The Blue Maple Leaf

This site is now officially closed

2006-01-30T17:04:00.000-06:00

I would like to thank Stephen Taylor and Craig Smith for their hard work in bringing Conservative bloggers together under one banner.

I would also like to thank the many bloggers that helped me with this site over its short one year run.

My e-mail account has been closed. My internet is now cancelled, the modem goes back tomorrow. This site will not be reopened in the future.

Stephen Harper’s Press Gallery Speeches

2006-01-28T16:09:00.000-06:00

Canadians have been told for many years that Stephen Harper is scary, but how many Canadians know that our new Prime Minister designate is funny?

Every year, Ottawa politicians deliver a speech to members of the mainstream media to show off their lighter side. Here are two links to Stephen Harper’s Press Gallery speeches, courtesy of CTV:

2005 Press Gallery speech – This speech was delivered after the failed vote of non-confidence. Belinda Stronach had defected to the liberals. The picture of Stephen Harper in a cowboy outfit had circulated. Gurmant Grewal exposed Tim Murphy after trying to buy votes to save the liberal government.

2004 Press Gallery speech – This speech was delivered after the 2004 election. In that election, the liberals won a minority government after engaging in a classic fear and smear campaign accusing the Conservatives of having a hidden agenda. Stephen Harper closes this speech by making a prediction that ultimately came true.

Stephen Harper Delivers his Best Speech in Winnipeg on the Eve of the 2006 Election

2006-01-22T15:28:00.000-06:00

The Harper rally was held today at Canad Inns Polo Park, across the street from Winnipeg Stadium.

Stephen Harper came to town and gave his best speech of the 2006 election campaign. The place was packed. The atmosphere was electric. The people of Winnipeg were so loud Mr. Harper had to shout to be heard. More than once Stephen had to stop his speech as the audience chanted his name. It was like watching a Winnipeg Jets game on a day when the Jets actually won.

One of the best parts of the speech was where Stephen Harper mentioned that Canadians already know the five priorities of a new Conservative government, but what about the liberal’s five priorities?

“Look at Mr. Martin’s five priorities for this election: Fighting a phony Quebec referendum that no one’s called, ads attacking our military and predicting martial law, picking a phony war of insults with the US, talking about an abortion debate nobody wants, promising a handgun ban we’ve had for decades and he can’t enforce. The only real thing about Mr. Martin’s election campaign is the latest series of police investigations”. – Stephen Harper

Tomorrow is election day. Tomorrow we find out if Canadians are ready to embrace a Conservative government or if the liberal campaign of fear and smear prevails again. There is always a chance the liberals can win this election, but there is good reason to be optimistic for our country this time.

These are great times to be a Conservative in Canada.

Election 2006 - Liberal Campaign Scandals & Bloopers

2006-01-21T15:45:00.000-06:00

NEW ADDITIONS (#47 - #53) - The liberal party just keeps on giving. So far this weekend, the liberals have given us another six outtakes to add to the list including liberal cabinet minister Reg Alcock’s outburst calling Canadian Corrections Officers “Dumb as posts”, and a voter registration scandal in the riding of another cabinet minister Anne McLellan.

The following e-mail showed up in the Blue Maple Leaf’s inbox today. It is a list of Bloopers from the liberal campaign in the first 53 days of the campaign. The list comes to us courtesy of Steve Morrissey in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

1. ITSCAM: The RCMP launched a criminal investigation into to the release of information by the Department of Finance, related to the income trust issue. Also the failure of Goodale to resign and the obfuscation as to who knew what.

2. WorkScam: "Campaign Cash Grab" The Liberal Party will lay off much of its campaign headquarters staff over Christmas with no pay, and has told some on leave from the government they should collect vacation pay from the public payroll if they have it coming.

3. Liberal lobbyists - also being laid off and 'Mike Duffy Live' reported that they were told by the Liberal party to return to their employers and request to be paid in the holiday interim. A lobbyist working on a campaign, even if they've de-registered temporarily, is in violation of their ethics rules and they're putting politicians in a conflict of interest which violates their ethics rules.

4. Abotech Affair - Liberal MP David Smith (Pontiac). The computer consultancy firm that he once ran, now run by his wife out of the family home, has had contracts with the federal government suddenly terminated as a result of an audit at Consulting and Audit Canada, a branch of Public Works. Not to mention Aboriginal slurs. The controversy surrounding Mr. Smith is now being reviewed by the federal ethics commissioner.

5. Elie Betito resignation - president of the Liberal riding association in Oakville provoked an outrage over comments he made to a voter. In short, he wrote "take your NRA , GUN LOVING ASS BACK TO THE U.S. WHERE YOU BELONG".

6. Omar Alghabra - Ontario Liberal candidate, according to eyewitnesses, declared when he won the party's nomination that, "This is a victory for Islam! Islam won! ... Islamic power is extending into Canadian politics".

7. Belinda Stronach - being investigated by Elections Canada for campaign spending. Documents obtained showed that on voting day in the June 28, 2004, election Stronach's campaign engaged in a spending spree for entertainment and a hefty bill from Atlantis Creative Group, a Toronto-based public relations firm. The payments flagged by Elections Canada include an invoice for $34,240 for what was classified as an election day project. A subsequent invoice from Atlantis treats that earlier payment as a deposit for the project, whose final price tag grew to $75,378.

8. Jean Pelletier - fired, rehired and now fired again.

9. Klander Slander - Mike Klander, executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party's Ontario wing, stepped down after photographs of Chow, the NDP candidate for the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, and a chow chow dog were posted on his blog dated Dec. 9 under the heading ``Separated at Birth".

10. Scott Reid & John Duffy - Now infamous "beer & popcorn" remarks.

11. Washington Gaff - evidence shows Martin, Frank McKenna and others orchestrate the Washington spat for cheap political gain.

12. Photo Smear - Stephen Harper says it's "beyond tasteless" for the Liberals to use a photo of himself and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe at a Holocaust memorial. The photo shows Harper whispering to Duceppe during the Holocaust memorial last spring on Parliament Hill, suggesting he would work with the separatist party.

13. David Emerson - Industry Minister is quoted in a blog by Jamie Elmhirst, the Liberals' B.C. president, as referring to Layton's "boiled dog's head smile." Emerson said he would not apologize for comparing NDP Leader Jack Layton to a boiled dog's head because he didn't mean the remark to be insulting.

14. Dave Haggard - former labour leader and a failed Liberal candidate in 2004, was paid $9,000 a month plus expenses by the Paul Martin government to produce a report on apprenticeship training that has yet to be released to the public. Haggard, who is running again for the Liberals, said Thursday he worked as a special adviser on apprenticeship issues from early January to Sept. 30, when he submitted his report.

15. Sam Bulte - MP for Parkdale/High Park is having her election campaign bankrolled by the Canadian entertainment cartel. Bulte previously authored a one-sided report proposing crazy, US-style copyright laws for Canada, and her pals from the Canadian Recording Industry Association threw her a $250/plate fundraiser. "How else am I supposed to raise money?" Bulte said.

16. Dale Muti - a prominent Calgary Liberal, a hand-picked candidate by Paul Martin for the 2004 election, defected to the Conservatives saying the Liberals are unprincipled and that Mr. Martin has failed Canadians, for the Grits’ unethical behavior as outlined in the Gomery report on the sponsorship scandal, but also because the prime minister is ignoring the concerns of Albertans.

17. Oral Report - revealed that in February 2005, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs hired a consultant for $132,000 and specified in the contract that "presentations shall be oral with supporting material provided to aid comprehension but not retained by the department".

18. Claude Laverdure - Canada's ambassador to France remains the biggest diplomatic spender even though he cut spending on cocktail receptions and fine dining in half last year. He came under fire for racking up more than $201,000 in hospitality claims in 2004, spent $105,261 in 2005 hosting foreign dignitaries and businesspeople in posh Paris.

19. "Small Business" - on Jan 4 Paul Martin says, "Let me tell you, I am very proud of having started with a small Canadian company, uh, a small Canadian company, which today, uh, build, uh, most of it's ships in Canada…." He was hired as Maurice Strong's personal assistant (1966) - the family friend who was head of Power Corp - who then owned CSL. He was put on the board of CSL, then President, and then the next year, in a sweet-heart leveraged deal, bought the company for $190 million.

20. Vickers and Benson - Martin continues to award contracts to a company implicated in the sponsorship scandal. In March of 2000, Former Public Works minister Alfonso Gagliano received assurances from John Manley and Paul Martin that Vickers and Benson would continue to receive government contracts. Gagliano assured the company that they would not lose any business. Guité said he was told that competitions could be rigged. Contracts awarded: $3,411,230 on Oct 28, 2005 and $492,200 on September 28, 2005.

21. Relocation Services Scam - Royal LePage. A billion dollar contract to relocate civil servants across the country is mired in allegations of mismanagement and cronyism so serious that the parliamentary spending watchdog may send it to Canada's Auditor General for review.

22. Options Canada - allegations that the organization contravened the Quebec Referendum Act and clearly broke federal Treasury Board rules and the years of cover-up. The organization was created at the last minute and received $4.8 million two or three weeks before the 1995 referendum, one week after it was created. RCMP called in by the Department.

23. Marc Garneau - Liberal candidate and former astronaut Marc Garneau has compared the sovereigntist movement in Quebec with Washington's decision to invade Iraq.

