Statesman vs Don Quixote: which Harper would you pick?

Politics is the art of the possible, as Bismarck put it. We should therefore stop accusing each other of selling out, particularly regarding a potential deal with the NDP on the Budget. Reading the negative reactions to such a possibility, I get the impression many voters would rather our parties engage in Quixotic charges at windmills rather than work as our representatives.

This Conservative Government has three main duties: govern, be Conservative and survive. In a minority Parliament there's only so much envelope pushing we can do before said envelope bursts. I, for one, am glad principled and realistic politicians such as Harper and Layton have realised it. 

Gilles Duceppe, being my MP, has conversely let me down. Rather than figure out two billion was a lot to ask for, he more than doubled the stakes. In the end, my province's interests will be served not by those who claim to represent it best, but by those who do not indulge in delusions.

In today's Commons, we can only be as Conservative as the most realistic opposition will let us. By not clamouring for an election, the Prime Minister chooses statesmanship over mere politics. As Canadians of all political colours, we should be thankful for such a leader, and trust him with a majority next time he seeks our confidence.

Thanks for nothing, CRTC!

As an avid user of these so-called "interwebs", I behave as any normal consumer would - wanting more for less. When looking for a good broadband plan, I chose my provider - Teksavvy - because they offered as close to unlimited use as one could possibly get, at a knock-down price.

Despite it being very convenient for me, I couldn't help but feel the awkwardness of the situation. Bell customers, poor souls, slapped with an unforgiving cap and overcharged for the fun of it; meanwhile I could surf carefree,  with no cap through a provider who used Bell's network. This has, naturally, come to a crashing end with the recent CRTC ruling that gave Bell the right to charge its network users, including wholesale clients, based on usage rather than for mere bandwidth blocks.

Property be property, if you own the network you should have the right to charge for its use as you see fit. Yet forcing your competitors to charge the same as you do is lame policy. A lameness comparable to that of the standard excuse for such charges: "preserving capacity".

This argument reminds me of Senator Ted Stevens' "series of tubes" quote. Bell and Rogers' charges per gigabyte, both within and over caps, are stellar enough to send the marginal utility of every extra GB of  capacity through the roof. There's no excuse for not beefing up networks when there's demand. 

If large amounts of non-profitable data is the problem, the CRTC could - and should - have forced Bell to un-bundle its network capacity. A client's running of a business site, torrenting, video streaming, peer-to-peer exchange, browsing, internet radio or VoIP are significantly different classes of usage. Their intrinsic value to each and every consumer are vastly different.

Right now, Bell is forcing everyone to charge $X for "groceries", rather than $A for "apples", $B for "oranges" and $C for "meat". 

The CRTC could have done Canadians a service by forcing bandwidth providers to give consumers choice over what they want from their internet connection. Bell and Rogers could have cashed in on the new offerings, such as Netflix, by offering privileged or unlimited access by consumers to Netflix servers for streaming, maybe for a small extra fee. How hard can it be to set up a privileged VPN? 

"Dear user, do you like movies? For $5 a month, you can connect to NetFlix through our dedicated VPN network. Stream unlimited movies without worrying about your usage cap. Yours, Bell". 

So long to seeing that level of smartness.

After all, with usage is limited to 25 GB you'd gladly pay extra per movie to have that usage taken off your bill. If, as a movie fanatic, you couldn't care less about torrents and P2P, you would very well forfeit your right to use that kind of protocol for the privilege of unlimited streaming, or internet radio, or VoIP. 

Net neutrality tends to hurt suppliers, while blind proprietorship hurts consumers. When will someone get a bloody grip and use their brains for thinking?

The ruling by the CRTC is akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. You get a pulped walnut, a dent in your table and remain hungry.

Catch-22s in health care are unworthy of Canada.

A bleeding heart I am not, but this one takes the biscuit! Asking the penniless to pay up-front because the government is too slow in reimbursing you is the worst PR for your business and, in the end, a very expensive choice for the country.

Not all refugees spend $50k to be shipped to the country, and a big majority of them - I'd bet - are really genuine seekers of freedom from fear. We can debate the merits and demerits of affording those whose status is uncertain the privilege of a blank cheque. The proposal from the Quebec pharmacists' association binds those affected in a Catch-22 situation unworthy of a civilised country.

