Will Mike Colle Run in Englinton-Lawrence?

So, is Mike Colle planning to run federally for the Liberal Party?

A step into the not-so-way-back machine to only February 15, 2015 seems to suggest an answer. Upon hearing that "prized" defector Eve Adams was planning to run against Finance Minister Joe Oliver in Eglinton-Lawrence, Colle declared that would happen only over his dead body.

So is he planning to contest that nomination against Adams?

That's a very good question. For everyone involved.

Recently, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was stood up at a party fundraiser by Luo Zhaohui, China's Ambassador to Canada. Just what was the Ambassador supposed to be doing at a Liberal Party fundraiser? As the guest of honour?

Your guess is as good as mine. But it does raise some serious questions about the growing coziness between the Liberal Party and the Communist Party of China.

Just how cozy are they getting? There are numerous links between the Liberal Party, both provincially and federally, and various Beijing-friendly groups which are essentially proxies in Canada for the Communist Party of China.

Mike Colle himself is something of a central figure in that growing coziness.

In 2007, Colle was the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship in the Ontario provincial government. Or at least he was until the end of July that year, when he resigned following a report from Ontario's Auditor General that found he had issued citizenship grants in a manner that was "not open, transparent, or accountable."

The report found that many organizations given grants by Colle's ministry had political ties to the Liberal Party, and that many of these grants were not based on the applications of the group. In one case the Ontario Cricket Associaton -- applying upon the Minister's invitation -- asked for $150,000 for a project but instead was granted $1 million.

In one case, the Chinese Professional Association of Canada -- a group that has echoed the Chinese Communist Party's stance on every matter imaginable -- was issued grants totalling $275,000.

CPAC board member Michael Huang was, at the time, employed as a policy advisor in Colle's office. No fewer than twelve members of CPAC had attended a fundraiser for Colle's reelection campaign just six weeks before CPAC received a $25,000 grant.

Much more recently, CPAC championed a partnership between the Toronto District School Board and the Confucius Institute, an institution known to act as an espionage wing of the Chinese Communist Party.

“Confucius Institutes are essentially political arms of the Chinese government,” explained Canadian Association of University Teachers executive director James Turk. “They restrict the free discussion of topics Chinese authorities deem controversial and should have no place on our campuses.”

It would be very interesting indeed to know just what the Chinese Professional Association of Canada used that $275,000 for. That $275,000 Mike Colle granted to the organization while one of its board members worked in his ministry.

Almost as interesting as whether or not Mike Colle plans to run for federal office.

Whip Out Your Ideas, Justin Trudeau: Let's See How Big They Are

“Why aren’t we talking more about the kind of humanitarian aid that Canada can and must be engaged in, rather than trying to whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are?” Justin Trudeau asks.

Hoo boy. Leave it to the Liberal leader so simultaneously dump on the professionalism of the Royal Canadian Air Force -- as if they specialize in global pissing contests -- and provide an idea that, while it seems on the surface to be the sort of sunny response to a global situation that Liberals are known for, also turns out to be entirely half-baked.

Not that he really has any ideas.

In the course of a speech given to the Liberal-organized Canada 2020 conference, the only thing Trudeau would commit to in terms of ideas is that he hasn't made up his mind. He has no idea how to respond to the ISIS threat in the Middle East. He has no ideas, but he insists that Canadians shouldn't listen to the ideas of the other guys.

Good gawd. This is the guy who wants to be Canada's next Prime Minister. Who Liberals want to be Canada's next Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will roll out his government's proposal on how Canada will deal with ISIS tomorrow. The debate will be on Friday. Yet he and his party are acting as if they'd rather debate the matter this minute... with a leader who hasn't made up his mind yet.

This could only come from the Liberal Party and be passed off as if it were a tenable position. They've learned the easy way to not expect a lot of Canadians to think even once, let alone twice, about the base fatuousness of this position. Perhaps with good reason: one cannot think about the shortcomings of even the meagre offerings Trudeau has already mustered and still maintain that narcissistic sense of unjustified intellectual vanity that so often comes with being a Liberal.

Suppose that Canada were to do as Trudeau suggests, and send only a humanitarian mission to Iraq. How has ISIS already embraced aid workers there? They beheaded British aid worker David Haines. So if we provide aid to the two million people currently displaced within Iraq -- as well we should -- but do so without any boots on the ground to protect aid workers, what happens?

ISIS takes the heads of any aid workers they can get their hands on, and probably kills a good number of the people who those aid workers are intended to help. Hell, ISIS has placed that genocide on their agenda already.

