“No offer was made — that means no offer was made.”

Those were the words of Paul Martin in the House of Commons yesterday. But he knows that in reality, offers were made. CTV reports that the PM was prepared to talk to Gurmant Grewal in person. This part of the MO resembles the Stronach deal. Liberals were ready to offer him some type of a reward if he and his wife abstained from the Budget vote. The government reward would materialise two weeks after the vote. Paul Martin continues to assert that he had no prior knowledge of the negotiations between Grewal and Murphy and the Minister of Health, Ujjal Dosanjh.

Grewal is expected to hand over the tapes so that a police investigation may begin. Tim Murphy has already said that he will sue Grewal about the allegations that he has made. The tapes should reveal a bit more about the extent of Murphy’s proposal (that apparently was not a proposal). We’ll see. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Here is the link to the tapes and transcripts. I’ll be back later with comments after I read the stuff.

Susan Riley of the Citizen (subscription required), much like Don Martin, is preaching that the CPC bring out its moderate stars to the fore instead of the angry leader (For a good discussion related to the use of “moderate,” see Canadianna here) or the knuckle-draggers.

Jim Prentice, now that Lady Stronach is gone, is her anointed “moderate” (Riley is the same tolerant writer who suggested that Harper cannot become Prime Minister of Canada because he is not from Quebec). Her advise is simply a veil behind which to attack the Conservatives. The talk about the pretend moderates is a ticket to highlight the alleged immoderates.

In her less than rigorous professional objectivity, Riley does not mention that Prentice, the alleged moderate does in fact hold the extreme position on homosexual marriage. If moderate means what most people with a pulse would know, the one extreme on SSM would be to deny homosexuals all economic, legal, and social benefits as a result of their sexual pairing. The other extreme is to grant them the full status of marriage reserved to heterosexual couples in all but two countries in the world, across countries, cultures, and religions.

Moderate would mean somewhere in between the extremes, which is what the CPC policy on SSM proposes. And yet, Riley touts the more extremist view in the party as the moderate. Why bother to think for herself before writing, when the words Riley wants to write are already available. For Liberals such as Riley, moderate is plainly one who agrees with their opinions.

Jim Prentice [is] a Calgary lawyer who ran against Harper for the leadership and may be now, post-Stronach, the ranking moderate in the new party (whether he wants to label or not)

Riley is either a little slow or a lot dishonest. She is at least honest enough about her own influence with voters, as she understands that most of what she and her colleagues write is mostly “smoke.” And that must be granted. It is surely false honesty, however, when it comes to her careful choice of words.

Of course, when he [Harper] does start releasing policies, the media will rip them to shreds. Or, worse, we’ll ignore them. (Anyone remember the NDP environmental platform?) But if the ideas are reasonable, and attractive, voters will see through the smoke. Voters understand complexity. What turns them off is the same old garbage.

Garbage? Rip? Ignore? Were it nor for the cheap shots, Riley’s words could be vastly ignored, really. But just as her opinion that only Quebeckers can get to the PMO, her assumption of moderation must not go unquestioned.

I was at a BBQ yesterday. The drive there was marvellous. It was a glorious southern Alberta evening. The sun was at about a 45 degree angle to the northwest, bathing the rolling hills in light that cast long shadows everywhere. As we were headed west on a gravel road toward the south bank of the Highwood river, the Rockies were in full view in front of us. What a sight.

Everyone brought either a salad or some desert, and our hosts, a ranching family that stretches its roots to the property for a few generations, provided unparalleled, grain and grass-fed Alberta beef. In attendance were about 50 of the finest people I know, some of whom had driven from many of the blessed rural communities in south central Alberta. A beautiful setting, great food, and outstanding folks. Life does not get much better than that.

We talked about all sorts of things: cattle, crops, family, and, of course, politics. Someone brought up my recent posting about Alberta rednecks. We had a few laughs about that. As I looked around the shaded lawn, people mingling and having fun, it occurred to me that almost every single individual in attendance would comfortably respond to the redneck label. No wonder I felt at home among them.

As I drove home with the sun behind me, I got to review in my mind the variety of people there. There were farmers, ranchers, lawyers, engineers, taxidermists, geologists, accountants, nurses, political scientists, radio announcers, medical doctors, welders, oil executives, school teachers, house wives, multiple successful self-employed entrepreneurs, two current members of the Alberta Legislative Assembly, one fine former Member of Parliament. Though the majority are Albertans, there were also people originally from Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and a few immigrants. Among them all, a significant accumulation of university degrees, including the stay-at-home mums.

This was no gathering of inbred, inarticulate, uncultured ignoramuses, such as the national Liberal media is fund of portraying as Alberta rednecks. While this was not a perfectly representative gathering of the average southern Albertan in terms of an education profile, and that is granted, it was fairly representative in many other aspects.

