From Cork to Toronto

"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 ...

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...

James Bow notes that a promise Jack Layton made has not been kept - to lose his face fungus in a charity bet. Perhaps someone out there knows why he hasn't followed through yet. Photoshop from Sweet Neo Conned Update: Northern BC Dipper has found that KISS-FM failed to come up with the $1,000 required to meet one of the bet's three conditions. Couldn't he have just have run a deficit?

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...

From the Toronto Star : Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker pointed out that the nine-member commission of city councillors is very much pro-union. "I'm 100 per cent pro-union, so is Howard Moscoe, Joe Mihevc, David Miller," said De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre). "The employees of the TTC will never have more sympathetic people than the commission is now. " And let's not forget TTC vice-chair Adam Giambrone, whose other job is Federal NDP President. Hizzoner stacked the TTC with his pals - it's not like he's having to deal with the Lastman rearguard like the Police Services Board in his first year as mayor. Now he's going to have to take responsibility. Sadly Pitfield in her response continues to appear no more than an opportunist rather than someone with a real alternative to offer. As for Local 113 - they walked out on a day when the humidex hit 43C - something well forecasted. There is no excuse - a couple of days would have made n...

So, as I've written before , my local MP's been banging on about "the need for an Afghanistan debate". This is usually referred to with the addition "especially as the casualties mount". Now, I think everyone possibly except Jack anticipated that the Kandahar deployment was going to be a tough mission for the CF and that casualties are likely - casualties that would be desperately hard on their families and comrades but sustained in an effort to help that country. The time for "debate" has passed and it is Layton's failure as much as anyone else's if the matter is insufficiently clear at this point. Why? Because if Jack did have a problem with the deployment or wish to tease it out in some way, he could have tackled Paul Martin who authorised the mission without a vote in the last Parliament. He could have attended the Take Note debate on 15 November. He did neither, and instead he waited for the election of Harper to demand a debate ...

The problem Peter Tabuns has is that he doesn't want a portlands power plant at all. However, since the NDP declined to evict Hizzoner ( as was Hargrove ), Miller still having his NDP party card makes it tricky for Tabuns to fully disown him since our Mayor has gone and backed the "Toronto Waterfront Clean Energy Centre" joint venture between city-owned Toronto Hydro and US firm Constellation Energy Group over the rival "Portlands Energy Centre". However, a few new snags have arisen - the lease on the Hearn (currently to a film studio) does not permit power generation . the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (which includes Toronto Hydro as a member, ironically) says the current Hearn plan, a simple cycle non-co-gen station is less efficient on a pollution per watt basis than the PEC combined cycle bid. It does mention that with steam for district heating (co-generation) the TWCEC would be more efficient than the PEC, but that implies the PEC would not be able to d...

Apparently the Fluorescent Orange Peril's Peter Tabuns is " standing up " for Toronto-Danforth. Only a few weeks ago the wicked Harperites were campaigning on that same slogan. "Swiftboating" was not yet in the lexicon when Marilyn Churley associated Greenpeace founder and Liberal candidate Bob Hunter with paedophilia because of a book Hunter had written about child prostitution in South East Asia which he claimed was in the "gonzo journalist" tradition - if only James Frey had thought of that . Now during the current by-election to replace Churley, while the NDP haven't stuck Ben Chin with anything similar yet, they do seem to be trying to get something ( see also here ) from Chin's less than clear bio. (Apparently the Tories care too - maybe they should worry more about the really small number of lawn signs in the riding - I've only seen one so far, at Donlands and O'Connor). Chin had mentioned in separate bios being the son of ...

The Ontario NDP have revoked Buzz Hargrove's party membership (hat tip Far and Wide again) which he has held for 41 years, an action which terminates his Federal membership. Funny that a week ago the rumour was about that Buzz's membership was in doubt but he claims to have not seen it coming. NDP executive member and fellow CAW official Mike Shields noted that David Miller's NDP membership is questionable given his endorsement of Liberal candidate John Godfrey if Hargrove's actions deserved expulsion. Paul Martin mentioned Miller (and had the handgun ban photo-op) during the campaign which the NDP tried to explain away . Needless to say, NOW, helped by former employee and now Hizzoner's media flack Don Wanagas, got Miller's excuses in a row during the campaign .