Currently, pharmacists give out drugs to refugee claimants and other penniless newcomer categories, then file for reimbursement with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The proposed policy shift would transfer the reimbursement onus on the consumer. 

If you're penniless, you will be able to afford squat. Until you get a 2 or 3-numbered SIN, forget about decent credit cards that would allow some form of deferral. When there's rent, bills and expenses to pay, one can hardly cough up for the necessary meds for a chronic condition, or an acute one for that matter.

How can this be beneficial for the country at large? Without medications, deteriorating conditions will clog up hospitals, emergency rooms and clinics. Instead of subsidising a smaller medication purchase, we'd end up paying out of our pocket for extra hospital, doctor, nurse and equipment time. You don't need an accountancy degree to figure out what's least expensive.

It's the usual crap. Governmental schemes are inefficient, so it's taken out on those who can't answer back. Rather than give bureaucrats and pen-men a nudge, the pharmacists take the easy way out. More shockingly for me, the most "agreed" comments on the CBC web site - usually reserved for those hearts bleeding most copiously - were attacking the very principle of the subsidy scheme. I've never seen such tightness regarding taxpayer money. Maybe the cause lies in many Canadians lacking comprehensive coverage too, ergo their health care nerve is very raw.

The Quebec Pharmacists' Association's concerns are legitimate: a private business has to have timely payments. It is however unfair to dump the consequences of public inefficiencies onto those who, according to treaties by the same critical and tight bleeding hearts to death defended, we have taken upon ourselves to protect and shelter.

Lost in reporting

Garbage in - garbage out. I might put up with media bias, particularly at the CBC and its online outlet (the "garbage in"), if it were not compounded by readers' asinine commentary and just as asinine "approval" ("garbage out"). While other lefties waste elbow grease befouling news items and congratulating their ilk on their vandalism of truth, I prefer putting my neurons in gear and discovering what, if any, the CBC does not want its readers to know.

In a story about StatsCan reporting a decrease in homicide rates, including gangland murders, the pet topic of objectivity-haters from sea to sea was missing. I am talking, of course, of the Long Gun Registry and its influence, if any, on firearm crime. Commenters brayed about the LGR being successful, or the government suppressing the data, or other drivel I won't waste bytes on.

The CBC literally copy-pasted the entire Statistics Canada report, excluding the sections on registered firearms and spousal homicide.

Read and weep. Of murder weapons recovered between 2005 and 2009, 7 out of 10 were unregistered. In the four-year period considered, only 253 guns were recovered and checked against the registry.

In 2009, out of 179 firearm homicides, 122 (68%) were committed using a handgun, 29 (16%) using a rifle and 14 (8%) using a saw-off (14 are, apparently, undefined).

Assuming the proportions remained the same year after year between 2005 and 2009, registered and recovered murder firearms were split as follows: 67% rifles, 22% handguns and 12% saw-offs.

Compare the proportion of handguns used in murders (68%) to the proportion of handguns recovered and identified as a registered murder weapon (22%).

Want to make the long gun registry effective? Stop pretending it to be a deterrent. Remember that between 2002 and 2008, including five years since the implementation of the LGR, gun crime went UP.

Focus on its potential as a crime-solving tool for those 3 murders out of 10. Make it a one-off fee, merge the database with the firearm license database already kept by the RCMP and for the love of God make it contain the sole truly useful bit of information: the gun's signature on the bullet.

Let's rejoice that murders are down in Canada. And, while we're at it, let's keep it at that.

Bernier: what teat? I see no federal money teat!

I don't judge the Prime Minister and Quebec City's MPs for promising to fund arenas. Advice, pork and constituents are a powerful driver of political action.

Well, thank God for Maxime Bernier, as he's shaking up the dusty back benches. He surely won't let a disgruntlement turn into a toppling rebellion. Yet Bernier's outspoken criticism and natural charisma should stop this senseless waste of money.

Bernier has been speculated about as a candidate for the leadership of the Tory party, even as I wrote this. On the surface, he has a majority all but served to him on a silver platter. A francophone Quebecer, eloquent, libertarian. 