I went to Stats-Can to see what the numbers from last census would tell us. What I found is not a surprise, and here is their approximate statistical profile:

Rockyview is just south and west of Calgary. Most of the people present at the BBQ were not from Rockyview, though a few were. I could not find precise data for the district where we were, which is called Highwood, but Rockyview is just adjacent to Highwood, and it’s very similar in its profile as a comfortable home to a mixture of rural and semi-urban inhabitants.

On the average, this Alberta “redneck” area is more affluent and better educated than the Canadian average, and it receives three times less government assistance than the average district in Canada.

The people at the BBQ are southern Alberta rednecks, and proud of it. Contrary to what the media may say, we are not hill billies: we are small-c conservative, anti-Liberal, G-d-fearing, honest and loyal, hard-working, family-oriented, self-reliant but caring and gregarious, no-nonsense kind of folks who love their country. Given that profile, you will not find them portrayed as western “rednecks” to central Canadians on the CBC. Essentially, we’re not that scary, even when we growl.

Sources on education and income:

On referendum night in 1980, Quebec Premier René Lévesque said: “Si je vous a compris, vous à ªtes en train de dire à   la prochaine –If I have understood, you are saying until next time.” And sure enough, there was another vote in 1995, and the potential for more referenda in Quebec is still present. In 1992, when Denmark said NO to the Treaty of Maastricht, there was another vote, and the treaty was approved on the second vote. Two weeks ago, the Martin Liberal government was defeated three times in the House of Commons, and after much unethical, unconstitutional and perhaps even illegal manoeuvring, there was another vote. And just last week, the Martinistas announced that the government would not ask for dissolution if they are defeated on a confidence question again, but simply hold another vote.

Yesterday, as the voters in France turned the European Constitution down, we see the retun of a continuous voting until people vote the way that their leaders want. In the NP this morning:

The Dutch vote Wednesday, with polls showing opposition to the constitution there running at about 60 per cent. On Friday, the constitution’s main architect, former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, said countries that reject the treaty will be asked to vote again.

One does not have to wonder much about, and one does not have to be a theoretician of democracy to understand, how and why this means a deterioration of democratic politics. It’s a brave new world of technocrats and apparatchiks. It has been so for a while, but the pretense of bowing to the public will is not even worth holding anymore.

When Jacques Chirac called his referendum on the European constitution, he was riding high in the polls. Still hiding behind a curtain of anti-Americanism, and his corruption misdeeds half-forgotten, he was sure to win it.

But things turned around. He is now a sitting duck president with little possibility of being re-elected for a third term. Many are calling for his resignation. In an earlier post, I wrote about the Mulroney effect in the French referendum, which is to say the political Midas touch in reverse. Every time Chirac appealed to the French public during the referendum campaign, support for the NON side went up. Giscard D’Estaing is said to have told Chirac that the best strategy was to keep quite, but Chirac refused to hide and play Jean Chretien. More stinging still is the fact that Chirac was defeated by an amorphous and virtually leaderless blob of groups from the left and from the right. He had Giscard D’Estaing (on the right) and the Spanish socialist Prime Minister (on the left) campaigning for him, and he still could not find the needed support.

More than the unintelligible, lengthy and convoluted 190-plus page document, Chirac was defeated by fears on both sides of the spectrum: There are fears that the French state will abandon its duty to protect the French nation to the growing Leviathan. Some of these fears may be well placed. And then, there is the condescending attitude of Eurocrats, who claimed that a NON vote meant another vote until people get it right and say OUI (more on this soon). The greater part of the fears seems to be that France’s cushy welfare system would be eroded, that there be greater free-market and more competition, less support for unions, no four-day work week, and so on. It is not hard to see that, in the minds of the French socialists, most of these are features of a American, George Bush-style, political and economic agenda.

And so, spooky America comes back to haunt Chirac through the back door that he himself opened: the door of anti-Americanism. I could not really care whether Europe became more Europe or less; like Canada, they have worked hard at becoming nearly-irrelevant in the international arena; like in Canada, their population still thinks that they can actually make real difference in the world. These are self-delusions, of course, and they hardly match the effective state of world affairs. While Chirac did not create French anti-Americanism, he carefully nurtured it to his own advantage in the past few years. But now, it has grown independent of his control. Au revoir, Jacques. Well done.

The political fall out:
Washington Post,
Globe and Mail,
National Post,
Le Monde,
Le Figaro,
BBC

I visited Angry’s ranking of Canadian blogs today. I remember the beginning of a “conversation” about a permanent Canadian ranking on a comment thread a couple of weeks ago, and Angry has carried it through. He has done a superb job of putting that together. So thanks for that, Angry.

But I principally want to say thanks to the steadily growing number of people who come through this blog to read the stuff and to post comments, whether occasionally or on a daily basis. Civitatensis.ca finds itself ranked 26 among the Blogging Tories and 58 among Canadian blogs (Perhaps it’s a typo).

