A 3 hour Tour.

I wonder what Gilligan will say?

Background: Scroll down to Feb 06 at this link.






(thanks again Mike for the art work)

Evil Conservative Government gives more stimulus money per capita to Newfoundland....

Today's headline:

Evil Conservatives give more stimulus money per capita to Newfoundland than any other province. Gerard Kennedy spends weeks researching and is convinced that the Conservatives won a seat there during the last election; calls Elections Canada for an explanation.


The Liberals will never be satisfied with how or where the money is spent. If the government put all of the money in Liberal ridings all we would hear is how the Conservatives are just trying to buy votes. If it is spent to fast, they are reckless, too slow and they are dragging their feet, etc etc. The only way that these guys would ever be happy would be if it was them passing out the cash and that is only because some of it would be coming back to them in brown paper bags.

Who Killed Ignatieff's Breakthrough in Quebec?

Who killed Michael Ignatieff's breakthrough in Quebec?


The butler did it!



Blogging will be light for a couple of days as I am still taking full advantage of the renovation tax credit. The reno tax credit by the way is definitely a dog that hunts.


Don't you just love it when Ignatieff borrows a line from a former U.S President, it reminds everyone that with Ignatieff..



Thanks again to Mike for the photoshop work.

“We are more united than we have been for a generation.”

Michael Ignatieff August 31, 2009 : "We are more united than we have been for a generation."

Michael Ignatieff September 25,2009 after trampling on Denis Coderre's judgment and allowing Martin Cauchon to run in Outremont: "The result I think is good for the party, it reinforces the unity of the party,"

Today: Denis Coderre steps down as Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant, demands that Ignatieff reshuffle his Toronto inner circle.

Background:"The rift between Ignatieff and Coderre broke open last week over who should be nominated as the Liberal candidate in the Montreal riding of Outremont. Former justice minister Martin Cauchon, who left politics in 2004, has signalled his intention to return to Parliament Hill and reclaim the riding he held for 11 years. However, Ignatieff announced last Monday that he would appoint businesswoman Nathalie Le Prohon, who was selected by Coderre, as the Liberal candidate in Outremont, The decision seemed to end Cauchon's hopes of a political comeback, but Coderre announced later in the week that another riding would be offered to Cauchon. Meanwhile, a number of Liberal MPs, including Bob Rae, rallied around Cauchon in his bid for Outremont.By the end of the week, Ignatieff had reversed his own decision about Outremont to allow for an open nomination contest in the riding." (h/t Searching for Liberty)

To quote a former Quebec lieutenant for the Liberal Party, Jean Lapierre: "So who is running the Liberal Party now?" "What is it worth a handshake from Michael Ignatieff?" More from Lapierre: "Is it a backbone or another wet noodle"

Update: A prominent Liberal Bloggers view of Denis Coderre and party unity.

Can you feel the love in the Liberal Party?

Cauchon vs. Mulcair

New poll up on the sidebar: Who will win in Outremont, Thomas Mulcair or Martin Cauchon?

So please vote and feel free to drop a comment below and tell us why you voted the way you did.

--------------------------------------

My personal thoughts are that Mulcair gets re-elected. I know this goes against the thinking of lots of Liberals out there who now believe that Outremont is in the bag with the return of Cauchon, but I think that is more wishful thinking rather than based on anything factual.

Here are a couple of reasons why.

First off Mulcair already has the job of MP in Outremont and the power of incumbency should never be underestimated. This will be diminished somewhat by the fact that Cauchon was once the MP for the riding, but not enough to neutralize it completely. Advantage Mulcair.

Mulcair has to be considered a star candidate more so than Cauchon would be. Mulcair is the only NDP member from Quebec, which makes him very high profile no matter what, and there is
a strong chance that he may be end up as the next leader of the NDP. While some have suggested that Cauchon himself may be working towards the leadership of the LPC, that is not something that can really be used to his advantage in a campaign without causing problems and ruffling the feathers of current leader Michael Ignatieff. We all know that this is probably Jack Layton's kick at the cat and it is no secret Mulcair wants the job, and while Cauchon may want the leaders job as well, there is no way he or his people can touch the subject with a 10ft poll come election time without negative repercussions. Advantage Mulcair.

