Hardly a smoking gun!

globeandmail.com: Ontario Tories say Liberals violated election law

It seems John Tory's Tories are trying to nail Jello to the wall.

But, in this day and age, just making the accusation has the desired effect. You get your opponents name in the media and place a little bit of doubt in a few voters minds. Never mind that the whole thing is BS.

So what, a politically active, capable professional who used to be the Premier's chief of staff and is now chairing the Working Families Coalition. The WFC is an anti-Tory group, go figure!

Where do we think this guy will want to work? The Canadian Taxpayers Federation?! The Fraser Institute!? They only hire former Tory aides!

This is a non-story, and until there are any more connections this is an absolutely desperate move by the Tories.

Same old John Tory Tory story.

A.L.

This is unacceptable no matter which side of the aisle you are on....

Now, I will say I think it is acceptable for a person to police entries about themselves, and provide FACTUAL edits to their own wikipedia entry, but editing to include lies, fabrications or stretched truths is not.

The one thing I found odd was this one:

One user, with an IP address that points to a government office in Ottawa, removed Wikipedia's entire entry on homosexuality several times on July 20, 2005, and replaced it with such sentences as: "Homosexuality is evil," "Homosexuality is wrong according to the Bible" and "Homosexuals need our help and counselling." The IP address responsible for that edit continued to deface the entry on homosexuality a total of 24 times between July, 2005, and July, 2006...

Odd, and so very doctrinaire. That's scary!

Alright, back to work, and remember that the veracity of wikipedia is suspect.

A.L.

A good move for Harper...dangerous for Dion

globeandmail.com: Canada steps up fight for the Arctic

I think this is a really smart move by Harper. First of all because it is the right thing to do in the interests of Canada, but also because I believe he will solidify and maybe even broaden his political base.

Gay marriage is a dead issue and it doesn't seem like the abortion debate will be re-opened any time soon either (much to the chagrin of the 2000 facebook/CBC Great Canadian Wish List participants who have the lead in an activity nobody cares about), so what's left to energize the base? Afghanistan and some old fashioned Arctic saber rattling.

Again, its the right thing to do in the interests of Canadian sovereignty, and it will help him in the polls. If anyone cares that is....

I am willing to bet Canadians care about this.

A.L.

Cut services or raise taxes...

I wish more politicians would talk like this.

Bravo to Mayor David Miller for telling it like it really is. For too long in this country and especially in the United States, politicians have massaged the truth, used Orwellian language or just plain lied to the citizenry when selling their tax-cuts.

Time and time again, the governments of the day in every province have extolled the virtues of tax-cuts, campaigned on "no new taxes" and undercut the idea that paying taxes is one of a citizen's duties to society.

What do we have to show for it? Crumbling infrastructure throughout North America and a society that turns on its' most vulnerable when the budget gets tight.

For so long the supply-side Conservatives have told us that taxes must be cut and they told us that this would actually increase government revenue from the resulting prosperity, but what they failed to say was that it would make it necessary to defer infrastructure investment for an additional 20 years, would cause those who most need our help to go without and would actually not lead to increased revenue.

Interesting to note for my Ontario readers, there's an election coming up and the party that initiated this budget crunch is on the ballot:

After years of tapping reserve funds to balance its budget - by law the city cannot run an operating deficit - the city faces a projected $575-million shortfall next year.

At the root of its problems, almost everyone on council agrees, is the pressure of having to fund services formerly covered by the province, but "offloaded" by the Progressive Conservative government of the day in the 1990s. A provincial panel on the offloading problem is due to report back in February.

Same old John Tory story....

A.L.

Canada: Leading the World With Our Middle Class!

globeandmail.com: The secrets of Canada's world-leading middle-class success

Apparently Canada is among the elite nations of the world when it comes to a large and growing middle class. This is something that I would suggest is the product of progressive policies in both Canada and the US, circa 1995 - 2000 or so. The Clinton years were extremely good times economically speaking in the US, and Canada certainly benefited from the strength of the US economy in that time. Add the Chretien-Martin (before PM the PM) years of fiscal restraint and balanced budgets and moderate tax cuts to that equation and we saw a significant uptick in the size of our middle class.

Good stuff. I wonder if the "hate Canada first" crowd has anything to say about this. Our way works, there is no reason we need to be parroting and mimicking the US.

-AL