Motorists in the GTA should brace themselves for a head-on collision with more fees for driving their cars when a plan for battling commuter congestion is unveiled today.
NDP Leader Jack Layton yesterday danced around the question of whether his party would form a coalition with the Liberals in a possible post-election bid to topple minority Conservatives from office.
Updated Mon. Sep. 22 2008 4:04 PM ET
The Canadian Press
TORONTO -- A high-profile American deserter has won a last-minute stay of deportation.
A Federal Court judge says Jeremy Hinzman can stay in Canada for now.
Hinzman was due to get the boot to the U.S. Tuesday morning, where he would face prosecution for fleeing to Canada rather than deploying to Iraq.
Ottawa has refused his family's application to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
The 29-year-old Hinzman, his wife and two young children asked for the stay while the courts decide if they will review that decision.
His lawyer argued today that deserters who have been publicly critical of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have received harsher punishment.
Is Sarah Palin a metaphor for what they think of regular folks?
Re:Deserter gets a little help
Deserters are welcome here
Sep 22, 2008 04:30 AM
from Rae, Sept. 19
Instead of attacking U.S. war resister Jeremy Hinzman, maybe Rosie DiManno should have attacked the Federal Court which, on July 4, ruled that U.S. war resister Joshua Key had been forced to systematically violate the Geneva Conventions as part of his military service in Iraq. Or Parliament which, on June 3, voted to allow U.S. war resisters and their families to stay in Canada.
Dennis Bartels, Toronto
Has Rosie DiManno forgotten that Canada does not support this illegal war in Iraq? Clearly, Canada should welcome conscientious objectors and war resisters. Her personal attack on one individual goes beyond offensive. Stick to the issues, Rosie.
Helen Jefferson, Toronto
Canada did not support this immoral and illegal war in which tens of thousands of civilians have been killed. Young American men and women – those who have come to this decision after one or more tours of duty in Iraq as well as those who are conscientious objectors – should be welcomed here.
I wrote earlier about the latest celebre du jour duty shirker who ran off to Toronto to hide from his duty in the eeeevil American war.
Well, turns out there’s way more to the story.
Well, let’s start with the basics. First, SPC Jemley is in signals intelligence; despite the fact that he knows Arabic, he will never ever be required by the Army to interrogate anyone. Indeed, without obtaining the Human Intelligence Collector MOS and then certifying, he would be breaking the law were he to try to do so.
The contractor job at Guantanamo that he complains about had nothing to do with his military career. He used his training and security clearance, paid for by the US Army, to get a highly paid civilian contractor job, and then supposedly balked at the requirements. No one in the Army ever required him to go to Guantanamo. No one in the Army could order him to work as an interrogator at Guantanamo. If you are afraid that “coercive techniques” might possibly constitute torture, you probably shouldn’t apply for jobs where you might use them–never mind the fact that the worst you might face is getting fired when you refuse to do so.
Go read the entire smackdown at Sig. He’s in the same unit, under the same commander. An insider’s take on the cowardice that drove Peter Jemley to flee to Canada.
Unmentioned is what would happen if Jemley came back–he’d be re-classed into some other non-Intelligence job and could finish out his enlistment and earn an honorable discharge. Even after deserting, MAJ B was willing to give him a chance. No dice. Unmentioned also is the fact that he will never again be trusted with my nation’s secrets either way–he’ll never be in danger of being called to interrogate anyone. Ever.
I'll never understand the appeal of unions, especially in Canada. Without ever joining a union, Canadian workers are entitled to health care coverage, severance pay if dismissed without cause, and Canada Pension participation. What do Canadians gain by joining a union?
In a video posted to YouTube, Mayor David Miller said the much-maligned fake grass at BMO Field could be replaced with the real thing next year.
Filmed in Shoeless Joe's bar on King St. W. after last week's rainy Columbus game, a soaking wet Miller claims to have built BMO Field himself.