Then ISIS takes aid supplies and turns it to their own use. Whether he intended to or not, Justin Trudeau would have just provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Not by treason, but by naivete.

No wonder Justin Trudeau won't talk about any ideas he may have. And I wouldn't expect him to anytime soon. No. Instead, he'll talk about the past: he'll talk about how Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2003 (when he wasn't yet Prime Minister) being taken by bad intel regarding the status of Saddam Hussein's ongoing quest to procure weapons of mass destruction.

Two million refugees in Iraq would happily -- if not cheerfully -- explain the difference between the 2003 and 2014 scenarios to Justin Trudeau if given the opportunity.

It's not likely that Trudeau is talking to many of them. No, he's too busy impugning the professionalism of the RCAF and making juvenile dick jokes to get around to that.

It's with the detail that the polls are currently in Justin Trudeau's favour that one of his vaunted advisors -- perhaps General Andrew Leslie -- should pull him aside and tell him to get his head in the game. Should he become Prime Minister he won't have the luxury of kicking back and making penis jokes while global events unfold. If, right now, he wants to become Prime Minister then he'd better start showing Canadians he's ready for it.

The time is now, Justin Trudeau. If you have any fully-baked ideas for how Canada should respond to ISIS, whip 'em out. Show us how big they are. But they'd better be bigger and better than what you've produced to date.

The High-Tax Trojan Horse

Tomorrow, the Liberal Party will kickoff its biennial convention. Party leader Justin Trudeau insists that the party convention will flush out his party's first substantial policy proposals leading into the 2015 federal election. So far, he's only offered up one: the legalization of pot.

This was, and always has been, a blatant appeal to potheads -- the kind of sad individual who populates the typical 4/20 festival -- for votes. As I've noted before, any marijuana user who votes for the Liberals on the back of a legalized pot promise is setting themselves up for a serious disappointment. Perhaps even a disappointingly-life-changing disappointment.

But recent news out of Colorado -- one of the states to legalize marijuana -- shows just how bad it can be. Users in Colorado were already beginning to get a sense of just how badly this was going to go for them:

But as it turns out, it's even worse than they ever imagined. The tax take in Colorado has exceeded lawmakers' wildest expectations. By a whopping 21%.

To some people, this would seem like a good thing. For example, if you favour big government, and love to see the government raking in lucrative tax revenue in order to pay for it, you might love this. Perhaps not so much if you're a pot user paying for it all. And if you're a pot user in Canada thinking that you won't pay through the nose under Trudeau's promised marijuana legalization, you just haven't been paying attention. At least not to this issue. Maybe there's been a magic eye poster monopolizing your attention.

OK, I'm done being facetious. But here's the point: a Liberal government legalizing marijuana won't hesitate to tax the living bejeezus out of you. It's just what they do. And they'll find all sorts of pet projects to fund with it that won't benefit you in any way, shape, or form. Although I'd bet that the $10 in tax on the above pot buy, left in your pocket, probably would. Especially cumulatively across numerous buys.

That doesn't necessarily mean the status quo, either. Decriminalization offers pretty much all the freedom of legalization, without the government's hand digging to the bottom of your pocket.

Think about it carefully, before you wake up to find a Trojan horse in your living room.

Justin Trudeau is >Not< Qualified to be Prime Minister

Come 2015, if the Conservative Party hasn't adopted new leadership -- and it certainly looks that they won't, as talks of replacing Prime Minister Stephen Harper are not even on the party's radar screen -- a good number of people who have lost confidence in him will likely hold their nose and vote Conservative anyway

I know that I certainly will.

Neither of the party's principle competitors offer anything even resembling an alternative. Thomas Mulcair would be an absolute disaster as Prime Minister, but at least he possesses some experience that could be considered as qualification for the role.

Not only does Liberal leader Justin Trudeau not possess any experience that would qualify him to be Prime Minister, during the past week he managed to actively disqualify himself.

This came on the back of a question asked by a wannabe political maven trying far too hard to be anything more than what she really is. At the #AskJustin "ladies night" event that has been nothing short of a complete disaster for Trudeau and the Liberal Party, Amanda Alvaro asked what she must have imagined was a real substantive question: which foreign political administration he admires the most.

Trudeau's answer has reverberated disturbingly across Canadian politics, despite the Canadian media's best efforts to not report on it. "There's a level of admiration I actually have for China," Trudeau quipped. "Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime."

Wow.

Trudeau admires China's dictatorship for the things it can do because it's a dictatorship. Which means, in short, that he admires China's dicatorship FOR being a dictatorship.

