Democracy Watch Has Jumped the Shark

So, this happened.

Democracy Watch has officially joined the political hysteria over government advertising.

I suspect that someone in the Auditor General's office is going to find their email-writing campaign a little confusing. They describe their letters as "calling on the Auditor General to audit Conservative ads, and on PM Harper to stop them."

That's rather amusing. The Auditor General has no power to investigate Conservative ads, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper has no reason to stop them.

Then you read the rest of the page in question and discover that what they're actually complaining about is "the Harper Conservatives’ government advertising that is propaganda for the Conservative Party."

Pause.

Now, I don't recall Democracy Watch complaining when the Liberal Party was in power and they spent $111 million on ads in a single year... this after the Liberal Party was caught red-handed stealing from one of its government own advertising programs, the sponsorship scandal.

One of the revelations from the Gomery Inquiry was that, aside from the blatantly-stolen monies, the sponsorship program was administered in such a way as to help Liberal Party candidates get elected in Quebec.

The problem was so bad that then-Finance Minister Ralph Goodale -- who learned so little from the sponsorship scandal that he simply refused to investigate the Income Trusts leak -- felt compelled to defend government advertising in this document.

That document contains the following statement:

"The government of Canada has a duty to tell its citizens about its initiatives, decisions and priorities. Government organizations advertise to inform Canadians and non-Canadians about their rights and responsibilities, government policies, programs, services and initiatives, or about dangers and risks to public health, safety or the environment."

The amusing thing is that Goodale wasn't wrong when he wrote this. But that was 2004. He and his party are wrong today when he objects to government advertising for this purpose, simply because it's no longer to their advantage.

With all the benefits the Economic Action Plan -- which is, by the way, a government program -- offers Canadians, it's unsurprising that the Liberal Party would prefer that Canadians not know about it. It undermines their entire "economic program" advertised to date.

So the Liberals are doing what the Liberals have always done: they're attempting to poison the well. It's a little strange that an allegedly pro-democracy group like Democracy Watch is working with them to try to undermine this vital link of information between the government of Canada and the citizens of Canada.

Unless, of course, Democracy Watch is no longer a pro-democracy group, and has simply become a partisan organization.

In other words, they've jumped the shark. As has the Liberal Party.

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.

Should Veterans Trust the Liberals?

Let it not be said that Julian Fantino hasn't fouled up his portfolio at Veterans Affairs. It's undeniable: he has.

The Conservatives don't have much time to right this ship before the 2015 election. The election is actually the least of reasons to do it... the best reason to do it is because it's the right thing to do. But right that ship they must, and they should do it with a minister who is up to the job. Someone like Laurie Hawn or Leon Benoit.

The Liberals are gearing up for the 2015 election by promising that they are the party to right that ship.

Yeah, right.

It should also never be said that the Conservatives haven't done far, far better on Veterans' Affairs than the Liberals did the last time they were in government. It should also never be said that this wasn't hard.

Consider, for example, the sad story of Stephanos Karabekos.

The year was 1995. David Collenette was then the Minister of National Defense. Karabekos was a close associate of Collenette who had campaigned for him during the 1993 federal election.

Trouble began to brew for Mr Collenette in his own riding when the Chretien government decided to cut veterans' benefits to former members of the Greek resistance living in Canada. As of 1997 there were 8,400 former members of the Greek resistance in Canada.

It turns out this was a problem. Department of Veterans Affairs projections suggested that, under the renumeration plan of the day the $65 million paid out to such members would account for 60% of the budget. Clearly something had to be done, and did the Liberals ever. In the 1995 budget they stopped all support payments to veterans of any resistance movement, including the Greek resistance movement.

All the VA offices were open, but it didn't matter. Former resistance members could find no assistance there.

Collenette's riding, Don Valley East, has a very large Greek community. Many of them were either relatives of a Greek resistance member, or had been themselves. The problem for Mr Collenette was obvious.

He set out to solve his problem in the way that any Liberal would do. He didn't reach out to the Department of Foreign Affairs to reconsider their decision to financially abandon all former resistance members now living in Canada. Instead he paid Stephanos Karabekos to go out and "soothe the feelings" of the Greek community.

For this -- an activity that had clear implications for his ability to be reelected in his riding -- Collenette paid Karabakos $95,000. By the law of the day, any contract of $30,000 or more had to be put up for tender, allowing any individual with the skills to perform the work to bid on it.

