From Cork to Toronto

The way things are going, Stephane Dion will be supporting a constitutional amendment to extend the current Parliament indefinitely. Swamped under the current Cadman fiasco was any reaction to a February 19 blog post by Paul Wells noting Harper's delay in recognising Kosovo as independent (or declining to do so) and theorising that this was while a delay can be seen as dissuading unilateral secession, openly explaining the delay would endanger Adequiste votes for Tory federal candidates. Well, the only thing worse than a party not declaring a side is to pick both . Jim Karygiannis (from the so-con wing of the Liberal Party ) sided with his Serbian constituents and declared opposition to recognising Kosovo. The problem is that his Leader wants to recognise Kosovo - and Karygiannis can hardly say he missed Dion's take since Wells knew about it 12 days ago and the Montreal Gazette the day before that. That said someone should explain to M. Dion what "unanimous" mea...

When the OHIP "Premium" was introduced with a name designed to spin the impact of an extra tax, many people noted that unions with collective agreements retaining a provision to pay the old OHIP Premium would make claims. The Liberals said "we don't think that will happen" but declined to outlaw the possibility. Now TTC (among others) is paying the OHIP Tax on behalf of their unionised staff, at a cost of $6 million annually to the Commission (that's over two million TTC tokens, Dalton). Before the last election, the Liberals promised an extra holiday - Family Day - in February, which will cost Toronto taxpayers $2.3 million but some private sector workers are finding out that they will lose a non-statutory holiday in August in return . Typically, the Labour Minister's response is a shrug - "no big deal". "I think it's a terrific initiative and 83 per cent of Ontarians agree it's something this province should be doing," ...

"Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law ; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel." (Matthew 23:23-24) Even though I was educated by primary and secondary schools controlled through the Catholic Church back in Ireland, I am a believer in unified education, at least when publicly funded. I believe that state funding used to fund the same curriculum in a school with a religion's name on the door should be used to promote diversity in education provision. This would mean taking the money which currently funds duplicated bureaucracy in the Catholic School Board system and putting it towards under-resourced areas such as trade apprenticeships, guidance counselling, after-school programmes and special needs teaching as well as ensuring that buildings are properly ...

Michael Ignatieff has a (lengthy, naturally) article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine which is reprinted in the Globe and Mail today. He talks about the difference between academic and political speech - and it's interesting that someone who taught political science admits floundering when confronted with actual politics. I've learned that good judgment in politics looks different from good judgment in intellectual life. Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way. He quotes Burke who in 1774 told the electors of Bristol that he would never submit his judgement to their opinion. Like most who quote Burke he neglects to mention that Burke did not retain his seat in 1780 due to his (unpopular) support of Catholic emancipation and free trade, and the rest of his parliamentary li...

One of the more minor irritants of life in Toronto is the uniform nature of street vendor food which basically consists of various kinds of fried sausage. For a long time, Councillor John Filion has been pushing the idea of expanding this. All of a sudden Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman , in whose power it is to amend the necessary regulations (once again, the City of Toronto Act keeps us crawling to Queen's Park) decided to announce a relaxation at the Taste of Lawrence event but didn't invite the guy who had done the spadework to share the limelight. In a rare move by a pol, Filion turned the other cheek and welcomed the relaxation regardless - what's odd is that apparently Filion normally identifies as Liberal . However, he appears to have been worried that the province are trying to relax the regulations before the City has hired the inspectors to police them and that the choice will merely expand as far as burgers as well as hot dogs. His moves to ensur...

While it's right to point up the hypocrisy of a Liberal government who railed against the Tory school funding formula in opposition while merely tinkering with it in government, one does have to wonder whether CUPE are ever going to get a fair shake with a repeatedly defeated NDP candidate at its head . The NDP going after Minister Kathleen Wynne and splitting the anti-PC vote would be great news for her impending challenger in Don Valley West, John Tory. I imagine that as Wynne is one of the few LGBT MPPs, not a few NDP members will worry about opposing Wynne. But one seat for each major party in Toronto is the only way the 416 is going to get the love from higher governments in the way 905 does.

A week after the unveiling of the Air India 182 memorial in Etobicoke, tonight's National featured a piece by Terry Milewski (text summary here ) on the involvement of NDP, Liberal and Tory politicians with Sikh parades in BC and Ontario. Some participants and floats in the parade glorified members of various banned organisations which seek the secession of "Khalistan" from the Punjab area of India and Pakistan such as Babbar Khalsa , and International Sikh Youth Federation. In the case of the Surrey parade, both of the acquitted in the Air India Trial present - and the Premier of British Columbia. The Liberal, Tory and NDP MPs challenged on their presence issued supportive statements but later flip flopped - as did the Premier. Some of the "martyrs" were linked to the mass murder of those aboard Air India 182 near Akahista (which had a huge impact in Cork then and still reverberates today ) and the killing of Indira Gandhi - an incident celebrated in a...