24. Kim Doran - Deputy National Director (Organization and Policy) of the Liberal Party found currently working on the campaign in Eastern Ontario), at the same time was representing the Coalition for Gun Control. She was awarded in March 2003 a five month $380,000 contract by the Justice Department to lobby the federal solicitor general, Treasury Board and Privy Council, according to a detailed lobbyist report for funds for the ailing firearms registry. The RCMP have now been asked to investigate by the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

25. Income Trusts II - Jan. 6, the American SEC is taking "very seriously'' complaints of insider trading involving Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's November announcement on income trusts. There is also a signal that the Ontario Securities Commission may be doing the same.

26. Edward Keyserlingk - Canadian taxpayers shelled out $53,000 over two years to ferry a hand-picked government appointee between his job in Ottawa and his home in Montreal. The public service integrity officer, is paid between $675-$800 a day for the position that keeps him occupied an average of three days a week. John Williamson, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, called it an "absolutely preposterous and outrageous" practice that's ripping off the public.

27. "Soldiers with Guns" & "Duffy on Duffy" - Jan 10, negative anti-military ad posted on Liberal website, distributed to media and hours later pulled. "Duffy on Duffy" results as John Duffy attempts to intimidate Mike Duffy over further questioning of the ad. Second time John Duffy makes an ass out of himself during campaign.

28. Platform Leak - on Jan 11 it appears entire Liberal platform leaked to Western Standard and perhaps others. As well on this day Liberal shrill Susan Murray says "Bullshit" to Brad Lavigne on Don Newman’s "Politics".

29. Ujjal Dosanjh - on Jan 12 it was revealed he received $16,000 in campaign donations from two Ontario families involved in health-service companies when he was seeking election to the House of Commons in 2004. Six weeks later, he was named health minister in Paul Martin's Liberal government.

30. Jack Layton - who's campaigning as the defender of public health care, it was revealed that he had surgery at a private clinic in the 1990s, Canadian Press learned. Layton had hernia surgery at the Shouldice Hospital, a private facility in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, while he was serving as a Toronto city councillor. Yes, not a Liberal scandal, but still worth mentioning.

31. Bob Speller - (Haldimand-Norfolk) Liberal candidate proudly displays on his website a letter that claims western farmers want him back. Turns out, the three "farmers" who signed the endorsement happen to be a Manitoba Liberal candidate, campaign manager and riding vice-president.

32. David Oliver - Abbotsford BC Liberal candidate turfed over allegation he and his campaign manager guaranteed NDP candidate a win in the next municipal election, and offered him a job in Ottawa, if Oliver went on to win the election on Jan. 23. The NDP has written to Elections Canada requesting an investigation.

33. Tony Valeri Flips - Hamilton (East-Stoney Creek) Liberal cabinet minister more than doubled his money in three months when he flipped a property next to his home to the son of a prominent businessman with ties to the Liberal party. Valeri, Liberal MP for Hamilton, purchased the property on Ridge Road along the escarpment in upper Stoney Creek for $225,000 last April. Three months later, Valeri sold the property for $500,000 to John Ng.

34. "Soldiers with Guns II" - Paul Martin defends ad that warned the Conservatives would put "soldiers with guns" on the streets of Canadian cities. After saying several times that he had approved the ad, Mr. Martin reversed himself on a CBC-TV town hall meeting where he replied that he'd seen a transcript before they were approved. Liberal candidate Keith Martin in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca apologized for the release of the ad. "Some idiot went and sent it out with the other 11 ads, and it was never sanctioned by the party, never approved, and we are completely appalled that this went out”.

34. Brenda Chamberlain - voter cards for Kevin and Gillian Chamberlain, son and daughter-in-law of Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain, who both live outside the Guelph riding, were sent to campaign office address withing the riding. Chamberlain says if anyone in her family broke the rules by voting in the riding of Guelph in 2004, it's not her place to do anything about it.

36. Notwithstanding Blunder - Martin said his vow to ban the federal government's use of the Constitution's notwithstanding clause is something he's been thinking about "for a long time," despite the fact there is no mention of the issue in the party's (leaked) platform. Ottawa South Liberal MP David McGuinty was featured in the morning papers wondering aloud what the heck his fearless leader, Paul Martin, was thinking when the PM announced he would scrap the federal use of the notwithstanding clause. Deputy PM admits she was in the dark about it too.

37. Andrew Telegdi - Liberal MP made it into the bad news with a story he had once used the racial slur "niggers." He says the remark was made 32 years ago, when he was the head of the student’s federation at the University of Waterloo, and the word was then used on campus to describe any disadvantaged group.

38. Denis Coderre - Phoenix Coyotes captain Shane Doan filed a lawsuit against Liberal MP Denis Coderre, alleging the former sports minister falsely accused him of making a slur against francophones during an NHL game. A senior NHL official unloaded on federal MP Denis Coderre on Thursday after the former minister in charge of sports asked Hockey Canada to reconsider Shane Doan's selection to the Olympic hockey team over an alleged ethnic slur.

39. Joe Volpe - Citizenship and Immigration Minister rented limos to ferry him on long trips from Toronto last year, with one ride to Buffalo and back costing more than $1,000, Sun Media learned.

40. PCO Solicitation - Paul Martin's Liberals have issued an "urgent" call to Privy Council Office staff for their support and donations in the run-up to the Jan. 23 vote. Liberal party president Mike Eizenga mailed bright yellow teledispatches directly to the office addresses of employees of the PCO, which is supposed to remain non-partisan and non-political.

41. Gary Richard - Mothers Against Drunk Driving has accused the Nova Scotian Liberal candidate of trivializing their message, "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." Gary Richard, the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley candidate, is using the slogan "Friends don't let friends vote Conservative" in his campaign pamphlets. The similarity of the two slogans has upset the president of the Cobequid Chapter of MADD. "We're disappointed with it. We feel it trivializes a very serious message about driving impaired," Kathleen Foster-Alfred said.

42. Access to Information - On November 7th, 2005, and November 16th, 2005, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation submitted two access to information requests asking for the total amount taxpayers paid for lawyers fees at the Gomery Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program. These requests went to two government bodies – the Privy Council Office and the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada. On December 5th, 2005, both the Privy Council Office and the Department of Public Works replied saying an additional 60 days was needed for one request and an additional 100 days was needed for the other. Coincidentally, the election will be over by the time this information sees the light of day. Update: the little info now revealed shows $2 million in legal fees required to recover $1 million.

43. Chris Axworthy - in the riding of Saskatoon-Wanuskewin Liberal candidate Chris Axworthy has apologized to Conservative incumbent Maurice Vellacott after someone used a phone in Axworthy's campaign office to falsely accuse Vellacott of sexual assault on a live televised candidates' forum earlier this week.

44. Gilles Savard - A Liberal candidate in Quebec has conceded defeat and urged his supporters to vote for the Conservative party. The Liberal candidate for the riding of Jonquiere-Alma, is throwing his support behind the Tories to stave off a Bloc Quebecois victory. Update: he is now backtracking somewhat from his earlier remarks.

45. Buzz Hargrove - Canadian Auto Workers president used a campaign stop in Strathroy to call Conservative Leader Stephen Harper a separatist whose Alberta-born political principles place him outside mainstream Canadian values. He seemed to agree with questioners that Quebecers should vote for the Bloc Quebecois over the Conservatives. A day later Buzz did not back down on his statements, he encourages Quebeckers to vote for the Bloc Québécois in a bid to siphon support from the Conservatives. Buzz believes the NDP should leave Quebec to the Bloc. Harper responds, "It is absolutely unacceptable to in any way, shape or form suggest that people should vote for the breakup of this country in order for the Liberal party to maintain its entitlement to power," Harper said during a campaign stop Thursday morning in Waterdown, Ont.

46. Ron Chyczij - In a last-minute blow to high-profile Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff, the president of the party’s riding association in Etobicoke-Lakeshore swung his support today Jan 20 to Conservative rival John Capobianco in Monday’s federal election.

* New *

47. Don Lindsay - at the Pembroke Outdoor Sportsman's Club, Liberal candidate Don Lindsay's self destruction continued when club member and Canadian Veteran George Tompkins stood to ask the candidates his question. "If the handgun ban goes forward. What plan would your party offer to compensate those of us who legally own the guns that would be confiscated?" To which Lindsay replied "Sir America is our neighbor not our nation, if you elect a society that talks about that kind of perspective I suggest that perhaps you go there!"

48. Anne McLellan - Laurie Hawn, Conservative Candidate in Edmonton Centre, has filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Elections Canada after massive voter list irregularities were uncovered by his campaign. For some time, there have been rumors of election irregularities in Edmonton Centre. At an all candidates meeting with Elections Canada on January 4, 2006, it was revealed that two buildings had been struck from the electoral rolls because they were not residences. In reality, these buildings were both mailbox stores. Several days later, the Laurie Hawn campaign identified a third non-residence building which sells mail boxes and reported it to Elections Canada. A few days ago, the Laurie Hawn campaign was alerted, via e-mail, by an Edmonton lawyer that: "Lots of [Anne McLellan] supporters are enumerated at their downtown office address instead of at their houses. One of them was bragging about how many times he could vote liberal (sic) based on the number of leases he had in her riding."

49. Reg Alcock - after a candidates debate in parking lot after Reg was heard to utter in a load voice, inter alia, "Correctional Officers are dumb as Posts".