Instead, Collenette hired Karabakos -- who, again, had campaigned for him in 1993 -- in contract installments of less than $30,000 apiece. In doing so he was able to sneak DND spending that conveniently helped his reelection prospects past the Treasury Board.

The Greek resistance fighters never did get their benefits restored. But Karabakos got his $95,000 and Collenette did get reelected in 1997. If Collenette really was relying on the Greek vote then Karabakos did a good job of "soothing hurt feelings" in Don Valley West. Collenette was reelected by the same 21,511 votes that elected him in 1993.

The purely-political approach to Veterans Affairs was one the Liberals took constantly during their time in government. There's no compelling reason to take them seriously now.

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.

Canada, Meet Your Newsmedia

So, this happened: "Justice Minister Peter MacKay defends suggestion women are too busy with their kids to be judges."

Except that, as it turns out, MacKay never actually made that remark. Apparently, someone who attended a closed-door meeting between MacKay and the Ontario Bar Association either misqupted MacKay, twisted his words, or just outright lied. And because the story reinforces the preferred political narrative of the newsmedia in Canada, they have run with it rather gleefully.

And apparently this never happened: "people have lost complete confidence in the Harper Government, because when there's a spill, or there's an explosion, the last place Stephen Harper visits...he still hasn't gone to Lac Mégantic. And that's a shame."

That was Adam Vaughan, the Liberal Party's candidate the Trinity-Spadina byelection trying to make political fodder out of the victims of the Lag Megantic tragedy. Something he did while Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was in the room with him.

Based on the coverage of these remarks -- or lack thereof -- you'd insist this never happened. Yet it did. The only place where Vaughan's ridiculous comments -- indicative of an irredeemable personality -- appear in the newsmedia is buried in an article entitled "Vaughan offside with Trudeau on pipelines."

Not even Sun News is reporting this story properly.

If it had been a Conservative stooping to such a horrendous low, the headline would be blaring on the front page of every newspaper in the country. But because it's a Liberal, the story is very clearly being suppressed.

It's almost as if the citizens of Trinity-Spadina don't deserve to know that one of the candidates trying to get elected to be their MP is a nasty little creep. Somehow the story about him missing a candidates' debate on climate change policy was bigger than this one. And this certainly pales in comparison to the attention paid to the made-up MacKay story. Hell, the Toronto Star even dug up some lawyer who admitted, in the course of the story, that she only applied to become a judge out of political hostility to the sitting government.

As it turns out, this government has appointed to the bench practically every qualified female or "ethnic" applicant it could find. And it's still looking for more.

And yet Adam Vaughan dances on the graves of Lac Megantic's victims and... nothing. Barely a blurb.

It's almost enough to make you think that the newsmedia in this country has nuzzled itself into a certain party's pocket.

But that would be crazy, right?

Just Another Reason to Privatize the CBC

So just what purpose does the CBC serve in Canada? Is it to provide Canadians with news and information programming? Or is it to campaign for the Liberal Party?

Following the recent Ontario election, Premier Kathleen Wynne -- who got herself and her government reelected despite a stunning level of incompetence and corruption -- made it perfectly clear: the media party, and the CBC in particular, were valuable allies to her and her party. She thanked the CBC correspondent at her party's victory party for working with them, and working hard.


So at least as Kathleen Wynne has it -- and a great many people would be inclined to agree -- the media party, and the CBC in particular, openly campaigned for the Liberals. And at least so far as the CBC goes, taxpayers paid for it.

Which brings me to my recent proposal to privatize the CBC -- by selling it to the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. No one could promise that the CBC wouldn't mold their coverage to effectively campaign for any political party. In fact, if the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were running the CBC you could pretty much guarantee it.

But if Kathleen Wynne is to be taken at her word, that's already happening. At least if the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were footing the bill to operate the mothercorp, then taxpayers wouldn't be footing the bill for this: the incredibly-partisan Superfriends would.

If you, like I, would prefer to see that, please sign my petition to this effect.

MMIW: Take Note, Liberals, This One's On You

As Canadians were getting ready for the annual May long weekend -- treated by many Canadians as their first big adventure of the summer -- the RCMP were getting ready for something altogether different.

