Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Ignatieff Cries Help: Will Jack Rescue Liberals?

Jack Layton on the 5th anniversary of his lead...
Dear Jack Layton,
Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.
1996
When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?
And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.
 
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.
When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh.
Yours truly,
Michael Ignatieff
Liberals are in trouble and they need help. Here is the original.

NDP Leader, Jack Layton, claims to have blessed Canadians with a "compromise" solution to retain the gun registry. Can he seriously believe that firearms owners are sufficiently naive to acquiesce to this latest attempt to justify the existence of this bloated, wasteful, and ineffective program? ... In an attempt to make the onerous laws authorizing the registry's existence appear to be more friendly, the Leader of the NDP is offering to create a "non-criminal, ticketable" offence for first-time offenders who fail to register their long-guns. It's a nice thought but impossible without re-writing the Criminal Code. ... So even if you could be issued a ticket, payable with a fine, you would still have a CRIMINAL RECORD!
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Monday, August 30, 2010

Rossi Team: Every Hopeful

Rocco Rossi
On the same day that a new Ipsos-Reid poll found he has the support of just 7 per cent of decided voters, Rocco Rossi overhauled his campaign team. Sachin Aggarwal, former deputy chief of staff to Michael Ignatieff, is out as campaign manager. Bernie Morton, who had been poised to run John Tory's campaign, is in.

Last place. That's got to sting one week makes a difference?

 Bernie Morton, Rossi's new campaign manager, told the Sun Friday that the election's momentum was shifting to the City Hall outsider
The Toronto media, the attacks by all the candidates on Rob Ford paint him as the outsider.
Rocco Rossi took the job of fundraiser for the Federal Liberal Party and quit within twelve months? The public relations arm in the Liberal party boasted of reaching twenty million, it did not materialize. In the first two quarters of 2010, the Liberals fell further behind the Conservative Party of Canada, they exceeded their best numbers since 2006. What exactly did Rocco Rossi know about the Liberal fortunes and what did he fix?
Bernie spent seven years working for a City of Toronto councillor after attending the University of Guelph as a political science major.
Ontario general election, 2007
Bernie has held a variety of political campaign positions over two decades. In the 2006 and 2008 federal elections he played a central campaign role for the Conservative Party of Canada. In Ontario’s 2007 election, Bernie sat on the Ontario P.C. campaign committee. He also serves as Vice President of the Public Affairs Association of Canada.
Bernie is an insider and had backed John Tory.
Sixty percent of the population is not happy with the choices (of Rob Ford or George Smitherman)," Morton said. "Now people are recognizing that Rocco Rossi is an option – he has the greatest opportunity for growth."
When you are in last place, it is safe to predict you can improve.
Sixty percent of the population do NOT participate. You must be eligible to vote in Canadian elections. In most cases municipal politics brings out the lowest participation in the electorate.

In 2008 a large portion of the eligible electorate decided not to vote in the Federal elections. They accounted for nearly nine million Canadians who did not bother to participate in choosing a candidate or spoiling a ballot.There are 1.5 million electors in Toronto's municipal election.Voter turnout in the 2006 election was 39%.
In 2003 it was a horse race between David Miller and John Tory. Barbara Hall and John Nunziata were only capable of winning one ward each.
The Liberal voters moved from Barbara Hall, John Nunziata to John Tory in order to stop David Miller come from behind rally. David Miller was supported by the NDP and union vote.
Liberals don't have alot of time to move their votes for the next mayor to stop the NDP and union vote this time either. Liberal candidate George Smitherman is wearing his Ontario provincial record.
In 2003 the voters had not suffered under seven years of provincial Liberals. In 2010 the voters are looking to punish everything Liberal. Is Rocco Rossi too closely associated to the Federal Liberals? 
Rob Ford is most likely to pick up the anti-establishment vote against more taxes, fees in Toronto. His honesty about the need to balance the books and deal with the deficit of Toronto is making the Liberals and Unions very worried.
Will the taxpayers show up to give Rob Ford a landslide as the incumbent who is the outsider?
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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Iffy Dons Superman Suit To Save Democracy

