Saturday, June 25, 2005
Tories get Schooled
There are conflicting reports as to who approached whom the week before last. However, both the Conservatives and Liberals acknowledged that they had talks over delaying 38.
Conservative House leader Jay Hill laid out Conservative thinking for the media. First he said that the passage of bill 48 was basically a forgone conclusion. “eventually they're going to get C-48 anyway." (Needless to say, the same could be said of Bill 38 and 38 only effects people in 2 provinces (Alberta and PEI) and 1 territory (NWT).) Thus, "If we were to get a delay of C-38 (the marriage bill) until the fall and perhaps some other concession, we'd be happy." "[One?] [Our?] primary concern of ours is that we get out of the spring session with C-38 not progressing further". What the Conservatives had to offer the Liberals, Hill explained, was the following: “What we would be looking to do for them is allow [the $4.6- billion budget bill] to go without having a full-court press and pushing them into a position where they would either have to bring in time allocation [a move to choke off debate and force a vote] with the public black eye that always brings with it, or extend the sitting into July.” Peter Mackay clarified Hill’s comments. "We will continue to oppose Bill C-48, but won't pull out all the stops or go to the wall in terms of debate”. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050616.wxsamesex16/BNStory/National/
According to John Reynolds a deal was reached. "We agreed to pass the second finance bill. We agreed to do it last Thursday, but the government reneged on the deal”. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1119492141499_22/?hub=TopStories As result, he said on Wednesday the Conservatives would attempt to bring the government down over the budget. (Jay Hill and John Reynolds apparently were off two minds as to whether this was possible.) "I expect we're going to have every member in our caucus here [including as it turned out Gurmant Grewal who was supposedly on stress leave] whenever the vote is" "Whether it's tomorrow or next week ... we will have every member here, and this government deserves to be defeated."
Of course, the Liberals passed the budget on Thursday night and the Conservatives led by Peter Mackay and Stephen Harper screamed bloody murder.
So, let us review. The Conservatives at first said that if the eventual passage of bill 38 was put off, they would be “happy” and would not delay the “eventual” passage of "the NDP budget". A week later they said they would attempt to bring down the government for “renaging” on deal to delay the eventual passage of 38 in return for not delaying what they described a week before as the “eventual” passage of bill 48. When the Liberals did pass the budget, the Conservatives implied that it was only possible because the Liberals made a deal with the Bloc to end a Conservative filibuster.
In a radio interview on Vancouver radio station CKNW, Conservative House Leader Jay Hill went further and claimed that the media had singled the Conservatives out for unfair criticism. The media had made a big deal out of Conservative and Bloc attempts to bring down the government that, if successful, would have resulted in big electoral gains for the Bloc at the expense of a Federalist party and little or no gain for the Conservatives. However, the media had not complained when the Liberals made this deal with the Bloc to end Conservative obstruction in return for Liberals passing a Liberal Bill that did not affect the people of Quebec in any way. SSM marriage is already legal in Quebec.
School is out boys. It is time for summer.
(1) comments
There are conflicting reports as to who approached whom the week before last. However, both the Conservatives and Liberals acknowledged that they had talks over delaying 38.
Conservative House leader Jay Hill laid out Conservative thinking for the media. First he said that the passage of bill 48 was basically a forgone conclusion. “eventually they're going to get C-48 anyway." (Needless to say, the same could be said of Bill 38 and 38 only effects people in 2 provinces (Alberta and PEI) and 1 territory (NWT).) Thus, "If we were to get a delay of C-38 (the marriage bill) until the fall and perhaps some other concession, we'd be happy." "[One?] [Our?] primary concern of ours is that we get out of the spring session with C-38 not progressing further". What the Conservatives had to offer the Liberals, Hill explained, was the following: “What we would be looking to do for them is allow [the $4.6- billion budget bill] to go without having a full-court press and pushing them into a position where they would either have to bring in time allocation [a move to choke off debate and force a vote] with the public black eye that always brings with it, or extend the sitting into July.” Peter Mackay clarified Hill’s comments. "We will continue to oppose Bill C-48, but won't pull out all the stops or go to the wall in terms of debate”. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050616.wxsamesex16/BNStory/National/
According to John Reynolds a deal was reached. "We agreed to pass the second finance bill. We agreed to do it last Thursday, but the government reneged on the deal”. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1119492141499_22/?hub=TopStories As result, he said on Wednesday the Conservatives would attempt to bring the government down over the budget. (Jay Hill and John Reynolds apparently were off two minds as to whether this was possible.) "I expect we're going to have every member in our caucus here [including as it turned out Gurmant Grewal who was supposedly on stress leave] whenever the vote is" "Whether it's tomorrow or next week ... we will have every member here, and this government deserves to be defeated."