The CBC's Terry Milewski fell all over himself trying to pretend that Harper had said anything even remotely similar. As close as it gets is Harper lauding China for specific economic achievements. Not quite the same thing as admiring a dictatorship's dictatorial powers.

It's really not so stunning. Justin Trudeau's dad was very much the same way.

For anyone who aspires to leadership of a democratic country to publicly express admiration for a dictatorship very much immediately disqualifies them for such leadership. Not that this will matter much to the no-information voters currently planning to vote Liberal in 2015.

The Pothead's Case Against Legalization; the Libertarian's Argument For Decriminalization

If you believe pollsters -- or wingnuts like Michael Harris -- Liberal leader Justin Trudeau's sole policy proposal since becoming Liberal leader is paying dividends. Apparently, this idea of legalizing pot is a popular one.

Two million Canadians have admitted they regularly smoke marijuana, gaining Trudeau what Harris has implied is the Trudeau constituency. Perhaps it was to be expected that legalizing pot would be extremely popular amongst potheads: but only so long as they don't understand what legalization of pot would actually entail. It doesn't entail what they think it does. Not by a longshot.

While the pothead's case for legalization may seem obvious -- they like pot -- the pothead's case against legalizing pot is one that the 4/20 crowd ought to pay some attention to.

So what is the case against the legalization of marijuana? It actually happens to be closely tied to the libertarian's case for decriminalization.

First off, legalizing marijuana won't make the supply any cheaper. While it may eliminate the risk premium charged by dealers, it will undoubtedly also drastically reduce the number of producers. Reducing suppliers tends to mean reducing supply. Reducing supply inevitably increases price.

Perhaps you're the kind of user who grows their own. Certainly this won't affect you, right? Wrong.The legalization of pot would inevitably lead to the requirement that growers be licensed. The trade in seeds -- for which "Prince of Pot" Marc Emery is currently in prison -- would inevitably be the first thing cracked down on under a legalized pot regime.

Next, suppose that you enjoy pot that is stronger, with higher THC content. Well, one of the arguments in favour of legalization happens to be that legalization -- and the granted of limited and competitive monopolies in production -- will allow the government to regulate this. Better get used to weaker bud, bud.

Legalization will also affect the quantities in which you'll be able to buy your pot. Keep in mind that it's illegal to sell individual cigarettes. Expect the same with marijuana.

Last but not least, consider the core argument big-government types like Justin Trudeau use to support the idea of legalizing pot: that legalization allows it to be taxed. Consider it very carefully: it's basically campaigning for your vote on the back of a promise to tax you. Not that they'll tell it to you like this.

Now before you say anything, I know what you're thinking: Amerstam, right? Well, as it turns out Amsterdam is not a model of legalization. Pot is freely sold and consumed within the city's Red Light District, which is another way of saying "limited decriminalization."

The libertarian argument for decriminalization takes all of this off of the table, and merely suggests that the law not punish you for practicing the right to put whatever you want into your body so long as you're not harming anyone else while you're doing it. Canadian chiefs of police have come out in favour of this option, and with pretty good reason.

Sadly, this much can be said for Canada's pot smokers: to this point they haven't thought very deeply about what Trudeau has suggested. Some of them simply won't because they don't possess that kind of intellectual acumen. But for those who do, Justin Trudeau's gambit will inevitably be seen for precisely what it is: at best a Trojan Horse, and at worst a hollow promise calculated to dupe a bunch of dopes out of their votes.

Either way, don't fall for it.

Grain crime no! Grass crime yes!

David Climenhaga. The name alone is enough to induce giggling among almost anyone who isn't, like Climenhaga, a complete and total hack.

There's a reason for this. And it is embodied in a recent blogpost Climenhaga published at Rabble.ca, entitled "Grass crime no! Grain crime yes!" Wherein Climenhaga attempts to play the role of Mighty Casey, going to bat for Justin Trudeau, only to strike out. There is no joy in mudville.

In typically hackish fashion, Climenhaga attempts to shill for Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, amidst the single, solitary policy point his has offered during his time as Liberal leader: the legalization of marijuana. It shouldn't be said that there isn't a case to made for this, just as it shouldn't be said that there's a case to be made against this.

But Climenhaga attempts neither case, and instead attempts to transform it into an ill-fitting microcosm of the issue that is almost certainly Climenhaga's #1 beef with the Conservative government Prime Minister Stephen Harper leads: the decline of statism under the Harper government.

As it turns out, Climenhaga is still nurturing quite the grudge over the Harper government's decision to pardon a group of Alberta farmers who had the nerve -- the utter gall! -- to sell their own grain outside of the Canadian Wheat Board's now-abolished monopoly.