At the risk of sounding falsely modest (a big risk since modesty has never been a character flaw of mine), I am quite surprised, and like the good Canadian who always aims for the Bronze, I am pleased considering that I have only been doing this for a few months, and considering that there are so many really good, informative and well deserving bloggers out there. So thanks to all of you.

The pressure is on now. I hope that I am not too disappointing.

With nearly a 30% rate of abstention, still a greater rate of participation than the one that approved the same EU constitution in Spain, voters in France have rejected the European Constitution drawn up by their former president Valery Giscard d’Estaing.

OUI 45.5%
NON 54.5%

These are not the final results. If polls from the middle of last week were right, Chirac’s impersonation of Paul Martin on French national TV pleading to voters to approve the constitution had no impact at all. In spite of polls recording improvements for the YES side after Chirac’s televised speech, the final results read very much like they did before the speech.

Loser in this vote is not just Europe, but the most immediate victim is Jacques Chirac, the French president. Wednesday, The Netherlands go to the polls. The NO side is leading in that country.

Updated results from the Washington Post (registration required, but no subscription).

OUI 43%
NON 57%

The participation rate in the EU constitution referendum in France increased by nearly five points so far as compared to the Maastricht referendum in 1992, report Le Figaroand Le Monde. The measure was taken at noon today. The tight race seems to have sparked greater interest among French voters. In Spain, where voters accepted the EU constitution in February, the voter efficiency rate was very low: 42%

I will try to post results later.

For more about EU constitution, see Steyn

I am always amazed at the self-importance of the Canadian left. Angry writes about a planned protest by Judi Rebick’s folks. They are going to spam US media outlets to tell them that they should impeach their president. That’s right!

We have a governing party that has been involved in money laundering, threats of violence, influence peddling, bribing elected officials, committing perjury, committing fraud, breaking provincial and federal election laws, ties to organised crime, and blatant violations of our constitution —just to name a couple. But lefty, self-centred Canadians are going to lecture Americans about their government –which incidentally received the support of the majority of voters.

But back to the self importance thing. Do they actually believe that anyone will care about what they think? The Canadian left have made sure that Canada becomes irrelevant in the international scene, and now they want people’s ear; they have insulted and denigrated Americans for decades, and now they want their attention?

And now for the unintended consequences. The Rebick tribe are the same people who want to avoid greater integration between both countries, but the more they do such things, they more they are saying to Americans and their institutions that they are constituents too.

Long live “continentalism”!

Crystal Meth (methamphetamine hydrochloride) has been wreaking havoc among users for sometime. Because it is cheap and widely available, it has become the hard drug of choice among teens. Its spread has become a veritable problem. But now, it is also becoming the problem of environmentalists –whose ranks are populated by a strong youthful contingent.

Police in Alberta say crystal meth producers are polluting ground and water with toxic byproducts.

The charge is in a report released this week by the Criminal Intelligence Service Alberta, an alliance of police agencies that monitors serious crime in the province.

The report says toxic chemicals used in cooking the drug are often dumped with no regard to their negative impact on the environment. (Edmonton Journal, subscription required)

A CBC report from back in March had already made the connection between Crystal Meth and its environment-polluting by-products. In addition, the same report also shows that Crystal Meth is highly used in the gay community.

In recent years, crystal meth has become the drug of choice in the gay men’s party scene. Like the mainstream use of the drug, this trend spread from west to east - San Francisco to New York and Vancouver to Toronto. At “PNP” parties (shorthand for “party and play” - meaning sex and drugs), crystal meth, known as “tina,” increases energy and reduces sexual inhibition. And the superhuman feeling that often comes with a crystal meth high means the sex is often unprotected.

Since in the present social climate, any potential damage to mother earth will likely be seen as a greater affront than the damage caused to users, families, the social fabric, and rising health costs, there may now be a greater chance to bring people to attack the problem with more seriousness. Users themselves who might be green ideologues will be confronted with a moral dilemma.

I look forward to the time when environmentalists will begin picketing crystal meth manufacturing labs and gay bath houses, calling for a worldwide boycott of the polluting drug.

Viagra users will have to choose between performance or blindness, reports the Edmonton Journal (subscription required).

Viagra works by increasing blood circulation to the penis. Pomeranz suspects the drug may also affect circulation to the optic nerve, causing damage or injury to the eye.

There are too many things to say about this, but the safest is: Caveat Emptor!

Cross posted to thePolitic.

I didn’t want to wade into this. But it is puzzling to me that when people leave a group (or are asked to leave, as in this case), they have to paint themselves as martyrs. It’s the messianic complex that I find curious. The Calgary Observer apparently suffers from the same complex. He is even comparing himself to Belinda. Need one say more about that?

