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Jesus saves, but did you know Bill C-51 saves too? That's apparently Conservative MP Wai Young's big takeaway from "all the stories in the Bible."

also …

“I do not read the newspapers anymore,” Young told the congregation, “because most of the facts in there are not factual.”

allthecanadianpolitics

‘Better than mediocre’: How the economy could kill the Conservatives

By Alan Freeman

Recession or not, Stephen Harper has lost the argument on the economy. The consequences for his future as prime minister may be dire.

For seven years, the spin docs at the PMO have been instructing the lobotomized members of the cabinet and caucus to repeat the following message, over and over: The world economy may be in trouble but, thanks to Harper government policy, Canada is doing better than everybody else and you should be thankful. The subtext of this message is that while Harper may be a nasty, unpleasant man with an uncertain belief in democracy, you’re better off with him (financially, at least) than you would be with the alternatives.

During the 2008 recession and its aftermath, the story rang true. Canadians looked south of the border and saw soaring unemployment and the collapse of the U.S. housing market.I still have a job, voters told themselves. The banks are solvent, my house is holding its value — in fact, it seems to be gaining value — and when I’m in Florida the loonie is buying me lots more dollars. Why risk voting Liberal or NDP? So the Tories squeaked through in 2008 and won handily in 2011.

It didn’t matter then that much of this message was based on a lie. The reason Canada did better in the last recession than the rest of the world — particularly the U.S. — had little to do with Tory policies. The Liberals had bequeathed them a sound fiscal position and a strong banking system. And then resource prices, particularly oil, bounced back and interest rates dove, fuelling the residential housing boom and real estate bubble in places like Toronto and Vancouver that helped keep the economy humming.

allthecanadianpolitics

"Our government will continue to raise awareness about the harmful effects of drug abuse and encourage youth to choose a drug-free lifestyle."

Health Canada is spending $1.5 million to air recycled ads on prescription drugs and pot in the run-up to the fall federal election.

The federal health agency started re-airing the ads Monday that will run on TV and online until Aug. 8.

Health Minister Rona Ambrose says the ads illustrate the harmful effects of prescription drug abuse and the impact of marijuana use on the developing brains of teenagers.

“Our government will continue to raise awareness about the harmful effects of drug abuse and encourage youth to choose a drug-free lifestyle,” Ambrose said in a statement.

The government will turn off the publicly funded advertising taps when the writ drops, expected after Labour Day as a result of October’s fixed-election date.

The original installation of the taxpayer-funded marijuana ads ran alongside a radio ad campaign paid for by the Conservative party, which took aim at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau over his promise to legalize and regulate marijuana.

The Canadian Medical Association, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada refused to endorse the campaign, saying it had become a “political football on Canada’s marijuana policy.”

“As the largest national organizations representing Canada’s doctors, the CFPC, CMA and Royal College were invited to co-brand and provide expert advice on an upcoming public education campaign initiated and funded by Health Canada,” said a joint-statement issued last summer.

“We did not, and do not, support or endorse any political messaging or political advertising on this issue.”

The predictable clamour that followed the passage of anti-labour Bill C-377 by the Senate just before it rose on June 30 all but drowned out another retrograde move: the upper house permitted Bill C-279, on transgender rights, to die on the order paper. Debate on passage was deliberately delayed by government Senate leader Claude Carignan, effectively killing it. NDP MP Randall Garrison's private member’s bill would have added gender identity provisions to both the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act, extending protection against hate crimes to transgender individuals.

Senate tramples transgender rights | Toronto Star

allthecanadianpolitics

A $2-billion federal infrastructure fund at the centre of the Conservative government’s 2009 Economic Action Plan was allotted to municipalities in select areas of the country with little apparent oversight, regulation, auditing or attempt to disperse the monies evenly across Canada.

The Municipal Infrastructure Loan Program (MILP) was administered by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. on behalf of the federal government. The $2 billion was to provide low-interest loans to help municipalities pay for infrastructure improvements. The program raised eyebrows in March when it was revealed that well over half the fund went to municipalities in Quebec.

Now it appears some investments went to Ontario municipalities that didn’t appear to qualify under the terms of the program. The small community of Blind River received a $49.5 million loan, even after Ontario’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing warned the municipality that it could not handle the payments.

[…]

Blind River is a town of 3,500 with annual revenues of $8 million. According to the municipality’s own filings with the provincial government, Blind River had tangible assets of just $52 million in 2010. The town’s modest financial situation has led some to wonder how it could have qualified for a CMHC loan of almost $50 million that required repayments of almost $4 million a year.

