Stephane Dion needs to be careful about what he wishes for. This Video Smackdown is worth every second. Click the image below once to view and don’t forget to rate it.
If you can’t view the image above, try clicking the link below instead.
What Does The Wheat Board Have To Hide?
I am no expert on the Wheat Board. Nor am I an expert on the Accountability Act. But I just watched 30 minutes of the Senate Committee On Legal and Constititutional Affairs as they discussed bill C-2 (The Accountability Act) and Liberal Senator after Liberal Senator grilled Alan Leadbeater on the validity of including the Wheat Board in the Access to Information aspect of the Bill.
First it was Senator Lorna Milne (Liberal) stating she did not believe the Wheat Board fell under this section .
And then it was Senator Pierrette Ringuette (Liberal) who was pretty ticked at the apparent inclusion of the Wheat Board and questioning comparisons to other monopolisitic agencies.
And then it was Senator George Baker (Liberal) probing on how the Wheat Board differed from a private corporation and when it was explained to him, he got quite snippety with Leadbeater.
Are the Liberal Senators protecting something?
Leadbeater clearly stated that the Wheat Board itself has a list of information of which it will not disclose information on. Each of the items the Wheat Board lists IS protected by the Accountability Act. So what adding the Wheat Board does is make information they can provide information we can get as a right and not simply by their grace and generousity. i.e. when we ask for it, they MUST give it and not just provide it if they feel like it.
I noticed no Conservative Senator grilled Leadbeater on this subject.
900,000 Torontonians Used Food Banks Last Year? Are You Serious?
I support food drives and food banks. I always have and always will. But tonight I heard something that really scared me.
While watching TV, I saw a commercial for the Toronto food drive on Global TV and Leslie Roberts appeared in a community appeal announcement and he said that over 900,000 people used foodbanks in the GTA last year.
Nine Hundred Thousand people. That’s a 9 with five zero’s.
The total population of the GTA is approximately 5.7 Million people. If we reduce this number by the number of people that are given three squares a day such as hospital patients, group and retirement home patients and prisoners, we can probably knock this number down to 5.4 Million or so.
So out of these 5.4 million, 900,000 or about 16.6% of Torontonians had refrigerators and cupboards so bare that that they needed to go get a food donation to stay alive. Thats 1 in 6 people. Thats 1 in 6 families.
Is it me or is this a sign that something is wrong with Toronto. Is the city that broke(n)?
I am finding it hard to believe this number is accurate.
Comments?
Stephane Dion Must Have A Big Butt
Because he keeps making room for provinces to pucker up and plant their lips on it.
Sunday night, right after the Liberal leadership convention was over he appeared on the CBC National and when asked directly about the 35% increase in Green House Gas Emissions he stated that this increase was because of all the oil production out west and that he would reverse this trend.
By stating this, he did a couple of things.
1) He admitted that we did not necessarily produce the green house gases directly, but that we would owe into Kyoto because of our oil production. Now recall that Saudi Arabia is exempt from paying into Kyoto and they produce millions of barrels of oil per day more than us.
2) He admitted that the Liberals failed miserably with regards to a) setting the Kyoto targets and b) meeting them.
and 3) he told Alberta to kiss his butt.
Well now he has come out and stated that if elected he would return the Wheat Board to the status quo which means he is telling Saskatchewan and Manitoba farmers to kiss his butt too.
I hope he finds a way to tell Ontario to kiss his butt next.
Same Sex Marriage – Promise Made, Promise Kept
Ok, so we know that if it came to vote, chances are slim to none that reversing the same sex marriage legislation will get overturned. But I must point a couple of things out.
1) On the first day of policy announcements last December during the election run, Stephen Harper came right out and announced that this motion would come up. So he is keeping another one of the promises that he made during the election run.
2) This motion is not to reverse the decision. This motion that is being debated is to decide whether or not to reopen the decision via a motion and debate.
3) This time around, their may actually be a free vote to determine if the issue should be reopened, but I am betting dollars to donuts that if it is reopened Stephane Dion whips his caucus to vote against redefining the term.
and most importantly,
4) The Supreme Court ruled that all the rights and priviledges that married couples have are to be extended to same sex couples. But, and this is a big but, the term marriage and how it is to be defined was returned to the House of Commons to decide on. The Supreme Court knows that a decision like this should be left up to the people via a free vote by their MPs. (or possibly via a referendum/plebiscite which would be my preference)
I think when such a divisive issue is presented before the populace, that even our “electoral” system of representation does not go far enough to present an accurate representation of what the laws of the land should be. I say this because despite what the left leaning parties say, the term marriage being removed from same sex unions would make the pill much easier to swallow for millions of Canadians.
