Didn't take long

The feds came through with $600 million last week for LRT and the jury decided on the winning design from the International Design Competition for Lansdowne. You would think that there would be universal cheers from City Hall (Doucet excepted because he only cheers when he wins) but no.

Morality Mayoralty candidate Cullen has decided that the transportation study for the Lansdowne project is wrong.  Surprise, surprise.

For ten days every year, says the study, the traffic around Lansdowne will increase by 120 vehicles, each way, per hour. Not possible says Cullen. I suppose that he will tell us that it is more like 120 million vehicle per hour, or something.

Afghanistan too long?

If there was ever an indication that we have been in Afghanistan too long, it was given a face in today's Ottawa Citizen newspaper. The report of the death of Sgt. Martin Goudreault, killed by an IED, was a side column on page 3. It garnered less inches than a report on the Cons getting tough, yet again, on immigration.

When the death of one of our men or women becomes a page 3 subject, then it is time to come home.

WHAT??

Let's get this straight. If a ministerial aid screws up or interferes with the function of the ministry, they cannot be questioned by parliament committees who are looking into the screw-up. The Minister will take the blame for the screw-up because of the joke term ministerial responsibility. Not too friggin' likely.

Two major problems. A minister can claim to have no first hand knowledge of the infraction... therefore plausible deny-ability. Second... a minister cannot be compelled to testify. Maybe legally he/she has to appear but in reality there are ten thousand ways to get out of it.

And what about the current case wherein the minister is in fact the prime minister. Is he going to testify? Not too friggin' likely. He doesn't even need an excuse - he just says, no thanks.

So what's next for Harpo and his band of cretins? They can pass a regulation to eliminate ministerial responsibility. Think that they can't? Just wait.

Maybe they could cancel the G8 and G20 and use the $930 million earmarked for security to set up a new government department. It could consist of five hundred Con patronage appointees who are charged with taking the fall when ministerial aids screw up. They could be put on contracts so that when they are fired for things that they did not do -they get no severance pay.

Spontaneous riot

Take two!!

This has GOT to be a joke.

Congratulations to the CON Party of Canuckistan. They have completed a bloodless coup of Canada and no one raises a voice. Have we gone so far stupid in Canada that we do not even raise an eyebrow when the government says that they own the country rather than just represent its citizens?

We don't deserve a country such as Canada. Our forefathers and foremothers fought and died for our democracy and we just gave it away.

SHAME ON US!!!!!

Cons on trial

I have to admit that I am not much of a fan of Peter Milliken, the Speaker in the House but he was recently between a rock and a hard place and he did the best he could with a rotten situation.

The issue that he was deciding was whether Canadians and parliamentarians have a right to know if the governing party can treat them like sheep.

The issue was the detainee issue. I am not going to go into the issue because I figure if you are smart enough to read this blog, you will already know the issue.

Milliken's ruling was that the government was in contempt of parliament but he did not o as far as to say that. He told the government to get their act together and work out something with the opposition with in the next two weeks.

Of course, if the government had any integrity at all they would have worked this out long before Pete's ruling.

Have I suggested in the past that the Cons are corrupt, bereft of ideas and fundamental decency? If not, I will say it now.

Funny coincidence?

When Larry O'Brien was being questioned about his questionable affair with respect to the Kilrea stink, one name in particular popped up. The Cons patronage boss for the Ottawa area was John "Screamer" Baird. It as alleged that Baird met with O'Brien at Hy's to discuss Kilrea. Baird denied it of course but it turned out that they did meet, however informally.

In 2009 "Rehab" Jaffer claims he met with a representative of a cabinet minister to discuss $135 million in infrastructure money for one of his clients. The minister was... Screamer Baird.

A coincidence?

Where are the Tories taking the country?

In the 2008/09/10 economic meltdown, the boogieman under the bed and the thing that we knew but did not talk about, was derivatives. It is estimated that there are $2 trillion (that is TRILLION) in derivatives that have been ignored by Wall Street, Bay Street and governments and those derivatives are going to come back to bit our collective butts.

And let's not be too smug about this, our Canadian banks are just as exposed to the toxic derivatives as any one else.

So what does the collected brain trust on Parliament Hill do about it?

They propose that derivatives should be sold on the open market just like IBM or Apple. That was they can spread out the pain when derivatives get called?

This is LUNACY!!!!!

Nuts? You don't say!

