News & Opinion Category Archive

Garry Oledzki was the Liberal Party candidate for Palliser in Saskatchewan.  Until yesterday, when he quit.

The report of his resignation was, well, cold.

Frigid even.

Even as Stephane Dion is making noises about a fall election (that could be as soon as six weeks from now), the Liberal Party has lost two candidates. 

Garry Oledzki in Saskatchewan and Robert "Bobby" Morrissy in PEI have both stepped down as candidates.

In the case of Bobby Morrissey, it might indeed be a problem selling Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion could not explain his carbon tax plan to his own aides.

There are a lot of questions that I suspect Stephane Dion will have trouble answering.  I've compiled my favourite 21 questions that I think every Liberal MP ought to be able to answer.

I was among many people who commented when Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay was quoted as saying that the effectiveness of Stephane Dion's carbon tax could not be predicted, or even measured after the fact.

Martha Hall Findlay wrote to me by way of response.  I've posted her note here in its entirety:

Liberal MP Garth Turner is very excited.  The most loyal of all Liberal MPs is hosting a town hall meeting for his hero, Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion. 

But what if no one shows up?

To make sure that doesn't happen (and so show that he can command a loyal following of Liberal voters) Garth Turner has sent out a mass mailing to encourage people to turn out for the meeting.

Here's the problem.  Pulling together various threads, I wonder if there is reason to believe Garth Turner has contravened the anti-spam rules of the US-based email marketing service he is using his effort to look make Stephane Dion look good.

A "resident" of Cornwall is very upset at the mailing he received from his Conservative MP, Guy Lauzon.

According to local resident Guy Tropper, the flyer is juvenile in its design, and shows how the Conservatives are not spending time dealing with global warming, the way the Liberals are.

Gee, this letter to the editor could have been written by someone in Liberal headquarters.

No wait, it was written by someone at Liberal headquarters.  Guy Tropper.

You might think I'm talking about Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's green credentials -- using a bicycle and such.

I'm not.

I'm talking about the Stephane Dion Election Cycle.

The David Suzuki Foundation gets roughed up badly by the Center for Media and Democracy Watch, the group that looks to expose spin and propaganda.

A report from an internal Foreign Affairs department investigation has concluded that Maxime Bernier was the victim in the events that led to his resignation from cabinet.

In my previous post, I looked at Liberal Party fundraising for the second quarter.  Not surprisingly, fundraising for the Liberals is flat.

But in looking over the numbers, I noticed something unexpected.  Several riding associations emptied out their banks accounts to move money to the Liberal Party.

Why?

Then someone reminded me of what the Liberals were doing.  The party had taken out a big loan in order to stay in operation, using the riding associations as collateral.

The second quarter returns of the major parties have been made available by Elections Canada.

The Liberals are the only major party that saw an increase in donations!

Yeah, but it was just a burp really. 

No surprise, but it seems clear that through the second quarter of this year, the Liberals still hadn't figured out how to squeeze any money from Canadians.

Note that the return covers a period to the end of June.  For all we know, the money is pouring in now, even as I type this.

But until we see those returns in 90 days, we can ponder a different mystery.

How did the riding association of Pierrefonds-Dollard get hold of $30,000 to transfer to the party?  No other transfer comes anywhere close to this.  It is half of all of last year's income for the riding association.

Very strange.

We have some details concerning the payback plans for the Liberal Party leadership contenders who have all been granted extensions to pay back their outstanding campaign loans.

Except Stephane Dion, whose plan is still under review.

But of the others, the details are, well, difficult to reconcile with reality.  As such, I can't imagine why the extensions were granted.

British Columbia has a carbon tax.

Quebec has a carbon tax.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion promises to inflict a carbon tax on Canadians if he ever becomes prime minister.

The obvious question -- how do these two levels of taxation interact -- is causing no end of confusion.

But really, there is no reason for confusion.  Stephane Dion has made it clear today that whether Canadians in some parts of the country will be required to pay two taxes is irrelevant to him.

He has the power to make every Canadian pay a price for everything they do, and he intends to use it.