He's also smart enough not to force a leadership election. If the PM listens, points will be scored by the party. One: we'll still be the party that elects fiscally responsible MPs. Second: we'll show we're not a one-man-show, as alleged by many opponents. Third: a backbench grumble will be a great excuse for the PM to reiterate how his government is accountable to Parliament and how the Cabinet is always there, listening.

This could still be spun well!

If my tax dollars built it, shouldn't I get in for free?

I wonder what advice the PM received before embarking on what promises to be a foray of federal spending on sports facilities.

The original idea of luring back an elite team to Quebec City with a shiny new venue is admirable. After all, two Quebec teams in the NHL are better than one. The yawning deficit should, however, deter any politician from spending more than what's strictly necessary to keep the country afloat.

This is hardly a vote-grabbing initiative: Quebec City is one of our most reliable electoral areas in QC, and the "gratitude" vote in the province is fickle. Those who doubt my analysis need only remember how the "Quebec nation" shtick was wiped out by a tiny cut in elitist artists' subsidised holiday budgets. Harper doesn't seem to be attempting to indulge Quebec nationalists either: he'd choose a much better chance at winning big in QC at the price of disgruntling his AB base.

Probably QC hasn't anything to do with the decision. Lavishing money on activities popular with the masses is likely to endear the PM and the Party to quite a few voters. This might be the reason why, following the announcement of Quebec City's cash shower, promises of similar largesse in other parts of Canada began rolling in.

I can see this working to everyone's advantage, provided the small print is well negotiated. Throwing cash at an arena is useless. Making the subsidy into a revenue-sharing agreement could, instead, placate both interventionists and fiscal hawks. On one hand, the Government finances what Canadians like. On the other, it expects a return.

I won't get started on the grants system. I'll simply advocate that, in times of economic uncertainty, the Government prove it isn't giving someone a free ride.

If French is endangered, why are BC'ers queuing up for it?

How will doom-monging Francomaniacs explain this? Vancouver french immersion can't take all applicants, and more are piling in. For a province on the other end of the country, BC is quite keen on the language Duceppe, Marois and company call endangered.

The CBC report is a pleasant read. It shows many parents being much more pragmatic than certain brave-new-world-ists. Those are the cretins who'd have you believe their pathological guilt-induced mania of English, and the West, being on their way out. Chased out by Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, et cetera.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the Van parents know it. Rather than heeding the asinine suggestion of Mandarin immersion ventilated in the comments section (always an entertaining read, if you want to gauge the extent of human ignorance that is), one is well advised to know that it's unilingual Chinese who are on their way out. In the meantime, many jobs in Canada will pay you better if (or not hire you unless) you speak French.

French has traction throughout Canada because mindful parents (and just-as-mindful students) know it's still the language that unlocks doors, or opens them wider throughout the country. It has lost momentum almost everywhere else, in no small part due to the very same people who purport to protect it.

English has the soft power of business and education, Italian entices through the arts, Arabic through oil and geopolitical events, Spanish and Portuguese through Latin American development. What is the selling point of French?

It used to be the language of the European aristocracy. It has to share its space with others in the EU bureaucracy. An uncompetitive job market at home and lack of coordinated development abroad are reducing French to just above niche language. 

It needn't be so. French-speaking nations need to find a common selling point for their language and coordinate efforts to entice learners. If sustainable development and the African renaissance spoke French, the next generation of businessmen and civil servants the world over would be blabbering in it non-stop. The continent is, on the other hand, being penetrated by English and Chinese.

I like being able to speak French. Despite this, I hate seeing others have the language rammed down their throats. A hated language is worse than a dead one, and the efforts by some in France and Quebec to impose their vernacular are nothing but a recipe for disaster.

I have no magic solution to French woes. I merely see it losing ground because some are too busy duct-taping what's solid and ignoring the rest of the house crumbling.

Long form, long gun: it's a battle for efficiency

The long form census "controversy" is nothing more than laziness, inefficiency and free-riding trying to murk the waters of the debate. Why, pray say, should anyone feel threatened with jail time or fines for not telling the Government what name one calls God by?

There is no reason for the federal government to extract that information from citizens under duress, particularly when we give both federal and local entities so much information they could already clone our lives.

