Conservatives pick up support in Ontario

As predicted by Conservative politicians, Dalton McGuinty’s latest budget slated to increase taxes and still run a deficit is having an impact in the federal campaign. The latest COMPAS survey shows Conservative support in Ontario up to 39%, trailing the Liberals by a mere 3%. Only in Toronto do the Liberals have any clear lead.

With the Bloc sure to clean up in Quebec and Liberal defeat in Alberta a foregone conclusion, many pundits are saying that this election will hinge upon Ontario. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is set to file suit against the provincial McGuinty government next week for violation of the Taxpayer Protection Act, and the Ontario opposition is eager to link the provincial Liberal government with their federal counterparts. The latest polls are already showing that Martin is headed for minority government, and Stephen Harper’s campaign has barely begun.

Poll predicts minority - Survey shows Liberals in trouble everywhere but Atlantic Canada amid national ‘mood of negativity’

Paul Martin and the Liberals are heading for the first minority government since 1980 in the coming election as a result of a late surge in Conservative support and a pervasive “mood of negativity” among voters, according to a new National Post/Global National poll.

The COMPAS survey shows Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are closing the gap with the Liberals and are now at 31% of voter support compared to 39% for the Martin government.

More McGuinty broken promises

Dalton McGuinty stands in violation of an election vow he made not to raise taxes, and has decided that an additional income tax for healthcare will be levied of up to $900 per year. Furthermore, he decided to ignore Ontario’s Taxpayer Protection Act, which calls for a referendum on any new tax, arrogantly claiming that the voters will be given a voice in four years time, in the next provincial election. Conservative finance critic John Baird said that Ontario voters will make their displeasure known not in the next provincial election but in the next federal election, and defeat “health-care villain” Paul Martin at the polls.

Regardless, at this point McGuinty has to be the most unpopular premier that Ontario has had, easily down there with Bob Rae. 102.1 The Edge was one of McGuinty’s greatest supporters before the election, but they regularly spend time complaining about him now. Most telling, they said, was the fact that previously their switchboards would be busy with Liberal supporters calling to contradict their opinions, but now there are none. It seems Finance Minister Greg Sorbara’s assessment that the Liberals are running out of “political capital” has come a little late.

Preem: It’s for the sake of the kids

An unapologetic Premier Dalton McGuinty called on Ontarians to accept his broken promises and suck up a new health tax for the sake of their children. “I know we are placing a burden on our families,” McGuinty said yesterday. “I’m asking our families to think not only of themselves, but also of their children and the kind of health care system that we long to leave to the next generation.”

Finance Minister Greg Sorbara unveiled a new health premium in Tuesday’s budget that takes up to $900 a year from paycheques, despite McGuinty’s election vow last fall not to raise taxes.

McGuinty also refused to call a referendum on the issue, which is normally required under the province’s Taxpayer Protection Act.

Bad, fake Scotch accents

Has anybody noticed how many TV commercials have people with Scotch accents in them these days? Have any of them noticed how execrably bad and obviously faked these accents are? There are a lot of Scots living in Canada. I’m sure a few of them would agree to talk about Alexander Keith’s or Kellogg’s Mini-Whatsits for the right sum too. I don’t expect anybody to hire Sean Connery or Ewan McGregor, but somebody who’d at least been to Scotland would be a start.

Liberals suspend Commons public accounts committee

Public hearings on the sponsorship scandal unearthed by Sheila Fraser have been suspended by a Liberal majority. If Martin is truly “mad as hell” about this, as he initially claimed, it makes no sense to suspend this. If Martin has nothing to hide, it makes no sense to suspend this.

To me, it seems there are three likely possibilities. Firstly, Martin knows that he is involved and that a public inquiry stands a chance of showing that, and after he promised to resign should he be implicated, this would be the death knell for his career. Secondly, Martin knows that Chretien is involved and fears the repercussions that his advisors have threatened should a Martin-led inquiry implicate or slander him. Thirdly, Martin knows that this committee will not reach any conclusions before the next election (reputedly scheduled for June 28th) and hopes to sweep this affair under the carpet now, rather than have it still in the public eye at the polls.

