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






Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, Pakistan, Taliban, Balochistan, Harper, Bush, Afghanistan, NDP, liberals, Afghanistan, PB, BT, Canada, Progressivebloggers, bloggingtories, blogs, blogging, bringthetroopshome, Layton, TroopsOut, Afghanistan, War, Harper, Conservatives, Liberals, Canada, politics, military, NATO, peacekeeping, Karzai, Liberals, Canada, Soldiers, Death, Injury, Afghanistan, Government, Politics, values, Liberals,

Bye Joe, will Wappel Go?

Well Dion turfed Joe Commuzi out of caucus for simply announcing he is supporting the Conservative Budget. No great loss, he also stepped down as a Cabinet Minister when Paul Martin whipped the cabinet for the Same Sex Marriage vote. He is a member of the conservative rump of the Liberals.

Now what are the Liberals going to do about their other conservative backbencher Tom Wappel? He who voted with the government on Same Sex Marriage and more recently on the Anti-Terrorism Act;

In late February, Ontario MP Tom Wappel broke ranks and voted with the Conservative government on extending two clauses in the Anti-Terrorism Act. However, the Liberals never announced any punishment for Wappel. Dion called it an internal caucus matter.

Dion's weakness as a Leader is showing. Both these votes, the Budget and Anti-Terrorism Act were whipped votes. And he turfed Commuzi even before he actually voted whereas he did nothing after Wappel did vote with the government.

Wappel unrepentant for defying Dion on vote

Renegade Liberal will face unspecified “consequences” for defying Dion

But it seems that Dion only applies discipline to those who are not intending to run again, like Commuzi.

Of course consistency is the bugaboo of the Dion regime.


See

Dion

Liberals


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Liberals, Liberal Party, Politics, Canada, Dion, Commuzi, Wappel, Conservative Budget, Flaherty

Barbara Amiel No Libertarian

Columnist and author Barbara Amiel calls herself an extreme libertarian. Other journalists call her a provocateur. Critics call her the "Iron Lady of Wapping." Whatever you call her, there's no denying that Amiel has cut a broad swathe through the newspaper business (and gossip columns) in two countries.

Unless one considers Marie Antoinette a libertarian. Amiel's politics are not libertarian but neo-aristocratic. Amiel believes she should have her cake and eat it too just like Marie. As for the peasants they can eat cake too. As she reminds us in defense of Polish House Frau Inc.; Martha Stewart;

If Stewart had been living in ordinary times, it is unlikely so marginal a case would have involved the FBI and the Department of Justice. But Revolution has been sweeping the boardrooms of corporate America and the Terror is well under way. Last Friday night, Stewart's head was being held up high by its golden locks on television screens across the nation.

The neo-aristocratic airs of Amiel belie just another Conservative housefrau. In defending fascist revisionist David Irving she said;

" I would not hire Hitler to paint my house if there were other housepainters around, but if Hitler had simply written Mein Kampf and was an anti-semite, I would not ban him as a housepainter."

And her opinion of corporate malfeasance is clearly aristocratic; how dare the lowly peasants, the investors have any say. Let them eat their cake too. After all they are just ammunition in the revolt of the new bourgeois class against old money.

The revolution that Eisner and American business face comes from the once-silent partner of American public companies - the minority and institutional shareholder. After the huge bankruptcies and frauds of Enron and WorldCom, US business cried out for improved corporate governance but also became vulnerable to attack. A "Newly Emboldened Investor Class", as the New York Times calls it, rose up from their spreadsheets. The money managers for mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies led by a handful of shareholder activists were in revolt: they were no longer content to remain confined to the dreary routine of analysts' reports and computations. The business world's atmosphere of shame and suspicion gave them a justification and an entry point into the companies in which they had invested. Now they had a chance to act like owners and have a say in operational decisions. Heady stuff.

Is it any wonder that the Queen Bitch of Cross Harbour, she of the Almeda Marcos school of self indulgence is so upset that hubby is facing racketeering and fraud charges in the U.S. Her gold digger demands on hubby are the reason for his criminal misuse of public company funds. And it is clear her outburst the other day was because like Marie Antoinette she is experiencing the revenge of the investors and the dreaded new bourgeois, the little people are clamoring for justice not cake.