In this post, from May 25 he announces that he is leaving the Blogging Tories and that he has taken the blogroll out (but I just visited it –11:26 PM in Calgary, May 28– and it is still there). Suddenly, he has discovered that the Blogging Tories is populated by a gang of “right wing nutjobs,” language that he also uses to describe his former writing contributor. Actually, come to think of it, that is Belinda-like. And now he has announced, with pomp and circumstance, that he has become a card-carrying Liberal, while at the same time starting a blog-roll about non-partisan common sense politics. So, non-partisanship is non-partisanship only if you are a Liberal Party member.

The Calgary Observer recently visited this blog. He left a comment here. His language is not becoming of a Liberal, let alone the political scientist that he claims to be. Because he claims that there are evil Tories going around posting e-mails that he has never sent, I’ll include the info on the post:

Author: Calgary Observer (IP: 205.206.122.68, s205-206-122-68.ab.hsia.telus.net)
E-mail: calgaryobserver@telus.net
URI: http://calgaryobserver.blogging.com
Whois: http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=205.206.122.68
Comment:
This has been my observation as well. I don’t see too many rednecks around here, but we do have a lot of “trailer trash” unfortunately.

Two things immediately jump to mind:

1. The Observer is not very observant if he finds that there are not many rednecks in Calgary. Where does he hang out? There are lots of us out here, lots. And we are all good guys, of course.

2. He has found in Calgary, instead, that “we have a lot of trailer trash.” “We have”? Really?! I would ask the same question as to where he hangs out, but that is not all. Trailer trash is not a recognised political science analytical category. To refer to people as trash is not a very touchy-feely Liberal type of thing either, or is it? Aren’t Liberals supposed to be concerned for the plight of the down-trodden and the socially disadvantaged? This kind of dehumanising of folks is rather remarkable. It also demonstrates an understanding of himself as socio-economically superior to the rest of us mere mortals, or to whomever the “trash” category applies. That is not a very Liberal position either. So, if this is who/what has left the group, one should not worry and just leave it at that.

How long before the Libs toss him (and keep his five bucks)? Any bets?

To follow the story, go here, here, here, and here

Last night (Friday May 28) Oliver Stone was arrested on Sunset Blvd, and booked allegedly for drunk driving “and felony possession of a controlled substance.” He posted a $15,000 bail, reported the LA Times.

This is the second time Stone has faced such charges. In September 1999, he pleaded guilty to drug possession and no contest to driving under the influence and was ordered into a rehabilitation program. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to drop two felony counts of possessing controlled substances.

They can smell it; they can see it coming. And Jacques Corriveau showed us yesterday the epitome of the sentiment now populating the top ranks of the crooked Liberals involved in AdScam. They are not ever going to be indicted; they are not ever going to be touched; they will never see the inside of a jail cell. Of these things, they are certain.

The half tentative Jacques Corriveau that we saw back in April, the man who was at least concerned enough to cook a story about his failing memory and his closeness to someone with Alzheimer’s, was not there yesterday.

Yesterday, Corriveau was arrogant and vain; he was defiant in subtle and not so subtle ways. The categorical manner with which he denied and dismissed all allegations against him, except for the ones for which there is a paper trail, exhibited an air of superiority about which we had only seen traces the last time he appeared before the Gomery Commission. They are all lying, he said, they are all wrong, even when admitting that none of those who said implicating things about him had any interests in seeing him hurt. It was as though the first appearance was a dressed rehearsal for yesterday’s performance.

Christie Blatchford picked up a great deal of Corriveau’s disposition in her Globe piece this morning. She found him to be “shameless” (subscription required), which only begins to describe the man. Corriveau described, in turn, his own doings as “noble” and himself as “proud” to be able to help a party in need. Corriveau represents the essence of the Liberal pathology. He places party above ethics and decency, above community and nation, above morality and the rule of law, without so much as a hint of internal conflict. He shows the legendary loyalty among thieves. He is the incarnation of a corrupt party that will impose on the country its own illegal racket as a moral norm, with pride.

“All Mr. Béliveau’s allegations with regard to me are totally false,” he said. Mr. Béliveau was “speaking falsely, totally.”

“I find it’s quite ridiculous and quite unbelievable,” he said of Mr. Béliveau’s evidence at one point. “This is some virtual universe of his own making.”

He didn’t seem at all perturbed, mind you, by any of the outrageous charges being levelled at him.

As, at Mr. Roy’s request, he followed along in the transcripts as the lawyer read aloud the testimony implicating him, Mr. Corriveau smiled; small, bemused smiles, for the most part. I had my little opera glasses on him throughout every bit of this. There was not a trace of tension in his body language, not a fidget, not a wince, not a single nervous lick of lip. His long, elegant fingers flipped the pages of the transcripts to which he was directed: he smiled, he waited for the questions.

Once, after the first long reading of one part of Mr. Béliveau’s evidence, and before Mr. Roy found in his notes the reference for the next chunk, there was a long pause.

