CIVITATENSIS

Chantal Hebert comments on the high stakes game being played at Elections Canada:

But if it should turn out that Elections Canada overplayed its hand, the cost to its institutional reputation could be prohibitive. A failure to make a persuasive case against the Conservatives would bolster allegations that vindictiveness played a part in its approach. It might never totally recover from the loss of confidence that would ensue.

Over the past decade, Elections Canada has gone from election watchdog to arbiter of Canada’s democratic life, taking on a more central role in every aspect of federal electoral politics, including the leadership campaigns of the various parties. It has never been easier for a politician to run afoul of its regulations.

It gets more interesting as her argument unfolds…

Ed Stelmach’s campaign is once again being distracted by gaffes or side events they could have controlled or foreseen. Now, it’s the issue of election Returning Officers. The story about one returning officer having close ties with the Alberta Conservatives broke on Tuesday, and that caught some attention.

Since then, reporters and opposition parties have had a chance to comb the PC party lists and matched them against the returning officers of the province. The result has been an alleged 50% of Alberta returning officers have ties with the ruling party.

Returning officers are officially appointed by Elections Alberta, but they are nominated by the government:

But Jacqueline Roblin, spokeswoman for Elections Alberta said the names of returning officers actually come directly from Stelmach.

“They come right from the premier’s office with these names that they are recommending that they be appointed,” she said Wednesday.

There is no expectation in the existing rules that they be non-partisan prior to the appointment, but they are expected to act in a non-partisan manner once they are on the job. Stelmach might have been able to defend one or two of such appointments. About half of them (out of 83) is a different story.

There has been nothing untoward, of course. But someone in the Premier’s entourage needs to learn a thing or two about the appearance of impropriety, and then teach the premier. Thirty seven years in power sure can make a party seem either incompetent or carelessly indifferent, or both.

It’s nobody’s fault: Some of us are simply not as quick on the uptake as others…

Syed Soharwardy, who withdrew his HRC complaint against Ezra Levant, has made some interesting confessions today. Levant is the former publisher of the now defunct Western Standard, which reproduced some of the Mohammed (peace be upon him) cartoons from Denmark (see one of the horribly offensive images below). Here is some of what the Imam had to say:

“Over the two years that we have gone through the process, I understand that most Canadians see this as an issue of freedom of speech, that that principle is sacred and holy in our society,” said Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

“I believe Canadian society is mature enough not to absorb the messages that the cartoons sent. Only a very small fraction of Canadian media decided to publish those cartoons.”

Can Soharwardy be so thick that it took him two whole years to figure out the free speech angle? I can not know, but the important thing is that he has. But he has veered so far the other way now as to declare free speech to have religious characteristics. In the same amount of time, he reflections have led him to figure out that free speech is “holy”!! Free speech as holiness is not even a western belief, let alone a Muslim one. To Soharwardy, it seems clear, nothing that could be historically held in such high regard could possible be secular. I wonder if Soharwardy will now recommend such holy a thing to those who attend his Mosque.

Soharwardy still sees the mere cartoons as evil that would be absorbed by Canadians, were they to see them (so don’t look). Except that he has kindly changed his mind about the maturity of all of us. Two years ago and until yesterday Soharwardy seemed to have believed us all to be immature. His apparent desire to impose his superstitious views about depictions of the prophet (peace be upon him) was nothing but an attempt to save Canadians from our own immaturity. In the last two years though, he figured out that we are not as immature as he imagined. So he has now decided that it’s okay because we are okay.

Indeed it’s not easy for the immature to identify maturity, but Soharwardy has now turned the corner after two years. It takes some a life time to do so; so two years is not so bad. Congratulations Syed! Well done!

Note: Soharwardy is also spelled as Suhrawardi, Suhrawardy, Soharwardi, Sohrawardy, Soharvardy, Suhravardy, Sohravardi, Sohrawardi, sohravardi, etc:

Related posts:

• Censure others, not yourself
•  Pens or artillery?

Poor Brian. He never really did know how to pick his friends. How bad was his deficient judgment when it came to people?

In a much anticipated testimony at the Commons Ethics Committee, Norman Spector had nothing but his apparent desire to bask in the light, perhaps one last time.

One has to wonder why, only now, Spector had said nothing about the monies he claimed were entering 24 Sussex. One has to wonder about the motivations of a man who’d say nothing for more than 15 years. He said nothing before because he had nothing.

During his committee testimony, Spector was asked directly if he had any evidence of wrongdoing by any government official. He flatly answered that he did not.

Instead, he told the committee how to do its business and he criticized the social and spending habits of his former boss and his wife. How unseemly!

The Mulroneys like to live well! Stop the presses! There is revelatory news that only a man who lived in the Holy Land could really have received. That Mulroney is ambitious and had lousy judgment on selecting his friends and associates is not new either.

