Military Senility

The Harpocrite government likes to tout the long years of military experience of the Minister of Defense. Long in the tooth is more like it and suffering from a case of advanced senility. Time for him to go.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said yesterday his department has paid the entire burial costs for troops killed in Afghanistan, contradicting his own officials and the families of at least two slain soldiers.

"Since I've been in office, I've directed the department to pay the full funeral cost of fallen soldiers," O'Connor said in the House of Commons.

"And I also directed the department to review the previous Treasury Board policy set by the Liberals to come to a proper resolution and to line it up with current realities. We have been doing that since I've been in office. Any family that had to bury their loved ones is entitled to the full recompense for the funeral."

A spokesman for the Canadian Forces said late last week the military recently discovered that a family had to pay part of the cost of burying their son, who was killed in combat last year.

Opposition parties quickly pointed to the discrepancy, saying they were outraged by the conflicting accounts.

If O'Connor ordered a review of the funeral stipend in the winter of 2006, NDP Jack Layton said, why is the federal Treasury Board going to consider the matter on Thursday.

"This minister's incompetence has been seen before and it appears we're looking at it again in a particularly tragic context," Layton said following question period.

See

O'Connor

Afghanistan






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Layton and May Winners

The latest Decima Polling finds that Jack Layton and Elizabeth May are leaders Canadians approve of.

While Stephen Harper shares the dubious distinction of being as unpopular as Stephane Dion.

The conventional wisdom about the standing of
the national party leaders is somewhat at odds
with the reality. Stephen Harper’s negatives are
higher than those of other national leaders, but
his positives are about 10 points better than his
party’s vote. He’s made inroads in Quebec, and
his net popularity (positives minus negatives) is
actually better among French Canadians than
among English Canadians.

Stephane Dion’s image has been damaged in recent
months, but his numbers are very close to those
of Harper’s. His popularity is better than the prime
minister’s in Ontario, but worse in Quebec.

The NDP has its challenges, but the party has a
popular leader. Jack Layton has better ratings than
any of his national competitors, and is second only
to Gilles Duceppe in Quebec.

Elizabeth May has managed to create an impression
among the majority of the Canadian electorate,
and most of those impressions are good.

She has a truly remarkable rating among voters
under 25. May shares a distinction with Layton:
more voters say their opinion is improving rather
fading of both leaders.

And while May and the Green Party have made inroads with Canadian voters, it is at the expense of the Conservatives and Liberals, not the NDP, whose base support remains strong.

That’s because the bulk of shifting in the years gone by has been from Liberal to Conservative or vice versa. That’s less the dominant pattern now. For one thing, the Green Party is playing a spoiler role.

In Ontario, almost one in three of the voters who have left the Liberals say they are voting Green, as do one in four who have left the Conservatives.

In Quebec, voters who have left the BQ are almost twice as likely to say they will vote Green as vote Liberal.

The Liberals remain the second party of choice for the quarter of Dippers who shift in the winds. Tories marginally lead Liberals but second choice favours Grits


SEE:

Dion, May, and Jack Layton

Real Leadership

Liberals The New PC's

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Talking Taliban Blues

Canadians are backing the NDP position on Afghanistan....surprise, surprise.

Canadians still think it's a good idea to negotiate with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents as a way to end the violence there, a poll finds.

In The Strategic Counsel poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail, there was almost two-to-one support for the notion:

• Net good idea: 63 per cent
• Net bad idea: 32 per cent

The proportion of respondents saying it was a bad idea dropped by four percentage points when the same question was asked in October.

"In a way, it's a very Canadian thing to believe that nothing can't be solved by sitting across a table and talking," Peter Donolo of The Strategic Counsel told CTV.ca on Sunday.

However, Canadians might also think the mission is a morass, with no real end point in sight, he said.

Donolo said 57 per cent of Conservative Party members supported the idea of negotiations.

When NDP Leader Jack Layton called for peace talks with the Taliban last fall, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay later called the approach "naive." Some wags started calling Layton "Taliban Jack."

A Decima poll, provided exclusively to The Canadian Press, indicates that 55 per cent of those polled believe it’s likely that detainees captured by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan wind up being tortured by Afghan authorities. And 58 per cent believe Canada has an obligation to ensure those detainees are not abused.

