Eve Adams and her shampoo
June 12, 2013
One of the cleverer bits we’ve seen lately from the Conservatives is the recent Michael Jackson-like dangling of Eve Adams off the balcony over the bus lane. The issue of $2700 in questionable grooming expenses during her 2011 campaign has set the media hounds off after another case of Conservative malfeasance, only to run into luscious visuals and a highly sympathetic Ms Adams who in fact spent most of the questioned funds on sitters for her 8 year-old son during long days of campaigning. She also claims to have bought soap and mouthwash for her volunteers.
Eve Adams is no Mike Duffy, and she is certainly no Bev Oda. No doubt viewers will be happy for the Adams thing to fill TV screens for a while, just because viewers will enjoy this pleasant distraction as an alternative to the ugly, less well-groomed faces we usually get to watch.
But the Eve Adams trail is a false scent. It’s time for their editors to head the hounds off and get them back to work.
The Shelly Glover thing: enough, already!
June 11, 2013
Shelly Glover is supposed to be suspended from her position of Member of Parliament for a clear election rules violation. So the Conservatives stall the suspension with the help of a compliant Speaker. Fine, a bit of foot-dragging, but little real harm if she keeps her head down.
But then in her legally crippled state, Nicholson puts her on the selection committee for a Supreme Court Judge? That task is the most sensitive choice a government must make, and Harper has the sheer effrontery to stick a defrocked M.P. (who may face jail time or loss of her position) on the panel to rub our faces in his excrement??? I felt physically ill when I realized the sheer contempt for the traditions and even the law of Canada these guys feel.
Harper and his caucus have gone way past the pale of civil interaction with those outside their tribe. All that matters now is that the hubris of the Leader be accommodated by everyone, at all costs.
With Glover in her current state of judicial limbo, anybody who would put her on this committee (to choose the very Justice who may well decide her fate as an M.P.) does not deserve to govern Canada. This has to end.
Harper’s credibility has snapped like a dry twig.
May 21, 2013
With yesterday’s insufferable speech to the Conservative caucus Stephen Harper’s credibility has snapped like a dry twig. But can anyone imagine him stepping down for the good of the party?
I watched a bit of Question Period on CPAC. John Baird seemed to have a lot of fun deflecting Opposition attacks on the clearly indefensible subject of Duffygate. Likely he was reciting the Kipling poem If to himself while smiling his way through the single talking point.
After Harper’s weak response to the senate scandal and absence from the House on a critical day, Baird may see his opening.*
How did they dump Margaret Thatcher, anyway?
It just looks as though John Baird, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair might make for an interesting race in 2015.
UPDATE, May 24, 2013
Maybe Baird isn’t the one. His hilarious slip of tongue has gone viral on You Tube, carrying with it a miasma of other clips which make the guy out to be a bully and a cad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=isxADTDdRBY
Mike Duffy
May 17, 2013
Quite a few comments in the many articles on National Newswatch today are calling for an RCMP investigation of Duffy’s corruption and the Senate and the PMO in general. But we have to remember that the RCMP is hardly a neutral observer of the Harper Government. Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli set the tone for the relationship with Harper in a raid on the offices of Paul Martin’s Minister of Finance during the closing days of the election campaign in 2006. The raid produced nothing, but the electoral tide was turned when, fearing another sponsorship scandal, Canadian voters turned en masse away from Martin’s Liberals.
Duffy’s tactical contribution to the 2008 campaign was in picking deleted tape of an interview with Stephane Dion off the cutting room floor and showing it on CTV. The interviewer had promised Dion the out-takes would not be shown, but Duffy saw his opportunity to destroy Dion’s credibility, and he took it. A grateful Harper rewarded Duffy with a senate seat for the betrayal.
This CBC panel is too good to miss. Jennifer Ditchburn, one of the finest of the new generation of Ottawa investigative journalists, gets her chance.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/At+Issue/ID/2385688013/
Kent caves in on Lockage Fees
May 14, 2013
UPDATE: It’s important to note the careful wording of this press release. Lockage fees are indeed frozen until after the election. All other fees have remained at the originally announced rates, though, including daytime docking fees at locks and overnight mooring rates.
Margaret Brand of the Review-Mirror forwarded me an article in which Peter Kent’s department proudly reverses the Parks Canada fee schedule back to 2008 figures for the next three years. I’ll find a link, but it’s likely all over the Internet by now.