CHICAGO -- From the moment Jeffrey Cramer, the 41-year-old prosecutor, stood up and began his opening argument in the trial by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, you see in the courtroom before you four men who stole $60-million," you knew he was going to make the whole thing simple.

And clear. There was no mistaking that. The four sleek, young U.S. prosecutors on the right side of courtroom 1241 in the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago, where Conrad Black and three co-defendants are on trial for fraud and related boo-boos, are the representatives not just of justice, but of a new moral order. They are the new gods of governance. The light of right seemed to shine off them.

She of aristocratic pretensions is no libertarian, she is a throw back like her husband to the neo-aristocratic conservatism of Edwardian Canada.

Chrétien in particular was contemptible in Black's eyes. Black saw in Chrétien only an ignorant peasant with no class at all who stood in the way of Black's lordship. Like Citizen Kane, Black used his newspapers to blacken his opponent's reputation at every twist and turn. It was Black's National Post that created the Shawinigate scandal. The Black press ridiculed Chrétien's defence that he was acting as an MP in aid of a constituent.

When exposed in public for the political harridan she is, Lord Black, true to form, sues.

The embattled former owner of the Telegraph, Conrad Black, is suing for almost £5m in libel damages over a critical biography that depicts the fallen press baron as an overweight teenager from a loveless home who grows up to be a "criminal sociopath".

Lord Black has taken particular exception to the book's treatment of his wife. His lawsuit says it portrays her as "grasping, hectoring, slatternly, extravagant, shrill and a harridan", and a "Nazi apologist".

An Ottawa-based legal analyst, Stanley Kershman of Perley-Roberts, Hill & McDougall, said the lawsuit was typical of Lord Black: "He has done this throughout his career - suing people to keep them from saying things he doesn't like."

And like many of the new right liberals of the Post War era she dabbled in Trotskyism before turning to the right. And like all anti-Stalinist liberals, she mistook State Capitalism for Socialism.

When Black met Barbara Amiel it was like the sky opened up for both of them. Now Black had added true love to his repertoire. It was a real meeting of minds and bodies. The beautiful Amiel was as conservative as Black, as Ayn Randish, as Zionist, as rugged an individualist. And even better, she was a convert to Black's conservatism before she ever knew him.

When I first met Barbara Amiel she was a funny, quirky Jewish lady of the Trotskyite persuasion hanging around University College at the University of Toronto. At the time, she had a well-off boyfriend reputed to have connections to organized crime. He bought her cashmere sweaters and skirts by the dozen.

Then, ever so slowly, right before our very eyes, Amiel began her Road to Damascus. Freidrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom replaced Trotsky's Permanent Revolution. Soon Barbara was University College's number 1 conservative. Her conversion was accompanied by a nose bob and chest lift, which really made her look special.

But the marriage has been extremely successful. Lord and Lady Black are among the world's leading couples. Lord Black and his retinue of neo-cons, Kissinger and Richard Perle, have the ears of Tony Blair and George Bush any time they want.

See

Conrad Black

Criminal Capitalism


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Conrad Black, Lord Black, Barbara Amiel, crime, fraud, Canada, Chicago, Hollinger

Conservatives New Nanny State

Angryroughneck a Blogging Tory denounces the Harpocrites for being Statists. I love it.

Before it was only outright socialists that fought for big controlling governments but now conservatives also believe in big intervening governments.

Ain't it a bitch when reality slaps you in the face. And my pal Rusty Idols agrees.

SEE

Conservative Nanny State

• Weak Opposition
  

• Socialist Canada

• Conservatives Want You To Work Longer

• Canadian Values

• Tories Red Budget

• Bleeding Heart Tories

• Broken Promises

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Harper, Canada, Conservatives, Flaherty, Budget, GST, politics

Stelmach Sells Out

PM slammed for including oil revenues in calculating equalization payments

But not by the Alberta Government. The silence from Alberta is deafening over Ottawas grab of natural resource revenues under the new Equalization/Fiscal Imbalance plan.Expect no protests from Alberta over the Conservatives New NEP.

They gave some cake to Ed Stelmach and the Provincial Tories to eat. And while this NEP affects the new oil rich provinces of Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, Alberta says I'm ok, I got Mine Jack.....

