GiGi's $7,750 Stay At Chateau Laurier On Taxpayers Tab

Mulder

The Ottawa Citizen is reporting PM Paul Martin putting up the Governor General Michaëlle Jean, and some extended family, at the famous Chateau Laurier hotel for two nights. The total cost in room, food, wine, etc?

Over $7,750 for two nights.

Reprinted in it’s entirety:


Jean’s tab for two-day hotel stay hit $7,750
Governor General spent $1,500 on food, $380 on wine

Jack Aubry, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean’s secret two-night stay at the Chateau Laurier in August 2005, just before Prime Minister Paul Martin announced her surprise appointment, cost taxpayers $7,750, documents obtained through the Access to Information Act reveal.

Determined to keep Ms. Jean, her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond and daughter, Marie-Eden, out of sight of regular patrons at the hotel, officials at the Privy Council Office put them up in one of the Chateau’s swanky presidential suites, at a cost of $1,800 a night, while staging day-long briefing sessions in nearby rooms on the eve of the Aug. 4 announcement by Mr. Martin.

The hotel bills indicate three rooms were booked for nine people, including the large suite for Ms. Jean, her husband and daughter, as well as rooms for Mr. Lafond’s two adult daughters, from his first marriage, along with their husbands and children.

Ms. Jean and her immediate family also rang up $1,533 in meals while eating in the dining room of the presidential suite, along with about $388 worth of wine. The hotel bill indicates that the dinner on the eve of the announcement totalled $841, including a single charge of $172 for wine, along with a second one for $84.

The hospitality claim filled out later on Aug. 22 for six adults, calculated that the cost per adult was approximately $1,300, with a final tally of $7,757.65 for meals, accommodation and flowers.

The documents were obtained by researcher Ken Rubin.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006

Unbelievable….. simply unbelievable

We Have Our Version Of Florida, But No Hanging Chads In Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River

Mulder

I was so proud when I reported my riding had a 74% voter turnout, one of the highest in the nation, but the Saskatchewan Riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River had polls regularly exceeding 100%.

In a slowly brewing situation, more and more are calling for a recount, and possibly even a bi-election. Allegations of tampering, prizes to vote and polls reporting three and a half hours late have the results of this riding falling into a cloud of suspicion. The Liberal candidate, Gary Merasty beat Tory incumbent Jeremy Harrison.

With all but one poll remaining, the Tory was leading by over 200 votes, but the last poll, which had a 104% voter turnout, swung the vote the other way with 93% of the poll voting Liberal.

The whole article by Danielle Smith can be read here. Below is a snippet of additional speculation on foul play.

More trouble: Chief Guy Lariviere of the Canoe Lake First Nation signed an affidavit declaring that Liberal candidate campaign literature was present in the ballot boxes in his polling station. This would also be contrary to the Canada Elections Act, Section 166.

Others have come forward to tell the Harrison campaign team they were bullied and threatened into voting Liberal. The consequences of voting otherwise are no small concern to people who live on small, remote reserves that can only be reached by plane, and who rely almost entirely on their band council for financial support.

H/T to Jesse Gritter and Adam Daifallah on this one

New Zealand Doc Turns Pimp: And You Thought We Had Problems!

Mulder

I just heard Michael Harris of CFRA mention this, and quickly found an article in the New Zealand Herald about the story.

A doctor, who was getting flack from an organization about leaving his medical clinics open after hours, has decided to turn them all into brothels.

A disgruntled doctor plans to open the first licensed brothel in the Far North.

Neil Benson aims to base his new venture in his former medical centre at Coopers Beach.

In the switch from medical practice to the world’s oldest profession, it will be called Whalers.

All this because he wasn’t allowed to stay open later to be profitable. Not that I condone the prostitution, but I do think the guy has a right to earn a living and not lose money. Read on…

A person in the sex industry had looked at renting the unused medical centre and said it would be a perfect brothel.

‘I thought, why don’t we run it ourselves? It would be a viable business and I was unemployed.”

While he had never considered working in the sex industry, Dr Benson sees similarities between the world’s oldest profession and medicine.

“It’s about providing a private service and maintaining confidentiality, which is what my medical practice was about – so it’s not a big leap, really.

“Everything I have ever done is high quality. The standards of my medical practice were high and that will cross over to the brothel environment.”

Dr Benson said the service would cater for the “top end” of the market.

