The Ottawa Citizen has been running a smear campaign aimed at the federal Conservatives called “Wish You Were Here“. This campaign is to highlight the federal prorogation and keep it in the eye of the public even though nobody else is talking about it anymore. Every day, it lists a number of area MPs and gives us their schedules to see what they are up to because they aren’t working on the hill.

However, today’s edition went horribly wrong: it seems the cons are working hard with many meetings and visits, the libs are either taking the day off or not saying where they are, the bloc did not respond, and the one NDPer is working:

John Baird (Cons.) Ottawa West-Nepean:

Three constituency meetings. Meeting with deputy minister on three issues. Infrastructure Canada briefing. Meeting with Department of Finance regarding budget Recommendations.

Mauril Belanger (Lib.) Ottawa-Vanier:

Declined to provide a copy of his schedule but says he is working every day.

Lawrence Cannon (Cons.) Pontiac:

Meetings and briefings.

Paul Dewar (NDP) Ottawa Centre:

Drop in to Dovercourt Recreation Centre for Family Day Free Swim. Attending CAS Foster a Snow Angel event on Parliament Hill. Reviewing constituent requests and follow-up. Official correspondence — foreign affairs and constituency matters. Research on foreign policy issues in preparation for diplomatic meetings. Speech preparation for remarks to Child Welfare League. Imagine Haiti Fundraiser at Arts Court.

Royal Galipeau (Cons.) Ottawa-Orléans:

YMCA. Heritage Canada Foundation. Meeting constituents about Canada Revenue Agency issues. Preparing ministerial memoranda about key economic development issues that impact on Ottawa-Orléans. Family Day Potluck Supper at Grace Presbyterian Church, Orléans. Evening activity in support of the victims of the recent Haiti Earthquake, Arts Court.

David McGuinty (Lib.) Ottawa South:

Spending Family Day with wife and four children.

Richard Nadeau (BQ) Gatineau:

Did not respond.

Gordon O’Connor (Cons.) Carleton-Mississippi Mills:

Declined to provide a copy of his schedule.

Pierre Poilievre (Cons.) Nepean-Carleton:

7:50 a.m.: Morning briefing. 9 a.m.: Reading correspondence. 10:30 a.m.: Travel to meeting. 11 a.m.: Meeting with PMO policy advisers. This meeting runs until 2 p.m. with possibility of extending to 4 p.m.

Marcel Proulx (Lib.) Hull-Aylmer:

Schedule details unavailable.

The same professional “protesters” who keep crashing the G8 and G20 summits everywhere. Organized, and bused in, carrying weapons and wearing ski masks, these are no ordinary protesters. These are anarchists. Most of the time, these idiots don’t even know what they are protesting. All they look for is clashing with local police to get them on the evening news crying about police brutality.

Go home and get a life, you bums.

From Greg Weston’s column in Sun Media papers today:

Less than an hour after a massive earthquake turned Haiti into an unimaginable hell of death and devastation, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an extraordinary call to action, remarkably putting the first Canadian rescue team on the stricken island by the next afternoon.

By all accounts, the launch of Operation Hestia (goddess of the hearth) was vintage Harper: No nonsense; no excuses.

It all started Tuesday evening, minutes after word of the Haitian catastrophe reached Harper’s office.

The PM was briefed aboard his jet as he arrived in Ottawa from a day-trip to Quebec, and immediately issued two clear orders from the plane.

First, the forever hands-on Harper demanded he be kept at the centre of the action and fully informed at all times.

Second, he made it crystal-clear that the Canadian government would do everything possible to come to the aid of the Haitian people – immediately.

One insider says everyone from the military brass to the high-ranking bureaucrats got the PM’s message: “He wanted it done, and he wanted it done two hours ago.” Defence Minister Peter MacKay was also sitting in a government jet, his flight delayed on the tarmac at Halifax airport, when his marching orders arrived from the PM’s plane.

Again, the directive from Harper left no room for interpretation.

As one senior official observed: “It was clear to everyone that by the next morning, the prime minister didn’t want to hear what anyone planned to do, but what we had already done.” Still on the runway in Halifax, MacKay was immediately on the phone to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.

Don’t let anybody tell you that Canada was too slow to react.

