Brian Lilley's blog

Prime Minister Harper's You Tube interview

Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down for an interview with the folks from YouTube. Over the last week YouTube collected questions from Canadians via special pages at YouTube and Google. Canadians could vote for the questions they liked best or submit questions themselves. Google's Patrick Pichette, the Canadian who is also the corporate giant's Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, sorted through the questions and posed them to the Prime Minister, some were introduced with the video clips Canadians had uploaded. Neither the Prime Minister nor his office saw the questions ahead of time, except by reading them online the way most Canadians could.

Put what on my fork?

 

I'm the type of guy who will eat seal meat, as I did last week and thanks to my Scottish heritage, I have an adventurous palate, ready to consume haggis or black pudding. Still, I have a tough time getting past the idea of eating "transgenic meat."

What you say is transgenic meat? It is meat that got its start in a laboratory and has been genetically altered with the DNA or genes of another species being introduced into the new animal. Researchers at the University of Guelph have requested approval for the first transgenic animal developed in Canada, the Enviropig. I give the full story on the pig here, including comments from people concerned about this development, but here is the quick run down. The Enviropig is a Yorkshire pig with DNA from a mouse spliced into it to reduce the amount of phosphorous the pig emits in its manure. Why do that? In intensive livestock operations, or factory farms, too much phosphorous pollutes the local water supply.

Seal meat on the menu. Gotta get me some flipper pie.

She smiled when I stopped her to ask the question, "Have you tried seal meat before?"

It was the question of the day for me Tuesday afternoon in the lead up to today's event at the Parliamentary Restaurant where seal meat will be on the menu. So there was Megan Leslie, the New Democrat MP from Halifax giving me a primer on eating seal meat, "it's gamey."

Now to stereotype, Ms. Leslie looks like the type of young woman who, were she from Toronto, would eschew any meat and have answered my question with an explanation on the benefits of a vegetarian diet. Thankfully Ms. Leslie is no stereotype. So, yes, she tried seal on a trip to the Magdalen Islands and found it better than she expected, "I thought it would be fattier, you know when you think of marbled beef. But the fat is on the outside; you know the blubber layer to keep them warm. So I thought it would be fatty but it was quite lean. But it was gamey, gamey is the word I would use."

Just a few steps away, still in the foyer of the House of Commons I stop Liberal MP Scott Simms from Newfoundland who becomes wistful as I ask him about the taste of seal meat, "They tell me, there is nothing better than flipper pie and a glass of Chianti."

Simms agrees with Leslie that the taste of seal is gamey and he adds that seal is an acquired taste, "but one worth acquiring." So what would I be acquiring if I try seal meat in the Parliamentary Restaurant? Is this like chicken, beef, fish? A good question says Simms, "More like rabbit," he says. "A dark meat, it's very rich, very filling."

Now, I stopped and spoke with east coast MPs because, those are the people that would have tried this meat. Not everyone is a fan though. Gail Shea, the Fisheries Minister may defend the seal hunt but in no way does she sound like she enjoys eating seal meat, "It depends on how it's processed. There is a type of seal meat that is made into a pepperoni. If you ate the pepperoni, I don't think you could taste the difference if it were seal meat or another type of meat." Okay, so minister, do you like seal meat? "I like pepperoni," says Shea.

That's okay though, you don't need to like eating seal, that's not the point of this exercise MPs and Senators are taking part in today. No, today is about Canadian politicians thumbing their noses at Europeans and animal activists. The European Union has put in a ban on Canadian seal products. Sure they may have bought them for hundreds of years but now, they think it is mean and cruel and they are trying to force Canada to stop.

The EU is backed in this push by animal rights activists including celebrities and radical groups like PETA who would prefer that no animal were ever killed again and that everyone turn to a vegetarian diet.

A full discussion of the merits, or demerits, of the seal hunt will have to wait for another day, I'll only say the cute little white coat seal pups you see in posters are not hunted, it's not allowed. Beyond that the arguments will have to wait, I have to get in line at the restaurant to see what all this fuss is about, I expect a long wait.
 

Cancel NAFTA? American lawmakers look to rip up trade deal

Forget about the trouble Canada had with the Buy America policy, there is a new game in Washington; it's called Block Canada. A group of congressmen have given their backing to a bill that if passed, would see President Barack Obama give six-months notice that the United States was withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Representative Gene Taylor, a Democrat from Mississippi, introduced the bill last Thursday and quickly found the support of 27 cosponsors in both the Democratic and Republican parties. The bill has attracted support from moderates and the fringe in both parties as well, with several members of the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate Democrats signing on alongside libertarians like Ron Paul on the Republican side or Dennis Kucinich of the Democratic left. The bill also has fairly wide spread geographical support with representatives from 16 different states.

With more the $1 billion per day in cross border trade between Canada and the United States, politicians in Ottawa need to be concerned about any threat that would limit access to the U.S. market. The recent Buy America provisions of the Recovery Act of 2009 were credited with the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in lost business for Canadian companies.

The Canadian impact of cancelling NAFTA is likely to have little sway with the sponsors of this bill, their concern is the health of the U.S. economy. Rep. Taylor is quoted by Reuters as saying, "At a time when 10 to 12 percent of the American people are unemployed, I think Congress has an obligation to put people back to work."

While supporters have long credited NAFTA with helping boost trade and create jobs, opponents like cosponsor Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, say the trade treaty has cost American jobs, "I remain opposed to NAFTA because it continues to hurt the U.S. economy and put Americans out of work. I am pleased to join my colleagues to propose a repeal of this failed trade policy. NAFTA has failed to deliver the benefits that were promised and has cost Michigan hundreds of thousands of good manufacturing jobs."

Stupak relies on data from the Economic Policy Institute which claims Michigan in particular lost 63,000 jobs as a result of NAFTA while the United States as a whole lost 1 million jobs as a result of NAFTA.

President Obama has promised to support freer trade and NAFTA in particular since coming to office, yet he was known for critiquing the pact while campaigning to be president. During a speech two years ago in Ohio, then candidate Obama was critical of rival Hillary Clinton and her support for NAFTA saying the United States can't keep passing unfair trade deals. "One million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA" Obama told his audience, "including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio. And yet, ten years after NAFTA passed, Senator Clinton said it was good for America. Well, I don't think NAFTA has been good for America - and I never have."

Expect Canadian politicians to downplay this threat but there are plenty of reasons to worry, the first among them, President Obama's past statements and long history of opposition to NAFTA. This is also an election year in the United States with the entire House of Representatives and 36 Senate seats up for grabs. With unemployment still running high in the United States, offering populist solutions like closing the borders could strike a chord with an agitated public. Finally, don't expect this anti-NAFTA push to just come from the Democrats, not only has Taylor's bill picked up support from Republicans but the growing Tea Party movement in the United States, which leans right, is attracting plenty of anti-trade supporters who say it is time to put America first.