If it wasn't for the fact that city council is playing with $2.2 BILLION of tax dollars they would almost be laughable.

What a sweet job it must be to run a city. If you run out of money or just want more, you pass a budget that raises taxes. And the suckers that pass for citizens just pay it. If you ever run into a situation where you have more money that you need you just create some new way to spend it.

The largest line item in the 2010 budget is salaries and benefits. If you wanted to cut costs that would be a logical place to do it. But no... council votes 12-8 to keep the status quo and everybody is happy except a few hundred thousand taxpayers. But who cares about them? Right?

Even if you flat-lined the salaries of all city employees, including unionized ones (which will never happen in my lifetime), the costs will still go up because, low and behold, the 2010 budget states that the number of Full-time equivalents will raise from 13,966.65 to 1 4,122.86 from 2009 to 2010. Since 2008 the number of FTEs has gone up by 380.71.

Can you say dumb???

Easter has it right

Wayne Easter asked a question in the Commons on Friday.  It went something like this:  "Why, when a senior diplomat like Richard Colvin comes forward with information on the Afghan detainees, does the government dismiss him as dealing in innuendo, but when some third rate private dick make a statement that a junior minister may have done something wrong, the government not only takes it at face value but you dump the minister?

Wayne has asked the crucial question that brings into crystal clear focus the complete lack of credibility of President Steve.

What's that you say?

Helena Guergis has stated that the allegations leveled at her are "baseless and unfounded".

What allegations would that be, Helena?

From the CBC, "In an email to The Canadian Press on Sunday, Guergis said she requested that the allegations are dealt with "as quickly as due process will allow."

Due process?  Funny words to use for state secrets?

Bye, bye Steve

Good move Steve.  Helena was an anvil around your ankle and she had to go.  Too bad you didn't come clean when you announced her ouster in your press conference.

You can be said to be strategic by your minions but, in reality, you are sapping out.  By referring the issue about which you just learned to the RCMP, you think that your no comment will be sufficient.   Wrong!

For the sake of clarity, the RCMP has to one day announce what they are investigating and if they find no evidence then they will be accused of a cover up. And given their track record of late, the allegations will be justified.

Mr. President -  Steve - you are a one-person wrecking ball.  It is time for you to go.  Please.

Worse than Helena?

The Helena/Rahim Affair misunderstanding(s) are out of control.  As sordid as their lives are, the real BIG loser in this whole thing is President Steve.  It is one thing to be perceived as supporting his ministers but when do you give it up?

I can't help wondering what Bill Casey thinks of Harper's defense of Helena?  After all, Bill was banished from the whole geesly party for voting against a government bill.

Harper is looking like a real loser.

Now comes the story that Steve's reaction to the pardoning (three years ago) of a sex offender flies in the face of a plan put in place, also three years ago, by Stockboy Day.

Not only does Harper see parliament as irrelevant, he now sees his own government as irrelevant.  Sounds a bit familiar to historians.

UNCLE!!!!

At some point in time Helena and Rahim need to call UNCLE and slink off back to Alberta, from whence they came.

Between the two of them they share the IQ of a dead badger and that may be an insult to the badger.

And while I am at it, let me send a note to Liberal Marlene Jennings. Helena is down for the count and is starting to look a little sympathetic. Let her up off the mat for a few seconds before you slap her down again.

At least someone's relieved

The story out of the rarefied air at RCMP HQ is that Bill Elliot, the only Mountie that doesn't wear red, is staying on as Commissioner for a bit longer.

That is good news for the folks at Transport Canada.

When Billy was ADM at TC he set about to screw up the department and seemed to relish in the role. He ruined the careers of many a fine public servant by treating them as cattle. He ignored internal problems and created new one all by his lonesome.

Bill Elliot - the Peter Principal personified.

Conundrum!

At the same time as the US and Russia are continuing to get rid of nuclear weapons to make the world a bit safer, the Cons are getting rid of the Gun Registry for the same reason?

Environmental screw-up?

If today's Grope and Flail has it right in a story, then the Cons are granting the right to pollute to anyone with a lobbyist.

The story today is that Jim Prentice is about to announce that his department will no longer require environmental assessments for big projects such as pipelines and oil sands and anything else that the lobbyists can dream up to make exempt.

I can only hope that they make me exempt from filing taxes, while they are at it.