Donate to the Canadian Red Cross here.

Ms. May, perhaps in search of a seat somewhere in Denmark where she may be elected (since she can’t get elected anywhere in this country), popped up, once again, on the radar at an ‘environmental’ conference at Hopenhagen, the world’s Schmooze-fest on Global Warming (even though there is no warming).

Unfortunately, I have already called her every name in the book in my many post before this one, so I have none to give you. I apologise.

Granted she hasn’t mentioned her book just jet, but has already told Canada to ’shut up’ and has been seen rubbing shoulders with such great human beings as Al Gore. Wonder if he showed her his Oscar… Oh Al, are you happy to see me, or is that a statue in your pocket? Al Gore and Elizabeth May, now there’s a couple I wouldn’t mind reading about in National Enquirer!

She says Canada is embarrassing itself every time we open our mouths, so we should shut up. I think she got her facts mixed up just slightly, there. All this globe-trotting to each and every conference flappin’ her gums off with crazy-talk may have gotten her off the track a little bit and she substituted ‘Canada’ for ‘Me’. That’s just what I think. I think she may have lost a few of her marbles (provided she had some to start off with) and is starting to excrete even more garbage than usual.

How did you get to Denmark, by the way, Ms. May? Did you swim? Row your boat?

Oh, you flew…

Hypocrite.

Now, go away. Again.

Shoes are torture
When they’re too small
Or when they’re too tall

Shoes are torture
When they’re wet
Or when they’re full of sweat

Shoes are torture
When they’re holey
Or full of guacamole

But seriously people, shoes are not weapons of torture. One Taliban was hit with a shoe (and not even by us!), and the entire county screams of torture and our troops are war criminals and we broke international Geneva conventions.

Grow up. We’re at war. I challenge you to try to torture someone with a shoe. Stop trying to score political points on the back of our troops. Maybe Iggy, Jack and Gill can take a trip to Afghanistan and talk our way out of this war with a bouquet of roses and a bottle of Scotch.

I’m not paying no ransom.

Support our troops.

Turns out, the “controversial” body bags that were sent to a Manitoba reserve, and created so much uproar in the media and opposition parties last month, were ORDERED by a NURSE on the reserve!

http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=2081144

I’m waiting for them. Yessir. Let them apologies fly. Global TV, CTV, Ottawa Citizen, Iffy Ignatieff, Jackie Layton. I’m waiting….

But I’m not holding my breath.

h/t Jen on Blue like You comments

Biggest story yesterday was, without a doubt, the eHealth auditor’s report on a $1B WASTE of OUR MONEY. That was, in fact, the biggest news story this week. On Wednesday morning, the Ottawa Citizen (a CanWest newspaper) reported on David Caplan’s weasley resignation over eHealth on PAGE 4 in a sub-sub column type story, buried far away from the front page. I thought: OK, it’s a CanWest paper. They don’t like to talk dirty about ANY liberal.  Strike one.

So then came on Global TV News (CanWest again) with Kevin Newman, live from Toronto, on Thursday evening. Lead story? How the CONSERVATIVES are NOT ACCOUNTABLE for the stimulus program with their ‘vague’ Action Plan website with only ballpark numbers, and how in the States it is all so wonderful with fancy websites with all the information you could ever need on their stimulus packages, down to the cent. We got to see some Liberal MP, aide by the side, you know, to provide him with some much needed ideas, staring at a computer screen and commenting on how the Economic Action Plan website is misleading Canadians and withholding the truth. Then they tracked down John Baird, and his explanation was simple: (paraphrasing) “That website they have in the US cost them 65 million dollars, we’d rather put that money into roads”. There, end of the story. A non-story, really. Why did they open with this story as opposed to the Billion Dollar Scandal in Ontario? Simple, so we can now ease into the liberal un-friendly story with the following line: “… and another example of what can happen when Governments are not held accountable: in Ontario a report came out today on eHealth, the Ontario Government’s…”. ANOTHER EXAMPLE? You’re equating a blatantly incompetent McGuinty Goverment’s 1 BILLION DOLLAR WASTE to a website that only lists ballpark figures of money actually spent and got something for it? And those are BOTH examples of what can happen when Governments are not held accountable?

