As usual, I gag when I see how the CPC is regressing Canada back to the days when we were a only years removed from being a colony.

What’s next? The Royal Canadian Department of Natural Resources?

I hope I live long enough to see us finally drop the colonial anachronism. (25)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

The Minister for NRCan’s view on climate change?

Meh. No biggie.

“I think that people aren’t as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees,” Oliver said in an editorial board interview with Montreal daily newspaper, La Presse.

“Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated.”

Oliver was not able to identify which scientists he was using as a source, the newspaper reported

Well, this intrepid blogger tracked down that scientist!

(38)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

As much as I’d like to believe that Joyce Murray can pull off an upset and win the LPC leadership, I cannot realistically expect this to happen. Trudeau has the momentum, the money and the supporters. And the hair.

But…

Joyce has the policy knowledge. She knows the files. We don’t know if JT knows the files. J’en doute.

She has the guts to stand up to the hyper partisan portion of the party to say : let’s put our differences with the NDP aside for one election and cooperate in order to defeat the Cons. Then we reform the electoral system with something that will more accurately represent the intentions on Canadians.

She recognizes that splitting the centre / left of centre vote election after election will only assure a CPC government… Election after election.

She also sees the value of environmental sustainability and policies aimed to ensure that biodiversity, our water supplies and our food supplies are protected.

She also knows that Canada’s place on the international stage has been severely tarnished by the Harperites, and she will work to put us back in a place where we are once again respected.

And she also knows that the war on marijuana is one that should have never been waged and the time has come to legalize its use and remove the criminal element from this industry.

I Just voted for Joyce Murray, the best candidate to represent the interests of Canadian progressives and the LPC!

And I hope my vote helps to elect her. (11)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

The Canadian government is OK with drought and all of the human and environmental tragedies that go with it?

Really?

What is Stevo thinking? We can get a higher price for water exports to countries with drought conditions? Admitting that drought is a problem might be seen as an admission that climate change is real?

Man, this government is embarrassing me, as a Canadian, more and more each day. (160)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Let’s put aside for a moment that IMHO, this is an enormous waste of money in an effort by the Harperites to appease religious groups of all stripes, I have a few direct questions.

1. What about atheists? Will the Office monitors rights violations of non-believers? Atheists live in fear in many Islamic countries. Will they be given the same attention as the persecuted Christians in those parts of the world?

2. Will this increased scrutiny on religious freedom take away attention from other rights abuses around the world and here in Canada? Will religious freedom trump women’s rights? How about the rights of children and the enlistment of young kids into militias – are these violations OK if the militia is religion-based?
3. Will the religious right set the agenda of this Office? Judging by the lineup of support by prominent members of these groups, this may indeed be the case.

A key part of the ambassador’s job should be to help formulate immigration policy, argued Don Hutchinson, vice-president and legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

“It’s very important for us as a nation to have an understanding of religion and the communities where we are establishing relationships [in order] to accept refugees and other immigrants,” explained Mr. Hutchinson, who advised the government on the creation of an office of religious freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

4.   Finally, is protection of religious freedom the new cornerstone of Canada’s foreign policy? Not democracy-building? What happened to that?

  (229)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… To Fahrenheit to show my American friends how trippy Canuck weather can be.

Yup. A 30 degree swing in 24 hours or so. It’s all good.

(50)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… is angling for a Senate seat, it appears.

Although I don’t think he has the intelligence to engage in such strategic thinking.

Regardless of whether his views are on or off-base, he-of-no-taste should stick to hockey and should shut up about the country’s foreign aid policies. He knows next to nothing about this issue.

Hey! Doofus! Do what I do when I don’t know squat about something - keep your trap firmly shut!

The CBC keeping this idiot on the payroll is a national embarrassment. (294)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

…trumps good legislation most of the time in Harper’s government.

And that is really too bad, especially in this case because this was a good Private Members Bill that should have passed.

OTTAWA – The New Democrats’ efforts to help Canada send desperately needed medication overseas to people suffering with HIV/AIDS was defeated in the House of Commons Wednesday – an action some are calling a “travesty” and a “betrayal.”

“It is a travesty that the Harper government, having made much of its initiative on maternal and child health, would now turn its back on an opportunity to help people dying of treatable diseases,” Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal network said in a release. 

“This is shamefully callous and a discriminatory double-standard for which those who can least afford it pay the ultimate price.”

Only seven Conservative MPs supported the private member’s bill, which went down in a close vote of 141 for and 148 against.

The CPC cannot put aside partisanship? Even for a moment?

Sheesh. Typical.

  (228)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… were “Progressive” (and even palatable), there was this guy.

Former PM Joe Clark was interviewed for this insightful piece in the Citizen, which you should all read.

He is dead-on here:

Canada risks devolving into a country of “gated communities” with “indifferent” citizens who lose the ties that bind them as a nation, warns former prime minister Joe Clark.

“There’s the old T.S. Eliot line about ending with a whimper, not a bang,” Clark said in an exclusive interview with Postmedia News.

“The real threat to this country isn’t that we will explode, that there will be some civil war somewhere. It is that we will just naturally fall back into our principalities.”

Clark’s comments came as he participated in a special Postmedia News project in which all of Canada’s six living former prime ministers were interviewed on current issues.

  (342)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… hated-by-the-west National Energy Program (NEP) were gone by the end of 1986 under PM Brian Mulroney (who is, incidentally the last true Conservative PM… unless you count Liberal PM Paul Martin, but I digress…). Using my superior mathematical skills, that makes it 26 years since the NEP was around.

Twenty-six years.

And still some Westerners obsess about it.

I have a theory about this. It isn’t your average Albertan who is still oh-so obsessed and who decries any and all Liberals as the NEP Party: it’s really only those who have another agenda. An agenda not grounded in energy policy nor of a national vision. Nope. This hatred carries on because there are some in the West- especially in Alberta- who want to drive a wedge between the West and the RoC. They’d like nothing more than to rid themselves of the have-not provinces to the East and the dope-smokers of B.C.

And many of these folks are prominent in the Alberta CPC caucus and the far right Wild Rose Party.

Call me crazy but it is a possible explanation of the unabated huffing and puffing over a policy that hasn’t been around for a quarter century.

In the meantime, Albertans and other Westerners should pay heed that their energy wealth can end as quickly as it began. Energy efficient transportation and industrial production practices may one day drive prices down to a point where tar sand exploitation is no longer viable. And the oil will one day run out.

As well, the American economy will one day be once again robust. With that will come a rebirth and resurgence of Ontario and Quebec. Western provinces may one day be once again have-nots.

We Easterners will remember these days when Westerners called the political shots.

Oh yeah, we will not ever forget. (125)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario