Michael Ignatieff and Removing Spite From Politics

Michael Ignatieff gave a great speech in new Brunswick. He seems to be back to his old self again and though still promising not to launch personal attacks, he instead went after Mr. Harper's record.

Not too difficult considering his record.

But he spoke to a full house and had a captive audience. Journalist Colin Horgan wrote recently for the UK Guardian; "With Barack Obama, anything seems like it might be possible. With Canada's Stephen Harper, barely anything does."

With Michael Ignatieff, everything seems like it might be possible. He always dreams big.


Sarah Palin did more for environment than the Tories - Ignatieff
November 14th, 2009

Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Friday night to attack the policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying the Conservative leader's four years in power gives him lots of political ammunition.

You want me to attack Stephen Harper," Ignatieff told a standing-room-only crowd at the biannual convention of the New Brunswick Liberal Association in Fredericton.

"You expect me to attack Stephen Harper ... But I am not going to attack him as a person. "I am not going to attack his career. I am not going to attack his past."

He said Harper's legacy after four years in power is his attack ads and the politics of spite.

"This man Harper believes in politics 24/7 and as nasty as he can make it," said Ignatieff.

He said Harper broke his promises on not taxing income trusts, not running a deficit and not appointing senators.

The Conservatives spent 10 times more on promoting their economic plan than they did on H1N1 preparedness, he said.

Ignatieff said U.S. President Barack Obama is spending six times more per capita on clean energy than Canada.

The Conservatives are spending less per capita on renewable energy than Alaska, he said.

"You know who comes from Alaska, don't you," said Igantieff, drawing a laugh. "So when it comes to clean energy, Stephen Harper isn't just behind Barack Obama, he's behind Sarah Palin."

He said Harper doesn't believe in the positive power of government, only power.

"We don't believe in big government," said Ignatieff. "But we do believe in that we can't move into this new economy, this new world without the leadership of a strong and compassionate federal government."

He said what the country is going through isn't just a recession, but a restructuring of the global economy.

In the new world, fossil fuels will be expensive, carbon will have a price and the growth markets will be in China and India, not the United States, said Ignatieff.

Brain power and intellectual property, not natural resources, will drive the new world, he said.

"Canadians are ready for this world," he said. "They are excited by this world.

"They are ready to innovate. But they are looking for leadership."

The Conservatives say Canadians have to choose between jobs and the environment, said Ignatieff. But Liberals reject that as a false choice, he said.

A Liberal government will make Canada the greenest, most energy efficient economy in the world, he said.

Jason Kenney and the Conservatives Remove Women From Canadian History

Jason Kenney's new handbook for immigrants was released yesterday, and not that we should really be surprised, but it almost completely removed the notion that women made any contributions to this country.

Historian Margaret Conrad said of the new guide, that it “represents a new kind of Canada, one that is less sympathetic with my personal sense of a progressive, forward-looking nation, but the new slant is no doubt in keeping with the sentiments of the current administration in Ottawa.”

She said she was surprised that the environment, given two pages in the previous guide, disappeared in the new document. The emphasis on the Queen and the Canadian Forces also struck her as unusual. “It's kind of like a throwback to the 1950s,” she said. “It's a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men. “It's a tougher Canada than the one the Liberals depicted.”

In its photos and illustrations, the new guide paints a picture of a multicultural country, but it offers very little discussion of the accomplishments of Canadian women, Prof. Conrad said. None of the great Canadian thinkers highlighted is a woman, and the only female athlete mentioned is Paralympic medal winner Chantal Petitclerc.

One of the reader comments at the end of the Globe and Mail piece was also disturbing. I suspect other macho types will feel validated with this booklet and I would imagine comments like this will be more common now. I'm used to hearing them, growing up in the '60's. I just hadn't heard them in awhile:

"Maybe Margaret Conrad needs to realize that it was men who built this country, and are still building it. Are you reading this, Maggie? You haven't contributed nearly enough. Shut yer trap."

Shut our traps? The new slogan for the Status of Women now that the word 'equality' was removed from their mandate. Left-Wing fringe groups. That's what we are now. Women have been marginalized with this new government. We weren't important in Canadian history and we aren't important now. REAL Women of Canada have won. The Promise Keepers have won. William Gairdner has won. And we let them because we have given up the fight.