Strike two.

This morning, I open the Citizen. Granted, they (finally) have the eHealth story on the front page. However, my eye caught a story further on in the paper: “PM appoints 5 judges with Tory links“. And I thought: funny how I never read: “Chretien appoints 5 judges with Liberal links” back in the nineties. It was just “PM appoints 5 new judges”.

With the polls clearly indicating that Canadians are moving away from Liberals and towards Conservatives, it is no wonder CanWest is losing money: you can’t bet on a losing horse and expect to make money.

It appears Iggy is getting frustrated with all the good news coming out of Canada these days: Canada’s Action Plan is working, and commercials and websites point out this fact. He is complaining that the Action Plan commercials and website are too… conservative. What, with pictures of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet of all things. Imagine that. He is complaining the commercial and website talk about “The Harper Government” and “Conservative Government” and should say “Canada’s Government”.

Hmm… I seem to recall a certain “conservative deficit” and “conservative budget” being mentioned, oh, say, last fall and Christmas (remember the Coalition of the Idiots?)… Just as this Liberal press release has numerous references to “Conservative Budget” and “Harper Government” and even mentions “Liberal Government” quite a few times. Oh, heck, just go through the Liberal Media Releases yourself, and try to find ANY reference to “Canada’s Government” in there…

It seems when the times are tough, it’s “Harper’s Government”, and when the times are good, it’s “Canada’s Government”. Almost as if the opposition parties somehow had something to do with the fact our economy seems to be the strongest in the world right now and they want some credit for it.

Well, I think poll numbers show that Canadians know who’s to be congratulated for this economic turnaround. And it ain’t you, Mr. HypocrIggy!

So they sent some body bags up to Northern Manitoba. Body bags that were a part of a “flu kit” of some sort, that included (besides the body bags) face masks, gloves, hand lotion, etc. First Nations had been screaming for hand lotion for months now, they finally got it, but all they mentioned on the news were the body bags. Body bags this, body bags that. Insulting. Whatever.

Look. The H1N1 flu is deadly. Numerous people have died over the past 6 months, including first nations. It is very prudent to send up medicine, barrier clothing and, indeed, body bags, should the person die of H1N1. The body bag is there to protect the rest of the population. It is not insulting, it is a part of the kit. Once again, the media, by focusing on the body bags and not even mentioning the rest of the kit, gave the Canadian people a deliberately false impression that the government sent body bags instead of “real h1n1 flu packages” as one commenter on the CTV website puts it.

It is not like they asked for a kit with masks and lotion, and received body bags instead. The body bags are a part of the kit. This is a pandemic-containment measure. The pandemic containment strategy goes from the most minute (hand lotion) to the most extreme (death – containment of infected deceased).

Of course, having nothing else going his way, Iggy jumped on the band wagon and blamed the government for such an insensitive act. I suppose we didn’t ship any body bags to Afghanistan either, as to not to insult the armed forces. Maybe we shouldn’t have any coroners either…

And, had we not send any body bags up there, and people had died, the government would be blamed for not caring for the First Nations. So we can never win.

Better safe than sorry, I’d say.

Thursday, April 23, 2009. Question period. The Liberals spent the first half hammering away at the government to get our own homegrown Omar the Terrorist back home. He’s a Canadian citizen, you see. A nice, Canadian citizen (and, uhm, an  accused terrorist with a looney-tunes terrorist family). Following this onslaught, the Liberals used the second half of question period attacking the government on failing to point out to the Americans that Canada is NOT the source of terrorists coming into the US.

Do you have to be a Liberal to see the logic in that? Because I sure don’t.

Funny how the current deficit budget is now universally referred to as “The Conservative Deficit”, even after this current budget was forced upon us by the Liberals, NDPers and the bloc-heads after a mid-winter stand-off on the Governour General’s front stoop. As I recall, the Conservative’s Economic Update, brought forward in December, did not make us go into a deficit at all. It was after the three stooges reared their ugly heads and blackmailed the country, that the current deficit budget was tabled. In fact, the Libs and Dippers were crying foul that the $30B wasn’t enough.

So now it’s the “Conservative Deficit” eh? And as usual, Canadians just happily go along with it. After all, we Canadians like to hear what we want to hear and will go along with whomever says it at the time. Eventhough at another time he may say something completely different.

