Long kept under wraps, the plan – codenamed the Shoe Store Project – is in the works by the Privy Council Office and the PMO to establish a new government-controlled media briefing centre near Langevin Block.
Mila Mulroney came "close to breaking down," according to Newman, after reading Stevie Cameron's story on the PM's reported Gucci shoe collection.
In 1987, a Globe and Mail investigation revealed that the Mulroneys had borrowed $300,000 from the Tories to renovate 24 Sussex Drive. It was just one of many stories about Mila's love for shopping and her supposedly profligate spending. She earned the unfortunate nickname Imelda (after Imelda Marcos) for her reportedly large collection of shoes.
The world's best-known shoe collector, former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, has opened a museum in which most of the exhibits are her own footwear.
The Marikina City Footwear Museum in Manila contains hundreds of pairs of shoes, many of them found in the presidential palace when Imelda and her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos, fled the Philippines in 1986
The court was also told about how Helmsley would frequently put shoes she had bought herself on the business accounts, wear them, then take them back to the store and demand a refund.
There was that now- famous "birthday party for Barbara Amiel" at New York's La Grenouille, the collection of handbags by Hermes Birkin, or Renaud Pellegrino, including one that cost $42,870 (£21,079), and the 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes.
Ever since leaving the environment portfolio, Rona Ambrose has unleashed her sense of humour and some fierce shoes -- that night she wore Kenneth Cole leopard print footwear with a blood-red heel.
Stephen Harper had a wonderful laid back speech and Q and A in New York this week at the Council on Foreign Relations. Another ruling class group in America, who some claim really runs the world.
The question and the answer it elicits reveals Harper as using his position as PM , equating it with American Presidential executive power , to change Canada's fifty years of 'Liberal' foreign policy. While being a minority government! The media focused on the first paragraph of what he said here, the second is far more revealing.
QUESTIONER: Unfortunately, not my question. My name is Kate Kroeger. I'm with the American Jewish World Service. And my question for you, Prime Minister, is a broad one. Do you think that in Canada you're entering the era of minority government? And if so, what do you think the implications are for Canada projecting and executing a coherent foreign policy?
HARPER: Well, Canada now has had two minority governments in a row. If the various conservative parties had been united over the past 14 years, which they weren't until recently, we would have had minority government over that entire period as well. So I think with the current political alignment -- I'm probably not supposed to say this, my election strategist won't like it -- but with the current political alignment, I think the possibility of minority government at any election, including one in the near future, would loom very high.
Does it affect Canada's foreign policy? You know, in terms of the day-to-day setting of priorities and taking of positions on the world stage, not very directly, because quite frankly, this is largely under executive authority. I may be criticized in Parliament for it, but in most cases, if I can make my case to the Canadian people, I can pursue, you know, an aggressive or well-defined foreign policy. And I don't think our government, on anything from the Middle East to -- you know, to Afghanistan to climate change, has had any hesitation in taking well-defined stands and stands that are sometimes highly criticized in Parliament itself.
The opposition parties represent the majority of Canadians while Harpers government represents the minority.
One of the problems in pre-democratic or non-democratic societies is that the political culture of leaders of all factions is aimed at total and complete domination forever. And you don't just -- you know, you don't just win an election; you then figure out how you're going to wipe out your opposition for good, you know, through any means necessary. And I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned that as Western nations, we don't fully understand this.
And you know, I think we often rush into certain types of democratic processes in non-democratic societies where the outcome will not be a free and democratic society. The outcome will be the majority outvoting the minority or some group, you know, and I've -- if I can speak bluntly, thinking of Hamas and Hezbollah, who see the vote as only one of a number of tools to pursue their political objective, not as a commitment to the democratic process inherently.
A criticism which could equally apply to Harper and his pals. Kettle, pot, black.
Lies & Secrets Redux
War widow asks PM: 'why have you lied?'
Not willing to take "maybe some day" for an answer, the widow of a Nova Scotia World War II soldier accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper face-to-face yesterday of breaking his promise to help elderly veterans and their spouses.
Atlantic Accord30? I thought there were only four, no wait, add two, that makes six. Thirty?