As widely expected, Elections Canada has waved away the failure of Liberal leadership contenders to payback their leadership debts by granting extensions.

OK, let's be clear.  Extensions are often granted by Elections Canada to candidates who fail to hit the deadline.  Sure it looks like special treatment for the Liberals, but it is not as bad as all that.

But then, maybe it is.  The devil is in the details.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is touring the country trying to sell people on his plan for a carbon tax.

It's all about being more environmentally responsible.  You know.  Recycling and all that.

But does recycling news stories count as recycling?

Just how prevalent is the phrase "green shift"?

As we all know, Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is proposing a carbon tax, which he calls The Green Shift.  There is a company that has been in operation for years called Green Shift Inc that is suing the Liberals for using the name without permission.

But one is "Green Shift" and the other is "The Green Shift", or so argue Liberal Party apologists.

Perhaps it is a significant distinction, but only if the Liberals actually use it.  So what does it mean when Stephane Dion directs people to the website for Green Shift Inc, instead of the party's website for The Green Shift carbon tax?

To me it means that Green Shift Inc boss Jennifer Wright has a point when she says that the names are causing confusion, which is why she needs relief from the courts to force the Liberals to change the name and to pay for damages.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand explained that one of the reasons the Conservatives are being targeted for investigation is that candidates and their agents weren't able to recall details of the advertising spending.

Well, that's why we write things down on things like receipts.  So we don't have to remember.

But that's not good enough for Marc Mayrand.

Marc Mayrand holds these people to a higher standard when it comes to remembering details like these. 

Amusingly, it is not a standard he seems to be able to meet.  In fact he misses the mark by a wide margin -- actually by nearly $20 million!

I received an email this week from the Liberal Party.  I am being hit up for a donation in support of Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

So far, so good.

But let's say I'm one of the majority of Canadians who doesn't know about Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan.  The email helpfully offers to send me to the website for the plan where I can "learn more".

But instead, I am sent back to the donation page on the Liberal Party site, where I'm expected to cough up cash.

That's misleading.  Even a bit spammy.

Stephane Dion gets a rough ride while on the road...from his own nominee!

Yet again, Liberals are undermining Stephane Dion's attempt to sell his carbon tax plan (aka The Green Shift) to Canadians.

This time, we have Liberal nominee Gerry Samson in Stormont-Dundas-South-Glengarry admitting, on the record, with Stephane Dion in the room, that Samson can't get local residents to believe him when he tells them that they will benefit from Stephane Dion's new tax.

Well, one guy in the audience loved the idea of the carbon tax.  But then as it turns out, he's a local Liberal Party riding association activist (ed. actually a director and a member of the riding association executive).  Of course, that wasn't mentioned in the media report.  He's described as just a local resident who was really impressed with Stephane Dion.

Can Stephane Dion sell the carbon tax?

The question is misleading.

The real question is this.

Can Stephane Dion sell the carbon tax without alienating everyone around him?

Stephane Dion is mistaken for a popular local politician.  When the mistake is corrected, enthusiasm for being in such close proximity to that carbon tax guy drops dramatically.

Hey, it's just an anecdote, so don't read to much into it.  But it is funny.

What's more interesting, though, is that the story became ammunition in a Liberal-versus-Liberal infighting.

Is Saskatchewan going to hurt badly by Stephane Dion's carbon tax?  Well, Stephane Dion admitted as much, but Liberal MP Ralph Goodale has taken the time to explain this more clearly. 

Don't worry, he says.

Almost all the oil taken out of the ground in Saskatchewan will be consumed and turned into carbon dioxide emissions without a dime of tax being applied.

Oil company profits are safe!

You might wonder how this helps the environment.  On the other hand, you might have stopped asking that question after Liberal MPs Ken Boshcoff and Martha Hall Findlay have already explained that no one expects any actual environmental benefit from the carbon tax.

Is it time for the government to get involved in the ongoing labour dispute at Air Canada?  With the troubles plaguing the airline, this is one issue that could be resolved.  And ought to be.

