Monthly Archive: January 2008

Now that the CBC has admitted that one of its reporters, Krista Erickson, had indeed colluded with two Liberal MPs to direct the questioning of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who was appearing in front of the Commons ethics committee investigating allegations made by Karlheinz Schreiber, the question remains.

Can this committee carry on?

Now that the committee is requesting access to Brian Mulroney tax returns, the answer has to be a limited "No".  Would you want your tax returns handed over to CBC reporters?

With the question of the treatment of Afghan detainees providing much of the fuel for political debate in Ottawa, one element of the opposition attack is the strained relationship between the government and the military.

According to "sources", General Rick Hillier was furious and told Prime Minister Stephen Harper exactly that in a phone conversation.

According to Hillier and Harper, though, that conversation never happened.  The Globe and Mail seems to be backing away from the story.

Though there is some confusion about the size of the fallout from the decision of the NDP to cancel the candidacies of Micheline Montreuil and Francis Chartrand in Quebec, it is clear that there has been some fallout.

Anne Humphreys, a candidate who resigned her candidacy in support of Francis Chartrand, attributes the problems to Thomas Mulcair, the former provincial Liberal cabinet minister who ran for the NDP in the Liberal stronghold of Outremont.  In that by-election, Stephane Dion's hand-picked candidate, Jocelyn Coulon, was handily defeated by Mulcair.

According to Humphreys, Mulcair has promised to bring in a dozen star candidates.  Jack Layton desperately wants these people as candidates, so longtime NDP members like Chartrand and Montreuil are chucked aside.

NDP members in Quebec are not happy about this.

On any other site, it would just be a technical problem.  But on the site maintained by a political party, the disappearance of a page makes you wonder.

In this case, the folks at rabble have noticed that the page just put up by the NDP two days ago in which the NDP agreed with the Conservative government decision to withdraw from the Durban II conference in 2009 has disappeared. 

Is the NDP reconsidering its position?  There are plenty of folks at rabble who certainly hope so.

Joan Beatty was interviewed about her controversial appointment by Stephane Dion to be the Liberal Party candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River in Saskatchewan.

Her answer to the critical question about why the nomination process needed to be suspended speaks volumes.

In the wake of the announcement by Jason Kenney that Canada would withdraw from participation in the UN-sponsored Durban II anti-racism conference coming up in 2009, the opposition Liberal Party and NDP have come on board to say that the government made the right choice.

Frankly, it was the only possible choice.  The first Durban anti-racism conference turned into a West-bashing anti-Semitic nightmare hijacked by Middle Eastern dictatorships and neo-Nazi NGOs pretending to be "progressive".

Durban II will likely be worse.  The United Nations assigned the job of organizing the conference to Libya.  Iran is an executive member of the planning committee.  All the NGOs that distributed Hitler pamphlets during the first conference in 2001 are automatically invited back.

Durban II will likely be worse than Durban I.

When the announcement was made that Canada would not participate in Durban II, Jason Kenney promised that Canada would find other venues to fight racism.  One such had been identified back in June, when Canada applied to be an observer on the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research.

Now Canada has announced its intention to become a full member.

An important membership criteria?  Totalitarian, authoritarian, and dictatorial regimes need not apply.

Sounds like a good idea for the UN itself.

At the risk of offending the Canadian Arab Federation, Stephen Dion and the Liberals have issued an official statement in which the party endorses the Conservative decision to withdraw from all activities related to the upcoming Durban II conference.

When Francis Chartrand was forced out as an NDP candidate, it seemed to be an interesting story of NDP spin doctoring.  Chartrand had posted an angry open letter on his blog, calling Jack Layton and the NDP undemocratic.  We learned later that NDP officials twisted his arm and compelled him to replace that post with another one that spoke highly of the NDP, and claimed that Chartrand had himself decided to step aside as a candidate.

Well, the whole story came out, and now everyone knows that Chartrand was forced out as the candidate for Riviere-des-Mille-Iles, and that the NDP tried to cover it up.  My friend in Quebec is telling me that the Quebec media is now calling this "L'Affaire Chartrand", and that the list of NDP candidates and campaign staffers resigning continues to grow.