On that score, only 33 per cent were satisfied with the government’s confused and contradictory handling of the issue; 42 per cent were dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction was highest in Ontario (49 per cent), the province that holds the key to Tory hopes for a majority in the next election, and British Columbia (50 per cent).

And Canadians support Peacekeeping, not war making, contrary to the Conservative government and their sycophants over at the Blogging Tories.

Canadians want action on Darfur, poll finds

The Pollara poll, which surveyed 1,642 people across the country, found that 66 per cent of respondents agree that Canada should play a lead role in stopping the "genocide" in Darfur, with 27 per cent saying they strongly agree. Quebec and the Prairies led the country at 69 per cent, with B.C. at 67, Ontario at 65 and Alberta at 63.

The push to intervene was highest among people aged 18-34, with 79 per cent of men and 71 per cent of women calling on Canada to play a lead role.

"Canadians expect their government to show leadership in creating a more secure world. Africa in general, and Darfur in particular, occupy a prominent position in the humanitarian thinking of Canadians," said Vahan Kololian, chairman of the Mosaic Institute, an organization devoted to diversity, international peace and development.

See

Jack Layton

Taliban Jack

NDP

Afghanistan

Kandahar

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Liberals Planning Spring Election

Must be because now that we have set election dates in Canada, as of this week, the Conservatives can't call and election only the opposition can. And in my neighbourhood, Edmonton Strathcona, the Liberals have bought billboards for their candidate Claudette Roy which have sprung up like May flowers.

Unfortunately even though they advertise her web site on the billboards, this is what appears.

This site is under construction, please come back soon

And since they did so badly last time I guess they are going on the offensive, not against Conservative MP and climate change denier Rahim Jaffer but the NDP candidate Linda Duncan who is an environmentalist.

So much for the politics of compromise to build an environmental alliance
for the next election.

What is good for Elizabeth May in Nova Scotia does not apply to Linda Duncan in Edmonton Strathcona despite her being an environmentalist. Of course Linda doesn't believe Stephane Dion is the greenest candidate for PM, unlike May.

And Linda's website has been online for months now.

See:

• My Planet, My Party

• Liberals New Green Politics

• Canada's New Progressive Right

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Claudette Roy, NDP, election2007

Amen

Lawrence Martin sums it up well in his Globe and Mail comment from yesterday. The NDP is the voice of progressive activists in Canada, not the Liberals.

In the 1970s, the activists, their views vindicated on Vietnam, were in the vanguard. In this decade, the activists, their views vindicated on Iraq, not to mention global warming, have no such standing.

Speak out back then and you were cool. Speak out today and some fount of wisdom with a Fox News mentality will come down on you -- to borrow a phrase from Hunter S. Thompson -- "like a million pound sh-thammer."

Speak out today and, as silly as it sounds, you'll be accused of Bush-bashing -- as if it isn't warranted. In the last election campaign, Paul Martin's Liberals found out what the atmosphere was like when they underwent a media pounding for taking on the United States on certain questions.

That campaign has had a lingering effect, silencing Liberal voices, who kept Canada out of Iraq, on the big American questions of today. The Conservatives, former supporters of that war, are more inclined to join hands with the administration than pursue what Andrew Caddell, one of our United Nations officials, calls innovative multilateralism.

Among the few who challenge Washington are the NDP's Jack Layton and groups such as the Council of Canadians and the Centre for Policy Alternatives. They stick their necks out, only to get either ignored or berated by conservative media elites who would be more convincing if their track record on such matters as Iraq and the green file wasn't so dismal by comparison.

See:

Harpers Fascism

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Military Humour

Whenever I hear Human Rights I reach for my gun.

Torture coverup alleged
















Also See:

Kandahar

Afghanistan

O'Connor





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Harper the Warlock

The commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English "oathbreaker".

The Conservative Governments rejection of its international obligations under Kyoto are driven by its ideological messaging that this was a Liberal policy, when in fact it is an international Accord signed by the government of Canada, regardless of the party in power it is binding on the Canadian State.

Not unlike the Geneva Conventions, which the Harper government is now in violation of and is ignoring. Harper defends actions on Afghan detainees

But unlike Kyoto they cannot blame the Liberals for signing that accord. Canadian Politics: Canada Ignores Geneva Convention In Afghanistan

Instead Harper like Bush is ignoring Canada's international obligations by deliberately confusing sovereignty with isolationism. Since the Bush regime has ignored both Kyoto and the rule of International law in regards to war by refusing to recognize the ICC. But the US is not signatory to either accord, while the Canadian Government is.