During the day a mild mannered cosmopolitan member of the political class has found an issue to defend our fragile democracy.
What so endeared Ignatieff to the thinking classes was his cosmopolitan liberalism. His Russian family background, North American childhood and easy mastery of several languages seemed to qualify him as a citizen of the world.
Michael Ignatieff may an inferiority complex as a result of so many negative polls on his leadership. It is known in some circles as the Napoleon Complex. It is usually attributed to a person of short stature, but also include those who have feelings of inferiority. Let's be honest, Michael has a great deal of issues that would bring this to his daily life on a regular basis.
It’s the fault of the political class,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “In truth, politicians don’t know how to keep young people interested in politics anymore. This is a major challenge, not only for the Liberal party, but for the entire political class.” - Mr. Fixer at Liberal Thinkers Conference
No more ATV Rides: Super-friends to the rescue
If you travel outside the Ottawa bubble, you realize how out of touch the press and opposition are with regular Canadians. Over ninety per cent are employed, paying bills, raising families dealing with how to afford to send their kids to college and wondering if their savings will last in their retirement.
Most of us don't have the salaries in excess of hundred thousand, complete medical pharmaceutic  plans, rent subsidies, gold plated pensions that match politicians, civil servants. The entitled class have no problem with raising our taxes and increasing regulation.
On the last leg of his sixth tour trying to meet with the Canadians, the leader of the official opposition has decided our PM should not make a joke about riding on an ATV. Fortunately for us I am aware of the super duper powers and secret identities of the Liberal Party. In this exclusive NOT from TMZ I will provide proof how they will finally stop the neo-cons from unnecessary ATV rides in the future.
"With great powers comes, comes great responsibilty" - Uncle Ben I have been told by highly placed anonymous sources no testing on props such as door knobs, body bags, Canadians flags will be necessary. Phew!

The days of a rule breaking PM on ATV are numbered!




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Political Elites Are Worried: Tides of Change

"Hello, America. I have just gotten word from the media that there is over a thousand people here today," Beck said, with a hint of sarcasm. He later said he had heard the crowd was between 300,000 and 500,000, "and if that's coming from the media, God only knows."
The crowd remained civil and listened attentively through 200 minutes of speeches, prayers, songs and the awarding of medals.
Indeed, President Barack Obama was not referred to by name on stage once during the three-and-a-half hour program.
The focus of the rally was more explicitly religious than political, with many speakers openly professing their Christian faith, including Beck.
At points, it felt like a mixture of old-fashioned tent revival and a special (tamer than normal) episode of Beck’s show.



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Will Nathan demand ABC, NBC, CBS Cable News outlets include a disclaimer?

Image representing Rupert Murdoch as depicted ...
Rupert Murdoch
Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association and son of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, to demand in a letter to Fox News chairman Roger Ailes that the cable news outlet include a disclaimer in its coverage of gubernatorial campaigns after a news report of one million by Rupert Murdoch.
The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.
Nathan Daschle hypocrite?
By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.-Obama, Democrats got 88 percent of 2008 contributions by TV network execs, writers, reporters If he does not demand the same disclaimer for the three major broadcast television networks, would he be a hypocrite?
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Saturday, August 28, 2010

It's The Economy Stupid: Opposition Cry Wolf

Coalition demand  millions for NHL Hockey Rink, Census Fines and Welcome Mat to Russians bombers
Of the $7.2-billion three-month deficit, nearly half -$3 billion -was attributed to tax reductions, increased employment insurance benefits and infrastructure spending.- Recovery continues in spite of political stunts by opposition.
The Pacific Salmon Commission, a joint Canadian-U.S. body that helps regulate the West Coast salmon fishery, announced Friday that just over 30 million sockeye are expected to return to the river this year — the largest run since 1913. - -Let Their Be Fish: Mother Nature Votes Conservative
The Economy
Economy: Review
Canada’s relative position among its peer group of countries has slipped. In the 1970s, Canada’s GDP per capita was $17,812, the fourth highest of its peer countries, earning a “B” grade. This grade was maintained in the following decade but dropped to a “C” average in the 1990s and 2000s.
Canada is being affected by a worldwide downturn. The world financial system crisis can be traced to aggressive sub-prime mortgage lenders in the U.S. and to the lax lending standards of western European banks on their loans in eastern Europe. Of all the developed world’s banking sectors, Canada’s is in the best shape. Its conservative and relatively cautious approach meant that, for the most part, Canadian banks did not get involved in the splurge in investing in mortgage-backed securities in the early to mid-2000s. As a result, no Canadian banks have failed or been forced to seek government help. Still, the dramatic decline in U.S. demand for Canada’s exports, together with falling equity values and commodities prices, contributed to a 3.4 per cent contraction in Canada’s real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008. Overall, Canada’s real GDP grew by only 0.5 per cent in 2008. Because the population growth rate was higher than the GDP growth rate, income per capita fell. -Income Per Capita
If you ask the opposition, critics and media in Canada, they demonstrate an Alice In Wonderland approach to the Global Recession.  They demanded thirty billion in October 2008, supported the minority led government since coming to power in 2006.-Everyone Loves Harper
July 2010- Overall, profits were down despite the fact that 15 of 22 industries reported higher profits. Declines were led by corporations in the insurance industry, as well as the oil and gas industry.
In the non-financial sector, profits decreased by 1.5% to $46.4 billion, while among financial industries profits declined 2.7% to $15.3 billion.
However, on a year-over-year basis, profits in both sectors in the second quarter were roughly 28% above the levels in the second quarter of 2009. -The Daily
The Liberals who came to power in 1993 through successive majorities unilaterally changed the rules on eligibility to reduce the benefits to the unemployed, they changed the premium to a payroll tax. The Liberals brag about their offloading to the Provinces, surpluses, and successive majorities. Liberals demonstrated they are less compassionate  than the Conservative led government.
OECD Comparison of Total Tax Wedge
In four other countries (Netherlands, UK, Korea and Japan), all three components of the tax wedge have increased. In other countries (for instance in Canada, Germany and Poland) increases in income taxes are offset by decreases in (employee or/and employer) social security contributions.
Raising payroll taxes through the Back Door Liberals proved they were unaccountable. In a 7-0 decision, the court ruled EI premiums were inappropriately collected between 2002, 2003, and 2005. That's when the Liberal cabinet set EI rates directly without the authorization from Parliament and the employment insurance commission, a violation of the principle of no taxation without representation.- Liberal Government Broke Law

