Blue Like You

It seems that Garth Turner’s sensibilities have been offended by Stephen Harper’s use of the word "screw".

This from the man who called the Prime Minister of Canada a ‘political whore’.

And anyway, if "Young People F*cking" is an acceptable title for a Canadian film worthy of tax credits, then I really don’t see the problem.

Or is this yet another example of Liberal ‘entitlement?’

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Update: Hunter has the offensive video here. Get the kids away from the computer first though. You don’t want them to hear terrible language like this. They might use it in the schoolyard!!!

Please also check out Return of the Trusty Tory - Calling a spade a spade. Great comments too. Wilson posts a link to a quote by Montreal financial wizard Seymour Shulich:

"…We could all live in igloos and ride bicycles and it won’t make a difference. Everyone is aggravated by the price of oil and gasoline and what is this beauty going to do? He’s going to raise the price of your heating oil and your gas for some mythical objective…"

And I sure do hope that Garth doesn’t get his shorts in a knot over this one - Dear Diary: Stephane Dion. Anyone for a mooTEENy?

Globe - Liberals give business the shaft.

I can’t wait for Stephane Dion to lay out his carbon tax plan in detail.

If the intent really is to reward good behaviour and penalize the bad, I wonder how Canadians in the more northern climes plan to change their nasty practice of heating their homes?

What is the alternative? As the cost of gas skyrockets, we can plan to park the car and walk everywhere. That is a choice.

But in northern Canada, how can we do without heat?

And will airlines be exempt from the carbon tax?

Just askin’.

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Update: Jeffrey Simpson - Carbon tax: the right policy, the wrong time.

And via Calgary Grit - Mr. Dion promises a tax that will hurt without causing pain.

Warren seems rather skeptical about the whole thing…

So Elections Canada was concerned about the media fallout from the Tory accusations of an alleged leak - In fact they were so concerned that they considered various methods of "killing" the story (H/T National Newswatch ).

Today’s Globe reveals a fascinating glimpse into Elections Canada and their various aborted attempts to diffuse the allegations of bias. We hear tales of blacked-out emails acquired under access to information and panicked attempts at damage-control:

In one of the emails, chief financial officer, Janice Vézina responds to Marc Mayrand’s concerns about how to’ kill’ the allegation of a leak as follows:

"If we can dispel this story [the leak], we will have only positive media coverage," replied Ms. Vézina, the associate deputy chief electoral officer in charge of political financing. "And the alternative is that we appear to be partisan or biased or vindictive and at the moment the media seem to believe we tipped off the CBC and the Liberals."

And on April 18th Mayrand writes:

"Our internal review indicates no reasonable ground to believe there was a leak," he wrote. "This may be pure diversion tactic/competitive frustration from a media outlet vis-a-vis another. The central fact is that media were there more than two hours after the operation started. "

Uh-huh. And yet the CBC itself reported differently:

…Camera crews, including one from the Liberal party, were on hand as police arrived at the downtown building…

So the timeline is still somewhat contradictory.

And why did Elections Canada feel the need to have only positive press anyway? Usually only politicians need concern themselves with such matters. And if you have nothing to hide, why worry about killing stories and blacking out emails?

And why would you even go to the extent of paying attention to blogs, and furiously keeping track of all opinons:

The remaining documents show Elections Canada kept a close eye on media coverage of the raid and its political fallout. Summaries of blogs , websites and broadcasts were compiled.

On April 29, the agency wrote a summary of news articles on the ad-buy controversy and tallied the number that were positive, neutral and negative .

If you had nothing to hide, why would you be so concerned?

Oh, and if anyone from Elections Canada is reading this, you can put this post down as a ‘negative’. Just to save you some taxpayer-funded time.

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Update: The Globe provides a helpful Chronology of the so-called In-and-out ’scheme’ here . I’m not sure that this is complete. There seems to be some information missing regarding the CPC’s suit against Elections Canada, which I feel is very relevant. If anyone can add more info, please feel free to do so in comments. Thanks.

Background links : Elizabeth Thompson - "Ins and Outs of the Warrant."

Stephen Taylor - "The Elections Canada raid (Supporting information and Conservative response)."

Gerry Nicholls: "Elections Canada Bullies".