Connecting the dots

The Anal Coulter affair here in Ottawa is just the tip of a plot to turn North America into a military state. The controversial, and slanderous (according to me)talking head comes into Canada to spew her outrageous spittle and cries censorship when Ottawa University activists try to shut her down. What did the press do? They branded activists as opposed to free speech.

But at the same time this is going on in Canada, the friends of Coulter are threatening lawmakers in the US with violence and death because they had the audacity to pass a health care law.

Coulter and her right wing loonies need a wake-up call and maybe U Ottawa delivered it. Now the press should wake up also.

What is the real number?

Cpl. Darren James Fitzpatrick of the PPCLI died yesterday from his wounds received in Afghanistan. Fitzpatrick encountered a roadside bomb that detonated while he was on patrol in Afghanistan on March 6.

He died 17 days later - in Canada.

There are lots of men and women returning from Afghanistan with scars and open wounds - some physical and some emotional - that are as much casualties of this war as was Fitzpatrick and any of the other 140+ who have died in this conflict that cannot be won.

Just remember that when the government tells you the toll that this war is taking on Canadians. And remember it again when the government caves to a US "request" that 600 Canadians remain in Kabul after 2011.

Also remember the date of September 17, 2009, when six Italian soldiers and ten civilians were killed by a car bomb in the so-called safe haven of Kabul.

If you ever wondered...

If you need one reason why Anal Coulter should be discouraged from speaking in Canada, look no further than her comment in Ottawa.

The report on her aborted attempt to speak at U of Zero, in today's Ottawa Bird-cage Liner reads, “It confirms my idea that you also need more liberal gun laws,” she said. “Guns lead to a polite society, as we like to say in the United States. And I think that all of western Canada would agree with me."

According to Her-Wisdom, if protesters get in her way, out comes her gun.  And that is polite?

Not earth shattering - just odd

I took Via rail to Toronto this morning.  I had reserved a no-salt meal and that was what I was served.  The strange thing that on the same tray as the salt free meal was a package of salt.

How very odd.

Hubris run amok

Those so-called 10 percentage that are used by out local MP to slag anything that moves across the country (except in his home province of Alberta where, I assume, mommy is watching) are being prohibited.  It was interesting to note that the NDP and BQ voted against the bill while many Cons voted with the Liberals to pass it by a couple of yeas.

What did President Steve have to say about the demise of his propaganda machinery?  "We will stop using them, if you will."  It isn't an optional plan, Mr. President... it is mandatory that you stop their use.  Plus it saves $10 million per year.

The elephant in the literary room

In all the ink that is being spilled over the idea of Amazon wanting to service their Canadian customers from a Canadian warehouse, the booksellers lobby is conveniently ignoring one of the big reasons for the demise of Canadian publishing business.  Chapters/Indigo!

As a Canadian writer I make money when the public buys my work.  How much money I make largely depends on two things I do not control.  How much my publisher claims it costs to publish my work and the price that the retailer sells the work for.

I have a couple of titles on the Chapters web site.  They are not in the store because, since my name is not Atwood, I do not deserve shelf-space.  It is better to give the space to some American writer even if she is lesser known than I.

But on the Chapters web site the book is offered at a 30% discount from the recommended price.  Since Chapters has no stock of my book there is no real cost to them.  The cost is all mine.  The publisher sells the book to Chapters at a 40-50% discount from list (sometimes even more) and still makes a profit.  Chapters sells it at a discount and still makes a profit of 10-20%.  But these discounts are at my expense.

If Chapters sold the book at list price and needed only a 10-20% discount from the publisher and the publisher needed only 40% to cover costs then there would be more money for me - the person who wrote the book.

The issue is not who ships what from where.  If you want to preserve Canadian heritage help the creators and preservers of that heritage make a decent living. 

What is reasonable?

I got to thinking the other day about the Reasonable Accommodation arguments that have been the subject of a great deal of ink in Quebec recently.  I did a bit of digging into the issue and many of the characters involved and what I see alarms me quite a bit.

The RA debate has as its genesis a bylaw passed in a small town called Hérouxville.  At least that is the general wisdom.  But is that the real story?

Hérouxville is a parish with a population of around 1300 just north of Quebec City.  It is a community without immigrants.  It is described as white, francophone and primarily catholic.  But for some reason Hérouxville is ground zero in the RA debate.  Why?