Revenue Canada knows exactly how many people live in your household, how much you earn, where your kids study, if you use public transport, if you live in a nice house, et cetera. The provincial automobile authorities could report you to Jeremy Clarkson for driving a Prius, hogging the road with a trailer or not going fast in a supercar.

The truth is, all the information we give to local and federal bureaucrats is probably stored in some filing system, for no other department to peruse. This makes for tons of duplicate queries, and the inefficiency of the service machine is passed on, as a time cost, to the hapless taxpayer.

If you want to know, you will find a way of obtaining the knowledge. Many local organisations keep their own records much better than the central government, and Montreal is a good example. Economic and population statistics should be fished from Revenue Canada because no-one escapes them. Other data that is necessary for smooth local governance and the provision of local services can be just as easily collected by the relevant local entity. Be it a hospital, a clinic, a school, or whatever.

What's required is a standardised way of storing the data, i.e. homogenising the record-keeping software across the country. Why hasn't this been done? The answer escapes me. Just like the reason why the government hasn't placed more emphasis on the efficiency argument rather than just the abolition of census compulsion.

While we talk about redundant data, how about the Long Gun Registry? It's rubbish, and the police's excuses for keeping it are just as rubbish. 

No sane person would sign their name at the scene of a violent crime, and finding a stolen registered gun at a scene would simply lead the investigators back to the original owner. Well, big deal. Furthermore, the registry will never tell the officers whether or not there can CERTAINLY be no gun in the house they're called to. Wasn't caution an essential part of the job, rather than trusting a screen?

The registry, as it is now, duplicates the records of firearm licenses kept by the RCMP. If a register of owners and guns is necessary, let the weapon be registered at purchase and associated to a license.  The resulting database can then be queried at will by the RCMP. Problem solved and no need for a periodic tax on honest weapon owners, who are made to pay for the cost smugglers and gangsters impose on this country.

The current Government isn't just tinkering with silly provisions. It is on a drive to increase the efficiency of the way Canada deals with the data it is given. If only they spun this a little better.

Is it such a revolutionary concept?

Minimize expenses and maximize returns, also known as don't let debt eat your earnings. I was raised in a debt-averse family and society, where saving and parsimony weren't dirty words or concepts that made one "uncool". The whole concept of the credit crisis hits me as something both rational and yet astonishingly idiotic.

So reading the common sense in the National Post fills me with admiration for a newspaper that aims to educate the masses about the mathematics of personal finance. The bitter aftertaste comes when I realize there's a need for such an article, hence its printing.

My comprehension of the money world stops at the surface, for want of a financial education. My wallet, nevertheless, compels me to look at interest rates, taxes and opportunities to make sure my money doesn't burn on the inflation bonfire. If I can do a simple compound interest calculation, how hard can it be to know  you're flogging a dead horse? 

Taking control of your finances rarely goes beyond having a basic knowledge of Excel and where your money is. Do it!

Johnston as Governor-General

A strong candidate for the job and a welcome diversion from the quirks of the Jean-Lafond couple, despite Her Excellency's wise tenure.

A law-educated federalist with a good financial focus, he is our best insurance against the nationalising and over-regulating left should the Opposition resurrect a Coalition and oust the Tories.

As an official figure, he would be almost unable to influence the political debate. But in the private meetings with both PM's and Leaders of the Opposition he would be a fountain of knowledge.

Considering the latest business-bashing frenzies across the border and across the pond, Johnston is the right GG for the times. He's an all-out Canadian, and that is good.

It's taxpayer money, for God's sake!

Suddenly the Canadian Parliament votes against letting someone check their expense accounts. And the old adage that we don't learn from other people's mistakes is again proven true.

Did no-one see what happened in Britain? The cover-up magnifies the rage.

Why are they stonewalling? What do they not want the Auditor General to see? 

I really encourage all MPs who know their conscience is clean to publish their own, unredacted expense files for their constituents to see. If the shit hits the fan, it will spatter over everyone. Saints and sinners alike.

That's a cheap swipe, Ann!

Ann Coulter jabs at Canada and expects a positive human rights tribunal process. Ack! I still like her, but I am hurt. Does that mean I am whipped?

