Monthly Archive: September 2008

How far have blogs come in Canada?  When the CBC devotes time on the flagship newscast to profile bloggers, you know blogging has come a long way.

The Liberals have abandoned trying to win this based on policy, or even on moral superiority.

Now it comes down to attacks.  This time it is allegations of plagiarism.  Did Stephen Harper's speech writers lift portions of a speech by John Howard in a speech Stephen Harper delivered in 2003?

Sure looks like it.  And then what was lifted?  A few sentences in which the same opinion was being expressed.

It's not quite in the same ballpark as passing yourself as an expert in a subject based on content ripped off from a recognized expert in the field, or using someone else's work for your own financial gain.

Update: A speechwriter has admitted to grabbing the text.

What do you do when you feel your leader is dragging you down in an election campaign?

You might pine for a leader from the past.

But some MPs are made of sterner stuff than that!  They don't just pine for the good old days.  They do something about it!

Meet Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, part of Paul Martin's team!

People hate to be wrong.  OK, that's obvious.  But keep that in mind when you hear Liberals say that with such low expectations going into the debates, Stephane Dion is poised to do very well.

The argument is that people will be surprised that Stephane Dion is not a complete disaster, and so their estimation of him and of the Liberal Party will go up.  Heck, even Stephane Dion is saying the same thing.

I suppose that sort of make sense.  But then again, not really.  Why?  Because people hate to be wrong.

Like I said, it's obvious.

I've avoided expressing any comment on the notorious Heather Mallick column.  I've been waiting until the CBC had responded to the firestorm.  I was cautiously optimistic that the right conclusion would be reached.

My optimism was rewarded today.  The ombudsman has come down quite decisively against Heather Mallick, and the publisher of CBC News, John Cruikshank, has accepted his conclusions.

Indeed, Cruikshank says the diversity of opinion expressed on the CBC must be expanded.  I agree with him.  I'd even apply for the job.

But I wouldn't work with Heather Mallick.  She's so poisonous that the CBC would be well advised to terminate her employment immediately as a gesture of good faith to those conservative opinion writers who might lend their skills to helping the CBC represent the broad range of Canadian opinion.

There is a cliche in disaster movies, at least in the most recent ones.  The heroes will avert disaster, but the audience will still be treated to a big smash up, too.  People like to see the big boom.

Does this spell disaster for the Liberals?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been taking a lot of heat in some quarters for his attitude with regards to art funding.

If it makes him feel any better, Stephen Harper is not alone.  Liberal Party star candidate Marc Garneau was quite clear about his attitude towards art.  It's all very nice, but really, it's not going to put Canada back on track.

Liberal candidate Garth Turner and Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt are battling it out in Halton.  Now things have gotten even more complicated with a letter from (allegedly) long time conservatives endorsing the NDP.

It is hard to imagine a more powerful symbol of the change the is looming on Canada's political horizon.  It's literally jaw-dropping.

Amuse yourself by reading a statement issued by the Green Party on the importance of electing Green MPs.

Not a statement from Elizabeth May, mind you.  According to the Green Party, she can't really be taken too seriously at times.

Despite the millions in special breaks and programs promised by Liberal leader Stephane Dion, farmers are not buying into the Green Shift carbon tax.

The Green Shift is a wealth distribution program.  A new version of the National Energy Program.

Hey, don't believe me.  That's what Liberal Party candidate Mohamed El-Rafih is saying.

Or perhaps this is a history of how the Liberal Party is short on leadership.  In any case, the story of 9/11 conspiracy theorist Lesley Hughes, a Liberal Party candidate in Manitoba, has come to a miserable end.

And as we waited for the inevitable, the Liberal Party officials and apologists for the party dodged and weaved in a very amusing way.  I guess they had no choice, waiting for Stephane Dion to be prodded into some action that mimicked leadership.

Update: Watch Stephane Dion blame the Jews!

Elizabeth May of the Green Party wants people to vote against the Conservative Party, but unlike the leaders of the NDP and the Liberal Party, Elizabeth May is not particularly interested in getting votes for her own party.

That makes me wonder.  Is the Green Party engaged in third party advertising?

Is Green Party leader Elizabeth May helping or hurting the Green Party?