Either way, Martin is not throwing straight dice here and is trying to hide something. What that something is, we don’t truly know, but this is nothing new from a government that has become legendary for nepotism, corruption and Byzantine cliques and power games.

Opposition accuses Martin of pre-election sponsorship whitewash

The three opposition parties accuse Paul Martin of trying to whitewash the federal sponsorship scandal and promise to use the coming election campaign to hold him to account.

It’s clear the prime minister never had any real intention of getting to the bottom of the scandal, Conservative Jason Kenney told a joint news conference on Wednesday. “He was shocked and outraged and made a solemn promise that he would leave no stone unturned before going to the polls.”

Natives get their own seats in the House

Another ill-advised electoral reform proposed by the Liberal government,

PM won’t rule out seats for natives

OTTAWA - Paul Martin, the Prime Minister, is not ruling out the possibility he may designate specific seats in the House of Commons for aboriginals. Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the federal Cabinet, Mr. Martin said MPs are free to study the merits of such a move.

The report recommends Canada look to the system used in New Zealand, where aboriginals can choose to remain on the national voters’ list or switch to a Maori voters’ list. The number of people on the aboriginal voters’ list is then used to determine the number of seats dedicated to New Zealand’s native population.

Designating specific seats in the House of Commons will do nothing but further aggravate relations between Natives from the rest of society and will lead to “us vs. them” mentality on both sides. Not to mention that it further reinforces the idea that natives across Canada are identical in culture and their needs.

Martin still seems unwilling to reduce the amount expectations that nearly every group has for his government. By not ruling out anything that crosses his desk in a day - in an attempt to widen and capitalize on a wider policy and support base - he has set himself up to disappoint a large portion of the electorate. And if in fact the coming federal election results in a Liberal minority government, Martin will have a difficult time managing the demands of minority governance and those heightened expectations.

All of which will play nicely into the hands of the Conservative party.

Don Cheery running for public office?

Only speculative at this point, but an interesting proposition nonetheless.

Cherry’s choice: Tories want him as a candidate

Don Cherry, the CBC broadcaster who, reports say, may be leaving his post at Hockey Night in Canada at the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs, is so high on the wish list of MP Peter MacKay that the deputy leader took it upon himself last week to try to set up a meeting to court him.

The rough-and-tumble Mr. Cherry might be popular with right-leaning small-c conservatives, given his strong support of the Canadian military and his once having described the CBC as an arm of the federal government.

Update:

It appears Harper does not share McKay’s enthusiasm for Cherry’s candidacy, which is too bad seeing that Cherry has been a vigorous promoter of Canada and has never been afraid to speak his mind on a wide range of issues. Perhaps that last quality and what people often “perceive” as a anti-french attitude wouldn’t have made him a very popular man in the Commons anyways.

If Cherry is in fact interested in running for office, he certainly doesn’t need to wait to be invited. He could simple throw his hat in the ring during a constituency nomination contest and win the nomination with or without the approval of the party leader. It would then be Harper’s choice, or whomever is the leader of the party at that point, whether he would sign the nomination papers after the local party members have voted. Rejecting an elected candidate is not likely not a scenario that Harper, or any other leader of the party, would want to be confronted with.

Gas prices hit record high, government accused of tax gouging

Crude oil has hit a 13-year-high of $39.58 per barrel, leading to gas prices as high as 94.9 cents/litre in Montreal, a high that industry analysts say may be beaten before summer is out. Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe blames oil companies for excessive profits, but an energy spokesman stated that oil companies see perhaps 0.5-1 cent in profit per litre.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation hit a more realistic note, pointing out that GST alone in gasoline pumps (pun intended) $1.4 billion into the federal budget. Taxes represent between 40% and 50% of pump prices depending upon province and city, but in the USA gasoline taxes represent only 20%-30% of the pump price.

