Where did the stimulus funds go in Leeds-Grenville?
April 13, 2011
Mark King, legislative assistant to Leeds-Grenville MP Gord Brown, sent along the following list in response to my request for details of the expenditures under the Economic Stimulus Package of the last two years. Burnbrae is a large egg producer. The provincial government kicked in $.9 million as well to the purchase of egg processing equipment. If you look on Google Earth for the North Grenville Public Library you find a photo of a parking lot. 4 million dollars later, Kemptville has a lovely library.
Your tax dollars at work.
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Here are the major infrastructure projects.
Over $100 million is all in feds, province and municipality.
Most of these are three way funding and this shows our numbers only unless otherwise indicated.
$23 million in 09 budget – leveraged to $69 million
$33 million wharf replacement at Port of Prescott ($11.6 from feds)
$5.694 million Maritime Discovery Center
$4.9 million Merrickville Sewage Plant
$1.55 million storm water project Leeds and 1000 islands
$133,333 Rideau Lakes Golf Club Road
$200,417 North Grenville Roundabout
$66,667 Westport waterworks
09 Further and 10
$60,000 Herbert Street Extension Study – Gan
$60,000 Textron Building repurposing – Gan
$50,000 Heritage Ciultural Branding – Gan
$4 million – North Grenville Library
$1.8 million – Boundary Road rebuilt North Grenville
$635,000 North Augusta Firehall
$222,000 Elizabethtown-Kitley industrial park access road
$23 million Brockville water pollution control
$2.3 million – Brock Street Gan
$4.4 million Cty Rds 2 and 5
$1.1 million sewer separation in Brockville
$45,000 Charleston lake Provincial Park improvements
$50,000 Prescott Tank Insulation
$73,333 Prescott Gravity Sewer
$38,333 Prescott Water system asbestos removal
RINC $1,055,161 million across LG
$217,223 – Memorial Centre
$210,000 – Youth Arena
$38,115 – Brockville Rowing Club
$8,667 – Brockville District Baseball Association
$325,000 – Gan Arena
$63,603 – Pool in Prescott upgrades
$45,833 – Eliz Kitley – washroom and other park upgrades
$23,333 Eliz-Kitley – Clifford Hall restoration
$51,637 – Rideau lakes – Kin Park restoration
$20,640 – Rideau lakes – day camp
$8,700 – Rideau lakes – Delta Rec Center
$11,797 – Rideau lakes – main service centre renos
$10,267 – Augusta – tennis courts renos
$61,250 – North Grenville curling club roof
FedDev
$489,000 – electronics refurbishing facility in Brockville
$72,274 Rideau Valley Conservation Authority
$1.6 million loan to Burnbrae
A conversation with Gord Brown MP, Federal Conservative Candidate for Leeds-Grenville
April 12, 2011
What has the Economic Action Plan done for Leeds County?
EAP is more than just infrastructure. Underneath that there are different categories, Infrastructure, Stimulus Fund, and RINC, or the Recreational Infrastructure Canada Fund. There have been infrastructures in Gananoque with Brock Street rebuilt, County Roads 2 and 5, in Landsdowne there was work. A lot of infrastructure. Money to the Recreational Infrastructure Fund as well. Over a hundred million dollars in total, 20 million federal in two projects alone. (For a detailed list check https://rodcroskery.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/so-where-did-the-stimulus-funds-go-in-leeds-grenville).
Does Leeds-Grenville pay a penalty for being too politically predictable?
No. You’re assuming it is predictable. I’m not. I don’t believe it’s predictable. I think in every election people in Leeds and Grenville make up their own minds.
The G20 Summit, contempt for Parliament and the census mess make me very nervous about the future of health care in the hands of a Harper Government. What assurances can you offer the nervous progressive conservative voter?
You are concerned about health care. Our government has increased health care spending 33% since we became government in 2006. Health care, 56 billion dollars of federal transfers to the provinces. The current health accord ends in 2014. There is currently a 6% accelerator through to 2014. And our party in this election has committed to a 6% increase each year ongoing after 2014. The demands on our system, especially with an aging population, continue to grow.
That’s going to cost money.
Absolutely. It’s a priority of Canadians. I think that we have good accessibility to health care in our region and we want to keep it that way.
Our auto insurance rates are up because of theft and bogus accident claims. But the penalties for these crimes are very light.