During the year preceding the Hérouxville bylaw there was a series of meetings between the RCMP, QPP, CSIS, and various anti-terrorism organizations from the US and Israel.  These facts were confirmed by one of the participants in a speech he gave in 2009 at University of New Brunswick.  A group concerned with terrorism meets to discuss a non-issue in Hérouxville?  According to information in the same speech the QPP and RCMP made sweeps through Herouxville.  Why?  What were they looking for?  Or for whom were they looking?

Alain Dubuc of La Press may have hit close to home when he characterized the issue as follows: "it's the revolt against the big city, its ideas, its lifestyle, its influence".  He went on to note: "For small towns such as Hérouxville, the real threat to their identity has little to do with veil-clad Muslim women, it is the urban world that is gradually drifting away from the traditional model."  Is that the issue?  Or is it something more sinister?


Time will tell.

Sometimes you get the shark...

... and sometimes the shark gets you.  And so the story goes.

In the world of Access to Information (ATI) sometimes the most revealing information is the information you do not get.

I am thinking specifically of a recent ATI request I made to a government department.  The material requested is not the secrets to the vault or who knew what and when, but rather I asked for the contents of a nineteen year old contract.  What was the response?  It is a secret... we can't tell you.  When an ancient contract is classified as secret it make you wonder why.  Why hide a public document?  Is there something in it that is illegal or embarrassing?  Why can't you release the document with sensitive parts redacted?  What are you trying to hide?

There are times that information requests are legitimately refused.  For example if the information does not exist or is not yet complete enough to be made public, that can be a legitimate reason to refuse a request.

This explanation applies to a local Anti-Wind group who is demanding, through their lawyer, access to a position paper not yet released by Pro-Wind, the company who has the audacity to want to build wind turbines in rural Ottawa.  The paper that is being demanded "RIGHT NOW" is scheduled to be released 60 days before public hearings (as required by law) - but that is not good enough for the protesters.  In a request to the wind company, the protesters demanded a whole raft of information besides the mentioned paper.  They were indignant when the company told their lawyer that the information they were requesting was on the company's web site - in full and free view of all who want to look at it.  The only item refused was the unpublished paper that is due to be published in a few months.

Now I understand the frustration of the protesters.  They believe that they have legitimate claims that with wind turbine will render them deaf, sterile or dead.  I do not want to argue their evidence here.  They might be right... they might be wrong.

But to demonize the company because the company does not accede to their every whim is not the way to go about it.

American Health Care at its best?

I was talking with a buddy the other day.  He lives and works in Denver, Colorado. He has developed at strange lump on his nether region and sought the advice of his local doctor. He is one of the lucky Americans because he has health care coverage through an HMO paid for in part by his company. For those who do not know, an HMO is the American equivalent to a combined group practice and membership-only clinic.

HMOs general work pretty well as long as you don't have a really difficult case because many HMO also subscribe to a regime called managed practice. One example of managed practice is as follows; if you have condition A, you can be treated for condition A. But is you have condition A and then develop condition B, you may have to wait for condition A to be cured before condition B is treated because, and here is the real rub, the insurance companies that fund the health care coverage will not pay for the second condition. Why not? There is a caveat in many US health care policies that talk about pre-existing conditions. Condition B may or may not be related to condition A but the pre-existing condition clause make the insurance company the arbiter of the condition... not the doctor.

In my buddy's case he had a hernia about 10 years ago - before he went to work for his current company. His insurance company decided that his current suspected condition was the consequence of that hernia. It is a totally stupid assertion but try to fight the insurance company over it.  The company will not pay for his treatment.  Maybe he should come to Canada for treatment.  Or maybe go to Mexico or even... Cuba.

With all its warts and blemishes the Canadian health insurance system does better than my buddy's private one. Just remember that when the Cons come knocking on your door trying to sell you a private plan.

It must be tough to be tough on crime

Anytime that a Canadian is given a light sentence by the courts the Cons go ape with the condemnation of the courts as being soft on crime.  But when one of their own is given a free pass they go completely silent.

Jaffer got a sweetheart deal.  I hope that all other Canadians can get the same treatment.

 

The federal budget did not disappoint

Except for the fact that we were told that the government was recalibrating during prorogation, President Steve has stuck to his guns in the recent budget. 

He told us that he would have a plan to get us out of the fiscal mess caused by the recession and he has one.  He won't tell us what the plan is... but he tells us that he has one. 