50. Translation services contracts - $3.6 million to Lexitech International (Liberal friendly Irving Company) and $1 million to Les Traductions Tessier of Ottawa. On Jan 16, 2006 bidders asked to extend the validity of their bids until January 25, 2006 - 9 days, a very unusual length and two days after the election. The contracts were actually awarded on 21 December 2005 and published on the MERX on 22 and 28 December 2005.

51. Travel Gate - Martin says Harper’s unfit to lead, form independent international policy because he has no world travel experience. Martin’s arrogance grew further as he told the media that Canadians who have not extensively traveled the world are not fit for public office. Paul Martin incorrectly stated that Stephen Harper had not left continental North America, when in fact, Mr. Harper has often traveled internationally – and several times with Paul Martin himself. Beyond forgetting these events completely, Mr. Martin suggested that only world travelers are capable of holding public office in Canada, because of the nature of the globalized world.

52. Alphonso Gagliano - revealed by the Western Standard is RCMP’s criminal background check of Gagliano, done before Jean Chrétien first appointed him to cabinet. It is almost completely blacked out. Then Commissioner Norman Inkster suggests that Gagliano be fingerprinted to prove or disprove the worst of the findings.

53. Criminal Cheques - Just as we get set to vote tomorrow, $250 energy rebate cheques are being sent to criminals behind bars, who already got to cast their vote in the comfort of their cells, heated by our tax dollars. In the words of a correctional officer: "I work to July to hand over all my money to the taxman, and today I gave convicted criminals a rebate cheque. It's all wrong. It's time we stood up and said enough is enough." It is another flawed rebate program, this time at cost of $2.4 billion.

Paul Martin Fears Loss of the Supreme Court

2006-01-20T20:49:00.000-06:00

Liberals are in full panic mode at the thought of losing control over the Supreme Court. For liberals the Supreme Court represents ultimate power. It is the power to impose liberalism on our Country without ever asking Canadians for consent.

In the last few years the Supreme Courts has struck down parts of Canada’s child porn laws, redefined marriage and ruled that Canadians have a right to engage in orgies and partner swapping in sex clubs.

This is not the way that a democracy was supposed to work.

It is not the job of Judges to write our Laws, it is their job to enforce them. Just as it is the job of referees to enforce the rules of hockey.

Imagine if some kid tried to take your son’s head off with his hockey stick and the referee stopped the play and simply had a face off. Then when the coach asked why he didn’t give the kid a match penalty, the referee replied:

“I don’t feel that punishment is a deterrent. I’ve given high sticking penalties for 15 years and kids still do it. I think it would be better to get that kid into counseling after the game and see if we can reason with him. If only we can show that kid some understanding and help him to realize that what he did is dangerous and that he could hurt someone, I know we can reform him into a model hockey player”.

Everyone would be outraged at the thought of a referee who thought he was above the players, the parents, the coaches, the hockey league and yes, even the above the game itself.

Yet, in this country we have a problem with Judges that have decided they are above the people, the voters, the elected representatives and yes, even above democracy itself.

Even if Canadians are in favor recent Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage, orgies and child porn, they should be concerned by judicial activism. They should be concerned because judicial activism can cut both ways.

What would happen if the courts declared it a Constitutional right to own a gun? What if Laws preventing Canadians from carrying a concealed weapon were struck down?

Remember, it was only last year that the Supreme Court ruled that Canadians have a Constitutional right to buy private health insurance and paved the way for two-tiered health care. And, because the Supreme Court is the final arbiter in the country on every issue, we as Canadians do not have a say once the Courts have ruled.

The reason Paul Martin and his liberal supporters approve of the Supreme Court and never want to see the notwithstanding clause used, is because at this moment the Supreme Court is loaded with liberal appointees. This liberal Court is imposing liberalism on our nation in a way that no Canadian can do anything about. Liberals are turning this country into what they want it to be and they are doing so without having to ask Canadians for permission.

This is why Stephen Harper is right to point out that an activist Court is the enemy and this is why Paul Martin is so desperate to save it.

Poor Liberal Media - Conservatives Still Climbing

2006-01-18T07:27:00.000-06:00

For two or three days it looked like Conservative fortunes had stalled. Polls that put Conservative support 13 points ahead of the liberals had not changed for a few days despite steady increases since the election was called.

As a result, every media outlet in the country was proudly reporting that Conservative support had finally peaked. In some cases, the media reported that Conservative support was slipping now instead of gaining. What a joke.

The new polls out today show that Conservative support keeps climbing. The latest poll from the Strategic Counsel has the Conservatives 18 points ahead of the liberals! Yes, 18 points!

Here is a link to the CTV article titled, "Tory surge may have peaked, new polls suggest" and watch the video clip titled, "Conservatives continue their surge".

This will be a desperate week for the liberal mainstream media.

The History of Liberal Scandal - The Sea Kings

2006-01-16T07:03:00.000-06:00

WINNIPEG (BML) - It was 1963 when Canada began flying the Sea King Helicopter. This helicopter served the military well for many years, but by the late 1980s, the military needed to replace them. The Prime Minister of that time was Brian Mulroney. His government had done its research and made contracts to replace the Sea King helicopters with the EH-101.

However, in the 1993 election, liberal leader Jean Chrétien promised to scrap the contract and order no new helicopters for the military. There are not too many people in Canada still driving the car they bought in 1963. Yet, the liberals wanted our men and women in uniform to risk their lives flying helicopters that were unsafe and required an absurd number of hours in maintain for each hour flown. Jean Chrétien wouldn’t lose any sleep over them.

Of all the broken promises made by the liberals since coming to power in 1993, this is one promise they actually kept. The results were a disaster.

Reversing the decision to buy EH-101 put the federal government in breach of its contract. The cost to Canadian taxpayers is still not known, but the best estimates are that the cost was $600 million to $700 million. That’s nearly a billion dollars that taxpayers paid to companies and received absolutely nothing in return!

Maintenance problems and crashes plagued this helicopter all through the 1990s and still plague them today. Crashes have cost the Canadians who serve our country their lives. In February 2003, a Sea King crashed into the deck of the HMCS Iroquois when its engine simply gave out.

True to liberal form the liberals tell Canadians that replacing the Sea Kings is now a priority. They promise this election to address the problem of aging equipment in the military. The liberals tell us how proud they are of the military and how much they support them. Liberals say this on days when they aren’t trying to scare us about the menace of having Canadian troops in Canadian cities. And liberals say this despite being the ones that caused the problem in the first place.

Reporting on liberal scandal number 1 of 201, this is The Blue Maple Leaf.

To find out more about The History of liberal Scandal – 200 bloggers, 200 scandals, please visit Conservative Life.

Socialist Candidates Validates The Blue Maple Leaf on the CBC's Riding Talk

2006-01-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

The CBC website has an election feature called riding talk. It gives people the chance to comment on the election in a moderated forum that is specific to each riding.

This author decided to leave a short two paragraph comment in the section for Charleswood – St. James. This is the riding where Conservative Health Critic Stephen Fletcher is up for re-election.

These comments must have been convincing because the NDP candidate for the area, Dennis Kshyk, decided to respond with comments of his own. Unfortunately for Dennis, he validated everything that was said without knowing it.

The exchange begins with comments made by a new Winnipeg resident with leftist leanings. She writes:

I am a new resident to Charleswood and am still trying to brief myself on the political history in this area. I have always been supportive of the NDP's and I am worried that I haven't seen one NDP lawn sign yet in my neighborhood. I think it is important to make some 'leftist' noise and get involved in whatever way we can.

Do the NDP have a chance in this riding? Even though every inch of me cringes to think this but I am wondering if I should strategically vote Liberal this election to prevent re-electing the conservatives. Any thoughts about this?

Posted by: Pamela Dec 18, 2005 1:57:56 AM

The Blue Maple Leaf followed up with this comment:

Pamela, welcome to Winnipeg! I hope you like it here. I also hope you enjoy living in Charleswood - St. James, since it is certainly the nicest part of the city. As for your question, "What chance does the NDP have in this riding," the answer is ZERO.

The good people of Charleswood - St. James are a very independent breed and very family orientated. If they have a problem, they rely on friends, family, community. They don't have much need for government.

Posted by: Michael Jan 6, 2006 5:47:56 PM

At this point the NDP candidate for the area chimed in with his thoughts and wrote:

Where to begin? When I read comments like those from Michael to Pamela, I am glad I belong to the NDP. I once saw things like Michael when I lived in Alberta and then I moved to Manitoba 20 years ago and my eyes were opened. Michael says people in Charleswood-St. James don't have much need for government and they have their family, friends and community.

I ask Michael and anyone else who thinks like Michael to go take a tour at the Winnipeg Harvest as I did on Jan 6, 2oo6. I thought poverty was only in the inner city area. I learned that in Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia 15.8% of households and 14.6% of children live in poverty. I also learned that in 2000 there were 3 food agencies set up in the riding to provide food to these households. But I also learned that there is also 3 school programs in the riding where Winnipeg Harvest provides food for some schools because there are a number of children in this riding that go to school hunger every morning and also have no lunch.

The Liberals promised to end child poverty by the year 2000 but poverty has continued to increase and the Conservatives, well they just don't believe there is a poverty problem because there are family, friends and communities that will look after all this.

Pamela, the NDP does have a chance in this riding if the voters vote for the NDP because the Liberals have not delivered on their promises over the 12 years and the Conservatives will not address the social problems because they do not believe it is for government to address them.