This must be what is 'new' about the Harper government, that it believes it can ignore international commitments made by previous governments.


Also See:

Kandahar

Afghanistan

O'Connor





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The Cone of Silence Bank Presidents and the RCMP

Funny but Bank Presidents sound just like the RCMP Superintendent and Commissioners when it comes to telling the truth to Parliamentary Committees.

Deputy Commissioner George, who was suspended from duty after a previous appearance before the committee, was rebuked by MPs, who said her testimony has been evasive and incomplete.

Staff Sgt. Frizzell said the pension investigation took an unexpected turn when documents were uncovered suggesting insurance funds were being diverted with Deputy Commissioner George's approval.

But he was ordered off the case before he had a chance to follow the trail, he said.

She said she had nothing to do with the winding down of the pension-fund investigation, or the issuing of a "cease and desist order" to Staff Sgt. Frizzell directing him to return to other duties.

She did not rule out the possibility that she might have seen documents related to transferring insurance funds to the pension fund.

She did not recall this, but she said she relied on advice from another senior Mountie with expertise in insurance and financial matters that there was nothing untoward with the life-insurance funds.

Back off on ABM legislation, banks warn MPs

Whenever members of the Commons committee probing ATM fees tried to peer inside the world of banking, they were met for the most part with blank expressions or no comments."We won't comment on that," said the Royal Bank's Jim Westlake, group Head, Canadian Banking, when asked about profit margins on the ATM fees.

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Dion, May, and Jack Layton

The Progressive blogosphere is doing its echo chamber over Elizabeth May's comments today on Question Period where she whined about Jack Layton not taking her phone calls.

"What The Hell Is Wrong With Jack Layton?"

So Jack Layton, Don't You WANT To Save the Planet?

Which is once again disingenuous blather, since she clearly stated that Mssr. Dion would be and should be the next Green, I mean, Environmental PM. Something Garth Turner agreed with her on.

Liberals won't run candidate against Elizabeth May; she reciprocates for Dion, touts him as best PM

She has been promoting the Liberals and slagging the NDP since January.

Since she is so enamoured with Stephane what would she have to offer Jack? That he would be the best Environmental leader of the Official Opposition? Gilles Duceppe might have something to say about that.

Since she is Leader of an unelected party with no official standing in Parliament what makes her think she should not be shuffled off to talk to Stephen Lewis?

Heck that's better than Miguel Figueroa of the other CPC; the Communist Party of Canada , gets. And he won a Supreme Court case for the rights of small parties. against Liberal election laws that stripped them of their right to run in elections. And they recently had their national convention covered in the MSM; Seeing red as way to change the world

And what the heck that would be solved with proportional representation, and democratic reform, something May and Dion have abandoned in this deal. And something the Liberals have abandoned doing anything about with NDP in this sitting of Parliament.

But then the real truth of the matter is that without Jack conceding the riding the chances are good that the NDP candidate can come up the middle and knock off Peter MacKay. And that's what pisses May off.

Federal New Democrats are set to name who will square off against Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in the next federal election.

Louise Lorefice, a mother of eight and retired teacher from Antigonish, will be confirmed today as the NDP candidate for Central Nova at a nomination meeting in Plymouth.

The riding has been attracting national attention since Liberal Leader Stephane Dion announced his party would not field a candidate there, in exchange for the Greens not running a candidate in Dion's Montreal riding.

NDP Leader Jack Layton has dismissed the bipartisan deal as undemocratic and unfair to voters.

Lorefice, who has worked on NDP campaigns for a number of years, is a new face to the electorate.

New Democrat MP Peter Stoffer says former candidate Alexis MacDonald, who fell second to MacKay in the 2004 and 2006 elections, is concentrating on her work with the Stephen Lewis Foundation and is not running again.

See:

My Planet, My Party

Non Aggression Pact

Liberals New Green Politics

Canada's New Progressive Right


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Non Aggression Pact

This headline;Grit and Green leaders unveil non-aggression pact in NS reminded me of this headline; The Russians and the Germans sign a non-aggression pact. As it must have Jack Layton, who decried Dion's appeasement politics.

