Oh yes, Canada – this hot mess happened. A
YouTube clip surfaced yesterday (which has since been removed) which showed
Harper at a Rob Ford barbecue, gushing over Ford helping to clean up the “left-wing
mess” in the city, and hoping for a trifecta of conservatism with his hoped-for
win by provincial Progressive Conservatives in the fall. You know how mayors
are supposed to play it cool around premiers and prime ministers and not play
favourites, just in case someone from another party gets into power during
their term? And the same for any leader of either a province or the country?
Yeah, well that seems to be out the window as Ford gushed about Harper taking
him fishing up north (which is a bit odd considering that Harper has never
really been into fishing, as Stéphane Dion found out when he tried to talk
fishing to Harper to break the ice and Harper shrugged it off), and Harper
thanked Ford for his endorsement during the recent election (again, against
good form for political leaders). Despite the fact that this was supposed to be
a fairly private event (which was also apparently to honour Jim Flaherty for
apparently just being awesome), this kind of chumminess is a bit unseemly
considering their mutual jobs.
After stirring up a moral panic about
alleged “suspected war criminals” being in the country and the need to deport
them post haste, Vic Toews says prosecuting them isn’t up to us – even if they
won’t face prosecution in their home countries and could very well go
unpunished. And yet he needs to create a moral panic about their presence in Canada. Still waiting for the logic to all fall into place there.
It looks like somewhere between 300 and 700
jobs at Environment Canada could be on the chopping block. But no, these won’t
be ideological cuts at all, especially as a good number of actual science jobs
are on the block, as opposed to say policy analysts.
Oh, look – more evidence that Canada is
being targeted by foreign hackers (likely from China).
Other NDP MPs were “surprised” to learn
that Nycole Turmel has been a member of sovereigntist parties. Never mind that
her reasons for joining up to “support a friend” who was an incumbent MP in a
riding quite a ways away from her own home riding doesn’t make much sense
either.
The mayor of Quebec City says crumbling
infrastructure or not, they’re still going ahead with their plans to build a
new NHL arena. Because, you know, priorities.
And a BC judge has ordered a fast trial for
a woman’s right-to-die lawsuit.
