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He did more than stand beside the Governor General. He stood where the Commander-in-Chief of our Military stands and he accepted the salutes of the military that are reserved for their Commander. That is what is shameful. How do you not accept a salute to you? Like if I were saluted by a solider, what do I do to unaccept his salute? You do NOT stand on the dais in front of our GG while the troops file by and salute her. Plus our military is NOT required to salute the PM as their Commander in Chief. That may be the case in the USA where the President is the Commander in Chief but in Canada the GG is the Commander in Chief, NOT the PM. Harpo is shamefully changing Canadian traditions where he can receive adulation and force our military to salute him.

He did more than stand beside the Governor General. He stood where the Commander-in-Chief of our Military stands and he accepted the salutes of the military that are reserved for their Commander. That is what is shameful.

Did anyone today catch our military guard giving Harpo a salute as he left his plane? Does he really think that he is president of Canada?????? I seen him on the dais standing slightly ahead and to the left of the Governor General. He looked like an impostor and it was shameful of him to presume that he is our Head of State and Head of our Military. Our Queen is our Head of State and our Governor General is our Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian military in the name of the Sovereign. Harpo speaks for the elected minority while our Governor General speaks for the whole country. Harpo is shameful.

Seems that there was a surplus of over $6 billion this past July and that has been disappearing. I suspect that those "higher transfers and program expenses" are all military related with buying new equipment, shipping more equipment to Afghanistan and increasing our forces in Afghanistan. The Liberals left the country with $13 billion and Harpo has already spent $9 billion of that.............. Not good.

I hope they pick Kennedy or Dion. Both have momentum whereas Iggnatif and Rae seem to have stalled. I don't think of Dion as a Quebecer and his English is getting pretty good. Plus both are brilliant politicians who have proven that they work for Canadians and Canada. Both are excellent speakers and one won't find their audience falling asleep as happens in Harper's speeches. Both are can-do politicians that will be great for the country and will repair our international image.

Hmmmmmmmmmm! Seems like the Conservatives are desperate for Bob Rae to win. They can attack him on his Ontario record whereas they haven't a chance against any of the other candidates for leader of the Liberal party. Rae is not going to win.

What happened to the gasoline tax that was going to cities for infrastructure under Paul Martin? Has Harpo kept it to try and keep his deficit from getting any bigger?

I knew this was coming but so soon??? These Tories haven't been in power a full budget year yet and they are in a deficit. And why have they allowed spending to increase above revenues? How come all conservatives are the same. Can't stop spending and balance the books. Just like Bush, Harper is pouring every cent he can into the military right now, which our military is the only international pride left to Canada after the Kyoto and China fiasco. Today the Alberta Tories found out they would have a few billions more than they figured so right away they call a news conference to announce more spending. Geez! Alberta is losing oil and it will not be replaced and the government is on a spending spree. Can't even wait for the new guy cause if it's Dinning he might save it since he is a Liberal with a Tory coat. I know that last year I saved almost $400 on my personal income taxes. This year I'll be lucky to save $36 with the Harpo's GST cut and his claw-back of the Liberal tax reduction on the lowest rate. Only those with the big bucks to buy cars and plasma tv's are saving with this GST fiasco. The majority don't notice that there has been a user tax cut. We need an election now. Can't wait for another of Harpo's budgets.

Indepth Softwood Lumber Dispute Reading through the history of this dispute it appears that Canada would have won this one, especially seeing as how Bush got sidelined last week to a lame-duck leader. If only Harpo hadn't bent over for Bush and gave him $1 billion Canadian lumber producers would have a better deal. In fact this deal is not final yet as it hasn't made it's way through the House and Senate yet. I liked the way Paul Martin thought......... move the lumber west to China.

Never bothered to read the info supplied with the link, eh?

[quote name=JOHN IBBITSON First, Mr. Harper is no Bush clone. There does not exist, in this country, a single hard-line conservative leading a major political party. Mr. Harper supports a publicly funded health-care system, a publicly funded postsecondary education system, a national welfare system, federal support for child care, and the rights of homosexuals to full civil unions with all of the benefits (though not the name) of marriage. Too funny. LOLOL Of course Harpo is no Bush clone, he's just a Bush shrub and can't find the large hard right base in Canada that exists in the USA which will elect someone like Bush. That's why Harpo supports anything, publicly funded health-care system, a publicly funded postsecondary education system, a national welfare system, federal support for child care, and the rights of homosexuals to full civil unions with all of the benefits (though not the name) of marriage, that will get him the votes he needs for a majority so that he can dismantle Canada and turn it into his warped version of his extreme views. Just because the media is not bringing up Harpo's conflicting views does not mean they have disappeared. Like voting against human rights legislation.