Don't judge a country by a bunch of lefties and their sidekicks. In particular please refrain from insulting the country that is kindly hosting you and allowing you to earn quite a bit in speaking fees.

I know you're a feisty and unrestrained one, yet not proving the general consensus of you being batshit crazy might help your cause a little.

Just a thought.

Number-crunching the Throne Speech

Apparently the Throne Speech is 6000 words long and will take a whopping hour and a half to deliver. Let's crunch some numbers.

Assume the standard policy announcement goes as follows: "This government is committed to job creation in Canada following the most severe crisis in decades. Corporation tax will be reduced to incentivise hiring and investment". Twenty-six words. Political BS brings it up to, say, 35. We further assume 15% on either end of the speech is introduction, self-congratulation, ordinary administration, grandstanding and general bells and whistles.

I therefore expect 150 policy initiatives or changes to be announced. It'd better be close: this extended vacation has to yield impressive results or we will fail Canadians who actually trusted the Government to get cracking.

This Throne Speech and budget might be the swan song of this Parliament, while the Liberals play all-in to reverse the Senate majority. We are about to hear our campaign spiel and our to-do list for the next legislative session. There will be no more stalling in Senate committees and Canadians will want an ambitious and sufficiently Tory agenda.

How else can the base be energized to drum up support for a Tory majority? I am sure the PM knows what's at stake, which is why I expect nothing but a political masterpiece.

Prime Minister, playtime is over!

All Tories may be raising their glasses to the new Senate majority, but the celebrations will be cut short. Parliament will resume following a tremendously unpopular prorogation with a House of Commons afflicted by rampant partisanship and overflowing with egos. On his part Harper has lost the last excuse for legislation not being passed. Try negotiating Cape Horn on a wooden log through gales, icebergs and rain with nothing but a tiny oar and you might get a picture of the task before the Conservative government in the next session.

This Government has steered the economy through a recession, made Canada's opinion relevant again and made inroads into traditional Liberal policy strongholds. Yet the Conservative party has failed to clinch the deal with the electorate, otherwise how can one explain them being neck and neck with the Grits? I bet many Tory supporters will be asking themselves the very same question.

I am no politico, but I can spot unsuccessful tactics. The government made the serious mistake of relying on the "thank you" vote on many issues in 2008, such as the "Quebec nation" declaration. It doesn't work. What's given is given and the public wants more for their lent vote. The defence of doing what other parties have done extensively is wearing thin: if you're different you have to show it.

Michael Ignatieff would be right to smell blood: four years of good government and no guaranteed majority in sight are a sign of wariness. He also has one last chance to reverse the new Senate majority: conservative Senator Wilbert Keon retires in May. An early March dissolution would lead to an April election. By May a new government could be installed and appointing the new Senator. This Government is vulnerable.

So far it has been smooth-ish sailing for Harper. Weak Liberal leadership and a warming Canadian public opinion buoyed him to government twice. On March 3rd the big game begins: he has run out of excuses. Petty legislative shots at the opposition will no longer be tolerated in the Commons and outside. The Tory communications apparatus will have to clean up their act and get cracking with strong and effective messages. If Parliament turns out to be uncooperative Harper will have no option but to seek an election in early June, too close to the start of the new prorogued session to be kosher.

Harper is expected to deliver a visionary Throne Speech, a good Budget, tough crime legislation and Senate reform bills. Each will irk the Liberals and is loaded with perils if not spun properly (arts travel grant controversy docet), while the electorate still needs convincing. If you thought we were at the peak you'd better clench your buttocks and hold on to your harnesses: we could be in for a ride. Playtime is over.

The US are still the ones doing something about terrorism

Four Canadian Tamil Tiger supporters tried to bite off more than they could chew, and got what they deserved. Two have already pleaded guilty, the remaining two were slammed up for 25 years today. They tried to buy missiles in the US to send over to Sri Lanka, yet their contact in the US turned out to be an FBI agent. Schadenfreude chuckles are in order: owned!

Never mind their passports, these scum should rot in a US jail for the entirety of their term, and Canada will do better not to plead on their behalf. We've got enough of their ilk already.