Harper's Olympic bounce is Ignatieff's hangover

 

In politics, as in life, how people perceive you can become reality in their mind, a reality which no amount of debate, analysis or coercion can change, Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows this. After running a moderate right-of-centre government for four years, 45% of voters still say they think Stephen Harper has a hidden agenda. Despite Harper's best efforts he simply cannot shake this perception of him. So you would think that Harper would have some sympathy for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff when he looks at the results of today's poll on leadership.

The truly shocking thing about these latest numbers from Ipsos-Reid is not that the Conservatives have bounced back to an eight point lead over the Liberals, 37% to 29% support, the horserace numbers are fluid. No, the shocking part is that on questions of leadership attributes, Michael Ignatieff finishes third in every single category. When asked who would make the best Prime Minister a stunning 46% chose Stephen Harper putting his personal popularity well above that of his party. In second spot for best PM is Jack Layton, the NDP Leader is the choice of 33% of Canadians, more than double the 16% who say they would actually vote for his party. Trailing behind his party's popularity is Ignatieff, the choice of just 21% for best Prime Minister.

Recalibrate this!

Knowing how much Prime Minister Stephen Harper likes his classic rock, I'm suggesting Led Zepplin's The Song Remains the Same as the theme song for his Throne Speech and budget.  

After trying to sell the country on the idea that the prorogation the government announced on December 30th was all about "recalibrating the government" and getting ready for phase two of the economic action plan, the PM's office told reporters on Monday that there would not be anything new in the budget set to be released next week.  

Gender pay gap, not all it's cracked up to be

Few people would advocate more women living in poverty, but if we are going to have a serious discussion of how best to tackle the issue that more women than men live in poverty, we need to face reality. Sadly, the report issued by a collection of advocacy groups fails miserably on that count. The group uses conjecture rather than facts and when confronted with facts, changes the rules to suit themselves.  

Take the longstanding debate over what is called "the gender wage gap." According to the report issued Monday by the collective that includes the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Teacher's Federation and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, women earn just 70 cents for every dollar a man earns in Canada. Were this true it would be a shocking and appalling state of affairs, the type of thing that government regulations must be called upon to rectify. I truly do not know anyone who would advocate that a man earn 42% more than a woman for working the same job, for the same number of hours. Of course this is not the case.  

The report, dubbed a reality check by its authors, looks at the government's claim that women earn 84 cents for every dollar a man makes and they dismiss it. Their reason for doing so? The government does not use the correct data. In the government report, the 84 cents on the dollar claim is arrived at by looking at wages on a dollar per hour basis using Statistics Canada's July 2008 Labour Force Survey. In July of 2008 women earned an average of $19.14 per hour while men earned an average of $22.80 per hour, thus the 84 cents on the dollar figure.  

The collective report by the labour and activist groups does not use dollar per hour compensation to show that women earn less than men, they use total year compensation. It is easy to understand why the group uses this formula, it will always show that women are being discriminated against while the other formula is showing improvements. A quick look at Stats Canada's monthly Labour Force Survey shows one reason why men make more money than women; they work more hours. While this may not justify a difference in hourly wages, it would justify a difference in year end compensation. In the report cited by the government, men worked an average of 38.7 hours per week, a full five hours more than women who clocked in for 33.7 hours. For full-time workers, rather than all workers combined, there was still a difference, men working 40.7 hours per week to 38 hours for women. In reviewing several months of these reports over the past two years a consistent pattern emerges, men in full-time jobs work two to three hours more per week than women.  

As for the difference in hourly wages, part of that is attributable to the type of work men and women choose to do and non-wage benefits that come with those jobs. As the report by the activists shows (page 18 in pdf), women choose to work in fields such as nursing, teaching and social services, jobs that while they pay less come with security and benefits like public sector pensions. From the report, "In 2006, women accounted for 55.9% of all professional jobs, but 87.4% of jobs in nursing, therapy and other health related professional jobs; 71.3% of professional social sciences and religion jobs (most in public and not-for-profit social services); and 63.9% of teaching jobs."  

Note the "but" in that last sentence which makes it appear that they are complaining that women dominate certain professions which women choose to go into. The fringe benefits of those jobs often come in the form of delayed compensation such as pensions. According to Stats Can, women are more likely than men to be enrolled in a public sector pension, more likely to be part of a defined benefits plan, the gold standard of pensions. Meanwhile men are more likely than women to be part of a private sector plan and also be enrolled in the less lucrative defined contribution form of pension plan.  

There are other benefits which come with these public sector jobs such as top-ups for maternity benefits. I can tell you from experience many private sector employers offer nothing beyond the Employment Insurance maternity/paternity leave plans which pay 55% of wages up to a maximum of just over $400 per week. By contrast, federal government workers are eligible for a top-up that pays them 93% of their wages for the full year of maternal leave.   

Finally, there is the job security issue. Throughout the recession, indeed since 1990, women have fared better than men when it comes to unemployment. While factory workers, loggers and even bank executives and high-level sales executives have faced the axe, there have been few reports of teachers and nurses being let go en masse by the government. In January 2010 the unemployment rate for men aged 25 years and older was 7.9% while for women it was 6.1%. If we went back to June 2009 when unemployment was peaking, the rate for men 25 and over was 8.4% while women were still at 6.1%. I wonder how many of those laid off men would have chosen stability over higher wages when they were looking at the unemployment line.  

The reasons for men and women earning different annual incomes are many and they are complex. Some of the difference comes down to choice, stability over risk, the decision by many women to only seek part-time work, the difference between what is offered in wages and what is offered in generous public sector benefits. The report offered up Monday by the activists examines none of this and instead looks at one number and comes to the conclusion that it is all due to discrimination. I do note they do not determine that women having 87% of nursing jobs is due to discrimination, and that too speaks to how serious this report is and how much attention policy makers should give to it. If we are going to have a serious discussion on this issue, let's start by looking at real numbers.  

Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.

"Lack of French" at the opening ceremonies? Gimme a break.

The old Red Rose tea ads on TV used to say, "Only in Canada? Pity." That could sum up the argument over how much French was used in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last Friday.

After complaints by federal Heritage Minister James Moore and Quebec Premier Jean Charest, it has now been announced that Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser will launch a formal investigation into the use of the French language in the ceremonies. You have to be kidding me.

To Canadians who have not been fully bathed in official Ottawa or are not fully versed in the fact the French is one of the official languages of the International Olympic Committee, Friday's ceremonies likely had just enough French or for many far too much. These are after all the games billed as Vancouver 2010. We had a pop song by Garou, a speech in French by IOC President Jacques Rogge, an oath read out for all officials and every single announcement made in French first. At least that's how it appeared to those of us following along at home on television, but for official Ottawa and language zealots in Quebec, anything short of a word for word parity is giving the short end of the stick to French and of course the many voters all the federal parties covet in Quebec.