“It will be officially registered as a brothel and it will meet public health criteria,” he said.

“It will employ beautiful women who are highly paid in their profession and who know what is expected from them in their line of work.”

Is this what we have to look forward to from our doctors? In some US States, you can go get a private massage from a registered therapist (not the illegal kind), and they provide you with service in private, paid for in cash by the customer. I am not coming straight out and saying we need private clinics, but providing services from a private clinic at the public expense, when monitored will ease our overloaded system.

Not that I think the local “Med-Team” or “Appletree” Clinics will become “Sex-Team” Clinics, but you can’t help but wonder about your own society when people who legitimately want to help the system, and are qualified to do so, are kept from their practice by red tape. It just means more red tape for you and I to get the treatment we want, and according to Quebec Superior Courts, deserve as part of our Charter rights

Facts About The New Footbridge Over The Rideau Canal

Mulder

If you live in Ottawa, by now you may have heard about the new 5+ Million dollar bridge being erected over the Rideau Canal at the end of Somerset. The bridge is already under construction, but rumour has it, the price tag will be more than expected.

It may be too late now to stop the construction, but for posterity, I thought I would do my own analysis.

(click to enlarge)
The nearest bridge to the new footbridge heading north along the Rideau is the Laurier bridge. As you can see from the image (click to enlarge), the distance one way from the location of the Rideau footbridge to the Laurier bridge is 0.4 Miles, which makes a round trip at it’s longest point 0.8 Miles.

(click to enlarge)
The nearest bridge heading south from the location of the footbridge is the Hawthorne Ave. bridge which is 0.6 Miles one way. This means the worst case scenario for walking is 1.2 miles.

Lowell Green and his listeners are pretty livid about this bridge and its’ cost. And it seems that there is now a push to make the bridge a “toll” bridge with some kind of turnstiles and tokens or monthly passes. Not a bad idea. Considering the cost may run as high as $10 Million dollars by the time it is complete, at least this would help with the overrun. When the total cost of the bridge is recuperated, the proceeds could then be given to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. When all those who petitioned to reduce their walking and have this bridge built get older, many are going to have wished they had chosen the excercise.

Tougher Than Quitting Smoking, But I Am Putting Tim Horton's On Notice

Mulder

Well, I never thought I would say this, but I am going to join a couple of other bloggers, Wonder Woman and Brent Colbert in a boycott of Tim Horton’s.

Why you ask? Well you see, the 3000 plus troops being stationed in Kandahar are hoping for some creature comforts. The Kandahar air force base has other American fast food places, and our boys in tan… errrrrr…… bright green jungle attire, would like a bit of home as well. Tim Horton’s the mega-chain in Canada has said that a Tim Horton’s in Afghanistan does not fit into their business plan. They say that they give a care package to every deployed soldier at Christmas time.

But as Brent points out, Tim Horton’s has thrived on tying itself to Canadianism. They co-sponsored the special Poppy coins from our Dingwall run Mint. They brag that no matter where you go in Canada, Timmy’s is home.

Now for some statistics.

-There are over 2350 Tim Horton’s coffee shops in Canada.
-There are ~30,000,000 Canadians
-That comes to ~12,766 Canadians per store.

There are 3,000 Canadians stationed in Kandahar. This is nominal when you consider the other troops based there. The business model should stand up fine and Timmy’s should be able to outfit a mobile truck to move with the armed forces, and ship in the goods.

At first I thought an airport kiosk would be best (as I commented at NAP’s Site) but the more I think about it, the more I know this business model would work.

So until Tim Horton’s agrees to give our boys a taste of home, I am going to visit other coffee shops like Coffee Time, Second Cup, etc. (No Starbucks, they charge too much and I don’t need an Italian lesson to order coffee).

I highly urge everyone who reads this to e-mail Tim Horton’s and let them know you want them to support our troops.

Addendum – January 30th, 2006 – 10:53 am EDT

FYI, for those of you in Ontario you can Click Here For CountryStyle Store Locater and find one nearest you.

Something I also forgot to point out is that of that 30,000,000 Canadians, many are children. When you think that the 3,000 troops plus other nations soldiers are all adults, you can see the business case look better and better.

Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling's Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay Jurors To Be Selected Today

Mulder

Well the big boys are finally starting to get into the swing of a trial. Former CEOs of Enron Jeff Skilling and Kenneth Lay will have the jury selection process begin today for their upcoming fraud trials. Lay is being charged with 7 counts of fraud, and Skilling is being charged with over 30 counts. This is primarily related to the inflation of numbers by the Enron to the investment community.