The only thing "new" about this announcement is that Harpo used MADD and the tragedy the Rider and LeBreton family suffered by losing a child to an impaired driver for another of his photo-ops. Plus Harpo previously canceled the funds that were training RCMP to recognize impaired drivers. OTTAWA, April 26, 2004 - The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler, supported by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Anne McLellan, today introduced legislative reforms as another step toward strengthening the enforcement of drug-impaired driving offences. "Drug-impaired driving is a serious problem, one that justifies changes to our laws to help us fight it," said Minister Cotler. "With the authority to demand physical tests and bodily fluid samples, police can better detect - and deter - driving while impaired by non-alcohol drugs. Ultimately, these amendments are about saving lives." Drug-impaired driving is already a Criminal Code offence that can result in severe penalties - the maximum penalty is life imprisonment when the offence causes the death of another person. The new legislation would amend the Criminal Code and give police the authority to demand: 1. Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST), where there is reasonable suspicion that a driver has a drug in the body. SFSTs are divided-attention tests that evaluate a subject's ability to multitask. They are administered at the roadside. 2. Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) evaluations where the officer reasonably believes a drug-impaired driving offence was committed. This includes a situation where the driver fails the SFST. These are administered at the police station. 3. A saliva, urine or blood sample, should the DRE officer identify that impairment is caused by a specific family of drugs. To enhance law enforcement capacity to address drug impairment in Canada and as part of Canada's renewed Drug Strategy, announced in May 2003, $910,000 in new funding over five years has been allocated toward DRE. With these funds, the office of a National DRE coordinator has been put in place to work with law enforcement across the country and develop an operational framework for DRE in Canada. There are currently 73 certified DRE-trained officers in Canada, and a further 38 are in the process of becoming certified. Given the seriousness of drug-impaired driving, the RCMP has also reallocated $4.1 million to get a National DRE Program underway. The RCMP is ready to work with its provincial, regional and municipal counterparts to assist in building capacity for training DREs and DRE instructors. http://www.canada-justice.ca/en/news/nr/2004/doc_31162.html

Because? The "feud" between the PMO and the parliamentary press corps is being driven by a few hardliners in the press corps. They lost the battle when the decision was taken to respect the PMOs wishes for a list of questioners in scrums. This one camerman sounds like on of the hardliners. this is the first story about the feud in the past few weeks... The press corps has not lost the battle. They do not attend scrums by the PMO. They go to others to get what they want to report. There is still an election campaign to be covered with this press corps deciding what they are going to report. Remember the coverage on Stockwell Day? This battle is already lost by the PMO. Harper just thinks he controls everything including the media. He will see what a poisoned pen can do to him.

Most CEOs are still grappling with the news, and it's too early to tell how many are actively contemplating a decision to take their company private, either by seeking an outright buyer or by partnering with a private equity firm in a management buyout. But if private equity players do descend en masse on small to medium-sized Canadian income trusts, it could have some unintended economic consequences: namely, some of the same problems that Ottawa was attempting to fix with its new rules. That's because private equity funds generally use leveraged buyouts, loading up their acquisitions with debt to create deductible interest payments that minimize taxable income. The irony is that's basically the same setup that early trusts used to avoid paying corporate tax. On top of that, leveraged buyouts, because of the heavy use of debt, “limit reinvestment in capital assets,” Canaccord Capital Inc. analyst Chris Rankin warned in a note to clients on Thursday. “A systemic increase in leverage will reduce investment in businesses, reducing Canada's productivity.” That's another one for the irony list. When he announced the clampdown on trusts, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty cited concern that trusts hinder productivity because of the temptation to skimp on reinvestment and instead pay out more cash to investors. And should foreign buyers predominate (which may be the case, given the massive scale of the U.S. private equity business compared with Canada's), more corporate profits will be shuffled out of the country. The result will be tax avoidance, tax leakage and weak productivity, critics say. In other words, square one. “We are going to see a transfer of public leveraged buyouts — the trusts — to private LBOs at the private equity funds,” predicted Barbara Gray, a top-ranked income trust analyst at Blackmont Capital. “My phone has been ringing off the hook, with the U.S. hedge funds and private equity funds looking for guidance on what to buy.” www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061104.wxr-cover04/BNStory/Business/?cid=al_gam_nletter_maropen This article in today's G&M explains investments and just how incompetent our present Federal Government is. Even the Civil Servants in the Finance Department if they pushed for this elimination of IT funds don't understand the corporate business. Our present Finance Minister certainly hasn't a clue as to what creates jobs and keeps those taxes pouring into federal coffers and creating huge surpluses. Surpluses which are going to disappear under these amateur rules this government has imposed in IT and corporations.