I could go on about how the Francophone population of British Columbia is tiny, or point out that Francophones make up just 22% of Canada's population but all of that would be brushed aside by Canada's official bilingualism and the buckets of money the federal government have poured into these games. Instead, let's turn to one of the main complainants, Jean Charest, and see how he conducts himself.

Few people in this country have attended a Jean Charest news conference, I unfortunately have attended several. While Charest calls for greater bilingualism at the games, during his own news conferences he follows what is called in Quebec, "protocol." Protocol is a system whereby Francophone reporters usually have a chance to exhaust all the questions they have and then at the end 2 or 3 English questions are allowed before Charest leaves. Consider it a linguistic apartheid for reporters. Charest is not alone in using this, the system is widespread.

At one news conference I attended sometime around 2001, the Montreal municipal politician that called the news conference noted that the subject matter was regarding the English community; the overwhelming majority of the reporters were Anglos so he said he would start in English. That didn't go over well. The two Francophone reporters present banged on tables and shouted until the official, looking shaken, recanted and began in French. Whether at city or provincial levels in Quebec, you cannot break the protocol, I've tried and been ignored but if Jean Charest were truly interested in giving the languages equal billing he would buck the trend, he doesn't.

It also cannot help but strike me as strange that Charest has commented that he is happy with the French signage at the games. This from the man who leads a province that once used the notwithstanding clause of the constitution to uphold a bigoted sign law and still requires French to be larger than English or any other language on commercial signs.

Charest is not alone in using linguistic politics to curry favour with voters, politicians at the federal level fall over themselves to do the same. While Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton give speeches and refer to "Canadians," they use a different term when speaking in French in Quebec. Most Canadians would likely be outraged to know that the people who lead or seek to lead our national government refer to "Canadians and Quebecers" when speaking in French in Quebec, having travelled the country listening to these speeches, it is not a note of reference accorded to other provinces.

The fight over language is normally a proxy fight for votes, often the votes of Francophones in different parts of Quebec and this case is no different. In reacting so quickly to the opening ceremonies, saying there was not enough French; Heritage Minister James Moore was just trying to get out ahead of his critics in the opposition parties. Yet these political games have consequences including the now launched investigation. Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser, being a denizen of Official Ottawa and given his comments so far, we know he will find fault somewhere with the Vancouver Organizing Committee, a report will be filed and the tut-tutting will begin all over again. Only in Canada you say? Pity.

NDP Leader Jack Layton faces prostate cancer with determination and a smile

Word that Jack Layton would hold a news conference in Toronto at 2pm on Friday afternoon definitely sent the usual press gallery speculation machine into overdrive. What on earth could the leader of the NDP be revealing?

The immediate theories that he was quitting as leader to leave politics or resigning to enter the Toronto mayoralty race were dismissed by his staff. Speculation then turned to Layton's health. The Energizer bunny of Canadian politics is known for keeping a hectic schedule and for keeping fit with regular workout sessions in the gym set aside for MPs. Word spread that Layton had been laid up with a bad back, perhaps there was a health issue to deal with?

Toronto's Archbishop Collins warns Ignatieff and Harper on abortion and foreign aid

One of Canada's top Catholic clerics has fired a shot across the bow of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and in the process sent a warning to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins issued a statement late Thursday saying it was "astonishing" that Ignatieff was advocating for contraception and abortion to become part of Harper's G8 proposal to reduce maternal and child mortality in the developing world.

"When there are so many obvious practical steps that can be taken to promote maternal and child health throughout the world, it is sad to see Mr. Ignatieff introduce into the discussion this negative proposal, which in no way serves to improve the health of mothers or children, but which rather imperils the most vulnerable among us."

Archbishop Collins, who represents 1.7 million Catholics across an area that covers much of the GTA and the area north of Toronto up to Georgian Bay, says the focus of any such proposal to improve the lives of women and children should focus on clean water, improved nutrition and vaccines, not abortion.

The statement is unusual in that it singles out a specific politician for a specific proposal but comments on policy by Canada's Catholic bishops is not unusual in and of itself. In the last year, the bishops have spoken out on euthanasia, human trafficking and several international issues from Israel to Sri Lanka. And while this statement seems to focus on Ignatieff, in saying, "We all await with keen interest the tangible measures that the Prime Minister will propose," Collins has put Harper on notice as well.

Ignatieff's office offered no immediate comment in response but earlier in the day the Liberal Leader had been asked about his abortion commitment as it relates to several pro-life members of the Liberal caucus. "I'm in a party that has deep respect for the privately held views of my colleagues and friends, including my friend Paul," said Ignatieff. "I understand that this is a very serious issue. I respect liberty and freedom of conscience, especially freedom of religious conscience."

The argument from Ignatieff though is that freedom of conscience is not the issue. "The issue is," says Ignatieff, "will Canada continue with its 25 year-old policy of supporting full access to the full gamut of reproductive health services that women need in order to have safe pregnancies, safe terminations, and healthy kids?"

One of the interesting things to note over the past few days of Ignatieff advocating abortion as a means to reducing maternal and child mortality is that he has been unable to say the word abortion in public. In statements and in response to questions from the CBC, Sun Media, the Toronto Star and myself, Ignatieff has used several euphemisms but not the abortion word. Reporters have noticed, he can't say it. Instead he says safe terminations, full gamut of reproductive health services and at least until Thursday he had been calling abortion part of a range of contraceptive options.

There is clearly politics at play in Ignatieff's decision to raise this issue and in his words "lay down a marker" for the Harper government. The Liberals hope to resurrect the "hidden agenda" tactic with the Conservatives as a way to make voters uneasy with Stephen Harper's government. They also hope to squeeze the Conservatives into accepting what maternal health care means on Liberal terms. There are many in the Conservative caucus, and I would include Stephen Harper among them, who are afraid of being called social conservatives. They avoid all issues that might give the opposition an opportunity to label them. If enough of these Conservatives get nervous, the PMO will quietly give the Liberals, and the mandarins at CIDA what they want, abortion as part of the maternal health package.

There is a risk for the Conservatives here politically speaking. Although they may feel that they can ignore their social conservative base, that these voters have nowhere to go, the reality is, these voters, campaign workers and volunteers could just stay home in the next election. Anecdotally, I can tell you of many former Liberal volunteers that did just that and avoided the party they once gave so much to, in the first elections after the sponsorship scandal broke. Social conservatives may be among the weakest sub-sections within Harper's Conservative party but without them, it's unlikely he would win any election.