Dennis Kshyk
Federal NDP Candidate
Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia

Posted by: Dennis Kshyk Jan 8, 2006 8:10:34 PM

Here is how the subject ended:

Thank you for posting your comments Dennis. Your mention of Winnipeg Harvest confirms what I said 100%.

I said, “The good people of Charleswood - St. James are a very independent breed and very family orientated. If they have a problem, they rely on friends, family, community. They don't have much need for government”.

Winnipeg Harvest is a wonderful charity that meets the needs of so many Winnipeggers and there are more just like it. The Salvation Army, Christmas Cheer Board, The Children’s Hospital Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Shalom Mission, Meals on Wheels and the list goes on and on and on.

All these charities exist because of the hard work of volunteers and cash and food donations made by the good people of this city. These charities are not inventions of government! These charities exist in spite of government, by undoing the damage created by the kinds of social programs that socialists impose on us; welfare being the worst of them.

As much as the socialists in the NDP would like to eliminate the need for these charities by erecting more government, or creating more social programs, it will never happen. By virtue of our creation we need other people to help us in times of need, people that won’t ask us to fill out an application form before giving that help.

And, no candidate understands the need to offer help and receive help from others more than the Conservative candidate, Steven Fletcher.

Posted by: Michael Jan 14, 2006 4:33:14 PM

This exchange is a reminder of a Blue Maple Leaf post made back on New Year’s Day 2005, just over one year ago. The January 1st article was titled, “Big Governments Don’t Go to Heaven”.

That article is just as true today as it was back then, and we would like to thank socialist NDP candidate Dennis Kshyk for proving it.

Inmates Use Advance Polls to Vote Liberal

2006-01-14T08:46:00.000-06:00

The CBC posted a story to their website last night. The story is all about how inmates in Canada’s prisons will be using the advance polls to cast their ballot in this election.

The article goes out of its way to portray the liberal crime strategy as one that gives hope to criminals. Not surprisingly, the CBC portrays the Conservative crime plan as harsh, cruel, and an attack on the human rights of Canadians. It attacks Stephen Harper personally by saying he would further isolate inmates from society by using the notwithstanding clause to take away voting rights from criminals while in jail.

Not once does the article let victims tell their side of the story. Instead, the article is a one sided piece all about the poor criminals in jail, like Leslie Henry, convicted of killing his wife.

Henry touts the classic crime is not a deterrent mantra. According to him, mandatory minimums (a staple of the Conservative crime strategy) will do nothing to reduce crime.

Another inmate, Jeff Powers, had a big red ‘L’ for liberal painted on the side of his head. Powers was jailed for drug trafficking and robbing two pharmacies. He says that he would never vote Conservative, because they plan to tighten up parole rules. Powers then described how his poor old dad committed suicide. His dad was sentenced to a double life sentence back in the days when there was no parole and his father couldn’t live with it. He felt like there was no hope.

Doesn’t that bring tears to your eyes?

There is no question the CBC has a bias toward liberalism and socialism in this country. They constantly bend the news in a way that is pro-liberal and anti-Conservative, but does the CBC really think that this kind of story will turn voters off Stephen Harper and the Conservatives?

The fact that criminals support the liberal party and their love a perp crime strategy says it all.

Commercial Idea - "Military"

2006-01-12T02:35:00.000-06:00

The following is an idea for a commercial related to the military ads that the liberal party aired. The liberal ad suggested that if Stephen Harper were elected, the Canadian military would be roaming Canadian cities with guns like some third world dictatorship. There is a good reason why Conservatives want to bolster the military presence in our cities. The following script illustrates one.

Please visit the CBC archives and watch the video of Canada's Armed Forces in Winnipeg.

[Drum music]

[Fade in a black and white photo of Gary Filmon]

In 1997, a Conservative Premier requested a military presence in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg

A Canadian City

Soldiers with guns

In our city

In Canada

[Drum music stops]

[Photo switches to an aerial shot of Winnipeg surrounded in water during the 97 flood]

And those Canadian soldiers helped rescue that city from the worst flood in the history of Canada.

To the Men and Women of Canada’s Armed Forces,

Thank you…

…for Standing Up for Canada

Mike Duffy vs. John Duffy

2006-01-10T23:26:00.000-06:00

Where does the liberal party get these strategy clowns?

Liberal communications guy Scott Reid was the one that made the infamous beer and popcorn remark and it was liberal strategist John Duffy that defended Scott Reid and took his comments one step further.

Now it seems that John Duffy has resorted to intimidating CTV journalists off the air.

View the New Video of John Duffy courtesy of Steven Taylor.

Paul Martin Pledges Judicial Tyranny if Elected

2006-01-10T21:23:00.000-06:00

The most frightening thing to come out of Monday’s leadership debate was when Paul Martin pledged to eliminate the notwithstanding clause from Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The notwithstanding clause allows Parliament or the legislature of any province to overturn a Court ruling temporarily. The purpose of this clause is to ensure that the people who have final say on the Charter are the ones elected by Canadians and not the ones appointed by politicians.

In the last few years, Canadians have watched as unelected, unaccountable liberal judges with life tenure have imposed liberalism on our country. It was the Supreme Court that gave us abortion on demand. It was the Court that struck down portions of Canada’s child pornography laws. It was the Court that redefined marriage. It was the Court that declared two-tier health care a Right. And most recently, it was the Court that ruled sex clubs are okay.

A recent article by The National Post gave us a wonderful insight into the mind of Canada’s foremost liberal activist judge. Canada’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Beverly McLachlin said, "The rule of law requires judges to uphold unwritten constitutional norms, even in the face of clearly enacted laws or hostile public opinion," while speaking to group of law students at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

What the highest ranking liberal judge in our country essentially told these law students, is that even when the law is clearly written and the Constitution says nothing, she believes in making it up and calling it the rule of law. As Angry in the Great White North tells it, this is the legal principle of, “making it up as we go along”.

When it comes to judicial philosophy, the debate is not between liberal activism (which would see liberal judges strike down any law that restricts a perceived Constitutional right of Canadians to have sex with sheep) and Conservative activism (which would see Conservative judges impose the death penalty for adultery). The debate is between judicial activism (where judges enact or strike down laws based solely on their opinion) and original intent (where judges look at what is written in the law and consider why the drafters wrote that law in the first place).

Take the recent decision of the Supreme Court who ruled that swingers clubs are okay. The Supreme Court overruled two lower court rulings that sex clubs violate the criminal laws against keeping a bawdy house. This ruling means Canadians can have orgies and offer their husbands and wives up to complete strangers for sex in private clubs.

Not surprisingly, it was Canada’s most notorious liberal judge, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who said in her decision, "Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society."

The law does not say that it can hardly be supposed. It is her opinion that it can hardly be supposed. But remember, she is unelected. She is unaccountable. She can never be fired, no matter what rulings she makes. Liberal activist judges can legalize abortion on demand, strike down child porn laws, strike down provisions of the Canada Health Act, rewrite the definition of marriage, and disregard laws that criminalize bawdy houses and there is very little we can do to stop them.

Now Paul Martin wants to take away the only provision that can ever keep these out of control liberal activist judges in check. The notwithstanding clause was added to the Charter to prevent exactly what these judges are doing.

Make no mistake, if any Prime Minister, Conservative or otherwise, was to ever use the notwithstanding clause to take away a Right that Canadians truly believe is a Right, that politician would face the wrath of voters in an election. That is democracy. And that is why the final say should always rest with those who are elected and accountable to us, the people. The final say should never rest with nine men and women in black robes who cannot ever be touched by Canadians.

The sponsorship scandal is proof that liberals loathe democracy. The empty promises liberals tell every election to get elected is proof that liberals loathe democracy. The militant opposition that liberals have to an elected senate is proof that liberals loathe democracy. And Paul Martin’s desire to insulate liberal judges from all accountability by eliminating the notwithstanding clause is proof that Paul Martin and his liberal friends absolutely loathe democracy.

On January 23rd we will either vote to preserve our democracy or lose another piece of it.

Support Steven Fletcher - Charleswood/St.James, Winnipeg

2006-01-05T18:12:00.000-06:00

The Blue Maple Leaf is playing a minor role this election in helping re-elect the Conservative Health Critic, Steven Fletcher.

If you would like to help promote Steven Fletcher's election website, there is now a proper button.

This button was created by the official button maker of the Conservative Party of Canada, Blogging Tories author - Brent Colbert.

Here is the code for your 'I support Steven Fletcher' button:

Enjoy!