Of course, the Liberals passed the budget on Thursday night and the Conservatives led by Peter Mackay and Stephen Harper screamed bloody murder.
Stephen Harper: “When push comes to shove the Liberals will make any deal with anybody. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s with the socialists or with the separatists or any bunch of crooks they can find.” http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1119649810981&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
(One of these days Harper is going to refer to the NDP as “Communists” and say it in the long drawn out manner in which various US politicians would pronounce the word.)
Peter Mackay: “We have to start thinking that Hannibal Lecter is running the government and they’ll do anything they have to do to win.”
(Was Peter MacKay undergoing regression thearpy to help him deal with the Stronach leaving him at the time. It is the type of put down a 5 year old would use. It makes no sense.
It was reported that there was beer set out for the Conservatives that were planning to stay around and filibuster the bill. Maybe, MacKay had helped himself to a cold one or two or three ….. Toronto Star “On the other side of the Commons, a beer-filled tub was being wheeled into the opposition lobby for the few Tories preparing to sit in for debate on a $4.6-billion budget bill.”)
So, let us review. The Conservatives at first said that if the eventual passage of bill 38 was put off, they would be “happy” and would not delay the “eventual” passage of "the NDP budget". A week later they said they would attempt to bring down the government for “renaging” on deal to delay the eventual passage of 38 in return for not delaying what they described a week before as the “eventual” passage of bill 48. When the Liberals did pass the budget, the Conservatives implied that it was only possible because the Liberals made a deal with the Bloc to end a Conservative filibuster.
In a radio interview on Vancouver radio station CKNW, Conservative House Leader Jay Hill went further and claimed that the media had singled the Conservatives out for unfair criticism. The media had made a big deal out of Conservative and Bloc attempts to bring down the government that, if successful, would have resulted in big electoral gains for the Bloc at the expense of a Federalist party and little or no gain for the Conservatives. However, the media had not complained when the Liberals made this deal with the Bloc to end Conservative obstruction in return for Liberals passing a Liberal Bill that did not affect the people of Quebec in any way. SSM marriage is already legal in Quebec.
School is out boys. It is time for summer.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Vote Liberal it will Annoy The Republicans
Listening to Stephen Harper you would think that Canada has never been less relevant to the United States. “We've just become increasingly irrelevant to a country [U.S.] that has a lot of priorities…” (CBC Newsworld, July 11, 2003). In reality the opposite holds true. Our trade with the US is at an all time high. Not only are they are biggest trading partner, but we are their biggest trading partner. All of this is pretty well known. What is less well known is just how much attention some of the Liberal Party’s more progressive policy proposals (i.e., decriminalization of marijuana and gay marriage) and the Liberals choice not to join the “coalition of the willing” have gathered in the US.
Now, admittedly some of the attention has been negative. Conservative pundits have directed a great deal of bile our way, but not anything Canadians have not already heard from would be Prime Minister Harper; in a letter to the National Post, entitled “Separation, Alberta-style: It is time to seek a new relationship with Canada”, Harper went far beyond anything Lucien Bouchard every put to pen by calling Canada “resentful”, “smug”, “second tier” and “second rate”. http://www.stephenharpersaid.ca/ However, whereas Harper only went so far as to threaten to set up “firewalls” around Alberta, some American pundits have gone further. Ann Coutlier has threatened to have us “crushed”, O’ Reilly has threatened us with nuclear winter and the Western Standard’s Goldberg http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_22_54/ai_94960947 has said we should be “bombed” and his colleague Matt Labash http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/349tpijp.asp?pg=1 has seconded him. Thankfully all are only arm chair dictators.
By far the most popular form of reproach, though, is, echoing Harper, to call us irrelevant. Tucker Carlson, for example, likened Canada without the US to Honduras “but colder and much less interesting”. http://mediamatters.org/items/200412010011 The problem with such a train of thought is that it involves them in a kind of performative contradiction. In repeatedly talking about us and calling us irrelevant they have helped entrench us as part of the public debate south of the border and so have made us increasing relevant.
The reaction of Blue America to various Liberal initiatives could not be more different.