The Prime Minister though could satisfy his base and not alienate middle of the road Canadians by simply saying no to Ignatieff. When Harper announced in Davos that something must be done for the 500,000 women that die in childbirth each year and the 9 million children that die before their fifth birthday, I doubt that anyone outside of abortion lobby groups said, "I know the solution, abortion." By saying that his plan will focus on primary health care, clean water, food and vaccines, Harper could gain widespread public support. The question is, will he be brave enough to do it?

Reducing maternal mortality, is this what Harper had in mind?

It's an interesting proposal, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to use his presidency of the G8 to push for global action on improving maternal and child health. In an op-ed published in the Toronto Star and Montreal's La Presse, Harper says this it is unacceptable the 500,000 women die giving birth each year and 9 million children die before they reach the age of 5.

The goal of reducing the number of maternal deaths by three-quarters was established as a United Nations Millennium Goal in September of 2000, the target date, 2015. In his op-ed, the Prime Minister says it appears that this U.N. goal will go unfulfilled, "What makes it worse is that the bulk of the deaths during pregnancy - experts claim as many as 80 per cent - are easily preventable."

Prime Minister Harper is taking his message first to Davos, Switzerland and the World Economic Forum where he will give a keynote address Thursday and then to the G8 hosted by Canada in June; it is time says Harper to "...make a tangible difference in maternal and child health."

This is a lofty and laudable goal and in keeping with G8 meetings of late where themes are developed and used to push for a new goal, such as helping the developing world. On Tuesday, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda invited the media to a roundtable and question and answer session with non-governmental organizations that work in the area of maternal health and child development. Although Canada has no clear budget or proposals yet, reporters were told that in speaking to these experts, the government would find partners able to offer advice on what needed done.

It's hard to argue with the idea of saving the lives of women giving birth or of ensuring that children do make it to their 5th birthday, yet when most people think of what kind of action would best accomplish such goals, they likely think of what the Prime Minister outlined in his article; clean water, nutrition, vaccinations, and better training of local health care workers. That's not what everyone has in mind.

A group in Britain called the Optimum Population Trust advocates aggressive family planning and reducing the world's population in order to save the environment and reduce global CO2 emissions. Such a group would normally not be of interest in Canada but the OPT has the ear of Gordon Brown's Labour government, meaning that the G8 meeting is likely to hear about how we can save women from dying in child birth by preventing child birth.

Knowing this, I asked Minister Oda whether the Harper government was leaning toward the aggressive family planning model or favoured the building of local health clinics. While Minister Oda said she was seeking the best advice and not leaning in any direction at this point, one of the experts around the table nodded her head in agreement as I asked my question. Jennifer Kitts from Action Canada for Population and Development approached me excitedly after the news conference to tell me that family planning is key to reducing maternal mortality and infant deaths.

Kitts says that 30% of maternal deaths can be avoided and infant mortality can be reduced by 20% with proper family planning. Now I quickly understood how family planning could reduce maternal death but when I asked her to explain how family planning could help children live past their 5th birthday, Ms. Kitts became nervous and asked me to turn off my recorder. I asked her the question again and she told me she would have to do the interview later. The coin eventually dropped, the people at ACPD plan to reduce infant mortality by reducing the number of infants born. A major part of family planning for ACPD is abortion.

Now it really doesn't matter which side of the abortion issue you fall on, when you hear that a government wants to reduce infant mortality, funding abortions in developing countries is likely not what comes to mind. When the Prime Minister says it is troubling that 9 million children die before their 5th birthday, most Canadians don't think aborting children in developing countries so that they never have a birthday is the solution.

Funding of overseas abortion is a major point of conflict in American politics, not so much in Canada. The information I have is that Canada already funds abortions in developing countries through money given to United Nations bodies and certain NGOs, this fact does not seem to bother the majority of Canadians. Still, is this the answer that most of us thought Prime Minister Harper was aiming for as we read his op-ed over morning coffee? I doubt it and I doubt, from the words he wrote, that it is the answer he is seeking from government officials. So before he commits Canadian tax dollars to ending this scourge in the developing world, Prime Minister Harper owes it to all of us to say whether his solution will see more kids reach their 5th birthday or fewer kids reach birth.

Harper to shuffle cabinet before Parliament returns

In the clearest signal yet that a cabinet shuffle is coming, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says everything is under review ahead of Parliament's return on March 3rd.

During a one-on-one interview for radio Harper deflected a question about prorogation and what people were saying about him but was much more candid when asked directly about a cabinet shuffle. The prime minister says the government is taking the next few weeks to re-examine and re-launch its agenda adding, "We'll be reviewing everything."

Now I should add that with a wry smile on his face Harper added that he would not comment on a cabinet shuffle until it occurred, he then quickly caught himself and said, "...if or when that occurs."

So, let the cabinet shuffle speculation begin. Here's some people I think will move, the question is, where will they land. 

Harper, prorogation and the slow death of democracy

 

I really do try to keep my mind off of Canadian politics while on vacation, especially at Christmas and into New Year's Day but wow, Stephen Harper makes that tough. At a time when most members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery were like me, lounging at home, the prime minister decided to prorogue Parliament and announce a new session would start with a Speech from the Throne on March 3^rd, a budget would follow the day after.

Maybe it's all the interrupted holidays that are behind some of the rhetoric aimed at Harper's decision. Since the prorogation was confirmed on December 30^th the PM has been called "imperial," an enemy of democracy, "a despot."  The running theme is that Harper's decision is hurting Parliamentary democracy and eroding our national institutions. I'll have to disagree based not only on history but also because there are far greater attacks on the influence of Parliament than this latest adjournment.

If Richard Colvin is right, war crimes charges must follow

The calls for a public inquiry came loud and clear again on Wednesday after Richard Colvin, through his lawyers, submitted a rebuttal of the testimony of the his former boss, David Mulroney, as well as the generals and cabinet ministers that followed him.

Colvin's testimony of November 18th before the Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan, claiming that all Afghan prisoners handed over by Canadian soldiers were likely tortured, that most were innocent and that Canadian officials knew all of this but did not act, has been challenged by every witness since. In addition to Mulroney, the committee has heard from Generals Hillier, Gauthier and Fraser and ministers MacKay, Cannon and O'Connor, all of whom dispute Colvin's view of the situation on the ground and the meaning of various reports sent back to Ottawa. So on Wednesday, Colvin fired back with a 16-page rebuttal of his own and will likely appear before the committee again, if and when it meets in the New Year.

In addition to the NDP and Liberals renewing their calls for a public inquiry based on the Colvin rebuttal, my press gallery colleague Paul Wells is asking an interesting question: what is the standard for Prime Minister Stephen Harper calling such an investigation? Wells points to Harper's decision to call an inquiry into the dealings between former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber. In doing so, Harper acknowledged that many people, including Mr. Mulroney, were calling for such an inquiry. As Wells lays it out, this sets the bar rather low for calling an inquiry and essentially calls out Harper to explain why he won't launch one.

