Angry in the Great White North

Where the hell have you been?!

I guess I was on sabbatical, but it was totally unplanned.  Work had gotten super crazy busy (and still is), but the real reason is that the news had gotten boring, or silly, or both.

Poll-wise, we're still at the point where the Conservatives are poised to benefit from the economic recovery that has truly started, while the Liberals are facing the growing realization that Michael Ignatieff might have missed the best chance to force an election.  We've been poised here for several weeks now.  The numbers show Canadians split between the two parties, just about down the middle, waiting to break one way or the other, likely driven by economic circumstances.

Michael Jackson is dead.  OK, sure, the world seems a bit brighter now that that freak show has moonwalked off this mortal coil, but beyond that, I have little else to say about that squeaky-sounding public self-groper.

Stephen Harper is not a Catholic and is not familiar with Catholic ritual.  That's news?  I mean, who doesn't know that?  And for that matter, how many Catholics are familiar with the intricacies of mystery of the Eucharist?  Get a hundred Catholics in a room and ask them about how the substance of the wine and bread change even though the accidents do not, and you'll get one hundred blank stares.

Money for gay pride parades?  Given money and people will hate you.  Don't give money and people will hate you.  Maybe we shouldn't be giving money to anyone.  There, that's fair.

Stephen Harper apologizing for trashing Michael Ignatieff over something Ignatieff never said?  Embarrassing, and suggestive that the PMO should adopt a rule I use for blogging -- wait for 24 hours!  If it's real news, it'll still be there, but if it isn't, you've avoided looking foolish.  Again, just common sense, not news.

Swine flu?  That stopped being news ages ago.  But the panic mongers are still at it.

Speaking of panic mongers, how is that global warming thing going?  It's the end of July, and I feel like wearing a jacket.  It's freaking cold out there!

So if I haven't been blogging, part of it is that there is nothing much to blog about.  I mean, the news is just downright stupid right now. 

Except for news coming out of Jason Kenney's office.  That guy is absolutely dependable when it comes to dealing with important issues in a serious manner.

In this case, I'm talking about the visa requirements for Czechs and Mexicans:

Statistics show that in 2008, some 3,000 people from the Czech Republic applied to be refugees in Canada, compared to just 78 in 2007.The numbers shot up after Canada removed the visa requirement for Czechs in late 2007. Kenney's announcement this week entails a necessary restoration of the visa requirement, not a new imposition of it. 

The statistics for Mexico are just as bad.  Since 2005, the number of refugee claims have tripled, with 90% of the claims ultimately rejected.  But since without visas, these specious claimants could enter the country before making a claim, Canadian authorities had to pay for their stay, then find them to deport them (a difficult proposition given that these claimants would go to ground as soon as they got wind that they would compelled to go home).

With visas, the bad claims will drop dramatically.  The $150 fee will eliminate a large number of people who are not visiting Canada for legitimate reasons, and the interview process to earn a visa will take care of most of the rest.

Canada has a sovereign state with the right to manage its borders as it sees fit.

With Jason Kenney in charge, that means the border has real meaning, and is not merely a line on a map where the colour changes.  And for some people, that means it's a wall, and the door is locked.

Maybe some Canadians don't like that. But the overwhelming majority do.  And that shows how the Conservatives can still connect with Canadians on real issues, in a way that the Liberals cannot.

Well, maybe Michael Ignatieff can, but then he's not really a Liberal, and in any case, if he goes with his instincts and supports strong Canadian borders that keep refugees at arms length, he'll get a lot of grief from the party he allegedly leads.  The same way he did when he supported the Conservative crime bill.

So even politically, these moves are pure gold.  They make sense, Canadians support them, and they potentially pit crypto-conservative Michael Ignatieff against the rest of the Liberal Party.

Now maybe this visa story is a bit stale, but like I said, I've been busy elsewhere.  I expect to start blogging regularly again, either now or in a few days (still some work left in this big push we're on), but it will depend on the news.

But thank God for Jason Kenney!  If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be posting anything right now.