I have to ask. After doing everything within their power to stand out and be different from the mainstream of society, why does the gay community choose this word to rejoin the populace on? Can a suitable term not be found? As I have often advocated for a term like “parriage” (or pairage) to be used. It would be close enough to signify the relationship and far enough to satisfy those who will not recognize the marriage due to religious beliefs, even if the state does.
Zaccardelli Was On Way Out Before The Push
From what I am hearing, the resignation of Zaccardelli from the top cop post at the RCMP was in the works. The writing on the wall says that he had his resignation ready to go before he spoke to committee a couple of days ago and that the “come clean at committee” was to try to clear the record.
The Liberals are already spinning it as a victory because of their push, but considering they knew squat until the committee meeting, I think they are just beating their chests in false bravado.
Now just cross your fingers that someone stepping in can find the missing pension fund money that exceeds a million dollars and hopefully the investigations into Liberal corruption do not get shuffled away in the changeover.
Wait Times Indirectly Longer Due To Provincial Government Waste
Let’s put two and two together.
The Auditor General for Ontario just released a scathing report which goes so far as to say they have no idea what the level of waste is when they have millions in expenses without receipts and millions more listed as miscellaneous expenses. This outrageous spending was nickelling and diming Ontario Taxpayers to the poorhouse by buying things like 40 leather jackets for one provincial power entity and one teacher who sent flowers to her own wedding.
We should already all be aware of the overspending by MHA’s from Newfoundland which has been turned over to the Department of Justice. Some of the money, apparently, went towards gold rings that many people claim they never got. I am sorry but even if they did get the gold rings, why the heck are taxpayers paying for jewellery?
Another report in the news indicates that for the tenth year in a row the money spent on health care in Canada went up but that we STILL only spend half the money per capita that the United States spends
Let’s do the math. The Americans are taxed at a lower tax rate than Canadians. The Americans have the money to spend on an awesome military. The Americans spend twice what we do per capita on healthcare yet we are supposed to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. I emphasize the word supposed.
Considering my mom was in intensive care for five days last week after a triple bypass, I can assure you, our healthcare system needs help.
I am grateful and thankful for the high quality education and skills our doctors and nurses are equipped with, but when an intensive care unit (ICU) has a broken ice chip machine for five days something is wrong with the system.
When a patient is left in an expensive (one to one nurse to patient ratio) ICU for two days longer than needed because there are no beds or rooms available in the cardiac care ward then something is wrong with the system. The nurses themselves told us that there were at least 5 people and as many as 7 who were ready to go to regular care but there weren’t any open beds.
Wait times can easily be cut shorter by putting more beds into the picture because the bottom line is this. If the ICU is packed with people waiting for beds, then the surgeries are not happening because there is no ICU space to put post-op patients. Hence, wait times are directly affected.
For those who care, mom is doing great and recovering nicely.
Liberals Fart…Blame Smell On Tories
Now that Zaccardelli has come forward claiming he knew less than previously admitted in the Mahar Arar case, the Liberals are looking to leave the Conservatives high and dry when it comes to an issue that took place under the Liberal watch.
1) The Liberals were in power when Mahar Arar went through his tragic ordeal
2) The Liberals appointed RCMP Guiliano Zaccardelli in the year 2000.
3) The Liberals appointed the O’Connor Inquiry into the Arar ordeal and the Conservatives are acting on every recommendation Justice O’Connor made.
Now that the Conservatives are saving taxpayers millions by waiting for the Arar lawsuit to either be dropped or be finished before moving forward on this file, the opposition Liberals are screaming for a) an apology that would produced a spike in the payout to Arar, and b) the termination from duty of Zaccardelli, whom they appointed.
I am not against Zaccardelli leaving or being pushed out if he wasn’t aware of the details of this high profile case. But I think the government is entitled to a couple of days to assess the situation to determine if a call for his head is warranted. The last thing we need is another Dingwall style million dollar payout if the government boots him. Or worse, a wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
What I hate is the Liberals kicking and screaming at the government to do something that will cost tax payers a big chunk of money and make it look like it was the Conservatives who did something wrong.