The Canadian Arab Federation has come out strongly against the Canadian government's decision, supported by the NDP, to not participate in any way with the upcoming UN-sponsored Durban II conference on racism.  The position of the Conservative government, supported by the NDP, is that Durban II is shaping up to be an exercise in the most vile and repellent anti-Semitism, as was experienced by the Canadian delegation that attended the Durban I conference in 2001.

The CAF has every right to take a different position.  But to call Jason Kenney an Islamophobe who is contemptuous of Arabs and of Islam?

But then CAF president Khaled Mouammar, who has all sorts of links with the Liberal Party, declares anyone who sympathizes with Israel to be guilty of complicity in war crimes.

I wonder if Khaled Mouammar is planning a trip to the Durban II conference.

Canada has been winning praise for taking the decision to withdraw participation in the Durban II conference in 2009, a UN-sponsored event ostensibly to fight racism, but almost certainly to degenerate into an anti-Semitic spectacle like Durban I in 2001.

Now even the NDP agrees with the government.

I'm sure it wasn't intentional.  In fact, I wonder if anything that comes out of Stephane Dion's mouth is intentional.  He just seems to say the wrong thing whenever the opportunity presents itself.

In this case, Ontario tobacco farmers were paid a visit by Stephane Dion.  These farmers are suffering because of market conditions for their product.   So what does Stephane Dion suggest?

Switch to ginseng -- another product that has producers struggling to turn a profit.

When I wrote about the government's decision to remove Canada from the preparatory work being done in advance of the Durban II conference, I really expected this to be a non-issue.

I really expected that the Liberals would applaud.  I really expected that the Liberals, who as a government sent a delegation to Durban I in 2001 and reported the most shocking examples of widespread anti-Semitism, would consider the words of John Manley and Irwin Cotler who advised against repeating that mistake.

Indeed, the Liberals could even take some credit, publishing those quotes and pointing out that they had concluded some time ago that the Durban II conference was not the sort of thing Canada could engage in.

I was wrong.  I really don't believe I'm saying this, but the Liberal Party position is that as awful as Durban I was when the Liberals attended, and as strongly as senior Liberals have said the entire experience was grotesque, Canadian diplomats ought have meetings with anti-Semites to discuss how to best to word the demand for the destruction of Israel as a measure of respect to the United Nations.

Another very clever video.  It really puts your knowledge of contemporary Canadian politicians to the test.

Can you guess which politician is on the right, and which is on the left?

The 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, was a utter fiasco.  The conference was hijacked by anti-Semites and West-hating NGOs.  The atmosphere become so toxic that the United States and Israel withdrew their delegations.  Canada joined other major nations in condemning the conference, though Jean Chretien stopped short of actually pulling Canada's delegation.

Stephen Harper, Maxime Bernier (foreign affairs), and Jason Kenney (multiculturalism and Canadian identity) are being proactive this time around.  The follow-up conference scheduled for 2009 is showing every sign of being as bad as Durban I, perhaps worse.  Major nations have voted against funding it, but the resolution to fund the conference out of the UN general budget passed the UN General Assembly anyway. 

Canada might not be able to control the UN budget, but the Canadian government can still enjoy the sovereign right not to legitimize another UN pet project that demonizes the West.

And so it's great to hear that Canada is the first country to stand up and say that it will not participate in this upcoming conference.

Hopefully, countries like the United States will follow Canada's lead.  In the end, who wants to be at a conference facility where participants hand out pamphlets that mourn the fact that Hitler was not able to complete the job of exterminating the Jews?

This is pure supposition, of course, but I've been thinking about the collusion between CBC reporter Krista Erickson and Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez to use a Commons ethics committee hearing as a proxy for a CBC interview studio.

The Conservatives and others demanded that the CBC make the details of their investigation public.  The CBC has done that, to a point, revealing the name of the reporter who colluded with the Liberals, and detailing her punishment.  Krista Erickson has been reassigned to Toronto from Ottawa.

Some think the Conservative government put the screws on the CBC.  Nonsense.  If you think about it, the CBC had every reason to come clean and make it all public.