The Democrats badly needed to update their legislative agenda when Clinton came to power. Clinton brought the party up to speed on the economic front, but after the cold war ended the whole locus of politics in the West switched from the economic sphere to the cultural one and Clinton and the Democrats were caught flat footed. In 8 years of Cultural war, Clinton gave his base next to nothing. He let the social cons set the agenda at every turn. Although, the affect of such a stand pat policy may not have been evident over the short term, over the long term the affects were devastating. “liberalism” if it is to mean anything at all to the average American must represent a vision for American society that weaves together a series of legislative proposals. What is more, this vision has to be updated to meet changing realities. Clinton’s whole approach to the cultural wars was defensive and defeatist.
The party got to the point where in 2002 its identity was based solely upon what it is not, viz., the Republican Party. In 2003, Dean pulled the party back from the dead by actually addressing the party base and their anger at Bush. He gave them hope, but the party still lacked a legislative agenda. Enter Canada: The Liberal announcement that Canada would be legalizing gay marriage and decriminalizing marijuana gave many Democrats a sense of what could eventually be accomplished. Slowly at first and then more quickly later, prominent newspapers and magazines started gushing over what Canada had proposed to do. Piggybacking in on the backs of marijuana decriminalization and gay marriage has been a sudden renewed interest in public health care. NY Times Paul Krugman has echoed the words of former Liberal big wig John Manly and has said that not only is the Canadian Health care system more humane than the American system, it also affords business many economic benefits that the American system does not. For companies, such as Ford, providing their employees with health care is one their biggest expenses. As Bill O’Reilly has said “The Canadian model is what progressive Americans are shooting for.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140742,00.html
the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707ta_talk_hertzberg
From the NY Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/magazine/06QUESTIONS.html?ex=1112072400&en=7aef39efeffd405d&ei=5070&ex=1061697600&en=5c469e9929ae55fa&ei=5070the
Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030721&s=klein
From the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p02s01-woam.html
From the San Jose Mercury News: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1051/a10.html
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030730sam0730p1.asp
From CanWest News Service: http://cpod.ubc.ca/analysis/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=421
From Macleans: http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/essay/article.jsp?content=20031013_67003_67003
Even as the Dean scream singled the victory of Victorian reason over passion in the Democratic body, the Democratic base never did loose their sense of wonder over the Liberals proposals regarding gay marriage and decriminalizing marijuana. As a result, literally hundreds of thousands looked into moving to Canada in the weeks following Bush’s reelection. http://slate.msn.com/id/2109300 Canada was made out a be a kind of secular promised land. Former Bush speech writer David Frum, of axis of evil fame, noted this phenomenon in April 19th 2005 NY Times editorial. (He also claimed in true conservative fashion that a Harper victory in the next federal election would be proof that Canada is at long last politically “mature”. “Unlike their supposed analogues, the Democrats in the United States or Great Britain's Labor Party, Canada's Liberals are not a party built around certain policies and principles. They are instead what political scientists call a brokerage party, similar to the old Italian Christian Democrats or India's Congress Party: a political entity without fixed principles or policies that exploits the power of the central state to bribe or bully incompatible constituencies to join together to share the spoils of government. As countries modernize, they tend to leave brokerage parties behind. Very belatedly, that moment of maturity may now be arriving in Canada. Americans may lose their illusions about my native country; Canadians will gain true multiparty democracy and accountability in government. It's an exchange that is long past due.”) O’Reilly, on the other hand, took the perception as fact. A “brave new progressive world is a possibility. That's what happened in Canada.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140742,00.html
Beyond the attempts of various conservative pundits to paint Canada as the second coming of France there has been genuine worry. The Liberals promise to legalize gay marriage in the wake of the June 12 2003 court decision certainty had Justice Scalia’, as the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg noted, beside himself with rage and worry. “This ghastly prospect was evidently on Scalia’s mind as he composed his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas. If sodomy laws are unsustainable, he warned, then so are ‘laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation’—masturbation? is that one still on the books?—‘adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity.’ Doom looms, it would appear. According to Scalia, ‘The Court has taken sides in the culture war,’ and the next step, logically, must be ‘judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada.’” http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707ta_talk_hertzberg (James Dobson of focus on the family was concerned about Canada as far back as 2001. According to former president of focus on the family in Canada, and current Conservative candidate for Richmond BC, Darrel Reid, “Dr. Dobson has said that he fears the United States could follow Canada’s lead in social radicalism.” http://www.family.org/fofmag/pp/a0023975.cfm ).
