Monthly Archive: October 2007

Just some crazy speculation based on one fact -- the Stop Iggy website has come down.

For the next three months, starting the very Hallowe'en, I'd like to test drive Intense Debate, a new threaded commenting system. That is to say, I'd like you to drive Intense Debate, a new threaded commenting system.

The Toronto Star is advising Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion to vote against the Tory financial update and trigger an election.

Until now, the accepted wisdom has been that Stephane Dion would lose that election, and almost certainly his job.

So what has changed that the Toronto Star thinks an election would be a good idea?

Absolutely nothing.

One of the stories that came out of the Liberal leadership convention that saw Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion work together to beat front runners Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae was the role of the Sikh vote, and especially the role of World Sikh Organization. Indeed the WSO had a relationship with the Liberal Party before the leadership convention, and since. More than once the relationship has been newsworthy because of the violence that seems to often be part of the story.

News came out today that the WSO was refused the opportunity to present in front of the Air India Inquiry. After the costliest investigation in Canadian history resulted in the acquittal of the accused in 2005, Paul Martin asked Bob Rae to prepare a report to recommend what actions to take next with regards to the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182, which was blown up over the Atlantic, killing 329 people, including 280 Canadians. Bob Rae recommended an inquiry into how the case was investigated and prosecuted. Prime Minister Stephen Harper acted on that report and appointed John C Major to head that inquiry. The inquiry is hearing from witnesses.

The WSO had announced in July that it had important information to share. John C Major is not interested. The information? The WSO, close friends with the Liberal Party and one of the major power blocs, wanted the Air India Inquiry to consider the what the WSO believes could be true -- that Sikhs were not responsible for the terrorist act, but instead were victims of a plot by the Indian government, aided by CSIS and the RCMP, to destroy the Air India jet and so cast blame on peace-loving Sikhs.

Right. And the CIA blew up the Twin Towers with the help of the Jews.

Stephane Dion needs to make a decision. He can let this stand, or he can tell the WSO that the Liberal Party does not believe for a moment that the RCMP and CSIS had anything to do with this horrific criminal act. Given the key role the WSO had in putting Stephane Dion at the head of the Liberal Party, I'm not optimistic that we're going to hear anything soon.

Blair Wilson will be forced to give up his seat. No question of that. The Liberal Party has plans for that seat. But unfortunately we need to rely on rumours to know what those plans are.

The Liberal Party has been focused on the In and Out Scandal. Why? The Canadian people don't seem to think it's much of a scandal. Neither does the media. With the eruption of the allegations against Liberal MP Blair Wilson, inarguably a scandal, you would think the Liberals would do well to drop the whole thing. But they haven't.

Why not?

I think it's a deliberate decision motivated by desperation.

Jim Flaherty is supposed to be delivering his economic update tomorrow. We'll find out if the much-anticipated GST cut is going to be announced tomorrow. If this tax cut is in the update, does that mean Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's clever trap has caught Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government?

A Liberal Party riding president has quit and in a parting shot, blames leader Stephane Dion for her decision. At some point Stephane Dion will succeed at uniting the party, if only at the moment in time when Stephane Dion will be the only one left.

Seriously, though, this was the riding president for an Ontario riding. Is the discontent that has focused in Quebec starting to manifest in seat-rich Ontario?

How did Blair Wilson ever pass the tests all nominees must undergo before being allowed to stand for the Liberal Party as a candidate for a riding? Some of the news being reported about Blair Wilson's resignation today makes me wonder if that part of the process is going to undergo some intense, and perhaps uncomfortable, scrutiny.

Curiously, though this incident on balance is just more bad news for Stephane Dion, in one way, it might work in his favour.

Stephane Dion has lost his national revenue critic and a member of his caucus. Blair Wilson, whose financial problems were splashed all over the news on Sunday, along with allegations of campaign irregularities, has resigned.

Does this solve a problem for Stephane Dion? Not at all, unfortunately for Stephane Dion.

Read Stephen Taylor's step-by-step comparison of the rules covering trust funds and the apparent method Liberal MP Garth Turner uses to collect funds.

