And it goes on

The Cons just got through the "Big Cheque" scandal misunderstanding with the PM saying that it was one unfortunate incident by one MP.  We now know that it was a coordinated conspiracy effort across the country by the Con caucus.   It was interesting to note that of all the Cons who were part of the scandal effort, the one name that did not pop up was Pierre "pension for life" Poilievre, the champion of First Nations Rights from Nepean Carleton.

I guess that Pierre must have been away when the plot.. nah, it was a plot, plot was hatched.  Not to be outdone by his caucus colleagues, PP waited a couple of weeks and then hatched his own plot in an obscure local news rag.  In the Osgoode Packet this week, PP boasted about the "Conservative Home Renovation Tax Credit of up to $1350".  


I have been collecting my receipts for a basement renovation.  I guess I send them to PP to get my $1350 from the Con party... and not from the Government of Canada?

Demonstration in the House

Today's Question Period in the House of Commons was upset when a very loud group of people in the gallery started to yell and chant when a Con Minster gave a non-answer to a question from Smilin' Jack concerning pensions.

The chanting continued as the Speaker stood in front of his throne, presumably debating whether to have the loud group shot or jailed.

The demonstration got me thinking.  How does the average Canadian get his voice heard in the Commons?  None of us really think that our local MP would ask any embarrassing questions on our behalf if they were a member of the government side of the House.  Could you imagine in you best dream an instance where Pierre "I got my pension, so piss off" Poilievre would ask the Prime Minster if he would gut the Canada Health Act if he got a majority in Parliament?

Canadians are sheep being led by crooked shepherds with crooked crooks.  Maybe it is time for all of us to go to the House to yell and chant.

By the way, it is interesting to note that the protesters appear to have been sitting in the Conservative gallery.  (A set up?)

Conwest... the voice of the few

Today's headline in the Calgary Herald blared the message that Liberal and NDP ridings all across this great nation have received more funding than Con ridings from something called the Knowledge Infrastructure Program.  KIP is a program from Industry Canada which has earmarked 12 billion of taxpayers dollars for colleges and universities across Canada.

While it may be true that more total dollars has gone to non-Con ridings, Conwest forgot to mention that the vast majority of colleges and universities are located in non-Con ridings.

But never let it be said that statistics are not the refuge of the stupid.  Conwest could, but did not, point out that while Alberta, with a population of less than15% than that in Ontario, received almost as many grants as Ontario (47 in Alberta and 56 in Ontario),  In fact all four western provinces, with less that half that of Ontario received almost twice as many grants as Ontario.  Quebec, where Cons are busting their humps to gain seats, received half of all the grants in the country.

Congratulations Conwest.  You have shown your bias yet once again.  No wonder you are bankrupt

CFRA Question of the Day?

On their web page, CFRA runs their Sound Off poll that asks major questions of the day and then crafts the answers so that no matter what you wish to answer you have to follow their script.  Today's questions is:

"Should public sector workers in Ontario - be told to take "Dalton Days"? These would be days off - without pay - similar to "Rae Days" in ‘93 when all provincial employees took 12 days of unpaid leave as a cost cutting measure. The Ont. gov't is running at a $20B per year deficit, salaries represent 80% of operating costs."

Here is the answers that they offer:

1. Yes. All provincial & municipal managers, employees and politicians
2. This is unfair to the employees
3. Yes. But only "non-essential" workers
4. Other

I have two major problems with this "poll".

The first is that it not in fact a poll.  If you right click on the poll and then click on "properties" you will find an interesting hidden comment.  The "poll" is listed as an "ad" sponsored by the Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group.  It is an ad, not a poll.  I wonder why CFRA keeps that fact secret?  The Ottawa TAG, as they call themselves, appears to be a small group of wide-eyed future councilors, MPPs and MPs.  These are the people that recently referred to city taxes as "legal extortion" and then challenged Alex Cullen and Marianne Wilkinson to a verbal duel at city hall.  The evening's discourse was anything but civil.  I wonder how much the Ottawa TAG paid for the ad/poll to CFRA?  And where Ottawa TAG gets that kind of funding?


My second major problem is that none of the answers offered goes to the heart of the problem.  The problem is not Dalton Day's.  It is not how much the city/province would save by having public servants take a few days off without pay.  The problem is that we have allowed city and provincial managers to grow the size of the bureaucracy with no regard for cost or what these new people will be doing.  Why has the city added so many new workers at the same time as they ramp up more numerous contracts to outside firms?  The problem is not the size of paychecks but rather the number of them and the work that gets done for them.

It is time for the city and the province, and for that matter the federal government, to take a harsh look internally and figure out what works and does not work.  Look for body count (FTE) savings and start doing the job you were elected or selected to do.  Dalton Days is a crass slap at a government that deserves criticism but it is not the long term solution to the problem.

Congrats to PP

A Youtube video from Rick Mercer has gone viral on the web.  The short clip offers congratulations to Con hatchet-man Pierre Something-or-other who just hit a personal milestone. He has lasted long enough as an MP to get a full pension -- and he is only 31 years old.  Congrats PP.  When you hit 65 you will get an indexed pension worth millions of dollars.  And in the in between 34 years you will collect countless more millions as the greatest MP to ever sit in the Commons.

So just keep you head low in the House, swear a bit more in committees, insult a few more First Nations persons and maybe a few minorities, show up at the opening of an envelope (especially one with a cheque in it) and you will have a long and prosperous life because the sheep in Nepean Carleton will keep on electing you.

Come on, Tim. Get a life.

