952...When He Is Right He Is Right

Michael Ignatieff has said no truer words than those reported by the Canadian Press in a story just moved:

"'How do I explain to these people that I keep letting this government go on?' Ignatieff told reporters. 'And that's why, in my heart of hearts, after much reflection, we've decided as a party that we can't continue to give the government confidence in the House of Commons.'"

Jack Layton, the ball is in your court brother, your court.

"'We will do our job, even if they will not,' Ignatieff told the nearly empty Conservative benches in the Commons after detailing his list of government failings for more than 10 minutes."

WFDS

929...Representation By Population

Lorne Gunter, Edmonton Journal writes a big piece this morning praising the powers that be in Ottawa for shuffling the deck and making votes in his province more valuable. The headline

Rep by pop finally coming to Commons

Alberta, B. C., Ontario shortchanged too long merely to placate Quebec

shows a regional bias but he does make some good points. For example, even though we kind of assume that Parliament is equally weighted, Prince Edward Island is the province that gets the most value for their votes. A riding in PEI has about 34,000 voters; one in urban Alberta 130,000. "It takes two Alberta votes to have as much influence as one from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland, New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and five from Alberta to have as much impact as four from Quebec."

Mr. Gunter goes into great detail about the mechanizations that govern how seats are assigned federally, suffice to say if we were to have true representation by population they would have to move the House of Commons down the street to the 2,300 seat National Arts Centre's Opera House.

This is a step though.

WFDS

827...Elizabeth May Deathwatch V. 3

And it is not just me who thinks her plan to run in Saanich-Gulf Islands is not well thought.

Here is a cut and paste from this morning's Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

May-first plan dubious in quest for Greener pastures


Fri. Sep 11 - 4:46 AM

A POLL last month suggested that more than 40 per cent of
 Canadians would like to see Elizabeth May win a seat in the
 House of Commons. Unfortunately for her, there is no
single riding in Canada in which she might automatically
 command 40 per cent of the vote.

The Green Party leader, who has tried her luck in two places
already, is faring progressively better as she
goes along in her quest to get elected.
In a 2006 byelection in London North Centre,
she finished second with 25 per cent of the vote,
 and in 2008 she was a respectable runner-up in
 Central Nova with 32 per cent support.

But Ms. May has since concluded that felling regional
 rainmaker Peter MacKay is too tall an order.
The absence of a Liberal candidate was designed
to help Ms. May, but the Tory defence minister
also succeeded in increasing his score six
percentage points over the previous election's results.
 And so Ms. May has split for the other coast and
announced her intention this week to challenge another
 Conservative cabinet minister in B.C.

The new No.1 priority of the decision-makers
 in the Green Party is to get Ms. May elected,
 no matter where. Hence the quixotic,
 cross-country quest for greener pastures.
 Unfortunately, her vagabond candidacy and
 tendency to publicly muse about suitable
 ridings only succeeds in exposing her to ridicule.
 It makes her look flighty, and for what?

Does the Green Party really need a seat
 in Parliament while it has Elizabeth May?
 As the leader of the fifth party,
 which garnered 6.8 per cent of the popular vote last year,
 Ms. May already punches far above her weight on the national scene.
 She attracts plenty of media coverage even
 in between elections and last fall she got
 a seat at an important table - the televised leaders' debates.
 Many Canadians were surprised to discover Elizabeth May as the feisty debater,
 the solid performer and the well-briefed and witty policy wonk.

It's hard to see what further advantages a Commons
 seat would confer on Ms. May, apart from a decent
 salary and some parliamentary perks.
 She would not get any more time of day, or power,
 in the House than Independent MPs do, which is to say very little.
 Nor would this pulpit boost her national profile much more than she already has,
 although it would give her bragging rights as the first Green elected to national
 office in North America.

So the Green Party's new tack - pouring all
 its efforts into getting Ms. May elected as a parachuted candidate
 in one of Canada's most green-friendly ridings - seems like more
 trouble than it's worth. It's trouble all
 right. Greenpeace activist Stuart Hertzog
 is challenging her for the nomination in Saanich-Gulf Islands
 next week, decrying the top-down decision-making within the
 party as being contrary to grassroots Green values.

Unquestionably, Ms. May is an asset to
the Greens, but concentrating on building
 up the party's assets - getting more votes
 nationwide and thus more federal
 electoral funding - would better
 serve the party's cause in the
 long run and better prepare
 it for a future
 without her at the helm.