Let's hope Garth Turner hasn't made a mistake. He was just recently appointed by Stephane Dion to be responsible for Liberal Party fundraising.

Update: Well, that was quick. Within a few hours, Garth Turner has changed his website. Instead of asking donors to send cheques to the problematic payee "Garth Turner Campaign, in trust", the cheques are now supposed to be sent to ""Halton Liberal Association -- Garth Turner Campaign".

With that comes some very interesting questions.

Elizabeth May blames Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Canada being in the situation in which it finds itself, and that is that Canada cannot meet the Kyoto commitments.

But Elizabeth May also blamed Stephane Dion, or so it seems.

A bit of a blooper, I think.

The allegations of financial mismanagement and electoral malfeasance being made against Liberal MP Blair Wilson are serious and apparently supported by documentation in addition to eyewitness accounts. Already people are speaking to the issue of whether Blair Wilson is even fit for office.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion was badly burned by the Jamie Carroll incident. How will Dion react to the emerging Blair Wilson controversy?

Liberal MP Blair Wilson, the national revenue critic in Stephane Dion's shadow cabinet, is facing some extraordinarily serious allegations. The man whose job it is to keep an eye on how the government collects our tax money is alleged to have borrowed and misspent literally millions in the family fortune. He is also alleged to have signficantly under-reported campaign expenses, running his election campaign on cash payments with no supporting receipts. Indeed, the questions are so serious, and the supporting evidence so compelling, that the Liberals have referred the matter to the party committee that evaluates potential nominees for suitability for public office.

The Liberal Party is running the One Night, 100 Dinners (also being called One Week, 100 Dinners) fundraising push next week. Individual members will be asked to come up with $50 donations while at one of 100 fundraising dinners (each with 50 guests attending and donating) happening across the country.

While they are contributing in dribs and drabs at modest dinners being hosted in people's homes, the Ontario wing of the federal Liberal Party is gearing up for the Annual General Meeting at one of the poshest resorts in the province, Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville.

Really, the optics are just awful. I mean, at least make an effort to look like you need the money before asking for it. Please give generously to the Liberal Party or we might be forced to cut back on big blowouts at top-notch luxury resorts in the future.

Michael Ignatieff is asked a relatively innocent question, and still manages to answer it in a way that sets off alarms. He gets clever and evasive in a way that could suggest he wants to be prime minister, and that he wants to start immediately after Stephen Harper no longer has the job. Well, then what about Stephane Dion?

The notice of intent filed by the Conservatives against the Liberals is not directly concerning allegations that the Conservative Party broke campaign financing rules.

No, the libel being alleged is related to a Liberal statement that Conservative staffers were given jobs in return for committing criminal acts that benefited the Conservative Party (related to that campaign financing, as it turns out).

Of course, the Gomery Commission established that the Liberal Party was doing exactly that -- arranging for jobs for Liberal staffers who then acted in contravention to the law. And now the Liberals have managed to bring that bit of history back to the forefront.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre has confirmed that a legal action has been initiated by people in the Conservative Party against Liberal Party staffers.

Update: Details in the mainstream press, and how this links to the Sponsorship Scandal.

From a trusted source who knows, news that just adds to Stephane Dion's troubles. The Conservatives have served notice that they intend to pursue a libel action against the Liberal Party.

Update: Confirmed

Update: Details in the mainstream press, and how this links to the Sponsorship Scandal.

After the focus on CIMS and whether the Conservatives are being ethical in the way constituency data is being treated, the Liberals have been quiet on the issue. Two days have come and gone. Two more rounds of Question Period. After the theatrics of Monday, nothing has been mentioned.

Have the Liberals decided this is not such a big deal after all? If so, I wonder why.

Update: News just in. The Conservative Party has delivered a notice of intent to pursue a libel action against the Liberal Party. That could part of the explanation.

A record for the sake of posterity, should anyone wonder which Liberals today followed Stephane Dion's lead and abstained when asked if they would challenge the Conservative vision for Canada.