I don't buy this argument. Not because I don't believe there is much more to be learned, I do, but because neither side has won the argument yet (see Andrew Potter's rebut vs. refute post here). Calling a public inquiry is the worst possible option for finding out in a timely manner what happened. Were Stephen Harper to come back from Copenhagen next week and announce an inquiry he would likely say that it would take time to find the right person to lead it. Once that person was announced in late January or February and the terms of reference stated, it would take several months, if not longer, to get the inquiry set up. I wouldn't expect it to start until about a year from now. So sometime before next Christmas we would start to hear arguments from lawyers about how the terms of reference would apply, how the inquiry would proceed and why their client can't possibly be expected to comply with such and such. Sometime in 2011 we would start hearing witnesses, sometime in late 2012 or early 2013, the inquiry would report back. The Oliphant Inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber dealings was called in June 2008; the final report will be delivered on May 31st 2010. I think you are getting my point here; an inquiry would be a long drawn out affair. I haven't even made the point yet that under the rules of inquiry, no criminal blame can be laid, and that is the real argument perhaps.

Those that believe Mr. Colvin's testimony, be they politicians or journalists, are saying they believe that Canadian soldiers and diplomats are guilty of, or at the least should be investigated for, war crimes. So far, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe and his caucus are alone in making that bold claim; that Canadians are guilty of crimes against humanity for what has happened in Afghanistan. University of British Columbia law professor Michael Byers has written to the International Criminal Court asking that an war crimes investigation be started looking specifically into the actions of senior military officials and cabinet ministers.

International law forbids soldiers in the battlefield from handing over prisoners when there are substantial grounds for believing that a real risk of torture exists. The law also states that following orders is not a defence. Richard Colvin's claim is that torture happened, that it happened frequently, that Canadians knew and continued to hand over prisoners knowing they would be tortured. Such claims, if believed, mean a criminal investigation is called for, either by Canadian authorities or the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Those who believe Colvin need to either call for a criminal investigation or admit that his testimony, like that of other diplomats, needs to be examined and cross-examined and viewed simply as testimony, rather than gospel truth, until it is proven.

A public inquiry, if granted, would only delay further investigation, we should be pressuring MPs from all parties to hold serious hearings at the committee level, this after all is part of what we elect them to do. Yes, there are problems with our committee system. It needs to be strengthened; MPs need to be given more power to investigate and security clearance to see classified documents. They need staff to perform vital research and all of them need to learn to put country first and party second on such vital questions. Such a committee system, improved by taking the best of the British and American systems, would be the right way to examine Colvin's allegations. Yet even for all their failings, the current system will give us quicker answers than waiting until 2013 for the report of a public inquiry that two days after its release will serve only to collect dust on desks around Ottawa.

Richard Colvin's story of widespread torture and indifference is unravelling

Leaks abound on the issue of torture in Afghanistan.  Those supporting and those opposing the claims of Richard Colvin are trying hard to make sure that Canadian journalists have access to the documents at the centre of the controversy.

The Globe and Mail columnist and Newstalk 1010 commentator Christie Blatchford has her hands on redacted copies of Richard Colvin's emails and finds his evidence wanting.

As you read Blatchford's two columns, one Saturday and one Monday, it is important to remember what Colvin's allegation was in his testimony to the special Commons committee on the Afghan mission. "According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured," Colvin told MPs. "For interrogators in Kandahar, it was standard operating procedure."

Blatchford's run down of the memos in today's column and the words of retired General Michel Gauthier testifying before that same committee tell a different story. Colvin was concerned about the amount of information Canadian soldiers were collecting on Afghan prisoners, lamenting that it was not enough to adequately track them through the prison system. That's a far cry from saying all were tortured and that the government knew this and failed to act for 18 months.

Given the email trail, I'll have to agree with Blatchford.  Richard Colvin discovered the torture issue at the same time as Grahame Smith of The Globe and Mail. The memos warning directly of torture don't begin until The Globe reporting began, which makes me wonder which man was the source for the other? Was Smith the source for Colvin's sudden flurry of emails on detainees being tortured? That seems more likely at this point than a diplomat like Colvin giving vital information on torture to a journalist before alerting his superiors.

None of this takes away from the fact that Colvin raised concerns about detainees.  He was not alone in this, either within Foreign Affairs or the military, but his assertion that all were tortured and his second assertion that most, if not all were innocent farmers or truck drivers, is not borne out by his own paper trail. David Pugliese of The Ottawa Citizen has a story out this morning that many of those detained by Canadian soldiers were let go by the Afghan National Security Directorate because there was "little evidence linking them to the Taliban." Yet even this, or the mention of a "high rate of release", is not the same as most, if not all, detainees being innocent.

What made the Colvin allegations so shocking was their sweeping nature and the cold, indifferent image he painted of Canadian personnel, military and civilian, to the plight of these prisoners. That portrait, painted so vividly not two weeks ago, is fading. It is not just the generals, Hillier, Gauthier and Fraser that dispute Colvin's story, nor his boss David Mulroney, it is now also the Red Cross.

Matthew Fisher, of Canwest News Service, details comments from Eloi Fillion, deputy director of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, showing the organization is upset with the man opposition parties believe is a whistleblower.

"What we may or may not have discussed with Canada or with Colvin was confidential," Fillion said. "This is not specific to Canada or to the situation in Afghanistan. We have privileged access (to detainees) because such information is confidential.

"We do not go public and we do not expect state representatives to go public because this could affect access to detainees and this could then become an issue as regards their well-being. We collect allegations and testimony directly from victims, not from second-hand sources, so we need to have this access. Sometimes we are the only thing between them and the authority."

Fillion tells Fisher that Colvin's allegations put the Red Cross in an awkward position as they continue to seek access to Afghanistan's prisons and convince all parties involved that the information gleaned will not be made public.  As for Canada's relationship with the Red Cross, Fillion says the Red Cross has "...a constructive dialogue with all the relevant parties, including Canada."

Calls by the Red Cross for the information they divulge to be protected will likely fall on deaf ears with the opposition parties in Ottawa.  They will continue to demand that the documents be released.  On Friday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay give a hint that could happen soon, saying that the Attorney General's Department must first review documents to see what can be released and what must be kept secret or redacted from any documents made public.

There are other options that would allow MPs on the committee to see the emails and memos at the heart of Colvin's allegations. The first would be for committee members to go in-camera allowing them to review the documents behind closed doors and then question witnesses about these files in public. That option is limited, in that even then MPs would only see the emails in the form many journalists have seen them; with heavy black marker across much of the material. The reason for that is that MPs simply do not have the security clearance required to view this material in its unedited form.