It's all rather sad, really.  A Liberal blogger posts about a Liberal surge.  The big Conservative lead was just an aberration.  The NDP is fading away.  It's a whole new ball game.

Poor sod.  She was looking at a poll from last year.

More people are planning to vote for the Conservative Party than for any other party, according to the polls.  Part of that comes from a deep store of credibility that the Conservatives have built up. 

To give credit where credit is due, the Conservatives have the Liberals to thank for that, in part.

Putting the "party" back in Liberal!

Woo-hoo!

If you're interested, I have here an MP3 of the conference call held today by the Liberal Party with MPs and community activists to discuss today's launch of the Liberal Party platform.

There are several interesting points.  Going back to standard Liberal-style practise, the military is going to be bled dry.  Childcare spaces will be made if the Liberals find money after paying for everything else.  And the Green Shift?  Not mentioned during the main presentation.

As is being reported elsewhere, someone with access to a highly confidential distribution list managed inside the Privy Council Office has sent an email out to reporters.

The email is absurd in its content, but the goal is to embarrass the Prime Minister by suggesting a major breach in security.

With the Liberal Party apparently struggling, indeed slipping, as we approach the halfway point in this election, there is irresponsible speculation about whether a move against Stephane Dion ahead of the election is in the works.

Hey, I can be as irresponsible as the next guy.  But I don't like to recycle rumours.  I like to add just that little bit of semi-credible analysis that can make the rumour really take off.

So I started to look for a point where a Liberal revolt could start.  And I found one.

Michael Ignatieff is looking a bit nervous, don't you think?

It's powerful.  It's simple.  Vote for the Green Shift.

But really, it isn't simple at all.  There's a big problem with regards to how provinces will be treated differently.  Should you be concerned?

I suppose that depends.  If you are a believer in the Liberal Party, then you won't be concerned.  The Liberals don't seem to be worried.  They're not even talking about the issue.

Just what exactly is Michael Ignatieff talking about?  The deputer leader of the Liberal Party was talking to Newmarket council that governments ought to be spending like drunken sailors. 

And they would be too, if it weren't for cuts to the GST.  And as for the tax cuts in the Green Shift, well, the Liberals have no choice.  And he wishes it was different.

Frankly, I can hardly believe it.  The Liberals are chucking the Green Shift?  I suppose Stephane Dion can't be too far behind.

I've read it several times.

People commenting on Garth Turner's blog have read it and reread it, and are confused.

Liberal MP Garth Turner seems to have given up on Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party.  He is going to spend his time trying to save his own job.

There is something stereotypical about the socialist who doesn't actually respect people.  Socialists motivated to help others not because they've been asked for help, but because they've decided that most people aren't smart enough to realize they need help.  Socialists who assume that by virtue of their education, they are the only people smart enough to provide that unsolicited help to normal dumb people.

It's not at all common, however, to find someone who actually admits to being this sort of person.

The NDP's Helen Kormendy is indeed a rare find.

Stephane Dion's carbon tax is supposed to be revenue neutral.  I know we all know that doesn't mean all Canadians, or even most Canadians, will come out ahead.

Heck, with the inflationary effect of a global energy tax, it is likely we'll all be hurting.

But when I look at the diesel portion of the tax more closely, I realize that the carbon tax is in two parts.  Does revenue neutrality mean both parts are given back to Canadians?  Or will a Liberal government keep a big chunk of the diesel carbon tax for itself?

If that money doesn't come back to me, then how is this revenue neutral?

Have you heard about the well-known politician, a Liberal, who is fighting this campaign on an environmental platform, but who has chosen a means of transportation that is easily one of the least environmentally friendly?

No, not that guy.

This is about one of his lackeys, Garth Turner.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has bad polling numbers when it comes to leadership qualities.  That has been true ever since he became leader, and he has been unable to do anything to fix it.

But in trying to shore up that perceived failure at the top by showing off team leadership, Stephane Dion has made things dramatically worse for himself personally.

Liberal MP Garth Turner has a problem.  Well, he has lots of problems, but one of the immediate ones is the tendency of his election signs to fall over.

According to Garth Turner, forces are aligned against him and these forces are multiplying.

He's right.  No, really.