That the former Ambassador to Israel and former Chief of Staff would betray the former prime minister with such cheap trivialities for a few minutes of media attention truly is evidence of the depth of Mulroney’s deficiency in his choices of friends and aides.

That’s what’s new.

CAUTION: If you are from Alberta, reading the following may cause arrhythmia, hyperventilation and potential stomach ulcers.

The following is a Toronto’s Glob raw data comparison between two oil producing jurisdictions: Norway and Alberta. It’s the Glob from Toronto and publishing the comparison on what is essentially the eve of an election in Alberta clearly seeks to influence voters. But nonetheless. Pay close attention to the oil funds and related figures, to say nothing of profits saved. Yet more evidence that we are being robbed and then bribed with our money simultaneously.

AREA

Alberta: 661,848 km²

Norway: 385,155 km²

POPULATION

Alberta: 3,500,000

Norway: 4,700,000

GDP per person

Alberta: $69,789

Norway: $72,305

TOP INCOME TAX RATE

Alberta: 39 per cent

Norway: 47.8 per cent

CORPORATE TAX RATE

Alberta: 32.1 per cent

Norway: 28 per cent

LITRE OF GASOLINE

Alberta: $1.03

Norway: $2.30

OIL PROFITS SAVED (2007):

Alberta: 11.9 per cent

Norway: 96 per cent

SIZE OF OIL FUND

Alberta: $16.1-billion

Norway: $368.2-billion

PROPORTION SAVED ABROAD

Alberta: 30 per cent

Norway: 100 per cent

OIL FUND PER CITIZEN

Alberta: $4,588

Norway: $78,351

OIL FUND ESTABLISHED

Alberta: 1976

Norway: 1990

INFLATION RATE (2007)

Alberta: 5.0 per cent

Norway: 0.8 per cent

PRODUCTIVITY RATE: (dollars of GDP per hour worked)

Alberta: 40.63

Norway: 63.19

Sources: Canadian Encyclopedia, Albertagasprices.com, Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, NorgesBank, OECD Factbook, Statistics Canada, Statistics Norway, Alberta Budget 2007 Second Quarter Fiscal Update

Still, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec would very much like for Alberta to squander an even a greater share of its revenues by sending greater and greater amounts of money to them. What the comparative chart above does not say either is that Norway is a sovereign state, and that a sizeable share of its citizens’ income does not have to go elsewhere (e.g. Sweden or Denmark) to pay for stuff for people in other jurisdictions.

It is not entirely abnormal to see people leave and new people come in when a political party changes leader. The same is true for the public service in situations when the party in question is in power. But it has been more than a year and there are people still leaving the side of the Alberta Tories.

Lyle Oberg announced his departure a few weeks ago. Last week, David Gillies baled from the premier’s office. Today, MLA Hung Pham has announced his departure. To boot, Pham’s accuses the party of misappropriation of funds and accuses the party of callously leaving members of his constituency association holding the bag in a legal dispute. Not what one would term an amicable departure.

MLA Hung Pham won’t seek a fifth term as the Progressive Conservative candidate in Calgary-Montrose, blasting his own party on the eve of an election for lying, making “poor decisions” and taking “dishonourable” actions.

In a letter to his constituency board last weekend, the Tory backbencher scolded the party for doing nothing to help local volunteers with their huge legal bills — and accuses the party of having “lied” about its role in constituency politics.

There was buzz on the radio this morning that Ed Stelmach would be jumping ahead to call an election today. The rumour sounded improbable to me then, though such announcement would steal serious thunder from Pham’s accusations. Likely, circulating the rumour about dropping the writ today was the point. The radio programme said nothing about Pham. Mission accomplished.

Board Members of PC Alberta Constituency associations, beware. In the meantime, with an election on the horizon, there is a vacancy in Calgary-Montrose. Any takers?!

In a heated and emotional debate yesterday about the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, the former chief of staff of Jean Chrétien, Eddie Goldenberg, accused former Quebec premier Bernard Landry of comparing Pierre Elliott Trudeau to Adolf Hitler.

In his speech delivered to law students in Quebec City, Mr. Landry quoted the late Liberal prime minister and driving force behind the patriation of the Constitution as saying at the time: “This Constitution will last 1,000 years.”

The pious Trudeauvian hordes can throw their arms up in the air and cry foul all they want. Goldenberg, it is evident, objects to the comparison to Hitler, but does not dispute the fact that the then prime minister used those exact words in that exact context. They just happen to be the same words that Adolf Hitler often used in reference to his Third Reich, the new regime and its constitution.

Goldenberg downplays Trudeau’s words in the same way that they did decades ago: “The media reported that this sentence had already been used (by Hitler) and that it was a bad choice. That’s it,” he said. None of it addresses the crucial question as to how Trudeau found himself repeating Hitler’s words. Was it a coincidence?