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Karl Marx

See

Liberals New Green Politics

Canada's New Progressive Right


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Real Leadership

With these poll numbers Jack Layton can say that he would make a better PM than Stephane Dion. Since he got more support in Quebec and in the West than Dion and his support is competitive with the "Official Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition".

While Dion has been on another of his invisible tours of Canada, his third since the beginning of the year, Jack's visibility has been in the house thanks to the deal making the NDP is willing to do in order to keep parliament functioning. Jack has been an effective opposition leader, Dion has not.

Thus if it quacks like a lame duck, and walks like a lame duck, it's name must be Dion.

Keep those poll numbers coming in, they just make Liberals quack up.

H/T to Wundrick



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Taliban Dion

Well the pejorative "Taliban Jack", used by Blogging Tories against the NDP leader for the principled opposition he and the party has to the war in Afghanistan is now being used by Harper against Dion and the Liberals.

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has provided a clear explanation to the House of Commons. As the member knows, this government was at the time operating under an agreement signed by the previous government. We have since entered into a new arrangement with the Independent Afghan Human Rights Commission.

I can understand the passion that the Leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers.

Of course truth is the first victim of war. In this case the principle of innocent until proven guilty is also abandoned. How does the government know these prisoners are Taliban, since they are Pashtun villagers arrested in the war zone?

Nor do they have any information about them since they handed them over to the Afghanistan government with no proper follow up procedures.

Top military officers off base on detainee file

Which was the whole point of the oppositions demand that the lying, incompetent Defense Minister resign.

And predictably the Blogging Tories are all cheering the PM's slander. The progressive blogosphere is all a buzz about the latest over the top comment from the PM. Why the surprise he is an autarch not a statesman.

See

O'Connor

Afghanistan






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Weak Opposition

The Opposition messaging against the Conservative Budget makes me wonder where their spin doctors are. Perhaps vacationing on spring break, being the young turks they are. Let us review today's Opposition response as was officially presented in the house and during QP.

Liberals: I would have given out more money. To everyone. But youse guys have a shotgun approach with this budget.

BQ: Yes you have addressed the Fiscal Imbalance, but it is not enough, we could get more if Quebec was a nation.

NDP: This budget was created at the boardroom table not the kitchen table.

The Liberals and NDP messaging is a mess. The Conservative budget gave no big corporate tax breaks, and actually closed tax loopholes on offshore tax havens used by the rich. But they did bring in their Tax Credit for Low Income earners. Something the Liberals and NDP advocated for.

Sure they did not bring in a $10 federal minimum wage which the Federal NDP are calling for (because the Ontario NDP are calling for it in the upcoming provincial election campaign). An increase in the Federal Minimum wage is a red herring because it affects so few workers and is not even a living wage program nor a Guaranteed Annual Income, which the NDP should be advocating for.

What the problem here is that this is a Liberal budget, it is a scattergun just like they have used, and it is aimed at gaining support for the government, just like they have always done. And so it does benefit working families in Canada which was it's purpose. With its targeted tax cuts and give aways it is already causing a caucus fracture in the Liberals.

The NDP though have made their opposition to the budget a matter of closing the prosperity gap between the working class and the rich elite. Therefore it behooves them to offer an alternative budget. And their pals at the Centre for Policy Alternatives have already given them a blueprint, even before the budget came down yesterday.

Along with their child care plan, their pharmacare plan, their green plan, and other announcements they have made, all they needed was the CCPA blueprint and a plan for a Guaranteed Annual Income and they could have created an alternative budget to build an election campaign around.


Instead they went for misleading sound bites accusing the government of giving big business tax breaks that did not occur.

They even quote Lenin to make it look like they have a radical alternative, which is so much smoke and mirrors. Of course Jack may now opt for a goatee along with the mustache to show how left he is.

“For every one step forward, Conservatives take two steps back,” says Layton


Obviously Brad Lavigne is still the caucus brain trust behind this dogs breakfast. Perhaps they should have sent Brad off for a much needed spring break and come up with their own Alternative Budget. Then they would have had some credibility in opposing this budget that is all things to all people.


SEE:

• Tories Red Budget

• Bleeding Heart Tories

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Don't Bank On It.

That the banks will voluntarily concede on the issue of ATM fees.