The last and perhaps the biggest reason that I see for a Mulcair victory is the baggage factor. Mulcair will be traveling light in an election while Cauchon comes with more than a Samsonite sales rep. The past is going to be inescapable for team Cauchon and no matter how hard they try to make the past a non issue, it will be, and you can bet that both the NDP and the press are going to make sure of that. Big advantage Mulcair.

What do you think?

Update: Speaking of baggage....

Khadafi avoids facing the Cannon

Reports are coming in saying that Libyan Leader Muammar Khadafi has cancelled a stop over in Newfoundland planned for later this week.

There is speculation that the trip was cancelled so Khadafi would not have to face Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon who was expected to express Canada's "strong disapproval" over the hero's welcome organized by Libya for Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, including two Canadians.

Score another win for the Harper Government.

There has been no comment from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff who said recently "" Canada is becoming the country that dares not speak its name!"

Wildrose Alliance: The official opposition in Alberta?

I am not sure how accurate this is but if it is true............

McLoughlin is reporting as many as 10 Tory MLAs could join the Wildrose Alliance Party if Danielle Smith takes the reins. That's a big shake-up that could place the Wildrose Alliance as the new Official Opposition. McLoughlin attributes his information to unnamed credible sources.

Why the "we can do better" party have doomed the CPC.

This is hard to admit as a conservative, but the new Liberal slogan "we can do better" is starting to worry me somewhat because it would appear that the Liberals can do better.

Some examples: They can do H1N1 vaccine better than GlaxoSmithKline , Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, CSL and Sinovac can, they can do infrastructure better by getting projects done 7 years ahead of schedule, and they can even do video better, just to name a few.

For conservatives having the Liberals doing all of those things better should be worrisome, but it pails in comparison to the their latest. The Liberals can do democracy better as they appear to have found a better system by doing away with nomination races along with all of that pesky voting stuff.

Here is what Sheila Gervais, a former national director of the Liberal Party had to say:

"We've turned into one big appointment society, it's a perfect democratic deficit storm."

"They appoint the leader. The leader in turn appoints the election apparatus . . . . None of them have an elected basis and then these people have the right to choose and appoint candidates?"

"This simply has very little link to some of our most basic tenets of democracy. There is no power to the people in these types of processes." (h/t The Halls of Macadamia)

Well said Sheila but you forgot to mention that Michael Ignatieff has NEVER actually won a nomination contest of any kind as he was also appointed in his own riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore* in 2005.



PM Harper might as well hand over the keys to 24 Sussex right now because if the Liberals can do democracy better, there is no telling what they will show us up on in any possible upcoming election. We are doomed.


Update: Democracy sort of lives in Outremont, but dies a painful death in the Montreal riding of Jeanne-Le Ber as Quebec lieutenant Denis Coderre has his judgement questioned, the candidate Ms. Le Prohon gets moved around like a piece of meat, and the Liberals of Jeanne-Le Ber get told what to do and have the option of choosing their candidate taken away from them by the guy who was appointed to his own job.

And so it goes in the Liberal Party of Canada.







*Well there should have been a nomination race for Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 2005 but the seeds of the "appointment society" were first sown when "Two would-be candidates for the nomination claim they were locked out of party headquarters when they tried to file their nomination papers by last weekend's deadline. Both were subsequently disqualified, leaving Ignatieff to be acclaimed." (h/t Warren Kinsella.)

Unintended Quote of the day

Michael Ignatieff: "Canadians don't want political games played with infrastructure funding," Ignatieff said. "You can't employ people with press releases."

"Look at the field behind me, it is not getting done," Ignatieff said.

( Ignatieff was quoted above while among an old soy bean field in Burlington where they say no progress has been made on the creation of the New City Park.) (h/t Bruce. Part of the crew @ Blue like you.)

All well and good except: Burlington Mayor Cam Jackson said the Liberals picked the wrong field to stage their press conference. The park project just got environmental approval last week and wasn't planned for years.

"This project was not slated to be done for seven years," Jackson said.

He added he won't criticize the Tories or the provincial government on infrastructure spending because he has projects happening all over his municipality.

Updated with video: (Thanks Robert)

It is amateur hour at the OLO and Ignatieff is proving again that he is out of touch with Canadians and out of touch with reality.