In July, employment decreased in educational services (regular summer layoffs) and in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing. At the same time, there were increases in manufacturing and public administration. Following strong gains in recent months, employment was little changed in July, with large full-time declines mostly offset by part-time gains. The unemployment rate edged up 0.1 percentage points to 8.0%.
When the teachers, support staff report back to work in late August the rate may dip below 8.0%
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Friday, August 27, 2010

Ignatieff Channels Rodney Dangerfield

The poll found Ignatieff earned a net negative score in every region of the country, among men and women, all age groups and all education levels. He scored worse than Harper among all demographic groups, except Quebecers and those with post-graduate degrees.

Summer tour lifts Liberals, but not Ignatieff: poll

Only self-identified Liberal supporters gave Ignatieff an overall positive rating and even that was tepid — 54 per cent favourable versus 32 per cent unfavourable.
Liberal strategist reading Ignatieff leadership scores
Harper, by contrast was viewed favourably by a whopping 88 per cent of Conservatives. He also scored overall positive ratings among Prairie respondents and those with college educations.
Harris-Decima chairman Allan Gregg said the results suggest Ignatieff has failed to cultivate a base of loyal supporters who view him as their champion.
“He simply does not have a base out there, whereas Harper does,” Gregg said in an interview.
“As a consequence . . . the Conservative vote is far more resilient when it gets pushed down and, on the other side, there’s no lift for the Liberal vote that might be provided by leadership.”
  • Fundraising fixed
  • Grassroots on-board
  • Star candidates
  • Clear vision, a few policies with public support
  • United party of MPs  and Senators behind Michael Ignatieff.
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PM Stephen Harper Prioritizes North


 PM Stephen Harper is retracing the plan of a previous PM who believed in a strong united Canada. Will Canadians embrace him as they did PM John G. Diefenbaker in 1958?

Statue of John Diefenbaker on Parliament Hill,...The 1958 election campaign saw a huge outpouring of public support for the Progressive Conservatives. At the opening campaign rally in Winnipeg on February 12, voters filled the hall until the doors had to be closed for safety reasons. They were promptly broken down by the crowd outside.[88] At the rally, Diefenbaker called for "[a] new vision. A new hope. A new soul for Canada."[89] He pledged to open the Canadian North, to seek out its resources and make it a place for settlements.[88] The conclusion to his speech expounded on what became known as "The Vision",
This is the vision: One Canada. One Canada, where Canadians will have preserved to them the control of their own economic and political destiny. Sir John A. Macdonald saw a Canada from east to west: he opened the west. I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North. This is the vision![90]
Pierre Sévigny, who would be elected an MP in 1958, recalled the gathering, "When he had finished that speech, as he was walking to the door, I saw people kneel and kiss his coat. Not one, but many. People were in tears. People were delirious. And this happened many a time after."[91] When Sévigny introduced Diefenbaker to a Montreal rally with the words "Levez-vous, levez-vous, saluez votre chef!" (Rise, rise, salute your chief!) according to Postmaster General William Hamilton "thousands and thousands of people, jammed into that auditorium, just tore the roof off in a frenzy".[92] Michael Starr remembered, "That was the most fantastic election ... I went into little places. Smoky Lake, Alberta, where nobody ever saw a minister. Canora, Saskatchewan. Every meeting was jammed ... The halls would be filled with people and sitting there in the front would be the first Ukrainian immigrants with shawls and hands gnarled from work ... I would switch to Ukrainian and the tears would start to run down their faces ... I don't care who says what won the election; it was the emotional aspect that really caught on."[93]