Positive Ideas – vs – Personal Attacks

2006-01-02T19:11:00.000-06:00

As we head into the second half of the federal election campaign, it’s worth taking stock of what the two main parties did in the first half:

Party A,

• Proposed a Federal Accountability Act to clean up government

• Proposed an Independent Director of Public Prosecutions to crack down on corruption

• Proposed sweeping democratic reforms, including an elected Senate

• Proposed cutting the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%

• Proposed a plan to protect our fisheries, cut capital gains taxes for fishermen, and enhance provincial control over fisheries

• Proposed easing the tax burden on small business, and tax support to create more apprenticeship jobs

• Proposed a plan to promote education and training

• Proposed a plan to support family farmers and Canadian agriculture

• Proposed a plan to crack down on drug crime through mandatory prison sentences for serious drug crimes and an end to house arrest

• Proposed a Patient Wait Times Guarantee

• Proposed a $1200 per year Choice in Child Care Allowance, and the creation of 125,000 daycare spaces

• Proposed a plan to give seniors retirement security and respect

• Proposed a national strategy for cancer control

• Proposed a tax break for sports registration for kids

• Proposed real action on clean air with a tax credit for transit users

• Proposed a Canada First defense strategy to ensure Canada is able to protect its sovereignty in the Arctic, on the West Coast, and around the world

• Outlined detailed solutions to challenges facing British Columbia

• Outlined ideas for a more flexible federalism that strengthens national unity in Quebec

• Proposed a Veterans’ Bill of Rights

Party B,

• On day one, attacked Stephen Harper’s patriotism

• Declared this campaign “a referendum election”

• Said that Stephen Harper was “unfit” to be Prime Minister

• Said that parents would blow a Choice in Childcare Allowance “on beer and popcorn”

• Attacked the US on carbon emissions, while overseeing growth of carbon emissions twice as high as in the US and flying a campaign plane that produces twice the emissions of the other parties’

• Announced a plan to extend a national daycare system that does not exist, to the year 2015.

• Prepared negative campaign ads

• Exploited for political gain a photo taken at a Holocaust memorial

• Announced a hand gun ban which has been in place since 1934

• Pleaded for civility, while saying that Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe would “[work] together to dismantle this country...”

• Compared an NDP candidate to a dog

• Personally insulted NDP Leader Jack Layton as having “a boiled dog’s head smile”

• Called a Muslim candidate the “token ethnic”

• Insulted the RCMP by saying its criminal investigation into Minister Goodale’s office is politically motivated by “opposition allegations”

Which party will you choose to lead our nation Canada, Party A or Party B?

Another Senior Liberal lets it all Hang Out

2005-12-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

Mike Klander is a senior official in the Liberal Party. He recently started a blog at MikeKlander.com which offered Canadians more insight into this liberal than they bargained for.

The site includes racist photos posted December 9th, that compare socialist NDP leader Jack Layton’s wife, Olivia Chow, to a dog with a caption that reads, ‘Separated at Birth II’.

On November 28th, Mike Klander posted his top 10 reasons this election will “piss him off”. Number three on that list was “Harper being flanked by the sexy Rona Ambrose at every opportunity”. Number four was “Harper being flanked by the ethnic Rahim Jaffer at every opportunity”.

On November 23rd, he features an article calling socialist NDP leader Jack Layton an a-hole. November 17th, shows four pictures under the title, “Ever Wonder”. In that article, Mike Klander asks the question, “Did you ever wonder why is that when you put a cowboy hat on an actor they look tough and rugged...and when you put one on a politician they look gay?”

Mike Klander wrote another feature article on May 3rd titled, “Furious Fletcher and the stiff”. The article, complete with photo, was in reference to Conservative Health Critic Steven Fletcher’s invitation in April to take the liberal Health Minister outside. The article also had a photo of Stephen Harper. Mike Klander asks the question, “is it just me or does this guy need some better quality embalming fluid?”

When his blog was exposed, Mike Klander deleted it, but not before issuing an apology on December 22 which read,

“It would appear that more people viewed my blog than the small circle of friends it was intented for. I apologize if anyone was offended by my comments...they were meant to be in jest. Anyway, I have removed my previous posts”.

Translation: Mike Klander is sorry he got caught. Usually liberals keep their true feelings to themselves. Canadians are not supposed to know what liberals and their small circle of friends really believe. Unfortunately for Mike, his blog lives on through archives made at Google and screen captures taken by Conservative blogger Steven Taylor.

The website’s biography describes Mike Klander as,

As Executive Director of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario) Mike was responsible for managing the day to day affairs of the Federal Liberal Party in Ontario. In that capacity he served as Ontario Campaign Director during the 2000 Federal Election Campaign. In his eight years with the organization he held several other positions including Field Organizer, and Director of Field Operations.

Author Paul Wells, writing for MCLEANS.CA describes Klander’s website as quite a bit bigger than beer and popcorn, referring to the comments made by liberal communications director Scott Reid and liberal party strategist John Duffy on the same day.

Campaigning against liberals in an election is so much easier when liberals are honest about who they are and what they believe.

UPDATE: Mike Klander has resigned. The Canadian Press Newswire is now spinning this story. They are saying that Mike Klander was simply a volunteer with the liberal party.

The Millennium Blog

2005-12-25T20:25:00.000-06:00

We at The Blue Maple Leaf would like to take the time to plug a socially Conservative blog. As the title suggests, The Millennium is a faith based blog rooted in Prophecy. This being the Christmas holiday season, it is worth visiting this site.

Enjoy.

Buy the Apple Ken, Not the Orchard

2005-12-25T12:44:00.000-06:00

Readers have interesting things to say about the GST vs. personal income tax cut debate. One such comment arrived in The Blue Maple Leaf’s inbox last week. The comment was shocking given all that we have seen from the liberals in their last 12 years in power.

Ken writes:

“From what I gather a 2% cut in the GST is a regressive move and will do nothing to improve productivity, in fact, it could be neutral to positive to productivity. The productivity problem in my view is a bigger problem, without increased productivity there is no way in ensuring a higher level of wealth for all Canadians. This is something which is sadly missed by all parties, except for ... unfortunately ... the liberals who have promised another income tax cut”. – Ken

This author’s reply went like this:

Ken:

The big thing you are missing in the tax cut debate (GST/personal income) is: Who is making the promise?

The liberals make many outrageous promises, but they never keep them. The liberals came to power in 1993, mostly because they promised to completely eliminate the GST, yet they never even reduced it 1% in 12 years! They promised nationalized childcare, and despite spending $5 billion on that starting this year, it does not exist. They promised a 20% cut to CO2 emissions, and those are up 24%. Liberals call themselves defenders of health care, we now have people dying on hospital waiting lists.

Liberals promised a voice on the world stage, then they under funded the military so badly we can't even get it to theater without an American airlift. Liberals claim to be the only federalist option, yet the Quebec separation movement has never been stronger thanks to AdScam. The liberals promise and promise and promise and say whatever they need to say, but they do the exact opposite.

Imagine you have $5 to your name and someone says to you, "give me $1 and I'll give you a yacht". So you pass the guy a loony, but you never get your yacht. Four years later that same guy says, "Give me $1 and I'll give you a mansion." So you give the guy another loony, but you don't get your mansion. Another four years goes by and the same guy says, "Give me $1 and I'll give you a Ferrari." So you give the guy another loony, but you never get your Ferrari. Four more years pass and the same guy says, "Give me $1 and I'll give you a spaceship". So you give the guy another loony, but you never get your spaceship.

Then a year and a half later, with only a dollar in your pocket, a different guy shows up and says, "Hello. My name is Stephen. If you give me $1, I'll give you an apple". Just then, the guy you have been giving loonies to for the last 12 years says "hurry, I need a loony fast, if you give me one; I'll give you an apple orchard 100 acres in size".

Now imagine if all the 'experts' got together and said, "Well an apple for $1 is a fair price, but when you consider that a 100 acre apple orchard can produce much more than one apple, it would be foolish to simply take an apple and pass up an opportunity to own your own apple orchard. Owning an apple orchard is much more efficient than buying apples for one dollar each".

I think if that guy was you Ken, you would agree with the experts that having an apple orchard is much better than buying apples for a buck a piece and you would echo everything the experts say and all the arguments that they make.

Ken, if you are convinced that the liberal promise to cut personal income taxes by $30 billion is better than the Conservative plan to cut 1% off the GST after the election, with another 1% cut in 5 years, then vote liberal.

A 2% cut to the GST may not be the fantastic, pie in the sky, dream come true tax cut you think it is. But Ken, if you vote for Harper, Canadians WILL see a 1% cut the GST after the election, with another 1% cut in 5 years as promised. If you vote for Martin, you will NEVER see $30 billion in personal income tax cuts EVER.

The liberals simply do not believe in tax cuts for people. The liberals do not believe in giving Canadians money that they will only squander on beer and popcorn. The liberals have looked Canadians in the eye and told them this. The liberals believe in the power of government to cure all of society's ills and the unfortunate reality is that liberal governments need your money to do its work.

As a result, the liberals will never cut your taxes.

Average Canadian or Liberal Insider?

2005-12-21T18:15:00.000-06:00

Even though the NDP is a socialist party trying to recreate the former Soviet Union in Canada, sometimes their website does an excellent job of exposing liberals. The following example is one of those times.

The NDP website has an article dated December 10, 2005. The title of the article is, “Average Canadian or Liberal Insider?”

The article is based on the ‘30 million plus reasons to vote liberal’ advertisements that began appearing on the liberal website December 5th. The ads try to portray people as ordinary average Canadians that support the liberal party as they offer their reason for that support.

The purpose of the NDP article is to let Canadians know that the people in those ads are anything but ordinary. The people in those ads are actually the liberal insiders that have been doing very well the last 12 years.

The NDP article ends with the following message:

Hey Liberal Party,

After 12 years of scandal and broken promises, there are 30 million reasons why you couldn’t find any average Canadians to appear in your ads.

What’s yours?

This is not the only scandal to be exposed as a result of these liberal ads. Yesterday, readers learned that the Anti-American ad the liberals released on December 16 actually predates the Anti-American rhetoric that Paul Martin began engaging in on December 7th. For more on this scandal click the link and read the article titled, “Did the Liberals Stage a Political Crisis for Partisan Gain?”