It’s more than just about Hitler and it’s no mere coincidence. The use of that formulation is part of a long tradition of prophets and messiahs which places Pierre Trudeau in good company. St. John the Evangelist uses the same formulation about 1,000 years in the Book of Revelations, chapter 20. This is what John has to say:

¹ Then I saw an angel come down from heaven with the key of the Abyss in his hand and an enormous chain.

² He overpowered the dragon, that primeval serpent which is the devil and Satan, and chained him up for a thousand years.

³ He hurled him into the Abyss and shut the entrance and sealed it over him, to make sure he would not lead the nations astray again until the thousand years had passed. At the end of that time he must be released, but only for a short while.

⁴ Then I saw thrones, where they took their seats, and on them was conferred the power to give judgement. I saw the souls of all who had been beheaded for having witnessed for Jesus and for having preached God’s word, and those who refused to worship the beast or his statue and would not accept the brand-mark on their foreheads or hands; they came to life, and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

⁵ The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over; this is the first resurrection.

⁶ Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection; the second death has no power over them but they will be priests of God and of Christ and reign with him for a thousand years.

⁷ When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison

St. John was writing about the Second Coming of Christ and the Final Judgment. The image of a thousand years in St. John conveys the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God and the perfection of human existence upon the final defeat of Evil. At least since then, there have been hundreds of political leaders of this type who have borrowed John’s language in reference to their own rule.

Bernard Landry is more correct than he knows it in comparing Pierre Trudeau to Adolf Hitler. They were both millenarian leaders, though they used different means. They were both charismatic prophets in the technical sense of the term. They believed themselves to be the chosen tools of History for the transformation of their world. They both believed they were engaged in a project that would bring about the final perfection of human society.

Bernard Landry can sometimes be a despicable character, and he himself has said lots of really stupid things. But when it comes to this, there is nothing for which Bernard Landry needs to apologise. When Pierre Trudeau used those words, he made himself the object of the comparison with Hitler, and with many similar transformative political and religious leaders (Ayatollah Khomeini, Louis Riel, Pol Pot, Augusto Sandino, Louis Farrakhan, Osama bin Landen, David Koresh, and many others).

We know what justice is, says Aristotle, because we have a sense of Justice. One can say the same thing about ethics.

In this piece, Don Martin recounts that three decades ago former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed had the immediate sense of keeping away from Karlheinz Schreiber after one single meeting whereas Mulroney did not:

Lougheed had an “uncomfortable feeling” about Schreiber as a shameless name-dropper, recalls former aide and current Calgary MP Lee Richardson. Lougheed ordered an immediate, government-wide ban on any association with the man. “In hindsight, I’d say Peter’s instincts were correct,” says Richardson.

With no hindsight at all, Lougheed’s sense was correct, actually. Lougheed does not have crystal ball and could not have known what would happen in the future. But he has the “instinct,”  he paid attention to it, and trusted it.

When one is in a position of power, all kinds of creatures come out of the woodwork. And what is more, the higher the position of power, the greater the number of political climbers, reptilians  and parasites one is likely to encounter. Mulroney was no political virgin at the time he decided to be associated with Schreiber. He would have known about the climbers and the reptilians in politics because he would have encountered plenty of them. He simply chose to ignore that experience, it would seem.

Peter Lougheed had Schreiber fingered as a high-risk political predator three decades ago. One can only marvel how Brian Mulroney spent a decade figuring this same shady character was a worthy friend and business associate.

I have not been following the Karlheinz Schreiber saga as close as many are, but I was surprised to see him on my TV screen yesterday, denying that he had given Mulroney money while Mulroney was in the PMO. Was that not one of the key allegations in the papers that he recently introduced in court?

Did Schreiber ever made those allegations under oath? Could he then be charged with perjury? It seems to me that Schreiber is willing to do just about anything to keep  himself out of Germany. I am wondering to what extent Schreiber may be spoiling to be charged with one or multiple violations of the Criminal Code in Canada. His hope may be that a criminal charge will keep him tied to Canadian courts for years before he gets shipped to his native Deutschland. He could be filing appeals for the better part of a decade and a half while friends like Marc Lalonde ($100,000), John Harding ($225,000), and Michael Cochrane($125,000),  “help” with legal fees and bail. By that point, Herr  Schreiber  might even be dead, or so close to it that clemency might keep him out of a German jail altogether.

There is an old Soviet-era joke about voting that came to mind when I read the recent news about Elections Canada. It goes like this:

An old lady showed up at a polling station in Soviet Russia and was given a folded ballot. As she walked toward the voting booth, she started to unfold the ballot. At that moment, a Soviet official walked up to her and in a threatening tone he said:

- What are you doing?

