To the back of the bus with Pierre

In all their stupid attack ads, the Cons accuse Ignatieff of just visiting.  They say that spending time outside the country is a bad thing.

I have travelled all across the world, lived in the US, worked in Asia, South America and Europe. One of the things that I learn when I go abroad is the etiquette and sensibilities of my host country.

I know that I do not show the bottoms of my feet in parts of Asia.  I know that Brits do not like to be called Limies and I certainly know that tar-babies is considered a pejorative terms in many parts of the world, including the US south.

Maybe the Cons, including our local MP, should quit and spend a bit more time on sensitivity training and getting to know the world.

The contradiction of being Flaherty

Less than two weeks after we learn the Canada Revenue Agency gave a former PM a 50% break, on taxes not paid, on cash income not claimed, to the tune of $62,500 comes the statement by our inimitable FinMin that, "The tax laws apply to us all equally."  Well. la-de-da, ain't you consistent.

What is good enough for a former Con PM is too good for average Joes who are getting stung big time with tax bill on income they never received.  These include Canadians now on pensions who were caught up the burst high tech bubble who exercised stock options.  Some of these Canadians owe tens of thousands of dollars to which Flaherty says, tough noogies.

This Con government is heartless in its view of Canadians, unless you, of course, vote for them or lead their party.

There must be a compromise here to keep these citizens from selling their homes or having to declare bankruptcy.  Find it Jim, cause I know that Micheal can.

Brown shirts in Alberta

The rabid right in Alberta has finally cracked the roof of its loony bin.  In a brazen move to molify the right, the provincial government has, under the title of family rights, allowed parents to pull their kids out of any class that deals with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation.

What's next? Even though gays are tolerated in Alberta, will parents be able to pull their kids from any classroom that has a gay teacher? What about if the teacher is black? How about Aboriginal or even just (shutter) from eastern Canada?

Bill Aberhart is sitting up in his grave and applauding these days.

The spiral continues

There is a debate broiling in the City of Ottawa over ice time at indoor rinks.  The debate is not new... in fact it has been around for years.  On one side are the kids who want to play hockey and, since they go to bed at 9 PM, they want to play in the prime time period 4-9 PM on weekdays.  On the other hand there is every other group who also plays hockey.  I want to focus on Old-timers.

Old-timers are defined, generally, as players over 50.  I played with an Old-timers team that toured Australia a bunch of years ago, and the average age was 62.  These are old folks.  Not the ones sent to the homes by their loving families but the ones the families calls colourful.


Old-timers pay full rate for ice time in prime time.  Kids do not.  The city's solution to the problem of not enough ice rinks is to raise the cost of the prime ice time to the seniors to encourage them to move to non-prime time, defined, apparently, as every second Tuesday when the moon is in full view of the tower at the airport.

See the problem being created here?  If you drive full rate clients out of prime time in favour of those clients who do not pay full rate, you lose revenue.  When you lose revenue you have to raise rates.  When you raise rates you are no better off than when you started because the rug rats can't afford the higher rates and the old-timers on fixed incomes are playing at 4 AM for the same price that they used to pay for prime time.

The proposed solution is no solution at all.  It is a problem.  The real solution is more ice space.

Cons hidden agenda?

As Canada goes deeper in debt, there is one question that has never really been answered by the Harper government.

When the recession is over (assuming we can tell when that event occurs), how will you pay back the hundreds of billions you are adding to the debt and over what time frame will that happen?  Will you have to raise taxes or cut spending?

And at what point in time will you come clean with Canadians that somewhere between $14 and 17 billion of 2009 debt was actually incurred based on some bad decisions you made in 2008 and is not being used to fight the recession?

Whoops, he did it again.

Note to Jim Flaherty:  Hey, JF, I went past a place called the Mathatarium the other day.   They teach math to grades 2-12.  Maybe you should check it out for some help.

The Con FinMin released his economic update yesterday.  In essence he said, "Oops that $34 billion deficit is really going to be over $50 billion."

Apparently the economy is worse than he expected in March and a whole worse that when he projected four surpluses in a row in his last November burp.

Flaherty is the same guy who was Ontario's FinMin in 2002 when he told voters that Ontario's budget was balanced.  We found out a few weeks later that Jim lied.  The budget was $5.8 billion in deficit.  Now he is doing the same at the federal level.