On a page, then into Google, and so into history.

Stephane Dion has been fighting for months on the issue of poverty. Today we have learned just what having Stephane Dion fighting on your behalf is worth.

The Canadian military is considering the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to patrol the Arctic. Getting our hands on some, though, might be a bit tricky. Maybe we should consider designing and building our own.

A new Avro Arrow for the 21st century? Why not?

And hopefully a happier ending this time around.

Kyoto was a fundamentally stupid plan.

And its failure wasn't the fault of George W Bush or of Stephen Harper.

Heresy has reached new levels. Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and Steve Rayner at Oxford would run the risk of being burned at the stake by enraged environmentalists if it weren't for the carbon dioxide that would be released as a result.

Should the Liberals force an election that in all likelihood they will lose? And not just lose, but quite possibly suffer devastating losses?

Of course not. That would be stupid. The smart thing to do is to wait until the situation gets better.

But doing the smart thing is not earning Stephane Dion and the Liberals much praise. Nor should it.

NDP leader Jack Layton hosted a big get together of NDP workers brought in from across the country. The message to these staff? Reach out to disaffected Liberal voters.

But in reality, is Jack Layton reaching out to Liberal MPs?

Like some sort political Loki, Garth Turner sows confusion in whatever party decides to take him in. All the contortions that Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has engaged in to avoid voting against the Throne Speech and so forcing an election seem to have been pointless, since the Liberals have a plan to bring down the government anyway.

Or so Garth Turner explains.

Tomorrow morning. Nine sharp. NDP leader Jack Layton to speak to his caucus and to the national media.

Feel free to post what you think the announcement will be.

Update: No announcement that I can see reported in the press.

Update: It turns out that Jack Layton gave a very interesting talk to his people.

We've been told in no uncertain terms that the databases used by the Liberals to run their constituency offices are separate from the databases that drive the election effort during election campaigns. This despite the marketing literature from AIT Corp that explains that the two systems, AdminElect and ManagElect, actually share the same database.

Interestingly, during the installation of ManagElect, a Liberal MP is directed to identify to the central installation of ManagElect that the "merge.csv" file needed by ElecSys, which is the name for the combined AdminElect and ManagElect package, is located on the MP's local harddrive.

I wonder what is being merged, exactly.

The issue of how constituent and voter databases track and share data has been raised in Question Period. In an exchange between Government House Leader Peter Van Loan and Liberal MP Garth Turner, I seem to have been caught in the crossfire.

Read the transcript of watch the video.

Kittens are so cute. Even the psycho killer ones.

Still, this image is one for the And-If-A-Conservative-Did-It file.

The Liberals have accused the Conservatives of using constituency data in their election database. Though I have to admit I'm not sure what the hubbub is about, I find it amusing to read about exactly this sort of functionality in the database marketing brochure...for the custom-developed Liberal system.

Update: More information added, including the tidbit that the Liberal Party itself developed this software and associated database.

Has Stephane Dion weathered the worst? Is the chaos that has been besetting the Liberal Party finally faded away? Though things have been quiet, with even a mote of good news about candidate Marc Garneau, observers suggest that the calm is deceptive.

Pauline Marois and the Parti Quebecois are proposing partitioning the citizenry of Quebec in order to constrain the political influence of undesirable citizens. Creating ghettos has a long and proud tradition among certain political movements.

The Governor General ought to consider the way in which Stephane Dion and the Liberals have abrograted their responsibilities and use her power to appoint the NDP as Canada's Official Opposition.

For some reason, the Canadian media reporting that the Conservatives are re-introducing the Tackling Violent Crime Act but demanding that it be passed without amendments.

Shame on Stephen Harper! He has no respect for democracy! cry the Liberals and their supporters.

Except that it isn't true. The Conservatives are demanding no additional substantial amendments. The bill being introduced is the bill as it was amended at the end of the last session of parliament, as agreed upon by the government and the opposition parties.

That's a significant difference, but people don't seem to be getting it. At least CTV is reporting on it, and making a point to focus on the confusion.