Mr. Roy had not yet asked his first key question; he was laying the groundwork. No one knew what Mr. Corriveau was going to say, and the room held its collective breath; it was so still, why, you could have heard an envelope of cash slip onto the carpeted floor.

Mr. Corriveau sat with perfect calm, waiting, expectant but not in the least troubled, his unlined, creamy-skinned face placid.

He managed to display his boundless vanity.

When, speaking of how, although he and Mr. Dezainde were fellow Liberals, Mr. Dezainde had been a John Turner backer and then a Paul Martin backer, while he had always stuck with his friend Jean Chrétien, Mr. Corriveau allowed himself a shot.

“I think,” he said of Mr. Dezainde, “my political instinct was better than his.”

When he acknowledged putting a few of the party boys on the Pluri payroll, he said, “It was a noble gesture, and I was going to do it for the Liberal Party of Canada.”

“You were very magnanimous,” Mr. Roy remarked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Corriveau. “I was.”

After all, as he explained a few minutes later, “When you’ve been active in a political party for 40 years, as I was for the Liberals, you’re proud and you want to do things.”

Well, there it is.

When asked if he thought he was doing something wrong when he was doing it, Chuck Guite said that he now knew that it was wrong. A minimum of contrition requires an ability to contemplate the morally obvious in retrospect; it requires a fundamental connection with the common sense world that most of us inhabit; it demands an able conscience. Like a sociopath, Corriveau showed none of these yesterday. He feels nothing for he fears nothing. He knows that nothing will touch him; he knows that Canadians are asleep, or, at best, sleepwalking.

Update: Arthur Koestler illustrates the similar pathology of a party man turning away from reality in Darkness at Noon. Not quite light summer reading, but well worth it.

Update: See Angry about the alternate reality of Corriveau.

Many Liberals, including Irvin Cotler, keep telling us that the legislation on gay marriage will protect the position of religious groups who refuse to marry homosexuals. That would imply that to stand against homosexual marriage is a legitimate position, an opinion already not shared by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pierre Pettigrew.

Now, Judi Rebick, who probably wields more influence with Liberal cabinet ministers than most Liberal backbenchers, says it’s justifiable to insult Catholics and their pope given their beliefs on homosexuality: “I object to the Catholic church’s position on homophobia,” she said, defending the offensive cartoon placed on the website of a publication that she edits.

See Angry on the controversy and on the Catholic position on homosexuality.

The consolidating constitutional document for the universal homogeneous state of Europe hangs in the balance in a referendum tomorrow in France. If polls are any indication, it’s going to be tight. The Washington Post writes:

A poll by Ifop research group showed the “No” camp far ahead on 56 percent support. But a survey by CSA polling group showed 52 percent of voters who have decided how to vote will oppose the charter, a drop of 3 percentage points since Thursday.

All 25 members of the union need to ratify the new constitution by October 2006 for it to become law.

The fate of Jacques Chirac, the French President, may also hang in the balance. Polls suggest that the opposition to the constitution has a lot to do with Chirac’s unpopularity. In addition, French socialists are ridiculously complaining of an “Anglo-Saxon” conspiracy. They refer to a “Thatcherite” portion of the document, Article I-3 (2), that calls for
the Union to support “an internal market where competition is free and undistorted.” From their alien world (malheur!), that is clear evidence of a free-market, capitalist conspiracy. Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, whose country has already ratified the European constitution, has come to Chirac’s rescue. He was in the Northern French city of Lille (where my maternal ancestry originates) yesterday, hoping to boost the chances for a “Yes” vote.

While some are predicting a European crisis (en franà §ais) if the Euro constitution is not ratified in France, that seems to be an exaggeration. France could take another crack at a referendum in the next 18 months or so, perhaps under a more popular president. However, it is difficult to predict the effect of a no vote in France upon some of the smaller states, and the events in France itself. The Netherlands is set to vote on Wednesday, for example, and the “No” side there seems to be ahead as well. Le Monde seems to think that the knives (en franà §ais aussi) for Chirac’s back may be being sharpened among his closest partisans. Perhaps Dominique de Villepin will be the successor. That will make him, perhaps, a kind of Kim Campbell of French politics.

Many of us here in Alberta often complain about Ontarians and Quebeckers. The actual reasons for the complaints are far too many to recount here. We have many beefs against them; almost as many as we have oil wells.

It is absolutely necessary to point out that most Albertans from whom I have heard a constellation of creative things about Ontarians are originally from Ontario. Maybe it’s the kind of Albertans that I hang out with. I myself grew up in Quebec, so I am beginning to conclude that there is no redneck Albertan like a redneck central Canadian. Perhaps we should form our own club.

When and if we do, I would like to make this blogger, Damian Brooks, an honorary member.