Not if John Dielwart, CEO of ARC Energy Trust and his 30+ CEO's of Calgary have anything to say about this. They are not all of a sudden going to hand over 31% of their earnings to Ottawa and keep quiet about this. They realize that the Liberals were going to lower corporate taxes and harmonize taxes on dividends and income trusts while allowing income trusts to continue. Harper lost his traction in Quebec as well. His biggest fan and fund raiser, Dean Ahern tore up his Tory membership card and promises that there are lots of people like him in Montreal and across the country who will make their voices heard at the polls. All these people have to be reminded of what the Libs were going to do regarding IT and the Con party is toast. Ahern wants Flaherty to take a 20% reduction in his salary which is what Ahern lost. People are reminded again that they are better off with a Liberal government.

duplicate... ooops

The Liberal government was going to lower Corporate taxes, blend taxes on dividends and income trust so both were comparable and lower personal taxes across the board. This resonated with the CEOs of Alberta and would have kept Canada's economy humming. Harper's policies are going to slow down the oil industry and take a chunk of their profits. Not good policy for re-election especially with the federal government surplus.

When did camermen become 'journalists'? If Mudie didn't want to respect the rules that was a choice he made... Bad ops for the PMO. He is going to need this camera guy in the next election

I wouldn't sell the average individuals short. Many of them have invested in income trust for their retirement and many seniors use the proceeds of IT to live on. Plus many, many small business in Alberta set up Income Trusts for capital funds to operate and expand. If the CEO's in Calgary are going after Harper he doesn't stand a chance. All that has to happen is for the energy economy to go down and all the blame can be put on Harper's IT policy. As to who would they vote for. Watch them. Calgary's mayor is a Liberal.

Interesting the personal attacks to anyone who is not amoured with our present PM. In saturday's G&M they reported that Harper invited the media to the PMO office for a so-called photo op. TVA's camera operator Marty Mudie dared to asked the PM if he would accept the challenge of 18 year old Dawson College shooting victim Hayder Kadhim to debate the Tory promise to abolish the long-gun registry. Two security guards and one PMO official escorted Mudie out the door cause this was just a photo op and journalists are not allowed to ask questions. Too hilarious.

John Brussa, the architect of the first energy trust, says some Conservatives are tearing up party memberships in protest. "This is akin to the NEP," said Brussa, a director of Progress Energy Trust, chairman of Penn West Energy Trust and partner with Burnet, Duckworth and Palmer in Calgary. "It's a bunch of people in Ottawa making decisions that severely affect peoples' lives here," he said. The oil industry fears they are now vulnerable to takeovers by American companies. This move of a revised NEP by Harper is damaging to all small energy business in Alberta. Flaherty should listen to Liberal finance critic John McCallum. He says that existing income trusts should be grandfathered while putting a hold on any further income trusts being formed. Flaherty would also have been wise to consult the Liberal paper on September 8, 2005 regarding consultations on IT instead of just kicking dirt in the face of the Alberta energy sector. "We launched consultations because of our concern about how the increased use of this type of business vehicle may affect economic growth," said Minister Goodale. "We have a viable and productive corporate sector that invests, creates jobs and contributes its fair share of tax. I want to make sure that government tax revenues are appropriately safeguarded, but even more importantly I want strong and vibrant Canadian enterprises of all sizes in all sectors contributing to a dynamic and growing economy." In the end Ralph Goodale's announcement was good news for income trust investors -- and those who buy dividend-paying stocks. He reversed his earlier plan to possibly tax the trusts. He also decided to cut taxes on dividends, to help dividend-paying stocks look as attractive to investors as the popular income trusts do. The lying Tory's hammered the Liberals during this period with crys of taxing seniors, blah, blah, blah and their promise of never taxing income trusts, which many seniors use the income of to pay living expenses. Also luring many seniors to invest their savings into income trust thinking that their hard work paid off and they could enjoy their retirement in peace with a Con government. IN THEIR OWN WORDS... 'We are supporters of income trusts and we oppose tax measures that would raise taxes on income trusts.' Conservative finance critic Monte Solberg Jan. 12, 2006 'A Conservative government will: . . . Stop the Liberal attack on retirement savings and preserve income trusts by not imposing any new taxes on them.' Conservative federal election platform Jan. 13, 2006 Taxes lost by corporations paying their earnings into income trust amount to around $800 million. Not much when comparing the federal surplus to be $13 billion last year and already $6 billion this year.