Krista Erickson's career as a CBC reporter has taking a blow.  She has been taken off the Ottawa beat as punishment for having worked with Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez in an attempt to make the Commons ethics committee into a means for the CBC to compel answers posed by its reporters.

Pablo Rodriguez, for his part, denies everything, and moreover, insists that actions taken by the CBC against Krista Erickson cannot be of interest to him.

Jason Cherniak, Liberal blogger and apologist for all things Liberal, has taken a different approach, and is agitating in support of Erickson.

Got that.  The Liberal MP at the centre of this controversy says CBC actions are of no interest, because he is not involved.  Jason Cherniak disagrees, and thinks the CBC actions need to be challenged.

Jason Cherniak disagrees!

Who woulda thunk it?

John Manley has delivered his report on what the future of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan should be.

Essentially, it is what the Conservative government is already doing.  Stay in Afghanistan until the job is done.

Oh, and erase the Liberal Party legacy.

Now that the CBC has identified the reporter who wrote the questions for Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez to ask at Commons ethics committee hearing into the business dealings between Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney as Krista Erickson, it is curious to hear what Pablo Rodriguez has to say.

Remember, the CBC has already declared that Krista Erickson broke the rules, and the CBC has already punished her.  She has been reassigned to Toronto from Ottawa.  For the CBC there is no question, therefore, that Krista Erickson did exactly what had been alleged, and that is write questions for Pablo Rodriguez to repeat like a trained seal at the hearing.

Krista Erickson has been taken to the woodshed over this.  So what does Pablo Rodriguez do?  He denies everything.

He's hiding behind her skirts, as they would have said long ago, a time when being a gentleman meant something.

The CBC has responded to the Conservative Party on the question of collusion between a CBC reporter and the Liberal Party.

The CBC has named the reporter.  It is Krista Erickson.

The CBC has issued a punishment.  She has been pulled from covering Ottawa and has been reassigned to Toronto.

The CBC agrees that the reporter acted unethically.  And the Liberal Party...?

What we don't know is if the Liberal Party is sticking to the line that there was no collusion.

As readers might recall, Francis Chartrand was the NDP candidate for the Quebec riding of Riviere-des-Milles-Iles.  In mid-December, the party cancelled his candidacy.  Francis Chartrand was outraged, claiming that he hadn't even been told, but that he found out through news reports.

The NDP tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress his story, pressuring Chartrand to change his story so that it was his decision to step down as a candidate, and that Chartrand was happy to work for the NDP in another capacity. 

That plan worked...for about a day. 

This blog published both versions of Chartrand's story (he had them both on his blog, replacing his angry version under NDP pressure).  When confronted with the evidence that the story on his blog had change dramatically, Chartrand reverted back to his allegation that he was unilaterally forced out, and revealed that party officials in Ottawa and Montreal were compelling him to tell a very different story.

Until now, there has been little fallout reported from all this.  But a reader tells me that this could change as NDP candidates are resigning in support of Chartrand, or in protest of the NDP's heavy-handed way of handling the matter.

I have found some independent reports of resignations because of the Chartrand issue.  This could change everything.

If you've been following this blog since December, you'll know I've written a series of articles on Francis Chartrand.  Francis Chartrand was the NDP candidate for Riviere-des-Mille-Iles in Quebec, until in mid-December, the NDP declared he was not going to be the candidate for the party.

That's when the fun began, and apparently, I spoiled an attempt by the NDP to keep Francis Chartrand under wraps.

When Stephane Dion suggested that NATO military forces intervene in Pakistan, he set off a firestorm.

And yes, from now on I will assert that this, in fact, what Stephane Dion meant.  Every reporter in the room took that to be meaning of his words.  Who am I to disagree?

Senior Liberals have tried unsuccessfully to convince people that Stephane Dion meant diplomats when he spoke of "NATO forces".

Canadians don't believe that pitiful spin.  And based on the reporting I'm seeing in the Pakistan press, no one in Pakistan is going to believe it either.

The Liberal Party infighting in Saskatchewan over the appointment of Joan Beatty as the candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River.  Local Liberals are up in arms, angry over the way Stephane Dion removed their chance to choose their own candidate, setting up their own riding association executive, and generally becoming a thorn in the side of Stephane Dion.