Ontarians will only meet 1990 levels of CO2 by 2014 , according to the McGuinty government. Meanwhile they are throwing $600 million at developing green cars . Maybe Ontario would have reached 1990 levels sooner if the Liberals hadn't previously thrown $500m at cars that were distinctly less green . The fact that Buzz Hargrove likes this plan probably means this is a handout for Detroit's plants to go green rather than a further assistance to companies like Toyota and Honda who have done the heavy lifting to go for even more efficient cars, but they are more averse to unions like Buzz's.

We don't know where the money's coming from yet (but that Health Tax is definitely staying now since the Libs haven't the stones to hike fuel taxes) but some of the McGuinty $17.5 billion, 902km plan (on the Premier's website , not Transportation!) is not just welcome but stunning :  the new routes of Crosstown GO, Bolton GO, and Havelock GO the extensions to Lakeshore East, Richmond Hill and Stouffville Transit City suddenly has a pulse Electrification of Lakeshore opens the door to future electric VIA Rail or electric local rail in the 416 Other bits I'm less enthused by -  most important - no sign of a ministerial signature yet on the Simplified Transit Environmental Assessment another subway to York Region - which presumably Toronto will pay any losses for, again. the seeming resurrection of SNC-Lavalin's divisive Blue 22 , but hopefully the EA will demand it be a GO train with a Weston stop. Sheppard East LRT (merely preserves the Don Mills mode change an...

I'm sure Jason Cherniak could find a way to justify this - I sure as hell can't.  From the beginning of the manoeuvering to acquire and move the Nashville Predators, the thing that didn't seem to be missing was money. Jim Balsillie was throwing down 240 million US dollars to acquire a team worth far less than that, having failed in a 175 million offer for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Meanwhile, in the Manitoba Provincial Election, the Manitoba Liberals decried the Tories pledge to assist the bringing of a team back to Winnipeg , and the NDP's assertion that they would be more likely to make it happen sooner, better etc. No money mentioned (directly anyway), but Bob McCown ridiculed it as a stunt on the FAN590. All very principled by the Libs but you could understand in a way that in an underpopulated province like Manitoba it might take government grease to make it happen. Not in Ontario, though. Not in the Golden Horseshoe. Not with deposits for season tickets alre...

" McGuinty vows Liberals won't raise taxes if re-elected ". Uh-huh. While the Health Tax won't be McGuinty's version of the Poll Tax, it should and will hurt him with lower middle class voters. Yes, Ontario had a deficit, how big depends who you ask, but he rammed in this tax without consultation and in such a way that some employers had to swallow it due to old collective agreement dating from the OHIP Premium. The tax discriminates against work, since it taxes two lower incomes more than one large one. I don't object to higher taxes - I object to stupid ones, and especially ones which entail zero improvement in services delivered.

It's a pity Ben Chin has decided to stay in McGuinty's backroom rather than run again. He had a very creditable performance last time out given NDP incumbency and Tabuns' prior stint as councillor, but was fatally smeared by Tabuns over the Portlands Centre Power Station and by others over attempts to discredit his past as a refugee from the then dictatorship in South Korea. Hopefully whoever they run instead will give the smug Dipper a strong challenge. Chin won't run federally as Andrew Coyne's cousin is taking another kamikaze run at Jack Layton. UPDATE: correction per the comment below. Posting at midnight not so good for the fact-checking part of my brain!

This isn't a follow up to Thursday's post but rather to Far and Wide's entry about Stephane Dion's speech on energy in Alberta during the week. I was posting in response to another comment by someone called "Sceptical Environmental": Answer me this: if Dion were sincere in wanting us to use less gas, why did he vote against California-style mandatory emissions standards last year? Dion also said his solution to climate change in the oil sands is to have nukes power the whole thing. Who says this guy's an environmentalist?? Dion said the absolute opposite - that while energy generation is a provincial matter, he does not believe nuclear is a viable option . I disagree. Given the size of the comment my disagreement seemed to be generating, I opted to move it here. Please note at this point - I believe in aggressive conservation, supply management and innovations like Deep Lake Cooling but this is a province where peak demand has grown 20% or 1646MW in...

It is a basic tenet of Canadian politics that political and federal versions of a given political party are often more first cousins than siblings, such as in Quebec where a former Tory MP is leader of the Liberals and Premier. In B.C. the contrast between federal and provincial parties is coming into sharp focus on the issue of the environment. Stephane Dion came to power promising strong action on climate change, Gordon Campbell can't get stuck into offshore oil drilling and coal powered electricity fast enough. Does the Premier of B.C. think his fossil fuel production will have grandfathered immunity under a Dion regime or will he be ensconced in retirement in a comfortable corner office and beyond caring? All this in a province with the strongest Green party support, where local opposition managed to prevent a gas generation station across the US border with higher emission standards than the two coal plants Campbell's government just approved and where Chinese coal...