Liberal MP Garth Turner is in a lot of trouble.  It is a mess of his own making, trying to pass off a staged interview as news, then alleging that CPAC knew of the fabrication when the news broke.

By trying to spread the blame around, he only guaranteed that that much more would fall squarely on his shoulders.

That ought to have been the end of it.  Instead, Garth Turner is trying to cast himself as the victim in this.  Now we hear that he was victimized by the CBC.

Of course, it's all nonsense.

Liberal MP Garth Turner is in a bind.  Yesterday, I revealed that a "random encounter" filmed by CPAC might indeed have been staged, since the person who answered the door was none other than the son of Garth Turner's campaign manager, Esther Shaye.

Today, faced with tough questions, Garth Turner seems to abandon Esther Shaye.  But will it be enough to satisfy the one person who might otherwise benefit from ejecting Garth Turner from the Liberal Party?

I'm speaking, of course, of Stephane Dion.

Is Garth Turner trying to fool TV viewers?  It is interesting that when CPAC followed Garth Turner as he visited constituents, Garth Turner ended up at the home of someone he should know pretty well.

But then Garth Turner did not seem to recognize this man.  Do I smell a setup here?

It's the shirt that blows this story open.

Garth Turner can't catch a break.  The Liberal MP in Halton has a problem with signs being destroyed.

It's a familiar story, unfortunately.

If there are any lingering doubts about whether environmentalism is the new religion of the left, Carolyn Bennet dispels them.  Carolyn Bennett, the Liberal Party health critic, tells an audience that they ought to vote for Stephane Dion and the Green Shift.

The reason?  Faith.

Not in God.  What does He know?  No, all we need is faith in David Suzuki.

After doing an early morning read of the Toronto Star, I had to shake my head and wonder if, like some sort Rip Van Winkle, I had slept through the intervening four weeks and had woken up on October 13.

Because in an editorial and in an opinion piece from Liberal-friendly columnist James Travers, it sure sounded like the election was all but won by the Conservatives, with a majority no less, and that the Liberals were already struggling with the next phase of their existence, a broken leaderless bankrupt party.

Nope, it's not even a full week into the election.  A lot can happen.  The Liberals aren't out of this yet.  Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have to work hard to earn the trust and votes of Canadians.

That's not just talk. It's the truth.  I know because I checked the calendar.  It's only September 13.

Actually, I don't know if the parallel holds, but it seems to me that the same logic that prevents Canadians from reporting on polling results in areas of the country where polls are still open suggests that vote swapping is also illegal.

A new headache for the Liberals.  The Liberal MP for the riding of Charlottetown, Shawn Murphy, has revealed that for the sound and fury, the Liberals won't be implementing a carbon tax after all.

At least not right away.

Wow.

Oh, and Shawn Murphy's website has suddenly gone down.

Check out the Liberal Party campaign video for the Green Shift, Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan.

Part of Stephane Dion's vision for the fairer and greener Canada is more mass transit.  A subway system is shown in the video.

Apparently, a fairer and greener Canada is best imagined by watching the Moscow Metro in action.

Hey, remember when people said that David Orchard, the Liberal candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, would turn out to be a headache for Stephane Dion?

They were right.  You see, according to David Orchard, Stephane Dion's carbon tax, also known as the Green Shift, will hurt farmers.  And farmers have no technological options other than to use diesel.

But Stephane Dion said farmers can go green with the subsidy he's promising them.

Shouldn't Dion and Orchard be reading from the same script during an election campaign?

The Liberal Party is showing us the carbon tax in action.  And it's not pretty.

The Liberals are at it again.  Yet another, Paul Zed, has come out to say that the carbon tax being promised by Stephane Dion will not affect a major industry in his province.

Apparently, oil refineries don't use energy and so don't pay a carbon tax.

Give the Liberals credit.  Cash-strapped as they are, they are paying for carbon offsets.  I mean, I think carbon offsets are dumb, but the Liberals are walking the walk, as it were.

But then the Liberals are hoping to get donations to cover the cost of carbon offsets, which they say is a campaign expense.

Which leads to interesting questions.

Hey, it's just a theory, but I wonder if the Liberals want Green Party leader Elizabeth May in the leaders debate so that she can irritate voters.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but somehow it makes some sense.

Maybe you have to have worked in the industry, but I am quick to catch evidence of who is taking the Web as a serious channel for information distribution.

