Now that the CBC has admitted that one of its reporters, Krista Erickson, had indeed colluded with two Liberal MPs to direct the questioning of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who was appearing in front of the Commons ethics committee investigating allegations made by Karlheinz Schreiber, the question remains.

Can this committee carry on?

Now that the committee is requesting access to Brian Mulroney tax returns, the answer has to be a limited "No".  Would you want your tax returns handed over to CBC reporters?

Posted by: Steve Janke at 11:49 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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With the question of the treatment of Afghan detainees providing much of the fuel for political debate in Ottawa, one element of the opposition attack is the strained relationship between the government and the military.

According to "sources", General Rick Hillier was furious and told Prime Minister Stephen Harper exactly that in a phone conversation.

According to Hillier and Harper, though, that conversation never happened.  The Globe and Mail seems to be backing away from the story.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Though there is some confusion about the size of the fallout from the decision of the NDP to cancel the candidacies of Micheline Montreuil and Francis Chartrand in Quebec, it is clear that there has been some fallout.

Anne Humphreys, a candidate who resigned her candidacy in support of Francis Chartrand, attributes the problems to Thomas Mulcair, the former provincial Liberal cabinet minister who ran for the NDP in the Liberal stronghold of Outremont.  In that by-election, Stephane Dion's hand-picked candidate, Jocelyn Coulon, was handily defeated by Mulcair.

According to Humphreys, Mulcair has promised to bring in a dozen star candidates.  Jack Layton desperately wants these people as candidates, so longtime NDP members like Chartrand and Montreuil are chucked aside.

NDP members in Quebec are not happy about this.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:07 AM | Comments (103) | Add Comment
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On any other site, it would just be a technical problem.  But on the site maintained by a political party, the disappearance of a page makes you wonder.

In this case, the folks at rabble have noticed that the page just put up by the NDP two days ago in which the NDP agreed with the Conservative government decision to withdraw from the Durban II conference in 2009 has disappeared. 

Is the NDP reconsidering its position?  There are plenty of folks at rabble who certainly hope so.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 04:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Joan Beatty was interviewed about her controversial appointment by Stephane Dion to be the Liberal Party candidate for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River in Saskatchewan.

Her answer to the critical question about why the nomination process needed to be suspended speaks volumes.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 01:06 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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In the wake of the announcement by Jason Kenney that Canada would withdraw from participation in the UN-sponsored Durban II anti-racism conference coming up in 2009, the opposition Liberal Party and NDP have come on board to say that the government made the right choice.

Frankly, it was the only possible choice.  The first Durban anti-racism conference turned into a West-bashing anti-Semitic nightmare hijacked by Middle Eastern dictatorships and neo-Nazi NGOs pretending to be "progressive".

Durban II will likely be worse.  The United Nations assigned the job of organizing the conference to Libya.  Iran is an executive member of the planning committee.  All the NGOs that distributed Hitler pamphlets during the first conference in 2001 are automatically invited back.

Durban II will likely be worse than Durban I.

When the announcement was made that Canada would not participate in Durban II, Jason Kenney promised that Canada would find other venues to fight racism.  One such had been identified back in June, when Canada applied to be an observer on the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research.

Now Canada has announced its intention to become a full member.

An important membership criteria?  Totalitarian, authoritarian, and dictatorial regimes need not apply.

Sounds like a good idea for the UN itself.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 10:40 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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At the risk of offending the Canadian Arab Federation, Stephen Dion and the Liberals have issued an official statement in which the party endorses the Conservative decision to withdraw from all activities related to the upcoming Durban II conference.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:13 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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When Francis Chartrand was forced out as an NDP candidate, it seemed to be an interesting story of NDP spin doctoring.  Chartrand had posted an angry open letter on his blog, calling Jack Layton and the NDP undemocratic.  We learned later that NDP officials twisted his arm and compelled him to replace that post with another one that spoke highly of the NDP, and claimed that Chartrand had himself decided to step aside as a candidate.