The second option is a more long term solution and one Defence Minister MacKay says he favours; giving MPs on the Defence Committee the appropriate level of security clearance, such as top secret, in order to allow them to do their work. This is a system used in the United States and, I am told, Britain. Committee members would be able to have access to key documents and briefings.  They would be let in on otherwise secret information with the understanding that if they were to divulge it, they could face criminal sanctions. This solution is by far the best option, but even that poses problems in our Canadian system.  It would require MPs to start acting as representatives of the people, out to seek the truth, rather than as partisan shills just out to score political points.


Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.

Terror suspect ran immigration service

A Canadian citizen, originally from Pakistan, now sits in an Illinois jail and faces accusations that he was involved in two Islamist plots on opposite sides of the world. The case of Tahawwur Hussain Rana spans five countries, three continents and may also involve him helping get fellow travellers through the American and Canadian immigration systems.

When reports first surfaced that Chicago prosecutors were linking Rana to a terror plot to attack and kill the people behind the original publication of the Mohammed cartoons, Rana was played as a patsy. His lawyer, Patrick Blegen, is cited this way in an Associated Press story:

Blegen suggested his client was duped by Headley, his friend since they both attended military school in Pakistan, and had no idea that he was involved in plotting the attack, which Headley had allegedly dubbed "The Mickey Mouse Project."
"There is no proof that allegations of murder or blowing up a building would ever be tied to Mr. Rana," Blegen said during the detention hearing.

Rana, along with David Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, stands accused of scouting out Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper and plotting to kill a cartoonist and the editor responsible for running editorial cartoons that depicted the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Headley did the traveling to Denmark; Blegen told the court that his client Rana was not a flight risk and should be let go. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan obviously disagrees, because Rana remains behind bars and likely will be there for some time.

New information emerged during Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit to India.  It seems Rana may not have been the patsy after all. Rana, a Canadian citizen who has lived in Chicago for the last number of years, is wanted by Indian officials who say he may have helped plan the Mumbai attacks of one year ago. Rana visited Mumbai and Karachi, Pakistan in the weeks before the attacks that killed nearly 200 people.  Court documents claim he scouted locations for possible attacks.

But while Indian officials may want to question Rana about his visit to Mumbai, the question here in Ottawa, and one that should be asked in Washington, is who did Rana help get into Canada and the United States? The man, who until recently was not well known outside of the Pakistani community of Chicago, ran First World Immigration Services, an immigration consultancy business with offices in Chicago, New York and Toronto, the city he lived in and obtained Canadian citizenship in before heading to the Windy City.

David Harris, a former officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and currently a security and anti-terrorism consultant with INSIGNIS Strategic Research, says law enforcement and government officials would be wise to look into Rana's business and former clients. "It would seem prudent," says Harris, "that when one has a suspected terrorist, especially of a major sort, running some kind of immigration service, that that service, that everything that it has been doing, come under some kind of scrutiny."

Harris says it is possible that the immigration service was a legitimate business for Rana, but also possible that it was simply a front for the terrorist activities prosecutors allege he was involved with, and more worrying, that the service may have been used to help get extremists into the country.

Questions put to Canadian government officials regarding who Rana may have helped get into the country and whether those cases are being examined, shed little light. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he cannot comment on the case as it is part of an ongoing investigation. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan's office issued a statement saying, "We don't comment on ongoing investigations. As we are vigilant in combating terrorism, Canada's security officials will take all appropriate actions in the interest of the safety and security of Canadians."

While Van Loan's statement especially might appear to mean the government is reviewing files, it is ambiguous enough to leave the matter wide open, leaving Canadians wondering about their safety and the security of the immigration system.
 

Stephen Harper goes Bollywood!

Well, he's not dancing and viewers might vote him off but by appearing on Dance Premier League, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen are doing more to raise the profile of Canada among India's middle class than a thousand speeches.

The PM and his wife appeared at a taping of the hit Indian TV show Dance Premier League and then joined dancers on stage for a number done in traditional Bollywood style. One missive I saw said Indian beauties writhed around the PM, that's not clear from this photo but if they "writhed" too closely I'm sure they'd get a sharp elbow from Laureen.

Who loves the gun registry? Not Canadians say a poll.

It's been interesting watching the political partisans and pundits argue about the Harris-Decima poll on the long-gun registry and what the poll really means, but all spin aside, this poll is bad news for supporters of the registry.

Across Canada 46% of us say abolishing the long-gun registry is a good idea while 41% of us say it is a bad idea. That number alone should put to rest the notion that the nation will rise up if the gun registry is scrapped but it's the numbers below the top line that are truly interesting.

While 71% of Bloc Quebecois voters support the gun registry just 48% of Liberal voters do. The party that developed and maintained the gun registry can't even convince half of it's supporters that the registry is a good idea. Among Liberal voters 39% think scrapping the registry is the right way to go which leaves 13% of Liberal ambivalent about the party's biggest contribution to the law and order file. Perhaps this is why Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, just hours before the vote on scrapping the program, was musing about finding a form of gun control that works for urban and rural Canada.

Yet even in urban Canada 42% say scrapping the registry is a good idea while only 44% say this is a bad idea, women remarkably favour abolishing the registry 42% in favour to 41% against. This is bad news for those Liberals who felt that railing against the Conservative plan to scrap the gun registry would help them win back core voters. You cannot find a clear majority to support the registry in those core Liberal demographic groups, not one of them tilts above 50 percent in favour of keeping the controversial system of tracking firearms.

In fact the only groups in the entire country that Harris-Decima shows supporting the gun registry in the majority are Bloc voters as a group and Quebecers in general. The poll shows 56% of Quebecers support the gun registry, a level of support that I'd wager would go down if you took Montreal out of the equation or polled in the many rural ridings of the province. I wonder what this news will do to the perception that Canadians in general and Quebecers in particular support the gun registry. While at one point that support may have been there, years of reports on the program's mismanagement and huge cost overruns, never mind questions about its effectiveness, means many Canadians have shifted their stance.

Even in Quebec.

If you ask any expert on Parliament Hill, even today, they will tell you that Quebec loves the long-gun registry, it's just those yahoos out west and on scattered farms across the country that are not with the system. Part of that is true; Quebec loves the gun registry, if you define Quebec as Montreal and anyone in the regions who wishes they were in Montreal.

When Parliament voted in favour of the Conservative private members bill to scrap the gun registry many journalists were left scratching their heads, some just could not understand why 12 New Democrats and 8 Liberals voted with the Conservatives to kill the gun registry (the poll should stop some of that head scratching) but the people that really went nuts were the Quebec based journalists.

Some reporters working for French language media outlets got into shouting matches with MPs and cabinet ministers when it came to the gun registry. The vote was a slap in the face to the Quebec consensus said the experts, a consensus expressed in the unanimous vote of the National Assembly calling for the gun registry to be maintained. As with much of the Quebec consensus it turns out that the love the province feels for the gun registry is a myth.