The Conservatives have taken some heat because of a leaked presentation that discussed how the Conservatives had analyzed ethnic voting patterns and were planning to target ethnic communities. The presentation is called "Building Bridges with Ethnic Communities and New Canadians", and was presented by Jason Kenney, the minister responsible for multiculturalism.

Some people were offended.

I could say this is a tempest in a teapot, but I won't. That would be a lie.

This is a big deal. And it's a fascinating story.

With a speech delivered this afternoon, Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has signalled that he will not force an election. That the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has said that it intends to rebalance Canada's federation, that it has walked away from Kyoto, that Canadian troops will likely be in Afghanistan well past 2009 -- on none of these issues is Stephane Dion confident that he has the ability to sway Canadians to vote for the Liberal position.

Until that changes, I suppose the Liberals will excuse themselves from any votes that could force an election. With the Liberal Party in hiding, Stephen Harper has a de facto majority.

I suppose that means the Liberals will make noises but do nothing, at least until Stephane Dion figures out why he can't win an election leading the Liberal Party, or the Liberal Party decides that its only hope to win an election is to do it without Stephane Dion.

I wrote a post voicing my concerns that a senior reporter in Ottawa, Richard Brennan for the Toronto Star, has undermined his own ability to gather and report on news in what would be seen as an unbiased manner because of an interview he himself gave to a hard-left online magazine, in which he harshly criticized the government of Stephen Harper using language typically found in the most partisan left-wing forums and chat rooms.

Apparently this was not the first time Richard Brennan moved from being a reporter to being the news story. And when it happened the last time, his editors decided he had fatally crippled his ability to work on that file ever again.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has to make a decision. Does he support a Throne Speech that declares Kyoto dead, or does he fight an election that in all likelihood he would lose?

Those are the options open to him: one or the other.

So why does Ralph Goodale talk about all the options that are open to the party? What other options are there?

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, listened to the Conservative Throne Speech. In it, the government made it clear that Kyoto was no longer a concern. The targets could not be reached, and there was no interest in even trying.

Her response to Mike Duffy during an interview last night? That's fine. We don't need to fight an election over this.

You could almost see the strings reaching up to the rafters where Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion was pulling on his Green puppet.

Michael Ignatieff responded to the Throne Speech on behalf of the Liberal Party. And something he said tells me there won't be an election.

Richard Brennan is a reporter in the Toronto Star's Ottawa Bureau. Though reporters are humans with political leanings of their own, it is a job requirement to maintain a measure of non-partisanship. And not merely as a facade, but a real and honest attempt to make sure that all sides of a story are treated with fairness. Not doing so undermines that reporter's ability to be perceived as a fair reporter, and so limits his or her ability to gather story information.

So why would Richard Brennan agree to be interviewed for a hard-left online magazine, and use the opportunity to attack the Conservatives using language worthy of the most partisan NDP supporter? Worse yet, he speaks on behalf of his colleagues in the press.

The CBC is reporting on a major problem that has struck Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion. Marcel Proulx, his Quebec lieutenant, has quit that position, and Stephane Dion can't find a replacement.

But read the CP version of the story. It suggests a much stranger sequence of events.

Bill Casey, the Nova Scotia MP ejected from the Conservative caucus for voting against the budget, has some people fighting in his corner as he considers a run as an independent.

Though some of his supporters, like Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams, are clearly troublemakers, the support being offered by the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley Conservative riding association is more troubling. Not because of the potential political damage -- I think it would be minimal. But it does suggest that some people involved in politics are misunderstanding just what it was that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was doing when he ejected Bill Casey.

It didn't help that Stephen Harper's comments on the subject are absolute.

You see, to me this whole situation seems to mimic the situation of someone being excommunicated, and when you understand what excommunication really means, you realize there is always room for reconciliation.

But since it also requires that Bill Casey admit to making a big mistake, I don't expect this will end happily.

The story of Elizabeth Thompson's story on the pending release of Jean Chretien's memoirs is interesting, not just for us, but for Elizabeth Thompson and the people at CanWest News who might be curious about how information moves about the blogosphere.