Complain as one may, the USA is still immune from the bleeding-heart ideologies that have spread in places such as Britain and, to a lesser extent, Canada. Terrorist supporters are still jailed and the sentences are stiff. They should be grateful they weren't senteced to death.

The Liberals are missing the point

I am astonished at the bronze face the Liberals hold when proposing the anti-prorogation measure. Their leader-in-waiting Bob Rae is the prorogation guru (as brought out by many bloggers and the CBC itself), and they are the same party who, while advocating democracy and people power last year were ready to get in bed with a separatist party. What a bunch of pillocks!

Prorogation should be a tool that allows the Government to announce a massive new legislative drive needing immediate attention. The current prorogation is way too long, despite there being reasons for having such a long break. I would limit the prorogation term to 14 days, enough for the Government to draft a new Throne Speech and have the urgent bills ready for introduction. In the meantime Committees should be given the possibility to finish up their business, or at least put their current work in writing so they can come back to it. No, business should not be wiped completely clean, it's a waste of work. The scope of prorogation should be softened and made to resemble the normal evolution from one session to the next. Parliamentary business preceding prorogation must remain on the agenda, albeit on the back burner.

Additionally, for Chrissakes, allow Committees to be reset without resorting to a prorogation.

Yet the Liberal proposal stinks to high heaven. Having the House vote on a prorogation is a rubbish concept: a majority government would have an obvious outcome, a minority government would be held hostage by the opposition. 10 days notice? Fair enough, if we really have to. Allowing committees to continue working while prorogued? That's fine too.

Spare me the confidence rubbish though. Limit the prorogation time and vote down the government on the Throne Speech, if you have the guts to.

Thought so!

Drugs: still wrong

Drugs policy, what a bed of nails. Bill C-15 is stalled (thankfully), now the United Nations seems to argue for shifting drug policy foci from punishing users to more crackdowns on traffickers and more treatment. At the same time, Canada is revealed as a meth warehouse.

Let's state the obvious: you own your body and are free to destroy it as you please. The notion of being slapped on the wrist if you break the law should be just as obvious to proponents of the former, for you can't have one without the other.

Drugs exist and circulate as long as there is a route from producer to consumer, and are susceptible to demand and supply dynamics as any other exchangeable good. Efforts so far have focused on combating trafficking, which should cut supply and drive up prices. In Britain (at least), this resulted in greater cocaine "cutting" instead, with the country still being the cokehead of Europe.

Penalties for trafficking should reach into the highest locally imposable punishments, and I for one applaud the harshness of Colombian, Laotian and Cambodian (among others) justice systems. The Colombian one-year-per-gram is definitely a fantastic deterrent, if only its applications were given more publicity. Consumption, on the other hand, has always been a point of contention.

Boiling the issue down to the transaction itself, buying property obtained through illegal means is illegal in most jurisdictions. Penalties vary, but it lands you with a record. Possession and use of illicit drugs should be, therefore, punishable under that clause. It can be as light as a 1 dollar on-the-spot fine, but unless there is a clear distinction between right and wrong hardly any drug policy will work.

While we may treasure the freedom of taking drugs, we can't dispense with the entire body of law that regulates commerce and exchange. It is wrong to transact with an individual who forwards the proceeds to law-breakers and is not compliant with consumption tax law. On this basis alone the user is eligible for a penalty. I for one believe the offence should be an infraction rather than an indictable crime.

Unless we legalize, regulate and tax the production, import, distribution and safety of illicit substances (a policy I lean toward), possession of them remains abetting a violation of the law. Possession and confirmed use should land you with a fine (however light) and a record expungeable only by reporting to a treatment centre. The most ironic way would be to correlate the fine to local GST and PST, so the State would solely take its due from the transaction.

If I can't buy a stolen bike I won't argue for your right to get high on something that took a dozen broken laws to get in your pocket. But for God's sake don't go with much-trumpeted Bills after the rebel Che-Guevara-shirt-wearing capitalism-bashing daddy's kiddo who keeps a pot plant to delight in the knowledge of giving a finger to Big Brother. That's just potty!

Conservative attack ads review

So the Conservative Party has unleashed the campaigning machine on Michael Ignatieff, who is supposed to be the Liberal Party's messiah. The attack ads in English and French (which can be viewed here) are aimed mostly at his absence from Canada, his unflattering quotes about Canada and Quebec and his lack of policy on the economy.