The document Margaret copied to me appears to be a press release, so I’ll drop it below:
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Harper Government freezes recreational lockage fees for three years
Parks Canada to work with stakeholders to identify long term sustainability solutions for the historic canals
OTTAWA, May 14, 2013 /CNW/ – The Honourable Peter Kent, Canada’s Environment Minister and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, today announced that recreational lockage fees along Canada’s historic canals will remain frozen for the next three years at 2008 levels.
“Since the beginning of our consultation process on canal fees, we have been committed to listening and acting in the best interests of the residents who live, work and visit our canals,” said Minister Kent. “We recognize the importance of canals to Canada’s heritage, the tourism industry and the thousands of people who use them each year. That is why following consultations with Government Members of Caucus who live along the canals, I am pleased to announce that Parks Canada will freeze lockage fees for three years.”
“During this time, Parks Canada and I will work with local Members of Parliament, community leaders and the tourism industry to develop and implement an improved operating model to ensure the long term financial sustainability of the canals operations. These long term solutions will need to address all aspects of the canals operations.”
As part of the long-term financial sustainability of the canals operations, Parks Canada is already considering new visitor opportunities that will benefit a broad range of canals users, and create new sources of revenue, all while maintaining support for our tourism operators and industry.
SOURCE: Parks Canada
For further information:
Office of the Minister of the Environment
819-997-1441
Media Relations
Parks Canada 819-953-8371
http://www.twitter.com/parkscanada
Stardust, cyber-bullying, and newly-found efficiency
April 26, 2013
Jennifer Ditchburn’s CP story this morning delineating the homophobic subtext in the posters set to be sent out by Conservative MPs to their constituents made it clear that it was time for me to get the charge card out again. So $50 went off to Justin. Interestingly, the once-creaky Liberal Party machinery worked very smoothly this time. Boom. Correct data on the splash screen already there. Pump in the amount and the card number. Thanks. Bye.
According to pundits Trudeau’s most daunting task over the next two years will be the update of the LPC’s archaic organization. This latest online encounter was the first time I have ever dealt with the Liberal Party of Canada that I was impressed by their efficiency.
I doubled the amount of the contribution out of resentment of the hypocrisy of the publicly-funded mail-out campaign to begin June 1: how can Harper meet with the parents of a girl who was harassed to death and take a public stand against cyber-bullying, yet praise the content of these deeply personal attacks upon an opponent? And if it isn’t bullying to get all of the other MPs to gang up on the intended victim in this attack, what is it?
I said a month ago in a post that Justin and Sophie will slay Stephen Harper on the campaign trail just because of their teamwork and sex appeal. Face it: manly men look up to someone who is getting more sex than they are. That’s just the way it is, Steve. Justin has a lock on this with Sophie and his kids. Sprinkling fairy dust around a picture is just going to make people mad at you and grease the Liberal fundraising machine.
And now the ten percenter’s
April 24, 2013
Reporter Glen McGregor just broke a story that the Conservative Resource Group is circulating a pair of mock-ups for 10 percenter ads to Conservative MPs for distribution in their ridings. The circulars take their cue from the Conservative attack ads directed against Justin Trudeau.
According to the leaked copy McGregor posted, all the MPs have to do to ensure the delivery of these attacks on the new Liberal leader to households in their federal ridings is to initial the space and identify the name of the riding’s signing officer.
For $174 for 40,000 households, Conservative MPs will no doubt see this as a bargain in comparison to conventional TV ad buys.
Of course the MPs’ budgets come from taxes, not from political contributions, so they would be funding attacks upon a political rival with public funds. This is nothing new for this government, of course.
Another sort of attack ad
April 21, 2013
This one is directed at the Conservative government for its stripping of environmental legislation. It seems violent and unfair, as attack ads tend to do.
http://globalnews.ca/news/498701/psac-ads-attacking-conservatives-serve-as-wake-up-call/
According to The Canadian Press, I’m far from the only grouchy old white guy who is put off by attack ads.
Rod
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Unintended consequences: Tory attack ads fuel donations to Liberal party
By: The Canadian Press
Posted: 3:22 PM | Comments: 2 | Last Modified: 3:56 PM
OTTAWA – Conservative attack ads against Justin Trudeau have turned into a financial boon for the Liberal party.
The party raised $336,000 in the 48 hours following Trudeau’s landslide victory in the Liberal leadership race Sunday.
Officials say that’s more than double the party’s previous top haul for an e-mail fundraising campaign.
They say the donations poured in after two back-to-back mass email solicitations that urged Liberals to fight back against Conservative attacks.
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Allison Cross
17 April, 2013
The National Post
Donations to liver foundation surge after Tories’ ‘striptease’ attack ad against Trudeau
the Walnut Diary 