"Unmentioned in the coverage of this brouhaha, however, has been Harper's inconsistency when dealing with lawbreakers whose misdemeanours involve other vegetative materials. Indeed, his hypocritical rallying cry seems to be: 'Grass crime no! Grain crime yes!'

I speak, of course, of the PM's admiration, affection and support for the 14 farmers -- one of whom is now an Alberta legislator himself -- who in 2002 openly broke the laws governing how to export wheat and barley to the United States. A dozen of them were eventually found guilty of willfully breaking several laws and served time in jail.

If you are a lawbreaker who takes a couple of tokes at home and admits it, apparently you earn a curled lip and Harper's undying contempt.

But if you are a lawbreaker who rolls past the Canada Border Services Agency's agents in a truck loaded with grain to sell illegally in the United States, and do it with sufficient defiance to calculatedly get a jail term, you earn a photo opportunity with the same prime minister, his unstinting praise, and the co-operation of Parliament to overturn the law you ignored. What's more, you get a prime ministerial pardon!

If you then decide want to run for public office yourself, you can count on the support of the prime minister's party apparatus -- as was the case with Rick Strankman, who is now the Wildrose MLA for Drumheller-Stettler.

Alert readers will recall that Strankman spent a week in jail for taking part in just such a shenanigan back in 2002 when he and a group of a dozen other market-fundamentalist farmers drove their trucks across the Canada-U.S. border at Coutts, Alta., and illegally sold grain to a US. broker to protest against the collective bargaining role that was then the responsibility of the Canadian Wheat Board.

Canadian farmers will undoubtedly suffer as a result of the eventual demise of the Wheat Board in 2011 -- indeed, it is already happening -- and taxpayers in all parts of Canada, rural and urban alike, will be asked to bail them out. But the farmers who took part in the willful violation of the Customs Act were certainly entitled to fight for their economic beliefs, however misinformed."

This is all giggle-inducing for a number of reasons.

First off, "journalism teacher" David Climenhaga apparently doesn't consider himself above using a press release from the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance to make the case that grain farmers are suffering under the open market that grain farmers themselves spent decades demanding. If Climenhaga had done any amount of independent research -- instead of simply parroting his statist bosom buddies -- he would have learned that the reduced premiums for high-protein wheat are being driven by an increase in abundance of high-protein wheat, particularly outside of Canada where the CWB has absolutely never had any say in what those prices will be.

Awkward.

Not to mention that the grievous crime of defying the statism that Climenhaga so cherishes pales in comparison to the kind of crime -- property crime and violent crime -- that swirls around the drug trade. Marijuana is not exempt.

Which, all things considered, is enough to demonstrate that, as far as wedge issues go, David Climenhaga could have picked a better slogan than "grain crime no! Grass crime yes!"

There is no joy in mudville.

So What?

Apparently, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau's sense of entitlement has finally landed him in water hot enough that he's felt himself starting to cook just a little.

Right now the story is the hottest thing in Canadian politics: a New Brunswick-based charity, the Grace Foundation, recently asked Trudeau to return the $20,000 (!) speaking fee he charged them to appear at a fundraiser. Trudeau walked away with $20K in his pocket. The charity lost money.

Conversely, Trudeau's supporters think that they've found their retort to the controversy: that Judith Baxter, a member of the Grace Foundation's board of directors, has connections to the Conservative Party. She's even been photographed in the Prime Minister's office.

As it turns out, each camp in this debate -- those criticizing Trudeau, and those alleging a nefarious conspiracy between the Conservative Party and the Grace Foundation -- have to answer a key question:

So what?

This question can easily be mistaken for one of dismissal, and it's frequently used that way. But in reality, when we hear stories like this one, it's the very first question we should ask ourselves. So what? As in, so what does all of this actually add up to?

Let's start with Trudeau. Justin Trudeau, son of the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Old-money trust-fund kid. Charges thousands of dollars to appear at speaking events, frequently as fundraisers for charity. He actually doubles his speaking fee after being elected as a Member of Parliament. Many of these charities lose money on the events for which Trudeau was ostensibly supposed to be a major draw. Trudeau is asked to return his fee. At first he refuses.

So what?

Well, there are obviously some serious questions to be asked about just how genuinely Trudeau believes in public service. Sure, his time is worth money. Everyone's is. But Trudeau's an old-money millionaire. He doesn't need it. The charity, meanwhile, works for a very good cause. And they could use the money far more desperately than Trudeau could.

