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Posted by Scott Tribe on March 3, 2010, at 12:47 pm |
The Budget Speech From The Throne could be as long as 90 minutes (possibly the World’s Longest Throne Speech). Last years throne speech was only 7 minutes. It’s also apparently got the world’s longest Throne Speech title (with some more copying aid in formulating it possibly from the former conservative John Howard Australian government).
Perhaps Harper and the Conservatives are trying to convince people after prorogation that they’re working extra hard if they make the Budget Throne Speech and it’s title extra long. Perhaps they’re just trying to slip stuff in there in the middle of this marathon speech in the hopes that everyone in the opposition parties or media will be too bored or inattentive to notice.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 2, 2010, at 12:40 pm |
One pollster comes out declaring Harper has an Olympic-sized bounce; another comes out with a poll today that says it’s a national dead-heat (with the Olympics apparently having no effect), and a 3rd one just released says its numbers show stability from the last poll it did a week ago.
More polling to come I suspect, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re back to square one with voter intentions and preferences now that Parliament is about to be “un-prorogued” (my new word invention).
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 2, 2010, at 10:53 am |
(or in this case, their presidents to boards)
Yeesh; This is about as flagrantly in-your-face to the critics of those charging that the Rights and Democracy board has been stacked with neo-conservative partisan ideologues as the Conservatives can get. The person they’ve picked to be the new president is even more radical in his views then the current chairperson, Ariel Braun. Check out what their new pick has had to say about Muslims:
The man chosen by the Harper government to lead the Rights and Democracy organization has publicly warned about threats posed by Muslim immigration…Gerard Latulippe argued that the concentration of immigrants in Montreal, as well as the “geographic concentration of more and more immigrants from Muslim countries” undermined “the proper functioning of Quebec society.” He then concluded that if Quebec failed to change the way it selected immigrants, it faced a significant threat: the “unnecessary risk of fostering domestic terrorism.” The federal Tories have picked him to become president of the federal organization responsible for promoting human rights and democracy around the world…He had been a former adviser to Stockwell Day when the current Treasury Board minister was head of the Canadian Alliance, and he also ran as a candidate for the Alliance.
Apparently, all of Stockwell Day’s former advisers or staffers are a bit “out there” (i.e. Ezra Levant; I’m half surprised he wasn’t the one chosen).
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 1, 2010, at 10:15 am |
In fact, Frank Graves, the president of polling firm Ekos, is quoted in the Hill Times that the Liberals would be “crazy” not to force a spring election, and lists a couple reasons why, including the fact that the economy will get better long term and that public distrust of Harper is growing.
I don’t disagree with the rationale, and I obviously want Harper gone too (the sooner the better), but in light of the events last fall, where the Liberals and Ignatieff publicly proclaimed they were going to take the Conservatives down, only to see their polling results plummet (and only recovered back to parity because Harper pulled his prorogation stunt), I’d be a bit more cautious and subtle this time around. That said, I also wouldn’t be publicly proclaiming our strategy on when we’ll vote against the government on a confidence motion; I’d like the Conservatives not to be always reading our playbook before the game starts.
More generally, if the Liberals see an issue or a budget which is personally unpalatable to them, that’s when they should be making their stand, and then explaining to the public why its unpalatable.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 28, 2010, at 7:05 pm |
With the amazing OT win by Canada on the goal by Sydney Crosby, Canada wins its 14th gold medal – a record # of golds for a host country, and a record # of gold medals won at the Winter Games period. So congratulations to our Canadian Olympic athletes for making us all proud.
Now, I know some folks are jumping all over the place claiming that we really do “Own the Podium” now, and I hate to be a party-pooper just moments after a fabulous hockey game win for Canada, but that’s not the case. Even the Canadian Olympic Committee admits that. Their goal was to win ‘most medals’ – “most Gold medals” was never mentioned at any time beforehand. Despite the late Canadian gold rush, I do not change my stance from last week that the COC still publicly handled that whole situation wrong, in my view.
The goals of the “Own The Podium” program is fine – I think it’s a good thing we support our amateur athletes, and I don’t even have issues with the name, as some did here in Canada and abroad, but I do have an issue with how the COC trumpeted it and boasted about it beforehand.
So what next for 2014? As I said in my prior post talking about the COC and Own the Podium, Let’s try to be a tad lower-key. Just say we want to meet or top our 26 medals, and let it play out that way. There will be less pressure on our athletes to perform, and maybe we really will “own the podium” in 2014.
