Harper govt caught in web of lies

Stephen Harper's mad scramble to make sense out of the inexcusable would be funny if it weren't so dishonest. As he faces the first real crisis of his mandate he comes across as a bully who sees nothing wrong with blatantly lying to the Canadian people and their representatives. His iron-fisted rule has come unglued. Caught in a trap by suppressing the assessment of Canada's diplomats in Afghanistan that detainees are being tortured, Harper is sideswiped by Gordon O'Connor's sudden claim at the Foreign Affairs Committee that a new arrangement has been worked out with the Afghans. Neither O'Connor nor General Hillier had any details to provide. Then Harper tells the House that the new arrangement is in the process of being formalized. Facing a barrage of questions from the Opposition parties, Harper's only response is to resort to schoolyard bully tactics and attempt to bludgeon them into submission. The distinction between Harper and Dion is becoming clearer for voters: dishonesty and lack of integrity versus honesty and integrity. Stay tuned!

Are baby boomers less healthy than parents?

Contrary to popular perception, new evidence indicates that baby boomers are likely to be less healthy than their parents. According to the Washington Post, baby boomers "are more likely to report difficulty climbing stairs, getting up from a chair and doing other routine activities, as well as more chronic problems such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes." The trend seems to be that people are not as healthy as they approach retirement as they were in older generations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902458_pf.html

America seen as a violent society

The tragic killings in Virginia have brought an outpouring of sympathy and condolences from around the world. As people shake their heads in bewilderment, trying to puzzle out what would prompt such a senseless act, others see this as another manifestation that the US is a violent society obsessed with the right to bear arms. The Washington Post carries a cross-section of reaction from around the world. It observes: "Officials, newspaper columnists and citizens around the world described the Virginia Tech massacre as the tragic reflection of an America that fosters violence at home and abroad, even as it attempts to dictate behavior to the rest of the world." Much of the foreign reaction centered on the proliferation of guns in the United States. Perhaps there is a lesson here for our own government as it moves to lighten restrictions on gun ownership.

Wolfowitz:Time to Resign

Paul Wolfowitz, major architect of the Iraq war and current President of the World Bank, is now mired in scandal and under increasing pressure to resign. The current uproar over his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, which began when details of her pay package were publicly revealed last month, calls into question Wolfowitz'z integrity and values. Riza was working at the World Bank when Wolfowitz left the Pentagon to become President in 2005. They were already involved in a romantic relationship. The Bank board ruled that "professional contact" between the two violated bank policy and instructed Wolfowitz to order the personnel department to arrange her departure and compensation.Wolfowitz directed Bank officials to agree to a proposal which included the following terms and conditions. Riza was to be "detailed to an outside institution of her choosing while retaining Bank salary and benefits." She was to receive an immediate raise with approximate annual increases of 8 percent.By 2010, when Wolfowitz's five-year term expired, she would reach a salary of $244,960, significantly above the maximum of $226,650 allowable for her pay grade. On her return to the bank, she would be automatically promoted to the level of senior country director; if her return were delayed another five years by a second Wolfowitz term, she would be elevated to the level of bank vice president.

After coming under public scrutiny for this inappropriate arrangement, Wolfowitz has publicly apologized but has refused to step down. Ironically, one of Wolfwitz's primary missions has been to demand that developing countries implement anti-corruption measures before receiving funding from the Bank.

On Sunday the Bank's most powerful oversight committee delivered an unusually public rebuke of his leadership, expressing “great concern” about the institution’s future and the need to preserve its credibility and staff morale. It's time for Wolfowitz to do the honourable thing and resign before he is fired.

Dion/May make pact

The Globe and Mail reports that Stephane Dion has decided not to run a Liberal candidate against Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in the next federal election. In return, it is rumoured that May will promise not to run a Green candidate against the Liberal leader and will essentially endorse Dion for prime minister.

How will Liberals and Green Party members react to this deal? Will they see it as a means of bolstering May's chances of taking MacKay's seat from him? No doubt it will improve the odds. Dion is a shoo-in in his seat anyway so it'll make no difference there. Will Greens resent May cosying up to the Liberals and the Liberals resent Dion making a pact with the Greens?

Harper has no shame

The Harper government has hired a former Quebec separatist cabinet minister who played a key role in the 1995 referendum campaign to investigate the polling contracts of the previous Liberal government. Daniel Paillé, the "independent adviser" hired to conduct the investigation, refused to say yesterday whether he is still a separatist.He has been hired to investigate all government practices regarding polls and other public opinion research from 1990 to 2003. He is to look at files, contracts, reports and records.

What kind of vindictive nonsense is this? Harper hires a separatist to look into the polling practices of the Chretien government. Does he have no confidence in his own ability to win election on his own merits? So he has to go digging under every stone to see whether there's any more dirt he can turn up? This would be laughable if it weren't so offensive.

Generals say "No" to Bush

Bush is desperately seeking someone to oversee the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Reportedly this individual would have the power to issue directions to Defence, State and other agencies involved.Bush has approached three retired four-star generals who have rejected his offer. These were all all earlier supporters of his war initiatives. "The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job.

Bush is going to need more than a new war Czar to save the US's bacon in Iraq.

Life in Iraq

The Washington Post has an interesting story on changing views in Iraq. Some who welcomed the toppling of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003 now wish for a return to the "law and order" of his regime. They tell the story of a man who was seen around the world taking a sledgehammer to the statue of Hussein. Four years later he's having second thoughts. "It achieved nothing", he now says."Now, we regret that Saddam Hussein is gone, no matter how much we hated him." Surprising sentiments? Perhaps not, given the chaos now prevailing in Iraq. http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/08/AR2007040801058_pf.html

Harper's Wait Times Scam

Stephen Harper has reached a new low in trying to hoodwink Canadians with his so-called success in securing wait time guarantees from the provinces.Harper claims to have fulfilled another of his five priorities. Well, this boat won't float. The deal does not come into effect until 2010, and provinces only have to promise timely treatment in one of several priority areas:
Cancer care
Hip and knee replacement
Cardiac care
Diagnostic imaging
Cataract surgeries

The Conservatives had promised in the last federal election campaign that they would ensure guarantees in all of the above areas. Their new agreement with the provinces proves to be a sham when you take a look at what the provinces have actually committed to. To take one example, Ontario is promising that by 2009, patients who cannot obtain cataract surgery within 182 days will be given the opportunity to receive treatment outside the province. However, the current average wait for cataract surgery in Ontario is 183 days -- just one day longer than the target. And it's a somewhat similar situation for other provinces. They have picked areas and targets which they already meet.

This falls far short of the comprehensive improvement in wait times that the Conservatives promised during the last election. As Andrew Coyne put it in the National Post, Harper has learned to lie shamelessly in the expectation that the public doesn't care. Well, here's hoping that voters do care and will express their frustration at the ballot box.

Cons pledge to stay in Afghanistan

The Conservative government has no intention of withdrawing Canadian troops from Afghanistan in 2009 when the current mandate from Parliament runs out. Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor stated today that:

"This government will support the mission — by our words and by our actions — until the progress in Afghanistan becomes irreversible."

"Afghanistan is a success story," he said.

What fantasy world is Mr. O'Connor living in? Next he'll be wanting to dispatch Canadian troops to Iraq.

Will Harper take the plunge?

Will Stephen Harper take the plunge and pull the plug on the current Parliament? Last week with two polls showing the Cons flirting with majority territory no doubt he was being tempted. The results of yesterday's Quebec election are being spun as favourable for Harper's Conservatives in Quebec but methinks the situation is more complicated than it appears. In any event a new Decima poll might throw some cold water on the election fever. This poll showed the Conservatives nationally at 35 per cent versus 31 for the Liberals, 13 per cent for the NDP and 10 per cent for the Green Party.The one positive for Harper was in Quebec where the Cons surpassed the Liberals for the first time in months, with 25 per cent compared with the the Bloc Quebecois at 34 per cent, the Liberals at 20 per cent, the Green Party at 10 per cent and the NDP at 5 per cent. But in Ontario, the Liberals remained ahead at 41 per cent to the Cons' 33 per cent.

Mr. Harper would be wise to think twice before precipitating an election over some contrived confidence vote. If he does, he may find himself again in minority territory.

Tories spending like drunken sailors

What happened to all this fiscal discipline that Stephen Harper promised us? The http://www.thestar.com/article/183221 reports that the Conservatives are on a spending spree with taxpayers' money, doling out about $10 billion in the past three months. Harper's surprise $1.5 billion announcement in Quebec last week for a national EcoTrust program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants is new money, money Harper, on the eve of an expected Quebec election, said he would draw from the 2006-07 year-end surplus. When the Liberals were in power the Conservatives criticized such year-end spending as "March madness." The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the government has failed to keep its promises on two counts: it is not reining in spending growth, and it is "spending down the surplus" just as the Liberals used to do.Apparently, program spending is growing at a rate of around 7.8 per cent, far in excess of the 3 % level the Conservatives promised in the election. More hypocrisy!

Is Hillier a public servant or a Conservative politician?

General Rick Hillier has described the decade of Liberal rule as the military's 'decade of darkness'. This is not the first time General Hillier has stumbled into the political domain. The fact that the Conservatives are giving the military all the toys they want doesn't justify Hillier's crossing of the line. The miltary was not the only public service to suffer cutbacks while the Liberals fought to cut the deficit and bring public expenditures under control. I worked in a government department where we had to implement a one-third reduction in staff and a substantial reduction in service.

General Hillier should stop his bootlicking of Stephen Harper and get on with his real job. If not, quit and run for the Conservatives in the next election. The last thing we need is a politicized military force in this country.