But it seems to go much deeper than this.  It appears that the major players are really pawns in a long-running Saskatchewan rivalry between Ralph Goodale and Tony Merchant.

This is simply shocking.

The Universal Child Care Benefit is the program brought in by the Conservative government that issues monthly payments to every family with children under the age of 5, amounting to $100 per child per month.

The Liberals, of course, offered a universal daycare program, funded through tax increases, but in all likelihood only available to eligible families based on income.

We receive our benefit by direct deposit, but many Canadians receive their benefit by cheque sent in the mail.

This month, one person is reporting that his envelope was stuffed with partisan Liberal Party material, issued by the office of the leader of the opposition, Stephane Dion.

Allegedly, someone is using the bureaucracy to distribute partisan Liberal pamphlets and to use a government program to target specific Canadians with tailored Liberal Party messaging.

Even as the Liberal Party tries to explain that when Stephane Dion spoke of the "option" of "NATO forces" in Pakistan really meant the same diplomacy that has been in constant use for years, the obvious meaning of Dion's words continue to make news.

News Post India, based in New Delhi, India, is carrying the story.

I guess that means sending Liberal bigwigs to the subcontinent to explain to these people the subtle shades of meaning that add excitement to any attempt to understand Stephane Dion.

Last week, Liberal blogger Jason Cherniak smeared Conservative candidate Peter Kent, who is also a former reporter and now a senior editor at CanWest Global.  Jason alleged that:

• Peter Kent sets the editorial policy of the media giant and so is using it to further a Conservative agenda
• Peter Kent is not really a resident of Thornhill, where he has been nominated to stand as the Conservative candidate

In a pair of posts (Peter Kent is an example of integrity that Liberal MPs would do well to emulate and Why did Jason Cherniak call Peter Kent a liar for renovating a Thornhill heritage property?), I think I successfully showed both allegations to be untrue.  Without actually providing the link, Jason half-heartedly withdrew his second allegation, claiming victory by forcing Peter Kent to go on the record, which seemed bizarre given that Peter Kent did not reveal anything new and that had not already been well reported.

But now Stephane Dion is twisting in discomfort over his latest gaffe.  In this one, Stephane Dion thinks the best course of action for Canada is to abandon Afghanistan while NATO forces (presumably with no Canadian participation) invades Pakistan.

But according to Jason Cherniak, this is a case of gross misreporting.  And Peter Kent is behind it!

Jason Kenney takes Stephane Dion to task over the Pakistan invasion gaffe.  Read the transcript or listen to the audio feed.  Then wonder just how anyone could think Stephane Dion could run a country.

Stephen Taylor has checked with the Pakistan High Commission in Ottawa to get a reaction to Stephane Dion's conclusion that NATO troops would have to intervene inside of Pakistan's borders in order to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Let's just say this diplomat was not very diplomatic.

The Liberal Party is fixing yet another gaffe by their "leader", Stephane Dion.  In this case, he though it would be a good idea to attack Pakistan, or something like that. 

Unfortunately, the effects of this latest verbal bombshell from Stephane Dion could hurt the Liberal Party for quite some time to come.

Stephane Dion wants Stephen Harper to fire Helena Guergis for letting slip the fact that Stephane Dion was visiting Afghanistan.

Though the details ought not to have been released, the fact is that Stephane Dion was not likely in any danger.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Jason Kenney, the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, has been criticized in a letter for having stood up for the right of Maclean's magazine to print articles that some Muslims might find offensive, or at least discomforting.

I bet Jason Kenney gets plenty of letters, but in this case, the writer seemed to try to intimidate Jason Kenney.

That was a big mistake.

With her appointment by Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion as the candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River in Saskatchewan, the focus has been on the simmering anger among Liberals in the riding.

How could Joan Beatty have leaped to the federal Liberal just weeks after having fought and won a seat for the provincial NDP in Saskatchewan?

Though she has done nothing illegal, it certainly seems unfortunate for the provincial NDP that after all that money spent, Joan Beatty has changed her mind.