When will we ever learn?

And, by the way, the key thing to remember about Jimmy's update is the phrase, "over $50 billion".

Poilievre comes dirty

Our esteemed MP in Nepean-Carleton, the inimitable Pierre, the Perfect PP, has shown his true colours on the environment. He is not green... he is nuclear red.

In a recent forum he told a group of residents what they wanted to hear... wind power is dangerous and must be banned. He went further to claim that nuclear is both clean and safe.

Can you say bonehead?

Wind power turbines are environmentally safe. For every one person affected by low frequency vibration or the so-called flicker effect, there are hundred of thousands who benefit from the technology and millions who's health depends on it.

If not alternative fuels like solar or wind, what will be our source of energy in the future. Coal? Nuclear? Tar sands?

Wind farms are not pretty... but would you prefer a nuclear plant three kilometers from your home? There are ways to mitigate the visual effects of wind farms. Ask the folks in Nottingham, UK who twenty years ago fought a farm until it was shown that, given time, the growth of trees in and around their property would obstruct the view of the farms. A natural solution to the issue.

Some experts promote coal-fired generators with stack scrubbers to eliminate the gases and ash. But do you want one in your backyard?

And nuclear?! Come on Pierre. Get real. Nuclear has been around for sixty or so years. We still can't figure out how to dispose of the spent nuclear fuel. Want the rods buried in your back yard?

And what about safe?

According to Greenpeace, "Contrary to the industry´s claim that nuclear facilities are safe, 63 major accidents have occurred at nuclear power plants. Twenty-nine accidents have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and 71 percent of all nuclear accidents, that is, 45 out of 63, occurred in the United States, refuting the notion that severe accidents cannot happen within the country or that they have not happened since Chernobyl." 

But don't just look outside Canada, check out what is happening at nearby Chalk River?  Heavy water has been leaking into the Ottawa River on and off for years.

It is time for politicians, such as our local boy, to come clean (so to speak) with residents.

A loss is a loss

I am bit confused over the rhetoric surrounding the current EI debate in this country.

If I live in a high employment area. I have to work up to 700 hours to qualify for benefits. If I live in a low employment area I can collect after as little as 420 hours. If I am unemployed - I am unemployed, am I not? Why the discrimination?

The hours it takes to qualify is based on the number of people working in an area. It doesn't take into account what is called the six month scenario under which, in some areas, people only work the minimum then quit (or asked to be laid-off) to get benefits. It doesn't take into account the number of jobs that go empty while people are on benefits. Is it possible, for example that a high tech engineer in Ottawa who is laid-off can't find another job in his/her field because none exist? Is it fair for that engineer to have to spend 700 hours just to qualify when a cleaner in Gaspe only has to spend 420 hours to get benefits?

Time to take your lumps!

A bunch of years ago, I was a VP of a high tech company in Montreal.  We had a banner year the second year that I was there based on major deals in the UK and California.  (I have to admit here that I was not being a true Canadian, according to Harpo, since for almost two years I lived in both the UK and the US doing these deals.) The management team was awarded pretty fair bonuses based on the year's accomplishments.  The next year was bit leaner.  We still made a profit but, since no new major deals were announced of the size the year before, the bonuses were skinnier.  In the third year there was chaos in the market and sales dropped off dramatically (by this time I was VP Strategic Planning and focused on product strategy for the future).  There were no bonuses in year three.  By year four things had turned around a bit and we began getting new significant business .  Bonuses resumed based on results.

Why am I telling you this?  Because the ideas of risk reward have been thrown out the corporate window in favour of nest-feathering by executives. 

Read today's Ottawa Citizen on the situation at CPP where they lost over $23,000,000,000 in the past year.  But according to FinMin Flaherty in an interview, since CPP has a good track record over time (read that, when things are going well), the CPP executives deserve their bonuses.

Got two questions for Flaherty and CPP.  One, where is the incentive for CPP executives to do better when they are rewarded for losing big time?  And second, where was Flaherty when my bonuses disappeared those many years ago?

Dear Canada: An open letter from abroad

By JanaLee Cherneski

Concerning:: I'm a Rhodes Scholar completing my doctorate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.