I’m an Ontario redneck who hopes Alberta will invade and occupy Ontario sometime in the next week or so. I’m a proud Papa Bear to Boo and Mini-Boo. My wife Litlbit is sexy. I’m not very. I’m a small-c and a BIG-C conservative. You want to know more, start reading the blog. Oh, I almost forgot. I believe most problems can be solved with weaponry of a high enough calibre. Take me seriously at your own peril.

In less than a week, nearly 30 blogs have joined the Alberta Blog ring. Excellent Success. Now, Alberta Blog has moved to a new permanent address here.

Joe Morselli denied that he was da bigg boss of the racket going on in the Liberal party. He is not a Mafia don because he was born in Venice, and not Darth Veder, he claimed. I am going to leave Star Wars alone.

He may not have been the real big boss, but Beryl Wajsman, a good friend of Morselli’s who has no interest in seeing him buried, understood that Morselli was a key figure: Wajsman reported to Morselli, as he indicated in his testimony. He only included Daniel Dezainde in his reporting (Dezainde was the official head of the party’s operations), once Dezainde had complained. Wajsman called Morselli the “turbo-charger” of Liberal party financing. Wajsman was a key fund-raising “consultant” and Morselli claims simply to have been a ticket salesman. Even in the most chaotic organisations, a major fund-raiser does not report to a mere ticket salesman. Typically, it’s the other way around. He also testified that Morselli was present at all his meeting with Gagliano. No ordinary salesman would have that kind of privileges.

But Mafiosi are not born, they are made. And if Morselli believes that they are born, is Morselli suggesting that Sicilian-born Alfonso Gagliano is Cosa Nostra by birth? Mafioso is what Mafioso does. Morselli admitted that if he had had a stick when Dezainde fired Wajsman, he would have clubbed him, and he did not deny having made the threatening remark about “declaring war” on Dezainde. In addition, Morselli, whose vehicle was once the target of a car bomb yet-to-be solved, admitted that he took a $5,000-stuffed envelop from Jean Brault, the GroupAction executive, which was destined for Benoit Corbeil. Morselli kept the cash for himself –but not the one that Brault claims to have left on the table at Frank’s. He also admitted not to have notified Corbeil about keeping the cash. Oh, the tangled webs!

My guess is that Morselli was foolish enough to have made a $5,000 cash deposit to his personal account at one point, for which there is a record, and he is setting things up for an explanation while protected by the inquiry. But in spite of the denials, he provides yet another confirmation of the Liberal modus operandi. Cash being moved in brown envelops from hand to hand from ad agencies to party operatives, and among party operatives.

We are not buying the “salesman from Venice” shtick that Morselli paints, however. We are neither Venetian or blind.

Pretoria will soon cease to be Pretoria, as a new name change for the South African city has been approved. It will be called Tshwane, “we are all the same.”

I could live with “we are equal,” but we sure as heck are not all the same.

I caught the BBC report saying that Bolivian Commander-in-chief, Admiral Luis Aranda, denied that the armed forces are planning to overthrow the Bolivian government. I would sleep far better at night if General Hillier, Canada’s Chief of Staff, would make the same announcement regarding Paul Martin’s gang.

Did you get the first part? Aranda is an Admiral ( Lord Nelson was an Admiral. See Canada’s future Nelson here), but Bolivia is a land-locked state, and it has been so since the Pacific War with Chile and Peru in the early 1880s.

Curiously Bolivians have clung to the notion of keeping a “Navy,” which presently has a personnel of more than 3000 men, and a flotilla on Lake Titicaca. They probably have larger budget allocations for the Navy than we do in Canada.

Soon there will be a new channel for news in Latin America, purported to rival CNN, the BBC reports.

Considering the sources of and motivations for its backing (the socialist Cuban paradise, the recently-elected socialist Uruguayan president, and the messianic redeemer of the subcontinent, Hugo Chà ¡vez), it sounds more like a rival to al-Jazeera.

Related:

• Hugo Chà ¡vez’ man at the OAS
• Hugo Chà ¡vez and North Korea
• Saddam of the South

Last month (of April, 2005), during the Alberta Conservative Party Convention in Edmonton, Rockyview MLA Ted Morton held a breakfast for friends and supporters. Media pressed Morton about the breakfast but he wanted to keep the gathering out of the media’s eye. Asked why, Morton was rather coy and replied: “I often meet with friends.”

Tom Olsen, who covers the Alberta political scene for the Calgary Herald, was personally insulted by the reply. Olsen wrote the next day: “You Need the Media, Ted.” He qualified Morton’s simple answer with two words as a single paragraph: “Smug. Arrogant.” Then, he continued to write:

Those are just two of the applicable terms.

Maybe he’s intimidated by the cameras, so [he] has to cover up his insecurity with what he perhaps believes is cleverness.

[It is a] Bad strategy, though, to anger the media.

“[It] Doesn’t make you want to write anything nice about him,” said one hack, after witnessing Morton’s brief performance.