- I’m trying to figure out the person for whom I am going to vote, the old woman said with an intimidated voice.

- Sorry, the official barked, but you can’t do that! Do you not know that it’s secret ballot?

The joke underscores the obvious lack of liberty in the USSR, but it also points out that secrecy can be abused. To a classical liberal like John Stuart Mill, voting was a public duty and a public duty should be exercised publicly. Mill was no friend of voting by secret ballot because of the inherent public nature of the activity.

The secret ballot was introduced, in part, to prevent abuses at a time when men voted publicly because voters could be monitored by those who offered them money and liquor in exchange for votes. The secrecy behind a screen made it difficult –if not impossible– for the payers to know who the payee had voted for.

Concealing the identity of voters, however, is not at all what was contemplated by Canadian lawmakers when they switched to secret ballot in the late 19th century. Identity concealment is in effect what Elections Canada is recommending that we do. With the decision to allow Muslim women to vote without having to confirm their identity by showing their face, Elections Canada opens multiple doors for corrupting the electoral process, which is antithetical to the agency’s existence, and creates a second category of voters not contemplated by the law.

The very purpose of Elections Canada, in addition, is to safeguard the integrity of voting and to insure that Canadians trust and respect the process. Elections Canada is corrupting both its own mandate and the electoral process. The agency has set out to promote a practice that will undermine trust and respect for voting. The short sighted decision will in fact achieve the opposite of what one suspects its intention to be: to make the process more attractive to voters.

Elections Canada is also violating the will of Parliament, as the PM points out. The decision amounts to a veiled coup. Unelected bureaucrats do not have the authority to violate the legislative will of Parliament. Let Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand know your displeasure with the new directives, if it the case. Click here and send him a word or two.

Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc Quebecois leader, has made a significant contribution to the political vocabulary of public affairs. To pull a Duceppe in Canadian politics has for a while meant to pose for a ridiculous image, to appear silly, and/or is synonymous with cheesy hear gear.

But pulling a Duceppe has just acquired new meaning, a meaning likely to remain with us for generations to come. From now on it will evoke a superlative in flip-flopping, displacing the masterful John Kerry from that summit of notoriety. But to pull a Duceppe will be more than giant flip-flopping, an activity at which so many politicians excel.

To pull a Duceppe will mean even more. It will also evoke running away cowardly after rashly mounting half an attack. Datis ran away from the Greeks on the plains of Marathon but at least he put up a fight. To pull a Duceppe will will give a sense of an action designed to advance and strengthen one’s power but resulting in the destruction of that power. It will evoke greater self-inflicted humiliation than the expression previously conveyed. It will be bathed in such a blinding hue of political self-emasculation as to make Joe Clark secretly jealous.

Pulling a Duceppe will mean retreat and surrender in proportions only surpassed by Duceppe’s cousins sitting by the Maginot line in 1940. It will mean even more than botched calculation, hasty attack and lightening retreat. It will be also associated with condescendingly “making room” for women and/or visible minorities to access positions of power at one’s own  political expense (something that I had recommended for Michael Ignatieff to do some months ago). It will be associated with the failed artistry of offering the lamest of political excuses.

Don Martin has a few other meanings in mind:

Now they say a week in politics is a lifetime, but for a guy to help create a vacancy, rush to fill it and run for cover all in the space of 72 hours is a cycle of life, death, resurrection and reconsideration of almost biblical proportions.

Quebec newspaper letters pages were delivering scathing reviews on Mr. Duceppe's decision yesterday - buffoon, chicken, weakling, you get the idea.

For such rich contribution to our political vocabulary, we owe monsieur Duceppe our gratitude.

We may not always be able to write French properly, but we helped save their cowardly behinds a couple of times in the last century.

Still, DND should be embarrassed. French is not a foreign language in this country.

 The wheels of justice grind slowly, but cops seem finally to be moving in the direction of Jacques Corriveau, the man without a memory; one of the key figures in the Liberal sponsorship scandal. Also known as AdScam, the sponsorship programme was designed under the leadership of Jean Chretien to funnel millions in public funds into the pockets of Liberal Party loyalists in Quebec while projecting the appearance of fighting separatism in that province.

A source who has been interviewed by the RCMP said that police are asking more and more questions about Jacques Corriveau, a Liberal organizer described by Mr. Justice John Gomery as the “central figure in an elaborate kickback scheme.”

The source said he and other acquaintances have been interviewed recently by the RCMP about Mr. Corriveau.

Mr. Corriveau was a friend and supporter of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, and he earned about $10-million in subcontracts from advertising firms involved in the sponsorship program, which was a national-unity initiative. Evidence at the Gomery inquiry showed that Mr. Corriveau provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to the Liberals, and put Liberal Party workers on his firm’s payroll at no cost to the party.

