Quote of the Day/Week/Month/Year

[August1991]

Michael Ignatieff as reported in La Presse:

"M. Dion a été un très bon ministre, mais il n'a pas la stature d'un chef."

CP

[August1991]

Stephane Dion:

"I am the leader and I don't want people to be undisciplined," he said. "Our party comes back from far in Quebec, we have an enormous amount of work to do."

G & M

[daniel]

Sorry, I didn't realize they had to be current quotes. That sucks a lot of good quotes are disqualified.

It still resonates to this day. Just as "In and out, not a moment longer." does.

[Pliny]

I think you, over all others on this forum, do the most reading of current political events, August.

[daniel]

"Those that forget history are bound to repeat it."

[capricorn]

"I have a much better team than him and I am much more collegial than him, much more as leader able to work with the others without (feeling) threatened by them. The real strength of a leader is not to have a one-man show.''

Stephane Dion

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...330?hub=QPeriod

[AngusThermopyle]

Yeah yeah, I know its old but its another good one. Just cant resist these, this man is so unintentionally funny. He says way better stuff than our politicians, our guys are just plain boring.

I own a timber company? That's news to me. Need some wood?

--George W. Bush

St. Louis, MO

10/08/2004

in the Second presidential debate, conveniently forgetting that he owns part interest in LSTF, LLC

[August1991]

Tom Lukiwski, Conservative MP, 56 now but 40 then:

"As we say on tour, I may be old, but I'm f---ing A," Lukiwski responded.

The cameraman retorted: "And who is this A person?"

"Well, let me put it to you this way. There's A's and there's B's. The A's are guys like me. The B's are homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases," Lukiwski said.

CBC

[August1991]

Ontario Human Rights Commission:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has decided not to proceed with complaints filed against Maclean’s magazine related to its publication of an article “The future belongs to Islam.” The complainants alleged that the content of the article and Maclean’s refusal to provide space for a rebuttal violated their human rights. The decision means that the complaints will not be referred to a hearing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Denying a service because of race or creed can form the basis for a human rights complaint. However, the Ontario Human Rights Code does not give the Commission the jurisdiction to deal with the content of magazine articles through its complaint process.

Even though the Commission is not proceeding with these complaints, it still has a broader role in addressing the tension and conflict that such writings cause in the community and the impact that they have on the groups that are being singled out.

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

“Clearly more debate on this issue is required in Canada,” commented Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall. “That’s why we issued a statement today.”

OHRC

[August1991]

Tarek Fatah, 58, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress:

"There are within the staff [of the Ontario Human Rights Commission], and among the commissioners, hardline Islamic supporters of Islamic extremism, and this [handling of the Maclean's case] reflects their presence over there," Mr. Fatah said, identifying two people.

"In the eyes of the Ontario human rights commission, the only good Muslim is an Islamist Muslim," he said. "As long as we hate Canada, we will be cared for. As soon as we say Canada is our home and we have to defend her traditions, freedoms and secular democracy, we will be considered as the outside."

National Post

[White Doors]

Tarek Fatah, 58, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress:National Post

Well good for Tarek! cheers!

[August1991]

Barack Obama, speaking to wealthy donors at a fundraiser in San Francisco, California:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Huffington Post

[eyeball]

Secondly, a clear lesson I learned in the museum was that outside forces that tend to divide people up inside their country are unbelievably counterproductive. In other words, people came from other countries -- I guess you'd call them colonialists -- and they pitted one group of people against another.

George Bush

[capricorn]

City of Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien cut short an interview with a CBC reporter regarding his son's posts on a blog. The interview was not going to his liking and he asked the CBC reporter to turn off his tape recorder. He said:

"How do I erase everything I've said so far?"

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008...yor-080415.html

ROFL

[August1991]

Sarah Polley, 29, filmmaker:

"Any whiff of censorship is chilling for us," she told a news conference before the Senate hearing.

"It's the job of artists to provoke and to challenge. Part of the responsibility of being an artist is to create work that will inspire dialogue, suggest that people examine their long-held positions and, yes, occasionally offend in order to do so."

CBC

Offend? I wonder what the Human Rights Commissioners would say about that.

[August1991]

Saddam Hussein writing in his diary while in custody about asking for things:

"It was a serious sacrifice from me to ask for the first time in my life," he wrote.

CBC

[DogOnPorch]

"This primary election on Tuesday is a game changer. This is going to make a huge difference in what happens going forward. The entire country -- probably even a lot of the world -- is looking to see what North Carolina decides."

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton

[Pliny]

Barack Obama, speaking to wealthy donors at a fundraiser in San Francisco,

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

California:Huffington Post

They aren't like city folk who can get their "fustations" out with a little crumpin' !

I forget about this thread and think it is a good one. We'll see if I can think of it when I read something quotable.

[August1991]

Maxime Bernier, 45, Minister of Foreign Affairs, responds to reports that his girlfriend was married to an assassinated Hell's Angels gangster:

“This is about my private life, the private life in the past of my ex-girlfriend. People's private lives are none of your business,” he said.

G & M

In a democracy, people have a surprising way of deciding what is and what is not their business.

Edited May 8, 2008 by August1991

[August1991]

Gilles Duceppe in the House:

"We are elected members. That is not the same as a monarchy, which is anti-democratic, archaic and folkloric. I do not imagine France would be represented by the Count of Paris. Monarchy is ridiculous."

The Gazette

Amen.

[August1991]

Nicholas Sakozy, President of France, speaking at a Comonwealth War Cemetery in northern France:

"We love Quebec but we love Canada," he declared. "We love both. And of those who died here, we didn't ask what region they came from. We knew what country they came from. We didn't even ask what language they spoke. Those who are buried here, even if they didn't speak our language, saved us and helped us."

The Gazette

[August1991]

George W. Bush, 61, US President, speaking in the Knesset of Israel:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

New York Times Edited May 16, 2008 by August1991

[August1991]

Stephen Harper, PM of Canada:

“The ability of governments to affect the price of gasoline per se is so small that it's not worth doing,” Mr. Harper said following an announcement on new food labelling regulations.

“What you've really got to do is lower costs for consumers generally, rather than try to fight the upward trend in the price of gasoline.”

G & M

[jdobbin]

Stephen Harper, PM of Canada

How much more does the government collect in taxes on gas each time it goes up?

[August1991]

How much more does the government collect in taxes on gas each time it goes up?

No much really. Most gasoline taxes are excise taxes. In Montreal for example, there is the federal 10 cent/litre excise tax and a provincial 15.2 cent/litre excise tax. Then, there is a 1.5 cent/litre municipal excise transit tax. The Quebec government recently added a 0.8 cent/litre carbon tax. These are flat taxes that together add 27.5 cents/litre to the price but don't change regardless of the selling price. (In fact, governments receive less revenue through these taxes since consumers buy less gasoline when the price is high.) In addition of course, there is the 7.5% QST and the 5% GST added to the retail selling price.

I saw regular gasoline at 1.39 per litre in Montreal today. At such a price, the seller received 95.6 cents and governments received 43.4 cents.

Note that this does not include the royalties paid to governments for exploiting the crude oil.