Yesterday I wrote that the story of Blair Wilson was coming to a close.  I think that's likely to be true, but today I have to point out the Blair Wilson is putting up what might be a last minute fight.

Part of that is what might be an attempt to alter the understanding of what started the Elections Canada investigation in the first place.

Blair Wilson had admitted to violations of the Elections Act, but there will be no prosecution.  It is also likely that there will be no seat for Blair Wilson once this parliament rises for the last time.

Seventeen boxes of sensitive Conservative material related to the In-and-Out affair being removed from Conservative Party headquarters by grim-looking Elections Canada officials.

The images from last April were quite powerful.

Would you like an update?  Well, for one thing, the boxes didn't leave the building, at least not until the relevancy of the seize material was determined.

And that determination was that over 85% of the material had nothing to do with the question of advertising financing in the 2006 election.  That material has been returned, but without a phalanx of cameras recording the march back into Conservative Party headquarters.

And the rest?  Virtually all of it was material Elections Canada already had.

Makes you wonder just what the point of all this was.  Just to put on a good show for the cameras?

Some strong language from Jennifer Wright, the head of Green Shift Inc, the company suing the Liberal Party over the use of the name "Green Shift".

One of the stories that has gone dormant for almost a year is the case of the murder Yasmin Ashareh.

Well, it was come back with a vengeance.

A disturbing report from Toronto Police.  And I'm surprised at the amount of detail they're releasing.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion was in Guelph this past week.

It was not an impressive performance.

More news from the saga of the Cadman tape.

According to the headlines, a third expert is contradicting the claims made by two other experts that the tape misrepresents a conversation between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and reporter Tom Zytaruk.

The headline is an attention grabber, but the the truth is that the third expert is not willing to come to the same conclusion has the first two experts without access to the original tape and the original recording equipment, something Tom Zytaruk is not willing to grant.  He does say that there are irregularities in the recording though.

Not actually a contradiction as I read it.

Liberal Party MP Martha Hall Findlay talks about Stephane Dion's plan for a carbon tax.  The carbon tax will save the planet, right?  We'll be encouraged to consume less energy, right?

According to Findlay, there's no way to really know, or to be sure if it's really working.

Still, that's no reason not to impose a tax on Canadians.

Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff has let the cat out of the bag.  Apparently Stephane Dion's carbon tax program is just a big vacuum designed to suck money out of Alberta, pass it through  Liberal government social programs, and put it in the pockets of whomever the Liberals deem worthy of receiving the cash.

The whole "environmental" thing is just words slapped on to make the tax grab more palatable.  That's called "greenwashing".

You know, this just makes Jennifer Wright's argument that her company is being damaged by the Liberals lifting the name "Green Shift" all the more compelling.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's legal team wants to make Tom Zytaruk answer some very particular questions while under oath.

In what has to be one of the most tasteless displays from the Liberal Party, this "joke" appearing in the official newsletter of the St Catharines Federal Liberal Association makes light of the deliberate murder of Stephen Harper and his wife, as discussed by schoolchildren.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has filed a $3.5 million lawsuit against the Liberal Party.  The suit stems from allegations made by the Liberal Party via their website through two so-called news stories that Stephen Harper knew of and condoned an attempt to bribe independent MP Chuck Cadman just before a crucial confidence vote in 2005.

I just checked, and you can't get to those two stories via the Liberal Party website.

Are the Liberals trying to quietly hide the stories?  Perhaps as a prelude to a settlement?

If so, they need to do a better job.  I can still get to those stories via their policy forum.

Update: The navigation is back, and the stories are accessible again through the Liberal Party website.

Stephane Dion and the Liberals ignored a cease-and-desist letter from Jennifer Wright of Green Shift Inc., over the use of the name "Green Shift" to describe the Liberal carbon tax.

As a result, the Liberals are about to get sued.  We don't know by how much, but it'll be over $2 million.

And this despite Garth Turner's veiled threat to dig around her private life if she went ahead with the lawsuit.

Stephane Dion is trying to convince an interesting cross-section of people that his carbon tax is a good idea.

