A well organized political party

...doesn't cancel the Leader's Dinner with one day's notice.

If they can't organize a successful event in Central Alberta, the Wildrose Alliance can't win across Alberta.

That was then. This is Stockwell Day.

Would Stockwell Day, leadership candidate, support the government that Stockwell Day, Cabinet minister, finds himself in?

Alliance would ban deficits, Day says Laws needed to block 'whims of politicians'.

The Globe and Mail
May 9 2000
by Brian Laghi

A Canadian Alliance government led by Stockwell Day would take a chapter from Alberta Premier Ralph Klein and make it illegal to run federal deficits.

In a speech to be delivered in Winnipeg today, Mr. Day, who is on leave as Alberta treasurer, says he would force the government to pay $6-billion a year on the federal debt and make it illegal to ever again run a deficit. He does not, however, say whether there would be penalties applied to the cabinet that runs the government in the red. "Canadians need laws to protect them against the whims of politicians to spend their hard-earned tax dollars," Mr. Day said.

Come back Ralph. All is forgotten if not forgiven.

It's nice to see that the most excellent Ralph Klein is in the news again.

And it's equally nice (and predictable) to see Alberta's New Democrats react with feigned horor.

Just wait until they get to Red Deer-Stockwell Day.

And Canada?

Despite Obama pledge, Democrats show little enthusiasm for CIFTA treaty on gun trafficking

Quebec City Winter Olympic bid $29 million closer thanks to Canadian taxpayers

Really?

Almost $3.5 million worth of federal taxpayers money to build a train from the hotel to the ski hill.

Taxpayer support for a luge track on the ski hill.

Taxpayer support for a spa in the hotel from which the train will depart and money for "out-of-province marketing of the project's lodging dimension".

Taxpayer support for a tourist train from Quebec City into the region around the ski hill.

If they're discreet, all Quebec City will need to launch its Olympic bid is a new arena.

Whatever you do, please don't tell Maxime Bernier about this.

When twits tweet

Turns out that Calgary-North Hill Conservative MLA Kyle Fawcett is a moron.

Who knew?

Google.

And that's without any google bombing at all.

When opportunity knocks don't do anything we wouldn't do

Canadiangunnutz isn't defined yet.

Corruption Alberta style

In many places, using public money to directly support political parties is illegal.

In Ed Stelmach's Alberta, pay to play is just business as usual.

Layton's promise broken: Handgun ban not in the NDP gun registry bill

Why was this 2008 NDP platform commitment not in today's NDP gun control bill?

Enable cities, communities and provinces to choose to implement an 'absolute ban' on handguns by tightening existing restrictions on handgun possession.

It was included in the NDP's late August policy postion.  Jack Layton even announced it:

I am also announcing we're proposing legislation empowering municipalities to ban handguns from their streets, if their citizens choose that.

 Five weeks, it seems, is a long time in NDP politics.

NDP gun registry bill not worth the paper it is printed on

On behalf of his leader, NDP MP Charlie Angus tabled his party's bill to fix the long gun registry.

Nothing in Bill C-580 will benefit those law abiding gun owners who have registered all of their firearms and keep their licences up to date.  Nothing at all.

What will it cost?

Will the NDP tell us what it will cost to track convictions under their proposed ticketing scheme?

The NDP scheme only applies to first time offences - one time - anywhere in Canada.

How will police know what to charge without a new convicted database?

That's right. They won't.

So how much will it cost to give police the information they need to do their jobs?

Some questions

Does the NDP really think that handguns and machine guns are protected by aboriginal or treaty rights? If not, why does the bill not explicitly exclude them?  As it stands, most of the Criminal Code sections listed in the aboriginal and treaty rights sections explicitly include handguns and machine guns.  Was this the intent or an oversight?

Why is mandatory consideration of employment related records limited to police and military records? Other employers could also have experience with unstable and unpredictable ex-employees. Why not those employers too?

And why, if the NDP wants to ban the Mini-14, did they not include its prohibition to Bill C-580?

The sporting use proposal in this bill won't ban the Mini-14. In reality, it's big enough to drive a truckload of guns through.

Is the Contravention Act ticketing scheme in force in Alberta, Saskatchewan or the North or is it OK to continue to criminalize almost law abiding gun owners in those parts of Canada?  It wasn't in 2007.

Just saying

We can only hope that the new NDP gun registry bill will informed by the views of smart western New Democrats like Rhonda Barter and not just Ottawa-driven spin.

If I was to cross the line of my own conscience to get votes, I wouldn't be the right person for the job. Tommy Douglas never took a stand just to get votes.

and

This week, I went into a local sports shop . . . and the proprietor/instructor said there's nothing to it. Once you obtain your firearms license, you just go online and it's about a one-page form. If you don't have access to a computer, phone this 1-800 number, and they will mail you a form. There is no cost.

and

Barter says if anything the long-gun registry will provide more protection for rural women in domestic violence situations because long-guns are more likely to be found in rural homes. "But a lot of these women are not going to say it because they're scared of a backlash against them."

When the long-gun registry is explained properly, some rural men will even support it, she says. "They (the registry opponents) are trying to make it a fear issue when it's not a big deal. This can protect a lot of families . . ."