I think Ignatieff's previous disdainful writings should come back and bite him, as what goes around comes around. Some of the ads definitely rock, but I'd like to offer some constructive criticism. I take the "What makes us Canadian" ad as the gold standard, because it is great!

Exhibit A: Country (EN). Efficient in portraying flipping loyalties, though as an immigrant myself I think it is good practice to be loyal to the country that hosts you. Should have focused more on the quotes about how Quebec is no different from Minnesota except for signage, or how of Canada he only missed Algonquin park.

Exhibit B: Arrogance (EN). The Algonquin quote is out of context here, being cosmopolitan isn't a sin and sometimes people can be derogatory to themselves for fun. Ignatieff is elitist, and that would have worked much better.

Exhibit C: Economy (EN). Good attack ad, but the "invisible man" quote should have been voiced and prominent. The French version is absolutely fantastic: no policy and lots of taxes, clear and snippy.

Exhibit D: Hypocrisy (EN) (FR). Just! Plain! Useless! An attack ad against attack ads, and the French version is mute. Give me a break! At least three other Tories are incensed: Raphael Alexander, Hugh MacIntyre and Gerry Nicholls, while Darryl Wolk is of the contrary opinion.

Exhibit E: Quad (FR). An attack ad on Ignatieff's policy and sayings on Quebec. You know what? It's a good one!

Exhibit F: Photo (FR). Rubbish. One good jab and three random swing-and-amiss that do more damage than good. Leaving Canada for 34 years is no sin per se, attachment to the country where you live is expected by Conservatives of new immigrants, while ridiculing someone for speaking Parisian instead of Quebec French paints you both as a redneck and an anathema to Acadians. Attack ad FAIL.

All in all a fairly average array of attack multimedia. Some of it "ouch", however I expect more. The "What makes us Canadian" ad is fantastic because it appeals to Canadians' pride in their history and country, shattering that with Ignatieff's name. We need to tap into this pride and this joy of being Canadian, and that's the kind of message that will take us to a majority government.

Who needs the Olympic Committee's blessing?

First the EU bans seal products, then the House of Commons proposes that seal pelts be incorporated into the Canadian Olympic uniform. Today we hear from the head of the Canadian Olympic Committee that the uniforms aren't changing and the event won't be used for any political purpose. What's more, we saw even more reasons to have an elected Senate and throw out the encroached Liberals:

According to the Parliament's record, South Shore-St. Margaret MP Gerald Keddy charged that Liberal Senator Mac Harb even wrote a letter to all members of the European Parliament to vote against the Canadian seal hunting industry. Keddy said Harb called Canadians barbaric because of their support for the seal hunt and advised Canada against pursuing international action at the World Trade Organization.

I have a solution. We needn't use the official Olympic event when we have all of Vancouver vying for business. Let's have a massive multi-culturalist-ultra-PC celebration of everything Inuit (as I assume seal products and meat are a constituent part of their heritage). Fashion showcases by Inuit designers, Inuit crafts including sealskin boots and coats, street selling of yummy seal-based food out of giant smoking cauldrons, Newfoundlanders selling seal-hunting tours (strictly shooting only). What a party!

Got seal?

I endorse the principle of seal hunting. The means can and should be improved, but banning the product in the EU will do no good to improve hunting methods. Actually, faced with decreasing revenue it will be more economically sound for hunters to cut even more corners.

The CBC reports some fears that are easily assuaged:

While it allows for the continued shipment of seal products through Europe, promotion of those same products would be prohibited. Sealing industry experts fear that would shut off access to the runways of Italy and France, countries that are highly influential in determining global fashion trends in the larger markets of Russia and China.

The beauty of free globalized trade is our ability to sell the skins elsewhere, like countries where tigers are hunted for their penis. In addition, the Italian and French fashion shops can open up showrooms and production lines in countries which can appreciate the amazing comfort, warmth and durability of sealskin products. As everything else coming out of Brussels lately it's a feeble, useless and embarrassing policy.

Long live globalization, free trade, capitalism and the WTO!

Update: Dr Roy reminds how pathetic the EU's excuses are.