Well, the whole story came out, and now everyone knows that Chartrand was forced out as the candidate for Riviere-des-Mille-Iles, and that the NDP tried to cover it up.  My friend in Quebec is telling me that the Quebec media is now calling this "L'Affaire Chartrand", and that the list of NDP candidates and campaign staffers resigning continues to grow.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 08:51 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The Canadian Arab Federation has come out strongly against the Canadian government's decision, supported by the NDP, to not participate in any way with the upcoming UN-sponsored Durban II conference on racism.  The position of the Conservative government, supported by the NDP, is that Durban II is shaping up to be an exercise in the most vile and repellent anti-Semitism, as was experienced by the Canadian delegation that attended the Durban I conference in 2001.

The CAF has every right to take a different position.  But to call Jason Kenney an Islamophobe who is contemptuous of Arabs and of Islam?

But then CAF president Khaled Mouammar, who has all sorts of links with the Liberal Party, declares anyone who sympathizes with Israel to be guilty of complicity in war crimes.

I wonder if Khaled Mouammar is planning a trip to the Durban II conference.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 08:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Canada has been winning praise for taking the decision to withdraw participation in the Durban II conference in 2009, a UN-sponsored event ostensibly to fight racism, but almost certainly to degenerate into an anti-Semitic spectacle like Durban I in 2001.

Now even the NDP agrees with the government.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 06:54 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm sure it wasn't intentional.  In fact, I wonder if anything that comes out of Stephane Dion's mouth is intentional.  He just seems to say the wrong thing whenever the opportunity presents itself.

In this case, Ontario tobacco farmers were paid a visit by Stephane Dion.  These farmers are suffering because of market conditions for their product.   So what does Stephane Dion suggest?

Switch to ginseng -- another product that has producers struggling to turn a profit.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When I wrote about the government's decision to remove Canada from the preparatory work being done in advance of the Durban II conference, I really expected this to be a non-issue.

I really expected that the Liberals would applaud.  I really expected that the Liberals, who as a government sent a delegation to Durban I in 2001 and reported the most shocking examples of widespread anti-Semitism, would consider the words of John Manley and Irwin Cotler who advised against repeating that mistake.

Indeed, the Liberals could even take some credit, publishing those quotes and pointing out that they had concluded some time ago that the Durban II conference was not the sort of thing Canada could engage in.

I was wrong.  I really don't believe I'm saying this, but the Liberal Party position is that as awful as Durban I was when the Liberals attended, and as strongly as senior Liberals have said the entire experience was grotesque, Canadian diplomats ought have meetings with anti-Semites to discuss how to best to word the demand for the destruction of Israel as a measure of respect to the United Nations.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Another very clever video.  It really puts your knowledge of contemporary Canadian politicians to the test.

Can you guess which politician is on the right, and which is on the left?

Posted by: Steve Janke at 05:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, was a utter fiasco.  The conference was hijacked by anti-Semites and West-hating NGOs.  The atmosphere become so toxic that the United States and Israel withdrew their delegations.  Canada joined other major nations in condemning the conference, though Jean Chretien stopped short of actually pulling Canada's delegation.

Stephen Harper, Maxime Bernier (foreign affairs), and Jason Kenney (multiculturalism and Canadian identity) are being proactive this time around.  The follow-up conference scheduled for 2009 is showing every sign of being as bad as Durban I, perhaps worse.  Major nations have voted against funding it, but the resolution to fund the conference out of the UN general budget passed the UN General Assembly anyway. 

Canada might not be able to control the UN budget, but the Canadian government can still enjoy the sovereign right not to legitimize another UN pet project that demonizes the West.

And so it's great to hear that Canada is the first country to stand up and say that it will not participate in this upcoming conference.

Hopefully, countries like the United States will follow Canada's lead.  In the end, who wants to be at a conference facility where participants hand out pamphlets that mourn the fact that Hitler was not able to complete the job of exterminating the Jews?

Posted by: Steve Janke at 02:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This is pure supposition, of course, but I've been thinking about the collusion between CBC reporter Krista Erickson and Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez to use a Commons ethics committee hearing as a proxy for a CBC interview studio.

The Conservatives and others demanded that the CBC make the details of their investigation public.  The CBC has done that, to a point, revealing the name of the reporter who colluded with the Liberals, and detailing her punishment.  Krista Erickson has been reassigned to Toronto from Ottawa.

Some think the Conservative government put the screws on the CBC.  Nonsense.  If you think about it, the CBC had every reason to come clean and make it all public.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 01:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Krista Erickson's career as a CBC reporter has taking a blow.  She has been taken off the Ottawa beat as punishment for having worked with Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez in an attempt to make the Commons ethics committee into a means for the CBC to compel answers posed by its reporters.

Pablo Rodriguez, for his part, denies everything, and moreover, insists that actions taken by the CBC against Krista Erickson cannot be of interest to him.

Jason Cherniak, Liberal blogger and apologist for all things Liberal, has taken a different approach, and is agitating in support of Erickson.

Got that.  The Liberal MP at the centre of this controversy says CBC actions are of no interest, because he is not involved.  Jason Cherniak disagrees, and thinks the CBC actions need to be challenged.

Jason Cherniak disagrees!

Who woulda thunk it?

Posted by: Steve Janke at 03:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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John Manley has delivered his report on what the future of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan should be.

Essentially, it is what the Conservative government is already doing.  Stay in Afghanistan until the job is done.

Oh, and erase the Liberal Party legacy.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 02:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Now that the CBC has identified the reporter who wrote the questions for Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez to ask at Commons ethics committee hearing into the business dealings between Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney as Krista Erickson, it is curious to hear what Pablo Rodriguez has to say.

Remember, the CBC has already declared that Krista Erickson broke the rules, and the CBC has already punished her.  She has been reassigned to Toronto from Ottawa.  For the CBC there is no question, therefore, that Krista Erickson did exactly what had been alleged, and that is write questions for Pablo Rodriguez to repeat like a trained seal at the hearing.

Krista Erickson has been taken to the woodshed over this.  So what does Pablo Rodriguez do?  He denies everything.

He's hiding behind her skirts, as they would have said long ago, a time when being a gentleman meant something.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 07:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The CBC has responded to the Conservative Party on the question of collusion between a CBC reporter and the Liberal Party.

The CBC has named the reporter.  It is Krista Erickson.

The CBC has issued a punishment.  She has been pulled from covering Ottawa and has been reassigned to Toronto.

The CBC agrees that the reporter acted unethically.  And the Liberal Party...?

What we don't know is if the Liberal Party is sticking to the line that there was no collusion.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 03:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As readers might recall, Francis Chartrand was the NDP candidate for the Quebec riding of Riviere-des-Milles-Iles.  In mid-December, the party cancelled his candidacy.  Francis Chartrand was outraged, claiming that he hadn't even been told, but that he found out through news reports.

The NDP tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress his story, pressuring Chartrand to change his story so that it was his decision to step down as a candidate, and that Chartrand was happy to work for the NDP in another capacity. 

That plan worked...for about a day. 

This blog published both versions of Chartrand's story (he had them both on his blog, replacing his angry version under NDP pressure).  When confronted with the evidence that the story on his blog had change dramatically, Chartrand reverted back to his allegation that he was unilaterally forced out, and revealed that party officials in Ottawa and Montreal were compelling him to tell a very different story.

Until now, there has been little fallout reported from all this.  But a reader tells me that this could change as NDP candidates are resigning in support of Chartrand, or in protest of the NDP's heavy-handed way of handling the matter.

I have found some independent reports of resignations because of the Chartrand issue.  This could change everything.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:33 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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