David Frum: "Elections Canada’s campaign against Free Speech". (National Post)

John Robson: "The Tories might have a point". (Ottawa Citizen)

Elizabeth Thompson: "The original in and out election financing".

Memo to Elections Canada: I think you can safely categorize all the above links as "negative."

Always glad to be of service.

Please also check out Halls of Macadamia - Scary hidden agenda.

Steve Janke’s Angry in the Great White North seems to have caught Election Canada’s eye(s).

The Globe’s Lawrence Martin has written an insightful article about Stephane Dion’s stubborn resistance to the urgings of high-profile caucus members that want to pull the plug now - For Dion, damn the torpedoes.

Martin illustrates why it is clearly in Dion’s best interests to stave off an election at least until after the party’s biennial meeting in December:

The party holds its biennial meeting in December. Liberal rules say a leadership review is to be held at the first biennial following an election. Had Mr. Dion gone to the polls this summer and fared poorly he risked losing his leadership as early as December…

…The plan is for the Liberal Leader to sell his carbon plan throughout the summer. The House normally doesn’t return until the end of September. Some Liberals suspect the Conservatives will delay the recall to avoid a fall campaign. That’s unlikely. They wouldn’t want to appear as cowards. But given the time frames, the chances of an election before the Liberal biennial convention are getting slimmer.

In turn that means the chances of forcing out Mr. Dion early are diminished as well. If a campaign isn’t held before December he is likely safe until the following biennial. That’s two and a half years away.

I would suggest that abandoned Liberal voters can look forward to seeing empty "Official Opposition" seats during crucial confidence votes for some time yet to come.

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Friday Update: THANK YOU, NDP!!! I was really hoping someone would do this - Dion’s list of excuses for all seasons. Way to go, guys!!!

As bad as this looks for the present government, it sure must not be doing Julie Couillard’s reputation any favours! (Coulliard affair trips top Tory aide.)

…Public Works Minister Michael Fortier dismissed senior Quebec adviser Bernard Côté yesterday after it emerged Côté had a romantic relationship with Julie Couillard last year…

Wow! Her list of romantic partners is increasing by the day. Beware of the temptress, boys.

Or as Robin Williams wryly observed, "God gave men a brain and a [reproductive organ ], but only enough blood to run one at a time."

Zip it - at both ends.

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Update : Bernier breaks silence on Couillard - Post.

Thursday Update: Wow!! Couillard accused of influence peddling as details emerge about first date - Globe.

Privy council wasn’t warned of Couillard’s ties to bikers - Ottawa Citizen.

Is it possible that Parliament’s passage of C-16 was actually a calculated risk by the Harper government designed to expose the weakness of the Official Opposition? The risk of course is two-fold: That this Government could be taken down at a moment in time that would not be of their liking, and of course there is the undeniable fact that the CPC could be put in the same awkward situation when they are someday back on the other side of the House (although I hope that never happens).

However, right now it is working to the advantage of the Conservative government. Stephane Dion is increasingly cast in the role of a stumbling, bumbling fool who can’t make up his mind what to do one day, and then the next he is painted as stubbornly resisting the sage advice of others who are eager to actually do what they were sent to Ottawa to do, which is to vote and be counted.

This has generated an internal struggle and lack of solidarity that is becoming increasingly difficult to contain. Even Lawrence Martin , the Globe’s resident Liberal apologist is starting to have problems defending the party. He even points out that although Ralph Goodale is a "good chap," he "reeks of old politics" and "needs a new assignment."

Yikes! Talk about tough love!!

Now the Conservatives and NDP are planning to expose the Liberals’ lack of accountability to their constituents, by targeting the no-shows. (Does anyone have a list of House of Commons votes and who didn’t show up?)

Clearly there are some influential Liberal caucus members who are sick and tired of sitting on their hands and having to defend their hypocritical position, when they rail against the government one day, and then refuse it bring it down the next.

They include, but are not limited to Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, Ralph Goodale, Karen Redman, John McCallum, and Dominic LeBlanc.

One thing for sure - The longer the Liberals say one thing but do another, the more they will be taunted by the other parties for their hypocrisy.

And contrary to Ralph Goodale’s assessment of the other two opposition parties, the NDP’s plan to poke the LPC on this one will yield results far greater than "the square root of nothing."

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Afternoon Update : Liberals show divisions on timing of Carbon Tax Plan - CTV.