In the meantime, authorities announced that they have issued an international arrest warrant against Jean Lafleur, one other of the principal  beneficiaries in the Liberal conspiracy massively to defraud the Canadian state.

One of the principals Liberal AdScam profiteers, Jean Lafleur, has been formally charged with fraud.  His Lafleur Communication and Marketing folded in September of 2005, unable to handle a 40k-plus debt.

The company is said to have moved about 30 million in contracts from AdScam, of which about 12 million may have gone to the Lafleur family.

Jean Lafleur is apparently no longer in the country to face the fraud charges for the puny sum of $1.58 million.

…wear it.

When I was in student government, Kenneth Deer of the Mohawk Warrior Society in Kanawake approached us, after having learned that the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN was coming to Montreal.  Deer wanted to see if we, the students, would arrange for a meeting with the Palestinian visitor.

It’s pretty safe to say that Deer was not just looking for a Palestinian pen pal at the time.

The Palestinian Ambassador gave a public press conference at the university and Deer came by. He did not ask any questions during the meeting, but in a parking lot right in front of the SGW Hall Building (the library was not there yet) Deer approached the diplomat, who became somewhat excited upon being introduced to a member of the Warrior Society.

With an embarrased face and a dismissive tone, the Palestinian official said: “Not here, if you want to talk to me, please come to New York.”

Should the Mohawk Warrior Society be on a government watch list? They already are. Why the scandal about them being mentioned in a manual?

Radical natives are listed in the Canadian army’s counterinsurgency manual as a potential military opponent, lumping aboriginals in with the Tamil Tigers, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad.

[...]

"The rise of radical Native American organizations, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society, can be viewed as insurgencies with specific and limited aims," the manual states. "Although they do not seek complete control of the federal government, they do seek particular political concessions in their relationship with national governments and control (either overt or covert) of political affairs at a local/reserve ("First Nation’) level, through the threat of, or use of, violence," the manual states.

The Mohawk Warrior Society was involved in the 1990 Oka crisis in Quebec, which spawned a 78-day confrontation with police and the military that left a police officer dead. The society normally describes more militant natives from the traditional Mohawk territory, covering parts of Quebec, Ontario, Vermont and New York State.

Calgary MP Rob Anders has been ordered to reengage the nomination process in his riding.

Mr. Justice Ged Hawco of the Court of Queen’s Bench agreed that the party didn’t conduct a “fair and effective candidate selection process” and didn’t adhere to the rules about setting nomination meeting dates. He also said that Colleen Mason, chairwoman of the riding’s nomination committee, who happens to live with Mr. Anders’s office manager, should be replaced.

Along with ordering the Tories to hold a new nomination process in the Calgary riding, Judge Hawco ordered the party to pay all legal costs in the protracted dispute.

These folks will be happy, but an appeal may be coming. In spite of other past problems, Anders is not expected to lose the nomination if the process is engaged again.

A federal bureaucrat has been charged for allegedly leaking information regarding the Liberal change of regime on income trusts.

The RCMP have laid a charge against a Finance Department official in connection with allegations of a possible leak of information in 2005 of the Liberal government's plans for income trusts.

The report makes no mention of Scott Brison.

About a year after the second wave of islamist protests over the Mohammed cartoons published in Europe, Charlie Hebdo (en francais), the satirical French publication, has to defend itself in court. The alleged crime is to have reproduced the infamous cartoons from Denmark. The motivation for reproducing the cartoons, the claimants say, is racism.

Not much of this is really news. Islam is not a race, even if freedom of expression is not an unlimited and absolute right. Given that a Canadian magazine published the cartoons and in light of this report in the NP this morning, the French court case may teach us a few things here in Canada.

Part of Charlie Hebdo’s defence is that people have the right to laugh; they should have the right to laugh at terrorists too. The right to laugh ought to be considered in Canada since Joe Volpe had a website shut down and threatened to sue over the Librano$ poster. In fact, Volpe, like the radical but hypersensitive Islamists, argued an offence against race.

Polls claim that a significant amount of Canadians want homosexual rights and property rights added to the CCRF. If we’re going to re-open the whole constitutional Pandora’s box to include stuff, not that we should, we may as well learn from the experience of Charlie Hebdo in France. In addition, Liberals keep saying that they will form the next government. That would bring the corrupt and power-abusive Joe Volpe to cabinet again.

Why not give the right to laugh a serious look?

Citoyen Stephane Dion declared that he would not stand in the way of AdScammer Marc-Yvan Cote returning to the fold of the Liberal familia. That was yesterday. Now, he has backpeddled rather quickly under criticism from several camps.  Citoyen Dion is becoming a regular Canadian version of John Kerry.