“I cannot see how CMHC could have said, ‘Here’s the money. You didn’t meet any of the criteria, but now that you’ve got the money, you can’t pay us back, so go and speculate on whatever,’” said Charlie Angus, the NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay. “If they (CMHC) were that in a hurry to get the money out the door, it raises questions of mismanagement of taxpayers’ funds.”

hashtagcdnpoli

These two Quebec Bills Are Targeting Muslims

Recently, the Quebec provincial government tabled two long-awaited bills to the National Assembly. Bill 62, on religious neutrality, proposes a number of measures that must be taken into account when considering whether to grant an accommodation on religious grounds and, provides that public services must be both delivered and received by persons with their faces uncovered. Bill 59, proposes the prohibition of hate speech and speech inciting violence that are engaged in or disseminated publicly that targets people sharing a common characteristic identified as prohibited grounds for discrimination in the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms. The Liberal provincial government has aimed to address very controversial subjects that have been dominating Quebec politics for some time, including reasonable accommodation, youth “radicalization,” and increasing incidents of hate speech. Both bills, 62 and 59, include vast measures and action plans. Topics covered in the two bills are so numerous that it appears as if PLQ , the governing Liberals, are aiming to tackle all divisive issues within Quebec society. In the last few months, about two dozen Quebec youth have been reported to have left or attempted to leave to war zones in the Middle East. Those reports have raised concerns of what has been called radicalization of youth Quebecers. Calls to deal with the subject have dominated official statements and airwaves. While the general reaction to the anti-radicalization measures proposed by the government have been positive to a large extent, serious concerns have been raised on how the plan will be implemented. Taking into consideration not to mix between religiously practising individuals and signs of radicalization is one of the main challenges that will face the civil servants who will be at the forefront of implementing the anti-radicalization action plan. This will require extensive training and knowledge for all the employees involved in the action plan. The employees should not be treating such sensitive cases based on their personal judgment which may lead to failure of the entire intervention action plan. Another point of concern in the proposed bills is the mandate given to the police to detect signs of radicalization. Question that will arise include, what defines the physical signs of an individual’s radicalization, is it his or her appearance or dress? How do you detect on the street that an individual carries signs of extremism? A major fear is falling into religious profiling. Our societies already suffer from racial profiling; certainly, no one would like to add another hardship to our Quebec communities by poor implementation of such a security mandate. Hate speech has plagued many aspects of Quebec society for long periods of time. This toxic phenomenon has witnessed a surge recently. One of its worst times came within the period of the previous Parti Quebecois government with the proposed Quebec secular charter. Quebec society witnessed a very dangerous trend of continues smear campaigns against cultural, ethnic and religious groups. Moreover, concerns of extreme speech that may incite violence came as an additional reason for the need to have clear anti-hate speech laws. Such a measure would fight all sorts of discriminatory discourse, such as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and racial talk. It’s hoped that such an act, if it’s fairly implemented, will heal division, reunite and create harmony within Quebec’s social fabric. The Quebec Liberal party has been blamed by some for not addressing what has been known as neutrality of the state or the secular charter. Whatever name is given, the concept came down to the prohibition of women from receiving or offering public services while their faces are covered. Depriving Quebec women from public services such as health and education because of their face cover is considered very discriminatory against women’s basic right of being treated as human beings and not discriminated against because of their choice of dress code. Such a provision is a blow to Quebec’s claim to be pioneer on women’s rights. Although there are no official statistics, the number of face covered Quebec women, many of whom are French Quebecer converts, does not exceed a handful. Does this very small number of women, none of whom work in public service, deserve to be put in the spotlight? Is it worth to have the government tabling special laws against their choice of dress code? Furthermore, the fact that the Provincial government tabled both Bills 59 and 62 at the same time, although, with totally different subjects and topics, has given the impression that the move is targeting one Quebec community – Muslims in particular. Although, officials try to deny that they are targeting any group or religion, the way both bills are presented, debated and covered in the media leaves no doubt in the minds and hearts of many Muslim Quebecers that here they are, again, being used as a political football within the province’s political arena. No one argues for the great need to have bills, laws and social action plans to address important issues of Quebec society such as hate speech, discrimination, extremism and neutrality of the state. However, it’s not fair to target one group or the other. Although, the Muslim community at large doesn’t believe that the provincial government meant to target their population in the province, the government should be working very hard to avoid giving the perception that those bills are targeting Quebec Muslims. The opportunity and the possibility are still there for officials to remove the impression that such proposed bills are targeting one community by carefully working and avoiding religious profiling in the process of implementing the relevant action plans. MORE ON HUFFPOST: from Canada Politics Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1TKxYV4 Via the #1 source for Canadian political news - #cdnpoli What do YOU think? Share via social media

allthecanadianpolitics

Premier Brad Wall is reinforcing his call to scrap the Senate completely in light of a comprehensive auditor general's report into Senate expenses.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is reiterating his opinion in favour of abolishing the Canadian Senate.