We have been getting tough on crime, and there’s a reason for that. As you point out, costs for everyone are going up for these crimes. Our opponents believe that we shouldn’t be putting people in prison. I believe that we should get tough on those who commit criminal offenses and especially tough on those who commit violent offenses.
What’s the cost?
What’s the cost to the victims who have had their lives ruined? They have left a trail of destroyed lives in their wakes.
On the other hand, if the current crime bills go through, someone with six marijuana plants on his property will go to jail.
If you’re growing six plants, you are trafficking. Six plants is a lot of marijuana.
Kids?
If you’re trafficking, you’re selling. Six plants isn’t for personal use.
What’s the difference between a liberal and a conservative? Tom Flanagan said it’s that conservatives believe people can’t change.
I disagree with that. If you’re talking about someone who is a criminal, I believe that we can rehabilitate some criminals by providing programs that allow them to learn skills and gain employment upon their release.
But your government closed the prison farm at the Pittsburgh Institution in Joyceville.
There are many rehab programs within the penitentiary system. This farm was one of them. But only a small percentage of prisoners coming out of that program were finding employment in agriculture. In fact, I have not met any farmers who have hired men released from that program. The abattoir program is still in place. Bruce Wallace of Wallace Beef operates it out of Joyceville.
In a perfect world we would be able to rehabilitate all criminals. But if violent criminals who can’t be rehabilitated are locked up, the streets are safer.
In 1972 a CEO made forty times the average wage of his workers. NDP leader David Lewis called them “corporate welfare bums.” Today CEOs in Canada make on average 155 times the wage of the average Joe, and Stephen Harper calls them “job creators.” What’s up with that?
Let’s use for example, Proctor and Gamble. It employs a lot of people in Brockville. The CEO makes a lot of money. That’s between the shareholders and the company. Obscene CEO compensation is not fair. But who is to determine what fair is?
Why does he call them job creators?
If a company is investing in our country and creating jobs, they are job creators. Over the last 25 years with very high corporate taxes, many jobs were lost because companies left. Had we had lower corporate taxes during that period, we might have lost fewer jobs. We were competing with lower-tax jurisdictions.
People forget that not only do we have federal corporate taxes, we have provincial corporate taxes. Even though I would never support the provincial Liberal party, even finance minister Dwight Duncan agrees that lower corporate taxes are better for Ontario.
So that’s why finance minister Jim Flaherty said that Ontario is the worst possible place to invest?
Well, the provincial government shifted gears after that and reduced corporate taxes. Manufacturing is now increasing in Ontario. It’s making a bit of a recovery. We’re the only party in this election that does not want to raise taxes on job creators.
How can a Conservative government eliminate the deficit, buy jets, and build prisons without massive cuts in government programs? Most of us are worried about the future of health care and those jets seem like a waste of money.
First of all, the improving economy will generate more tax revenues. We’ll look to find efficiencies, and continue to work on the different advantages that Canada has to generate the revenue we need.
What’s the burning election issue this time in Leeds-Grenville?
What we lack in Leeds-Grenville is representation. As a constituent when I look around and see the loss of jobs, the loss of youth, the fact that we are basically becoming a dilapidated area that doesn’t have a lot to offer to our youth, to people who have lost their jobs, to people who have put their roots down here.
When I graduated from high school in 1991 the job prospects were Dupont, Nitrochem, Grenville Castings, Sherwood Packaging, SCI, Selkirk , Pirelli Cable, Phillips Cable, Hershey. These were career jobs with good pay and benefits. If you were lucky enough to get one of these jobs after high school or a few years of college or university, you could set down your roots, start your mortgage and raise a family, much like your parents did before you.
Now these jobs have walked away half-way through the dream. The corporate tax cuts and the trickle-down effect haven’t worked. We’re in a state now where the good jobs have left or in the process of leaving and my generation are unsure of their future.
We need effective change and we have the opportunity through the ballot box to start to turn the ship around now.
The eroding middle class. Someone who has never gone without isn’t capable of understanding the perspective of someone who does on a regular basis. I don’t feel that my needs or the needs of my friends or family or neighbours are being met when it comes to that perspective. I’m a single father and I have gone without to provide for my daughter. Someone who has not faced tough choices when the bills come in can’t understand that.
What have you learned so far in the campaign?
Most of what I have learned is from the constituents I have talked to. The issues are there, but it all depends on their station in life what is prevalent in their life. If they’re worried about the HST and hydro, it’s a huge concern for them.
I’ve been canvassing since 19 Feb. When you talk to people who have worked their entire life, you see they’re having a hard time making ends meet. Gas prices are a real big issue with how much they’re paying for it. They feel over-taxed. Income, gas, and HST. Triple dip. That’s at the front of what people have to say, especially those on a fixed income.
I’m surprised at how accommodating and nice the people of North Leeds are. Last Saturday I was in Elgin and regardless of political beliefs or the fact that I was interfering with their Saturday afternoon, people invited me into their homes or their yards and treated me with respect and we engaged in a meaningful conversation. These people are reflective of how nice an area Elgin is.
Why are we in an election campaign right now?
We can blame the parties, but at the end of the day the government hasn’t been working, and that’s why we’re here.
What’s the ballot question?
From the Leeds-Grenville perspective, I think the question is are we prepared to accept a change (Matthew Gabriel, NDP) or stick with the status quo (Conservative) or what is comfortable (Liberal)?
What does the NDP have to offer to Canadians today?
Change and representation for the working class and those with fixed income. And people in general before corporate interests.
Why I gravitated towards the NDP beside the influence from the late Steve Armstrong is the fact of the free vote. We’re not forced to vote with the party.
I’m only interested in toeing the line of the constituents of Leeds-Grenville, by finding out the issues through an open dialogue and being available and making informed decisions based upon consensus.
Part of the reason I am stepping up is I don’t like dirty politics. We can all see how the signs are fighting for position all across the district but on Hwy 42 in particular. From an environmental perspective the candidates are creating a lot of landfill. I hereby promise that there will only be three hundred orange Matt Gabriel signs printed, so when you see one, pay close attention. That’s what we’re doing for the environment: cutting down on sign pollution.
How do you see yourself as a politician?
I don’t see myself as a politician. I see myself as a representative. I’ve developed this skill as a union steward. I see myself standing up for others, who sometimes aren’t in a position to help themselves.
What would the new government have to do differently in Ottawa to succeed?
They have to work together and put the interests of the people that have elected them first and not lose track of the fact that that is why they are there. The conservatives are hugging the power and trying to keep the power, but they lost track that they are there to serve the people of Canada and not just their own interests.
The most hopeful thing I’ve seen yet in this campaign
April 5, 2011
Yesterday in Guelph a large group of students staged a flash mob to inform Stephen Harper and the media in his entourage that they intend to vote. Those who had registered for Harper’s rally were headed off by RCMP guards, had their credentials torn up, and were escorted from the premises, but that’s just how Harper rolls.
“What we have right here is a surprise party for Stephen Harper,” flash mob organizer Gracen Johnson told a number of reporters who wandered over in the rain to witness the mass spectacle. “We heard he was coming to Guelph and we wanted to throw him a surprise, because typically people don’t think that youth vote. We are definitely voting.”
The students gathered in the centre of campus at around 4 p.m., where they rehearsed their action and went over some ground rules. If any of them were to shout slogans or hurl verbal abuses, the entire mob was directed to sit down, stare at the offender and shout, Bronx-style, “Get outta here.”
“We are not fighting for anything, not protesting anything,” organizer Yvonne Su told the crowd, explaining that protestors generally want something that they don’t have. “We already have it — we have the vote.”
What are the key issues locally in this campaign?
From 1996 to 2006 the total population of Leeds-Grenville grew by 3,000. The number of fifty-and-older residents grew by 8,000 and the group twenty-to-fifty lost 4000. Leeds-Grenville is aging. We have to provide jobs in the county to attract the young. That’s why the Green Party is for local, sustainable agriculture to begin with, so that people can live in the area. Otherwise everyone is just commuting.
When I look at a 40 year-old I don’t see him or her having as secure a future as my generation had. I really believe that I am of the last generation of Canadians to have a better life than their parents. We seem to have lost our social conscience.
I can remember when the Progressive Conservatives stood for fiscal responsibility, and responsible expenditures for the common good such as education, hospitals, health care, infrastructure. Universally accessible programs benefitted everybody. Harper’s “boutique tax relief” such as the $500 for children’s arts programs, it’s blatant bribery to a targeted group and doesn’t benefit those who couldn’t afford the $500 in the first place. The break for volunteer fire fighters, on the other hand, makes sense.