Related: Even Ontario Liberal MPP's think Ignatieff is out to lunch on this one. (h/t Searching for Liberty)

Michael Ignatieff can't see the forest for the trees.

Gerard Kennedy, stimulus, fail

The Liberal Non Confidence Motion

Michael Ignatieff: “After four years of drift, four years of denial, four years of division and discord — Mr. Harper, your time is up.”

The opportunity is quickly approaching for the Liberals to introduce their motion of non confidence on a government they claim that they can no longer support; but the question is....

Will they or won't they?

Oh to be a fly on the wall at the OLO.



Latest polls (PDF files)

EKOS

NANOS

Up in Smoke...........

Sometimes opening up an email can bring a smile to your face, thanks Mike.

CP. Just one question.

Dear Canadian Press: Since your story about pictures of the PM being removed from a government website has proven to be totally false; I think in the interest of openness, fairness, and public information that you should provide your readers with the names of these 'critics' who spawned this story spawned this story and headline? (edit: added 'and headline' to my poorly worded question. Thanks M)

The Canadian Press

Harper Photos Removed from Government Website.
Only a half-dozen of PM's 40 or more photos survive the cut after boosterism accusations

OTTAWA–The Government of Canada website set up to promote the Conservative economic action plan had a leaner look yesterday: more than 30 photos of Prime Minister Stephen Harper had been removed.

"Critics have complained that the website, actionplan.gc.ca, looks like a partisan promotion – complete with a Tory-blue colour scheme, glowing third-party testimonials, more than 40 photos of Harper and repeated references to "the Harper government" rather than the Government of Canada."


I think it is a valid question to ask and even more-so since we all still have this made up story so fresh in our memories and who there was that other time........


So let us know CP we will be waiting.




Remember it is your job to cover the news, not be the news; or worse, create the news.

----------------------------

Update: This is the so-called evidence found at Impolitical.

Case solved:

The picture still remains on the site and can be found here.

Cauchon; and tough choices.

Choices choices.

It must be tough being a Liberal strategist these days.

Do you keep supporting the judgment of a guy who you had your doubts about in the past and who now is proving to be a political disaster in part because he is making decisions like this.

Or do you call it as you see it and come out on side with the judgment of your old boss , support his former Quebec Lieutenant and tell your new boss that this is a mistake.


What to do, what to do.



Update: Ignatieff the uniter in action.

Feelin' lucky?

"I don't get this Ignatieff guy. I can't figure out what he believes. Because I don't think he knows."

Read the entire entry from Kelly McParland at the National Post.


Slow blogging day today as I, unlike Michael Ignatieff, am actually doing something to help out the economy with a little help from the renovation tax credit. The same tax credit which Ignatieff voted against.

On Body bags and Boy Scouts

While Michael Ignatieff was busy spending some of his 34 years out of the country he once called Canada a "herbivorian boy scout".

Well that was then and this is now: Michael Ignatieff September 17, 2009 on a routine shipment of body bags: “When that is combined with the fact...that they haven’t sent preventative measures that can save those lives, it sends a message of callous lack of compassion.” "It sends a message, it simply says: 'We expect Aboriginal Canadians to die,'"

It makes for a nice soundbite but he seems to have forgotten the boy scout motto.

Be prepared!

Sorry if it offends your sensibilities Michael, I honestly think it doesn't and this is just another example of the opportunist and his "pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel" in action, but preparing for a possible H1N1 pandemic includes PREPARING for the fact that people will die. To not do so would be nothing short of negligence on the part of Health Canada and you would be crying about that if given the opportunity.




Related: In his presser September 11th he said the following to a question about how the government could be doing more on H1N1: " public information, public health campaigns and get the vaccine ready. I mean in my view they have been treading water on this all summer."

Yes folks, the 'we can do better' party would put on their white lab coats and go out to make the vaccine themselves for Canadians. Take that you evil Stephen Harper.

From today: Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said that First Nations communities like Ahousat on Vancouver Island are already reporting a flu outbreak, but the government's vaccine will be too late to help.

Some facts:The vaccine is not yet being used anywhere in the world. Australia is scheduled to be the first nation to start vaccinations but not until about September 30th.