The premier noted that the equalization formula matters little to wealthy Alberta -- a marked shift in tone from his predecessor Ralph Klein, who said the inclusion of resource revenues was his "line in the sand," and that it amounted to a raid on Alberta's oil wealth.

Stelmach's tone Monday was closer to that of Finance Minister Lyle Oberg, after a week that saw the pair appear to take different sides on the issue. Oberg's side won out, as Ottawa agreed with his protests against giving Alberta $170 less per person than other provinces got in the Canada Health Transfer and Canada Social Transfer.

Ottawa will give Alberta its equal share on the CST immediately, but will not boost its grants through the health fund until a decade-long federal health accord ends in 2014.

Ralphie boy all is forgiven come back quick the Party needs you to fight Ottawa......nope can't count on that. We will have to rely on "Socialist" Saskatchewan to defend against the Harpocrites new NEP.

However, Calvert pointed out that the budget also imposes a cap on equalization payments which renders the choice of formulas moot in Saskatchewan's case. Regardless of which formula is used, the province will get only $226 million this year, not the $800 million Calvert had hoped for, and it's slated to get nothing next year as the province's fiscal capacity improves.

Calvert pointed to a fundraising brochure sent out under Harper's name prior to the last election, which stated that a Conservative government would ensure provinces get to keep "100 per cent of your oil and gas revenues. No small print. No excuses. No caps."

"That's the promise that has been betrayed," said Calvert, pointing to the cover of the brochure, which cites a Gaelic proverb: "There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept."

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Stelmach, Alberta, tarsands, oilsands, Canada, equalization, royalties, oil, profits,

Tax Cut Fetish

Conservatives have a fetish for tax cuts. It's their solution for everything. And now it is apparently a solution for a provincial deficit. The province's debt for the 2007-2008 budget is $122 billion and Quebec is warning of a possible deficit of almost $1 billion for next year's budget

Wait a minute, I thought the whole neo-conservative revolution in Canada occurred in response to the debt and deficit hysteria in the mid nineties.

You remember when the Ralph Revolution began in Alberta and spread across Canada. What Ralph began Mike Harris spread around.

As did Federal Finance minister Paul Martin who slashed transfer payments to the provinces to deal with the federal deficit. The Progressive Conservatives under Charest and the Reform Party under Manning cried for more, more, more government spending cuts to solve the deficit crisis.

Well now in Quebec the fiscal balance payments to make up for those past cuts are not going to be used to pay down the provincial deficit but to give Quebecers a tax cut. What nonsense. Extra federal funds will be used to cut Quebec taxes, Charest says

It is a cheap election ploy just as the Conservative budget was this week. One to get Charest reelected.

"Everyone in the country is concluding that what the prime minister was doing in the budget yesterday was trying to win himself an election. Where does he need to win seats? He needs to win seats in Central Canada, Ontario and Quebec," Calvert said in an interview.

The irony here is that the real fiscal conservatives are the PQ who are the only party saying they will use the funds to pay down the deficit.

Yoiks!

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, budget, politics, Conservatives, Harper, Liberals, Dion, NDP, Harper, PQ, BQ, ADQ, Quebec, election, election2007

Victory sort of

Ontario to Hike Minimum Wage to $10.25 in two years. But only if they get re-elected. Typical Liberal response to a NDP demand.

Mind you the MPP's gave themselves a 25% wage increase which did not take two years to kick in.

So I guess all the sturm and drang about a $10 minimum wage being a job destroyer was so much hot air.

See;

Minimum Wage

Living Wage


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Ontario, NDP, Liberals, MPP, salaries, jobs, minimum wage, MPP salary increase, Sorbara, $10, living wage

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

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
NDP, Conservatives, BQ, Liberals, Layton, Dion, Harper, Canada, politics, Duceppe, Dion, budget, Flaherty, Lenin,

Socialist Canada

Here is another example that regardless of the party in power as the Government compared to our American neighbours we sure are the socialists they claim us to be.

Yep our Conservative Government is funding mandatory vaccinations for HPV in Canada.