The Liberals promise to decriminalize marijuana together with their backing of safe injection sites also poses a major ideological threat the US’s war on drugs. Hence, all the attention Drug Czar Walters has paid us for the last couple of years. In terms of drug policy, in Walters opinion Canada is "the one place in the hemisphere where things are going the wrong [way] rapidly."
In a private meeting with then mayor Philip Owen and future mayor Larry Campbell, Drug Czar Walters had threatened action if Vancouver went ahead with a plan for safe injection sites. Namely, Canadians could face major border slow downs. Owen described the meeting thus: “It was the most unsatisfactory meeting of my life.” “The pressure was intense. John Walters had about 30 officers with him, special agents. At the door there was a guy with the bulge of a gun under his clothes.” http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2004/10/26/VanDrugExpWinConverts/
Shortly after Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell road to power in the biggest landslide in Vancouver municipal history on platform centered on setting up safe injection sites. John Walters then took the matter public, telling a Vancouver board of trade audience, in what amounted to a thinly disguised threat not to take things too far; we were only making matters worse. Conservative Randy White backed Walters. According to White, forget harm prevention the safe injection project was “harm extension”. Never one to back down, Larry Campbell quipped that the notion that safe injection sites would make things worse was akin to saying “flies cause garbage”.
Walters has taken two tracks with regard to marijuana. He has claimed that Canada risks becoming as big a source for marijuana as Mexico. He says this knowing full well that Mexico supplies an estimated 100 times as much marijuana as Canada does. http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread14988.shtml His most recent track however is claim that not all Marijuana is created equal. According to Walters the number of teens seeking treatment for “marijuana dependency” in the US is skyrocketing and now exceeds the number of teens in treatment for all other drugs combined. "The enormous growth of very-high-potency marijuana coming from Canada” is behind the explosion he claims.
(0) comments
Listening to Stephen Harper you would think that Canada has never been less relevant to the United States. “We've just become increasingly irrelevant to a country [U.S.] that has a lot of priorities…” (CBC Newsworld, July 11, 2003). In reality the opposite holds true. Our trade with the US is at an all time high. Not only are they are biggest trading partner, but we are their biggest trading partner. All of this is pretty well known. What is less well known is just how much attention some of the Liberal Party’s more progressive policy proposals (i.e., decriminalization of marijuana and gay marriage) and the Liberals choice not to join the “coalition of the willing” have gathered in the US.
Now, admittedly some of the attention has been negative. Conservative pundits have directed a great deal of bile our way, but not anything Canadians have not already heard from would be Prime Minister Harper; in a letter to the National Post, entitled “Separation, Alberta-style: It is time to seek a new relationship with Canada”, Harper went far beyond anything Lucien Bouchard every put to pen by calling Canada “resentful”, “smug”, “second tier” and “second rate”. http://www.stephenharpersaid.ca/ However, whereas Harper only went so far as to threaten to set up “firewalls” around Alberta, some American pundits have gone further. Ann Coutlier has threatened to have us “crushed”, O’ Reilly has threatened us with nuclear winter and the Western Standard’s Goldberg http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_22_54/ai_94960947 has said we should be “bombed” and his colleague Matt Labash http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/349tpijp.asp?pg=1 has seconded him. Thankfully all are only arm chair dictators.
By far the most popular form of reproach, though, is, echoing Harper, to call us irrelevant. Tucker Carlson, for example, likened Canada without the US to Honduras “but colder and much less interesting”. http://mediamatters.org/items/200412010011 The problem with such a train of thought is that it involves them in a kind of performative contradiction. In repeatedly talking about us and calling us irrelevant they have helped entrench us as part of the public debate south of the border and so have made us increasing relevant.
The reaction of Blue America to various Liberal initiatives could not be more different.
The Democrats badly needed to update their legislative agenda when Clinton came to power. Clinton brought the party up to speed on the economic front, but after the cold war ended the whole locus of politics in the West switched from the economic sphere to the cultural one and Clinton and the Democrats were caught flat footed. In 8 years of Cultural war, Clinton gave his base next to nothing. He let the social cons set the agenda at every turn. Although, the affect of such a stand pat policy may not have been evident over the short term, over the long term the affects were devastating. “liberalism” if it is to mean anything at all to the average American must represent a vision for American society that weaves together a series of legislative proposals. What is more, this vision has to be updated to meet changing realities. Clinton’s whole approach to the cultural wars was defensive and defeatist.