Gas prices hit record highs

As the blame game began over record gasoline prices across Canada this week, industry watchers warned motorists to brace for even higher prices at the pump this summer.

Crude oil hit fresh 13-year highs of $39.58 US per barrel on Wednesday. And the average price of regular gasoline in Canada jumped four cents in the past week to a new high of 85.7 cents per litre.

Your tax dollars at work

Don Cherry seems to be the topic of the month around CBC. The publically funded CBC seem perplexed as to whether they should renew his contract for next year. Canadians however overwhelmingly agree that Cherry should stay - 73% want Cherry kept or paid more

Feds’ Cherry probe secret

The official languages commissioner, who ignited a public firestorm when she launched an investigation into “anti-French” remarks by Don Cherry, won’t release her report to the public. Instead, her findings will be sent to the publicly funded CBC — the hockey commentator’s boss — which can opt to keep it secret.

Why do we need the official languages commissioner to investigate a statement that is true?

Cherry’s claims on visors do add up

WINNIPEG - Don Cherry was right when he claimed mostly French-Canadian and European NHL players wear hockey visors, says a Winnipeg lawyer who crunched the numbers.

Curtis Unfried told CBC Newsworld on Wednesday that his investigation of data showed 59 per cent of European players wear visors, followed by 55 per cent of French-Canadian players.

Among North American players born outside of Quebec, only 20 per cent wear face shields to guard against injury.

Perhaps a better question would be, why do we even need a official languages commissioner?

Frasier reminds the Commons public accounts committee

Auditor General Sheila Fraser rattled the Commons public accounts committee when she bluntly reminded them of why there are there,

$100 million not stolen in sponsorship scandal, $250 million is suspect: AG

Fraser reminded Conservatives she never said $100 million was stolen - as more than one MP has alleged. And she chastened Liberals who have tried to downplay the $100 million figure, reminding them that her February report found the entire quarter billion dollars spent on the program was suspect.

“From the very beginning of this program it would appear to have been set up and established quite outside (normal control mechanisms at Public Works).”

After watching a few hours of testimony it become apparent to me that this committee was never going to get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal. I was actually surprised at the level of importance the media, the parties, and everyone else has placed on this partisan debacle. Whether it is the Liberals, the Conservatives or the NDP, all the parties were far to busy posturing and playing partisan games to ever get to the bottom of who stole the cash.

And even if the committee does manage to tease out some truth from the long list of questionable business practices, what good is it actually going to have? Only a criminal investigation has the power to put someone behind bars - the smoking gun, if there is even one, will only be uncovered after a lengthy criminal investigation that will take years to complete. By that time Canadian’s will have forgotten about the 100 million, or was it 250 million? whatever - and we’ll all be enjoying another 4 more years of Liberal government.

Pettigrew promises no two-tier healthcare

Last Wednesday, Health Minister Pierre Pettigrew went in apparent contradiction of his earlier statements on healthcare and told reporters that he did not favour any provincial experimentation in two-tier, private healthcare. M. Pettigrew had hoped to discredit Conservative views on two-tier medicine, but this seems to have backfired badly, leading to this statement that most news sources are labelling a complete flip-flop. He opined that two-tier healthcare or even private involvement in medicare would mean the death of the Canadian healthcare system.

On the basis of that statement M. Pettigrew can definitely be judged unworthy of his job. If he had examined the healthcare systems of other nations, as a man in his position should, he would have noticed that of all the nations that provide free public healthcare, all have provided for some kind of two-tier system or have involved private enterprise in their public systems. In those nations, not one has seen any kind of decline in the quality or availability of their public healthcare services, let alone the death of them as M. Pettigrew myopically asserts, and many, such as Sweden and the UK, have seen huge improvements. As always, the Liberals are making a stand for ignorance and proudly brokering a bum deal for Canada.

Pettigrew flip-flops on private health

In a stunning flip-flop, Health Minister Pierre Pettigrew said Wednesday the federal government will not encourage provinces to experiment with medicare by hiring for-profit private companies to deliver medical services within the publicly funded system.

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