mentalfloss

I think I might just bite the bullet and vote Liberal this time. Hudak is at least 10x the evil that McGuinty could ever be.

G8 legacy fund used to buy Clement’s re-election, NDP claims OTTAWA—The NDP is accusing federal Conservative cabinet minister Tony Clement of using a controversial, $50-million G8 legacy fund to buy re-election. Municipal documents obtained by the New Democrats show Clement met with local mayors and councillors in the midst of the 2008 election campaign. They discussed how to identify projects that could be eligible for the legacy funding. Twelve days after that meeting, a local news outlet reported that Clement had posted video endorsements from “local townspeople, mayors and council members” on his campaign website. “It gave him a major advantage over the other candidates,” New Democrat MP Charlie Angus said in an interview Thursday. “I think the question has to be asked: Was this a $50 million price of an election?” Clement, who had barely won his Parry Sound-Muskoka riding by a margin of only 28 votes in 2006, easily won re-election two years later with a whopping margin of almost 11,000 votes. However, a spokesperson for the minister said Clement — as the minister responsible for northern Ontario’s regional development agency at the time — had a duty to be involved in legacy fund deliberations, including during the election. “You will note that during the writ period ministers of the Crown retain their said duties and are required to continue to carry those duties out,” Heather Hume said in an email. Hume added the meeting was scheduled several months before the election was called. She noted that the legacy fund did not actually exist at that point and said no funding decisions were made by local officials at that meeting, or any other subsequent meetings. “The local committee was a non-decision making body. . . All decisions were made by the minister of infrastructure and his officials.” The fund was supposed to help support the G8 summit, held in Huntsville in June 2010, and to provide a legacy for the region. It was spent on 32 projects throughout the riding, including gazebos, public toilets and other municipal beautification initiatives that were often hours away from the summit site and never seen or used by summit leaders and their entourages. The auditor general has blasted the Harper government for keeping Parliament in the dark about the legacy fund. The money was taken from another fund that Parliament had approved for relieving congestion at border crossings. The auditor general has also criticized the government for shutting bureaucrats out of the process and for maintaining no paper trail to explain how or why the projects were selected. However, hundreds of pages of municipal documents obtained by the NDP through provincial freedom of information legislation, show that federal bureaucrats did in fact participate in local meetings about the legacy fund — including the one held during the 2008 campaign. The documents also show that municipal officials were told to direct all questions and send funding applications to Clement’s constituency office, not the government. “It’s a complete twisting of the role of government and distribution of funds to make it appear as if this was something that was being given out of the back of Tony’s car as his own personal gift to the riding,” Angus said. Former Liberal MP Marlene Jennings said the latest revelations strengthen her call for an RCMP investigation into the legacy fund. “They created a completely parallel (funding and project selection) system in order to hide what they did,” she said, and that suggests the government “knowingly and wilfully” broke the law. Jennings asked the Mounties in mid-April to investigate whether the irregular way in which the legacy fund was set up violated the Appropriations Act and the Financial Administration Act. She was interviewed by three Mounties in June and received notification from the force on Thursday that its “review of the matter is continuing.” Clement has dismissed the police review as a Liberal “PR stunt.” But Jennings said she’s heartened by the fact that the RCMP is still looking into the affair, four months after her initial complaint. “It means they’re not treating it like it’s a PR stunt,” she said. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1041629--g8-legacy-fund-used-to-buy-clement-s-re-election-ndp-claims

It’s either layoffs or major tax increases: Ford 0 Layoffs are looming for city workers, Toronto’s cost-cutting mayor warned Friday. Unless more staff starts volunteering to take buyouts, Mayor Rob Ford said his administration can’t avoid penning pink slips. Reluctant to take that hard road, “I don’t know if we have a choice,” he said on The Roundtable, with SUN News co-hosts Pat Bolland and Sue-Ann Levy, the Toronto Sun’s veteran city hall columnist. Blaming “the previous administration” driven by council left-wingers with a “culture” of milking taxpayers to finance special interest programs, Ford said he wants to work with city worker unions and avoid axing staff. “Right now it’s a mess we have to clean up,” he said. “I want to work with the unions, but if they hold us hostage ... like they did two years ago with the garbage strike, I’m not going to stand for that,” Ford said, warning: “Don’t put a gun to our heads because that’s not going to work.” Ford has vowed to trim $380 million in spending to reduce the 2012 budget gap of $774 million, “and if we don’t do anything, we’re looking at 30-to-35% tax increases,” he said. Taxpayers have repeatedly told him they want “a safe city,” which resulted in a contract settlement with Toronto Police that included a 2.8% wage hike retroactive to Jan. 1. The deal, reached in May, boosts officer and civilian salaries by a total of 11.5% over the next four years. Ford said workers such as grasscutters should not expect the same salary as a cop, Ford said. “It’s not the same job.” He said residents are also pressing for other essentials, including contracting out garbage pickup — which is predicted to save $6 million a year after District 2 west of Yonge St. goes that route — “fixing potholes” and plowing snow. An analysis of that program will be undertaken to determine the next phase, contracting out private trash pickup east of Yonge, Ford said. He later said the city is examining cuts in other areas, including “should we own theatres? Should we own the zoo?” http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/12/its-either-layoffs-or-major-tax-increases-ford Check out the video interview as well. 3 nutbars in one room.