An open letter to Candice Hoeppner, Garry Breitkreuz and others on the long gun registry

Dear morons,

Think back.

Think back to November 2009.

Think back to having the votes - with support from Liberals and New Democrats - to repeal the long gun registry.

Think back to having the support of the majority of Canadians to do so.

So why now, after the vote to kill Bill C-391, do two thirds of Canadians support the long gun registry?

It's easy.

You gave them time to think about it.

The Harper Tory government forced Canadians to think about the long gun registry and when they did Canadians didn't like what the Harper Tory government was doing.

A government bill introduced after the 2008 election or, more strategically, after the Dion-Duceppe-Layton coalition collapsed would have passed quickly and generated little meaningful opposition.

But now, 75% of women oppose your agenda as do 72% of people with kids.

These gun registry supporters are Julian Fantino's potential voters.

Hell, 47% of Harper government supporters oppose repealing the registry.

Your party took a sure thing.

And, through your own actions, lost that sure thing.

There are really only two words to add.

Thank you.

The search for Stephen Harper's hidden agenda

Much has been said and written about Stephen Harper's hidden agenda.

For some, belief in a Harper Tory is a matter of faith -  a political Holy Grail.

And its although its existence has been repeatedly denied, many still keep the faith.

But what if it actually exists.

What if the Harper agenda isn't so secret.  What if it's hiding in public.  What if a simple blogger found it?

On the weekend of October 27, 1989, the fledgling Reform Party, just a few months after the Deb Grey's victory in the Beaver River by-election, held its Assembly at the Edmonton Inn.

Included in the material provided to delegates was a "Background Paper by Stephen Harper, Chief Policy Officer, Reform Party of Canada".

While some of the content is familiar  to those of us who follow the Harper Tories to suggest that this is the "secret agenda":

This paper summarizes what the Reform Party has already said about financial management.  The Reform approach is linked to our belief in 'changing the system".  Only fundamental shifts in political priorities, political values and political institutions are consistent with a goal of "fiscal responsibility".

and

As a start in the process of restoring balance, the Reform Party has demanded the elimination of the public funding of political lobbying.  The Secretary of State alone will spend at least $372 million this year on this activity.

and

Some party members believe that bureaucrats must be given better incentives to save.  Others believe that bureaucratic power can only be broken by giving the elected government the clear ability to fire and replace senior officials, especially ones in policy-making positions.

Has this blogger found the Holy Grail that what's left of the noble Galahads in the mainstream media's research departments have failed to locate?

It would be nice to think so.

Given his government's record, no Harper Tory secret agenda could possibly include:

The message of clear. Deficits and spending cannot be cut by specific measures unless these are backed by appropriate thinking. The Mulroney way combines a promiscuous desire to please with a crisis approach to fiscal management.  This thinking is clearly not appropriate.

and

Highly partisan portions of government spending are also frequently cited as areas in need of cut. Examples such a government advertising, patronage appointments and funding to party caucuses are obvious.

Could this paper document Stephen Harper's secret agenda? 

Well, it could, but only if the now ironic bits were included as nothing more than a twenty-one year old inside joke.

When Stephen Harper was writing policy not playing politics

Source: Reform Party Caucus Issue Statement 22
February 22, 1992

...the cost of licensing must be borne primarily by firearms users themselves. Those who are not gun owners should not be forced or even asked to subsidized those who do exercise this freedom.

 and

There must be higher priority on the right of Canadians to public safety than on the right to own and use firearms.

For those who want to read further, page one of the statement is found here.

Corruption? In Alberta? What do Albertans think?

Following the publication of Maclean's hit piece on corruption in Quebec, Angus Reid Public Opinion released a poll about the perceptions of public corruption among Canadians. 

Results from Quebec and British Columbia, provinces with ongoing high profile corruption-related investigations, inquiries and prosecutions, aren't really surprising. 

Where there is smoke, the public tends to believe there is a fire.

Trouble brewing in the one party state?

The results from the prairies are more interesting. 

In a province that has not really had a corruption scandal since a cabinet minister had his driveway paved, 37% of Albertans are concerned or very concerned about about the level of corruption in their home province.  Nearly one in four Albertans (23%) are very concerned. 

By way of comparison, only 7% of residents of the region that CBC reporter Kady O'Malley calls Saskitoba are very concerned about the level of corruption in their provinces.  Time, it seems, heals old wounds.

Nearly half of Albertans believe that their politicians are unethical

More revealing for Alberta's political class is that 45% of Albertans feel that their politicians are moderately or very unethical. 

That's 3% higher than those who believe that their elected officials are very or moderately ethical (42%).

To put it in a more stark perspective for incumbent MLAs, Albertans believe that their province's politicians are just as unethical as those from Ontario.  They see Alberta's elected officials as the moral equivalent of Ralph Klein's Eastern bums and creeps.

If I were an Alberta MLA planning to seek re-election, I'd be concerned.

All is not well in Wild Rose Country.

Beating a (recently) dead horse: Yet another reason to register firearms

Turns out that the long gun registry can help hold criminals responsible for their actions.

The RCMP will also tell you that stolen guns in rural areas are of great concern when the firearms were not registered because there is no hope of relating the guns in the possession of a criminal back to where they were stolen and when other charges could be laid.