A local issue?
While there was a groundswell of objections to the closure of the prison farms at Joyceville and in Pittsburgh Township, the Harper Government went ahead and closed them anyway and disbanded a world-class milking herd that had been developed over forty years by Agriculture Canada. That was a very valuable herd, and they put it up for auction. That was our money going down the tubes.
I have read about the Ottawa consensus on big items such as the war in Afghanistan, the economic stimulus package during the recession, and support for Alberta and the oil sands. What’s wrong with this approach to government?
We’re supposed to be a free market economy, but we’re not. Why are we subsidizing big oil? Why are we cutting corporate taxes to banks? Come on. None of them are looking at poverty. They’re not programmed for Canadians. Harper’s an economist and the bailouts and the oil sands support are keeping him popular with the business community.
Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, would be shocked by the greed ethic of Canada’s business/government coalition.
So what are the old gray men in Ottawa missing?
-Conrad Black rifled the pensions of Dominion store employees. Then came the Nortel pension fiasco. Where was the legislation to protect those pensions?
-We’re going to be facing serious mental health problems as boomers grow older and face dementia and we have no plan to deal with it. Look at the demographics. 1966 was the highest number of births in Canada. They’re growing old and we’re not doing any planning for a known health crisis. Instead they’re planning prisons for criminals who don’t exist.
-My problem with all of these guys is that they’re not looking at what is out there, the concerns which are out there. They’re living in a fantasy world of jets and megaprisons.
-There are 34 cities in Canada needing infrastructure expenditures for sewage, Ottawa amongst them. Getting water from upstream is no longer a viable policy.
-We have the highest cost of telecommunications worldwide. Everyone uses cell phones but they cost way too much.
The G8/G20 extravaganza last summer. Any comment?
The police in Egypt treated their protesters better than the police treated our protesters in downtown Toronto.
When we last spoke you were keen on proportional representation.
The countries which have no form of proportional representation are Britain, The United States, and Canada. What I hear as a candidate is that a vote doesn’t count unless it is for one of the major parties. Proportional representation provides the mechanism for all votes to count.
Canada has slipped in engaging the electorate in exercising their right to vote.
By world standards, Canada is a conservative backwater because the first-past-the-post system automatically renders invalid about sixty percent of the votes.
We have people elected who are not there representing the majority of the electorate; they are representing only their own group.
In Canada you can be elected with twenty percent of the vote. The other guys can get 80% of the vote, but if your 20% is the biggest chunk, the other 80% don’t count.
Thus our government doesn’t reflect a consensus of Canadians, and that’s why the Parliament has been so dysfunctional.
Carbon tax?
We have to start somewhere. We are definitely experiencing global warming. This area has four more growing days now than forty years ago. Over 100 years our growing season will increase by thirty days.
Your campaign signs went up quickly in prominent locations in Brockville.
That’s because my campaign manager, eighteen-year-old Matt Casselman, had us well prepared. He did a great job of driving the stakes and posting the signs.
NDP candidate Steve Armstrong passed away since the last campaign. Steve will be missed from the local scene for his humour and sincerity.
On the Campaign Trail
March 26, 2011
Campaign Day 1: Whipped by a sign
A campaign sign consists of a three-sided 3/16” wire frame like a croquet hoop and a printed plastic bag which fits snugly over it. Two of the sides drive into the ground. The middle of the hoop holds the posts in position and supports the bag. Nothing to popping a few dozen of them into the ground, you say? Think again.
Saturday morning when the writ dropped it was cold. Fourteen of us set out across Leeds-Grenville to install signs. The ground was frozen solid. Emails began to fly. Ian Johntson wrote: “O.K., people. I have a question. How are we getting the signs in the ground? I used a large bar and it went in about two inches. What can I put on the end of my drill to make a hole to start?”
Marjory wrote back: “Ian, I was able to get a sign into our lawn by a series of taps, first on one corner, then the other, with a hammer.”
So away we went, frost or no frost.
Ever tried to pound a heavy wire frame into frozen ground with a hammer? The thing whips about mercilessly, and whenever the vibration touches bone it stings like a teacher’s strap. The only painless way to drive one with a hammer was to grip the frame loosely with a heavy leather mitt while leaning against the wire with fleshy body parts like calves and thighs to keep the thing from bending into a pretzel.