Tim Powers is The Con Sage and the greatest thinker to come out of Newfoundland since... Rex Murphy.  He is also a wonderfully witty writer.  Take his most recent missive as an example.  In it he figures that Iggy needs a bigger hug than the one he got from some day-care kids to whom he was reading.  Hillarious stuff, eh what?

He then goes on to compare Iggy to the boy who cried wolf.  Hahaha.  Side splitting repartee that.  His old boss John "Joke a Minute" Crosbie must be spilling his martini when Timmy opens his mouth.

According to Tim, before he got into politics and business, he used to play high-end competitive rugby.  Must of had his fair share of concussions.  Could explain his illusions of grandeur.

What an ass!

Wally World?

Walter Robinson is a horse's ass.  The failed Con candidate, failed Chief of Staff to Con Mayor Larry and former head of the (cue laugh track) non-partisan Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Wally is more than capable of defending Con excesses.  And so he does from his (cue laugh track) non-partisan column in the Ottawa Sun.

The latest bird cage liner has Wally telling the world that even though the facts show that Con ridings across Canada receive more than their share of "stimulus" funding, those filthy Liberals are wrong to claim it. 

He claims that the federal funding component for the Ottawa Convention Centre is evidence that Cons are supporting projects in an NDP riding with infrastructure money.  WRONG!  The centre's funding was committed long before the stimulus program was announced.  Same thing with the Strandherd Armstrong Bridge project.  The Perfect PP tells us time and again that the money was committed almost three years ago when the bridge was part of the North South LRT fiasco.  So how can he now claim that it is part of the stimulus program that was announced this frigging year?

The crap goes on and on and on.  And for a government who campaigned on the slogan "Our shit don't stink"... their shit do stink.

So why is Wally defending the Cons?  Is it because he is a Con?  Yes, that is part of it.  The other part is that Wally is a registered lobbyist on the Hill.  He needs and gets access to Ministers on behalf of his clients.  Do you think that Wally's support of the government may have something to do with his need for access?

Wally is the President of the Tactix Government Consulting Inc.  His registration number is 782814-231501-3.  Look him up at www.ocl-cal.gc.ca.  You will not be surprised to learn that he accesses: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Finance Canada (FIN), House of Commons, Industry Canada (IC), Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Privy Council Office (PCO), Senate of Canada and Transport Canada (TC).

Maybe we need to clean up Wally's act by having the Sun get rid of him.

Off to the slammer with them!

Jason Kenny seems to have a problem.  A bunch of Tamils showed up in an old boat in Victoria asking for the keys to Canada.  This has the entire Con government in a deep quandry. 

If they accept the "refugees" they will be heroes to some and dumbos to the majority.  If they reject them and send them back to Sri Lanka they will lose the crucial Tamil-Canadian vote.  And when you are salivating for a majority government there is no such thing as a bad vote.
 
The Law and Order Party recently decided that their new prisons are good enough for Canadians, so why not put the boat-folks in prison until the refugee system can get around to granting them landed status.

It's a win scenario, Steve.  The Tamils see you soft on refugees and the Con mouth-breathers see you strong on crime.

No need to thank me for the advice.  Just send one of those big Con Party/Gov of Canada cheques to help fix my basement.

Off to the slammer with you!

The Cons have an interesting take on crime.  Stats show that crime is down all across Canada which continues a trend that has occurred over the past 10 or 12 years.  That also means that fewer people are being incarcerated.

That should be great news for Canadians - and it is- unless you are a Con.

The stats can only mean one thing... we are soft on crime.

We need to make more things illegal and make sure that more Canadians go to jail.  That way we can get our stats back up to where they used to be and make Harper's Cons happy.

Sure is strange!

China and India are still developing?

For the life of me I cannot understand why we continue to refer to China and India as developing nations and because of the term they get to pump billions of tonnes of pollutants into the atmosphere at ever increasing rates.

China's history goes back to 1550 BC while India can date its origins to 3300 BC.  That compares to Canada which dates back to the 15th century AD.  Why is it taking China and India so long to develop?

I guess the cynical answer would be that as developing nations they are given favoured status in treaties and support from the "developed" nations.

China is currently the largest loaner nation to the US economy and they are buying up Canadian resource companies at an ever increasing rate.  But for some odd reason we see them as developing and our CIDA sends them aid.  Go figure.

Maybe it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Gerald Kenny... MP of all he sees

Gerry had better learn how to play the piano and sing... cause he is potentially in hot water over a picture of himself on the Internet.  No, no, he's not doing anything illegal -- just stupid.

Seems that the Con government's Infrastructure money is actually Kenny's to dole out with his name on it.  In the past government cash given out came with a big-sized cheque made up to look like a government check -- from the government... you know, you and me... of Canada.

Kenny's government handouts come complete with a medium-sized check made up in blue with the Cons party logo on it.  A check from Gerry and Steve.

Now that sounds a lot like a bribe.

And just so you don't think that the picture to the right is a one time occasion.  There is another photo of his honour given out a similar check to a Chester, NS, church.

I wonder what the Auditor General will make of this?

Advice for Iggy

Mr. Ignatieff, I know that your strategy is to release your platform idea just prior to an election and not before.   Your logic is that the Cons will spin your ideas like they did the Green Shift.

However, by not releasing your plan you have left the stage in the hands of the Cons who can ascribe anything they want to you as your hidden agenda and all the denying in the world will not help you.

There is not a single thinking person in this country who believes that Canada can eliminate the budget deficits that will build up in 2008-2011 without a new source of revenue or cutting programs.  To waffle or deny that given is just downright dumb.  Canadians want to be treated like adults... even some of the Cons... so do it.  Have a dialogue with them but make it an honest dialogue.  Then when Harper attacks -- and he will attack -- he will look like the liar that he is.