He told us that he was going to limit the growth of federal spending and that is what the budget promises.  How he will do that is not quite clear... but he tells us that he will do it.

Enough with the rhetoric. Get something done.

The Throne Speech was filled with orange marmalade but without the peel.  It tastes good but has no substance.

Take two of the lofty goals (and I don't include the change to the anthem or Senior's Day) for example.

"We will freeze public sector wages", states the document.  Sounds good on the surface but the reality is that the current civil service contract does not expire until 2011 so this promise does nothing to help our current crisis.

"We will freeze PM and MP salaries and ministerial budgets."  Sounds good but, as a result of redistribution the government is adding 26 more MPs to the payroll in the near future.  That's $50 million more dollars at a time of wage and budget freezes.  And let's not lose sight of the fact that if President Steve elevates his whole caucus to the height of Parliamentary Secretary for something or other, he can give raises without raising rates.

The devil is in the details.

It's like dry-humping

After waiting for three weeks for this Speech from the Throne and then listening to the GG drone through 6000 words - I feel like someone blew chucks in my soup.  What the hell did the government do with its time?

The Speech in a nutshell is... "jobs goods and deficit bad but since we have no plan to address either... we are going to change the words to O Canada and create a senior's day".

Sad news from a sad government.  They're like the generals in WWI - leading from the rear.

The budget comes tomorrow.  We can only hope for some real plans.

So much for prorogation

I don't know how much attention has been paid to a daily feature in the local Ottawa newsrag.  Each weekday the Citizen reports on the doings of our local MPs, those overworked and underappreciated keepers of democracy.

The main reason given by President Steve for the prorogation was to allow the government to "recalibrate", whatever to hell that means.  Seems that to recalibrate means to do nothing.

But let's look a little closer at how the assembled brain trust on the government side is spending its recalibation period.

According to the Citizen today, Transport Minister "Screamer" Baird is meeting with a cabinet committee and a lobbyist and various photo-ops including a soiree to fete the newest entrant into the cell phone game.  The Secretary to the PM, "Perfect PP" Poilievre has a couple of conference calls and a budget meeting with the PMO.  My god, what a workload.  No wonder they needed a break from the one hour per day that they play verbal dodge-ball commonly referred to as Question Period and those droning parliamentary committees who look into such mundane matters as government coverups with respect to the detainees issues.

Hypocrites, all.

Problems in the CAF

Sometimes an innocent story tells a glaring truth.  And it is a truth that no one is allowed to discuss.  At the risk of being labeled as one who does not support the Canadian military, which would be unadulterated crap, a recent Ottawa news rag ran a story on Captain Rob Warrington in the British Army. 

In 2003, Warrington, a native of Calgary, tried to join the CAF.  After long deliberation, which is common in the CAF, he was rejected.  As was a common occurrence in both the World Wars, Canadians who were rejected by Canada went off to the UK to join up with the Brits.  Warrington was accepted into the British Army and in a short period was commissioned to the officer corps.  As an officer he applied again for acceptance in the CAF and was told that, because he did not have a university degree, he could only join at the rank of Private.

And there is the nub of the story.  He was good enough to lead men in the British Army but not good enough to lead men in the Canadian Army!  Why?  He lacked a university degree.

During the World Wars, many Canadians were led by officers who bought their commissions and/or had buddies in the right spot to sponsor them.  A degree in botany from a university does not include the knowledge that is needed to direct and protect soldiers in the field.  It is a common saying in the army that officers run the army but sargents run the wars and grunts fight them.  If I were on the ground in Khandahar, I would want a grizzled-old-high-school-drop-out with battle smarts to lead me rather than someone who could quote Keates at the drop of a hat.

Take note that in the Canadian Airforce the only persons who could become Generals had to be pilots.  No flying?  No Generalship.

Whenever you hear about an incident at the command level of the CAF, ask yourself a question.  Was the officer involved the best person for the job that they were carrying out?

That is not to say that all within the officer corps of the CAF are worthless.  But the 10% tarnish the 90%.

You have it wrong, Marilyn

Marilyn Baker writes today in the Winnipeg Free Press that the mainstream (and I have no idea how to define that) press is biased against President Steve because of their coverage of prorogation in 2009/10 is massively more than when Chretien did it in 2003.

Well, duh...

Let's compare the two events, shall we?