Gilles Duceppe apparently said: “Mr. Dion likes clarity.”  I had to laugh

Citoyen Stephane Dion, the Liberal leader, may be poised to allow AdScammers back into his party after a purge initiated by then prime minister Paul Martin –who had hoped to avert an inevitable wreck.

During the Gomery inquiry into the scandal, Mr. Cote testified he received $120,000 in $100 bills from the director general of the party’s Quebec wing. He distributed that money to 12 Liberal candidates in the 1997 federal election.

The Globe’s headline reads: “Dion may let disgraced Liberal back into party.” Saying back implies that they had all left? Joe Volpe is the Transport critic now; the disgraced have not left.

Of interest:

• Let’s make a deal
• Volpe and Apotex
• Fraudulent?
• Volpe deals with the web
• Volpe’s torpitude
• This Elephant
• Caught Again!
• Miracle Workers

After much preaching about slowing down the pace of development in the Alberta oilsands for the supposed sake of the environment, there is news that the previous Liberal government was eyeing a plan for expanding oilsands exploitation. They can criticise Alberta for supposedly being greedy, but they had been in on expansion plans since early on.
It also turns out that the former minister of the environment in the same Liberal government, citoyen Stephane Dion, claims not to have known of such plans.

Federal Liberal Leader [citoyen] Stephane Dion says he knew nothing about a plan to massively expand production in the Alberta oilsands to meet the demand in the U.S., even though discussions on speeding up the regulatory review process were launched by former prime minister Paul Martin when Dion was the environment minister.

We’ve seen this before: While people in his party walked around with brown paper bags full of money in the same city of Montreal where his riding is, he claims not to have had an idea of the what was going on. I’m not sure I can believe that. His present claim that he sat at the cabinet table in the same government that planned to engage action bearing directly on his mandate as environment minister, but he didn’t know, is definitely not believable.

Citoyen Dion is not dumb. John Baird asks the same question I’d ask:

”Either he was so out of touch, or he knew about it,” said Baird in a phone interview. ”If he played such a small role in the Liberal government that they could come to a deal with the Bush administration on something so significant that the Liberals would leave out the environment minister, it just makes you scratch your head… If he didn’t know about it, why didn’t he know about it?”

Actions speak louder than words. For all the rhetoric, whether citoyen Dion was kept in dark or is being disingenuous, it shows that the Liberals masterfully talk about the importance of the environment but are unwilling and incapable of doing much about it.

With the arrogance and condescension that only a Toronto Globe and Mail man like Jeffrey Simpson could summon, the country is being told that Alberta has been living in the “bozo years.”

Interestingly, in the so-called bozo years in Alberta, Liberals in Ottawa were overwhelmingly elected by Ontarians with the complicity of his Globe: they were robbing us blind, running around with paper bags filled with money for their buddies. During the same bozo years, Liberals swore allegiance to, and became loved in Ontario and in Quebec for signing onto, the Kyoto Protocol but the Grits did nothing about the treaty all those years. In the same bozo years, Simpson’s praise-worthy Liberals spent billions for a weapons registry that accomplished nothing but make central Canadians keep voting for the wasteful Grits. Albertans are the bozos, alright.

Recently an Albertan became the prime minister effectively ending the truly bozo years in Ottawa. Imagine! An Albertan in 24 Sussex after all Liberals and Simpson himself told central Canadians that the sky would fall if that happened. The veritable bozo years ended with the resignation of Paul Martin, but Simpson does not seem to realise it. Bozos are not typically trained in self cure.

To prove that he is a product of federal bozoland with a vengeance, Simpson has come to Alberta to tell us who he thinks may take Albertans out of what he claims is our bozo existence. Among the two Tory candidates he has identified, he has pointed at the one most alligned with what Simpson just finished calling the Alberta bozo years. How much of a bozo do you have to be to make sense of that?

The Globe guru finds that the former Alberta treasurer may lift us out of our bozo misery, offering something close to “a bold, exciting vision for [the] province.” Is that a kiss of death? We remember well that Simpson once found Paul Martin to be bold and exciting too.

How many Liberals and NDs in the House does it take to make any one believe that Peter MacKay called Belinda Stronach a “dog”? A majority. But they haven’t got one –a majority, that is.

The speaker of the House, Peter Miliken, has ruled. Stop the barking and get on with  business.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay will not be forced to apologize for allegedly calling his ex-girlfriend and fellow MP Belinda Stronach a dog, Speaker Peter Milliken ruled Monday.

Duh!

As a good Ted Morton partisan, it is easy for me to see that Lyle Oberg’s pitiful self-destructive display this week (Scribblegate) evidently calls boundless public non-attention to Ted Morton. That non-attention underscores plenty of good about Ted.

Oberg’s overreacting drama leaves his lack of good judgement exposed and the same farse also exposes the proximity between Jim Dinning and the often ethically-challenged Ralphites still in government. Dinning equals status quo.