But did she change her mind?  Or was she already laying the groundwork for a switch even as she was carrying the NDP banner and spending NDP money?

In one week, Liberal MP Ralph Goodale is called a liar, not once, not twice, but three times.

And not by members of other political parties.  Liberals seem to have no problem in declaring that Ralph Goodale's grasp of the truth is shaky at best.

The story of Francis Chartrand continues to amuse me.  Chartrand was to be the NDP candidate for Riviere-des-Mille-Iles.   Then mid-December, it was announced that he was no longer the candidate.

Then the fun began and hasn't stopped since.

The latest chapter: Francis Chartrand all but accuses the NDP of hacking his blog.

Jason Cherniak has called Conservative Party candidate Peter Kent deliberating misleading and a "faker".  Well, to deliberately mislead is to lie, right?

So what did Peter Kent do to earn this harsh response from the Liberal Party's top blogger?  Well, Peter Kent spends his spare time renovating his home in Thornhill.

It's not just any home.  It is a heritage property designated by the Thornhill community.  Peter Kent's work on it was recommended for an award.

You'd think that if Peter Kent was faking, he's just rent a condo.

Correstion: See the end of the article for a correction.

In his book, The Way it Works, Eddie Goldenberg, a senior advisor to former prime minister Jean Chretien, relates this amusing anecdote:

The day before they were sworn into Cabinet, [Stephane] Dion and [Pierre]Pettigrew met with Jean Pelletier and myself in a small conference room beside Pelletier’s office.  We were there to tell them that they prime minister had identified constituencies for them.  Shirley Maheu, the MP for the riding of Saint-Laurent-Cartierville in northwest Montreal, would be appointed to the Senate, and Dion would be designated the Liberal candidate in a by-election in that riding.  Andre Ouellet was to leave the Cabinet and the House of Commons, and Pettigrew would run in his former boss’s riding of Papineau-Saint-Michel in the northeast of Montreal.

Dion, who knew nothing about the political landscape, asked where the riding of Saint-Laurent was.  Pettigrew was much more political and knew that in the 1993 election, Maheu  had won with a huge majority, while Ouellet had won a close race.  He said, “Stephane, if you want to know where Saint-Laurent is, just look on the map for the safest Liberal seat in the country.  If you want to trade with me, I don’t mind."

It would be nice to say the Stephane Dion has come a long way since then, but really, does anyone really believe that Stephane Dion is any better plugged into the political landscape now?

Jason Cherniak, Liberal Party riding president of some riding somewhere, and an apologist for all of Stephane Dion's missteps and trip-ups, has discovered something remarkable.

Peter Kent, a Conservative Party candidate in the last election, but who failed to win a seat, is also a member of the media!

And therefore, we ought not to be concerned at all that the CBC is secretly writing out questions for Liberal MPs to read out during parliamentary committee hearings.

It's so sad that Peter Kent, a man of remarkable integrity, is being mentioned in the same breath as the embarrassment that is Pablo Rodriguez and his CBC ghost writer.  But the mention was made, and worse, it was made incorrectly.  Now the record needs to be set straight.

The absurdity to which we've been subjected to -- namely watching Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez humiliate himself and his party by being exposed as a CBC reporter wannabe when it was revealed that his job at the Commons ethics committee was to read as clearly as possible the words written down on paper by CBC reporters -- is even worse when you realize that the goal of this silliness, that is, to embarrass Stephen Harper, is a fool's errand.

I guess that's the Liberals are perfect for the job.

I expected the controversy in the riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River to get ugly, but I didn't expect it to get so ugly so fast.

At some point, Stephane Dion has to realize that he has become a laughingstock.  I mean, how often do we have to hear about how Canadians do or don't want an election? 

He makes himself out to be some sort of empath, spookily detecting my mood for an election.

But it's all a smokescreen.  Stephane Dion's sense of my mood for an election seems to a striking correlation to polling numbers.

What as the Liberal Party spins the Ruby Dhalla purse snatching incident.  After being shown on television distancing herself from an alleged police beating visited against two small children who snatched her purse, while at the same time hoping that the children learned an important lesson from all this, Ruby Dhalla has come out with a new story.