Dear Canada,

I write with sadness to confess I have been unfaithful to you, my home and native land. It seems I lack national sentiment, or so I have been told by our governing party’s most recent advertising campaigns.

Why am I anti-nationalist and unfaithful? Sporting not one, but three Canadian flags lovingly stitched by my mother onto my backpack, I have abandoned you to travel and study outside your borders. I am unfaithful because, like Michael Ignatieff, I have left you to study in England. Because on Canada Day, I, alongside other Canadians working and studying overseas, unfurled my Canadian flag with pride in London’s Trafalgar Square instead of back home in Saskatchewan.

We Canadians abroad who wave our flags from afar on July 1st, who carry our Tim Horton’s mugs, who search out specialty stores that sell maple syrup and Molson beer, clearly must be less patriotic than our peers who stay at home.

For we, like Michael Ignatieff, are now of the world: we have become ‘cosmopolitan.’
Dear Canada: you are one country, but are you not cosmopolitan too? As John Ralston Saul tells us in his most recent book, you are a Metis civilization, historically formed out of aboriginals and the arrivals of newcomers over the centuries. You are composed of not one (or even three) languages or cultures, but rather many.

You house people of many views and experiences and professions; and you are connected to even more outside your borders. You consume coffee from Colombia, bananas from Ecuador, chocolate from Switzerland and movies from Hollywood; use computer chips from Japan, phones fabricated in China, wear clothes made in India and shoes made in Spain.

Like it or not, Canada, you are a member of a global community: you yourself are a cosmopolitan global citizen.

You need the world beyond your borders and you need the people beyond your borders and that world also needs you. Which means you need your people to have experiences outside your borders. And you need them to cooperate with people on the outside, as well as people on the inside, because both are equally important. You need to appreciate the talents of all your people all the time, regardless of where they are in the world or where they have come from.

We, the immigrants from other countries who chose to come to you, we are yours. And we, who are born in your borders but leave you for a time, we remain yours. None of us are citizens of the world who come from nowhere: we are all Canadians living in one global village.

Our cosmopolitan identity doesn’t stop with our people: our national livelihood is global too. International exports account for more than 40 per cent of our GDP. International trade, especially of our commodities, is the fastest-growing area of the Canadian economy and our country relies on B.C. lumber, Alberta oil, Arctic oil, prairie crops, hydro from Quebec and Manitoba, mining from all over, steel and the auto industry in Ontario, and oil and gas and fisheries from the East Coast. A recent study says one in three Canadians is in some way dependent on exported goods or services for their income.

What this means for Canada is not just that we are dependent on our resources and international trading partners but that we are dependent on our own people who work in these industries: our commodities workers are vital to our prosperity. In turn, their livelihoods — like the livelihoods of all Canadian citizens — depends on our ability to understand the international community and befriend it. Thus, as we harvest the profits of our industrial workers, we must also harvest the international experience of some of our other citizens.

We are interdependent — we need each other. In this international world we need our workers and our politicians and our ‘elite’ intellectuals. Most importantly, we need them to communicate and to cooperate. Especially as we face this current financial crisis.

Why, then, are our current leaders talking about spending money on advertising campaigns to attack each other? Why would we even think about spending money to attack one of our citizens instead of to provide tools for the people of our country to learn and to communicate with each other?

We need people who can cooperate across difference. We must empower leaders who foster community rather than conflict: leaders who succeed for society through a politics of unity rather than succeed for themselves through politics of division.

I am worried, Canada. I am partly worried for myself: when I come back to serve you with the knowledge and experience I have gained from afar, will you call me opportunistic and turn on me too? But I worry more for you: once you start rejecting the skills and knowledge of your own citizens where will that leave you, dear Canada?

_____________________

I couldn't have put it better myself.

It boggles the mind when your government tells you that international exposure and knowledge is equivalent to treason... or, at minimum, a cardinal sin.

Hyper-partisans beware

I went to a Con love-in last night where the two poster-children for hyper-partisanship took turns sniping at Liberals.  Well snipe is not quite right.  They were close to being vicious.