The party got to the point where in 2002 its identity was based solely upon what it is not, viz., the Republican Party. In 2003, Dean pulled the party back from the dead by actually addressing the party base and their anger at Bush. He gave them hope, but the party still lacked a legislative agenda. Enter Canada: The Liberal announcement that Canada would be legalizing gay marriage and decriminalizing marijuana gave many Democrats a sense of what could eventually be accomplished. Slowly at first and then more quickly later, prominent newspapers and magazines started gushing over what Canada had proposed to do. Piggybacking in on the backs of marijuana decriminalization and gay marriage has been a sudden renewed interest in public health care. NY Times Paul Krugman has echoed the words of former Liberal big wig John Manly and has said that not only is the Canadian Health care system more humane than the American system, it also affords business many economic benefits that the American system does not. For companies, such as Ford, providing their employees with health care is one their biggest expenses. As Bill O’Reilly has said “The Canadian model is what progressive Americans are shooting for.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140742,00.html
the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707ta_talk_hertzberg
From the NY Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/magazine/06QUESTIONS.html?ex=1112072400&en=7aef39efeffd405d&ei=5070&ex=1061697600&en=5c469e9929ae55fa&ei=5070the
Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030721&s=klein
From the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p02s01-woam.html
From the San Jose Mercury News: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1051/a10.html
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030730sam0730p1.asp
From CanWest News Service: http://cpod.ubc.ca/analysis/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=421
From Macleans: http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/essay/article.jsp?content=20031013_67003_67003
Even as the Dean scream singled the victory of Victorian reason over passion in the Democratic body, the Democratic base never did loose their sense of wonder over the Liberals proposals regarding gay marriage and decriminalizing marijuana. As a result, literally hundreds of thousands looked into moving to Canada in the weeks following Bush’s reelection. http://slate.msn.com/id/2109300 Canada was made out a be a kind of secular promised land. Former Bush speech writer David Frum, of axis of evil fame, noted this phenomenon in April 19th 2005 NY Times editorial. (He also claimed in true conservative fashion that a Harper victory in the next federal election would be proof that Canada is at long last politically “mature”. “Unlike their supposed analogues, the Democrats in the United States or Great Britain's Labor Party, Canada's Liberals are not a party built around certain policies and principles. They are instead what political scientists call a brokerage party, similar to the old Italian Christian Democrats or India's Congress Party: a political entity without fixed principles or policies that exploits the power of the central state to bribe or bully incompatible constituencies to join together to share the spoils of government. As countries modernize, they tend to leave brokerage parties behind. Very belatedly, that moment of maturity may now be arriving in Canada. Americans may lose their illusions about my native country; Canadians will gain true multiparty democracy and accountability in government. It's an exchange that is long past due.”) O’Reilly, on the other hand, took the perception as fact. A “brave new progressive world is a possibility. That's what happened in Canada.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140742,00.html
Beyond the attempts of various conservative pundits to paint Canada as the second coming of France there has been genuine worry. The Liberals promise to legalize gay marriage in the wake of the June 12 2003 court decision certainty had Justice Scalia’, as the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg noted, beside himself with rage and worry. “This ghastly prospect was evidently on Scalia’s mind as he composed his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas. If sodomy laws are unsustainable, he warned, then so are ‘laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation’—masturbation? is that one still on the books?—‘adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity.’ Doom looms, it would appear. According to Scalia, ‘The Court has taken sides in the culture war,’ and the next step, logically, must be ‘judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada.’” http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707ta_talk_hertzberg (James Dobson of focus on the family was concerned about Canada as far back as 2001. According to former president of focus on the family in Canada, and current Conservative candidate for Richmond BC, Darrel Reid, “Dr. Dobson has said that he fears the United States could follow Canada’s lead in social radicalism.” http://www.family.org/fofmag/pp/a0023975.cfm ).
The Liberals promise to decriminalize marijuana together with their backing of safe injection sites also poses a major ideological threat the US’s war on drugs. Hence, all the attention Drug Czar Walters has paid us for the last couple of years. In terms of drug policy, in Walters opinion Canada is "the one place in the hemisphere where things are going the wrong [way] rapidly."