What has me the most perturbed at this whole situation is that if a new head of the RCMP is brought in, what happens to the open files such as the investigation into the Income Trust leak that allegedly took place under the Liberal’s watch. Or for that matter, what will happen to all the open cases left with the 33 RCMP Investigations Into Liberal Party Corruption that I posted about back in December 2005?
Will they get lost in the shuffle? Is this what the Liberals want out of the dismissal of Zaccardelli?
Hey Stephane, Don't Forget To Check Your Baggage Tags
I posted Saturday about how the Liberal leadership convention did not bring about the renewal they needed as a party. I thought I would add a bit more to my argument by pointing out some information about a couple of key Dion supporters.
Dion had Don Boudria as his co-campaign chair. And many of you may remember that Boudria held a few key positions.
1) He was the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for Chretien’s government from 1997 to 2002.
2) He was also the Minister of Public Works right after Alfonso Gagliano. How close to Chretien would Boudria have to be to get appointed to a position which may have been instrumental in the Sponsorship scandal right after the main bag man got canned? I would almost liken it to calling in the trustworthy cleanup crew.
To add a bit more fuel to the fire, another senior member of the Dion crew was Herb Metcalfe. Herb is one of the co-founders of Capital Hill Corp, a very well known lobbying firm. His wife, Isabel, ran for the Liberals against our current Minister of Defence Gordon O’ Connor and as I have mentioned before, Capital Hill Corp’s number 3 man behind David Angus and Herb Metcalfe is Chris Collenette.
Does the name Collenette sound familiar to you? It should.
Chris is the son of very well known Liberal David Collenette who was Chretien’s Minister of Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs from 1993 to 1996, and then the Minister of Transport from 1997 to 2003. Two very key positions in the Chretien government. Add in the fact that he is also the son of Penny Collenette, one has to wonder what kind of debt Stephane Dion will have to repay Capital Hill Corp should he ever become the Prime Minister.
In the last leadership race, Chris was a strong supporter of the anti-Martin movement. Macleans had a clip regarding the “dust up” over the election of the Ontario Young Liberals executive.
The future of an anyone-but-Martin movement in the unofficial Liberal leadership sweepstakes is looking doubtful after an early setback. At the Oct. 20 general meeting of the Ontario Young Liberals in London, combined forces backing Health Minister Allan Rock, Industry Minister Brian Tobin and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps failed to elect a slate of their supporters to the new OYL executive. Paul Martin’s team grabbed 13 of 16 positions. But this defeat might have gone unnoticed had it not been that the Rock-Tobin-Copps crew was talking up the meeting in advance. It was the first time they had closed ranks to try to prove that Martin is not a shoo-in to replace Jean Chretien, whenever the Prime Minister decides to step down.
In fact, the buzz generated by the three allies had spooked some Martin backers to the point where they were nervously downplaying the meeting’s importance. Obviously the Martinites needn’t have worried. Among those nursing wounds after the dustup is Rock staffer Chris Collenette, a key organizer of the failed anti-Martin bid — and son of Transport Minister David Collenette and Penny Collenette, the former patronage czarina for Chretien
Bolded emphasis mine.
To elabourate on the term “patronage czarina” that Maclean’s used, I will quote from Penny’s online resumé.
Penny was Director of Volunteers for Jean Chretien’s leadership race in 1984 and Campaign Director in the successful 1990 bid. She worked as National Director and Director of Legal Services for the Liberal Party of Canada for the 1993 election. She was subsequently named Director of Appointments in the Prime Minister’s office, a position she held for over 4 years.
With friends like these, I must ask again…Do the Liberals really think that making Dion their leader counts as a renewal? I think the Dion baggage can easily be confused with that of Jean Chretien on the carousel of Canadian politics.
Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
When I heard the Liberals were looking for renewal, I figured they would put in someone with a new face. Either Gerrard Kennedy or possibly even Ignatieff if they were feeling a bit more peckish.
But for them to return Stephane Dion says a lot about the party. By the last ballot, Dion was getting the support of Joe Volpe. He was getting the support of Bob Rae and Bob’s brother, an infamous Chretienite. He was getting support from those who felt he did a good job as the Environment Minister for the Chretien and Martin camps.
The bottom line is that today, the Liberals showed just what the level of interest was in renewal. That level is bo diddly squat.
I hope Canadians are paying attention. Dion may be a new name. But he is as old school as the rest of the Chretien crowd.