In the immediate aftermath of the Auditor General’s report on G8 spending, we were assured that while the attention to administrative detail was lacking, there was certainly no intention to mislead parliament. We were also assured that while Tony Clement was heavily involved in considering all the projects in his riding, it was John Baird who made the final decisions. The auditor general’s other major concern is that there is no paper trail to show how or why the 32 projects were chosen out of 242 that were proposed by the municipalities. Wiersema said they were selected by the infrastructure minister at the time, Baird, based on the advice of Clement, who was then industry minister and is now president of the Treasury Board. No public servants were involved in the decision-making process, the audit found. Of course we’ve since learned that public servants were involved — the documents obtained and released by the NDP make it clear that bureaucrats from Industry Canada, Infrastructure Canada and DFAIT were all involved at one point or another. What’s now unclear is just how much John Baird was actually involved, despite the fact that Clement himself assured us his colleague made the final…
Continue readingEvilness: New names for the CF
Ok, the Harper government has leaked that the air force and navy will go back to their old monikers of RCAF and RCN. Now as a former reserve member who joined when we all wore green uniforms (and shortly after was issued a blue one, then a transfer la…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Remembering Sex Work Activist Wendy Babcock: A Letter and a Poem
August 12, 2011
Dear Wendy,
As I write this letter I’m listening to Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley. It’s what you believed and did.
I remember meeting you at a meeting for the first Reclaim The Streets rally that we helped organize with…
Continue readingParliamANT Hill: NDP accuse ClemAnt of using G8 cash as ‘slush fund’
Inspired by this story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/15/pol-g8-legacy-fund.html
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Obama versus Perry: Perspiration versus Cerebalism
Right now the most likely GOP presidential contender to face up to President Obama is a dark haired, Kennedyesque, fast-talking, loud-talking, right wing Texas governor named Rick Perry:
President Rick Perry?
But it is the governor of the great big st…
Duceppe to CBC
Oh man, this is really going to piss off the right! LOFL! Stephen Tayor’s going to have to bring out the mops for all the cranial matter exploding over at Blogging Tories.
MONTREAL – Former Bloc Quebecois head Gilles Duceppe said he doesn’t think there is anything controversial about an ex-soveregnist leader working at . . . → Read More: Duceppe to CBC
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Murdochs: It’s often the cover up that gets you – just ask Tricky Dick
Murdoch Senior and Junior (and PM David Cameron) are in for a few sleepless nights now that this has happened:
Cameron and Coulson
Phone hacking was widely discussed at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, according to a reporter who was blamed as th…
Things Are Good: A Game That Protects Nature
A new FAcebook game has been launched that allows you to help the planet while you play. It’s called MyConservationPark and it’s made by Good World Games.
MyConservationPark is a socially conscious Facebook game that places you in charge of building and managing a protected wildlife reserve. Create and sustain a livable habitat for your […]
Harper loves movies! Jane Taber’s desperate fluff piece to make our PM seem human.
He loves cats! He love pop music! Now we learn our beloved leader loves movies, too! Not only that, Stephen’s a ‘cinephile’.Dear JaneThank you for all your hard work on behalf of the party. XXOO Conservative Party of Canada
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Asbestos Wars – My Respone To The Position Of My Conservative MP
Given Canada’s unconscionable ongoing export of death (i.e., asbestos) and given that it is back in the media spotlight thanks to the brave efforts of Michaela Keyserlingk, about whom I wrote a brief posting yesterday, now seems a propitious moment to …
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: News of the World, Kai Nagata & the Omnibus Crime Bill
No, this isn’t a game of “One of These Things Is Not Like the Others”, ‘though I’m sure to suffer from the catchy tune playing in a loop in my head for the next several hours. Trust me, it’s more like a game of Tri Bond. If you have been off planet, embedded in an […]
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: 2000 years of Boy Buggering – The Catholic Rape-A-GO-GO plunges into the future.
Just a handy reference if you needed some more information on how lovely the Catholic Church actually is.
Filed under: Religion Tagged: Boy Rape, Catholic Church History Primer, Catholic Church Inanity, Relgion
Continue readingBuckdog: Hackers Post FALSE Story On Le Devoir Website Saying Premier Jean Charest Dead Of Heart Attack
MONTREAL — “The Quebec French newspaper Le Devoir had its website hacked early Tuesday morning, with a fake article inaccurately claiming that Quebec Premier Jean Charest had died.The phoney article stated the premier had died of a heart attack at a …
Continue readingUnnatural birds?
I’ve always wondered why the “gay sex is unnatural” crowd keep sidestepping these inconvenient observations. In any case, it is rumoured that CBSA has been alerted, and zebra finches have been added to Canada’s “no-fly” list….
Continue readingDuceppe to CBC
Oh man, this is really going to piss off the right! LOFL! Stephen Tayor’s going to have to bring out the mops for all the cranial matter exploding over at Blogging Tories.MONTREAL – Former Bloc Quebecois head Gilles Duceppe said he doesn’t think there…
Continue readingLeDaro: Husband gives his wife (make it ex-) 24 “carat” rock as a Gift
There is a little twist that the rock is 18 to 20 tons.
Dany Larivière, the mayor of Saint-Théodore-d’Acton, Quebec, says that his ex-wife always wanted a big rock as a gift and he was obliging; that it wasn’t a big deal – some ideas for upcomin…
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.
– Chantal Hebert offers up the definitive response to the Cons, Libs and media outlets still going out of their way to attack the NDP for winning support in Quebec:
Given the context, to retroactively portray La…
gritchik: The pro-Hudak Tristan Emmanuel on feminism
Over the weekend I posted about a new pro-Conservative group that boasts Tristan Emmanuel among its backers. As mentioned, Emmanuel is anti-gay, anti-same sex marriage. But did you know he’s also anti-feminism? Seriously, check it out: “No doubt feminism is a force of evil in North American society.” And, on the “solution” to the troubles […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On official distortions
Charlie Angus is right to note that one of the more serious aspects of Tony Clement’s G8 pork-barrel coverup may be the prospect that senior bureaucrats gave false information to the Auditor General at the Cons’ behest. But it’s also worth noting the p…
Continue reading