"That's Stuart right there, standing up for me, because we built the stadium," a happier-than-usual Miller says, pointing out his spokesman and fellow TFC fan Stu Green. "Actually that's wrong. He didn't build the stadium, I built the stadium."
At one point, the interviewer asks Miller how long it's going to take before real grass is installed at BMO.
"Next year," Miller says in the clip. "Next year, but no guarantees. But we're trying."
While the falling might be an isolated incident........
BMO Field's recent post-game fan violence raises concerns
Chris Reid describes his posts on Political Thoughts of a Gay Conservative as a reflection of his frustration about the "dominance of Liberal thought and big government thought," in Canada.
On May 30, Reid posted a list of policies he'd like to see debated, he called it, "Conservative solutions that would make Canada a better place."
Alongside an elected senate, a flat tax and energy independence, the debate topics also include:
- Ending state-funded multiculturalism;
- Closing the CBC;
- Amend the Broadcasting Act to eliminate left-wing bias, and eliminate the CRTC's role in telling radio and cable TV providers what to show;
- End Human Rights Commissions and hate speech laws. If people make slanderous, libelous accusations they can be taken to a real court where there is a real law that is enforced;
- A consumer-driven health care system;
- Ending abortion;
- Allow law-abiding citizens who are qualified and trained to carry handguns for personal protection.
Some excepts pulled from Internet archive copies of the now-defunct blog site:
- On U.S. Iraq War Deserters, posted Aug. 13: Finally, some common sense prevails, at least one of the shameful U.S. army deserter lay-abouts is being deported. It's on the front page of the Toronto Star's website, they must be disappointed. I'm surprised they didn't have any quips about Harper's "Bush Agenda."
- On the Greyhound bus murder, posted Aug. 10: Passengers and the bus driver stood by and watched another person being butchered, and couldn't muster up any courage or self sacrifice to intervene. This is where socialism as gotten us folks.
This is a perfect example of why we need concealed-carry handgun legislation in this country, so we can defend one another and deter horrible events such as this.
Disgraceful: Conservative Party dumps candidate who makes actual sensePosted on 20 September 2008 by Jack
Trusty Tory | Lingering Like a Bad Smell in a Space Suit
Isn’t revisionist history a wonderful thing?
Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien wasted no time in echoing the most important piece of Liberal propaganda spewed since 1993 - the Tories lead by Brian Mulroney destroyed the economy, the Liberals cleaned the mess, and Harper’s government is once again governing like the old PC Party.
The simple fact is this blatant attack on former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney is nothing more than an attempt by the Liberals to try and avert a Conservative majority government. If we remember correctly, Brian Mulroney won the largest majority government in Canadian history, reducing the Liberal party to 40 seats in the 1984 election. He won a subsequent majority government four years later in 1988. The Liberals decided they couldn’t be beaten like that again, so they made a bunch of nonsense up. You know, the“42 billion dollar deficit” nonsense?
Ahh, yes, the truth. The truth is a wonderful thing, no? Let’s take Canadian history 101, shall we?
Hebert: Dion election platform built on carbon (2) OTTAWA–With the Green Shift plan, Stéphane Dion and his party have crossed the Rubicon. As of now, there will be no turning back from a carbon tax scheme. Should it come to that, the Liberal campaign ship will sink with its captain. Far more than a climate change strategy, the plan unveiled yesterday is really a gutsy, but risky substitute for the old Liberal Red Books. For better or for worse, it is the platform that the party will take into the next campaign. [...more]
Posted on 20 September 2008 by Jack
During this US election cycle we are hearing a lot from the pundits and candidates about “heartland voters,” and “white working class voters.”
What they are talking about are rednecks. But in their political correctness, media types cannot bring themselves to utter the word “redneck.” So I’ll say it for them: redneck-redneck-redneck-redneck.