These people aren't interested in taxes though.   They want Stephane Dion to shut down the oilsands completely.

When Paul Cheema, the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, Shemina Hirji, was found dead of a suicide, the story was essentially wrapped up.

Nevertheless, a lot of people seemed to think that Cheema was hounded by police who had no other suspects and so defaulted to the husband.

Not too long ago I spotted a news story that revealed why the police were interested in Cheema from the start.  It wasn't widely reported.

Garth Turner, Liberal MP and alleged communications guru, has gotten into trouble.

Again.

This time he has called Quebeckers and Albertans who are worried about their livelihoods and their futures losers.

As a result, he's been chewed out in a big way.  Does that make him the real loser?

Yes, but perhaps surprisingly, not the biggest loser in this story.

A reader on another blog asks what exactly earned the Liberals the charge of committing misappropriation the personality.  That allegation was combined with an increase by $1 million in the damages sought by Stephen Harper in his lawsuit against the Liberal Party.  The original lawsuit was tied to Liberal Party accusations that Stephen Harper had known and condoned illegal activities regarding the late MP Chuck Cadman, in particular, an attempt to bribe Cadman with an insurance policy.

I guess the basis of the misappropriation of personality charge is not widely known, so let me help explain.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is prepared to tax the oil operations of Alberta and Saskatchewan, to punish them for being the source of so much carbon dioxide that is wrecking the planet.

Kyoto (the protocol, not Stephane Dion's dog) demands it.

It makes no such demand of countries like India. 

It doesn't seem fair, at first glance.  Take a deeper look, and it's grossly unfair.

And I mean gross.

It wasn't too long ago when David Suzuki was urging young people to find ways to imprison politicians who don't interpret scientific evidence in the same way Suzuki does.

With polls showing a majority of people in British Columbia are against the provincial carbon tax, Suzuki has tried to play it a bit more casually.

The problem is that he comes off as nervous.  Like he's worried that the crowds aren't listening to him anymore.

Stephane Dion and the Liberals are looking more and more like the classic Liberal Party of years past, playing region against region based on vote potential.

In a remarkable story from the Canadian Press, we learn that Stephane Dion and the Liberals have been inspired by Kevin Rudd's success in winning the November 2007 general election in Australia based in part on a platform that included a carbon tax.

Really, that can't possible be true, can it?  I mean, has anyone noticed how much has changed since last November, and what next November is shaping up to be like?

I don't have a simplistic computer model to use to predict the future.  I leave that sort of "science" to the global warming nutters.

But there are hints of what is coming.  I'm afraid it'll be loud and incessant.

Digg led the way with user-submitted stories and user voting.  But I have never been satisfied with Digg.  It had no focus, with people submitting stories from every possible area of interest.  That has led to issues with political stories.  People would vote stories up and down not based on the intrinsic value of the story, but rather with a goal of eliminating stories of either the left or right.

There is a new player in the user submission field.  It is called Skewz, and it focuses entirely on political stories.  Better yet, you're supposed to vote on whether a story skews to the left or to the right, not on whether you should read it.

One thing that has been puzzling more and more is the way Stephane Dion speaks of his carbon tax changing people's behavior with regards to using energy, while his actual plan seems to be predicated on no change in behavior at all.

Then, after chatting with a newspaper columnist acquaintance of mine, it hit me.  Stephane Dion is boiling the frog.

Why didn't I see it before?

I wrote a post recently in which I tried to understand just how much the carbon tax being proposed by Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion would reduce emissions.  In his plan, he predicts $15 billion in revenue from a tax of $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions paid on fuels.

After struggling with the numbers, and a couple of false starts, I came to the conclusion that the emissions predicted in Year 4 of Stephane Dion's new tax regime are not any different from the emissions today.

I thought that odd, but then maybe it was reasonable.  Perhaps Stephane Dion figures that four years is not enough time to see the effect of a new universal tax on energy.  It takes time for factories to shut down and move to Mexico.

But in an interview with the editorial board of Sun Media, Stephane Dion says there will be large reductions by 2012 (the impilicit assumption being that he can implement a tax in 2009).