If you want a good read, Kurt Eichenwald’s Conspiracy Of Fools, is an in depth look at what happened to Enron. It starts a few years before the debaucle, and via interviews with numerous employees and outside workers who dealt with Enron, Eichenwald creates an easy to read, enjoyable book. Considering the content is a business going bankrupt, it is written like a novel.
(Note: if you pick it up via the link above, you will, in a very minute way, help keep this site operational.)

For those who are new to this story, Enron was a large US based conglomerate that started building a mountain out of a deck of cards. They borrowed money on a financial base that was built on assuming profits from 20 years down the road. The year they made this reporting change their profits spiked. With a precedent set on the growth, they had to keep building the cards to meet or beat the earnings expectations.

I paid a little bit of attention through the whole commission which investigated this, and many know that the CFO Andy Fastow, a fast living, smooth talking, salesman with little or no financial experience, is sitting in a jail cell. That raises the stakes for Lay and Skilling. This trial will, definitely, be one I watch the details on.

A Lazy Sunday Searching A Lazy Site

Mulder

Today was a lazy Sunday for me. Some light reading online….my daughter had two separate 2 hour stretches of gymnastics and my son had Taekwondo and we did our usual Sunday dinner out. This has gotten to be a family ritual. We alternate weeks picking restaurants. This week my wife chose. The remaining three family members (in this case, Cookie, T-Bone and myself) each scribble down on a piece of paper their guess as to what restaurant will be chosen. Then when we get in the car, we play hangman with the restaurant picker playing host. Once we figure out what the restaurant is, we open up our scraps to see if anyone got it right. I think today was the second time ever someone got it right. T-Bone guessed Jack Astor’s and that’s where my wife chose.

Anyway, aside from that I have been online sporadically looking at the City of Ottawa website, trying to see what kind of information I could gleen regarding this foot bridge they are building over the Rideau. I found a few scraps, but I must say this. The City Of Ottawa website is up to date, but impossible to really find anything specific. Am I missing something?

If anyone has any tips, I would love to hear them.

p.s. Ottawa Blogger gathering will be happening. I will have details online in the next day or two.

Bloc-Harper Add On – Hat Tip And More Info

Mulder

When I had written about the Bloc-Harper advertisement on google adsense, and warned pro Tories out there to make sure they were on the blocked list, I had forgotten where I had read about the Bloc-Harper site so the details were shady.

From my comments:

Comments: Bloc-Harper was started by Sinclair Stevens last spring. I posted on this here

Click Here (URL removed due to size)

Stevens also registered the domain name for the website through a registered charity, the Royal Commonwealth Society of Toronto which was not a very good idea on his part, because the RCS has the Governor-General as it’s patron. See here

Click Here (URL removed due to size)

The domain has since been re-registered.

Thanks Bill. It was, in fact, your page which I had read all the juicy details above about Sinclair Stevens and the Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson. Great posts.

Any Ottawa Valley Bloggers Want To Hook Up For A Meet And Greet?

Mulder

Well, I noticed pictures up at N.A. Patriot’s site for a blogger gathering at the Fiddler’s Green in Toronto.

If anyone in the Ottawa area is up for a big blogger gathering in our neck of the woods, please post here in the comments.

I live out in (rural *snicker*) Kanata so am partial to having it out here, but I am open to suggestions.

I would think somewhere close to a bus route, cab access, hotel rooms for out of towners and plenty of parking would be a good idea.

Come on OttawaCore, Raging Ranter, Brent Colbert, ShamtheToryMan, Hawkwatch2, and anyone else in (or outside) the Ottawa Valley.

You up for it?

The Mouse That Roared

Mulder

Lions, and Argos, and Habs, Oh My!
Lions, and Argos, and Habs, Oh My!
Lions, and Argos, and Habs, Oh My!

Well Toto, it looks like the rest of Canada is roaring back at the Lion’s pushing a rural/urban split in this country.

I blogged about how urban sprawl was discounted here on Tuesday the 24th.

Kerry Diotte wrote a piece in the MSM about the other big cities in Canada here

Then I researched the city numbers and gridded for everyone nicely here.

The latest to roar back at the big three is Kate at SDA with her post and a link to a great story by Lorne Gunter which is here

’nuff said. There is no urban/rural divide.