But in evaluating how things went, I think I'm going to try harder myself to source material more clearly. And CanWest can help.

Jean Chretien's memoirs are of great interest with regards to Canada's recent political history, but what of the present?

Clearly, the element of the yet-to-be-officially-released memoirs of immediate interest is Jean Chretien's allegation that Canada was on track to meet Kyoto Protocol commitments until Paul Martin took over, with Stephane Dion as his environment minister.

But what might most significant is the apparent insignificance of Stephane Dion.

Graham Bruce, the former labour minister for the BC provincial Liberals, has been lobbying on behalf of the Cowichan Tribes in negotiations. The problem is that he is not registered as a lobbyist.

Notable for the facts, but also because a blogger had already broken this story.

Jean Chretien's memoirs are coming out, and boy, don't they just play into the whole "don't air Liberal Party problems in public" issue in a big way?

Stephane Dion is not going to be served well by the assertion by Jean Chretien that Canada was on track to meet Kyoto commitments until Paul Martin took over as prime minister in December 2003. Paul Martin quickly put Stephane Dion into his cabinet as environment minister in July 2004. Dion served in that role until the fall of Paul Martin's government nearly two years later in February 2006.

Sure sounds to me that Jean Chretien's published memoirs are going to put the blame for Canada's poor environmental performance right on Stephane Dion's shoulders.

And we already know that people who go public with problems inside the Liberal Party are "stupid f*cking idiots".

NDP leader Jack Layton was the target of some choice words from Liberal Ralph Goodale. Ralph Goodale seemed eager to blame someone for costing the Liberals the chance to implement a universal daycare program. But really, Canadians are the ones to blame. Too bad Ralph Goodale doesn't have the guts to say that.

Liberal MP Marlene Jennings puts her foot in it again. Jewish-Canadians get Rosh Hashanah cards from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, so Jennings wants to get the Privacy Commissioner to investigate how the Conservatives are tracking the Jews or some such nonsense.

B'nai Brith to Marline Jennings: We know you and the rest of the Liberal Party don't care one jot about the Jews in Canada or anywhere else, and we don't appreciate being used for your political games.

Ouch!

I have been considering the possibility that Stephen Harper's recent moves have been organized around a plan to push Canadian politics to a tipping point that would dramatically reconfigure Canadian politics. Part of that reconfiguration would be an attack on the Liberal Party from the left by the NDP.

Today, the NDP gave notice that this is their plan as well.

I've pondered whether there is a deeper plan behind Stephen Harper's actions over the lasts weeks and months. I can't shake this feeling that Canadian politics is skirting a tipping point, and that Stephen Harper recognizes that, and is deliberately trying to move towards it.

News is that Liberal heavyweight John Manley has accepted a position on a panel set up by the Conservative government to evaluate the Afghanistan mission. Manley has done this despite the fact that Stephane Dion has already pronounced his policy on Canada's mission as one of his non-negotiable items (a pullout in 2009 and nothing less), and so not an issue for debate by Liberals.

This appointment has the hallmarks of a tipping point play.

News from the CBC is that the upcoming Throne Speech will make it a guiding principle of this government that the Kyoto targets are not attainable. Stephane Dion will have to backtrack on a year's worth of statements if he is going to arrange that the Throne Speech not be defeated and so avoid an election he doesn't want to fight.

So Dion is likely to let the Throne Speech pass, counting on a combination his own Liberals staying home as per Dion's orders, while being protected by a phalanx of Conservative MPs voring for the Throne Speech. Safely protected by the Conservatives, Liberal leader Stephane Dion will be able to speak loudly and strongly in favour of Kyoto and how he has the solution.

Lots of words, but no action. Deliberately no action.

Sounds like the definition of political impotence.

When Jamie Carroll allegedly told Quebec Liberals that if followed their advice to hire more Quebecers, he would have to hire more Chinese too, Quebec Liberals went ballistic.