In a private meeting with then mayor Philip Owen and future mayor Larry Campbell, Drug Czar Walters had threatened action if Vancouver went ahead with a plan for safe injection sites. Namely, Canadians could face major border slow downs. Owen described the meeting thus: “It was the most unsatisfactory meeting of my life.” “The pressure was intense. John Walters had about 30 officers with him, special agents. At the door there was a guy with the bulge of a gun under his clothes.” http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2004/10/26/VanDrugExpWinConverts/
Shortly after Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell road to power in the biggest landslide in Vancouver municipal history on platform centered on setting up safe injection sites. John Walters then took the matter public, telling a Vancouver board of trade audience, in what amounted to a thinly disguised threat not to take things too far; we were only making matters worse. Conservative Randy White backed Walters. According to White, forget harm prevention the safe injection project was “harm extension”. Never one to back down, Larry Campbell quipped that the notion that safe injection sites would make things worse was akin to saying “flies cause garbage”.
Walters has taken two tracks with regard to marijuana. He has claimed that Canada risks becoming as big a source for marijuana as Mexico. He says this knowing full well that Mexico supplies an estimated 100 times as much marijuana as Canada does. http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread14988.shtml His most recent track however is claim that not all Marijuana is created equal. According to Walters the number of teens seeking treatment for “marijuana dependency” in the US is skyrocketing and now exceeds the number of teens in treatment for all other drugs combined. "The enormous growth of very-high-potency marijuana coming from Canada” is behind the explosion he claims.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
North Vancouver Conservative Candidate Cindy Silver and her PR man at the North Shore News
Doug Collins, may he burn in hell, once wrote for the North Shore News. Ted White was once the MP for North Vancouver. The two were friendly. During the 1990s whenever a federal election rolled around, people from outside the North Shore would smirk and say “Ted White will win again; North Vancouver is Doug Collins country”.
Collins, you may recall, liked to smooth over the fact that Ted White once ran for Western Canadian Concept Party and at the time when White was with them the party referred to people from the third world as "degenerates". He would say that White was never seriously involved with the party and he would echo White's line that White was always frank about what relationship he had with them. In actual fact, White never mentioned having had any connection with party on any of his campaign literature and when he went into Federal politics he felt the need to change his name for Edward White to Ted White.
Of course, Collins had troubles of his own. He was dragged before a human rights commission for penning a review of Schindler’s List entitled “Hollywood Propaganda”. Having first admitted that he had not seen the film, Collins referred to Schindler’s List as "Swindler's List" and said of the film that it was an example of "hate literature in the form of [a] film…." According to Collins, the holocaust, and he put the word in quotation marks, is “not only the longest lasting but also the most effective propaganda exercise ever.” To buttress this claim and to shield himself against calls of bigotry, Collins said this: “Only one critic has described Spielberg's effort as three hours of propaganda. He was with the Jewish-owned New York Times. Good for him. And them. The exception that proves the rule.” White testified on Collins behalf and in 2001, a few months after Collins had died, White claimed that Manning’s reluctance to accept that Collins nomination as the Reform candidate for West Vancouver, when the party was but a few years old, was proof that steps needed to be taken to ensure that riding associations would be free to nominate who they pleased. http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/politics_reform/white.html
People from outside the North Shore can snear at us no longer. Collins is dead, White was defeated and the North Shore News is not quite the bastion of backwardness that it once was.
The worst the North Shore News can dish out these days is Trevor Lautens and Lautens is a far cry from Doug Collins. Lautens current cause de jour is transforming Cindy Silver from Christian fundamentalist dedicated to saving marriage from Adam and Steve to socially moderate pluralist, dare I say, liberal. He seems to want to be to Cindy Silver what Doug Collins was for Ted White. His efforts have not gone unappreciated; Silver at one time linked to the following article on her website. http://www.nsnews.com/issues05/w013005/021205/opinion/021205op2.html In his most recent column, Lautens has enlisted the help of someone he has long "admired", Stockwell Day man Ezra Levant. http://www.nsnews.com/issues05/w060605/062305/opinion/062305op2.html
If Levant’s name sounds familiar this is why: In response to the Young Liberals take on gay marriage, “it’s the charter stupid” Ezra Levant, knowing how well Randy White’s interview went over last year, fired back “its the stupid charter”. Martin has since offered Levant a cabinet post.