Steve Janke - The Carbon Tax Grab: Garth Turner blinks.

Well, my hunch is that Garth is very hot for an election, and the perfect timing for said election will occur precisely at the moment that his Red Messiah delivers the sermon from the Hill.

Evening Update: Warren Kinsella was on MDL advising Dion to defer the Carbon Tax plan, and go for an election now. Another interesting item was his (dare I say) admiration of the CPC’s clever use of earned media.

Also, via Calgary Grit we have this Globe link with an intriguing line: …Later, one Conservative official laughed, saying the Liberals “took the bait.”

CTV - House passes controversial immigration reforms:

With several Liberals abstaining, the House of Commons has approved controversial Conservative reforms to Canada’s immigration laws by a vote of 121-90…

I want the stats for that one!

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Tuesday Update: Please watch this awesome video (Slacker’s Unite!) by Hunter at Climbing out of the Dark, showing your tax dollars hard at work!!!

And via Diogenes Borealis, we have this gem from the OLO:

Dion again asserted yesterday that he didn’t want to provoke a July election and said, as he did last week, that he didn’t think July was the right month to seize his chance because it’s "the only month of the year with sun and heat."

I think I need a T-shirt.

I don’t really think Canadians are getting their money’s worth from elected members of the Liberal Party of Canada - especially when it comes time to vote in the House of Commons.

NB Tory Lady has some pics showing the poor attendance of the Official Opposition. If they were working in for a private company, they’d be long gone.

The NDP is not impressed either, nor is this letter writer from the Star.

The big question is, who’s in charge in the Liberal Party? Susan Delacourt says that Dion wants to wait until the fall, but Michelle Collins suggests that others are holding the pack back:

"…We want to go. We want to go," Mr. Dion said. "I feel that more now than it was the case some months ago, and it’s good because indeed we need to replace this bad government …"

"…and we don’t think most Canadians will want an election in mid-July," Mr. McCallum said. "And so we’re registering our opposition to provisions of the bill, but it’s unlikely that we would provoke an election."

But gee, didn’t they say that back in the winter? And then Easter wasn’t a good time either…. Now Canadians apparently don’t want a summer election… And of course the fall will be no good because with the kids going back to school and all… And then there’s Hallowe’en…

Those Liberal seats are going to get pretty dusty.

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Update : Jack Layton just had a good line in Question Period. We’ll have to wait for Hansard for the exact quote, but it was something to the effect that if the Liberals really wanted Jim Flaherty and the rest of the Cabinet fired, they could join the NDP in the non-confidence vote tonight and fire the whole government themselves!! Even Craig Oliver got a chuckle on that one during the rehash just now.

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Saturday Update: Dion rejects Liberal pleas to trigger election - Globe.

…With the scandal over former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier setting the Conservatives on the defensive and concerns about an economic downturn, a heavyweight group of the party’s most influential MPs argued in internal meetings this week that the Liberals have a window of opportunity for an election.

They included foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff, House Leader Ralph Goodale, Whip Karen Redman, finance critic John McCallum, and justice critic Dominic LeBlanc, according to multiple Liberal sources…

Yeah, I bet they feel totally humiliated to be seen abdicating their job every time a confidence vote comes up.  Even if they themselves are in attendance, it’s hard to be part of a party that doesn’t show up in enough numbers to put their money where their mouths are.

Several of my readers have just informed me of this breaking news regarding the Cadman tape - Tories say they have proof the tape was doctored!

Cadman Tape a phony, Tories say - Globe

Developing.

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Update: So as I understand it, this is related to an Ontario court order to stop the Liberals from using the tape - CBC.

Also see Conservative Queen - Cadman tape doctored! (Note how Steve spins the story in comments.)

Steve Janke - The tape that wasn’t there.

Stephen Taylor - Tories say Cadman tape was doctored: Supporting documents. Interesting segment from the document at Stephen’s site.

In part V titled The 1:46 mark , Section 12, it says, "…Mr. Zytaruk has been reported to have said that this gap in the audiotape occurred because I went to my car and then returned to add a comment. This is categorically false. .."

And yet Tom Zytaruk is sticking to his story in media interviews tonight. Very strange.

CTV - Author categorically denies Harper Tape doctored .

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Thursday Update :

Global provides an actual sound analysis. Watch this video. You can hear and see one of the edits.