See, I am not the only one who does not subscribe to group think.

WFDS

705...Poll Shows 36% Of Cdns Say No To Ms. May

A Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey just released indicates that 36 per cent of those surveyed in our home and native land don't want Green Party leader Elizabeth May in Parliament.

A mere 40 per cent do.

Of course this will be spun round like a record baby to make it seem like the world wants her in the House of Commons.

Afraid not, baby, afraid not.

WFDS

408...Mike Duffy Er Senator Michael Duffy, Maroon

Honestly, how does a sub par TV host who worked cheap become a Senator? Not by knowing the way the Senate works as this cut and paste job from Maclean's illustrates.

The author is uncredited, as is the source but this is right on the money:

Mike Duffy has learned something while sitting in the Senate. Decades as a journalist and decades more as a sentient Canadian apparently did nothing to prepare Mike Duffy for the shocking revelation that awaited him upon being appointed to the upper chamber. As the Senator himself put it while traveling in Kelowna: "Once you get in there, you realize that every piece of legislation passed by Parliament has to go through the Senate prior to adoption. " Sweet bearded Jesus! Do the Fathers of Confederation know about this?? Someone alert the ghost of Adams Archibald! Wait - there's yet more that the intrepid Duffy has uncovered: "And the Senate rules are different than the House of Commons. Senate committees can't sit while the Senate is in session, so that puts you in the situation of having some pretty long days." Holy nutballs! Next thing you know we'll be finding out that, like the House of Commons, the Senate has its very own Speaker, Question Period and pervading sense of futility. But Duffy's trip out west was about more than revealing startling Parliamentary details previously known only to every child over the age of 12. He also talked a lot about wood. In fact, the front page of today's edition of The Daily News in Kamloops features the headline "Use More Wood, Senator Urges" - which is either a direct appeal by Mike Duffy to Canada's construction industry or Viagra's least effective slogan-spokesman combination ever. In the article, Duffy blows the lid off another state secret when he astutely observes, "We're surrounded by wood in Canada." With time to reflect, I'm sure he'd agree this wasn't the nicest way to refer to his new colleagues in the Senate. One final note from the Senator's journey of discovery: Some of you may remember all the way back to last week, when Duffy was going on about how he never really wanted to be a Senator but then, oh well, fine, twist my arm... and then how he was totally determined to sit as an independent because he wasn't the least bit partisan but then, oh well, fine, if you reeeeeeeally want me to be a Conservative... Read the following quote from Mike Duffy and see if you can spot the part where he comes across as a non-partisan, independent-minded member of the upper chamber. "I'm not holding my breath on an early election," he said. "We have to be ready, however, just in case. That's why we need your continued financial support and your help with the ground game. We've got to become born-again Canadians, I think, and explain to our kids, our families and our neighbours why the Conservatives are the party they can count on to work for them and for their values." Born-again Canadians? Um, okay. Makes sense, I guess. To paraphrase Jesus, only those who are born again shall be able to see the glory of government infrastructure projects and festival funding in their ridings

I need a job, I like to travel, I am not that bright. Please, Mr. Harper, may I be a Senator too?

270...Everything Is Allright; As You Were

Thanks to Stephen Harper, of course.

That is a summarized version of what our beloved Prime Minister said yesterday in the House of Commons.

Whew.

WFDS

235...Toughest Job In The World, Canadian Version

A cut and paste job re the Lisa Raitt case via the Canadian Press.

OTTAWA - A Halifax newspaper will be in court today fighting an apparent attempt to block it from publishing details of a tape recording involving Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt. Details of the case - and the recording - are under wraps for the moment. But sources say Raitt's former press secretary is seeking an injunction to keep the tape from becoming public. They say the tape was left on accidentally after recording an interview with journalists, and captured private comments by Raitt. Sources say Jasmine MacDonnell, who resigned last week, left her tape recorder in a House of Commons washroom weeks ago. It eventually made its way into the hands of an Ottawa-based reporter for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. (The Canadian Press)

Apparently Jasmine MacDonnell is super forgetful; first she leaves papers at CTV Ottawa and now this.

Could it be Ms. MacDonnell is a big fan of listening to Green Day CDs on a chronic basis?

WFDS