If the poll doesn't prove that, the by-election win for the Conservatives in Quebec should. On Monday the Conservatives stole a seat from the Bloc Quebecois, the only party to vote in unison to keep the gun registry as it is. For the Conservatives to even try to win this seat just after voting to scrap something Quebec holds near and dear to its heart just showed the party was out of touch was the line from many talking heads. Apparently some people need to get out into the regions more often. Bernard Generoux defeated Bloc candidate Nancy Gagnon by five percentage points.

Norman Spector pointed me to a column by Vincent Marissal in La Presse, published on the morning of the by-election. While the main topic is something different, Marissal drops in a few lines about the gun registry at the end pointing out that not all Quebecers love the program.

"Five years ago, in the midst of the sponsorship scandal, Paul Martin's Liberals were amazed that during their tours of the regions, fishy publicity contracts were much less on the minds of Quebeckers than was the gun registry.

Stephen Harper knows that. He's doing what he does best: slicing the electorate into small segments, in order to scrape together the votes he needs outside metropolitan areas."

I think Marissal is partly right but I think what Stephen Harper is also doing is recognizing that there are more voices in Canada than those that emanate from Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Harper is giving those voters a voice on issues that matter to them. In acknowledging that the Liberals may have been too doctrinaire on gun control in the past, Ignatieff is looking for a way to reach out to those same voters, knowing he'll need some of them on his side if he ever wants to replace Stephen Harper as Prime Minister.

Canada has heroes and they deserve our respect

It wasn’t a sight I was expecting to come across. Moments after Prince Charles, Governor General Michaelle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper had left the reviewing stand to close the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa, I was walking back toward the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and there in my path was a young boy getting a soldier’s autograph.

Back when I joined army cadets in the 1980s, the military was not popular. I think in much of Canada it remains that way. I was jeered in my uniform in 1986. I was jeered in my reserve uniform in 1990 as I stood guard over the James Street Armoury in Hamilton during the Oka crisis. That’s as close to real military service as I ever got and explains why no one ever stopped to ask for my autograph, but this boy wasn’t just asking any soldier for an autograph. He was asking Master Corporal Paul Franklin, recipient of the Sacrifice Medal.

MCpl Franklin would prefer you don’t call him a hero. The medic is a double amputee who survived the suicide bombing that killed Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry. In an interview with CanWest in 2006, months after the attack, Franklin said that all the Canadian soldiers doing work in Afghanistan are doing heroic work, "If you call me a hero, what you are really saying is that all of them are heroes. I’ll take that," he says.

Well then I guess they are all heroes, because in meeting Franklin and chatting for a few minutes, I met a hero. Despite losing both legs, he remains in the military. He puts forth a sunny disposition and speaks clearly about what he’s doing, like when he told me about meeting Prince Charles, “We just talked about my loss of limbs, and we talked about the incident. He knew of what we do in Afghanistan,” says Franklin. “It’s pretty impressive.”

And so is Franklin.

On Monday I met a couple of other heroes, but didn’t get a chance to write about them; but I made sure to tell my kids about Captain Trevor Greene and Captain Simon Mailloux.

Greene is the Canadian officer who was sitting down for talks with local Afghan elders back in 2006. As a sign of respect, the outreach officer took his helmet off. That act allowed a 16 year-old boy to attack Greene, striking a near fatal blow to the head. Doctors said that if he lived the formerly active captain would likely stay in a coma. On Monday as he received his Sacrifice Medal, I heard him speak, calling out for the work in Afghanistan to continue.

Captain Simon Mailloux is an unusual 26 year-old. At an age when many are still trying to find themselves, Mailloux has already served a tour in Afghanistan, lost a leg below the knee, recovered and is already redeployed to Afghanistan. There were jaws that needed to be picked up off the floor Monday when Mailloux came out to speak with reporters about his new medal and announced he would be going back to Afghanistan that night. Granted his new job is as a staff officer planning the work of others, but Mailloux says that if he’s needed on the front line he and his prosthetic leg are ready and willing to go.

We don’t like to salute our military heroes in this country, at least not outside the confines of Remembrance Day. That’s a shame, because our military, the people we as a country send into harms way, need our support and so do the families they leave back here.

So to Master Corporal Franklin, Captains Greene and Mailloux, you and the rest of your comrades have my respect, not just today but throughout the year. Thank you.

Copenhagen is green alright, but mostly because of the money

As I've said before the attempt to push through the current draft treaty on climate change at Copenhagen is not really about climate change, it's a about money. Today I update that argument for an international audience @ Mercatornet.com.

It seems that U.N. Chief Ban Ki-moon is worried the deal on the table won't be signed in December, good I say. Go read the piece and argue with me in the comments.

Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.

The Harper government still has questions to answer on H1N1 plan

Several questions remain for the federal government in their handling of the H1N1 pandemic plan including the weak communications surrounding the plan's roll-out.

It appears however that given what is now an obvious weakness in the supply of vaccine may be addressed. My press gallery colleague Joanna Smith of The Star has a good run down of why the feds chose to use a single plant to supply the vaccine and what is being done about it. Once all the facts are known, this plant apparently is the only one in Canada that can produce vaccines, the decision seems less ridiculous, still it appears other plants may be sourced in the future and that is a good thing.

Ignatieff gets it right, the Liberals, politics and H1N1

 

Michael Ignatieff asked some very good questions regarding H1N1 and the federal government's response and he did it in a way that his Liberal party should emulate. During the debate Ignatieff did speak about the proper role of government, as he sees it, when it comes to pandemic preparedness, and he did say that the government had failed in its duty to Canadians yet he did not break out into scare tactics regarding this very serious public health issue.

After Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq gave her speech during the emergency debate, Ignatieff rose to ask three pointed questions.

H1N1: I GET ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS

At times he seems like an old hippie that got a real job but couldn’t quite sell-out to the man. Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s Chief Medical Officer sometimes appears at news conferences sporting a leather car coat instead of a suit jacket, he always wears the longish hair and moustache of a man that obviously doesn’t fit the mould of dull civil servant. This is the man in charge of planning Canada’s response to the H1N1 outbreak and co-ordinating the largest mass vaccination program in Canadian history.

I’ve been covering Dr. Butler-Jones for some time now and despite being involved in a field known for hyperbole, public health and pandemic preparedness, I’ve never found Butler-Jones to be a man to go over the top. So it was shocking last Monday when he raised his voice and became passionate about the need for every Canadian to get the H1N1 vaccine. It was in the middle of a standard news conference to give the Ottawa media an update, I asked him a question about our recent Ipsos-Reid poll showing about half of Canadians would not get the shot, the doctor was not happy. Particularly he was not happy with those people, nearly a third of all Canadians who told Ipsos that they were more concerned about getting the shot than getting the flu.