Steve Janke has an excellent post up - Expert analysis makes Tom Zytaruk look to the Liberals for source of manipulation.

And via NB Tory Lady , we can say "I told ya so!". Check out Voice of the Association from March. Amazing.

Stephen Taylor - Tale of Two Tapes.

June 13 update: Audio expert won’t say who hired him for Cadman Tape - CTV.

Jane Taber and Daniel Leblance dish the dirt about the Bernier leak - Salon gossip led to downfall of Bernier:

…The source said yesterday that it was through "typical hair-salon chatter" that Mr. Duceppe’s hairdresser unwittingly revealed the connections between Ms. Couillard and the Hells Angels biker gang. But while word was all over the salon, there has been no indication that the RCMP or CSIS raised red flags about Ms. Couillard’s past relationships.

Although Mr. Duceppe said yesterday he will not "reveal my sources" - noting that he does not ask reporters to do so - he confirmed he has been going to the salon for a number of years.

It is clear, too, that Mr. Duceppe has been pushing for months for the story of Ms. Couillard’s motorcycle-gang connections to come out, having long had a feeling that it could grow into something much bigger than a cabinet minister’s dating life…

Obviously, Duceppe was hoping that the hint of scandal would help his political fortunes and discredit federalism in the process. And it seems that MSM was only to happy to comply.

Personally, all I see happening here with this tidbit of information is that it only enhances the tabloid aspect of this story. Even reporters on MDL have been saying that there isn’t a whole lot left to exploit here, other than the fact that Canadians still need to be reassurred that some government department is overseeing security issues.

I don’t see this whole matter as some kind of negligence on the part of the PM who has a lot better things to do than worry about who his Ministers are dating. Someone in the goverment bureacracy obviously didn’t do his or her job if indeed Ms. Couillard’s past relationships were cause for concern. Also, there is that strange time lag where the so-called senstive documents were at her home with no red flag raised.

Why not? Was it a plan by liberal-friendly Foreigns Affairs bureaucrats to turn a blind eye to Bernier’s forgetfulness in hopes of entrapping him in a faux-pas?

These are questions that demand answers.

Then let’s try to put the whole affair to bed.

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Thursday Update : Not known if Bernier’s Documents Returned (Star):

The foreign affairs department does not know whether all the classified government documents Maxime Bernier had access to have been returned following a security breach that ended his cabinet career, an official told the Star…

…The system of departmental checks intended to track classified government material is also up for review…

Duh!

Don Martin has an article in the Post that actually makes sense - GM closures were inevitable.

No CPC-bashing. It’s merely a very accurate assessment of today’s reality, which is that big gas-guzzling trucks are no longer practical. So Buzz Hargrove’s screaming at the federal government is rather pointless. Why throw good money after bad? Martin sums it up very well:

…Naturally, Jim Prentice made all sorts of sympathetic noises after question period on Tuesday, but his government cannot and should not react by opening the vault to targeted auto sector relief.

Exhibit A against that move is Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has poured about $400-million of taxpayer’s money into using public money to vaccinate assembly line jobs from an erratic marketplace. All its bought him are 10,000 job losses in an industry that seemed to take the money and invest it elsewhere.

And it’s not over, yet. McGuinty seems deluded enough to believe his government’s investment in the return of the Camaro will pay off with lasting jobs. But muscle cars are second only to heavy trucks in the assembly line for market-driven extinction.

The fed’s better idea was Tuesday’s announcement of funding for 54 research projects into advanced efficiency or environmental technologies for the auto industry.

As for Hargrove’s profanity-laced demand for the government to "prevent a company from selling trucks into this market when it no longer makes them," Prentice has an obvious shrug given the doomed plant exports 90% of its production south: "Insults and profanity are not going to cause U.S. consumers to increase their purchase of trucks."

It would be easy for the Conservative Government to play the cherry-picking game the way the Liberals love to do, but instead they are acting responsibly with taxpayers’ money.

And Buzz Hargrove is throwing a tantrum because he isn’t getting his way. No wonder he supports the Liberal Party of Entitlement .

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Wednesday Update: Yeah, this will really help… Workers form road block to GM’s head office to protest plant closure.

Record - Auto cuts hammer local workers.

Thursday Update: McGuinty under fire over GM loan - Record.