Helena Guergis who's in charge of the Status for Women recently cited "the hypersexualization of girls as a root cause of dating violence." We shrugged. Welcome to the new Canada.

Maybe this generation of young women, after getting a taste of what it was like for us, will finally understand. Or not. It doesn't matter.

When Michael Ignatieff unveiled the Liberals Party's 3rd volume of the pink book, the media scoffed. Diane Francis wrote a scathing column, which I didn't have the stomach to read.

Ms Francis of course won the National Citizens Coalition Colin Brown medal of freedom. Now bear in mind freedom means freedom from government, or to be more specific; freedom from anything with 'Canadian' or 'public' in it's title. Ms Francis is the head of the Reform Conservatives PR firm, the National Post.

Do you see what we're up against?

There were three letters to the editor after this story was printed:

Those Mad Men of Ottawa, the Harper Conservatives, would like to take us back to the 1950s when men were tough, the Maple Leafs won games and everyone loved the Queen. I was a boy back then and do not recall anyone suggesting that a career in the army would be a fine choice.

Despite our new military vigour, it is hard to imagine that immigrants will flock to Canada to become soldiers in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Given the general indifference to the recent royal tour, there is little chance there will be a renaissance of affection for the monarchy, as immigrants replace births as the main source of our population growth.

King Canute, who died on Nov. 12, 1035, was famous for proving to his fawning supporters that he was not all-powerful by showing that he could not turn back the tide. Centuries later, people in power still have not learned this lesson.

Jim Reynolds, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
............
Since when does any particular political party get to decide what is Canadian? Can we now expect our national culture to change every time a new party is elected? This would mean that, with every new election, those who supported the losing parties and their values would become un-Canadian.

A nation’s culture is the result of a decision made by the people. The Tories’ belief that they have the ability to determine the “real” Canada shows a profound lack of humility.

Sascha Maicher, Ottawa
............
Now that I’m nearing retirement age, I’m glad to learn it’s no longer necessary for new Canadians to understand the need to protect Canada’s environment. Has my life’s work paid off?

John Bennett, executive director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, Ottawa

Stephen Harper Tells High School Kids to Leave Him Alone

When Woodlands high school students decided to get involved in the environment, something we encourage young people to do, by calling the PM to share their concerns about climate change, they got a rude awakening. The message couldn't be any clearer.

The environment is not his problem so please stop calling. Unbelievable.

Justin Trudeau was in Mississauga on Monday calling on the youth to claim their rightful place in defining Canada’s priorities, so how does this message make them feel?

PM's office to students: Stop calling
Mississauga
November 13, 2009

Karen Williams is disappointed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The Grade 12 student from The Woodlands School and fellow members of the school’s Environmental Council called Harper’s office in September to voice their opinion on climate change and received a shocking response when they received a call back, discouraging them from calling again. “We wanted him to say, ‘Hey, thanks for calling me and we want to make a change in the world,’ but that’s not what he said,” Williams told The News yesterday, replaying the morning the school received a call from the prime minister’s office.

Instead, she said, a representative from his office requested the principal go on the P.A. system and ask students not to call anymore.Williams said she understands that they may have clogged up the phone lines in Ottawa, but she was hoping someone would want to discuss their concerns. “But they didn’t want the details,” she said. “They didn’t want to hear why (climate change) is important to us.”

When the brushoff came to his attention, Mississauga-Erindale MP Bob Dechert said he contacted the PMO and was assured they’ll look into the situation.“Everyone is entitled and welcome to call the PM and leave whatever message they want,” said the Conservative MP. “If what they say is true, it’s not a professional response and on behalf of the PMO, I’ve been given assurance that the situation will be remedied.”Dechert said the PMO has no record of the call to the school, but says it wasn’t authorized by Harper or his chief of staff, Guy Giorno.

Just before the calls, the students had hosted a Climate Change Wake-up Call rally, one of 2,500 rallies around the world associated with AVAAZ, a new global web movement. The students were encouraged to voice their concerns about the environment. They called Harper to ask him to go to the UN Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen and work on a fair treaty. They also pleaded for the Conservative government to vote for Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act.“It was like a slap in the face. By doing that, what are we telling our young people?” said Paul Strome, the teacher who supervises the Environmental Council.

Strome said the PMO needs a lesson in what it means to live in a democratic society. “It means that we as citizens have the right, and dare I say the obligation, to let our elected officials know how we feel and what we want to see done.”

Jack Layton Thinks Harper's HST Could Hurt Conservatives Election Chances

Despite the fact that the Reform Conservatives later tried to distance themselves from it (you can hear on the video Harper admitting they offered incentives), the HST may have hurt them in BC this past byelection. I know a lot of the hype was over the Liberal showing, but they weren't expected to win any on those ridings.

But the Ref-Cons going down since last election with the NDP campaigning against the HST, clearly had an impact. How this will play out in a national campaign is difficult to say.

Now I have no problem with the NDP improving their position. I get angry with Jack Layton sometimes but he usually puts Canadians needs first. At a different time, I would not be too upset if the NDP formed a government. However, with the economy the way it is, I don't really see them as being good money managers. Although, I suppose they can't be any worse than the Harper government.

However, the Ref-Cons should pay attention here. They may need to mend some fences because obviously the people in BC are making them wear some of the blame for this unpopular tax. Will we see some attack ads against Jack Layton on our TV screens soon?

Is NDP's 'election on the HST' bad news for the Tories?
Steven Chase
Ottawa — Globe and Mail
November 13, 2009

Stephen Harper, who once famously declared there was no such thing as a good tax, must now be wondering if a revolt over consumption tax hikes in B.C. and Ontario could eat into Conservative political fortunes.

It certainly appears to have helped one rival beat him this week.

NDP Leader Jack Layton's resounding by-election win in a Vancouver-area riding Monday – the New Democrats thumped the Tories by 14 points – occurred in part because the opposition turned the race into a referendum on the looming harmonized sales tax in B.C.

It was a disappointing result for the Tories, who'd even announced a judicial inquiry into disappearing salmon stocks days before the New Westminster-Coquitlam by-election in hopes of boosting their appeal.

Mr. Layton says results in New Westminster-Coquitlam show his party can make Mr. Harper pay a political price for the Conservatives' role in the HST, a massively unpopular tax shift taking place in both B.C. and Ontario next July.

Pollster Darrell Bricker of Ipsos-Reid cautions against reading too much into one by-election. He says HST anger may serve as a catchall for unfocused voter discontent, but it's hard to predict its staying power for future races.

Mr. Layton begs to differ.

“[This] was the first election on the HST,” says the NDP Leader, whose party's portion of the riding vote went up eight points from 2008 results. “If it's even worth five points [of vote share], that's worth seats in B.C. and Ontario.”

The Harper government is spending $5.9-billion bankrolling the shift to the HST in B.C. and Ontario. It's estimated the new levy will increase sales taxes on about one in five consumer purchases in these provinces.

Economists say this compensation was crucial in persuading B.C and Ontario to adopt the HST, which merges the GST and provincial sales tax into one levy covering the same set of goods and services.

The Conservatives, however, reject the notion their New Westminster-Coquitlam showing is an indication that voters are blaming them for the HST. Heritage Minister James Moore, a Vancouver-area MP, said the Tories were out-organized in the race by New Democrats in an area that has traditionally leaned NDP. The Tory vote dropped three percentage points from 2008.

Pollster Nik Nanos says the B.C. by-election results should give Tories pause. “It may be a precursor of the rough ride Conservatives could expect on the harmonization front.”

For months, the Tories have publicly ducked any responsibility for the HST, even though they counselled Ontario and B.C. to embrace the tax. Federal ministers have framed the shift as entirely the result of provincial decisions and left it to premiers Dalton McGuinty and Gordon Campbell to weather the storm. The backlash has hurt Mr. Campbell's Liberal government, in part because it reversed positions on the HST just after a general election.

Yesterday, however, in a sign that populist anger is also troubling the McGuinty Liberal government, Ontario unveiled more exemptions from the HST for consumers.

The HST's economic appeal is that it yields a tax break for business and improves the investing climate for provinces that adopt it. What's politically perilous, though, is that it shifts some sales-tax burden to consumers from business, and, in the short term at least, hikes costs for consumers.

Mr. Nanos said the minority Harper government should be wary of heading to the polls for a general election in 2010 that's anywhere near the July 1, 2010, introduction date for the HST in Ontario and B.C.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has largely held off attacking the Tories over the HST, leaving the field to the NDP rather than mounting a campaign against the shift that would hurt his brethren in the McGuinty government.

This leaves the NDP free to run against the HST in seat-rich Ontario and B.C. ridings, where they are serious contenders for seats with the Tories.

“Harper should be quite worried because of the timing,” Mr. Nanos says. “As soon as the first cash register rings on this, judging by what happened with the GST in the past, this is going to be a political issue.”

Harper Fails Us Again. When is he Going to Stand Up For Canada?

With 85% of Americans wanting protectionism, despite the fact that Obama doesn't necessarily, he has to listen to the American people.

Michael Ignatieff warned months before our Prime Minister finally acted, and now we are at the risk of serious trouble if we can't turn this around.

Harper has courted America, but forgot to protect Canada.

"Canadian manufacturers (are) up in arms, saying they are being barred from bidding on contracts in the U.S. even as American companies with free access to the Canadian market are beating them out for business here at home.

"Their complaints have grown all the more urgent as efforts by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to win an exemption for Canadian firms from Buy American in the U.S. have bogged down at the negotiating table.

"John Hayward, who runs an industrial equipment plant in Halton Hills, said U.S. President Barack Obama talks about the importance of free trade "but the actions just aren't matching up with the words.

"For American companies to be doing so much business in our market and blocking Canadian access to theirs, and then turning around and beating out the same Canadian companies in Canada, is just intolerable."

Some of the comments at the end are quite telling as to how Canadians are reacting to this. Like everything else, the Harper government drags it's heels until it's too late. They are all partisan politics, all the time, and we are paying the price.

Article Comments

1. RE: efforts by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to win an exemption for Canadian firms from Buy American in the U.S. have bogged down at the negotiating table '

Once again the Harper govt proves to be utterly useless as it fails Canada and Canadians. Ignatieff by contrast (not that it has been reported much) has stood up for Canada and told US legislators MONTHS AGO that their 'buy American' nonsense my well result in a serious backlash from Canadian manufacturers. Iggy has told US legislators that vital Canadian export industries are at major risk from 'buy American' and that unfettered American access to Canada's multi-billion dollar industrial market is not a God given right. Harper and Co of course have done nothing as they are afraid to stand up to their US bosses and think painting GO Trains blue is more important.

2. US is clearing out jobs in Canada as well. - I work for an European company managed by US division, they have cleaned out 90% of the work here to send to their US division regardless of the cost. Every time I make a purchase at a store I look for Canadian goods and willing to pay more for it, next to impossible to find but will keep at it.

3. You Reap What You Sow - Perhaps if the Harper clan didn't interfere in Obama's primary contest last year in Ohio - which could have cost him dearly - Obama would be more open to discussing this with Harper. That action was unprecedented and now Canadian manufactures are paying the price for it. Harper is the last chump on earth Obama is going to help, especially politically

Latest Deaths Reveal That 'Exaggeration' over H1N1 Has Been Proven to Be False

There was a poll released yesterday that gave some rather surprising results. First off, the Reform Conservatives were down to 36.5% popularity, once again putting a majority out of Harper's reach, hopefully. Mind you he was able to use our money to purchase two byelections, so it may give him another blip, but polls outside of an election rarely mean much. Kim Campbell had Jean Chretien down into the teens, and Chretien came back to win a majority.

In 2006, Harper started out the election at 23%.

But the surprising part of the poll was that most Canadians believe that the H1N1 threat was exaggerated. Some headlines even referred to the pandemic as a "dud". A failure because it didn't kill enough people?

Well news today shows that this feeling of complacency may have been premature because deaths in Canada have risen dramatically in the past few days, showing that this is something that we can't take lightly. And with threats of a third wave that will hit again in February, it's too soon to dismiss this as a 'dud".

And comparing this to death from ordiary flu, is not a reasonable claim. People who die from flu usually have other illnesses or are vulnerable for a variety of reasons. H1N1 is claiming the lives of healthty people, especially children. Our governemnt was too slow to respond to this.

Caroline Alphonso and Karen Howlett
TORONTO — Globe and Mail
November 13, 2009

A sudden spike in H1N1 deaths over the past week reveals that the pandemic virus is taking a far greater toll on Canadians during the second wave, raising fears that it is just as severe, if not worse, than seasonal flu.

Ontario's confirmed tally of fatalities jumped to 61 from 37 last week; five more people died in Alberta since Tuesday; Quebec confirmed four deaths in the past 24 hours; and British Columbia recorded eight more deaths over the past week.

