it's true, well, that would be a huge deal.

The Gomery Report: While everyone was looking at Adscam...

No one is asking questions about other scandals. Like Earnscliffe, that consulting firm that is so tight with the Liberal Party.

This is last awarded contract to Earnscliffe that I could find in the MERX system:

I draw your attention to a couple of things I find curious.

For example, there is no person's name under "Buyer Information". Normally the bureaucrat who approved the contract is listed, but this contract lists the buyer as the Ministry of Public Works. No traceability.

Also, note that the contract was awarded not on the basis of lowest price, but on "Best Overall Proposal".

Fine, but you would think that a contract that is going to cost us $0.00 would have won on price, hands down!

That's right, this one is being done gratis, at least according to the database. No charge to us, the taxpayer.

Right.

There is probably an innocent explanation. Or maybe the money is being paid out in envelopes at the local restaurant. The Lord Elgin Hotel has a restaurant, and at 100 Elgin Street is closeby. It looks very posh. They even have a meeting package called the "Privy Council" at $67 per person. Yum-yum!

Don't want to be discussing major contracts with no apparent monetary value visible to the taxpayer on an empty stomach.

And in case you are curious as to what this contract was for, well, so am I. When I try to get the contract details from the database using the solicitation number or the reference number, no records are found. Like someone wanted to purge the records and missed one...

The Gomery Report: Warren Kinsella's hissy fit

This inexperienced political staffer named Warren Kinsella seems to be very upset about the Gomery Report:

• Gomery utterly destroys his credibility - and exposes his flagrant bias - when he actually states that the evidence "exonerates" Paul Martin. Gomery and Martin certainly want Canadians to believe that, but they won't. The guy who wrote the "Cher Claude" letter about sponsorship dollars knew nothing? The guy who was forced to admit he wrote the cheques? The guy who attended Quebec caucus and Quebec minister meetings, where sponsorship was regularly discussed, knew nothing? Bullshit. It's a bald-faced lie, and Canadians know it.
• Try as he might, Gomery's $80 million inquisition could not find any evidence, whatsoever, of Jean Chretien and Jean Pelletier having any personal involvement or culpability in wrongdoing. That's what he and the Martinites wanted most of all, so great is their well-documented hatred for Jean Chretien. But they didn't get it.
• Gomery disregarded evidence. He quoted evidence wrongly. He spun evidence, he even seemed to make evidence up. His objective - as Ipsos public opinion polls bear out - was to smear a man he had called "small town cheap" and assorted other insults. Canadians know that, too. That's why Canadians loved Chretien's golf ball jest - because they loved seeing the Shawinigan streetfighter make short work of the imperious, loose-lipped Westmount judge.

You'd think he'd at least be pleased that he was given significant credit for designing the Sponsorship Program that has became such an important part of Canadian history.

Dare I say it is Warren Kinsella's legacy to all of us? Gee, thanks.

But while I wait to hear from angry lawyers, I'd like to know specifically what evidence Justice Gomery made up, as alleged in the third bullet I quoted. That's a pretty harsh statement, and it should be easy to back up. Just quote the text where something was fabricated.

Kinsella might be right. I can't say one way or the other. But then I'm not making the allegation, so it's not up to me to prove him wrong. The onus is on Kinsella to show us how he is right.

You just can't say something like that without being specific. It's like, oh, I don't know, writing a memo stating that the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office support your idea to put Chuck Guite in charge of a major department managing government communications, but not actually saying who in the PMO or PCO thinks you're right about that.

One of those put up or shut up moments.

Now that I think about it, according to the Gomery Report, Kinsella decided to shut up when someone called on him to put up on that memo.

Some people never learn.

Jack Layton: Canadians are corrupt

Jack Layton weighs in on the Gomery Report by taking the high moral ground:

His report today, after months of testimony, shows the extent of Liberal corruption. It saddens and angers me personally. People worked hard to pay the tax dollars abused in this scandal…and deserved better from the Liberal Party than what Justice Gomery found.

So that means an election, right? I mean, he can't possibly work with such a government, saddened and angered as he is. Worse than his personal reaction, is what he says this has done to democracy itself:

This is a very sad day in the life of our country. Our democracy has been gravely harmed.

Now those are fighting words. If we can agree on nothing else, Jack Layton and I would agree that if democracy itself is threatened, we need to join together to fight to save it.

So, an election, right?

With my NDP colleagues, I pledge to you to do everything we can do to clean up the politics of Liberal scandals and to restore Canadian Democracy to its rightful place.