Anyone who has listened to talk radio or been online of late knows that there are many whacky ideas floating out there about this vaccine. Far more whacky ideas are in circulation than valid concerns and objections to the vaccine, and I will not diminish valid objections raised by people.

So Wednesday afternoon I got a chance to sit down and ask the doctor about some of the things I’ve heard on the radio, some of the questions people sent me via Twitter or email. You can listen to the interview here and if you live in the Toronto area you can find out lots more about H1N1 here.

Other local resources

Montreal
Ottawa
 

WELCOME BACK PETER DONOLO, HERE'S YOUR FIRST HEADACHE

Today is Peter Donolo’s first day on the job as Michael Ignatieff’s Chief of Staff and he already has a headache to deal with. I don’t envy the man.

Late yesterday afternoon Liberal Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette issued a news release announcing that she had submitted a complaint to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council regarding Bob Fife and CTV. Senator Hervieux-Payette alleges that a story by Fife, aired on CTV on October 8th 2009 was “a fictitious story” that “misrepresented what actually took place.”

The complaint is not the headache for Donolo, it’s what comes after the complaint. Ask any news director of a broadcast outlet in Canada and they can tell you all about the complaints, real and trumped up, made to the CBSC every year. Most of those go unreported, few have news releases trumpeting the complaint, and even fewer still have statements in the news release that could cause more problems than the complaint itself.

In her news release Hervieux-Payette says, “We are dealing with a Conservative government that manipulates the Canadian public by putting its party`s logo on government cheques, models the symbols used by our Olympic athletes on its own logo, sweeps reports on torture in Afghanistan under the carpet and conducts misleading advertising campaigns … and CTV is paid to broadcast these schemes.”

Now if one were charitable, one could say that in writing “…and CTV is paid to broadcast these schemes” that the Senator is talking about ads the government buys, but she is not. While I have seen ads for “Canada’s Economic Action Plan”, I have not seen ads proclaiming that the government sweeps reports of torture under the table. What Hervieux-Payette is clearly insinuating here is that CTV is in the pocket of the government, paid to distribute Tory propaganda dressed up as news.

Some of you may agree with the Senator’s sentiment but I’ll advise you not to put those thoughts on your official Senate of Canada stationary, or post it on your official website as a Senator and then alert the entire press gallery from a Senate of Canada email address. That to me smells like a lawsuit coming on.

Welcome back to Ottawa Mr. Donolo, you will have your hands full I see.

Supreme Court tells Quebec: It's okay to trample rights, just do it nicely

 

Most Canadians believe that we have rights guaranteed and protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Most Canadians would be wrong, but unfortunately, most do not care.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down part of Quebec's Charter of the French Language, a section dealing with restricting access to English language education commonly referred to as Bill 104. The court found that the law violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically section 23, and the offending provisions were struck down, kind of.

You see, while the court found the offending provisions of the law to be unconstitutional they found the intent behind the law to be a valid concern for the Quebec government and set aside the judgement for 1 year so as to give the Quebec government time to rewrite the law and keep it constitutional.

Pierre gets what????

Hey, don't let it be said that I only want to pick on my current MP and his Liberal Party. I'm also willing to pick on my former MP and his Conservative Party. But thanks to the brilliant minds at the Rick Mercer Report I can sit back and just laugh as they pick on Pierre Poilievre in this very funny video from last night's show.

David McGuinty goes over the top, again.

I’ve been saying for about a week now that the Liberals are taking a good issue with the flap over cheques and logos and going too far. Now I call B.S.

The party, particularly my M.P. David McGuinty has gone from saying that putting a Conservative logo on a cheque is unacceptable and wrong to declaring that the Conservatives have taken illegal donations, that the Auditor General, the Public Service Commission and Elections Canada all need to look into this matter.

The Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, has agreed to investigate the cheque flap and see if any rules were broken. I expect the Conservatives will get a wrist slap and rightly so. While this is not a case of the MP putting a Conservative logo on a cheque, cashing it himself and buying a nice boat for his cottage, it is still a breach of the rules.

But to claim illegal donations David? Gimme a break.

Now McGuinty, who has been using the line “Reform-Conservative Party” to refer to the governing party, is referring to the Republican-Conservative Party. Tuesday in a scrum after Question Period, McGuinty had this to say when asked about the Ethics Commissioner’s investigation,

Copenhagen, it's not about climate change

Prime Minister Stephen Harper once famously described the Kyoto Protocol as “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”

Mr. Harper is still facing criticism over those remarks, yet if he were to use them today to describe the proposed follow-up agreement to Kyoto, he'd be entirely accurate and supporters of the deal are not denying it, although some might object to the word socialist.

As reported by Kevin Libin in the National Post last week, a good chunk of the agreement being negotiated for the Copenhagen Conference is about payments from developed countries to developing ones. The documents do not as yet stipulate an exact level of payment but even Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper estimates those payments to be in the tens of billions of dollars annually if not over, the $100 billion mark.

Keddy scores an own goal with partisan cheque

Gerald Keddy has scored an own goal on his Conservative team and given the Liberals a concrete example of the Harper government acting in a partisan way with taxpayer money. It may seem like a small thing but small things have a way of sticking, just ask David Dingwall. When the former Liberal cabinet minister was hauled before a Commons committee looking into claims his expenses were out of line, two things stuck with the public, the fact that Dingwal had expensed his Chiclets gum and his statement that he was “entitled to his entitlements.”

Keddy is not alone in putting the Conservative logo on an infrastructure cheque, the Liberals are quick to point to other examples including British Columbia Conservative MP Colin Mayes. To put it bluntly their actions are stupid for two reasons

Flu vaccine, which system works better, Canada's or America's?

To listen to some reports, to see the pictures in the papers, online or on television, you would think Americans were rolling up their sleeves to get jabbed in the arm with the H1N1 vaccine. Ain’t so. The opposition claim that Americans were being vaccinated last week and Canadians were not is true but it doesn’t tell the whole picture.

Last week Americans were offered the chance to be vaccinated against seasonal flu by injection and against H1N1, ye olde swine flu, with something called Flu Mist. This is a relatively new way to inoculate against the flu, using a nasal spray to introduce a weakened live flu virus into the person being immunized. While Flu Mist apparently works well in those it is intended for, it is limited in usage. The vaccine can only be used on healthy people between the ages of 2 and 49 years of age, and pregnant women, a high-risk group for influenza cannot use Flu Mist, neither can people with underlying medical conditions. As a recent study of those who died from H1N1 showed, the majority of those who died, 55%, had underlying conditions such as diabetes, lung disease, or asthma. Those who need a swine flu vaccine the most, can’t take the one currently on offer in the United States.