Not to mention the very serious question of Trudeau's approach to charitable giving. Does he believe in it or not? What claim does Trudeau have to a party that frequently promotes itself as a force of generosity in Canadian society if he, himself, profits from charitable causes at their expense rather than giving even his time to them? Just what would the prospects for Canadian charities be under a Trudeau government?

That's my personal answer to the "so what" question regarding Trudeau. Other people's may differ.

Now on to Judith Baxter. Her visit to the Prime Minister's Office. She received a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal from Heritage Minister James Moore. Her husband sits on the board of Moore's Riding Association.

So what?

Perhaps in a social media environment, where the desire to draw nefarious conclusions constantly overrides the need for anything resembling actual evidence, this is sufficient to draw that conclusion. But so far those peddling this theory have cited no evidence of any actual wrongdoing. Their sole scrap of evidence is that of association. So if Judith Baxter -- who is only one member of the Grace Foundation board -- is guilty of aynthing, it's mere association.

That's not a very conclusive answer to the "so what?" question. In fact, it's the kind of answer that turns the "what if?" question from one that can be extremely revelatory to one that is, by default, dismissive.

If only Justin Trudeau were so fortunate. These questions leave him looking far less like the innocent victim of a conspiracy and far more like Ebenezer Scrooge.

Keeping Justin Trudeau in Context

 So today the Justin Trudeau bots took to social media to harp about his comments in Vancouver. They actually insisted that these comments were to eliminate the "misconception" that Trudeau has no substance.

Quite the contrary: Trudeau revealed the nature of his substance long, long ago: when he revealled to Canadians something that most of those who support him have yet to admit to themselves: that if you don't live in Quebec, he's just not in this for you. If anything, he's preoccupied with maintaining Quebec's unfair advantage in the Senate. In the past he also inferred that only Quebecers should be allowed to run Canada.

"We all serve the same people," Trudeau declared today. But in context of Trudeau's past remarks allow me to amend his comments to reflect what Trudeau is really all about.

"We all serve the same people. I serve the people of Quebec and I intend to maintain every advantage they have over provinces like Alberta and British Columbia. And because Quebecers are better than non-Quebecers, and because Canada belongs to Quebec, you're expected to serve Quebecers, too."

Think this is unfair? Keep in mind that Trudeau has said all of these things himself, although never all at the same time.

It should remind every Liberal Party supporter outside of Quebec of a simple, undeniable reality: if you live outside of Quebec and you plan to vote Liberal, you're an idiot. And if you're that big an idiot, bend over. It's going to be a rough ride.

Justin Trudeau: Ideology First, Canada Second

Son of Trudeau turns out be a barely-hidden separatist

Those familiar with Canadian history have become familiar with one basic, overwhelming fact about it -- that there are, in fact, two different versions of Canadian history.

There's the fairy tale Canadian history, in which Pierre Trudeau is allegedly the father of the nation, a luminescent figure and separatist fighter who is at all times above reproach. Then, there is the real Canadian history -- wherein Trudeau precipitated a near-permanent national unity crisis for the sole purpose of being able to sign his name to the repatriated Constitution.

Pierre Trudeau was the kind of Prime Minister who always put himself and his agenda first, and put Canada second.

Now, it turns out that his son is not a whit different.

In an interview with the french language CBC, Trudeau suggested that he would embrace separatism if Canada were to become too conservative under Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- the very Prime Minister who, for the first time in 30 years, is setting about repairing the damage Pierre Trudeau did to the Canadian state and polity.

"I always say, if at a certain point I thought that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper - that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways - maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," he declared.

"If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my values very well," he added.

"But I believe deeply in Canada," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Yes, it turns out that Justin Trudeau is just another of the kind of far-leftist Canada has become all too familiar with in the most recent years -- those hell-bent on transforming Canada into a far-left construct, for the sole purpose of the implementation of their demagogic agenda. Or at least, if they've already convinced themselves that Canada was such a place, the preservation of that.

It's nothing new. It's nothing shocking. We've already seen it in the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire partisan who currently sits as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Her name, as you know, is Nycole Turmel.

During the 2006 election, Turmel endorsed not candidates of the NDP -- the party she currently leads on an interim basis -- but Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel was the President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and she declared that BQ candidates were more likely to support PSAC's agenda.

That the BQ's agenda is to destroy Canada is a detail that seems to have entirely evaded her attention.

Now, Justin Trudeau -- the heir apparent to the man who gave life to the separatist crisis that nearly dismembered Canada in 1995 -- has revealed himself to be a member of this particular club: the Canada Second Club. Where their ideological agenda is the only thing that matters, and Canada can be damned as far as they care.