They were releasing an eagerly-awaited report on murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada. And they were preparing for the shrill expressions of outrage from the Canadian left in this country... who actually seem quite oblivious to the reality that they, themselves, are to blame for the sad revelations in the RCMP's report.

It's not all bad news. But it's mostly bad news. So, first, the bad news;

Aboriginal women in Canada are disproportionately represented among the country's murder victims. They are most likely to be murdered by a member of their own family. Their murderers are most likely to be not only a repeat offender, but a repeat violent offender. Their murderers are most often intoxicated when they commit these murders, and frequently do it after having had an argument with their victim.

That's the bad news. It's very bad news.

There is some good news: notably, that the rate at which these cases are solved is statistically identical to the rate at which the murderds of non-aboriginal women are solved. This is very much contrary to claims made by the Native Women's Association of Canada, who have spent years outraged that these cases have been placed under the care of professionals, as opposed to their own amateur investigators.

Now for the worst news of all. It's the worst it could possibly be: the Canadian justice system is failing indigenous women.

That failure is very much the design of the usual suspects the left would happily march before the inquiry they are currently demanding: the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers who oversaw the softening of the Canadian justice system. The so-called "experts" who we're continually told know better for us than we know for ourselves. The same ones who oversaw the continual shortening of sentences for criminals -- including violent criminals -- that has turned the killers of indigenous women loose. The same ones who have insisted that race should be deemed a mitigating factor in sentencing.

They're the ones who set aside two key principles of criminal justice -- punishment of the offender and protection of both victims and society -- and effectively left indigenous women at the mercy of their abusers; abusers who far too often became their murderers.

And now these are the same experts who, in the face of a government that has set out to turn back the clock on the softening of criminal justice in Canada, run before the courts and say "you can't do that." Not only have they softened Canada's criminal justice system, they demand that it remain that way. And activist judges schooled in the same far-left ideologies have proven stunningly eager to go along with it.

The Liberal Party bears special blame for the mess. They're the ones who amended the criminal code to facilitate this softening, and they're the ones who appointed the judges who seek to set it in stone.

These same people are now demanding a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. And I say: let's have an inquiry. But not the inquiry they want. Let's put them on the stand and force them to account for their role in this ongoing tragedy.

Let's put  the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers responsible for this before a Parliamentary inquiry and make them account for the social experiments and bad ideas that have led to this unacceptable state of affairs. And as soon as we're done shaming these so-called "experts" for their failures, let's tear what they've built down to its foundation and build it again, properly.

Stephen Harper Must Tell Madame Marois "Non"

A little history lesson:

The year was 1995. The place was Quebec. There was a referendum going on that would decide whether or not Quebec would seek to separate from the rest of Canada.

Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister of Canada. Lucien Bouchard was the Premier of Quebec. Chretien was reluctant to get involved in the referendum. And Bouchard took full advantage of that.

Mr Bouchard promised Quebeckers the moon: after separating from Canada Quebec would not accept its share of the national debt. Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency. Quebec would continue to benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) without negotiating their way into it.

None of these things were possible. But Chretien made no forceful attempt to dispel Bouchard's delusions (some would say lies). And Quebec very nearly voted in favour of separating from Canada.

That was 1995, nearly 20 years ago. Now the year is 2014, and Quebec's is having an election. Quebec's current Premier, Pauline Marois, is making very similar promises to what Bouchard promised. Marois has insisted that a sovereign Quebec would continue to use Canadian currency, and would have a seat on the board of the Bank of Canada. She also suggests that Quebec would effectively have no borders with the rest of Canada.

It seems reasonable to suspect that Marois will also insist that not only would a sovereign Quebec not accept its share of the national debt, but won't give up the transfer payments that effectively fund its lavish lifestyle.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper must not repeat the mistakes of Jean Chretien. To all of this he must say "non."

Marois' suggestions are in now way acceptable or even possible. Given how her government chooses to manage the Quebec economy -- discouraging, if not outright refusing, economic development -- the rest of the world has a right to  its input on the desirability of doing business in Quebec. That pretty much requires a Quebec currency to fall like a stone against the Canadian dollar on international markets. With the Parti Quebecois in power, fall like a stone such a currency would. Guaranteed.

The idea of a sovereign Quebec without borders also flies in the face of the very concept of sovereignty. Having borders is a precursor of any semblance of sovereignty. Any 100-level political science student in Quebec presumably understands this, even if Madame Marois does not.