You need us[,] Ted. Alienation is not step [sic] a leadership hopeful should take.

Visible in Olsen is a sense of entitlement that reporters be given what they want, when they want it. Morton is a public figure, and that is granted. But even public figures have private get-togethers.

Olsen’s reaction is self-centredness in disguise: “You need us” is Olsen’s way of saying “you need me.” It has an unmistakable tone of self-importance. Morton did not rebuff reporters but just gave a “brief performance,” Olsen admits. So, he is upset because Morton didn’t say what and how he wanted him to say it.

Olsen’s sensibilities were offended and things became personal. The brief performance elicited “anger in the media,” in Olsen. While he is implying that Morton angered them, balanced characters understand that anger is not a sentiment that originates outside. It has external triggers, but it dwells in he who gets angry. Professionals typically keep anger in check and don’t react whimsically on it. So, when Olsen makes of anger an issue, it is personal.

To say that anger does not make media want to write “anything nice about [Morton]” is to suggests that you’ll write unkind things, a desire which Olsen indulges in his piece. The statement implies a blackmailing boycott or a vendetta. Refusing to write about worthy things is dereliction, and as blackmail, it shreds the veil of neutrality in the duty to inform the public. In so doing, Olsen undermines the credibility of the profession.

To imply boycott is bad enough, but it is worse to write unkind things in vengeful reflex because it transforms journalism into an instrument to castigate someone in an abandonment of journalistic ethics.

Olsen’s anger becomes actualized in an attempt to hurt the “offender” who did not give him what he wanted. He will hurt and teach a lesson. He has become judge and jury, pedagogue rather than observer, however dressed in different garment.

Olsen’s is a tyrannical soul. Tyrants react in anger when they do not get their wishes, when something they want (often qualified as a need) is taken away or their perceived needs are unmet. Children are the typical example of tyrannical souls. They want what they want and they want it immediately. My not-yet three year-old son will sometimes scream wanting his shoes tied immediately, but he will not let me help him because he wants his mother to do it. The pressing desire is deferred to the greater capriciousness about the person he wants to perform the service, while at the same time being irate for the delay. Olsen’s attack on Morton is similar, but it is more akin to the child in the sandbox who, feeling insulted, threatens to take his toy away with him and clubs the supposed offending parties in the head with the same toy.

Olsen’s report is about a desire gone unsupplied, and the resulting angry reaction. It is worth reproducing again the most offensive sentence of his piece:

Maybe he’s intimidated by the cameras, so has to cover up his insecurity with what he perhaps believes is cleverness.

Those words appear soon after Olsen claims to have exercised the restraint of presenting us with only two applicable words. He abandons all objectivity. He hints that the one who hurt his feelings is cowardly, timid, and therefore unleader-like. He means to hurt, which is a self-serving (unprofessional) act. It is not journalism. Suddenly, what is supposed to be a political commentary finds itself swimming in self-indulgent pop psychology. Olsen’s reaction shows an inability to judge in detachment from personal preference.

The tyrannical nature of journalists like Olsen has serious implications for the political community, reaching further than attacking a politician. Journalists are a public conscience in a democratic setting. When they betray impartiality with personal feelings, they compromise sources of public judgement and undermine the public interest. The distortion of misplaced personal sensibilities invades the public sphere to corrupt public perceptions. The amplified personal disorder becomes political.

How little reaction there was in the media about Paul Martin’s rejection of centuries of constitutional tradition. Martin acted on what was good for him, dismissing constitutional standards and the duty of the office he holds. It is little wonder that the country’s media hardly blinked, if Olsen is representative of it. When one is self-absorbed, outside standards fade beyond the horizon.

Olsen’s “journalism” mirrors the structure of Ottawa Liberal politics. Both activities are practiced in satisfaction of a personal passion. Both activities seek to reward or punish in relation to personal (or tribal) passion: Olsen wanting to punish Morton for not giving him what Olsen wanted; Liberals rewarding friends and co-religionists for giving them what they need. Both are also punishing the public and public life itself.

While Olsen owes Morton an apology, that would simply focus on the personal again. It is far more fundamental that Olsen apologises to his profession, and to the community which his craft is supposed to serve.

The Liberals may be buoyed by their Labrador by-election victory yesterday, but the news out of Gomery should dampen the celebratory mood. Kroll Lindquist Avey conducted a forensic accounting analysis and have found that the Liberals may have received as much as $1.8 million in kickbacks from ad agencies –much more than previously thought, in addition to the $801,627 in “legal” donations, reports the Ottawa Sun.

Just when you thought things could not get worse.

Kroll’s audit found:

- The feds hid $15-million worth of advertising contracts in the sponsorship program;

- $10.5 million in sponsorships financed the Montreal Canadiens, NHL and Ottawa Senators;

- $13 million went to car racing events like the Grand Prix and Molson Indy;

- $6 million flowed into the Montreal Expos while $1.5 million went to the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Liberals will have to place a significantly greater sum of money aside to return to the Canadian taxpayer.