If ATM fees were eliminated, customers would be subsidizing the customers of other banks who use their machines, argues the Canadian Bankers Association. If people want to forego the convenience fee, they should use their own bank's machine.

A red herring, a straw man, and a spurious argument since the oligopoly of the five banks already share their customers since the jointly own Interac, Cirrus, Plus etc. the ATM operating systems. And as such charge fees to stores using Interac, and to private ATM operators. They are literally cash registers for the Big 5 Banks, if not one arm bandits.

But banks don't seem to have convinced either the broader public or their political masters why a fee is necessary.

John Lawford is one lawyer eager to argue against the banks in upcoming finance committee hearings. "There is no need for fees at all," says Lawford, who represents about 4,000 Canadians through the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

Banks collect an estimated $154 million annually in convenience fees, based on figures supplied by the Canadian Bankers Association – a tiny sliver of their overall profits. But it's an issue that gets Canadians' blood boiling.

A drop in the bucket, but don't forget this is only one set of user fees. There are service charges and exorbitant credit card charges which the Banking Committee needs to look at. Since the banks love to get us to pay for their screw ups.

But if the government were successful at getting the banks to eliminate fees, it might not solve consumers' pocket-book problem.

Banks might just shift the fees to another service, says U of T's Booth. Previously, banks raised service fees to recoup losses on 1970s loans to foreign countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, he says.

While the banks and others advocate you take out large amounts of money at one time from the ATM to avoid withdrawal charges, I point again, that this is simply shifting the burden on the consumer who is being gouged. You are charged by your branch, the ATM you use and further a monthly service charge. The ATM's were instituted to reduce branches and staff costs. The private ATM's were approved by the Competition bureau to provide competition to bank ATM's, though the Big 5 run Interac/Cirrus/Plus that ATM's use.

In February, the Toronto marketing research firm TNS Canadian Facts announced that 81 per cent of Canadian adults surveyed in the fall of 2006 had used a bank machine during the previous month, up from 78 per cent a year earlier, and that nine out of every 10 cash withdrawals had been made at a bank machine.

Furthermore, deposits of cheques and cash at ABMs doubled those made in branches, and in fact only 53 per cent of Canadian adults had visited a branch in the previous month, the lowest percentage since 1994.

So the solution is that the Big 5 banks eat the costs and make it back from stores that use ATM for your purchases, which they charge .50 for. And from the private ATM's, who can charge you whatever they want.

And if this is not solved by the Bank Act Review, it will be real money in your pocket issue that will dwarf any tax break promises the Conservatives make in the next election.

See

Banks

Monopoly

Service Charges

ATM

Bank Profits

Credit Cards


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Jack Ain't Smiling

NDP launches ‘Leadership and Fairness’ campaign

And Jack ain't smiling in any of these TV ads. He gives the viewer the stiff upper lip. Serious stuff. Do I smell spring election in the air?

	Jack Layton on environmental leadership » View Ad
	Jack Layton on better health care » View Ad
	Jack Layton on the prosperity gap » View A

Timing is everything, and since the Liberals don't have TV ads, and are moving towards the Conservative position on issues, well this should help the NDP in the polls.

Meanwhile the Liberals hit the road with Dion No-Show, that is he makes a hit in the national media but not with the local folks where he visits.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion was on the offensive as he spoke to about 200 Liberal supporters in Vancouver Sunday night.

Meanwhile the Liberals having spent over a year reviewing policy in preparation for an election have come up with....nada, nothing, zip.

So we are left with Dion issuing press releases where he flip flops again, while whining that the Conservatives stole the Liberals platform.

Like their support for the Made In Alberta plan for environmental intensity targets.

In 2005, the former Liberal government proposed regulations that would require companies to reduce the "intensity" of their greenhouse gas emissions. Dion was environment minister at the time. But in recent weeks, several Liberals have hinted they are revising their plan.

There is again the perennial pre election talk about the need for a merger of the Left, but which left is that? There is no coherent left in the Liberals, many being more Red Tories like Brison and Stronach than social democrats.

As I said before the NDP needs to attack the Liberals on their weakness; their failures to develop a national day care program, their support for the war in Afghanistan, their support for increasing police powers against civil liberties, their failure to support anti-scab laws, their flip flop on the environment.

These are of course the same positions the Conservatives embrace. By defining themselves in opposition to the Conservative program, the NDP does something the Liberals cannot and will not do.






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