That doesn't make sense. 

I swing between amusement and frustration when I read comments from well-meaning environmentalist types who think that if all bought electric cars, we wouldn't need oil.

It belies a fundamental ignorance of how the world works, and makes me nervous about these people ever being in charge.

In particular, I'm looking at a comment on the Liberal Party discussion board, in which the person posting says the world will be so different in 10 years when we stop using petroleum to power transportation having switched to electricity.

I shake my head.  What did they teach these people in science class in high school?

This situation that has developed over the name "Green Shift" is not as amusing as it seemed to be at first.  The name "Green Shift" is a trademark, and the Liberal Party lifted it in an attempt to make Stephane Dion's carbon tax seem more palatable.

But the company that owns the trademark is mad, and is planning to sue.

They should sue.  In fact, they have to.

Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan promises to apply a tariff against the carbon content of imported goods.

As with everything else in the carbon tax plan, there are no details, just promises that Canada would benefit.  Ignore that.  like everything else in the carbon tax plan, it's nonsense.  When you actually think about what the tariff could mean, it's clear that Canadians would suffer.

And like everything else in the carbon tax plan, it will do nothing to limit emissions.

Peter Duffy, writing in The Chronicle Herald, suggests that keeping the runways at Halifax's international airport in good condition is a waste of time.  Fuel prices means fewer flights.

What's the point of having an airport?

If Stephane Dion gets to implement his carbon tax, I wonder just what else we can just throw away as being unnecessary.

Now that Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has unveiled his carbon tax, it might be interesting to gauge reaction from his own people.

If Guelph Liberal Party candidate Frank Valeriote remains consistent with his previously stated positions, he won't like it.

This is just a quickie post about how Stephane Dion's signature on the Liberal Party carbon tax handbook is a lifted image from another copy of his signature, but altered.

Before anyone says it, this post is about nothing at all significant, or perhaps even that interesting.  Just something I noticed.

Welcome to the newest Blogging Tory, The Grumpy Voter.

OK, I've got a question.  Where the heck did Stephane Dion get his numbers for Canadian fuel consumption?

I'm trying to see where his numbers come from, and they seem way too high.

Update: No wait, I forgot to factor for the increase in weight for carbon dioxide.  That makes the numbers work.

Update: No wait, the numbers have a problem after all.  I successfully showed that the 2007 fuel consumption rates match up with the carbon tax revenues predicted by the Liberals in Year 4 of the plan.  But that's not right either.  The whole point is that fuel usage would drop.  Why aren't they dropping?  What's the point of this tax?  Just to raise money?

[This is a reposted version of the first post, now deleted.]

Remember when Prime Minister Stephen Harper cut the GST by a whopping 28%?

Good times.  Good times.

Of course, it was reported as a 2% tax cut, from 7% to 5% in two separate steps, not as a 28% cut, which is the percentage difference between 7% and 5%.

Now that might seem more honest, but then why is a 1.5% income tax cut proposed by Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion as part of his carbon tax package being reported as a 10% cut?

A trusted source in Ottawa has flipped me some details about the planned launch of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

Apparently it will be a "man of the people" video.

In Barrie, Colleen Leduc was put through a nightmare.  Allegations were made that her daughter, Victoria, was being abused by a man aged 23 to 26.  The Children's Aid Society is investigating.

Who was this man?  The psychic who told the teacher to be only the lookout for an abused child whose name started with "V" was not that specific.

What the...?!  A psychic?

The carbon tax announcement is coming.  All questions will be answered.  Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion will make it all clear.

Well, I have a question.  Am I going to be taxed on the tax?

The Globe and Mail is running a story on how Elections Canada tried to manage the story of the "raid" on Conservative Party headquarters.  But as an interesting side note, there is correspondence concerning the nature of legal privilege.

It seems to be far less strict than I thought, at least according to the General Counsel at Elections Canada.

With so much of the planet's technology based on crude oil, it seems pointless to think about getting off oil.  That's just a fact.  The real solution to rising oil prices is more supply, and there is always buzz around artificially creating oil using microorganisms.  Of course, the devil is in the details. 