First they had Mr. Dithers, then they had The Dion-Witch Project, now they’re stuck with Mr. Flip-Flop. Those Libs just can’t get their act togther, can they?

O Lord, bless this Thy Holy Meeting.

And Saint Attila raised the Holy Meeting up on high, saying, “O Lord, bless this Thy Holy Meeting.” And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu… [At this point, the friar is urged by Brother Maynard to "skip a bit, brother"]… And the Lord spake, saying, “First shalt thou have thy meeting length set at 20 minutes, no more, no less. Twenty shall be the length thou shalt meet, and the length of the meeting shall be twenty. Twenty-five minutes shalt thou not meet, neither meet thou for fifteen, excepting that thou then proceed to twenty. Thirty is right out. Once the number twenty, being the twentieth number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Meeter a holy Hortons,  who, being Holy in my sight, shall drink it” Amen.

EYEBROW ALERT

If you caught Iggy’s media scrum yesterday concerning allowing the six Newfoundland MPs to vote against the Liberal Party the budget, maybe you have noticed how Iggy’s eyebrows (you can’t miss ‘em: they’re right above his eyes) tend to go up when he says something he does not agree with. They are perched right over his eyes most of the time, and once in a while they’ll move upwards.

I’m going to keep my eye on them—as disturbing as that may sound—I think Iggy’s eyebrows are a tell-tale as to his true feelings. Some people have a tic, or a hand gesture, but I think Iggy’s eyebrows are the window to his soul. I think they are down when he’s speaking the truth, and they go up as he is straying away from the truth, be it a lie or something he has to do he does not agree with.

Yeah, I’ve got an eyebrow project and I will be issuing EYEBROW ALERTs in the future when necessary.

My favourite <insert expletive here> Lizzy May was interviewed by Kate Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen this morning. Of course, she was peddling her new book, Global Warming By For Dummies, co-written by a student (!). In between the own horn tooting, she mentions this little tidbit:

I’ve already gotten in trouble for suggesting giving a copy of the book to Stephen Harper! Conservative bloggers thought this was an insult.

And there you go. Once again, we made a difference!

So where’s this “climate crisis” everyone keeps talking about?

So the budget’s out. Billions and billions in spending and tax cuts. I would like more tax cuts than spending, but hey, we’re in a minority government and we can’t just do it our way. (I would also do away with 230 million for the Arts, but we all know how a measely $48 million worked out in the past).

This budget is obviously heavily geared towards appeasing the Liberals: moderate tax cuts, investments in jobs, subsidies, low income, infrastructure. It has nothing for the NDP because, well frankly, they would vote it down regardless, and they didn’t bring any suggestions to the table, so why would there be anything in there for the NDP? The Liberals didn’t bring anything official to the table, but at least they let everybody know what they would like in it, so I guess the CPC watched the evening news and got the message.

Layton, who sported a green tie matching his green brain, turned it down without even reading it. He didn’t like the fact the Throne Speech was less than four pages (he would rather drone on and on and on and waste a whole day on reading it) and so the budget couldn’t be much better. “The bad stuff in there is not good, and if there’s good stuff, we don’t trust them to actually implement it” is a wonderful stance to take Jackie! Has anybody ever told Jack the role of the opposition is not to just oppose everything the government does?

Jack wants his stuff in the budget, or he’ll vote against. I guess it’s “My Way or the Highway” for Jackie.

Iggy meanwhile, said he had to look at the polls sleep on it to see if the budget was good enough, and today he came back with some changes. He likes the budget, but it didn’t implement all of the Liberals suggestions, so there’s a blackmail ultimatum on the table.

Iggy wants his stuff in the budget, or he’ll vote against. I guess it’s “My Way or the Highway” for Iggy.

Gilles just dismissed it right out as “there’s nothing in there for us”, meaning no money for Quebec specifically, and as such, he can’t vote for it.

Gilles wants his stuff in the budget, or he’ll vote against. I guess it’s “My Way or the Highway” for Gilles.

It seems the only one not going the “My Way or the Highway” route is Harper, wich is ironic of course, since he’s the only one being accused of doing just that.