The fact is that we American rednecks embrace the term in a sort of proud defiance. To us, the term redneck indicates a culture we were born in and enjoy. So I find it very interesting that politically correct people have taken it upon themselves to protect us from what has come to be one of our own warm and light hearted terms for one another.
On the other hand, I can quite imagine their concern, given what’s at stake in the upcoming election. We represent at least a third of all voters and no US president has ever been elected without our support.
Consequently, rednecks have never had so many friends or so much attention as in 2008. Contrary to the stereotype, we are not all tobacco chewing, guffawing Southerners, but are scattered from coast to coast. Over 50% of us live in the “cultural south”, which is to say places with white Southern Scots-Irish values - redneck values.
They include western Pennsylvania, central Missouri and southern Illinois, upstate Michigan and Minnesota, eastern Connecticut, northern New Hampshire…
So when you look at what pundits call the red state heartland, you are looking at the Republic of Redneckia.
As to having our delicate beer-sodden feelings protected from the term redneck; well, I appreciate the effort, though I highly suspect that the best way to hide snobbishness is to pose as protector of any class of folks you cannot bear. Thus we are being protected by the very people who look down on us - educated urban progressives.
And let’s face it, there’s plenty to look down on. By any tasteful standard, we ain’t a pretty people.
And that is one of the reasons that, mystifying as it is to the outside world, John McCain’s choice of the moose-shooting Alaskan woman with the pregnant unmarried teen daughter appeals to many redneck and working class Americans.
We all understand that there is a political class which dominates in America, and that Sarah Palin for damned sure is not one of them. And the more she is attacked by liberal Democratic elements (translation: elite highly-educated big city people) the more America’s working mooks will come to her defence. Her daughter had a baby out of wedlock? Big deal. What family has not? She is a Christian fundamentalist who believes God spat on his beefy paws and made the world in seven days? So do at least 150 million other Americans. She snowmobiles and fishes and she is a looker to boot. She’s a redneck.
When it comes to business it is a global economy and manufacturers have no choice but to go where they can make a profit but that place is not in Ontario which is ruled by unions and special interest groups. But don't despair....politician's latest con job is "high paid GREEN jobs." I would be interested in hearing what those workers who sort our recyclables make....Must have been a helluva meeting.
A 16-member panel filled with business luminaries and struck over a year ago by the Liberals to advise on how to strengthen Ontario's embattled manufacturing sector has only met one time, the Sunday Sun has learned.
The council, including business heavyweights like Research In Motion's Jim Balsillie, was mandated to report directly to Sandra Pupatell, then economic development and trade minister.
Government press releases repeatedly tout the council as a treasure trove from which recommendations would flow on how government can help manufacturers create high-value jobs, attract new investment and boost innovation.
The 2007 budget touted the council as a way to "help increase the competitiveness of our manufacturers."
Eighteen months later, the council had only met once -- some time over the summer -- and it isn't planning to meet again until late October.
In a press release announcing the appointment, Pupatello called the council a "valuable addition to our manufacturing response and competitiveness strategy, which helps Ontario manufacturers innovate, compete and adjust to global restructuring."
"How could it possibly be a meaningful body that does anything that's going to really help if it only meets once," Progressive Conservative leader John Tory asked. "Why haven't we seen the results or reports of their one meeting?
Council vice-chairman Jayson Myers said that although they have only met formally once, council members "have been in communication and are working together."
"The idea here is to identify challenges and put forward solutions that can support Ontario manufacturing in the long-term," said Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. "We're talking to the government and talking to each other."
He said the group has analyses underway that will help them forge recommendations. Some of those recommendations will be pitched to the government in the hopes they'll add them to the 2009 budget, Myers said.
Pupatello, the newly minted international trade and investment minister, failed to respond to an interview request this week.
Tory said the council concept isn't a bad idea but with only one official meeting, it's "not for real. It's embarrassing for the people who are on it that this government thinks so little of it that it never meets."