Great words! So, an election, right?

Wrong:

"We want to try to have a productive parliament to focus on issues Canadians care about," said Layton.

So the problem is with the Canadian people! We're tying poor Jack Layton's hands. We're willing to hold our collective nose about Liberal corruption and its grave threat to Canadian democracy for another social program or two, and maybe some higher income taxes, because we prefer higher taxes to democracy. And the poor NDP is stuck in the middle, on the one hand bemoaning the state of governance under the Liberals, where "tax dollars [were used] for their own benefit and the benefit of the Liberal Party", and on the other hand, trying to respond to Canadians who so desperately want the NDP to use its position in Parliament to expand the role of that same Liberal government Jack Layton finds so distasteful.

But then if Canadians really wanted what the NDP was offering, then wouldn't they vote for the NDP in an election? Then Jack Layton would be able to do all these things without having to deal with corrupt Liberals.

If Canadians really wanted what the NDP was offering...

Paul Martin passes the Gomery Report to the Mounties

The Gomery Report is uncompromising in the way it blames the mess on Jean Chretien and his staff.

Well, now there's more for them to worry about. From the CBC:

Prime Minister Paul Martin has referred the report to the RCMP for possible criminal investigations.

Who wants to bet the RCMP would not have been allowed anywhere near that document if there was any suggestion that Paul Martin was anything but ignorant of what was going on in his own province?

But now the major players are going to be interviewed by the Mounties. And even if he isn't a suspect in a criminal case, Jean Chretien is going to be called in for a friendly discussion. He's not going to like that. Not one bit.

I don't expect there will be any Christmas card exchanges this year.

The Gomery Report: A lesson learned

From page 162 of Chapter VI the Gomery Report:

When CCSB was created in November 1997, it constituted almost exactly the consolidation of functions that had been advocated by Mr. Kinsella two years previously. At that time, Mr. Guite’s position was reclassified from EX-02 to EX-03. Mr. Guite testifies that he had spoken to Mr. Quail and to Mr. Gagliano and told them that he considered that he should be promoted and that his position should be reclassified as Executive Director of CCSB, with the equivalent rank of Assistant Deputy Minister, reporting directly to the Deputy Minister, because of the increased responsibilities that he was assuming with the creation of CCSB.

And from that memo we get the organization that ran the Sponsorship Program.

And this is why you don't listen to inexperienced political staffers like Warren Kinsella!

OK, that's enough teasing. The report has a lot bigger fish to fry that one misguided executive assistant like Kinsella and his meddling in the internal workings of a ministry.

The Gomery Report: Warren Kinsella, the inexperienced political staffer

This is a minor aside, but hey, it made me laugh. On page 159 of Chapter VI of the Gomery Report, you can read the following:

On November 23, 1995, Mr. Kinsella, the Executive Assistant of Mr. Dingwall, who was then Minister of PWGSC, wrote a surprising memorandum to Messrs. Quail and Stobbe, which to be appreciated must be reproduced in full:

Gentlemen, repeated reviews of the management of the federal government’s communications apparatus—and recent experience
– have established a clear requirement for a centralized delivery system for the procurement and coordination of advertising, public opinion research and communications products. We have discussed this on previous occasions.

There is also obviously a clear requirement to work with the Privy Council Office so that communications initiatives can be tied to overall government priorities. PCO and PMO have recently expressed similar views.

After discussing this with the Minister, it is therefore requested that the following tasks be undertaken;

I. Create a common delivery system for advertising, research and all communications services products.

II. Develop an information program explaining the role of functions of the integrated organization to departments of government including all regions as well as to communications industry suppliers.

III. Work with the Privy Council Office and other relevant central agencies to develop recommendations for a system that will generate ongoing strategic communications initiatives around government priorities.

IV. Investigate all “out-of-home” advertising and potential sponsorship initiatives that are available to effectively promote government programs.

As the lead agency in the management of government advertising and public opinion research activities, the Advertising and Public Opinion Research Sector (APORS) is clearly best suited to carry out the noted tasks. In my view, Mr. J.C. Guite, current Director General of APORS should be assigned to carry out this review on a full time basis.

It is requested that he be assigned to a position that will allow him to carry out these tasks and that he be provided with the appropriate resources consistent with such an initiative. Central agencies have requested that his current position should be staffed immediately with a permanent and qualified person.