H/T: To quote a comment at The Halls of Macademia. "Ujjal Dosanjh is talking out of his ass again."


Update: While the Liberals are playing politics the government gets work done.

Another Update: Oct 8, 2009: Even thought he Liberals tried to make a scandal out of this it was all much ado about nothing.

Liberals Vote Against the Reno Tax Credit.

They actually did it. In what can only be described as a textbook example of playing political games* the Liberal Party of Canada voted against the ways and means motion that included a provision allowing the HUGELY popular renovation tax credit to become law.

And they should be reminded of it each and every day.

Update: The arrogance of Ignatieff as he expresses his joy on voting against the renovation tax credit: (ht Halls of Macadamia)

“Personally, it felt like the right thing to do."

Hey Liberals, missing Dion yet?



*Voting against something that you support 100%, not for the good of the country or any of your constituents, but for your own benefit = political games.

Fact checking the Liberal fact checker.

Fact checking the Liberal fact checker. Alternate title: How many lies and distortions can we squeeze into a web page.

A couple from the LPC's Just the Facts: ( my comments in parenthesis)

Liberals vs. Conservatives on culture:
- The Conservatives slashed $45 million from the culture sector. ( yes they did but why the convenient leave out of this :spending on cultural programs in the second year of Stephen Harper's Conservative government will be $509-million or 15.2 per cent more than it was in in fiscal 2006, the last year of Paul Martin's Liberal government.)
- Liberals defend culture and artists. We have promised to restore the funding cut by the Conservatives in 2008. While the Liberals were in power, this key sector’s budget was a high priority. ( Paul Martin priority #2,467 I guess. How can you restore funding to a sector that is getting more money now than it was in 2007? So unless you are planning on making massive cuts to the arts, as Martin did in the early 1990's, it would be impossible to 'restore' funding to 2007 levels.)
- The Conservatives have left Radio-Canada to fend for itself while the Liberal Party wants to ensure its long-term financial stability. (the CBC gets 1.1 Billion dollars from the federal government, not exactly fending for themselves is it.)
- The Conservatives introduced Bill C-10 giving the government the discretionary power to censor films while refusing to subsidize productions considered contrary to “public order”. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, has fought tooth and nail against this censorship law. ( Note quote of the words “public order”. November, 2003, when Paul Martin was about to take over from Jean Chrétien as Liberal Prime Minister, and after what they described as a long period of industry consultation, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Minster of Heritage Sheila Copps proposed that Canadian film and video productions will receive tax credits provided that "public financial support of the production would not be contrary to public policy." So you have fought tooth and nail against a policy that it turns out was basically written by the Liberal Party have you? Considering that John McCallum called the bill "sensible" and not a peep was heard from ANY Liberal MP when the bill was before Parliament, I would hardly call that or even the re-write of history on the origins of the bill, fighting tooth and nail against it.)

Liberals vs. Conservatives on EI:
- While Liberals believe that all Canadians have the right to the same EI coverage, regardless of where they live, Conservatives rejected this proposal and failed to present anything constructive as part of this summer’s EI working group. ( but yet we have the government introducing improvements to EI and now we have the very same Liberals trying to fast track this non constructive and apparently non existent legislation through both houses of Parliament. Lies and political games with this one, a double bonus)



I wonder what a Liberal fact checker makes now a days? It looks like easy money to me; just distort or make stuff up, re-write history, hit enter and collect your brown paper bag of cash at the end of the week for services rendered.

h/t Christian Conservative.

Can we now put this lie to bed forever.

The court challenge from Democracy Watch over the timing of the last federal election gets thrown out.

The last election was legal and no laws were broken. Now if only the trolls, and the Liberal Party would stop with the "Harper broke his own election law" crap we can move on to reality and the present day.

Your daily Kinsella.

Your daily Kinsella. Today's episode: Why the The Campaign of Fear™ will not work.

Related: please read Joanne's latest at Blue like you.

Enjoy.



October 16th, 2006: "The problem is that Stephen Harper doesn’t really scare Canadians anymore, or possibly never did. That’s the Grits’ problem. "

January 5th, 2006:

"TO: LIBERAL CAMPAIGN BOSSES
FROM: YOUR REALLY GOOD PAL WARREN
RE: TOP SECRET AND SUPER CONFIDENTIAL STUFF

Dear guys: it won't work. Did last time, won't this time. Have a nice two weeks, and good luck in your return to the Liberian shipping industry.