 

Who Owns The Arctic

John Diefenbaker's Northern Vision


"A New Vision" speech by John G. Diefenbaker at the Civic Auditorium, Winnipeg, 12 February 1958
Ladies and gentlemen, we started in the last few months, since June the 10th, to carry out our promises, and I can tell you this, that as long as I am Prime Minister of this country, the welfare of the average Canadian will not be forgotten. We intend to launch for the future, we have laid the foundations now, the long-range objectives of this party. We ask from you a mandate; a new and a stronger mandate, to pursue the planning and to carry to fruition our new national development programme for Canada. For years we raised that in the House of Commons, and those in authority ridiculed it. Day before yesterday, Mr. Pearson came out in favour of a national development policy. Why didn't they do it when they were in power?
This national development policy will create a new sense of national purpose and national destiny. One Canada. One Canada, wherein Canadians will have preserved to them the control of their own economic and political destiny. Sir John A. MacDonald gave his life to this party. He opened the West. He saw Canada from East to West. I see a new Canada - a Canada of the North. What are these new principles? What are our objectives? What do we propose? We propose to assist the provinces, with their co-operation, in the financing and construction of job-creating projects necessary for the new development, where such projects are beyond the resources of the provinces. We will assist the provinces with their cooperation in the conservation of the renewable natural resources. We will aid in projects which are self-liquidating. We will aid in projects which, while not self-liquidating will lead to the development of the national resources for the opening of Canada's northland. We will open that northland for development by improving transportation and communication and by the development of power, by the building of access roads. We will make an inventory of our hydroelectric potential.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now intend to bring in legislation to encourage progressively increasing processing of our domestic raw materials in Canada, rather than shipping them out in raw material form. We will ensure that Canada's national resources are used to benefit Canadians and that Canadians have an opportunity to participate in Canada's development. We have not discouraged foreign investment, but we will encourage the partnership of the foreign investors with the Canadian people....
Canadians, realize your opportunities! This is only the beginning. The future programme for the next five to seven years under a Progressive Conservative Government is one that is calculated to give young Canadians, motivated by a desire to serve, a lift in the heart, faith in Canada's future, faith in her destiny. We will extend aid to economically sound railway projects, such as the Pine Point Railroad to Great Slave Lake. That was promised day before yesterday in the Liberal platform. Why didn't they do it then?
Yes, we will press for hydroelectric development of the Columbia River, which now awaits completion of an agreement with the United States. I mentioned the South Saskatchewan. These are the plans.
This is the message I give to you my fellow Canadians, not one of defeatism. Jobs! Jobs for hundreds of thousands of Canadian people. A new vision! A new hope! A new soul for Canada.
As far as the Arctic is concerned, how many of you here knew the pioneers in Western Canada. I saw the early days here. Here in Winnipeg in 1909, when the vast movement was taking place into the Western plains, they had imagination. There is a new imagination now. The Arctic. We intend to carry out the legislative programme of Arctic research, to develop Arctic routes, to develop those vast hidden resources the last few years have revealed. Plans to improve the St. Lawrence and the Hudson Bay route. Plans to increase self-government in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. We can see one or two provinces there.
Taxation adjustments to place Canadians on a more equal footing with foreign investors. Encourage foreign investors to make equity stock available to Canadians for purchase, to appoint Canadians to executive positions, to deny the present plan of certain American companies that do not give to Canadian plants their fair share of the export business. Those are some of the things we want to do.
It is for those things that I ask a mandate, not giving you tonight the whole picture at all, by any means but giving you something of the vision as I see it. The reason that I appeal to the Canadian people, a mandate for a clear majority. You set a pace for Manitoba last time. Give us a few more, this.
We need a clear majority to carry out this long-range plan, this great design, this blueprint for the Canada which her resources make possible.
I want to see Canadians given a transcending sense of national purpose, such as MacDonald gave in his day. To safeguard our independence, restore our unity, a policy that will scrupulously respect the rights of the provinces, and at the same time build for the achievement of that one Canada, is the major reason why 35 of our 119 members in the House of Commons are sufficiently young to belong to the Young Progressive Conservatives. They caught that vision. I am not here to condemn others. I am here for the purpose, as a Canadian, to give you a picture of the kind of Canada the long-range plans that we have in mind will bring about....
This party has become the party of national destiny. I hope it will be the party of vision and courage. The party of one Canada, with equal opportunities to all. The only party that can give to youth an Elizabethan sense of grand design - that's my challenge. The faith to venture with enthusiasm to the frontiers of a nation; that faith, that assurance that will be provided with a government strong enough to implement plans for development. To the young men and women of this nation I say, Canada is within your hands. Adventure. Adventure to the nation's utmost bounds, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. The policies that will be placed before the people of Canada in this campaign will be ones that will ensure that today and this century will belong to Canada. The destination is one Canada. To that end I dedicate this party.