Silver is a lawyer, and according to Lautens and Silver, this means that she sometimes takes on unpleasant jobs; however such is the nature of beast; some lawyers must take unpleasant work to make the system work; our legal system is an adverseral one and we are all better for it. So, she is a defense lawyer you ask. No. Pick your poison; Cindy Silver is either a crusader in every sense of the word, or a hired gun in the employ of those wishing to break down the wall between state and religion. When a child in Surrey was in danger of hearing that it is ok to have two moms “if they’re nice to you and if you like them”, Cindy did her best to see that the book was banned from the classroom. The same went for One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads. Yes the book is as innocuous as its title suggests. When the UN advocated the use of “artificial methods of contraception” and “gender equality and homosexual rights”, Cindy was there to speak out against them. http://www.fotf.ca/familyfacts/commentaries/070197.html When Adam and Steve wanted to get married, thereby imperiling marriage in some weird and unexplained way, Silver was there to “defend” it.
So, you say. Sliver is but one candidate and if she was elected her affect would be negated by the others in her party that do not share her views. Harper has moved the party to the middle. Alas, you are forgetting the Republican elephant in the Conservative living room and the fact that only 8 out of 98 Conservative MPs have ever disappointed Life Site and that most transgressions occurred when 6 were members of the PC party. http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/fedvotes/mpvotingbyprovince.htm In a paper, entitled Rediscovering the Right Agenda, in which he dismissed Red Tories as not being true conservatives, Harper advocated that Conservatives embrace the moral majority.
For those who believe that he abandoned such a platform back in March, check out the way he ended his speech to convention faithful. “Thank you. God Bless Canada.” Indeed, Harper is so enthralled with the Republican example that he seems to have forgotten who it is the PM answers to. This spring Harper informed Paul Martin that he had been “summoned” to Crawford for a meeting.
Pace Lautens, this is what Jeffery Simpson of the Globe and Mail got wrong. He made Silver look like the exception rather than the rule. Silver is not the type of candidate that keeps Harper up at night; she is the type of candidate he wants. Harper believes, wrongly in my mind, that by emphasizing social issues he can split the electorate in two and to paraphrase Pat Buchanan the Conservative half will be the bigger of the two. Say what you will about Silver, one thing is sure. She is just the type of candidate Rove would employ to get the Conservative Party’s social Conservative base out to the polls. Her one week nomination run proves it.
As for Lautens, just in case someone should get the impression that he is just playing devil's advocate, he has spoken on one of Silver's favorite subjects, viz., the perils of gay marriage. "My view: men marrying men? Women marrying women? "Bisexuals" working both sides of the street? Stupid or worse." http://stgeorgeslowville.org/NorthShoreNews.htm Funny, "stupid or worse" is probably the exact words an ethics professor would use to describe Lautens views on the subject.
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Doug Collins, may he burn in hell, once wrote for the North Shore News. Ted White was once the MP for North Vancouver. The two were friendly. During the 1990s whenever a federal election rolled around, people from outside the North Shore would smirk and say “Ted White will win again; North Vancouver is Doug Collins country”.
Collins, you may recall, liked to smooth over the fact that Ted White once ran for Western Canadian Concept Party and at the time when White was with them the party referred to people from the third world as "degenerates". He would say that White was never seriously involved with the party and he would echo White's line that White was always frank about what relationship he had with them. In actual fact, White never mentioned having had any connection with party on any of his campaign literature and when he went into Federal politics he felt the need to change his name for Edward White to Ted White.
Of course, Collins had troubles of his own. He was dragged before a human rights commission for penning a review of Schindler’s List entitled “Hollywood Propaganda”. Having first admitted that he had not seen the film, Collins referred to Schindler’s List as "Swindler's List" and said of the film that it was an example of "hate literature in the form of [a] film…." According to Collins, the holocaust, and he put the word in quotation marks, is “not only the longest lasting but also the most effective propaganda exercise ever.” To buttress this claim and to shield himself against calls of bigotry, Collins said this: “Only one critic has described Spielberg's effort as three hours of propaganda. He was with the Jewish-owned New York Times. Good for him. And them. The exception that proves the rule.” White testified on Collins behalf and in 2001, a few months after Collins had died, White claimed that Manning’s reluctance to accept that Collins nomination as the Reform candidate for West Vancouver, when the party was but a few years old, was proof that steps needed to be taken to ensure that riding associations would be free to nominate who they pleased. http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/politics_reform/white.html
People from outside the North Shore can snear at us no longer. Collins is dead, White was defeated and the North Shore News is not quite the bastion of backwardness that it once was.