In 2009/10 Steve prorogued parliament for a month when the opposition demanded documentation about who knew what and when did they know it with respect to the Afghan detainee issue.  Forget this spin about the upcoming budgets and such.  Only brain dead Con loyalists fall for those lines.

In 2003, a retiring Chretien prorogued parliament for a month thus allowing Paul Martin to take over as PM and establish his new cabinet.  Now that sounds like a correct use or prorogation.

Apples and oranges, Marilyn.  Maybe a little research is in order.

But let's not lose sight of the real problem here - semantics aside.  Harper floated into Ottawa with a mantra of accountability and transparency.   His use of prorogation, thus stopping the work of a Commons committee,  subverted accountability in the same way his refusal to turn over documents to the committee and the Commons subverted transparency.

So NOW the Cons think that prorogue is a bad word?

Harper can prorogue Parliament in the middle of night on Christmas eve to escape Commons scrutiny and  to stack the Senate and Cons think that the sun continues to shine?  But let McGuinty give a weeks notice to prorogue for a whole week and the crap hits the rotating device!

And who is leading the vitriolic charge?  None other than the MPP from Nepean Carleton, the often misunderstood but never missed in a crowd, L MacLeod.

By the way, has anyone even seen Lisa's federal buddy, the Perfect PP?  For a guy who lives in the riding, we sure don't see him very often.    I wonder if he still has place on the Market?

Palin oils up her guns

In her recent address to the Tea Party, a group of right-wing mad-hatters, Sarah Palin, the flash in the pan-handle of Alaska, said something the press seems to be ignoring but is the most important thing to remember as time moves forward to 2012 - and it is equally important to Canadians as it is to Americans.

Palin offered some political advice to President Obama. She told him that in the midst of this economic crisis and  budget deficit; while engaged in two wars; and with looming deadlock in Congress and the Senate - if Obama wants to raise his popularity he should declare war on Iran.

If that doesn't qualify for the bone-head comment of the decade, I would hate to know what will.

"Steamroller" MacLeod strikes again

In case you missed it, there is going to be a by-election for the provincial seat vacated by Jim Watson.  The Liberal candidate is none other than Bob Chiarelli, the former mayor and former Ottawa West MPP.

The Cons have been in a tough fight to nominate someone to come in third place and after much in fighting, gnashing of political teeth and back room maneuvering, they decided, by a whopping 3 vote margin, to serve up Beth Graham.

Graham's crowd out-finessed the crowd that was pushing Mike Patton.  Patton was formerly a Larry O'Brien stalwart and presumably Larry and his minions were backing Mike.  So who was the juggernaut that backed Graham?

Enter the ego that knows no bounds, Lisa MacLeod, MPP for Nepean Carleton, which is right next door to Ottawa West-Nepean.  Lisa has been reading her own press and has determined that she is in line for a cabinet seat when (or if) the Cons ever regain power in Ontario.  With her overblown view of herself (and one should note that her hubby, Joe Varner-MacLeod, is a very tested Con back-stabber), Lisa is pushing her weight around like it's a sale day at Baskins. But why Graham?

Well for one she ran the constituency office for MacLeod.  Second, she is penis-deprived, which fits Lisa's goal of emasculating Queen's Park.  Thirdly, Lisa thinks that she will be easier to control that Patton would ever have been.

But Lisa may have backed the wrong horse.  Beth's resume is not as light as Lisa might think.  In addition to being an EA to Federal Minister Leona A-glue-gun, she was also the president of the Leslie Park Community Association and the Nepean Federation of Community Associations. She has also chaired Nepean's environmental advisory committee, and served on committees of the Ontario Trillium Association and the Ottawa Special Olympic.  While all of these are back room appointed positions, it means that Beth has more friends than Lisa.

Makes for fun television, don't it?

Tories are anti-Quebec?

The spinmiesters of the Tory party are digging themselves a hole so deep that they might find more votes in China than in Canada.

The collected Tory geniuses have declared that, since a former Finance DM gave some advice to Iggy, then everything that the former DM says or thinks must be Liberal policy.  If you are confused, just Google for former DM Scott Clark.

I guess that means that anything a member of the Tory team says, whether it be an adviser like "Dimwit" Powers or maybe like a Cabinet Minister, is automatically Tory policy.

Following the Tory logic, then, it seems that Minister Prentice has decided that Quebec's new automobile emissions standards are "folly".    My dictionary defines folly are foolishness.  Therefore the Tories define Quebecers as fools!