Not the little details, but the really big ones.

Details are emerging about Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

As suspected, it is not a tax designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  If it was, then I would expect the tax to go away once emission goals were met.  Instead, it is shaping up to be just another tax designed to raise money for Liberal social spending.

And I thought it was going to be different this time.

The Liberal Party has sent out an email soliciting funds to support an advertising campaign to promote Stephane Dion's carbon tax.  But the odd thing is that the email says that the amount donated is not important.  The Liberal Party just wants your information.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre is in a pickle.  It's of his own making because he doesn't have my training as an engineer.  But then the Liberal research bureau has been helping things along too.

Still, the reaction of the media is interesting.

Update: After posting this, Pierre Poilievre has apologized on the floor of the House of Commons.

Apparently, the great carbon tax plan of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is, well, just a lot of hot air.  A report today says that basic questions remain unanswered, and the rollout of the plan is being delayed week after week as Liberals try to define a plan to meet the goals stated publicly by Stephane Dion.

Goals that weren't actually backed by a plan.

But if that is true, then why is Liberal MP Garth Turner making statements that he has seen the details?

Stephane Dion led the Liberals into not stopping an immigration bill that they resolutely oppose.

Why?

The answer is so funny when you think about.

What we've all been waiting for -- the definitive explanation of just how Stephane Dion's carbon tax is going to work.

Garth Turner, the Liberal MP who has suffered oh-so-much for being one of the few truly loyal Liberals supporting Stephane Dion, has blinked.

Yes, he has blinked.

Stephane Dion says no election -- spend the summer explaining to Canadians that they need to pay yet more taxes with his Carbon Tax.

Is Garth Turner behind his leader on this one?  Hold off on the carbon tax, says Garth Turner.  It's not the right time, pleads Garth Turner.  I'm swamped with people who hate the idea, complains Garth Turner.

*Blink*

The Conservatives have launched a new ad campaign with www.willyoubetricked.ca, also known as The Dion Tax Trick.

It aims at the heart of the matter.  Stephane's "green shift" (his latest name for his plan after the more accurate "Really Big Tax on Everything" stunk in focus groups) is neither green nor a shift.

This is not propaganda or speculation.  It's common sense.

The Conservatives have launched a new ad campaign with www.willyoubetricked.ca, also known as The Dion Tax Trick.

It aims at the heart of the matter.  Stephane's "green shift" (his latest name for his plan after the more accurate "Really Big Tax on Everything" stunk in focus groups) is neither green nor a shift.

This is not propaganda or speculation.  It's common sense.

The rumbling out of Ottawa is about secret Liberal Party meetings.  As always, we know who was at the meeting and what was said.

Note to self: Send this link to every Liberal MP.

Apparently, meetings have been held, and more meetings will be held, in which the topic of discussion was one thing: how to get Stephane Dion to force an election.

There is a window of opportunity, Liberals are saying.  Of course, there is.  But no Liberal will find an election win by going through that window.

Stephane Dion knows it, and that's why he's dead set against an election right now.

Liberal Party candidate Linda Schwey is planning to give away tens of thousands of seed packets during the next election.

Seeds cost money.  Doesn't that count as election spending?

I'm surprised by the confusion surrounding the alleged doctoring of the taped interview between Tom Zytaruk and Stephen Harper in 2005, discussing efforts by Conservatives to have Chuck Cadman rejoin the Tories.

The Liberals chant, Explain the tape!

What about the doctoring?  Piffle, say Liberals, it's just the sound of the recorder being turned off and on at inconsequential moments.

Clearly these people have not taken the time to review the evidence submitted by the audio experts.

The latest data from Elections Canada regarding contracts has been disclosed today.  I've been looking forward to seeing it in order to determine if investigators Andre Thouin and Raymond Lamothe are actually working for Elections Canada.

And yet with data covering a period ending a mere nine days before the search warrant was signed off by Raymond Lamothe, I still can't find where he was rehired by Elections Canada after his initial contract ran out in March of 2007.  The same goes for fellow investigator Andre Thouin, who collected the evidence on April 15.