A crisis quickly erupted as Quebec Liberals, none of them fans of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion, went to the press to tell any reporter who would listen just how awful Stephane Dion's handpicked team leading the Liberal Party really was.

At first Stephane Dion said that Jamie Carroll was misinterpreted, and that no action was required.

Then Stephane Dion fell silent, and the Liberal Party made it known that Jamie Carroll would be shuffled out of his position as National Director and into another role.

Then Liberal Party fell silent, and a leak revealed that Jamie Carroll was threatening to sue the Liberal Party for defamation unless he was generously compensated.

Finally, over a week after the alleged comments that kick off this whole episode, Jamie Carroll is gone. Apparently action was required, and there was no role for Jamie Carroll in the Liberal Party after all. As for compensation and lawsuits, no word on those subjects. Presumably no lawsuit, but money remains a "confidential personnel matter".

When Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion appointed former leadership rival Bob Rae to the Shadow Cabinet as Foreign Affairs critic, a lot of eyebrows were raised. Bob Rae isn't a sitting MP. But he is running in the Liberal stronghold of Toronto Centre, so it will only be a matter of time before Bob Rae is in the House of Commons.

Still, is Toronto Centre all that safe for Bob Rae? If not, appointing him Foreign Affairs critic is a bit of a gamble on the part of Stephane Dion, since if Bob Rae were to lose, Stephane Dion would look foolish. Even if the likelihood is low, I'm not sure that Stephane Dion has enough credibility as leader to afford to make such a wager.

The notorious scofflaw Cliff Tang is in prison right now, a third of the way through a three-month sentence for driving (again) without a license. I am not optimistic that Cliff Tang will abide by the driving ban that will be imposed when he is released. Though he is fortunate that a three-year ban was imposed by the court instead of the ten-year ban requested by the Crown, Cliff Tang's past behaviour suggests that, in his view, a ban on driving is more akin to a guideline.

I know it was the long Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, but when you look at the news, Stephane Dion has been utterly out of sight. The leader of the Liberal Party has not been heard of or seen since last...what...September 29? That was the Friday appearance in Halifax when Dion state unequivocably that Liberal Party National Director Jamie Carroll was not guilty of a firing offense for what he allegedly told Quebec Liberals when advised to hire more Quebecers.

Since then, Jamie Carroll has been under a political deathwatch, Stephane Dion has not been seen (as far as I know), and Denis Coderre's laughable trip to Afghanistan is just about the only news coming out of the Liberal Party.

On the same day that Dalton McGuinty government handed the Durham Region Courthouse project to Access Justice Durham (March 2, 2007), the Australian investment firm of Babcock & Brown bought 100% equity in AJD.

Now be clear on this. The courthouse is going to cost $214 million, assuming no overruns. To gain 100% control though, BBPP only had to invest $15 million, since in this "partnership" the private side is only putting up enough equity to cover 6% of the cost of the project. The Ontario government (meaning us taxpayers) will be footing the bill for a 5.015% bond that is raising the other 94% of the cost.

Still, BBPP is reported over and over again as have 100% equity interest. Technically true, but rarely is it mentioned just how little that actually amounts to in terms of exposure (which can be a measure of just how careful and cost-conscious the project management will be). With this "100%" equity in major overseas projects, BBPP stock goes up and up, no doubt already making the $15 million back and then some.

Meanwhile, the courthouse is still two years from being completed.

You'd think the government partnership agreement would include a requirement for enough equity to be invested that would not so easily be recovered, just to keep the private partners keenly interested in the success of the project.

More on the Durham Region courthouse project. In this post, I'm considering something else I've noticed. The private partnership building this courthouse in Oshawa for the Ontario government has kicked in just over 6% of the cost of the project. As it happens, this is a extremely low contribution, and a study I've found states the obvious.

When you don't have much at stake, you have little reason to work too hard to be successful. Even less reason when your partner is likely to go to extraordinary lengths to make sure the project succeeds for political reasons.