Prime Minister Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker, s...Image via Wikipedia
High modernism in the Arctic: planning Frobisher Bay and Inuvik

 
Prime Minister John Diefenbaker at the officia...Image via Wikipedia
If Frobisher and Inuvik were, as the Inuvik plaque reads, designed to provide the ‘normal facilities of a Canadian town’, the much smaller DEW Line stations, scattered from Alaska to Greenland, were also normalizing spaces, where southern workers on a six-month or year-long tour could enjoy familiar food, movies, and other comforts, in an attempt to distract them from the harsh difference of the Arctic environment and the psychological and physiological challenges that this contrast presented. Although DEW communities tended to be very small, the Line still had profound  consequences for the geography of settlement across the Arctic, as nativenortherners (overwhelmingly men) flocked to radar sites in search of paid work.137 In a hamlet like Tuktoyaktuk, a short distance from Inuvik, where the population is about 800, and where an upgraded North Warning System station still stands on the original DEW Line land, nearly every resident can list several family members, dating back two or three generations, who were associated in some way with Arctic radar construction and operation. A 1966 report described a decade-long transition in Tuktoyaktuk from an economy based on ‘hunting, fishing and trapping to one of wage employment’.138


Inuvik Region, Northwest Territories, Canada (...Image via Wikipedia
 In a 1983 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio interview marking Inuvik’s 25th anniversary, Gordon Robertson acknowledged the presence of segregation, but attributed it to an ‘economic accident’, even as he defended the original desire to construct a modern community free of division. His fellow interviewee Eric Nielsen, a longtime Yukon Member of Parliament, added that ‘mistakes were made because southern Canadians were making the decisions’.108



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Liberal Party Census Policy Designed To Protect Privacy of Wealthy Canadians

The Liberals are vowing to bring the census battle to the House of Commons in September by tabling a bill to reinstate the long-form census and remove the threat of jail time for not completing a questionnaire.
Another political stunt? When will the games end and real substantive policy debates be discussed by the Liberals?
After promising to not sit on your hands in May 2009, the Ignatieff led Liberals have at least thirty MPs regularly skip votes to prop up the government.
“If you believe, as we in the Liberal party believe, that there is a major role for the federal government in Canadian society and the Canadian economy, then I think the era of tax cuts is over for the foreseeable future,” Mr. McCallum said on Tuesday. He said the Liberals would not raise taxes.  - John McCallum April 20, 2010
Prime Minister Martin and President Bush Offic...
The party had become utterly dependent on finance by corporations. Paul Martin had been showered with $12-million to ensure that he became the next leader. Consequently, in 2003, Jean Chrétien introduced the legislation that was to be his final and finest legacy for democracy. Corporate financing was to be all but prohibited. - Tom Kent  August 27, 2010
2010 - The Conservatives took in $4.1 million in donations between April 1 and the end of June, compared to $2.4 million for the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois combined. For the Conservatives it is their best second quarter result since coming to power in 2006, despite months of negative headlines about deficits, Guergis and the G20. The Liberals raised a total of $1.6 million, down from last year's total of $4 million when they actually out-tallied the Conservatives on fundraising.
The only people who would benefit  not shrinking government are wealthy citizens who can afford the fees and increasing costs of regulation. The Gun Registry boondoggle is a perfect example of extra fees introduced by big government on law abiding citizens. The cost of government for Liberals is a necessary evil as our taxes or is it used as a means to control the population and learn private details of their citizens for resale?
One more fee to collect?
Why are the Liberals not interested in treating citizens fairly by keeping the information of the poor, middle class as private as the wealthy?
The donors to the Liberal party that earn in excess of $ 200k per year can afford a $ 500 fine for not complying with the Census, the single mother earning under $ 30k can not.



There is no comparison.
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