....let me "share" with you why this proposal (if enacted as proposed) will NOT serve the best interest of Canadians. Understand that this proposal is really a panic move on the part of Revenue Canada (the Canadian tax bureau) over their insane laws that force high-cash-flow/low-growth operating companies with little capital to become what is known in Canada as an income trust. If the company generates LOTS more cash than they can put to use and they decide to pay a dividend to their stockholders, the dividend is taxed at a 41% rate AND that tax rate is withheld from the dividend payment just like a payroll tax. If the company converts to an income trust it pays its dividend -- and a part of that dividend is tax-free (return of capital) and the other part is taxed at a lower rate than normal corporate dividend. Because this business structure puts more after-tax cash into the pockets of individuals (and tax-exempt pensions pay no withholding), it is the preferred way for investors to own these high-cash-flow, low-capex types of mature companies. http://www.changewave.com/freecontent/2006...in20061102.html This is the stupidest move an economist can make. But then Harpo is no economist. Watch our economy tank. Just what happens every time the voters believe a conservative politicians lies. IF this present bunch of inexperienced wanna-be financial whizzes would have allowed the merging of the corporate and income trust taxes to go through that Ralph Goodale had on the books, this crapola would not have happened and Canadians would still be $20 billion richer and our economy would not be in danger of heading south.

The founder of the neoconservatism movement was a man by the name of Leo Strauss. He was a staunch, harsh political philosopher who believed Liberalism planted the "seeds of decay" into society because of the lack of morals and spiritual direction etc: here is a bit of info about him and his beliefs. Straussism 101 (thankyou google for the details, I'll list sources at the end of this post): "Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses. " "Strauss was born and educated in Germany, relocated to the UK in 1934, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1937. After lecturing for several years at the New School for Social Research in New York, in 1948 he accepted a post at the University of Chicago, where he spent most of the rest of his career. A charismatic teacher, he attracted a coterie of brilliant students, many of whom became prominent neoconservative thinkers and polemicists; a sizable number of Strauss devotees have served in Republican administrations, starting with Reagan and continuing through Bushes I and II. (Abram Shulsky, the apparatchik you mention, works for the Office of Special Plans, currently under fire for cherry-picking intelligence during the buildup to the Iraq war. And maybe the name Paul Wolfowitz rings a bell?) Strauss's best-known protege is probably Allan Bloom, author of a best-selling critique of U.S. higher education, The Closing of the American Mind (1987)." Strausse also took a bizzare interest in ancient estrotic texts. His philosophy can be summed up in 3 major principles: Rule One: Deception It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical, divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior." This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,"The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American Right' (St. Martin's 1999). Second Principle: Power of Religion According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control. At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers." "Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,'' Drury says, because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an "opiate of the masses" that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol in 'Commentary' magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin's theory of evolution. Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united and they can only be united against other people." Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)." "Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an "aggressive, belligerent foreign policy," of the kind that has been advocated by neocon groups like PNAC and AEI scholars, not to mention Wolfowitz and other administration hawks who have called for a world order dominated by U.S. military power. Strauss' neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a "national destiny" as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983 that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a " myopic national security." As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best captured by the philosopher himself in one of his "and student Allen Bloom's" many allusions to Gulliver's Travels. In Drury's words, "When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect." The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States' relationship with the rest of the world as well as the relationship between their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. "They really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy," Drury says. http://www.alternet.org/story/15935 http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031212.html

The One Tonne Challenge made more sense than this Hot Air Act of Steve's. At least with the One Tonne Challenge everyone can start now instead of waiting until 2050 to: * Turn off the lights when you leave the room * Car pool, walk or ride your bike as much as possible * Turn off the water when you brush your teeth * Reduce, reuse, and recycle as many items as possible

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2005/11/29/HarperBush/ What do close advisors to Stephen Harper and George W. Bush have in common? They reflect the disturbing teachings of Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish émigré who spawned the neoconservative movement. Strauss, who died in 1973, believed in the inherent inequality of humanity. Most people, he famously taught, are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us. In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of "regime change." Strauss defined a regime as a set of governing ideas, institutions and traditions. The neoconservatives in the Bush administration, who secretly conspired to make the invasion of Iraq a certainty, had a precise plan for regime change. They weren't out to merely replace Saddam with an American puppet. They planned to make the system more like the U.S., with an electoral process that can be manipulated by the elites, corporate control over the levers of power and socially conservative values. Usually regime change is imposed on a country from outside through violent means, such as invasion. On occasion, it occurs within a country through civil war. After the American Civil War, a new regime was imposed on the Deep South by the North, although the old regime was never entirely replaced. Is regime change possible through the electoral process? It's happening in the U.S., where the neocons are succeeding in transforming the American state from a liberal democracy into a corporatist, theocratic regime. As Canada readies for a federal election, the question must be asked: Are we next?