It's Wajid Khan for pity's sake, not Kahn. Blogs on all sides can't manage it . Bloggers are bad, so-called national newspapers worse. If there was any spelling error to be made in his name I expected it to be "Wajit". Other Khans in history: Genghis Khan Kubla(i) Khan Khan Noonian Singh ( Hollywood is "history" now? Shurely shome mishtake - ed. ) Imran Khan the Aga Khan Chaka Khan ( bottom of barrel approaching - ed. ) As for Kahns, well, there's Oliver Kahn Dominique Strauss-Kahn er... that's it. Now all you bloggers out there, Tory gloaters and Liberal spiters alike, get it right before I set Ricardo Montalbán on your ass. He may be old but I bet he's got some moves. And you Tories - what a prize you have. A guy who used to spend his mornings gorming with on FAN590 with Landry and Stellick. God help us all if the guy from Korry's on Danforth who advertises on the FAN runs for office, even if it's against fungus face .

This is one of those posts I read that would be funny if it wasn't deadly serious - that not only would Simcoe County build a rubbish dump on top of an unusually high purity groundwater supply but that they would deliberately divert some of that water into the dump with a view of keeping leachate from leaking into said water supply. Enough clean water to supply 250,000 homes is being dumped into a creek to allow the dump to be built. The Province of Ontario has approved this apparent lunacy. The federal Liberal Party may have found "environmental religion" but Dalton McGuinty sure hasn't, if the complete mishandling of power generation policy hadn't already given that away. More information can be found at the Stop Dump Site 41 website. It has a stupid Java scrollbar which slows the pageload but I suppose it's in a good cause. It also has a song (bottom of page) which does weaken my support a little more.

I wonder what Pat Martin's game is . After all, NDP policy, enunciated only a month and a half ago, is that dual citizens are a bonus to Canada . Bill Siksay who announced it still thinks so but Jack Layton now thinks maybe the PM should be Canadian only . I'd love to hear what Olivia Chow's opinion is - or Libby Davies' or even Svend Robinson's . Certainly some other bloggers seem surprised with Layton's stance, like Politique Vert , blevkog , idealisticpragmatist , where'd that bug go? It seems that some feel denied the opportunity to question the patriotism of the Leader of the Opposition by world-traveller (or more importantly in terms of venom, former resident of the US) Michael Ignatieff's failure to close the deal, and therefore have turned their guns on Dion. It has been noted elsewhere that while Ezra Levant might have been the first to demand Dion renounce his citizenship of France, he was not the first to report it by any means - the S...

Gerard Kennedy talked about moving to Quebec during the leadership campaign to improve his French. Dion should move to Ontario (Ottawa doesn't count - has to be Toronto for at least some of it). I don't think his French needs to improve - I think he needs to meet more Ontarians and stay out of the line of sight of Quebecers. What now for Ignatieff and Rae? Anyone who thinks they should fade away, including themselves, has far too high an impression of the putative Liberal front bench. Frank McKenna should be recalled to duty at an early opportunity too, though not necessarily in the Commons.

Previously on "fun and frolics at the Palais de Congres" - only one Liberal still really understands politics. Jean Chretien . Winning's not everything, it's the only thing (since only Ministers get to make patrimony appointments). The format for the speech portion was led off a flashy introductory video for each candidate, undoubtedly made by the ad agency friends who get government money shovelled at them when Liberals are in government as with the federal Adscam and the Ontario trillium logo and government website "oops they accidentally came out looking Liberal" fiascos. I didn't see all the speeches (and occasionally hit MUTE on some of the ones I did) but most led off with a intro speaker. Dion must have regretted having Glen Pearson, who beat Elizabeth May in London North Centre (a homophobe and a backstabber were also on the ballot), do a well-intentioned though laboured intro as it led to Dion himself being cut off before his peroration. I ...

The federal Liberal Party conference is going on at the moment and it's the worst of all worlds - partly Canadian, partly American. Thursday night's content was execrable - mawkish tributes to Bill Graham and Paul Martin, interminable speeches. It also warned of the "CPAC TV" to come - the incessant Franglish made even more unbearable by the translators. There was Howard Dean because apparently none of the 33 million living Canadians could be trusted to be a keynote speaker without being seen to favour one of the candidates. As for Friday, say bye-bye to two hours of CBC and CTV prime time (although this probably constitutes an INCREASE in CBC viewership). The hoped-for absence of thundersticks was not to be and undoubtedly as I type on Saturday morning balloons and confetti are being hoisted to the rafters for a proper Republicat/Democran finale. Can't politicians speak English then French, or French then English then French? Why must it be Engfrenengfreneng...