Here is the summary:

• She can't control police violence.
• She didn't know the police were violent.
• She condemns violence against children.
• She is glad that there will be an investigation.
• The children were not beaten.

No word if she has changed her position on hoping that the children learned anything from being beaten, or from not being beaten.

Yeah, I'm confused too.

Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla has lit a firestorm of controversy in India.  Visiting the Punjab region, she was the victim of theft, her purse being snatched by two young children.  After being caught, the children were severely beaten by the police.

When Ruby Dhalla was asked to respond, she said she hoped the children learned a lesson.

In following the story of how an unnamed CBC reporter wrote questions for Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez to deliver at the Commons ethics committee hearing question Brian Mulroney in the Karlheinz Schreiber affair, the question of whether any such collusion took place has been pretty much settled.

The CBC has said it is planning disciplinary action, so the story is credible.

Does that mean the Liberal Party is planning to backtrack on the public statement that the entire issue was a "fabrication"?  Or is the Liberal Party satisfied to let the CBC report to take the fall for this?

Forcing the reporter to bear all the consequences is a plan that could work, as long the CBC keeps the identity of the reporter a secret.  But whatever happens, hopefully the media in general will come to appreciate that getting too close to politicians is a dangerous thing.

Saskatchewan Liberals are very upset that Stephane Dion, bowing to pressure from Ralph Goodale, appointed NDP MLA Joan Beatty, elected a mere two months ago, to be the Liberal candidate for the riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, cancelling the nomination race, including the effort by populist David Orchard.

Their anger is such that some have decided to simply ignore Stephane Dion and elect their own candidate.

When Stephane Dion appointed Joan Beatty to be the Liberal Party candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, he rolled over the nomination effort of David Orchard.

A lot of people are upset at the elitist attitude exhibited by Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party in ignoring the effort by the riding association to democratically select a candidate.

The amusing thing is that the Liberal Party is not trying to hide the elitism.

The issue of collusion between the CBC and the Liberal Party in questioning Brian Mulroney continues to smolder.  A CBC spokesperson has said that action, if any, will be taken in private.

In a letter to the CBC ombudsman, the Conservative Party is challenging the CBC to come clean.

Few by-elections are as charged with raw emotion as the one shaping up in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River.  Add to that suggestions of, let us say, creative campaigning, and we could be in for some fun.

Stephane Dion has committed himself to forcing an election in February.  That is one way to look at the decision to appoint Joan Beatty as the candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River. 

A poll that asks Canadians how they feel right now is one worth looking at.  As opposed to a poll that asks how they'd vote (which essentially ignores the effect of an election campaign) or one that asks to predict the results of an election (which generally has respondents parroting back what they've heard from pollsters), this poll asks Canadians how they feel about themselves, about the country, about the economy, and about the government.

No hypothetical choices.  No scrying. 

The answer?  Things are looking good.  And that's bad news for Stephane Dion and the Liberals.

The NDP was deeply embarrassed when MP Irene Mathyssen stood up in the House of Commons to accuse Conservative MP James Moore of looking at pornography on his laptop, only to have her offer an abject and unqualified apology.  Similarly, the NDP accused Liberal candidate David Oliver of offering a bribe to an NDP candidate during the 2006 election, and was forced to offer up another abject apology.

Now the NDP says they have a plan to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.  I really doubt the NDP can do much though.  It strikes at the heart of what it means to be a liberal.

An interesting poll asks Canadians what they expect will happen in the next federal election.  Not surprisingly, most repeat back what the pollsters have just told them is likely to happen.

Duh.

NDP leader Jack Layton is talking big.  This year, 2008, will be the year the NDP surges out of it's traditional spot in fourth place to...what?  Third would be an improvement, of course.  In a parliamentary system though, there isn't much difference between third and fourth, except for bragging rights.

The real prize with real power would be official opposition.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Transsexual Micheline Montreuil was dumped as an NDP candidate just before Christmas, and harsh words were exchanged.  She alleged that the NDP decided a transsexual candidate was a liability.  Now the two sides are exchanging verbal blows again.