In other words, did Dalton McGuinty's government make the mistake of letting the private partners sign on with virtually no skin in the game? Is that is what happening in Sarnia, where another P3 project for the construction of a hospital has been revealed to have more than doubled in cost.

When in March the private consortium awarded the contract by Dalton McGuinty's Liberal Ontario government to build the Durham Region courthouse issued a bond offering to raise the $214 million needed, I noted that the interest rate offered was significantly higher than the rate offered by government savings bonds that have traditionally been used to raise cash for public projects.

Since the cost to pay investors the principal and interest is passed back to the Ontario government and so back to us, the taxpayers, the interest rate mattered. Compounded over thirty years, it could matter a lot.

But what is really spooky is that back in March, a media report quoted a Moody's analyst who characterized this deal as a template. That means this plan to pay a premium to raise funds for Private-Public Partnerships (P3) is the norm.

I predict Denis Coderre will discover little evidence of the reconstruction effort being funded by the Canadian government in Afghanistan. The Liberal Party defence critic will see a lot of Canada's military though.

That's not because Canada's efforts in Afghanistan is skewed to military action at the expense of reconstruction, as the Liberals charge. In fact, Canada has been incredibly generous in funding reconstruction in Afghanistan.

It's because the "infrastructure specialists" Coderre will be meeting with in Afghanistan happen to work for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an operation funded almost exlusively by the Europeans (the UK and Scandinavian countries in particular). The Canadian government has contributed to the AREU, but only an inconsequential amount.

See, no evidence of Canadian reconstruction efforts here.

The Sarnia Hospital is in the news. A P3 project designed to save the taxpayers money, it has been hit with huge cost overruns. Guess what? No matter what Premier Dalton McGuinty tells you about the risk of overruns being taken by the private partners, the fact is that the costs are going to be borne by the taxpayers. Indeed, the increased cost paid by us is likely designed into the contract at the outset, protecting the private partners from an overruns.

I know because I've been studying a bond offering to pay for another P3 contract, the Durham Region Courthouse.

We'll be paying a half-billion dollars over 30 years to pay for a 5% bond offered up by the private partners to pay for the courthouse. The Ontario government can raise funds on the bond market at 3% to 4% interest.

You do the math.

[Actually, I should do the math more carefully myself. This piece was originally titled "half-trillion" instead of the correct "half-billion", and the mistake was repeated in one place in the text. If the link you are following still says "trillion", I apologize. In any case, the feed has been republished, and the correction should propagate out to any links using the feed.]

I'm always grateful to my readers, and I don't ask for much. I don't require people to log in to leave comments, or sit through a lot of ads (my content starts at the upper right), or be bored with Flash animations.

Nothing is changing on that count, but I do use BlogAds and we're running the Blog Reader Project. It is an attempt to collect data on who blog readers are, the sort of data that advertisers can study to determine just what sort of information would be most useful to you. Of course, the more focused the advertising, the higher rates we can command.

So take 10 minutes and fill out the survey. If you run a blog (you don't have to be running BlogAds to take part), consider signing up and getting your readers to participate as well.

Thanks.

I mean really, why would anyone take an online poll seriously? I suppose it is possible that if Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion was nominated Quebec's top traitor, it would be a problem for the Liberal Party:

"We wanted to make our voice heard," said François Gendron, spokesperson for the Jeunes patriots du Quebec, a separatist group.

"It's not vengeful and, above all, it's humorous," Gendron said of the poll. "But the fact remains that these people are traitors."

But it's no laughing matter for Michel Rochette, the director of communications for the Quebec Liberal Party.

"I don't know if they know what the definition of the word 'traitor' is. It's worrisome to see them use it without thinking."

Right then.

Don't participate in this poll!

And by the way, "S'abonner à la liste de diffusion" means "To subscribe to the mailing list", in case you're interested.

You think Liberal Party advertising was wild in 2006? We might end up wondering where those genteel days have gone after living through an election campaign if one starts this month.

Stephen Harper has delivered an ultimatum. If the opposition parties pass the Throne Speech, he will treat votes on bills that explicitly enact Throne Speech promises to be confidence votes.