Calgary Herald’s Tom Olsen, who has in the past been no friend of Ted’s, agrees that last week’s events hurt both Dinning and Oberg. The damage to Oberg may be obvious but the damage to Dinning is no less apparent:

The odour is settling over Dinning as well.

[...] The two executive assistants in question certainly aren’t big players in JD’s campaign, but there’s no question they’re involved.

Taken on its own, this is a relatively minor incident. Not smart, but not evidence of deep rot.

Except there is already a section of the citizenry who are virulently anti-Dinning, who already figure he has people on his team who aren’t adverse to strong-arm behaviour that crowds the ethics line.

Jim’s been out of government a long time, but he’s still the candidate most closely associated with the status quo.

For those Progressive Conservative party members who want a shakeup, he’s not it. (my emphasis)

Two ministerial executive assistants mocking Oberg’s ideas in print is more proof of an entrenched mindset of go-to-hell, we-do-what-we-want.

In the final analysis, neither Dinning nor Oberg wins.

Dinning and Oberg lose, but Olsen needs a little help to spell out who the winner is. He cannot bring himself to say the name of the one Tory front-runner who has no part in Scribblegate, the one who is not tied to the previous government, the one who is not tied to the wealthy Calgary click that runs the province, and the one who is not tied to the no-plan political status quo. The unnamed man is also the one most likely to shake things up.

That Man is Ted Morton, and Tom Olsen knows it –even if he can’t bring himself to say it.

Lyle Oberg, the man who cried “skeleton,” as Bell tells is, could not find the fortitude to endure criticism from a couple of political staffers. That being the case, Oberg may not be able to take the mocking writings of Bell himself. Here are a couple of examples:

Has Oberg lost it? Here is a guy who wants to be premier questioning the conduct of a candidate looking to replace Ralph, repeating vague allegations, offering the unnamed accused no chance to defend themselves and the public no opportunity to examine the extent of the alleged outrage.

And, to add a twist to the tawdry tale, Oberg not only avoids going public after saying he would. That would be bad enough. But, away from the microphones, he tells the other leadership campaigns, except Dinning’s team, what the supposedly sinister secret is all about.

Apparently, those whisperings won’t harm his Deep Throat.

Yes, The Boy Who Cried Skeleton 2 is far more cloak and dagger than the original. The stakes are higher.

And today, Bell writes:

Yes, this episode of Desperate Candidates is a wild ride and it’s all downhill now, with Lyle Oberg as the star of his very own political meltdown.

Oberg’s so-called big announcement offers no smoking gun, not even a loaded slingshot. The only skeleton seen will be if Oberg dresses the part for Halloween.

Update: Dead leadership candidate walking, Lyle Oberg is toast.

What Lyle Oberg’s campaign promised to be a “blood-letting” turned out to be evidence of a couple of MLA staffers criticising Oberg’s policies. Just as much as the two government employees, Mr. Oberg too should account for his actions in light of a near-hysterical reaction to such trivial a matter.

Documents obtained by the Oberg camp include correspondence between the executive assistants for two senior cabinet ministers. It shows them critiquing and mocking key aspects of the Oberg campaign platform, something the MLA argues was done on the taxpayers' dime.

Oberg conceded that he doubts Dinning knew of the correspondence between the executive assistants for Energy Minister Greg Melchin and Intergovernmental Relations Minister Gary Mar - MLAs both supporting Dinning.

The affair calls into question Oberg’s temperament and judgement. If a potentially minor ethical breach triggers the kind of reaction we witnessed this week from Oberg, one has to wonder how Oberg would react to serious transgressions.

To quote Bob Dylan, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Politics is about common sense and good judgement.

Garth Turner really is a man out of his time. When the populist wave of the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois swept through two distant parts of the country and sent a significant number of new people to the House, he was tossed out of power. He was once an illustrious member of the Kim Campbell cabinet –where he apparently did mostly what he was told.

A decade and a half later, he comes back to the House as a populist incarnation, seemingly unclear that the populist wave had crested and crashed with the departure of Lucy Bouchard and Preston Manning.  What’s more, populism has never really taken off in Ontario.

“I have said here many times, and consistently since I was elected this last time, that I work for the voters - the people, the taxpayers. After that I heed my party and the political establishment. All are important, of course, but the people come first.”

Garth is in the wrong time at the wrong place. With one exception: since Garth comes first to Garth, the public eye does seem to be the right environment for him.

This morning, the Toronto Star has a report of serious violations in the recruiting process and the sale of Liberal memberships in Quebec. On the front page of its website, the Star singularly directs its attention to the Volpe camp for the transgressions. It displays a picture (see below) of a stunned Joe Volpe. The caption ought to read: “a deer in front of headlights.”