NDP leader Howard Hampton called the council "another PR exercise."
"What should have happened three years ago was to sit down with labour, to sit down with representative manufacturing groups and municipal leaders and to hammer out a plan," Hampton said.
But Myers fired back:
"We've got some good research going, not just about what's going on here in Ontario but about what other jurisdictions are doing in support of manufacturing."
BY Shawn Micallef September 17, 2008 13:09
The great unmentionable secret among the downtown chattering classes is that the Island Airport is no longer a political issue. After the taxpayer-funded bridge was effectively killed, Porter Airlines started up and seems to have won over the guilt-ridden hearts of many Torontonians who were previously against it. Whispers of admiration for an airport and airline experience without the usual indignities can be overheard in cafés, on blogs and in Facebook and Twitter updates. Though there still may be no love for the Toronto Port Authority, the rogue agency we love to hate, Porter has quietly become just another part of the city.
Phil Fontaine, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, is so right. And he's so wrong.
Fontaine says it's a national disgrace that, in 2008, 27,000 Canadian aboriginal kids are in state care; 40 reserves across Canada have no schools; 100 are under perpetual boil-water advisories; and many if not most offer a quality of life that is shockingly below that enjoyed by most other Canadian communities.
Right.
Fontaine says the vast majority of Canadians believe aboriginals should have more control over their own affairs, and a clear majority of us - more than 60% - think it's time for a radical redesign of the relationship between Canada and her First Nations.
Right.
Fontaine says it's a travesty none of the leaders of Canada's national parties are talking about aboriginal issues.
Right.
And Fontaine says the solution is a huge pile of money - "Kelowna-plus," as he puts it - that would exceed even the $5 billion offered by the Paul Martin government in 2005. Martin proposed to hugely increase spending within the current reserve system, with the goal of raising aboriginal living standards to those of other Canadians by 2015.
Wrong.
The reserve system in Canada is broken. The population of Canadian status, Metis and non-status Indians now is about 1.1 million. About half - and growing - live off reserve. Yet the lion's share of federal funding for Native people is still funnelled through reserves and controlled by their chiefs.
Though some reserves have negotiated self-government agreements that take them outside the Indian Act, most haven't. The Act is an explicitly racist document. It assumes aboriginal Canadians are not capable of managing their own affairs. It denies most aboriginal Canadians on reserves the right to private ownership of their homes. In Canada in 2008, the Indian Act is an abomination.
Reserves themselves are the problem.
Our current system, supported by an aboriginal political class that benefits from the status quo and an Ottawa political class too frightened to tackle real reform, is the problem.
This column has been a long time coming, but it took a school shooting, irate radio talk show callers, and more babble from the Delusional Duo of McGuinty and Miller to finally bring it to life. As no doubt everyone is the city is now aware, Toronto had a banner week for shootings, capped off by a dramatic lockdown of four North York schools after a student was shot in the chest just outside the Bendale Business and Technical Institute.
As soon as I heard the news that a student had been shot, I reflected back to the last federal election campaign, which was also marred by the shooting of a Toronto youth; Jane Creba, fifteen, was killed by a stray bullet while shopping near crowded Dundas Square on Boxing day of 2005. Paul Martin quickly made a national handgun ban a plank in his party's unsuccessful platform, while Stephen Harper insisted - as he still does - that Canada's current gun control measures are sufficient, and that the problem of gun crime is better addressed by taking action in other areas: tightening bail conditions, and tougher sentences for those guilty of a gun crime.
20th September 2008, 3:38am
Shamiza Bacchus said every step she takes with other moms who have lost their kids to violence gives her a sense of justice.
20th September 2008, 3:38am
A North York community meets this morning seeking solutions to the violence plaguing it and systemic barriers that it feels are isolating it from the rest of the city.
20th September 2008, 4:29am
In another wave of gunfire in Toronto, four young men were being treated in hospitals last night after separate non-fatal shootings in North York.