While of course our Americans flip their lids over this when suggested by their own governments. Why aren't more girls getting the HPV vaccine

It makes them as koo-koo as mandatory Fluoridation, Maine health officials rally for fluoridation, which they know leads to communism.

The controversy has been satirized in feature films. Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb satirized an urban legend with a character declaring water fluoridation to be a communist conspiracy.

There are many who fight to get fluoride banned from drinking water and to warn us of the dangers of this element, including Robert Carton, a scientist who spent 20 years working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and who has stated fluoridation is a fraud. He was convinced that fluoridation presented an "unacceptable risk to public health."

And of course Americans don't have that other socialist milestone; universal medicare, so parents will have to pay to have their daughters vaccinated against a preventable disease; HPV.

 The Federation of Medical Women of Canada
commends the federal government for making $300 million over the next three
years available to the provinces and territories to support the launch of a
national program for GARDASIL(TM), the approved vaccine for HPV-related
diseases such as cervical cancer and genital warts. The Federation is now
challenging provincial governments to follow through and rapidly make the HPV
vaccination universally available.
"With this new budget, the federal government is showing true leadership
with respect to women's health," said Dr. Gail Beck, President of the
Federation of Medical Women of Canada. "Last fall, we urged the federal
government to fund new vaccines, including GARDASIL(TM), which we believe is
the biggest medical breakthrough in women's health in many years. On
International Women's Day we reiterated our message of having the cost of this
vaccine covered and today the federal government has come through. We are now
looking to the provincial governments to help bring an end to cervical cancer
in Canada."

 In July 2006, GARDASIL(TM) was approved by Health Canada and in January
2007 the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended that
all Canadian girls and women aged nine to 26 be routinely vaccinated with
GARDASIL(TM) to help protect them against cervical cancer, among other
HPV-related diseases.

Thats why Republicanadians of the right will never get anywhere in Canada.

The budget appears to be playing well with social conservatives, with David Quist of the Institute for Marriage and the Family telling Macleans.ca that "the elimination of the marriage penalty is a good start." Quist did not take issue with funding for HPV vaccinations, criticized by some religious groups in the United States for encouraging promiscuity. But he did express regret over the decision to transfer child care funding to the provinces, saying that he would "rather see more money get into the hands of parents so they can make those choices," or failing that into the hands of businesses rather than government.

H/T To Deep Red Tory


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
HPV, Canada, health, healthcare, Women, cancer, Flaherty, Budget, Conservatives, government, medicare, vaccination,

Conservatives Want You To Work Longer

In the U.S. they talk about increasing the age to obtain Social Security and they plan to privatize it. It is classic neo-conservatism

In Canada we have bleeding heart Conservatives, who adopt a social democratic approach, by upping some Old Age funding, allowing for income splitting, increasing the age limit for RRSP's , all the social spending in the current budget.

And while Paul Martin mused about changing the age limits for CPP and OAS, the Conservatives have actually changed the nature of the senior workforce demographic without doing that.

Pensions: Moves aimed at letting employees work longer

In one of the new measures, the government said it will begin allowing employers to pay a partial pension to an employee while that same worker is also contributing to the pension plan. This will make it easier for retired individuals to return to the work force part time. "Many older Canadians want to continue working and saving," the budget document states. "As Canada's population ages, it will be important to allow them to do so."

Of course it pays off since the major change here is to allow retired workers to work part time and pay into a supplemental joint pension RRSP with their employer. Which means more taxes for the state. And more workers for Macdonald's.

Keeping older employees in the workforce longer is a critical challenge for businesses as they struggle with a growing labour shortage, Canada's top central banker said Thursday.

Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge said companies need to become more flexible to keep staff past the standard retirement age of 65.

"The real challenge for us is to find ways that we can use people more flexibly -- whether that's numbers of hours per week, number of weeks per year -- as they get older," Dodge said following a speech to Calgary's Chamber of Commerce.

Keeping older employers in the workforce also requires removing "any barriers to their continued participation," such as more flexible work schedules.

And he said conventional pension schemes should be redesigned to meet the needs of those who stay on past 65.

SEE:

• Tories Red Budget

• Bleeding Heart Tories

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
pensions, seniors, Canada, work, workers, retirement, Flaherty, Conservatives, government, RRSP