...

As I related to a group of scary-smart U of T political science students last night, there are three reasons for this:

One, every Canadian who is not comatose understands that Harper can't form a majority government, even if he wants to, and he does. Paul Martin's top-notch handling of the Quebec file means federalism is hooped in la belle province for the forseeable future. The numbers for a majority aren't there. Folks know that.

Two, (Shameless Book Plug Alert) as noted in no less an authority than Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics, in order for an attack ad to work, it has to be factual or, at the very least, plausible. The Liberals' planned Harper Is Satan™ campaign is not plausible. Canadians have now had a couple years to see how Harper operates. He isn't neceessarily(sp) someone you'd cuddle with on the basement couch to watch 'Friends' reruns, but neither is any other politician. In this case, familiarity breeds a comfort level.

Three, as my sage pal John Wright opined a while ago, Canadians gathered around family Christmas/Hannukah tables at the end of last month and came to a collective decision: we want change, and if Harper's the only way to achieve that, so be it. Pass the cranberries.

The coming ad war won't assist the Liberals, but it certainly will have their bankers wondering if they plan to repay that fat line of credit.

Now, where is that helmet?"

---------------------

I disagree with the man politically but I must say that he does have a certain flair for writing.

A Must Read Scathing Criticism of Ignatieff

An absolute must read on Michael Ignatieff.

Who is the author you ask. Well you will find that out at the end of the post.

"It is not very often that one gets to witness a "leadership frontrunner" immolate his own candidacy so blithely, so recklessly, but if you click here and you peer inside, you will see the corpse of Michael Ignatieff’s vaulting ambition. He is done – and if he isn’t, he should be.

Now, it is true that I objected to the learned professor before reading this essay, posted over the weekend on Pierre Bourque’s site. I objected to the manner in which his supporters trampled on democracy in a Toronto riding – literally locking out opponents. I objected to his support of George W. Bush’s illegal war in Iraq. I objected to the fact that he mocked Canada (Link dead) during the three decades he was abroad, and that he likened Israeli policy to the fascism of apartheid. I objected to what I perceived to be breathtaking arrogance – calling Canada a "herbivorian boy scout" one day, then jetting up here to run it the next.

And then came this essay. Below I have culled a representative sampling of some the things Ignatieff says about torture in his just-published tour de force. His Kool Aid drinkers – and he has many already, rest assured – will bombard me with emails, braying and screeching that I quoted him out of context. But the fact is that they are his words. And the fact is that, in politics, voters and reporters are not patrician Harvard students, willing to keep quiet until the very end of the great man’s hour-long treatise, or until the end of a 10,000 word essay in the New York Times Magazine. They can be counted upon to object right away to the objectionable. Up here in the frosty herbivorian Boy Scout camp, all that it takes is a few sentences, usually, to permit a glimpse into what passes for a soul. We have that skill, boy scouts that we are.

That said, here’s Michael Ignatieff on torture. If you don’t read them now, you’ll be reading them enough during the next election campaign.

"…torture is not served by collapsing the distinction between coercive interrogation and torture. Both may be repugnant, but repugnance does not make them into the same thing."

"…necessity may require the commission of bad acts…"

"An outright ban on torture and coercive interrogation leave a conscientious security officer with little choice but to disobey the ban."

"…it must be the case that other acts of torture occur because interrogators believe, in good faith, that torture is the only way to extract information in a timely fashion…"

"The argument that torture and coercion do not work is contradicted by the dire frequency with which both practices occur."

And, finally, the epitaph:

"I am willing to get my hands dirty."

"I am willing to get my hands dirty." That much, it seems, is true."

Wow. There is a lot of info there to digest including the "herbivorian boy scout" comment which I have not heard of until reading this.

If you were thinking that the author of this is not big fan of Michael Ignatieff you would be wrong because today he is in fact a big booster of Ignatieff, but back on March 27, 2006 when this first appeared on his blog, it was obvious that the author Warren Kinsella was not the fan that he is today.

Related: More from Warren and here.