I got home about 9 PM and picked up my latest book read.  It is called Blue Thunder, The truth about Conservatives from MacDonald to Harper.  I am not sure about the title.  Thunder is really just the sounds of the Gods bowling.  Maybe Bob Plamondon is trying to tell us that politics is a game to Cons?

Anyway, I read a small passage that could not have been better focused on this evenings spectacle and in fact what is floating around the Hill and Queen's Park these days, including those lame attack ads from the Cons in Ottawa.

Prime Minister Robert Borden, a Con PM for whom I have great respect, was trying to steer Canada through the Great War.  The Conscription Act made his hide as popular in Quebec as syphilis.  He tried to create a coalition government with the Liberals which resulted in something called the Union government.  While he was trying to win over Liberal leader Laurier, he made the following comment:

"Political partisanship is closely allied with absolute stupidity."

Maybe Lisa and PP should read the book?

Death of a PM

"You had an option, sir.  You could have done better."

Note to Mr. Mulroney.  You should have watched what you said, because it came back to bite you in the ass 25 years later.

Let Iggy be Iggy

Mike Storeshaw is not a stupid person, he is just visually impaired when it comes to things not Conservative.

Case in point. Ignatieff supported the Liberal/NDP coalition created by Dion and Layton. He said at the time, "I support the (coalition) accord because it's fiscally responsible, it provides responsible economic leadership in tough times and it also conserves the basic principles of national unity, equality that our party has always believed in."

According to Storeshaw, written in the current Hill Times, the statement "is not open for parsing or interpretation".

Hey Mike, the statement does not need to be interpreted, it just needs to be viewed in the context and time frame in which it was delivered.

The time frame was shortly after Harper decided to deliver a fiscal update by ignoring Canadians and the looming economic problems and focusing instead on trying to destroy his competition. Was that fiscally responsible? Was that responsible economic leadership? Was calling the coalition an unholy alliance with separatists a good thing for national unity?

The coalition, something that I did not feel entirely comfortable with, offered a program of economic stimulus, was priced out, regionally balanced and preserved our fragile unity. Now read the Iggy quote in that context.

This is the same "pundit" that recently defended selective briefings to selected press outlet with respect to the Cons dispute with Election Canada over the In and Out Scandal (Remember that one? It is still not resolved!)

Storeshaw stated in the Hill Times that,  "The field on which we all play is one where the media seek out conflict and controversy, and the quicker and simpler it is the better. Any political organization would understand that trying to communicate the meaning of hundreds of pages of documents in this environment is not something that lends itself to six-second sound bites, squeezed in between reporters shouting questions.

“So I suppose that by inviting some reporters to a more private setting to explain some of our disagreements with Elections Canada, our party was trying to inject some facts into the discussion."

That statement is not open to parsing or interpretation either, Mike.   You are simply saying that Cons will only talk with parliamentary reporters who are too dumb to read long documents. The smart ones will be ignored as irrelevant.

Storeshaw should apologize for being a bit cloudy in the eyes.

Attack ads... a smack of desperation

Ask yourself a question. Would it be better to have a Prime Minister who is worldly, knowledgeable of international events and dedicated to real Canadian values or is it better to have a PM who sat on his MP hands, still collecting time for his gold plated pension, during a referendum on Quebec separation.

Is it better to have a PM who supported partitioning of Quebec than one who wants to work with Quebec?

Is it better to have a PM who has opposed official bilingualism than to have one that speaks a Parisian form of French?

The Cons attempt to smear Ignatieff will rebound on them when the facts come out.

Crocodile tears for the Coyotes

The National Post is carrying a major story on the heart tugging issues facing the people of Pheonix should the bankrupt NHL franchise be pulled out to Hamilton.  I won't bore you with the story but let's just say that Gary Bettman of the NHL is on very thin ice to deny the team the move.

Some may remember that the Phoenix team used to be called the Winnipeg Jets.  Where was Bettman when it was pulled out of the centre of Canada.  Was he sipping ice tea in Pheonix celebrating his anti-Canadian bias?

Environment versus Dhalla

The Cons have been in power for three years and what do they have to show for it?  A fatwa against Ruby Dhalla.

What don't the Cons have to show?  An evironment plan that they promised three years ago.

Shame! Shame!