I had measured a frame at home and brought along a 3/16” masonry bit in my cordless drill. Of course a 3/16” bit isn’t very long, and the resulting hole wasn’t much help in supporting a two-foot sign. Besides that, most of the holes I drilled in the rough grass along the roadway I couldn’t find, so the masonry drill was a bust.
If I got lucky and found some softer ground and drove the frame in, it usually ended up too wide for the bag, splitting the frigid plastic, or so narrow I feared the sign would blow away. Turns out it’s best to measure the gap, add 2” for tension on the plastic cover, and then drive the frame in.
Adjustments are impossible after the plastic cover is in place.
With great effort I managed to place a dozen signs between Forfar and Rideau Ferry in the morning.
Promptly at noon fellow volunteer Moe Lavigne joined me and we headed south, but with some improvements. I replaced my drill bit with a 10” piece of 9 gauge brace wire. It worked pretty well at finding its way through frosty turf and mixed gravel and stones to the correct depth. Moe could find the hole by feel in the long grass to start the frame as I pulled the drill away, and he measured each gap between the posts so that we had a more consistent fit on the signs. The job is definitely easier with two, especially if the other member of the crew is a veteran of previous campaigns and doesn’t mind working on his knees on the cold ground.
A honk and friendly wave from a driver in Morton was very encouraging, especially because at that point we were tired, cold, and struggling to find another hole drilled in the grass.
After the loop to Lyndhurst and back to Forfar, I was worn out. Moe headed off with one of my improvised drill bits to plant more signs on his way back to Crosby Lake.
I’ll never look at one of those signs in the same way again. A campaign is hard work, but this is how we Canadians, in our polite, honourable way, bring about change when we are determined.
Make it worthwhile. Please vote!
Campaign Day 2: Sign teams overlap
Moe and I were approaching the Gananoque turnoff when we saw the flash of a red sign in the hand of a man getting out of a Jeep. We pulled over to say hello. Roger Haley had spent the morning working from Mallorytown to Gananoque along the river and then nipped up to plant a few of Marjory’s signs around the Hwy. 15 intersection. He said his drill’s second battery was well worn down.
We had shared the cordless drill idea with the rest of the crew by email. Everyone now used it except one holdout, Ross Howard in Grenville, who reported: “47 Signs up in rural North Grenville! Found that a 16 oz rubber mallet and a 12″ x 3/16″ common screw driver the best set of non-powered tools. The rubber mallet does not even leave a mark on the plastic!” Ross and his wife achieved this in seven hours of work over Saturday and Sunday.
Judging by the condition of the only two blue signs we saw, the local Conservatives have not yet twigged to drilling down to provide firm support for the posts.
Ian Johntson reported a driveway bristling with four blue signs in the Toledo area. That’s it so far for other colours.
On the other hand one guy in a house in Seeley’s Bay had three Marjory signs and two enthusastic daschunds digging up his front lawn. He wouldn’t tell us from where he got the signs, but offered them to us if we were short. It was quite an entertaining conversation.
Moe recognized Joan Delaney hiking down the Chaffey’s Locks Road so we stopped to chat. She talked us into a lawn sign for their property on Indian Lake. So we went there and planted it in their flower bed. Then we spent some time talking to Joan’s husband Bob about this year’s sugar-making. Like everyone else, Bob and Joan had to deal with a couple of dozen overflowing buckets – frozen solid. So they took them into the house to warm them up. Whenever this freeze ends, half the country will have white clouds of fog over syrup arches while they boil frantically to make up for lost time.
Oscar Night
February 28, 2011
Faced with the equally depressing topics of Stephen Harper and the emerald ash borer, instead of writing this column on Sunday night I sat down and watched the 83rd Academy Awards show, commercials and all.
I had seen quite a few of the films this year, and Anne Hathaway is great fun to watch, so it was worth a try.
What follows is a set of notes from the evening:
I’m glad to see The Social Network up for the screenplay award. The strongest impression I have after a year of movie-watching has to be the first scene of this film. Two characters rip through pages and pages of dialogue in an argument in a pub. The blistering pace of the delivery and the sheer intelligence of the scene warn the reader that this film will be something special.
Inception’s main appeal to me was Ellen Page. I was curious to see what she would do in the sci-fi genre. It turned out to be quite the film, though the awards went to the technicians who set up the fantastic urban bombing scenes. As one of my students once commented in a newspaper article, there is a beatific quality to destruction which Hollywood film-makers have mastered.