More than 190 Canadians have died from H1N1 - and with additional deaths expected, health officials say there is a heightened urgency to get more people vaccinated quickly, especially the young who have been so badly affected.

The death tally, which in the spring averaged two to four a week, is at least three times higher during this second wave as the virus spreads. "We haven't seen the peak yet, in my view," David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, said yesterday. "We will continue to see, unfortunately, more people in ICUs and hospitals, and, unfortunately, more deaths as well."

The youngest victim so far was a two-month-old baby boy from London, Ont., who died earlier this month. H1N1 disproportionately affects younger people because it resembles a strain of flu that circulated before 1957, to which older people have been exposed.

Health officials on the ground are seeing more Canadians filling emergency rooms or showing severe H1N1 symptoms. In B.C., for example, there have been 202 new severe cases identified since the beginning of the month, for a total of 601 since April when the virus was first identified.

Michael Gardam, director of infectious diseases prevention and control at the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, said that as more people begin coming down with the virus, the death tally will continue climbing for a few more weeks.

"To my mind, it's purely a marker that there's more flu out there," Dr. Gardam said. "The virus has not mutated. It's no more nasty than it was before. There's just more people with it."

Some health officials have questioned the intense government focus on H1N1, saying it is a mild virus that has killed fewer people than the seasonal flu. The seasonal flu kills about 4,000 people each year and results in the hospitalization of tens of thousands more, but those deaths are estimated, whereas H1N1 deaths are confirmed.

"It's not fair to make the comparison," said Kumanan Wilson, Canada research chair in public-health policy at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. "On the ground level, this is definitely not that much milder than the seasonal flu as those mortality stats would suggest. It's as bad, if not worse as regular seasonal flu. That's the clinical experience."

In the United States, numbers released yesterday show swine flu has killed an estimated 3,900 Americans, including more than 500 children, between April and mid-October; it has infected an estimated 22 million people and put 98,000 in hospital. The count is an extrapolation based on data from 10 states.

"What we are seeing in 2009 is unprecedented," said Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And there's still a long flu season ahead. "I think projecting out forward is difficult."

In Canada, about seven million doses of vaccine have so far been distributed to provinces and territories, and more will keep flowing over the next few weeks. Canada has ordered 50 million doses. Dr. Butler-Jones said surveys are being conducted and modelling done to get a sense of how many Canadians had the flu. But he said there's no reason to extrapolate the number of deaths in Canada, because health authorities are closely tracking that data.

"I'm sure that there's some that we're missing. But most are getting picked up, particularly the ICU ones, and obviously the deaths. So I don't think we're missing a lot in terms of the severe cases," he said.

"We don't know for sure how many Canadians have had the flu ... [but we'll] try and get some estimates as we go forward."

Taxpayers Billed For Harper Campaign Blitz

This article about a two week extravaganza of taxpayer funded advertising has a lot of elements.

The story of course is that in the time leading up to the Liberal non-confidence motion, the Reform Conservatives spent more than three million dollars on an advertising blitz, suggesting that they had created a wallop of jobs with this so-called action plan, which is turning out to have created about as much action in the economy as a grape in the sun.

$3,111,877.44 from Infrastructure Canada on advertising from Sept. 14 to Sept. 29.

During this time they were also trying to sell a doom and gloom scenario of an election, which they didn't want at the time because they were down in the polls and would soon have to start answering for their bogus stimulus package.

And of course, we saw what happened. The non-confidence motion failed and Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals plummeted in popularity.

The irony is of course that with that plummet the Ref-Cons surged, but they had been so busy selling the public on the errors of an election, that they couldn't call one when they might have their best chance at fooling Canadians into giving them a majority.

This situation would be absolutely hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that Canadians got billed $3,111,877.44 for this little adventure.

The numbers are becoming rather alarming and it's predicted that their advertising on the (in)Action Plan could hit as high as 100 million dollars. And yet the funds didn't get to where they should have and unemployment is still on the rise.

I mean look at some of the projects. 4 million dollars for a library for a private (for profit) religious school. $500,000.00 for an indoor soccer field for another private religious school. Numerous rinks. How will these things help the economy overall?

They are only helping the Reformers unfortunately, as they are helping themselves to our money.