The deliverable will be as follows:
• Develop an action plan to accomplish all of the above-noted tasks by January 15th, 1996.
• Provide a written report(s) on the findings by June 1, 1996.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

This communication was rightly taken by Mr. Quail to be a highly inappropriate attempt by political staff to interfere in the internal administration of PWGSC, which is entirely within the jurisdiction of the Deputy Minister. The reference to unidentified persons in the PCO and PMO gives the impression that the proposed reorganization of government communications under Mr. Guite was desired by persons at the highest level. To his credit, Mr. Quail resisted the temptation to take offence, and replied by a memorandum reading as follows:

I have your note of Nov 23/95 re: Direction to review the APORS and would make the following observations:

1. In paragraph 2 you mention the recent views of PCO. Would you please provide me the name at PCO—so we don’t cross lines.

2. The review that you have outlined in your note suggests this may be seen at the Centre as a Machinery of Government responsibility which as you know is the prerogative of the Prime Minister to assign. My experience indicates that it is necessary to ensure PMO/PCO is aware of the assignment of such issues to a Minister. Will you confirm this is in place?

3. On page 2 you recommend that we use Mr. Guite on this assignment and that the Central Agencies have suggested the position he “vacates” be staffed immediately on a permanent basis. I have 2 points on this:

a] I am not aware of any such directions; please advise who has recommended this action with respect to Mr. Guite’s position, so I can discuss the issues I see arising from this proposal.

b] On the assignment of Mr. Guite; my concern here is that the action you propose, while attractive in one sense, presents a problem to me in the handling of the EX personnel. There will be a requirement to find an additional EX position to cover the assignment period and secondly, no clear assignment for Mr. Guite once the work is completed…We already have a number of these cases and I have been working over the last two years to get these down to zero. In other words what to do with Mr. Guite at the end when no work exists…

I would like to hear from you before I take any further action.

The matter died there. Mr. Quail decided that Mr. Kinsella’s memo was a mistake by an inexperienced political staffer who did not know better than to attempt to give direction to a senior public servant on how to organize his department.

So when you consider Warren Kinsella's musings, just consider what weight you should give an "inexperienced political staffer" guilty of a "highly inappropriate" attempt to interfere politically in the internal administration of the Ministry of Publics Works and who tried to give "the impression" of having the support of the highest levels of government when trying to put Chuck Guite in charge of this reorganization of government communications.

Hey, who thinks Warren Kinsella is going to sue Judge Gomery?

[Updates: Warren Kinsella gets some unwelcome credit, and throws a hissy fit.]

The Gomery Report: First tastes

From CTV, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien gets raked over the coals:

"Under the leadership of Jean Chretien, a campaign to boost federal presence in Quebec spawned instead a sponsorship fund rotten to the core, an excuse for Liberal Party kickbacks right down to cash-stuffed envelopes," the report says.

The report also goes on to say that "Since Mr. Chretien chose to run the program from his own office he is accountable for the defective manner in which the sponsorship program and initiatives were implemented."

Under the leadership of Jean Chretien...

Ouch, that's gotta hurt.

Now the report is clear that no evidence exists to suggest that Jean Chretien knew how bad things had gotten. But then this is a backhanded compliment, since it goes to the heart of the quality of leadership that he provided for a program run directly out of his office.

On the other hand, Paul Martin gets a pass:

Gomery exonerates Prime Minister Paul Martin, who was finance minister at the time the sponsorship program was in operation, “from any blame for carelessness and misconduct” in connection with what the judge portrayed as a secretive, tightly-held operation.

No surprise. The question remains, however, of just how much political heat the prime minister will be subjected to from the opposition, being the leader of a Liberal Party that appears no less corrupt now than it did in the spring.

And then there's the spectre of Jean Chretien's reaction to the report, and how that will reflect on the Liberals and Paul Martin.

More to come...

The Gomery Report: Warren Kinsella gives us a preview of the fight to come

One front on the battle that will be triggered by the Gomery Report will be the reaction of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien:

For his part, the former prime minister is ready and waiting with a team of high-priced lawyers should Judge Gomery attempt to lay the blame on him for a program that allegedly involved kickbacks of government money to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Mr. Chretien's lawyer, Peter Doody, made clear yesterday Mr. Chretien is considering all options, including returning to Federal Court to attempt to "quash" Judge Gomery's report if the former prime minister deems it biased against him.

From Chretien's point of view, governments come and go, but a legacy is forever.