Unstoppable was a pretty exciting action flick with its runaway train through Southern Pennsylvania, but Inception deserved its awards.
The King’s Speech did very well, causing a goodly amount of self-congratulation on the podium for the success of a non-commercial, historical film. I regretted not yet having seen the film, so I don’t know how much of its success this night was belated colonialism and how much actual quality.
Anne Hathaway is just so much fun on a T.V. screen. I discovered this while watching Love and Other Drugs and YouTube interviews with Jake Gyllenhaal promoting the film. There seems to be a lot going on behind those spaniel eyes and over-sized teeth. If she were a puppy she’d be the pick of the litter.
Of course on an evening like this unique television mixes with the same tired old commercials, so we’re seeing Ram trucks, Stephen Harper, Gwen Stephani, and Beyonce’s glittering eyeshadow mixed at random with the best the North American culture can offer.
Helen Mirren has the knack of making every actor around her a good deal better. Put her behind a machine gun and a ho-hum action flick takes on an edge. Even a drip like Russell Brand gains some class when onstage with Mirren.
And then along comes Chuck, Zack Levi, singing a duet with Mandy Moore. By comparison Gwyneth Paltrow is Celine Dion – who incidentally performed a fine understated number while obituary photos flashed on the screen. Celine certainly can sing.
Now here’s a pungent attack ad directed at Michael Ignatieff. I can tolerate selling Stephen Harper with an ad put together with the same glitz and sincerity as a L’Oréal facial cream commercial, but this dark-toned frontal attack on a man’s character is just plain low. It’s not Canadian.
The maker of the documentary Inside Job about the recent financial crisis just got off a great quote: “It’s been three years since a horrific crisis caused by massive fraud, but not a single financial executive has gone to jail.”
The Economic Action Plan commercials are extremely well made in comparison with other film segments run this evening. I wonder where they were made, by whom, and at what cost?
So far the Kia Sportage ad has had the best sound mixing and editing of the evening.
The unequal talents of Franco and Hathaway are carrying the evening along. Franco tries to be stern – Hathaway giggles. Her best aside has to be when she seems to notice the current gown has a lot of long things hanging from it, so she shakes like a wet spaniel, then quips, “Personal moment!”
The commercials go together to create a set of images, which as viewers we absorb uncritically into our subconscious. So Red Bull gives you wings. Stephen Harper is doing a good job, and you’re richer than you think.
A series of commercials from the Ontario lobby group Working Families shows dramatically why it would be folly to run a federal election campaign during a provincial election cycle. The “Because they’re worth fighting for” message was deeply confusing in the context of the earlier federal government ads. The federal Conservatives and the provincial Liberals both seem to be trying to harness the knee-jerk resistance to change of the T.V. viewer. This will be tricky if the numbed voter can’t tell one from the other.
Natalie Portman had to win best actress for Black Swan. Otherwise I would have sat through the agonizing chick-flick to no purpose. She delivered a very classy acceptance speech, though.
Colin Firth got off a good line as he accepted the best actor award for The King’s Speech: “Got a feeling my career just peaked.”
Then at the end, they brought on a New York City grade 6 class to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while the Oscar winners assembled at the rear of the stage. The spectacle worked, giving some truth to the notion that millions of You-Tube viewers can’t be wrong.
“25-year-old Jihadis”
February 24, 2011
Bob Rae dropped the term in a press conference today in reference to the current occupants of the Prime Minister’s Office, and he couldn’t have been more apt in his terminology. I kinda wondered at his choice of metaphor even while applauding it, but when I looked up definitions of “jihad” I realized that he had not used it entirely as a metaphor. By many definitions available for the word, Rae’s characterization of members of the PMO staff is correct.
Mr. Rae has added significantly to the dialogue on Parliament Hill with an apt characterization of the blind devotion of young adherents to Stephen Harper’s cause whom Harper has given influence far in excess of their capabilities.
I chose not to collect the various definitions of the broad term “jihad” and display them here. Look them up yourself. It will be an education.
Bob Rae has risen considerably in my estimation with this comment. He sent me running to the dictionary, he broadened and deepened my understanding of my world, and he did it with proper historical perspective and a sense of fun. This is what I look for in a leader.
the Walnut Diary 