Barcepundit directs his readers to a story about Pio Moa, a historian whose lecture at the Madrid University was interrupted by a leftists mob. The reason: they disliked the topic.

When I was at McGill, in Montreal, an official from the Nicaraguan resistance, the Contras, came to give a lecture, and a similar mob of sandal-wearing, poncho-clad smelly hippies stormed the lecture hall and disrupted the talk to the point that the university, unwilling to call security and the policy, cancelled the talk. Similar shenanigans have taken place just blocks away at Concordia University, where speakers have also been denied.

Often, many of these disruptors are not even students at these universities. But university bureaucrats are too wimpy to prevent them from attacking their campuses and the very principles on which universities should rest. I am glad to see that the Spaniards are are not afraid to throw the vandals out.

In a similarly thuggish manner, Tim Murphy who is heard on the Grewal tapes discussing more than hypothetical scenarios to get two Conservative MPs to switch political allegiances in exchange of political favours, is trying to silence Andrew Coyne.

Mr. Murphy has retained legal counsel and will be pursuing a libel action against Andrew Coyne of the National Post, and is also considering a potential claim against Gilles Duceppe.

The smelly guys are at the PMO now.

And…, is it working? Coyne will not be silenced. His column this morning in the NP continues to ask crucial questions.

During the 1995 Quebec referendum, separatist shocked the public when they announced that they would continue to hold referendums until they won. The insinuation is that “no” results, however valid they may be, are never final. Gilles Duceppe went as far as to claim that a sovereign Quebec would allow referendums to see if Quebec wanted to return to Canada. It prompted some to refer to the strategy as neverendums.

Using a page from the Quebec separatist strategy, the Liberal government of Paul Martin now suggests that they will ignore opposition-led no confidence votes in the House of Commons, but will then go on to organise a vote of their own when they are sure to win it. Considering last week’s events, that can only mean more violations of the constitution. But it also signals the continuation of the strategy to stall Parliament in the hope of buying and bribing yet more MPs from across the floor.

Is there no end to the constitutional indignities which this government is willing to inflict on Canadians?

h/t: thePolitic and Andrew Coyne

Mr. Volpe has publicly withdrawn an allegation that he believed the MP [Grewal] was taking money from constituents.

If I had blinked, I would have missed it. In one single line buried at the end of an article in the National Post, I learned that Joe Volpe has called off his order to the RCMP to investigate Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal. Volpe had alleged that Grewal was taking some form of bribes from constituents. Here is what Grewal was proposing.

So, after having made the national news and some headlines; after having tried to sully Grewal’s reputation, Volpe simply withdraws his accusation. Volpe told news reporters on May 13:

I had some information that came to my hands and I handed it off to the same authorities

If the information he allegedly possessed was incriminating of Grewal, why would the minister now withdraw the allegation? And if the Minister has come to new information, he should divulge it. Otherwise, he is acknowledging that he acted rashly or with other motivations in mind.

But there was nothing rash about the allegations. And neither incriminating nor absolving evidence can really be found because the allegations were concocted and politically motivated. The purpose was to scare and soften up Grewal (to prime him) so that he would be better disposed to entertaining the Liberal advances when they approached him to betray his colleagues and his constituents for unnamed and unspecified future rewards.

Volpe’s withdrawal of the allegations against Grewal should be welcomed. But there still remain Volpe’s allegations against Deepak Obhrai. There is need for an investigation as to Volpe’s motivations for the allegations against the two Conservative MPs. A minister of the Crown does not simply make public allegations that have criminal implications for a Canadian citizen (let alone for Members of Parliament), publicly orders the federal police to investigate, only to withdraw them a few days later without much ado.

At best, we are dealing with the immense turpitude of a minister, a man who lacks the necessary prudence to be a cabinet minister, and at worst, Volpe has abused the power of his office in an attempt to advance the cause of Paul Martin’s Liberal government. Either way, Volpe should resign.

Pierre Trudeau destroyed the strength of federalist leadership layers in Liberal English Canada. Lisianne Gagnon now argues that Chretien and Martin have destroyed the base of French Liberal federalist leaders in Quebec. Considering that Ontarians refuse to vote for Westerners and Atlantic Canadians, that only leaves Ontario from which Liberals may choose. Ontario, she writes, is the new Quebec (subscription required).

The Alberta blogs have arrived, and they have let me join! To become part of us, you need to go here and follow the instructions.

Excellent news for monarchists. Next Tuesday, at Her Majesty’s visit to the Alberta Legislature, it will be announced that a portion of Highway 2, the road that connects Calgary and Edmonton, will be renamed Queen Elizabeth II Highway.

Happy Victoria Day to everyone in the RoC!