Right now, the NDP is clearly laughing at the Liberals, using Stephane Dion's strength as a Google search term to spread the NDP message.

Update: And laughing at the Conservatives too!

Four noteworthy Canadian bloggers are guests on tonight's Michael Coren Show.

If you're a candidate for a federal party, you can't just spend money and accept donations.  You have to have an official agent that authorizes spending, including any advertising, and who accepts cheques on your behalf.

The cheques can't be made out to you -- only to the official agent.

Garth Turner knows all this.  That's what makes this so puzzling.

Well, I have to say I'm starting to enjoy this election.  Canwest News has put me on their "worth watching" list today.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made an announcement regarding taxes on diesel fuel.  If the Conservatives form the government, those taxes will go down.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion says taxes ought to go up.

The online wars continue with the Conservatives unveiling NotALeader.ca.

Update: Stupid bird!

Hey, I didn't even know we were having a contest.

The good news for Jennifer Wright of Green Shift Inc is that the Liberals are conceding that she owns the rights to the name "Green Shift" and so have agreed to pay her a license fee.

The bad news for the Liberals is that this license fee is a writ expense, and will count against their campaign spending limit.

This just in.  Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, has had her request to participate in the leaders debate denied.

Jack Layton is taking a bit of heat over a story he told at his press conference on Sunday.  In it, he told a story that sounded very similar to one Barack Obama told.

Very, very similar.

I still don't know if it's coincidence or plagiarism, but I do know that Jack Layton's response (reproduced in full here) doesn't really clear things up.

Readers of this blog might notice that I don't comment on polls all too often.  I do read polls, of course, and think they can incredibly useful.  But there are so many reasons to be cautious of what polls are saying.

So I usually don't say much about a poll unless there is some bit of news or information, not derived from a poll, that reinforces a polling result.

Such a tidbit has popped up today, reinforcing what I think to be one of the strangest, and yet most pleasing, polling results I've seen in while.  The Conservatives are trusted more than the Liberals when it comes to dealing with the environment.

NDP leader Jack Layton tells a heart-wrenching story about the man who had to box up the equipment he'd worked on for twenty years so that it could be shipped, along with his job, to China.

Um, yeah.  Barack Obama, the nominee for president for the Democratic Party, told the same story.

Exactly the same story.

The Liberal Party is facing an $8.5 million lawsuit from Green Shift Inc because of Stephane Dion's decision to call his carbon tax plan "The Green Shift".

The Liberal defense is that no one would ever get the two entities confused.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Wright, the head of Green Shift Inc, has filed for an injunction, arguing that in the spotlight of an election, the damage her firm is suffering from being associated and confused with the Liberal Party is going to accelerate.

So how does Stephane Dion help the situation?  He goes on and directs people to Jennifer Wright's website to find out more about his carbon tax because of a bad translation.

The Liberal Party is leasing a 30-year-old 737 as Stephane Dion's campaign plane.  It is, by far, the dirtiest aircraft used by the major parties.

But apparently any criticism is misguided.  See, the Liberal Party is buying carbon offsets.

Well then, that fixes the problem, doesn't it.

Doesn't it?

Stephane Dion seems to live in another world from the rest of Canadians.

He has no idea what a car pool is.  The man who wants us to believe that he knows the secret of how to lead Canada to an environmental Nirvana doesn't know what a carpool is.

Of course, he probably thinks Nirvana is reached through the yoga poses he practices every day.

I hope he's working on Shavasana.  The Corpse Pose will be very appropriate for Stephane Dion's political aspirations unless he figures out how to connect with real Canadians.

It's official.  The CEO of the Toronto Port Authority, Lisa Raitt, will be carrying the Conservative Party banner in Halton. She'll be running against Liberal MP Garth Turner.

No, not negative advertising.  It's about airplanes, and the stinky expensive gas-guzzler that the Liberals are barely able to get their hands on.

Ironically, forcing the Liberals to stop talking about what they call "The Green Shift", that is, Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan, might actually help the Liberals in the long term.

The carbon tax is turning into an albatross for the Liberals.

But over the short period of an election, the embarrassment of not being able to use the name they selected for their carbon tax would be a disaster.

