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.

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.