It's becoming very clear now that both the Liberals and Conservatives have some pretty gaping logical holes in their platform promises.

Ontario election fight gets dirty online It may be all smiles for the cameras as Ontario political leaders fight their way toward the Oct. 6 election, but online the fight is nasty. On Wednesday, the NDP launched a new website to counter social media attacks and rumours they claim are being spread by other parties. The site, www.stopthesmears.ca, aims to dispel myths such as the NDP have a fleet of 20 orange SUVs on standby for the election and that leader Andrea Horwath is really the incarnation of Mike Harris. People are tired of whisper campaigns and negative ads, said NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale-High Park). She claims the NDP website will “tackle the smears” and get the facts out. Party leaders have vowed not to wage a dirty campaign before the Oct. 6 election. But in the social media universe, the election is running a different course. Fake people espousing partisan views have proliferated on Twitter, there are YouTube videos making fun of certain party leaders, and websites have been created by the political parties to try to make sense of it all. The Tories started www.truthabouttimhudak.com and within 24 hours they believe the Liberals, or their supporters, started up the parallel site www.thetruthabouttim.com. The later site does not advertise who created it but it notes Hudak would “cut $3 billion out of health care” and that he wants to scrap the Liberals’ Green Energy Act. However, the social media noise distracts journalists from the real news and it can confuse voters, said Greg Elmer, a Ryerson University media professor. At its worst, social media in campaigns is a “distraction factory” trying to divert attention from positive policy announcements coming from political opponents, said Elmer. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1037698--ontario-election-fight-gets-dirty-online

Turmel vs. Lebel: their sovereigntist ties How long were they members of a sovereigntist party? Turmel held a Bloc membership for just over four years, from December 2006 until January 2011. She became an NDP candidate shortly afterward. It's unclear when Turmel became a member of Quebec Solidaire, but it only formed as a provincial political party in November 2006. Turmel did not give up her membership in the provincial party until it became controversial last week. Lebel was a member of the Bloc for eight years, from July 1993 until April 2001. In the summer of 1993, the Bloc was fighting its first federal election campaign under leader Lucien Bouchard. (The party became the official Opposition that fall.) Lebel was still a Bloc member when he was elected mayor of Roberval in 2000. Why were they members of a sovereigntist party? Turmel says she took out a Bloc membership to "support a friend": then-BQ MP Carole Lavallée. She says she agrees with some of the Bloc's policies, but not its position on national unity. When Turmel served as the head of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the national federal civil servants' union endorsed Bloc Québécois candidates. Of Quebec Solidaire, Turmel told Rosemary Barton on Power & Politics that her support for the provincial party was based on the fact that "they work on issues for Quebec families." She says Quebec Solidaire spokesperson (the party does not have a leader in the traditional sense) Françoise David is also a friend of hers. Lebel explains his Bloc membership as part of his political and community involvement more generally in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-John region of Quebec, a nationalist stronghold. He told Radio-Canada that he wanted to get closer to then-MP Michel Gauthier, who became the leader of the Bloc after Lucien Bouchard left to become premier of Quebec in 1996. How active and committed were they to the sovereigntist cause? Turmel says that despite her memberships and the small donations (totalling $235) she made in support of her friend Lavallée, she was never active in the sovereignty movement per se. Her past work as a national union leader did find her on common ground with the Bloc on other social and justice issues. She maintains that she is and always has been a federalist. Turmel has disclosed that she voted against separation in both of Quebec's sovereignty referendums. Lebel says that despite his membership and small donations (a few hundred dollars), he never actively campaigned for the Bloc, although he did attend Bloc events and participated in partisan activities. A party organizer for the Bloc during that time period supports his claim not to have been a party activist or strong campaigner. Lebel told reporters in 2007 that he is a Quebec nationalist. Lebel has not disclosed how he voted in Quebec's sovereignty referendums. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/08/09/pol-lebel-bloc.html

I would be on board with the conservative budget if it actually saved us money. The problem is that there is no way they can make these cuts and we'll be in debt as a result. I just don't get how people are still dumb enough to keep falling for this same politrick of cutting taxes. It never works out.

