Author: WILLY

Willy Loman: Payback, Cutbacks, Kickbacks

Have you noticed that Jason Kenney has not been in the news as much lately?  The Smiling Budha, Curry in Hurry, Minister of Citizen, Immigration and Multiculturalism, who is also considered to be a leadership candidate to replace Harper, failed to step up during the Senate scandal by dumping on

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Willy Loman: Payback, Cutbacks, Kickbacks

Have you noticed that Jason Kenney has not been in the news as much lately?  The Smiling Budha, Curry in Hurry, Minister of Citizen, Immigration and Multiculturalism, who is also considered to be a leadership candidate to replace Harper, failed to step up during the Senate scandal by dumping on

Continue reading

Willy Loman: Payback, Cutbacks, Kickbacks

Have you noticed that Jason Kenney has not been in the news as much lately? 

The Smiling Budha, Curry in Hurry, Minister of Citizen, Immigration and Multiculturalism, who is also considered to be a leadership candidate to replace Harper, failed to step up during the Senate scandal by dumping on Nigel Wright, leaving the heavy lifting in Parliament, to Baird and Moore. It would appear that this, along with Kenney’s open dispute with Flaherty over Rob Ford, might not have gone unnoticed been Harper.

The governments multiculturalism budget which Kenney controls was reduced in 2013 by a third and is expected to be reduced further in the upcoming years. Kenney has also had his signature granting program, the Inter-Action budget cut back. Kenney’s signature granting program was set up in 2010 to support events approved by Kenney’s office that promoted intercultural understanding, respect for democratic values and/or civic memory and pride. 

In 2010-2011, about $14 million was spent under the program to fund 140 projects and events. In 2011-12, about $9.5 million was spent under the program to fund 30 projects and 202 events. For this year, the budget will be scaled back further by at least $2.5 million.

Unfortunately for Kenney, the former king of the local Conservative fundraising circuit, he may be in serious danger of forfeiting his crown. Out of province, political donations to Kenny, have dropped by over $125,000, a sixty four percent drop.

Jason Kenney’s Calgary Southeast electoral district association (EDA) netted just $67,149 in donations last year.

The number of donors declined as well  — from 951 in 2012, to just 455 in 2013, of which just 93 gave more than $200, compared to 230 who did so in 2012.
Notably, all but a handful of this year’s contributors hailed from the Calgary area

From 2007 to 2012, Kenney’s riding raked in nearly $150,000 from outside his home province, including more than $93,000 from Toronto-area Chinese Canadians, augmented by the occasional burst of donations from other GTA South Asian ethnic communities, usually clustered around a single date.

That particular revenue stream appears to have dried up, at least for the moment.

One of the major criticisms of political funding in Canada is that political parties are only required to report the identities of contributors that have given a total of over $200 to one riding association or the central organization. For donations of $200 or less, receipts must be kept by the individual riding associations, but Elections Canada has no way to keep track of them.

And has been noted by Elections Canada, a corporation or an organization can make multiple $200 donations to a candidate by listing their employees or members as the donors.

It appears that the recipients of multicultural grants were, at least in the past, very impressed with the Minister of Citizen, Immigration and Multiculturalism and decided, independently to donate funds towards his elections.

To the tune of about ten percent.

 

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Willy Loman: Maybe Merkle and Harper can sing Hey Jude together.

Remember Harper’s much heralded EU Trade Agreement, the largest, most historic, trade agreement ever! Well it appears that the largest EU partner, Germany is objecting to the investor protection clause in the Canadian deal.

This is the clause that allows foreign corporations to ignore the laws of their trading partner, by giving the foreign corporations the right to sue if such rights are denied. It is known as the ISDS or Investor State Dispute Settlement clause and was part of the original and subsequent North American Free Trade Agreements.

Further more from the article we discover that the Europeans only consider Harper’s so called, historic free-trade agreement as a test for the agreement with the United States.

So much for Steve’s analysis back in October:

Mr. Harper too played down the approval process saying the provinces are on side and that he expects the deal to be in place by the next election in 2015.

“The agreement as it now stands is not going to change,” he said. “I am certainly confident of its adoption in Canada. I think anyone who opposes it will lose and will make a big historic mistake in so doing.”

And for those who don’t, remember here is Canada’s second worse Prime Minister singing with Reagan in an effort to get the original NAFTA talks going and hence the title of the post.

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