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.

So, what other things you have been saying during the campaign that have now proven to be untrue? Or, in other words, what other things has Mr Harper said during the campaign, that you said were lies, turn out to be true?

Yes, Dion held his L O N G awaited press conference yesterday, after HIDING OUT for nearly a week. Saying he’ll step down, but stay on for now (?). He blames everything on himself, but mostly on a number of other things (is that possible? It’s like a shirt is 100% cotton, AND some wool h/t Seinfeld), such as: read more…

This is the first election I’ve heard the opposition parties say: If the Conservatives win a strong minority or a slight majority that means they got 40% of the vote which means 60% of Canada did NOT vote for them. 60% of Canadians DO NOT WANT them. That means 60% of Canada voted for US and so we should govern.

So I did some research into past elections and, applying the above ‘rule’, where you don’t have the Canadian people’s blessing to govern if you don’t get more than 50% of the vote, the history of our country would have been quite different: read more…

Hypothetical scenario:

Minority Conservative Government. First vote of confidence will be on Tough on Crime for Young Offenders. It will (obviously) be defeated. Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens will go to the Governor General, and form a new coalition government. We’ll get:

1. Prime Minister Stephane Dion
2. Minister of Finance: Bob Rae
3. Minister of Defense: Jack Layton
4. Minister of the Environment: Elizabeth May

If this doesn’t scare anybody I don’t know what this country is a-comin’ to.

And this is a VERY REALISTIC scenario. The Bloc, Greens and NDP have already said they’re open to it. Dion has REFUSED to rule out putting May in his cabinet, indicating he’s open to a coalition. The only way to stop this is by electing a majority Conservative government.

h/t to Lowell Green’s radio show

In this week’s edition of the Lanark County EMC is a “Meet the candidates” section for my riding, Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington. It profiles the four major candidates with a little biography and a blurb that was obviously sent in a good while ago to meet the deadline.

Here are the candidates:

Dave Remington, Liberal. Napanee Mayor… blah blah blah… business community… blah blah blah… ah, the good stuff: Most important issue this election: The Green Shift. Other issues of importance: education, health care, agriculture, the environment.

Sandra Willard, NDP. Home health worker. Most important issue: global warming, jobs, keeping health care private, supporting single parents and keeping uranium mining out of the riding.

Chris Walker, The Green Party. Renovation contractor, renewable energy consultant. Most important issue: the environment. Other issues: the arts, health promotion, renewal in faith in the democracy.

Scott Reid, Conservative. Incumbent. Seeking fourth victory. Most important issue: THE ECONOMY. Other issues: state of our local rural economy.

read more…

President Ken Lewenza of the CAW, Canada’s largest private sector union, asked his members to vote strategically to stop a Harper majority from becoming a reality.

“Stopping a Stephen Harper majority is one of the most important challenges progressive Canadians have ever faced” — Ken Lewenza

In this story, it is obvious he blames the Tory Government, rather than the fact that people do not want  trucks and SUVs anymore, for closures in the Ford plants, GM plants and numerous auto parts plants.

He wants his members to vote Liberal or NDP depending on your riding. Hmm.. Liberals want to put a carbon tax on every auto plant out there, making cars more expensive (read: layoffs). The NDP wants to tax “big corporations”, like, say, GM and Ford (read: layoffs). The Conservatives are the only ones proposing tax cuts for corporations, so I don’t really see his motivation here.

I said it before, the closure of those plants has nothing to do with government: it has to do with the lack of foresight and market research by the ‘big three’: Ford, GM and Chrysler. They did not realise people were switching to smaller, more fuel efficient cars until it was too late. Toyota and Honda, on the other hand, clued in a long time ago, and are actually building new plants in Ontario.

Oh my God!

I read the most terrible news on the Liberal website this morning, it nearly made my heart stop:

The Conservative plan to use trucks to carry partisan billboards throughout the province of Quebec during this election campaign is a perfect example of the harmful effect the Harper government has had on Canada’s environment, Liberal Candidate for Vaudreuil-Soulanges Brigitte Legault said today.

Can you imagine that? They are using TRUCKS throughout the province of Quebec to carry partisan billboards around!

read more…

Free University Education, Anyone?

The Liberals promised to make University virtually free for most students. Yes, in a country with a crumbling health care system, crumbling infrastructure, crumbling Military, we need to make universities free for most people. Students can’t possibly be expected to work to make about $6000/yr to pay for tuition & books. That means, well, you’d have to work two nights a week and an entire Saturday! And you can’t go out and drink anymore! We can’t have that, so we’re all gonna pay their tuition for them. Nice. You know, we already have extremely low tuition fees. Name me any other country where you can get a year’s worth of quality University education for under $5000. They promise 300,000 grants and bursaries of $3,500 – $4,000 each. That’s around $1,200,000,000 ANUALLY. That is in ADDITION to the $25B education endowment fund. I suppose our carbon tax will pay for that. Oh wait, it was going to pay for those fisheries announcements earlier. Or income tax cuts. Wait, I’m confused…

read more…

News flash for Jack: CO2 is plant food. It is good for the environment

Layton, once again followed in Harper’s footsteps by visiting cities where Harper had just been the day before. He criticized Harper and Dion’s environmental plans, saying they would not clean up the air, while offering his own “Cap and Trade” scheme, which, of course, will not clean up the air either, because 1) a trade scheme will just move the emissions from one company to another, and 2) Carbon Dioxide is NOT A POLLUTANT.

Dion vowed, when elected. he would ban all “military assault weapons” and “take them off our streets”. Someone ought to tell him there are no military assault weapons on our streets because they are banned outside the military. They’ve been banned since, like, forever. Day 4 and still no points for Dion.

Once again, the Conservatives’ campaign got overshadowed by stupidity. An aide has been suspended for making insensitive remarks about the father of a fallen soldier who criticized Harper’s fixed withdrawal date for the Afghan mission. Harper dealt with it swiftly and justly. However, these mistakes have got to stop! I know we’re still in the early days here, but geez, can we get some focus on policy?

Liz White, of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party, yes, that one, said May’s inclusion in the debate is great news for the fringe parties. She said all of her 72 supporters would like to see her up on the debate podium as well. And why stop there? Let’s invite all party leaders, including a dozen or so independents. Let’s see if we can have a debate with 30 something people up there.

I am happy Hypocrisy 1 is up and flying, so Dion can leave the province. It was starting to feel like house arrest. Like he was being punished by the other leaders. Yay, five days in and the Liberal campaign is off!

The Adventures of Sweater-Vest and Sweater Boy

Dion’s new campaign promise is that he’ll raise the yearly $1200 child benefit, one he fought so hard against last election, by 350 dollars a year. Apparently, the current $100/month wasn’t enough to buy both beer AND popcorn. He also called the Conservatives liars, a term usually reserved for the later stages of a campaign, but what the heck.  Dion said he can be distilled down to six words: CUT… INCOME…TAXES…SHIFT…TO…POLLUTION. Whatever. I dearly hope someone will have a clue what this guy is talking about before the end of this election. read more…