Despite the government's insistence there would be no side deal cut for provinces, negotiations have been underway between Ottawa and Nova Scotia since the March budget was tabled.Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has decided to offer one of the provinces a compromise that could cost Ontario taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in extra payouts.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty confirmed that Ottawa is looking for a way to end its standoff with Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald over the workings of fiscal federalism.
The offer would amount to a promise that in coming years Nova Scotia would be guaranteed the maximum available revenues – both from resource taxation and cash transfers from Ottawa – regardless of the impact of new measures in the Conservatives' March 19 budget, Flaherty said.
Detainees in Afghanistan
The top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan charged Monday the Afghan government and its Western allies Canada central among them are not making the country safe fast enough.
Tom Koenigs declared: "It is certainly one expression of the insecurity in this country that people turn to weapons. And ... quite a number of those who have been alienated by the government or by the (poor) performance of the government have been alienated by the absence of justice institutions."
While Canada has been prominent among Western troop contributors in helping build Afghan judicial and policing systems in addition to fighting insurgents, Koenigs said increased attention needs to be given to efforts that spread the rule of law.
Canada's top diplomat in Afghanistan said yesterday he will keep a close watch on the progress of an Afghan investigation into new allegations that detainees captured by Canadians and handed over to Afghan authorities have been tortured.The fresh allegations surfaced during a visit by Canadian authorities to Afghan prisons as part of a new agreement signed May 3.
Coming in the wake of reports that as many as 30 people captured by Canadians were being abused by their Afghan captors, the agreement allows Canadian officials and international human rights workers to check regularly on the well-being of prisoners.
Canadian officials have received allegations of torture or abuse from six Afghan detainees, two more than reported by cabinet ministers during testimony at a Commons committee last week.Even National Post columnist John Ivison gets it."There is no discrepancy," MacKay said. "There are six in total. Two complaints by suspected Taliban detainees prior to the new agreement and, since May 3 when the new enhanced arrangement was put in place, there were four."
This government's obsession with secrecy and control will be its downfall.
One should not as a rule reveal one's secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Joseph Goebbels
Somewhere in Kingston Saturday, a small group of disaffected Conservatives will meet to discuss what would have been unfathomable in the heady days that followed the last federal election: refounding the Reform Party.Organizers say they have room for just 30 people, but that this weekend's event is a mere prelude to a much larger meeting later this month.
“It's now or never,” the online invitation says. “This new party will never be infiltrated by Red Tories, special interest groups or Quebec again.”
In another part of the country, Link Byfield is writing columns for his Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy that criticize the policies of the federal Conservatives.
“Has Stephen Harper been ‘Otta-washed?'” Mr. Byfield, a strong voice for small-c conservative Alberta, wrote on April 5. He went on to decry the March budget as a “massive spending splurge two or three times the rate of inflation [that] clomps big Liberal boots into all kinds of provincial responsibilities.”
When the Conservatives were elected in January, 2006, the former Reformers were jubilant at the thought of finally having a voice in Ottawa. But after a series of centrist decisions by Mr. Harper, they are again lamenting their disenfranchisement.
Thousands of supporters of Danny Williams hold rally to attack Harper
CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, May 12, 2007Several thousand angry Newfoundlanders massed on the steps of their legislature yesterday to attack Prime Minister Stephen Harper over changes to the equalization formula. Rally participants -- estimated at 3,000 -- vowed to stand behind Premier Danny Williams, pictured, in his public feud with Ottawa over a decision that could cost the provincial treasury $11-billion. Judy Hurley, who was at the rally, said she felt betrayed by the Prime Minister's decision to exclude all non-renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula. "I trusted Harper. Even when people said he couldn't be trusted, I gave him a chance," she said. "I'm disgusted."
An official from the Prime Minister's Office recently followed a journalist off Parliament Hill, then approached the reporter to challenge a story about the PMO's refusal to disclose how Harper's travelling hairdresser is being paid.
The official told the reporter three times that accountability measures are for crooks, not honest people.
It appears to be a theme in the Harper government.
While stressing the need for clear rules and transparency for others, the cabinet continues to tightly control information, censor documents and only selectively disclose ministerial expenses.