Dig, Dig. Dig.

OC Transpo is out of Council's control

Somebody on city council better wake up pretty soon to the fact that OC Transpo is out - way out - of control.

The cost of bus service is going up and the service is crashing down. 

Just when we are trying to struggle to understand why a new bus barn goes 100% over budget, comes the news that Transpo may buy double decker buses that do not even fit into the $100 million new structure.

Who is running this mess?  It certainly does not appear to be city council.

It is a matter of degree?

If I am a member of PETA and hit you with a tofu pie, according to PETA, that's just peaceful discourse - not assault. 

If I am a member of PETA and hit you with a stone.  Is that assault? 

What if I am a member of PETA and hit you with a tofu pie that has a peach pit in it.  Is that assault?

What if the tofu pie filling got into your eye and blinded you?  Is that assault?

If I hit you with a feather or a pie or a dump truck in an attempt to intimidate you - that's assault!

Expect a contract to be put out on Kevin Page

President Steve has got to be cursing the day he made Kevin Page the Parliamentary Budget Officer. After all, Steve is in charge and what he says is the Word of God. That a mere mortal, such as Page, should contradict the Word of God is good reason to strike with a bolt of lightning.

The current misunderstanding between God and Page is over the chance of Canada entering a period of structural deficit. In a recent report (Page ignored the edict from above to vacate the Hill during prorogation), Page opined that there was going to be a structural deficit going forward if the government did not make the right (according to him) moves.

"Unfortunately, you've got to start dealing with the structural fiscal problem that's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger," Page said in an interview, "We're saying right now the government has no targets. That's not a good place to be. We don't know how much of this debt is going to be passed on to future generations."

Not so, insists Harper. "If we do what we've said we'll do, which is end stimulus spending when the recession is over. . . and if we discipline spending growth in the future, I don't think that should be a serious problem. If you look at Canada's deficit compared to other countries, it is much lower, and more importantly our debt levels are much, much lower. So the possibility of getting into a debt-interest-payment trap is, in my judgment, not high."

Well who can you believe? Page, who calls a spade a freaking shovel? Or Harper, who refused to see an economic tsunami coming and had to be pushed into acting?

I know who I believe.

“When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is frankly when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.”

Sounds like a very enlightened comment.  Surely worthy of being quoted now that Stevey Harper has decided that Parliament is a thorn in his side and that democracy is not good for Canadians.

I wonder who it was who said that?  Let me look that up in my quote encyclopedia.

No!  It can't be.  The sage advice is a quote from Steven Harper in a Canadian Press interview on April 18, 2005.

Hypocrit!

Is this any way to run a country?

The shear arrogance of Harper is clear in this work!

For a PM who ran on a platform of transparency and accountability, his arrogance and true nature shines through like a beacon in the fog.  Beware the beacon!

Competent city staff?

I am all for letting professional managers run the city.  That would free up councillors to develop a vision and policies to move us forward.  But what happens if you have an obviously incompetent manager - such as Alain Mercier.  Mercier is responsible for OC Transpo and OC Transpo is any but efficient.

You can blame the unions if you want and you can blame councillors for making it tough on managers - but in the end the responsibility falls on Mercier.

His job is simple in scope.  Keep the buses moving on schedule and within budget.

Is he up to the task?

Civic political parties? Boo, Hiss!

If we want to make civic politics more relevant to Ottawans then we need good and bright people to step forward for office.  We need ideas... not stuffed shirts.

The idea of political parties at city hall is one of the dumbest ideas possible.  It is floated out as a panacea to dislodge the deadwood lifer politicians that clog up city hall in great numbers.  But would it work?

Let's look at those levels of government where parties do exist.  Both the provincial and federal governments are liberally strewn with lifers.  They are kept in power BECAUSE of their party affiliations.  Both the federal and provincial systems are subject to the perversion of parachuting "desired" candidates into ridings even if the local party members don't want them.

Party members meet as a caucus and generally vote as a block.  What happens to local rights if the decision of the caucus is contrary to a riding decision?

The party system is anathema to democracy.  This has been shown time and time again.  When an ego the size of S. Harper can overrule the conscience of all Canadians, such as with the Afgan detainees controversy misunderstanding, it makes one long for a RETURN to independent MPs.

Two thumbs and eight fingers down for municipal political parties.