Is he setting a trap for Stephane Dion and the Liberals?

Maybe, but I think Stephen Harper is subtler than that. He's a trained economist, so he is familiar with the concept of the tipping point. I think he recognizes that it won't take much to reach a political tipping point, and that in order to resolve a lot of the problems that have plagued this parliament, we need to reach that point.

And so he is pushing us towards it.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion had better be nice to his aide Gianluca Cairo. Over a year ago, I noted that Cairo had registered domains named "stephanedionsucks". I wonder if Cairo would have any buyers if he decided to sell.

Stephane Dion has cancelled a trip to the Arctic, unable to perform his function as Opposition Leader and Leader of the Liberal Party because of the chaos that has engulfed his office and his party. Stephane Dion is now a firefighter, trying to keep the Liberal house from burning to the ground.

Or maybe that's the wrong metaphor. Maybe he is staying in Ottawa because he is afraid of what might happen if he and his key people are away for any length of time.

Update: Someone who doesn't seem to be too worried about moving about the country and talking to Liberals is Michael Ignatieff. Interesting.

Just what are the Liberal plans? Though I don't have all the details, I've gotten my hands on Stephane Dion's Liberal Party strategy guide. From it you can understand just what is in store for Canadian politics for the forseeable future.

Jason Cherniak, Liberal blogger and defender/apologist for Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion, has had enough. He has gone on the attack, trying to remind the "stupid f*cking idiots" who are attacking Stephane Dion that they are hurting the Liberal Party in the process.

That argument won't work. These people don't care. Found at all levels in the Liberal Party, this secret cadre is on a mission. A mission to remove Stephane Dion and anyone who worked for him from the Liberal Party. If the Liberal Party is wrecked along the way, so be it.

Call it collateral damage. It doesn't matter. Nothing can get in the way of the mission.

Liberal MP Marlene Jennings is not the sort of person to put in front of reporters. She has made a rookie mistake that could have serious implications for the coverage of the ongoing problems besetting Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion. By expressing a level of suspicion that Stephane Dion is the target of a coordinated campaign to remove him as leader, she has moved the question of a Liberal coup from the opinion pages to the news pages.

Jason Cherniak had a scoop this afternoon. Jamie Carroll would not only be staying in the Liberal Party, he would be keeping his job as National Director. Of course we know that not only was Jamie Carroll chucked out by the Management Committee, Jamie Carroll is reported to be threatening to sue the Liberal Party for defamation unless he's paid 18 months salary.

Well, Jason deleted his scoop by erasing the post called "Anonymous Sources". But we have a glimpse of it caught by Google.

Jamie Carroll has been relieved of his position as National Director of the Liberal Party. An honourable end to this story? Carroll falling on his sword in order to protect his boss, Stephane Dion? Hardly. Jamie Carroll has spoken to a lawyer, and unless the Liberal Party pays him off generously, Carroll threatens court action for alleged defamation.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any uglier...

Gilles Duceppe denies that he has already decided to quit politics. A denial was inevitable, and that means it isn't really credible.

CBC News is reporting that Jamie Carroll is going to resign today. Stephane Dion's leadership of the Liberal Party suffers another blow. Meanwhile the leak is not clear whether Dion demanded Carroll's resignation. Typical, when you think about it. It's never been clear if Stephane Dion has ever truly made a tough decision since becoming leader of the Liberal Party.

La Presse is reporting that Gilles Duceppe is planning to quit politics after the next federal election. Now that Duceppe's intentions are public knowledge, the odds of an election have gone up, and Stephane Dion has to face fighting an election in Quebec without his closest ally in a position to help.

Yes, NDP bloggers, you can quote me on that.

Canada needs to have the NDP succeed. And not because of some Machiavellian plot to weaken the Liberals and some such thing. I mean for Canada's political health.

The Liberals should take a stand but not actually stand up. That's the advice being given to Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion by advisor Bryon Wilfert. It's good advice too if you're a Liberal. It is consistent with the way Liberals think, and is in line with Liberal goals.