Wall’s response follows the release of an extensive auditor general’s report into senators’ spending.

The two-year review, which was officially released to the public on Tuesday, highlights more than $975,000 in questionable expenses from both current and former senators.

“Today’s report just reinforces Saskatchewan’s position that the Senate should be abolished,” Wall said in his statement.

“If the Senate was necessary to the proper functioning of Canadian democracy, I would say clean it up and get it working properly. But it isn’t necessary and it isn’t making any sort of a positive contribution.”

allthecanadianpolitics

Ontario and Quebec sign cap-and-trade deal, urge Ottawa to take leadership role

As Quebec and Ontario announced that they would link their carbon markets, they urged Ottawa to work more closely with the provinces to curb climate change. “I believe that having a federal partner that isn’t standing on the sidelines, that is engaged in the discussion, will help,” said Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. She spoke at a ceremony at the National Assembly on Monday where Wynne and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard signed a symbolic letter of intent to link Quebec-California’s carbon market to Ontario’s. The plan would increase the scope of the market to 61 million people and half of Canada’s economy.

allthecanadianpolitics

The 5 most “explosive” Mike Duffy secrets Canadians know about so far

What could be more “explosive” than lunch with Mike Duffy? Apparently finding your name in Duffy’s “diaries” – as many prominent Canadian conservatives are now beginning to learn. Here are 5 things we currently know based on documents already tabled in court in the opening week of Duffy’s trial on fraud, breach of trust and bribery charges:

allthecanadianpolitics

Fair Elections Act is actually unfair

According to the Council of Canadians, there were 100,000 Canadians who got the chance to vote in 2011 because someone vouched for them. And there were 400,000 Canadians who used voter-information cards to gain access to the ballot box. The council claims that with amendments put in place by Stephen Harper’s government through the Fair Elections Act, those votes could be in jeopardy. The new act does not allow for individuals to vouch for more than one person and it also prohibits the use of voter-information cards. The council goes further and claims this is deliberate — that the people who relied on these forms of identification are less likely to vote Conservative and thus, suppressing their votes works in the government’s favour. If that’s an unfair characterization, you would think the Harper government would use its sizeable clout and embark on an information campaign proving the council’s allegation to be false. But so far it hasn’t. And it needs to.

allthecanadianpolitics

This was an actual argument in the House of Commons today:

"The United States wrote to the [UN] secretary-general as required under Article 51 of the UN Charter and laid out their legal case for their planned intervention in Syria. Has the prime minister written to the United Nations laying out Canada’s justification for their planned intervention in Syria?" Mulcair asked. Harper downplayed the risk to ignoring international law. "If [Mulcair] is suggesting that there is any significant legal risk to lawyers from ISIL taking on the Government of Canada and winning, the Government of Canada’s view is the chances of that is negligible," the prime minister said. That led to a rebuke from Mulcair, which in turn triggered a warning from House Speaker Andrew Scheer. "Extraordinary, Mr. Speaker. Living in a Canada where that sort of idiocy passes for argument," Mulcair said. "The prime minister thinks he’s above international law. He’s not and Canada is not."

allthecanadianpolitics

Source (x)

Incredible. Stephen Harper continues to spew disgusting filth. This is an extremely valid concern, about breaking international law in regards to war, and the PM spins it.

They’re not even trying to argue their case anymore. Its all personal attacks and spin.

demandreason

Despite popular belief that they are chasing terrorists and master criminals, the world’s spy agencies spend much of their time pursuing environmentalists, opposition leaders, dissidents and even airline staff, leaked documents show.

The intelligence agencies, including Canadian spies, are interested in civilian targets that go far beyond terrorism, according to the latest batch of South African intelligence agency reports, leaked to Al Jazeera. Many spy agencies are more preoccupied with political activists than with terrorism, the reports show.

One document revealed that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was strongly interested in whether the Israeli airline, El Al, might have any gun-toting Israeli spies among its staff in international airports. It questioned whether El Al staff might have illegally obtained firearms.

