Stephen Harper in his cool green Canadian Forces flight jacket. With him, Alberta Premier Alison Redford and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, during last June’s flooding, both looking as if they wish they had cool military togs too. Below: Don Cherry in a tailored camo suit and Julian Fantino with a
Continue readingTag: Julian Fantino
Alberta Diary: Hoist with their own petard, Harper Tories face veterans’ Remembrance Day protest
A typical Canadian Remembrance Day ceremony: the scene in St. Albert one year ago today. Below: B.C. Conservative MP Mark Strahl, on-air Conservative partisan Don Cherry, and NDP Veterans’ Affairs Critic Peter Stoffer. No Canadian government in living memory, and probably no Canadian government in history, has worked as hard
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Christian Crossroads Communications: A Bash From The Past
From the CBC archives:Crossroads Christian Communications founder David Mainse speaking at an anti-gay rights rally in 1979. Ken Campbell also shows up, suggesting that gays are prone to child molestation. Not much changes with these guys, does it?
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Harper Cons and the Bigot Trap
It was an extraordinary sight. John Baird sitting next to Julian Fantino at a committee meeting this morning, blasting the hideous anti-gay statements of a Canadian religious organization. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird took aim Tuesday at "offensive" and "mean-spirited" statements on the website of an organization that gets federal funding
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Christian Crossroads Previously Dinged By CSBC For Gay-Bashing Show
Christian Crossroads Communications has been in the news recently over this: A Canadian Christian communications group that does taxpayer-funded development work in Uganda has rejected allegations that it is anti-gay and shares the east African nation’s widely-condemned views on homosexuality. And though they deny being anti-gay, they are the same
Continue readingbastard.logic: I’m Not Sayin’ (I’m Just Sayin’)
The following nugget was buried at the bottom of a follow-up CP report on how CIDA helped fund the Ugandan aid work of the virulently anti-gay Crossroads Christian Communications (in full PR damage control mode now that its homobigoted Evangelical slip is showing) to the tune of half a million dollars last year: Francois Audet,
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Julian Fantino: once a dirty cop, now a dirty politician The…
Julian Fantino: once a dirty cop, now a dirty politician The dishonourable Julian “Mussolini” Fantino, Canada’s minister of international cooperation, was recently busted for ordering a pro-Conservative propaganda letter (signed by him) to be published on the website of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), a non-partisan federal agency. After
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Bill Curry reports on what looks like a thoroughly warped view of the role of the Minister of Justice and Parliament in assessing the constitutionality of legislation (h/t to bigcitylib): Ottawa is crafting legislation that risks running afoul of the Charter of Rights
Continue readingImpolitical: Paging the Clerk
On this brouhaha of yesterday: “CIDA rapped for partisan letters from cabinet minister appearing on website.” The core question in this incident is how these letters came to be posted on a government department’s website. And to answer that question, the protocols for posting material, with all that’s involved including
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Julian Fantino and the CIDA Scandal
Last night I wrote a post about how the Harper regime is turning CIDA into the Con International Development Agency. I was also planning to mention how the Harperites have turned the CIDA website into another branch of the Con Ministry of Propaganda and Disinformation. With the picture of Julian Fantino,
Continue readingLeftist Jab: Political Stooge of 2012: Pierre Poilievre
To be perfectly honest, I struggled with this. Here’s Pierre Poilievre repeating talking points ad nauseam without a hint of even considering answering the reporter’s question. So it should be a slam dunk. Game over! Pierre Poilievre is the stooge of 2012! And yet… Here’s Maxime Bernier repeating boilerplate talking points,
Continue readingLeftist Jab: Best Abbott & Costello Routine of 2012: The F-35 Fighter Jets
The Abbott & Costello routine above is exemplary of the Harper Government’s miscommunication. While the comedy routine is meant to amuse, the Government’s routine on F-35s is meant to obfuscate. How long has this been going on? In one breath, they’ll mention that the F-35 fighter jets were “an initiative that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Martin Kirk discusses the role governments play in allowing and facilitating the extraction of a substantial portion of the world’s wealth to tax havens (h/t to thwap): Tax theft is endemic all over the world. It is organised through an intricate system of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Harris continues to highlight some of the fundamental problems with the Cons’ view of politics, this time identifying Stephen Harper as being afflicted with “master of the universe syndrome”: When you control all the levers of power, when you have no scruples,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Making Politics Out Of Tragedy
The terrible shooting in Toronto that saw two people killed and 24 injured elicited this response from Julian Fantino and Rob Nicholson. I have no words to express my feeling toward this craven exploitation of tragedy: Joint statement by ministers Julian Fantino and Rob Nicholson: Our Government was very saddened
Continue readingImpolitical: Idle Saturday speculation
Will the real Minister of International Cooperation please stand up? Chris Alexander, Parliamentary Secretary for National Defence, on behalf of the Honourable Julian Fantino, Minister of International Cooperation, is attending the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan, to discuss international development efforts in Afghanistan for the next decade. As part of his
Continue readingImpolitical: Pearson on Fantino
Glen Pearson writes about the Julian Fantino appointment as Minister of International Cooperation, the ministry that oversees Canada’s international aid efforts. He highlights the qualities that those involved in the aid portfolio possess: • A natural compassion • A willingness to cooperate with others in the field • A deep
Continue readingTrashy's World: I’m not the only one…
… who thinks that the CPC talent pool must be pretty thin if Fantino is the best replacement for Oda that Harper can come up with. NDP MP Charlie Angus said Fantino is a poor communicator who struggled to explain the F-35 purchase. “Julian Fantino, really? Right up front, I
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Umm.. this is ministerial accountability, Globe and Mail?
There was an editorial in the Globe and Mail yesterday, saying basically while it was overdue, Bev Oda deciding to leave as a Minister was a sgin that Harper holds his Ministers accountable for their actions. That raised a few eyebrows; my friend Impolitical listed several ministers whose ministerial indiscretions
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Julian Fantino and the Mediocrity of the Cons
I will never forget the look on Julian Fantino's face, the day he first took the loyalty oath to Stephen Harper, and became a Con cabinet minister. He looked stunned, as if he still couldn't believe it. The Great Fantino, the Crime Busting Crusader, the copo de tutti, had
Continue reading