You don't know Jack

Jack Granatstein will never be confused as a close friend of mine.  The military historian who once headed the Canadian War Museum has a lot to say but not a lot to tell.  As far as Jack is concerned, unless you write about military conquests and political intrigue... you are not a real historian.  If your write about Joe Prairie-dweller's life in a sod hut on the bald prairie, Jack considers you a second class historian.  He gives you the title of social historian... not a real historian.

I know that because he told me to my face that stories of life in Newfoundland out ports, while interesting to some,  is not real history.

ad hominem

Cons have been raising personal attacks on their competition to stratospheric level in recent years.  From Kitten-eaters to anti-Semites to Canadians-of-convenience, there is no attack below the morality of the Rabid Right. 

When your position is indefensible and the competition has you dead-to-rights, the best defense is a personal attack... ad hominem.

Ad hominem attacks ignore the issues and attempt to characterize the opponent as something less than honest or worthwhile to debate.

And yes, Rabid Right is ad hominem.  Is that what Canadians want to hear from their politicians?

Lawyers making new laws

Happening this week in Ottawa have been so bizarre that a scriptwriter for The Twilight Zone could never have been able to conceive of them.  We have had the spectacle of three examples of where our legal profession has decided to create new precedents that could have long ranging ramification in Canada.

Case one.  In the O'Brien-Kilrea dust-up over influence peddling, the defense lawyer accused Kilrea of lying about a conversation he had with John "Screamer" Baird.  Kilrea claims he did not talk with Baird about a Parole Board job (the centre of the prosecution of O'Brien).  Edelson, the lawyer, claims that Baird said that they did; based on a statement made by Baird to police.  After the courtroom revelation, Baird's political mouthpiece denied that Baird had the conversation with Kilrea and that Edelson was confused.  It appears that Edelson was indeed wrong.  Does that mean that he should to apologize to Kilrea?  Want to be he won't?

Lesson learned.  When you are defending the seemingly indefensible, it is OK to LIE!

Case two.  The Cons have Ruby Dhalla where they want her.  In a bizarre exercise of parliamentary powers the immigration committee has decided to become a kangaroo court.  They are into the realm of investigating and passing judgment... neither of which is within their purview.  But the genius of the situation is that none of the evidence or testimony heard or discovered at the committee can be used in a real court of law.  So even if Dhalla is determined to be not guilty she cannot get recourse, with the evidence of her innocence, to any court in the country.  She will be destroyed politically.  Thanks to the Cons.

Lesson learned.  If you are ever accused of any crime for apparent political reasons, it is best to get a file opened with the RCMP before the Cons can set up committee hearings.  At least then you can protect the freedom and continuity of evidence.

Case three.  Former Con PM Mulroney has decided to rewrite the Canadian Tax Code.  And he could, you know.  As PM, he is considered the top law maker in the country.

Mulroney admitted in his appearance before the Oliphant Inquiry that he received large cash payment from KH Schreiber in 1993.  However it took him a bunch of years to claim it as income.  Why the delay?

According to Mulroney, you only need to claim income in the year you want to use it, not when you earned it. That is probably news to Revenue Canada. According to the tax code, you have to claim all income made in the tax year except in certain cases, such as:

"* compensation received from a province or territory if you were a victim of a criminal act or a motor vehicle accident;
* lottery winnings;
* most gifts and inheritances;
* amounts paid by Canada or an ally (if the amount is not taxable in that country) for disability or death due to war service;
* most amounts received from a life insurance policy following someone's death; and
* most payments of the type commonly referred to as strike pay you received from your union, even if you perform picketing duties as a requirement of membership."

I suppose that Mulroney could classify the cash as a gift, but that would open many more cans of whoop-ass on his honourable self..

To compound his problems, Mulroney admitted to have $75,000 in payments squirreled away in a deposit box in New York for a bunch of years before he claimed it.  According to CRA web site, you must,

"Report foreign income and other amounts (such as expenses and taxes paid) in Canadian dollars. Use the Bank of Canada exchange rate that was in effect on the day you received the income or paid the expense."

 I suppose that the loop hole is that the clause does not state when you had to declare the foreign income, but that might be just splitting hairs.

Lesson learned.  When you become PM of Canada, change the laws to suit your personal needs before you leave office.

And so it begins...