NOTE/UPDATE at 7:19 pm: As an aside, Harper was very non-committal yesterday to continuing the funding for the OTP program beyond 2 years, and a lot of corporate sponsors and provincial governments seem to have no intention of renewing. So, despite my reservations at the COC, I sincerely hope that the OTP program doesn’t die, because it takes more then 5 years of funding to develop a top notch amateur team.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 27, 2010, at 2:25 pm |
Urgent Dispatch from the Canadian Hurricane Service:
Helena has been downgraded from a Category 5 storm with lots of fury and hot air to a very sullen Tropical Storm system. The storm initially roared into and out of PEI, lashing airports and people as it left, but it weakened as it moved towards the mainland. It’s now centred over Ottawa, with the centre of it currently over the the Prime Minister’s Office. No plans by the PMO to apparently do anything however; they hope the storm will eventually go away; it would be rather inconvenient for them to have to act, despite other people advising them they’re sitting under a ticking time bomb – one never knows when a storm with this fury may re-strengthen and cause more damage to the country.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 26, 2010, at 11:02 am |
Compare and contrast:
- Joannie Rochette, who won a bronze medal last night in the women’s figure skating, but would be awarded a gold medal for bravery/courage if there was such a thing.
- Helena Guergis, Minister of state for Status of Women, who decided to throw a tantrum over having to follow airport security procedures that the rest of us regular people have to endure. Apparently, Guergis felt that being a junior Cabinet Minister gave her privileges to avoid those inconveniences, and was enraged when that wasn’t the case. I wonder how the folks in Helena’s riding feel of her performance of late.
UPDATE @ 11:58 am: Hah. Great line: “How can Helena Guergis be that stressed after Stephen Harper gave her a 63-day-long vacation?”
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 25, 2010, at 4:22 pm |
I just got a heads-up from Cameron McMaster on this blogpost over at CBC’s public affairs blog, regarding the furore a few weeks back over their use of the company iCopyright to try and make money off of people who want to quote full articles or post them at their site in full.
I’ve seen reassurances from CBC before that nothing has really changed in their policy, but what annoys me to no end (which I didn’t catch before in any of their communications) is that they want folks to write into them to get permission to quote excerpts before they use them at their own blogposts/websites etc. As Cameron writes in response to that post, that request by CBC for people to “ask permission to use (CBC) content when they excerpt, quote, or repost when its for a non-commercial purpose… is not needed according to Canadian copyright law“. He would be referring to the Supreme Court ruling on Fair Dealing, if you’re wondering on what basis he makes that assertion.
In light of that, I’d love to see CBC try to enforce that “you need to ask permission” request.. but I believe it’s a bluff on their part. I don’t know if it’s an attempt to shield themselves from criticism, as Cameron asserts (he and I arent exactly on the same political wavelength; we just agree on this issue that CBC is being silly), or if it’s just an attempt to make an extra buck or 2, or both, but I’m not going to bother sending CBC traffic (at least to their news stories/sites) if that’s the policy their management policy want to continue to insist on using.
At most, they might get a link, but I’m more inclined to send traffic to news organizations who are complying with and understand the concept of “fair dealing”.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 25, 2010, at 12:54 pm |
I think even most people casual on politics knew this before the Supreme Court ruled this way, but just in case anyone thought differently:
Today’s decision in R. v. Montague, 2010 ONCA 141 makes clear (as if it was necessary to clarify!) that Canadians have no constitutionally protected right to possess weapons:
[16] Moreover, contrary to the Montagues’ contention, the Supreme Court of Canada has addressed the question of whether the possession and use of firearms is a constitutionally protected right and has rejected the notion that Canadians have an absolute constitutional right to possess and use firearms.
I’d be interested to see the next gun lobby newsletter to its members after this decision.
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 24, 2010, at 11:30 am |
I see via Far & Wide that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson had the gall to come out and demand the opposition parties reinstate the Conservative crime bills. Those would be the same crime bills that Nicholson and his Conservative government were in daily hysterics last year demanding that the House and Senate quickly pass them in order to protect the country. Those would also be the same crime legislation that got killed due to Harper proroguing Parliament, showing that “urgency” to be a complete sham; trying to protect the government from potentially politically damaging/embarrassing information was more important.
Now, Minister Nicholson wants the opposition parties to pretend prorogation never happened. I’m tempted to advise the opposition parties the same as Steve – that is, to tell Nicholson to “pound salt” – but I’m thinking if Nicholson and his government want these crime bills badly enough, the opposition parties can play some hardball as well. If I were the opposition parties, I’d counter Nicholson by saying that they will agree to fast-track the bills, provided that the government voluntarily turns over the unredacted documents on the Afghanistan detainees to Parliament (as Parliament voted on, and which is the real reason we had prorogation).
That would quickly show the hypocrisy of the Conservatives yet again if they refused, as well as remind people that there must be something very politically damaging in those documents against the Conservative government if they abandoned their entire legislative agenda in the middle of a session by proroguing Parliament, somehow hoping that the Olympics and a month and half extra break would make people forget about that as an issue.
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