Oh what a tangled web the liberals weave.

Did the Liberals Stage a Political Crisis for Partisan Gain?

2005-12-21T05:31:00.000-06:00

If people are curious to know why more and more Canadians are tuning out the liberal mainstream media and listening to what bloggers are saying, this story is a good example.

On December 7th, liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin used a Montreal conference to suggest that the United States didn’t have a global conscience on the environment. In addition to other bold Anti-American comments Martin made last week, it now seems the liberals were working behind the scenes to antagonize our number one trading partner to spark a phony political crisis.

The result of Paul Martin’s Anti-American language was a strong rebuke from American Ambassador David Wilkins, who said in a speech,

“It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner, but it is a slippery slope, and all of us should hope that it doesn’t have a long-term impact on the relationship.”

The friends of the liberal party in the liberal mainstream media were all too willing to print stories that trump up the tough talk coming from Paul Martin. Liberal friendly newspapers like our city’s own Winnipeg’s Free Press published articles that showed the liberal leader as someone who was unrepentant. They portrayed Martin as a leader with firm resolve in standing up to the Americans and protecting Canadian interests.

Now, thanks to the work of two Conservative bloggers, Stephen Taylor and Kate McMillan, evidence suggests that the liberals deliberately provoked last week’s phony war of words.

The proof comes in the form of liberal television ads which started appearing on the liberal website on December 5th. The ads feature ordinary Canadians (liberals) talking about 30 million plus reasons to vote liberal. One of the ads features these liberals talking about how wonderful Paul Marin is for standing up to George Bush and protecting Canadian interests.

The Anti-American ad, however, was not posted to the liberal website until December 16th, seemingly as an after thought to the battle of words that was raging last week. However, when comparing the Anti-American ad to the ones that first appeared on the liberal site December 5th, it becomes obvious that the Anti-American ad released December 16th, was made on the same day.

What this means is that the liberals created an Anti-American ad (on or before December 5th) at least two full days before our liberal Prime Minister set out to provoke the United States.

It is absolutely despicable that our liberal leaders would deliberately set out to sour the biggest trading relationship in the world, simply to score a few cheap political points in an election and now we have proof that suggests this is exactly what happened.

Steven Fletcher vs. John Loewen in Charleswood - St. James

2005-12-17T18:03:00.000-06:00

Week three of the 2006 election campaign is coming to a close. This week has highlighted the huge difference in core beliefs between Conservatives and liberals. Conservatives, who have faith in Canadian parents to make the right choices for their children, are pledging $1,200 per year for families with children under the age of six. Liberals, who believe in the power of government, have told us that they believe parents will simply squander this money on beer and popcorn.

On a local level, another stark contrast has been highlighted in Winnipeg’s Charleswood – St. James riding. One story by The Winnipeg SUN showed the determination of Conservative candidate Steven Fletcher in overcoming adversity by seeking re-election. Another news story, from the CBC, portrayed his liberal opponent, John Loewen, as a political free-agent, who is looking out for himself.

The difference between Steven Fletcher and the liberal candidate is one of loyalty. And, not just loyalty to a party, but loyalty to a core set of beliefs.

Conservatives believe in the power of individual Canadians. Liberals believe in the power of government.

As such, Conservatives have contempt for big, wasteful, corrupt governments. Liberals have contempt for beer drinking, popcorn eating, coat buying, car driving Canadians.

We have seen these core beliefs highlighted over and over this week, by members of both political parties and we can see this difference in every issue. Conservatives want to cut the GST by a modest 2%. Liberals say even that is too much, the money belongs to government. The Conservatives want to give some money back to parents with young children; the liberals say government can do a better job with that money.

With that in mind, how is it that a candidate can drop their core beliefs and join the liberal party? We all watched as Belinda Stronach jumped on board with the liberals, but she was rewarded with a cabinet seat. Another former Tory, Scott Bryson, also received a cabinet position when he joined the liberals. Former Winnipeg Mayor Glenn Murray walked out of city hall to join the liberals and he was also reward with a patronage appointed to chair the round table on the environment, a position he was not qualified for.

But, national politics is not like the National Hockey League where a player can sign a better contract, change jerseys, and play the same game. We depend on our politicians to uphold the values we have and we elect the politicians with values that we share.

When liberal candidate John Loewen first got into politics, he sat down with Winnipeg SUN columnist Thomas Brodbeck. Mr. Loewen said at the time he was going to fight for real fiscal conservative change -- smaller government, lower taxes and improved climate for business investment.

His record in the Manitoba Legislature shows that he never did live up to that commitment. Instead, Mr. Loewen spent most of his time criticizing Premier Gary Doer’s socialist NDP government for not spending enough! The SUN columnist said in his article that,

“Loewen was a major disappointment as a so-called fiscal conservative, because he isn't one.”

The question is, what is he? Is there anything in John Loewen’s heart that he truly believes, other than personal advancement? His jump from the Manitoba Conservatives to a party as left-wing as the 21st century liberals was a huge leap. Mr. Loewen has proven in deeds that he has no core beliefs. Then again, if John Loewen told us what was in his heart, how could we believe now?

With Steven Fletcher, you know what you are getting. Steven holds forums on the issues that interest Canadians and he invites people to visit his office and take part. Steven was a Manitoba Conservative in his younger days, and he is a Canadian Conservative today.

When it comes to core beliefs, Steven Fletcher is 100% Conservative.

Election Day 14 - When it Sounds to Good to be True

2005-12-13T19:15:00.000-06:00

When it Sounds to Good to be True

Canadians who are watching the campaign closely have seen Conservative leader Stephen Harper make many promises. The promises Mr. Harper has made cover many issues including a focus of health care dollars on wait times, $1,200 for parents with children under the age of six and a small 2% cut to the GST over 5 years.

Canadians also watched as Paul Martin made enormous promises to save his minority government, while he did everything to avoid judgment from the Canadian voter. These are the same promises the liberals are now campaigning on and include $30 billion in cuts to income tax, $41 billion to health care and a promise to create an entire national system of early learning and child care, which most estimate would cast another $30 to $40 billion per year if fully implemented.

When you consider all the grand promises the liberals have made and broken in the last four elections, it makes you wonder how they have any credibility left.

The liberals promised back in 1993 to abolish the GST. Not only did they break that promise, but now Paul Martin criticizes Mr. Harper for even suggesting a 2% cut.

The liberals promised to create a national daycare system in 1993 and despite the liberals writing $5 billion in cheques for daycare starting this year, not a single Canadian has received childcare with that money.

The liberals promised to fix the problem of wait times in our health care system. The problem of wait times in health care was a creation of this liberal government when Finance Minister Paul Martin cut funding to health care all through the 1990s.

The liberals promised to fix gun crime with their $2 billion gun registry. Unfortunately, the liberal love-a-perp approach to criminals, complete with faint hope clause, two-thirds time served, suspended sentences, manicures and pedicures and other liberal leniency initiatives have resulted in soaring gun crime and outrage among victims.

All this and the liberals continue to make larger than life promises, and the polls suggest that Canadians are still buying into the fairytale.

When it comes to Conservative promises the experts say that a 2% cut to the GST will not amount to much. The experts tell us that $1,200 to parents will not cover the $8,000 cost of childcare. It may disappoint some that Stephen Harper does not say, “We will spend billions and billions” in every speech, but Stephen is making promises that he will keep.

If only people would consider election promises in terms of retirement savings. We all know that if we work hard and invest a portion of our earnings in a retirement savings plan, we will have enough money at retirement to live comfortably.

BUT, if we play the lotto 6/49, and our numbers come up, we could be uber rich! How many times has someone told you, “You can’t win if you don’t play”? We could be millionaires! We could buy SUVs for every day of the week and live in a big house and travel the world! Life would be so cool. We could be like those people in the lottery commercials and ‘do what you want to do’! We could walk into work and squeeze our boss’s nose and say, “Meep, Meep,” just like the Roadrunner!

The sad reality is that there are more Canadians playing the lottery who will never hit the jackpot, than there are Canadians saving for retirement the boring way. Another sad reality is that more Canadians have voted liberal in the last four elections even though the liberals make huge promises they will never keep.

We all know the saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

How long will we as a nation keep chasing a fairytale?

Election Day 13 – Liberals Tell Canada What They Really Believe

2005-12-11T20:29:00.000-06:00

Not all liberals are liars.

Sure, the liberals told us in 1993 that they would abolish the GST if elected and once elected they reneged. Not only did the liberals not abolish the GST, but they didn’t even lower that tax for Canadians.

The liberals also told Canadians up until 2003 that they were committed to traditional marriage defined as the union of one man and one woman. That was until the activist friends they appointed to the courts imposed a new definition of marriage on the country. After that, the liberals passed same-sex marriage claiming they had no choice.

The most frustrating thing about campaigning against liberals is that they cannot be honest about who they are or what they believe. If only they would take their masks off for one minute, Canadians would see them for what they are. Liberals are the most arrogant group of people on God’s green Earth.

Liberals believe that they alone know what is good for Canadians. Liberal politicians cannot even open their mouths half the time without uttering the words, “Canadians want” or “Canadians believe”. In the mind of a liberal whatever they want is what Canadians want. Whatever they believe is what Canadians believe.

Why can’t liberals simply come out and say that they believe Canadians are stupid? Why won’t a liberal just drop their disguise and tell us that they think we Canadians are just a bunch a beer drinking, popcorn eating loafers that depend on the divine wisdom of a liberal government? Why can’t liberals simply come out and tell Canadians the truth?