The worst the North Shore News can dish out these days is Trevor Lautens and Lautens is a far cry from Doug Collins. Lautens current cause de jour is transforming Cindy Silver from Christian fundamentalist dedicated to saving marriage from Adam and Steve to socially moderate pluralist, dare I say, liberal. He seems to want to be to Cindy Silver what Doug Collins was for Ted White. His efforts have not gone unappreciated; Silver at one time linked to the following article on her website. http://www.nsnews.com/issues05/w013005/021205/opinion/021205op2.html In his most recent column, Lautens has enlisted the help of someone he has long "admired", Stockwell Day man Ezra Levant. http://www.nsnews.com/issues05/w060605/062305/opinion/062305op2.html
If Levant’s name sounds familiar this is why: In response to the Young Liberals take on gay marriage, “it’s the charter stupid” Ezra Levant, knowing how well Randy White’s interview went over last year, fired back “its the stupid charter”. Martin has since offered Levant a cabinet post.
Silver is a lawyer, and according to Lautens and Silver, this means that she sometimes takes on unpleasant jobs; however such is the nature of beast; some lawyers must take unpleasant work to make the system work; our legal system is an adverseral one and we are all better for it. So, she is a defense lawyer you ask. No. Pick your poison; Cindy Silver is either a crusader in every sense of the word, or a hired gun in the employ of those wishing to break down the wall between state and religion. When a child in Surrey was in danger of hearing that it is ok to have two moms “if they’re nice to you and if you like them”, Cindy did her best to see that the book was banned from the classroom. The same went for One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads. Yes the book is as innocuous as its title suggests. When the UN advocated the use of “artificial methods of contraception” and “gender equality and homosexual rights”, Cindy was there to speak out against them. http://www.fotf.ca/familyfacts/commentaries/070197.html When Adam and Steve wanted to get married, thereby imperiling marriage in some weird and unexplained way, Silver was there to “defend” it.
So, you say. Sliver is but one candidate and if she was elected her affect would be negated by the others in her party that do not share her views. Harper has moved the party to the middle. Alas, you are forgetting the Republican elephant in the Conservative living room and the fact that only 8 out of 98 Conservative MPs have ever disappointed Life Site and that most transgressions occurred when 6 were members of the PC party. http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/fedvotes/mpvotingbyprovince.htm In a paper, entitled Rediscovering the Right Agenda, in which he dismissed Red Tories as not being true conservatives, Harper advocated that Conservatives embrace the moral majority.
rebalancing means there will be changes to the composition of
theconservative coalition. We may not have all the same people we have had inthe
past. The new liberal corporatist agenda will appeal to some in thebusiness
community. We may lose some old "conservatives," Red Tories likethe David
Orchards or the Joe Clarks.
This is not all bad. A more coherent coalition can take strong positionsit
wouldn't otherwise be able to take - as the Alliance alone was able to doduring
the Iraq war. More importantly, a new approach can draw in newpeople. Many
traditional Liberal voters, especially those from key ethnicand immigrant
communities, will be attracted to a party with strongtraditional views of values
and family. This is similar to the phenomenon ofthe "Reagan Democrats" in the
United States, who were so important in thedevelopment of that conservative
coalition. http://www.ccicinc.org/politicalaffairs/060103.html
For those who believe that he abandoned such a platform back in March, check out the way he ended his speech to convention faithful. “Thank you. God Bless Canada.” Indeed, Harper is so enthralled with the Republican example that he seems to have forgotten who it is the PM answers to. This spring Harper informed Paul Martin that he had been “summoned” to Crawford for a meeting.
Pace Lautens, this is what Jeffery Simpson of the Globe and Mail got wrong. He made Silver look like the exception rather than the rule. Silver is not the type of candidate that keeps Harper up at night; she is the type of candidate he wants. Harper believes, wrongly in my mind, that by emphasizing social issues he can split the electorate in two and to paraphrase Pat Buchanan the Conservative half will be the bigger of the two. Say what you will about Silver, one thing is sure. She is just the type of candidate Rove would employ to get the Conservative Party’s social Conservative base out to the polls. Her one week nomination run proves it.
As for Lautens, just in case someone should get the impression that he is just playing devil's advocate, he has spoken on one of Silver's favorite subjects, viz., the perils of gay marriage. "My view: men marrying men? Women marrying women? "Bisexuals" working both sides of the street? Stupid or worse." http://stgeorgeslowville.org/NorthShoreNews.htm Funny, "stupid or worse" is probably the exact words an ethics professor would use to describe Lautens views on the subject.