Then again, Jennifer Wright's company, Green Shift Inc, is facing a branding disaster as an election looms.  As a result, she has filed for an injunction.

Bob Friesen was the head of the CFA, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

As such, he argued against Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's carbon tax as bad for farmers.

Now he has sold his farm, moved to a house in the suburbs, and announced his candidacy for the riding of Charleswood-St. James for the Liberal Party, without the need for a messy and expensive nomination race.

And the carbon tax?  Now Bob Friesen says it's good for farmers.  Funny how that worked out.

An official ad from the Conservative Party of Canada.

Liberals are praising Stephane Dion as someone who listened to "suggestions" about his proposed carbon tax, and then acted on those suggestions to make his carbon tax "stronger".

To others, however, it looked more like some Liberal MPs were furious that they could lose their seats unless concessions were made, and they forced Stephane Dion to make those concessions.

Hey, is anyone listening to what the truckers -- one those groups who complained loudest -- are saying.

They don't like the carbon tax, and the adjustment hasn't changed their minds.

Today Stephane Dion announced subsidies for farmers, fishermen, and truckers, as a way of offsetting the effect of a carbon tax.

So the natural question is whether Canadians can expect more changes.  According to Michael Ignatieff, there won't be any further changes.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has had to back down on a major portion of his carbon tax.  Faced with growing criticism from farmers, fishermen, and truckers, and the frustration of Liberal MPs who would lose votes from these groups, Stephane Dion is throwing money at the problem.

But not just money.  He's going to give farmers, fishermen, and truckers a subsidy that can only be applied to buy green equipment to replace existing equipment.  Which I'm willing to bet makes this an utterly useless subsidy.

Elizabeth Thompson of the Montreal Gazette has an amusing piece about how she caught one of the Conservative Party ads being shown during an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Silly Conservatives, says Elizabeth, kids can't vote.

Yes, Elizabeth, but SpongeBob-Canadians can.

An official ad from the Conservative Party of Canada.

An official ad from the Conservative Party of Canada.

Here is a primer for those of you who still don't understand how global warming works:

• The dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil.
• We drilled for oil, and used most of it to spray on ducks, and the rest we turned into carbon dioxide.
• Carbon dioxide is a hot gas, and it's making the Sun hotter, which is making the Earth hotter, which makes polar bears sweat, and that's a bad thing.
• To make the Earth cooler and make polar bears happy, Canadians will pay money to Stephane Dion, who will give all of it back.
• The exchange of money will cool the Earth (ok, this part is a bit vague).
• Farmers are worried that they won't get enough back after all of it is given back (clearly they are confused, because everyone is supposed to get all their money back, a process that results in global cooling in a way that is not entirely understood by non-Liberals).
• Liberals who are worried that farmers won't vote for them are complaining loudly, which is generating even more hot air (which warms the Sun and makes polar bears sweat even more, and that's a bad thing).
• Stephane Dion is going to change the plan by making the carbon tax even stronger, making farmers happy so that they stop bothering Liberals.
• This results in less hot air and comfortable polar bears.
• The happiness of farmers who might vote Liberal will cool the Earth (ok, this part is a bit vague too).

Remember, if you don't believe this science, David Suzuki is going to throw you in jail.

But perhaps you want know more details, minus the silliness.

The McGill Daily has published a Q&A page with the candidates in by-election in Westmount-Ville-Marie.

Only the Liberal candidate, Marc Garneau, appears with a minder.  Michael Ignatieff takes the first question and runs with it.

Steve V at Far and Wide has a brilliant analysis of the support for Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

I urge you to read it, top to bottom, then consider what it means.

Print reporters have to listen to the spoken word, and then render it in print for us to read later.

The rise of the Internet has done nothing to change that.

So why do I get the feeling that reporters are allowing their vocabularies to wither away?  They hear a rather obscure word (though not a rarely used one), and then substitute it with the wrong word entirely.

Nothing like a good storm to blame on global warming, Western industrialization, Church-sanctioned misogyny, and the Great Pumpkin.

But when that storm fizzles, you can almost taste the disappointment in the air.

Which is surprising, really.  if you think about it, global warming ought to reduce the intensity of hurricanes.

If you think about it.  But then who has time to think when there is all that fear-mongering to do?