I understand that Prime Minister Harper is reluctant to get involved in the Quebec election. There is some good reason for this. But this is not an acceptable reason to remain silent and allow Marois to deceive the citizens of Quebec about what independence would mean for La Belle Province.

Ju me souviens, Mr Harper. Remember what happened in 1995. Do not repeat the mistakes of that year in 2014.

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.

Andrew Leslie Has Some 'Splainin' To Do...

Liberals continue to be hopping mad over a CTV report that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau's prized military advisor, Lieutenant General (ret) Andrew Leslie, claimed $70,000 for a move across Ottawa. They -- and General Leslie -- insist that he's being smeared by the Conservative Party, and that he's done nothing wrong.

Yet a perusal of the Department of National Defense's policy manual for the Integrated Relocation Directive suggests that this may not actually be the case; that General Leslie's expense claim may not actually have been eligible.

Simply put, the "one last moved" allowed under the IRD is not necessarily to move absolutely anywhere:

Section 14.02.03 eventually refers the reader to section 14.08.02:

Leslie's IPP -- Intended Place of Residency -- was not in excess of 40 km away from the residence from which he moved. It was closer to four km away.

Oddly, John Geddes doesn't mention any of this in his Maclean's blogpost on the topic today.

Having spent years as a command officer in the Canadian Forces, it's not unreasonable to expect General Leslie to have a firm understanding of these policies. That he bothered to make a claim for these expenses at all is fairly questionable to say the least. That the Treasury Board approved this claim after presumably having examined it is far more than questionable.

Plenty of people have some 'splainin' to do, and Lt Gen (ret) Andrew Leslie is chief among them.

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.

Linda McQuaig Must Be Defeated

Apparently, the by-election in Toronto Centre is effectively set. Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland will contest the riding against NDP nominee Linda McQuaig.

The two-horse-race is apparently so much so that whoever the Conservative nominee in the riding might end up being, they haven't warranted so much as a mention in coverage so far.

Freeland is far from a perfect candidate. But as seldom as I endorse a Liberal candidate, I can certainly say that she's the far better of the two candidates: the "lesser of two evils," as it were.

The reason for this actually boils entirely down to McQuaig. She is what NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has insisted that his party doesn't represent: she's very much a "class war" candidate, bent on winning support from the poor by not only demonizing the wealthy, but promising re-distribution of wealth on a stunning scale. And while this may play well to voters in Regent Park, it's actually the reason why, for the good of the country, Linda McQuaig absolutely must be defeated.

It all comes down to her economic theories:

1. They're vindictive - McQuaig doesn't like millionaires. She really doesn't like billionaires. And so she has consistently advocated for policies that would wipe out every fortune in Canada. This is, of course, the dark side of McQuaig's equality crusade: her quest to force equality of result -- as opposed to equality of opportunity -- on Canadian society requires that she take the things people have earned for them, mostly just for the sake of taking it.

That's not the kind of attitude that ends itself to strong government.

2. They're tyrannical -There's something about a person who thinks that she should be able to decide what you should be able to earn, and what you should be able to leave to your children. Think about that: not only does she want to confiscate any excess if she thinks you've managed to earn too much, but if even if someone were to find their way around that and earn a fortune, she wants to confiscate it upon your passing.

She apparently thinks herself fit to decide what your children can have when you're gone. That's a staggering amount of power she thinks herself fit to wield.

3. They're reckless - McQuaig eyes up the wealthy as a source of revenue from which the government can fund the laundry list of social programs she envisions -- and those that she hasn't even thought up yet.

So imagine that McQuaig gets what she wants. Presumably everything's fine so long as their are fortunes to snatch.

What happens when there aren't?

McQuaig's policies would saddle Canada with extravagant social programming under on the basis that pilfered fortunes could be used to pay for them. And then her policies actively and deliberately set out to destroy the source of that revenue. It would be enough to transform Canada into Greece within a single generation. A competent economist would know better.

4. They're irrational - A competent economist would know better. Yet somehow Linda McQuaig doesn't.

How could this be? She may not necessarily be an economist, but she considers herself well-versed in economics. Yet her theories reject not only any remote semblance of economic orthodoxy -- in itself not necessarily a bad thing -- but also reject decades worth of economic history. She's the kind of theorist who not only clings to her model for years after the observed results contradicts them, but actually doubles down.