South Korea’s spy agency wanted a “specific security assessment” of Greenpeace International’s director, Kumi Naidoo, before the G20 summit in Seoul in 2010, while Cameroon’s espionage agency sought an intelligence report on an opposition politician before an election in 2011. The Rwandan government wanted the authority to spy on “negationists” – anyone who questioned its version of the Rwandan genocide. And Sri Lanka wanted information on Tamils from Canada and elsewhere who were allegedly attending “military training” in South Africa.

South Africa rejected the requests from Cameroon, Rwanda and Sri Lanka, and it is unclear whether it spied on Mr. Naidoo. But another document showed that South Africa and Zimbabwe agreed to “monitor the activities” of environmental activists who were travelling to a global climate-change summit in Durban in 2011.

These environmentalists deserved “the attention of intelligence services” because they had a “potential for disruptive behaviour,” the South African intelligence report said.

The same document said the South African and Zimbabwean agencies had agreed to spy on “rogue” organizations “engaged in subversive activities.” But it failed to define “subversive” – leaving open the possibility of spying on legitimate anti-government groups.

Mr. Naidoo said he had always assumed that Greenpeace was under constant surveillance. But it was “numbing and chilling” to have it confirmed in the leaked documents, he told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

The latest batch of leaked spy cables, released by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, are among a trove of documents that are described as the biggest leak of intelligence data since Edward Snowden released masses of secret information in 2013.

While foreign spy agencies were asking South Africa’s security agency to crack down on political dissidents or environmental activists, South Africa itself was in danger of losing its secrets to foreign spies, the documents show.

One 11-page document from 2009 gave a detailed list of the “security vulnerabilities” and “deficiencies” that were jeopardizing the South African government.

In one example, the document described how foreign intelligence agents were able to pose as diplomats and then gain “frequent” access to high-security installations, including nuclear sites. Delegations from Iran and China, among others, were able to use this tactic to “demand access to sensitive plants where advanced technology is being developed,” the report said.

The document gave a long list of other official security weaknesses, including a lack of password protection on many government laptops. It also documented “hundreds of scams” by corrupt officials, which could allow security breaches.

Two days after the leaked documents were first disclosed, South Africa still had not commented on the leak by Tuesday night. Its State Security Agency promised a statement on Wednesday.

But analysts said the leak would be hugely damaging to South Africa’s reputation in the intelligence community. “This leak will likely cause immense and potentially irreparable damage to the SSA [State Security Agency],” said Darren Olivier, a South African researcher, on the website of the African Defence Review on Tuesday.

“Not only are many of its own secrets and operations now compromised, but no foreign agency will feel safe in sharing sensitive information with the SSA any time soon. This may in turn harm South Africa’s national security, cutting off the SSA’s access to invaluable intelligence from other agencies.”

To regain the trust of other intelligence agencies, the South African government will need to find the source of the leak and make changes to prevent it happening again, he said.

David Maynier, an MP for the opposition Democratic Alliance, called on State Security Minister David Mahlobo to give an urgent briefing to a parliamentary committee on the leaked spy documents and whether any wrongdoing is involved in them. The leak is “likely to be the cause of considerable embarrassment to the State Security Agency,” the MP said.

“We have never come this close to seeing inside the bottom drawers of the State Security Agency,” he said.

allthecanadianpolitics

RCMP investigating 150 ‘suspicious’ claims from Pamela Wallin’s expenses

An RCMP investigation into Pamela Wallin’s expenses has identified 150 “suspicious” claims, including two dozen relating to the suspended senator’s work as a board member for two Toronto-based companies, according to documents filed in an Ottawa court. Interviews the RCMP conducted with executives from Porter Airlines and wealth management firm Gluskin Sheff revealed that it is standard practice for both companies to reimburse directors for expenses relating to board events, the documents said. “I believe that Senator Wallin traveled to Toronto to pursue personal and business interests, and later represented to the Senate that these travels were parliamentary related as she sought reimbursement for expenses incurred during these travels,” Corporal Rudy Exantus wrote in an application for production orders.

allthecanadianpolitics

Parliamentary Budget Office sounds warning over billions in federal lending

Canada’s budget watchdog is studying the “prodigious” growth of federal lending through Crown corporations and other agencies, now totalling more than $200 billion, with little scrutiny from public servants or Parliament. The Parliamentary Budget Office recently flagged the magnitude and growth of these loans or “non-budgetary spending” over the past six years and now plans to examine the issue in an upcoming report, said assistant parliamentary budget officer Mostafa Askari. For the PBO, the big issue is transparency and due process in managing these transactions, particularly whether MPs and Senators are fully aware of the magnitude of such funding.