Just how far will he and his lawyers go to protect Chretien's reputation? Just how far will Paul Martin and the Liberal Party go to shove the blame onto Chretien in order to preserve their hold on power?

We might be treated to political fight in which the Conservatives, the Bloc, and the NDP are spectators along with the rest of us.

Warren Kinsella gives us a preview of some of the bombs to be lobbed from the Chretien Camp into the Martin Camp:

Anyway, before the Blackberry goes off, some key facts to recall:

1. The sponsorship scandal came to light when Chretien was Prime Minister, not after he had left office.

2. He called in the Auditor General.

3. When he and Don Boudria heard what she had to say, he called in the RCMP. Those were not the actions of man who had something to hide.

4. He kept his cool, and the LPC remained above 55 per cent in the polls.

5. When Paul Martin took over, however, he started running around the country like a hysterical teenager – in his celebrated “mad as Hell” tour.

6. As noted in Stephen Clarkson’s outstanding new book, Martin then created a commission of inquiry with rigged terms of reference (rigged to avoid scrutiny of contracting practices at Martin's Department of Finance) that became a platform for innuendo and hearsay, led by a commissioner whose hatred for Chretien is only exceeded by his choice of commission legal counsel (um, Brian Mulroney's best friend and Chief of Staff), and which lacked any of the powers/abilities of the RCMP (who were already investigating the matter anyway).

Am I forgetting anything?

7. As a result of all this, Paul Martin dropped the party by nearly 20 points, and pooched federalism in Quebec for some years to come. It has yet to recover. If there is a referendum in the next short while – and there will be – Canada will lose it.

Got it? Because inept and panicky Martin did not let the incorruptible RCMP quietly deal with this internal party matter that was well under control by the honest and cool Chretien, the country will break up.

When will Canadians learn to leave well enough alone when the likes of Chretien and Kinsella are running the place? See what sort of trouble we get ourselves into when we dare ask questions?

Belinda Stronach: We'll call you when we're ready

From the Toronto Star:

Within 20 minutes of the report's delivery to the government last night, Martin was on his way to huddle with a handful of select ministers, including Treasury Board President Reg Alcock, Public Works Minister Scott Brison, Transport Minister Jean Lapierre and Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan.

Look who's missing. Belinda Stronach.

In case there were any doubts that Belinda Stronach is just a pretty face, whose job is to do as she's told, and to say what she's been told to say, you can put those doubts aside. In the Prime Minister's own words:

Accordingly, I am very pleased to announce that Belinda Stronach will cross the floor and has agreed to join the cabinet as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development.

In addition, Ms. Stronach will assume responsibilities for democratic renewal and will help guide the implementation of the recommendations that flow from the Gomery Commission’s final report.

Before turning things over to Ms Stronach, let me say one thing further.

I am proud to have Belinda Stronach as a member of the government and as a member of my cabinet. She is capable. She has achieved great success already in the fields of business and politics.

But I am particularly proud to have her join us at this important time.

Well, I guess the actual release of the report that is supposed to fuel her drive for democratic renewal isn't one of those important times.

Presumably when Martin, Alcock, Brison, Lapierre, McLellan, and the members of the Prime Minister's Office decide what needs to be done to cover up the problem implement democratic renewal, Stronach will be shoved up in front of the cameras to show her leadership skills.

Paul Martin: "I was clueless!"

The Globe and Mail is delivering a sneak peak into Gomery:

Former prime minister Jean Chretien will get hit with a finding of blame by Mr. Justice John Gomery today, but Prime Minister Paul Martin will not, The Globe and Mail has learned.

How did they learn this?

Liberal officials were already making the rounds yesterday afternoon promising that Mr. Martin would not be hit with a negative finding, pointing out that he never received the warning letter that would have preceded the ruling of misconduct.

Well, maybe they learned some other way, but it sounds like they "learned" it the same way everyone else was learning it.

Whatever.

What really matters is not that the Globe and Mail is trying to sound like the Washington Post breaking the Watergate story (and to give the paper credit, their original Sponsorship Program story is why we are all here today), but rather that we now know what Prime Minister Paul Martin's defence is likely to be: "Hey, I was finance minister, and I had no clue about what was going on, because even though I was the most senior minister from Quebec, and the most powerful minister in Cabinet, no one was telling me nothing. And now I run this joint! Who'da thunk it?!"

As a matter of personal pride, I wonder if it was me, I would prefer to have earned some of the blame, even if just a little bit.

Angry in the Great White North by Steve Janke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. Based on a work at stevejanke.com.