The analysis of the Cadman tape is pretty damning.  So much so that Tom Zytaruk himself is putting some distance between himself and the tape.  He tries to draw a distinction between his original tape in his safe, and the digital copy on the Liberal website.  Zytaruk points out, rather reasonably, that he can't control what people do with digital recordings that they put on the website.

Zytaruk is not directly accusing the Liberals of doctoring the tape, but he certainly sounds like he would prefer that questions be aimed in that direction.

The Chuck Cadman story takes another strange turn.  The question of whether the Conservatives offered some sort of bribe to Chuck Cadman in 2005 to rejoin the Conservatives and bring down Paul Martin's government has already been put to rest with the RCMP reporting "no evidence" to support such an allegation.

But there is still the matter of the lawsuit filed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper against the Liberal Party for having published statements on the website to the effect that Stephen Harper knew of a bribe.

Part of the lawsuit hinged on a tape recording, a tape recording that the Conservatives now say has been doctored.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion had eighteen months to pay of his debts left over from his leadership bid.  He has failed to in a rather spectacular manner.  Of the original debt of $800,000, he has $600,000 to go.

Now Stephane Dion has to face the legal ramifications.  Unless he can convince Elections Canada that he has a really good excuse -- like he didn't know it was due today, or something like that.

Conservative Environment Minister John Baird has some issues with the proposed Ontario-Quebec cap-and-trade system.  But did he really sneer?

The news staff at CTV thought so at 1:47pm today.  Thirteen minutes later the news staff thought otherwise.

The reaction of the government to a proposed cap-and-trade system being set up between Ontario and Quebec seems short-sighted to me.  Isn't there a way to make this work in a way that everyone wins?

Let's say that for political reasons, there is going to be some sort of carbon pricing regime.  Maybe we'll do it to combat global warming which is stupid because:

• The planet isn't warming.
• The planet is warming, but it has nothing to do with man-made emissions.
• The planet is warming, but Canada's 2% contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is negligible, and a 10% cut, or a 20% cut, or a 50% cut, or even a 100% cut in a negligible contribution is a negligible improvement.

But hey, it wouldn't be the first time things are done for stupid reasons.  Heck, stupid reasons notwithstanding, carbon pricing might still be a good thing to do, for some good reasons:

• Pollution is bad, and assuming a correlation between greenhouse gas emissions (probably harmless) and other sorts of emissions (certainly nasty) is a strong one, then cutting back on carbon emissions means cutting back on other forms of real pollution.
• Energy efficiency is good, and carbon usage as a function of GNP might be considered a measure of efficiency, one that can be shifted in the more efficient direction.
• Maybe there's a way to make money from this.

And then there is the most important reason of all:

• Despite the best efforts of better informed members of society, the majority has drunk deeply of the global warming Kool-Aid, and demand something be done, even if it makes no good sense at all.

One particular carbon pricing scheme has always made more sense to me.  If we need to do this thing, let's at least do it right.  Or at least as right as is possible to do something that is intrinsically ridiculous.

I received an email from Michael Ignatieff's fundraising operation.  It was remarkable for its stark simplicity as well as the timing.

The Green Party of Canada is accepting hundreds of dollars in donations from anonymous donors.  We don't know if these are people who have already reached their donation limits, or if these are donations from corporations or unions, or if these donations are actually from Canadians instead of from environmental activists from beyond our borders.

It matters because in any of these cases, the donations would be illegal.  Which is why anonymous donations are illegal in the first place.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May seems to lack the most basic ability all successful politicians have to pause in order to consider her words carefully, and then answer a question without offending people or making light of a serious subject.

In an interview with the Guelph Mercury editorial board, Elizabeth May says she was close to slitting her wrists after listening to the leader's debate during the last election, finding the politicians remarks too well packaged.

The editorial board was taken aback by Elizabeth May's flippant reference to suicide, and as a result, Elizabeth May spoiled an opportunity to deliver the Green Party message.

It makes me wonder just why the Green Party puts up with her.  It isn't the first time this has happened.