Well, not all liberals are liars.

Speaking on national television, liberal strategist Scott Reid opened a window to the world of Canadian liberalism. He was criticizing Stephen Harper’s pledge to put an extra $1,200 per year into the hands of parents with children under the age of six. During the interview he said, “Don't give people $25 a day to blow on beer and popcorn."

When another liberal strategist named John Duffy was asked if he was standing by those comments he replied, “Absolutely. Yes, of course I am! There is nothing to stop people from spending money, under Stephen Harper’s plan, on beer, or popcorn, or a coat, or a car, or anything.”

Even after Paul Martin himself backtracked on the comments of his strategist, the liberal Prime Minister still went on to say that giving money to parents was the wrong idea. Paul Martin and the liberals believe that money should not be put in the hands of Canadian parents. The liberals believe that money should be spent on government run daycare.

The issue of daycare is the best chance we’ve had in a long time to see liberalism for what it is. It is believe that only government, with liberals in charge, can provide solutions for our problems. Liberals believe that only they know what is good for us. Liberals are so arrogant that they believe parents would rather spend money on beer and popcorn, than spend it on their own children.

If only liberals could be this honest all the time.

Election Day 12 - Conservative to Fund the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control

2005-12-10T18:28:00.000-06:00

Stephen Harper announced another Conservative initiative in Health Care today.

Speaking in St. Catherines, Ontario, Mr. Harper announced $250 million dollars of federal money to fully fund a plan of cancer information sharing.

This system of information sharing is known as The Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control. It involves a computerized internet database which keeps Canadians up to date on many kinds of cancer treatments that affect Canadians.

The decision to fully fund the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control is consistent with the core belief of Conservatives, which is to empower people. Funding this network of information sharing will empower doctors, nurses, scientists and patients to access all the cancer information they need in one place.

The Conservative plan does not build a new level of government, nor was it the creation of a political committee working in a vacuum in Ottawa. This is a plan created by over 700 cancer survivors and experts and it is a model for an effective national disease strategy.

In June of this year, our very own Conservative MP Steven Fletcher introduced a motion to fund this national strategy. At the time, all Members of Parliament voted in favor of the motion including members of the liberal and socialist NDP parties. Once the motion was passed, the liberals would not fully fund it. An elected Conservative government will fund this strategy.

Faith in Canadians is a Conservative belief and funding their ideas is a strategy that works.

Election Day 7 - $1,200 Conservative Childcare Benefit

2005-12-05T20:04:00.000-06:00

The second week of the 2006 election campaign is starting much like the first. Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper today made another major announcement in the Conservative Party’s platform, this time, on childcare.

The Conservative plan calls for the federal government to give parents $1200 per year for every child under the age of six. This money will be paid directly to parents and will apply to an estimated 2 million children of pre-school age.

For those Canadians who may not understand politics, the issue of childcare is the best opportunity to show the difference between liberals and Conservatives.

Liberalism is a left-wing ideology. Liberals believe in the power of government to solve the problems of Canadians. Liberals favor a big government with lots of social programs. The obvious trade off to having a big government is that our taxes are outrageously high. This is the reason Paul Martin gets really upset when Stephen Harper proposes to reduce the GST by 1%. Liberals believe that they alone know how best to spend our money.

Conservative is right-wing ideology. Conservatives believe in empowering Canadians to live independent of government. Conservatives favor a smaller government and lower taxes. This is why Stephen Harper announced a plan to lower the GST by 2% and it is why we favor a $1,200 per year benefit for parents with children under the age of six. Conservatives will implement this plan, because they know that government bureaucrats are not the people best suited to raise our children. The people best suited to raise our children are the mothers and fathers who bring those children into the world.

If Canadians want to use their $1,200 to have their child raised by a baby sitter that is their choice. If Canadian families choose to sacrifice a second income while one parent stays at home to raise a child themselves, that is their choice. If a Canadian family chooses to earn two incomes while a friend or relative looks after their child that is their choice.

Make no mistake; the liberal plan to crate a nationalized babysitting program has one ultimate goal. That goal is to create another government program that Canadians will become dependant on. Bureaucrats in Ottawa will again usurp the role of the parent and gain control over one more aspect of our lives. Liberal politicians will decide who qualifies for a space in their program. Liberal politicians will eventually set all the rules and decide everything, from who can certify to work in childcare to what childcare facilities can get funding.

Make no mistake; the Conservative plan to give $1,200 per year to Canadian families for children under the age of six also has a goal. That goal is to empower Canadian families to make their own choices for their children. Conservatives want to strengthen families and foster independence from government. Conservatives never want to see the day where government workers are the ones to hear our child’s first words or watch our children take their first steps. As Conservatives we believe Canadians are intelligent enough and loving enough to make choices for their children that are best for them.

For parents of Canadian families, this $1,200 is for you.

Election Day 5 – Conservatives Pledge Mandatory Minimums

2005-12-03T19:13:00.000-06:00

Crime in Canada is a growing problem. Since the liberals took power twelve years ago, justice in Canada has become a joke.

In the last decade, we have seen a schoolgirl killer set free on society, to enjoy Iced Cappuccinos at her favorite donut store.

We have seen an admitted pedophile convince a liberal activist judge on the Supreme Court of British Columbia that limiting possession of child pornography is a violation of a Canadian’s right to freedom of expression.

We have seen the only person convicted in the $355 million sponsorship scandal also set free. The condition of his release was community service, a curfew and some public speaking about his experience. He received this sentence for defrauding Canadian taxpayers of $1.5 million.

We have seen a convicted jewel thief, who was a Member of Parliament for the socialist NDP set-free with a conditional sentence after pleading guilty to theft over $5,000. He did not even receive a criminal record for stealing a $50,000 diamond ring.

We have also seen an explosion of drug use in this country since the liberals took office. Record drug busts by the RCMP are announced all the time. Canadians are getting caught with entire marijuana jungles in their homes. People in the drug trade who manufacture and sell drugs are receiving sentences far too lenient for them to be deterred, given the billions of dollars that can be made in the drug trade.

The liberal response to drug use has been to decriminalize it. They have used taxpayer money to create their own federal government marijuana grow-op in the abandoned mines of Flin Flon, Manitoba. They have used taxpayer money to open up shooting galleries, where heroin addicts can access free heroin and break the law by injecting drugs under the supervision of doctors and nurses diverted from our under funded health care system.

The concept of actually being punished for committing a crime in Canada has become a forgotten concept under liberal leadership.

As Conservatives, we are a practical breed. We don’t believe in wasting all our time and energy on trying to understand criminals. We believe in taking them out of society and locking them up so that they cannot hurt the law abiding Canadians that make up the vast majority of the population.

The Conservative plan to enforce minimum sentences for drug crime is a good example. You break the drug Laws and you will go to jail. You will not get out before your time is served. And, you will not get a lesser sentence than two full years in jail no matter what your lawyer says about your level of remorse.

We have long past the time where tougher sentencing laws are needed to combat the liberal approach to crime that has fostered a growth of drug use in this country.

Election Day 4 - Health Care Wait Times

2005-12-02T21:47:00.000-06:00

Today marks the fourth day of the 2006 election campaign. It also marks the fourth major announcement of the Conservative party.

Speaking in Winnipeg, Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper unveiled his plan to deal with hospital wait times. Mr. Harper was introduced by the Conservative MP and health critic for Charleswood - St. James – Assiniboia, our very own Steven Fletcher.

Stephen Harper’s speech was very frank and to the point. He spoke not as a politician, but rather as a father who understands the importance of a strong health care system. Like all of us, he knows what it is like to bring his son and daughter to the emergency room. He knows what it is like to wait for hours in a doctor’s office. All this, and Stephen Harper knows his family is one of the lucky ones.

Since the liberals took power in the early 1990s, the number of Canadians who do not have a family doctor has grown to 1.2 million people. Seniors say, it is becoming harder and harder to see a specialist. Families are saying that they have to wait longer and longer for treatment, and they are right. Since the liberals took power, the average wait time for treatment has doubled to 18 weeks. Yet, Stephen Harper was quick to point out that health care is not a partisan campaign issue. This is an issue that concerns anyone that ever gets ill.

More than that, health care has become an issue of basic human rights. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada found that Canadians are suffering, and some of us are even dying on waiting lists. As the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Herself wrote, “Access to a waiting list is not access to health care. The suffering of Canadians on a waiting list violates the basic right of Canadians to security of the person.”

As a result, the Court has given governments one year to address the problem. Governments have no choice.

Patients have been saying this. Doctors and nurses have been saying this, and now the Court has confirmed that a government monopoly on health care must be used to provide people with an essential service. It cannot be used to deny it to them. Mr. Harper then added that we must fix the health care system or we risk losing meaningful public health care in this country.

In his speech, Stephen Harper reaffirmed the Conservative Party’s commitment to the Canada Health Act. He reaffirmed the Canadian principle that all Canadians should have equal access to health care regardless of a person’s ability to pay. Stephen made it very clear that if elected, there would not be a parallel private health care system.

With that in mind, he unveiled the Conservative plan to deal with long wait times in this country, while making it painfully clear that there is no quick fix for health care. The problems in our health care system cannot be fixed by making more promises or throwing more money at the system. The health care system in Canada is broken and it needs reform.