The Liberal Party will be relieved to know that the apparent anomalies do not involve children this time. People have received party memberships, but have never bought one. That’s not a trademark that Volpe holds. Under similar circumstances, candidates in other parties have committed similar transgressions: Tom Long bought thousands of membership to unsuspecting Quebeckers in the North shore in the Canadian Alliance leadership race years ago.

Among the people who have received Liberal credentials believed to be purchased by Volpe’s gang, there is at least one deceased person. That puts Volpe in the same league as Ujjal Dosanjh, whose popularity in the running for the NDP leadership in BC compelled several citizens to rise from the dead as well.

Interviewing mostly in Italian, the Star uncovered 75 cases of problems with the Montreal-area lists. Only a couple of dozen people who were called said they were paid-up members without apparent problems. Some people listed as members didn’t even remember being called or having received anything in the mail. Some weren’t Liberals, most hadn’t paid or signed, two men were deceased (one of them in 1989) and a woman received a membership card with a maiden name she hadn’t used in 27 years.

But the point is not whether these things have or have not been done in leadership races before. There is hardly much originality in fraud. And the reason is simple: it’s easier to resort to known trickery to get the job done than to become creative within the rules. The point is that the Liberal Party has been fighting an image of corruption at the core, especially in Quebec. It cannot afford to have these shenanigans popping up in the news and potentially discredit their new leader in the eyes of the general public.

Many Liberal candidates have tried to convince the public that they have cleaned up their party. Mr. Volpe and his organisation have been trying very hard to prove them wrong. After kiddiegate, one would think that the Volpe camp would have gone out of its way to keep its nose clean. But they are caught again. One has to wonder what else is going on with them for which they have not been yet caught.

Carolyn Bennet, now retired from the leadership race, warned the party in mid July about the Volpe wrecking ball. Not only was she mostly ignored, she has now left the race and Volpe is still at it, suggesting that Volpe’s views and ways of operating have more support from within the party.

In all fairness to Mr. Volpe, it should be pointed out that the deceased person signed on by his campaign was not a minor. There does seem to be some progress being made.

Some previous postings on Volpe:

• On Turpitude
• On Volpe and Dosanjh
• On Abuse of power

“He flushed himself.” With that pun, Denis Coderre, who has seen lots of political flushing in his time, described what happened to Guy Fournier. Fournier was the Paul-Martin appointed Chairman of SRC, who has resigned in a controversy over his lose lips –and more.

Fournier raised eyebrows recently with an article in the popular magazine Sept Jours in which he suggested that bestiality was [lawfully] accepted in Lebanon as long as it was with a female animal. Fournier subsequently apologized for the comments, saying he had been mistaken.

Fournier seems to speak about the subject with some degree of intimacy that might require the SPCA and the Montreal police to investigate. And then,

Fournier once again raised eyebrows when a lengthy interview he granted to a Toronto community radio station, CHOQ-FM, last May came to light in which he extolled the pleasures of defecating.

If the conspiracy theorists were right that the Tories want to gut the CBC, allowing Fournier to resign is the wrong thing to do. Beside the fact that Founier was a Liberal appointee with apparently extravagant tastes –even for Quebeckers, the Tories might have done more to unravel the supposedly hated institution by keeping him.

In reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s arguments about the importance of reason (logos) in scientific and spiritual pursuits and in mutual understanding among peoples, Islam has reacted with crude violence (a rejection of dialogue), and has orchestrated wide calls for apologies designed to humiliate Christendom as they see it.

The pope has apologised more than once, but it’s not enough. Muslims, or at least some of them, who would threaten the pontiff’s life and attack churches as a result, whatever their denomination, now would like a dialogue.

Some Muslims here in Connecticut say the Pope’s apology is a start, but what’s needed is a dialogue between Catholic and Muslim leaders both abroad, and here at home.

and another one:

“One of the major things in the Qur’an, that’s emphasized, is to respect people of the book, which includes Christians and Jews, having that dialogue is very important here.”

The calls beg the question: With whom would the Roman Catholic pope dialogue? The Taliban? Hezbollah? The Muslim Brotherhood? Al Qaeda? The arsonists who attacked churches in Palestine? The Iranian mullahs? Who among these are capable of dialoguing? The Connecticut Mulsims don’t quite get it. –and these are Muslims living in the west, who presumably can read and have access to western language documents.

A central portion of the condemned papal speech establishes that dialogue (literally from the Greek dialogos, across reason or across word) can only take place if there is acceptance of logos –reason. Since the speech at the University of Regensburg, the Muslim world in general has gone out of its way to prove Benedict right about the absence of reason and reasonable action. One of the quotes from 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos (which makes me think that the choice of texts is linked to the connection of the message and the name of the messenger) reads: “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.”

Not much logos coming from Islamic quarters these days, and there can be no dialogos without logos, let alone reasonable action.