It doesn't seem unfair to suggest that running to be an MP is McQuaig's way of doubling down on her own disproven economic fantasies. McQuaig's theories wouldn't bring an embrace of evidence-based governance to Parliament, but rather a rejection of it.

Farbeit to say that electing McQuaig is guaranteed to bring economic ruin to Canada. After all, she would be but one MP, and her party has absolutely no chance of ever governing the country. But should McQuaig be elected, it would show that Canadians very much could be wooed by petty divisiveness and pure ideological fervour.

That should never be allowed to happen. Linda McQuaig must be defeated in Toronto-Centre.

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.

And Henceforth, It Was Known as #Attawapiscam

Paul Martin is inspired by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

Really. He even says so.

“I just told her that … she’d become really an inspiration for all Canadians and that we were obviously concerned about her health and that she’s got to take care of herself,” Martin announced.

But if you didn't know better -- or see the results of the audit released today -- you'd almost think that perhaps Spence hadn't been inspired by the government in which he served as Finance Minister, and eventually took over as Prime Minister. After all, it seems that Spence's Band Council and the government of which Martin was a part have so much in common.

After all, remember the Sponsorship Scandal? Adscam? Questionable spending of federal taxpayer dollars? No indication the work was actually done?

Yeah. Theresa Spence and Paul Martin are looking an awful lot alike right about now. Now, this shouldn't be confused with suggesting that Martin himself was directly responsible for Adscam. The results of the Gomery Inquiry pretty clearly indicated that Martin himself wasn't. Keep in mind that the results of the Deliotte audit don't yet point a direct finger of blame at anyone in particular.

But there's absolutely no question that when the shit went down, both Martin and Spence were either holding the keys of power, or (in Martin's case) at least holding the purse strings.

Keep in mind that the Attawapiskat audit doesn't reveal malfeasance per se. No one will know for certain until the forensic audit that Attawapiskat co-manager Clayton Kennedy ("coincidentally" Spence's honey bunny) called for. (Of course, it's remarkably easy for Kennedy.to say the funds can be tracked via the vendors and contractors when there are so few contracts, receipts, and documents of any kind. But I digress.)

Better yet, the government could just go ahead and call an inquiry into Attawapiskat. Which, if you ask me, is something that pretty much has to happen no matter what. After all, there are answers to be found and, one way or the other, Canada desperately needs them.

Now to say that there may be no malfeasance is not to say that there may be no scandal. There's no question there is a scandal of one sort or another. Which is why Canadians should go ahead and take their "inspiration" from none other than Paul Martin himself, and brand this scandal Attawapiscam. Even though it's a little bit on the longside, it actually makes a pretty decent hashtag.

The Ground Continues to Shrink Under the Council of Canadians

It just keeps looking worse and worse for the Council of Canadians.

Frank Graves is a name that is extremely familiar to followers of Canadian politics. In 2010, Graves gave advice to then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff that he invoke a "culture war" between the Liberal Party and the governing Conservative Party. It did not end well for the Liberal Party. It was serious enough that Graves lamely tried to explain the entire thing away -- although he never really has.

So it should come as no surprise that Graves -- President of the EKOS polling firm -- is also instrumental in the Council of Canadians' bid to overturn the 2011 election results in seven ridings all won by Conservative candidates.

Apparently, Graves conducted a poll that concluded that, despite the absence of tens of thousands of such complaints, tens of thousands of Canadians -- opposition supporters in all -- were targeted by a highly-organized voter suppression effort.

As it turns out, however, Graves' poll has some very serious flaws in it. Reported, by all people, by Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor.

Ruth Corbin, the CEO of Toronto-based CorbinPartners, has found some very serious problems with Graves' poll. Central to Corbin's analysis is the use of an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system which actually does nothing to confirm who is taking the survey. The survey could have been answered by absolutely anyone, including minors. IVR's tend to suffer from receiving very low response rates, posing serious problems for the scientific sampling of respondents, and making the survey very susceptible to a self-selection bias among respondents.

Some of Corbin's criticisms can be accounted for and explained away pretty easily. But this critique of IVR technology isn't. This becomes clear once you realize that Graves, EKOS, and Council of Canadians, for their own part, actually have no good answer this critique. Apparently the best they could do was enlist University of Toronto Political Science Neil Nevitte tp lamely complain that Corbin's critique was "not generous."

Wow. Is that it?