An Apology to Goodale

Last winter during the election campaign Ralph Goodale and the Liberals came under great attack when the RCMP Commissioner revealed that the RCMP had launched an investigation into possible leaks of a planned announcement concerning income trusts. Now the RCMP has exxonerated Goodale and the Liberals of any wrong-doing in this matter. Meanwhile the Conservatives are running ads in Quebec perpetrating the allegation that Goodale did something wrong. Goodale is owed an apology. I, like others, was guilty of prejudging Goodale and the Liberals on this matter while blogging on the election. I offer Mr. Goodale my modest apology. Stephen Harper should have the decency to apologize and to pull the ad now playing in Quebec.

Harper wants more law-and-order judges

PM Harper today admitted that he wants more law-and-order judges. That is why he is stacking the judicial appointee committes with Tory partisans. This is the guy who promised to clean up government.Imagine the right-wing agenda he would impose if Canadians fooolishly gave him a majority!

Patronage Thrives under Conservatives

Patronage is alive and well under the Harper Conservatives. Just a couple of weeks ago the Conservatives appointed former NL Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan as Ambassador of Fisheries Conservation, a position vacant since the mid-90s and formerly filled by foreign affairs officials with knowledge of fisheries matters.

The Globe and Mail> reports that the Conservative government has loaded the committees that determine who can become a judge, selecting a series of Tories including former politicians, aides to ministers, riding association officials and defeated candidates. Half -- at least 16 out of 33 -- of the people chosen by the federal justice minister as his nominees are conservative partisans.

This stinks to high heaven. The Cons intend to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues! And to think I voted for this bunch last January because they promised change. Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me! Bring on the election soon, please.

Exxon's obscene profits

Exxon,the world's largest publicly owned oil company, announced the largest corporate profit ever, a near $40-billion (U.S.) windfall in 2006.This has sparked an angry backlash, since the announcement was made on the eve of the IPCC report blaming the use of fossil fuels for wreaking devastation on the planet.

Apparently Exxon has been using some of those obscene profits to fund initiatives to create skepticism about the impact of climate change and opposition to policies that would reduce the use of gasoline and other oil products.

Good corporate citizen,eh?

Tory ads show fear of Dion

The cat is out of the bag. The Conservative party intends to run TV attack ads against new Liberal leader Stephane Dion and will reveal tomorrow several ads attacking Dion's environmental credentials. Environment Minister John Baird, the crackie from Ottawa/Nepean, has been quoted as saying Dion didn't get it done in 10 years, referring to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Last I heard Dion was environment minister for only 18 months and was widely praised by environmentalists, especially for his leadership at the UN Climate Change summit in Montreal in December 2005.

Which leads to the question: why are the Tories running negative attack ads this early? Could it be that they are running scared of Dion's environmental credentials and reputation for personal integrity? Stalled in the polls, having made no gains in a year, do they think that the only way to maintain a minority is to try to tar and feather Dion? The last time the Tories tried that under Kim Campbell by smearing Chretien, they set the stage for Chretien's three successsive victories.

Harper facing non-confidence over Afghanistan

The opposition parties are threatening to pull the plug on the Tory minority government over its handling of the mission in Afghanistan.This could put Dion between "a rock and a hard place" or in the sweet spot, depending on how he plays it. If the Liberals united behind him to vote with the NDP to back the BQ motion, then Harper would be in a hell of a fight on the last issue he would want to fight an election on, foreign policy.Bring on the election!

Liberals make gains under Dion

Stephen Harper and his aides are no doubt now second-guessing their initial reaction to the selection of Stephane Dion as Liberal leader. Like the pundits they underestimated Dion's geeky manner. The author of the Clarity Act is now enjoying the first laugh as several polls put the Liberals well into the lead for the first time in many moons.

An EKOS Research Associates poll indicated the Liberals would be in striking distance of a majority government if an election were held now.

Here's how support broke down:

Liberals: 40.1 per cent
Conservatives: 33.5 per cent
NDP: 10.2 per cent
Bloc Quebecois: 8.2 per cent
Green Party: 7.6 per cent
EKOS conducted the polling on Dec. 5 and 6. Liberal leadership convention delegates selected Stephane Dion to be their party's leader on Dec. 2. This result showed the highest Liberal support in an EKOS poll since Jean Chretien stepped down as prime minister and party leader three years ago.

On Dec. 3, a Strategic Counsel poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail showed the Liberals also well in the lead:

Liberals: 37 per cent
Conservatives: 31 per cent
NDP: 14 per cent
Bloc Quebecois: 11 per cent
Green Party: 7 per cent

Sure there is a honeymoon effect at work here. But the pundits miscalculated the reaction to Dion in Quebec and Ontario. Stephen Harper may not be so quick to rush into a spring election as originally anticipated by the media gurus.