The Cons have dropped into their full attack stance.  They see nothing but targets for their venom.  It is times like this that Cons show their true side... caring more about power than people.

Is Ruby Dalla a slave driver?  I don't know and I do not particularly care.  What I care about is the immigrants and refugees that are entering Canada illegally and committing crimes while they are here.  I am concerned with so-called honour killings, which by any measure of Canadian laws and norms... is premeditated, first degree, bloody murder.  But what do the Cons want to spend their time on?  Ruby.  Ruby's case should be investigated as a civil case and not a political one.

And the knives are out for Iggy.  "He is too smart," cry the Cons.  "He is too worldly," they lament.  He is too popular so cut hm down to size," Cons declare.

Why don't Cons spend a bit more time governing instead of carping.  Maybe they too would become popular.

Nah.  Can't happen for the Gang-That-Can't-Think-Straight!

Back from Vancouver

I spent a few days hanging with the boys and girls of the people's political party in downtown Vancouver last week.  The speeches were great, the atmosphere was electric and the information exchange was the best I have experience at one of these get-togethers for a long time.

I have been traveling all across the world for more years than my family wants to remember and there was something I witnessed in Vancouver that is rare to be seen in any other country..  As I walked across Canada Square I spotted two former Prime Ministers having a chat - all by themselves - no guards or cops.  People approached them frequently to shake their hands and to say hello.  Try doing that to Obama or Bush or Putin and you get your butt handed to you in a baggie by the Secret Service.

Don't you just love Canada?

The People vs Chrysler... the Debate

"Mr. MP.  My name is Sir Percival Boot-Bucket, QC, PhD, LLD and few other initials.  I am a lawyer by training and a slimy worm by vocation.  I have the honour, today, of presenting the case in favour of the bailout of Chrysler Canada.  It is my intent to convince you, and the people in this audience, that to not bailout Chrysler would be a political blunder of immense proportion.  By the end of my presentation and at the conclusion of this debate, I am confident that you will rule that Chrysler is deserving of a Canadian government bailout."

"Mr. MP.  My name is Lester Plotz.  I am an unemployed welder from Cape Race Newfoundland and I represent the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Canadians who have lost their jobs during this recession and have nothing to fall back on because of the inequities in the Employment Insurance system in this country."

"Thank you for those introductions, Sir Boot-Bucket and Mr. Plotz.  Mr. Plotz, I can't help but notice that you do not live in my riding... oh, never mind.  Gentlemen, the rules of this debate are simple.  You will each be given one minute to present a case to support your premise.  That will be followed by 30 seconds of questioning by me.  Then you will be given 10 seconds to give your closing statements before I rule in favour of Chrysler.  Sir Boot-Bucket, you will present first."

"Thank you, Pierre.  My case is simple..."

"Just a second, here!  Did you just say, 'before I rule in favour of Chrysler'?  And did he just call you Pierre?"

"I did and he did, Mr. Putz."

"That's Plotz and what may I ask is the value of this debate if you have already made up your mind?"

"That's life in a Conservative Canada, Mr. Phizzle.  Get used to it."

That's Putz... err, Plotz and I object to this whole affair!"

Are you accusing me of having an affair, Mr. Pinding?  Are you slandering my good name and that of my live-in paramour?"

"No, no. I am talking about this debate.  This debate is a sham!"

"No, Mr. Pifffle.  It is you who is a sham.  You came into my court... err, debate hall, with a wild fantasy that you deserve a living wage and protection in unemployemnt; at the same time slandering me; and, I am sure, with the full intent of making accusations against Chrysler.  Mr. Punding, you are a disgraceful citizen.  You only think about yourself and not about the greater good or of my chances of re-election.

"Sir Percival Boot-Bucket, I have found that the arguments presented by you on behalf of Chrysler are compelling and I rule that you have prevailed on this day.  Here is your cheque for $3 billion.  Have a good vacation in the Bahamas and I will see you at the next Conservative black tie dinner.

"This debate is complete.  Piss off Mr. Poor-excuse-for-a-Canadian."

Special note:  While the Con government is handing out a a multi-billion dollar cheque, in real life, to Chrysler, they are telling unemployed Canadians that the inequities in the current EI system would take $1 billion to fix and that that is way too much!


Is that the kind of government you want?