Look deeper than Nevitte's lame complaint. Maher and McGregor clearly didn't. Nevitte himself overlooks the presence of the self-selection bias in the Graves survey. He notes that “If the calls regarding the change in location of polling stations were random, then there should be no differences in the frequency with which people with different partisan inclinations would report that they were contacted.”

That would make sense. But having used an IVR system, what evidence does Graves have to show that his sampling was truly random? And what evidence does Graves have that months of media bluster about "misleading robocalls" leading up to his survey didn't taint the results? What guarantee does Nevitte have? After carefully considering both Corbin's argument, and Nevitte's counter-argument, the answer becomes immediately apparent: given their use of IVR, the answer is "absolutely none." While a poli sci prof may be able to overlook something like that, an industry professional like Corbin would not.

The more you dig into this Council of Canadians case, the less and less solid the evidence becomes. Remember that they have to show that not only were there misdeeds in the 2011 election, but that it likely affected the result.

The evidence they have is far from rock-solid. No wonder they've been trying to bend the rules while looking for more.

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.

Desperation Cubed

Jean Chretien pulls "hidden agenda" meme up out of its grave

When Jean Chretien ascended to the office of Prime Minister after the 1993 federal election, Time Magazine hailed him as "yesterday's man".

It was, in every sense, a deeply cogent pronouncement. Chretien was a relic of a Canadian politics many considered to be long past, one that could only prevent the ascension of a new political regime by vilifying it. When Chretien was in office the target of relentless vilification was Preston Manning and the Reform Party. By the time Chretien was finally shuffled out the door by Paul Martin, it became clear that the politics envisioned by Manning and the Reform Party were very much the politics of Canada's future.

That future would never come with Manning at the helm. His predecessor, Stockwell Day, proved himself to be uniquely vulnerable to the character assassination tactics favoured by the Liberal Party. They were able to destroy Day's leadership prospects to a degree they previously could only fantasize about.

Then along came Stephen Harper. And while the fear-mongering could hold Harper off for a time -- for two years to be precise -- it couldn't destroy his Prime Ministerial hopes the way the Liberals had hoped.

Not that they didn't try. God, did they ever try. They forecasted the destruction of Canada as we knew it: the repeal of same-sex marriage, the end of abortion freedoms, even soldiers -- with guns -- in our cities. They called it Harper's hidden agenda. The only reason why no one else could find any evidence of Harper having such plans was because it was so, well, hidden.

On February 6, 2006, Harper became Prime Minister of Canada. And something remarkable happened: all the horrors the Liberals assured us were forthcoming never came. They never happened.

For a time, they assured us that they just hadn't happened yet because Harper only had a minority. The "hidden agenda" meme lived on in their imaginations, even though Canadians further rejected it in 2008, when they reelected Harper with a stronger minority government.

Fewer and fewer Canadians believed Harper had a hidden agenda. In 2011, they reelected his government again -- this time with a majority government.

Now, it seems, the shit has truly hit the fan. Now, Jean Chretien has come out of hiding to insist that Harper has a hidden agenda.

Of course, he didn't say as much to the Canadian public. He said it in a fundraising letter sent out to his Party's dwindling followers.

"Next may be a woman's right to choose, or gay marriage. Then might come capital punishment. And one by one, the values we cherish as Canadians will be gone," Chretien wrote. The Harper government has already walked away from the Kyoto Protocol Chretien's government signed then never implemented, and the long gun registry which they claim reduces gun violence, but actually does nothing. "Unless we are bold. Unless we seize the moment. Everything we built will start being chipped away."

It's all terribly yawn-inducing -- so dreadfully reeking of desperation that it's tempting to simply discount the Liberal Party altogether.

This is a party that has nothing new to offer. It had nothing new to offer when it offered Jean Chretien, and Canadians only accepted that because they thought he was better than Kim Campbell or Joe Clark, and less scary than Preston Manning or Stockwell Day.

By both counts, they were wrong. Chretien embarked on a directionless and self-indulgent romp through Canadian politics, demonstrating just how ill-suited he was to mold Canada's present, or plan for Canada's future.

Now, with the Liberal Party's desperate reach into the past in a desperate bid to ensure its future, they've shown that this quality isn't unique among Liberals to Chretien. Rather, it's pandemic among Liberals.

They're desperate to survive. Desperate to matter. Desperate for your attention.