Tories, Grits leave door open for NDP Hudak leads in the polls, though it's surprising how narrow the gap is--only about 6%, according to an Ipsos Reid poll--considering McGuinty's popularity is lower than that of his his party. The PCs will offer tax cuts, follow the Liberals' policy on health care and education and send criminals to rake leaves. Hudak has even offered to dock the Premier's $208,000 annual salary if he can't deliver tax relief (though he didn't say by how much). He'll remove the HST from home heating and hydro. He wants some broad tax cuts and he'll even take the debt retirement charge off home hydro bills, though since the debt is still there, funds will likely come out of provincial revenue. Regardless, he's the anti-taxman. He thinks it's his strength. He's banking on a taxpayer revolt at the polls, and he's pressing the point with his television advertisements, dubbing McGuinty "The Taxman." McGuinty's "sheer brilliance" at creating the health tax, and his "virtuoso move" at introducing the HST are the focus of the ads. This would be a good sell if Hudak wasn't keeping the health premium and most of the HST in place. That's right, the very things at the centre of Hudak's assault on the Liberals, he's going to keep largely intact. So McGuinty takes the political fall and Hudak keeps the bounty. That's the plan, anyway--one likely to be exposed as duplicitous during the campaign. NDP leader Andrea Horwath is offering help for lower-income earners with some new ideas--relief from ambulance fees, a freeze on municipal transit fares and removing the HST from heating and hydro. But to date, the party is riding on its promise to regulate gas prices at the pumps--though there is no guarantee motorists will save money in the long run. More is expected from the NDP during its pre-election convention this weekend. http://www.lfpress.com/comment/2011/06/23/18324526.html

The theory isn't flawed. It's that there's not enough bulletproofing in the existing system to make sure it works that way. There's no real gauge for true performance or reward for that performance. That's not a flaw, there's just no real metric for it. What I'm deeply worried about is that we have not diluted the power of corporations yet. Now that's a scary thing. Socialism isn't scary, unless you're one of those people who believe Nazis were evil because they were socialists.

Socialism.. it's so scary.. "..each worker in a socialist society receives wages and benefits according to the quantity and value of the labor that he or she contributed. This translates into workers of high productivity receiving more wages and benefits than workers of average productivity, and substantially more than workers of low productivity. An extension of this principle could also be made so that the more difficult one's job is—whether this difficulty is derived from greater training requirements, job intensity, safety hazards, etc.—the more one is rewarded for the labor contributed." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_each_according_to_his_contribution

This has always struck me as odd, as it's not the size of government that's the problem.. it's what that government does.

Because the Rock said so?

Please. Paper pushers (myself included) make more within the first 5 years of employment. Getting paid more to surf the forums 5 out of the 8 hours I'm here is pretty damn sweet. Reaching 40K after 35 years of dedicated employment is peanuts by comparison.

It was his attempt at being clever by committing to an equivocation fallacy.

OP is such hyperbole.

The Toronto G8 police weren't soldiers on the streets?

They lean a little to the left, so they're pretty rational about most things.

They came, they won, they gloated: Tories gather in Ottawa for party convention OTTAWA—Conservative Party members have descended on Ottawa for a three-day conference that began Thursday night with rounds of speeches poking fun at the opposition, the media and even the Senate page who interrupted the throne speech by striding onto the floor holding a sign demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper be stopped. Minutes into former minister Stockwell Day’s address to the roughly 2,000 people gathered at the Ottawa Convention Centre, his wife Valerie strode onto the stage holding a red stop sign with the words “We Love Harper.” The bit of political theatre showcased the party’s arrogantly victorious mood as it headed into a policy weekend just weeks after winning its coveted majority government, taking 166 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons. The campaign catchphrase “strong stable Conservative majority government” made its way into every single speech, as did jibes at the new Opposition New Democrats. Master of ceremonies Stephen Blaney, who is the veterans’ affairs minister, joked that he was one of the only Quebec MPs who didn’t need a map to find his riding — a poke at all the fresh-faced New Democrat MPs, one of whom had never been to the riding in which they were elected. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1006235--they-came-they-won-they-gloated-tories-gather-in-ottawa-for-party-convention

We spent $600 million on our G8/G20. The French spent $30 million on theirs. Comparatively, we spent the same on gazebos as they did on the entire summit.

More unions need to reward their members for campaigning against tories, lol

It's the build up to a different government in 4 years. But she makes some pretty compelling points. The conservatives were held in parliamentary contempt and they got off scott free while a small girl holds up a sign and is promptly escorted out of the building. That kind of double-standard isn't something that Canadians will stand for and we'll continue to see this youth movement push parliament in a much different direction by the next election.

Well then you're wrong. It's actually re-ignited a lot of political debate over the jets, foreign affairs, and the voting system. The twitters and bookfaces are going nuts over this and CBC is just piling it on.

Clearly it's a two-state solution with 1967 borders.

Not necessarily. It just means that there needs to be a constant awareness - a healthy skepticism of the government. She stated herself that the public needs to be creative in their protests. That doesn't mean they have to be violent.

Conrad Black giving moral advice, lol. He's definitely going to be invited to high tea with Trump now. Well at least now we know for sure that Israel is the one that needs to back down.