The Conservative plan involves focusing the resources of government on the core promises that governments have made. This will involve real reform and real change.

Stephen Harper stated his promise this way:

“The concept of the guarantee is that patients must be able to receive treatment in a medically acceptable, maximum time, for those services that are publicly insured. If this is not available in their own area, they must be given the option of receiving treatment at another hospital or clinic, even if that means going outside of their home Province.”

With the announcement of this sound Conservative plan to reform health care, the left in this country will have to be more creative than simply accusing Conservatives of wanting to destroy health care through privatization.

Election Day 3 – Conservative Promise to Lower GST to 5%

2005-12-01T19:11:00.000-06:00

Today is Day three of the 2006 election and Conservative leader Stephen Harper today announced his plan to lower the goods and services tax to 5%.

The plan is in two parts. The first part calls for a Conservative government to reduce the 7% GST by 1% immediately after elected. The second part would have the Conservatives reduce the GST by a further 1% within 5 years.

The goal of this plan is to provide Canadians with the broadest form of tax relief possible. The Goods and Services Tax is one that every Canadian pays. As finance Minister in the 1990s, Paul Martin himself called the GST a regressive tax. In fact, the liberals came to power in 1993, in part, because they promised to eliminate the GST altogether. Naturally, once the liberals were elected they broke that promise completely.

Fast forward 12 years and Paul Martin now finds himself in the position were he is actually defending the GST. Speaking to reporters, Paul Martin said that cutting the GST was wrong. “I don’t believe that is the path to follow,” Martin said.

This Conservative plan is not as bold as the liberal election promise of eliminating the GST, but this small tax cut is a promise that the Conservative will deliver on. The Conservatives are only calling for a small 2% cut on the sales tax over 5 years. Yet, the tax and spend liberal party cannot even tolerate a small cut in taxes that would return even a small amount of money back to the hard working men and women of this country.

In the end, this announcement exposes liberals once again for who they are. They vowed to eliminate the GST. Once elected, the liberals make excuses and criticize anyone who would dare even reduce the GST. The liberals do one thing and say another, but Canadians need to know that politicians are NOT all this way.

And, when Canadians elect a Conservative government, they will learn this for themselves every time they spend their money.

Election Day 1 – Conservative Accountability Act

2005-11-29T09:27:00.000-06:00

The federal election is now under way. Finally Canadians have a chance to judge the liberal party on 12 years of government scandals.

Canadians can remember many of the liberal scandals including the $85 million gun registry, which turned into the $2 billion gun registry. The HRDC boondoggle that cost Canadians another $1 billion, and of course, the $355 million sponsorship scandal.

Unfortunately, many Canadians are already starting to forget past liberal scandals like the canceling of the military replacement to the Sea King helicopters, which still cost Canadians $500 million. Then there was the Shawinigan scandal. There was also the scandal of Paul Martin traveling around on private corporate jets back when he was the Finance Minister in charge of the taxpayer’s money.

For Canadians who believe strongly in democracy, the biggest scandal of all is still the sponsorship scandal. This scandal dwarfs all other scandals, because the sponsorship scandal is not simply about wasting taxpayer money. The liberals have been wasting our money since 1993, but this scandal is about more than that.

Many of us have a parent or grandparent who fought and died for the freedom we have today in the two World Wars, Korea and many other conflicts. Canadians are still fighting and dying in wars today, including the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan. Canadians past and present have put their lives on the line so that we could enjoy the freedom to elect a government of our choosing, through FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS! They also fought to give us the freedom to vote out governments that engage in scandal and corruption.

Never in the history of Canada have we had a federal government so mired in scandal and corruption as the current liberal government.

Back in the 1990s the people of Manitoba will remember a scandal that involved one of the most successful provincial governments in Canada under the leadership of then Premier Gary Filmon. Under that government the books were balanced and Manitoba was one of the few have provinces in the country. Unfortunately for Gary Filmon, one of his supporters was a little too eager to win an election and he gave a few thousand dollars of his own money to help a candidate in northern riding to try and split the vote of an opponent.

This was not tax payer money, this was his money. This was not $355 million; this was a few thousand. But, the amount of money that was involved or where it came from is not important. What was important is that someone tried to cheat to win an election. He was caught, and the voters of Manitoba had their say and punished the government he was trying to help.

The finding of fact from Justice Gomery’s inquiry found that the sponsorship scandal is millions of times bigger than the Filmon scandal in every way. What the liberals had set-up can only be described as an organized crime. Government officials were awarding government contracts right out of the Prime Minister’s office to friends in the liberal advertising business. Advertising executives were then giving kickbacks directly to the liberal party so that the liberals could use the money for advertising and other expenses related to election campaigns. The liberals did this after passing campaign finance reform which tied the hands of the other parties who actually obey the election laws.

Political parties that obey the election laws include the Conservative party, the socialist NDP and yes, even the separatists play by the rules!

Only the liberals have been outright cheating in elections and campaigning with laundered money for the last three elections. This scandal is not just about the money. If this scandal happened in the Ukraine the entire country would have ground to a halt and every person would be sleeping in the streets dressed in orange, until their voices were heard in a free and fair election. If this was to happen in Afghanistan or Iraq, people would be risking suicide bombers and terrorist to dip their fingers in blue ink for a chance to vote in a free and fair election.

Yet, here we are in Canada. We have known only freedom since birth. It is a gift to us from those Canadians who came before us. We do not need to sleep in the streets dressed in Orange (thank God since we are in Winnipeg). We do not need to get our fingers dirty, dipping them in blue ink. All we have to do is brave the lawn signs on the way to the mall for Christmas shopping and mark an X three full weeks after the holidays are over.

The liberals want to make this election about punishing Stephen Harper for making you look at lawn signs during the holidays, well that is fine. Conservatives want this election to be about restoring accountability in government, lowering taxes and providing Canadians with a clear plan for the future.

If elected, a Conservative government will pass the Federal Accountability Act and ensure that government scandals become a thing of the past. The Act will reduce the influence of big money in government by banning political contributions from unions and businesses. As well, individual contributions to political parties from Canadians will be limited to $1,000.

The Act also includes tough new lobbying rules and an end to the revolving door that allows former ministers, political aides, and top bureaucrats to turn around and lobby the government. Finally, the Act gives more power to independent watchdogs like the Auditor General and Ethics Commissioner, protecting whistleblowers from reprisal, and strengthening access to information laws to give citizens the right to know.

Change is possible Canada, but only if you cast your vote.

An FYI on the Laws of Stalking in Canada

2005-10-10T20:34:00.000-05:00

In Canada, stalking is defined under a general heading of Criminal Harassment.

The Canadian Criminal Code [Section 264. Criminal Harassment (2)] prohibits the following conduct:

(a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;

(b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;

(c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or

(d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.

and punishes it with imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

There is no mention in Canadian Law of electronic harassment or stalking, although it is possible to apply the statutes above to cyberspace.

Europe to Adopt English as Official EU Language

2005-10-02T19:40:00.000-05:00

An excellent post appears at the TABaker website. According to the article, English will be adopted as the official language of the European Union and not German.

Here is an excerpt of the article:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

To view the rest of the article please follow the link.

Puppies for Sale

2005-09-28T20:26:00.000-05:00

Mary Stansberry is an American friend from Kentucky. She often sends interesting stories to The Blue Maple Leaf. Here is latest one.

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the 4 pups. And set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy.

"Mister," he said, "I want to buy one of your puppies."

"Well," said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck, "These puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money."

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer. "I've got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?"

"Sure," said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle. "Here, Dolly!" he called. Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse. Slowly another little ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a some what awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up....

"I want that one," the little boy said, pointing to the runt. The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said, "Son, you don't want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe.

Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see sir, I don't run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands."

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup.

Holding it carefully he handed it to the little boy.

"How much?" asked the little boy. "No charge," answered the farmer, "There's no charge for love."

The world is full of people who need someone that understands.

John Loewen Seeks Liberal Patronage – Agrees to be an ‘Also Ran’ in Charleswood – St. James

2005-09-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

John Loewen, a Manitoba Tory MLA, announced this week that he will be leaving provincial politics to run as a liberal in the next federal election. His opponant will be Conservative Health Critic Steven Fletcher in the Winnipeg riding of Charleswood – St. James – Headingly – Assinaboia.

When John Loewen made his announcement, he told reporters, “The Liberal Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Paul Martin, closely reflects my vision and my values for Manitoba and Canada.”

What values are those you wonder?

Well, before John Loewen, Paul Martin appointed former Winnipeg Mayor Glenn Murray to run against Steven Fletcher in the Charleswood riding. Glenn Murray stepped down as Winnipeg’s mayor to run for the liberals in the 2004 election. Glenn Murray was appointed by Paul Martin himself against the wishes of the local riding association. In doing so, Paul Martin broke his campaign promise of addressing the democratic before the election was even called.

At the time of the 2004 election, Paul Martin and the liberals were realing from revelations that were coming out of the public accounts committee that was set up to look into the sponsorship scandal. Also at the time, Paul Martin himself vowed not to hold an election until all the details of the scandal were revealed to Canadians. Instead, Paul Martin shut down the committee at the very time that revelations were starting to hurt the liberal party and the liberals called an unnecessary early election in June of 2004. By doing so he broke another election promise.

The liberals have promised to scrap the GST since the early 1990s, but they still have not delivered. The liberals have also been promising a nationalized babysitting program, but have failed to deliver on that. Health care has been underfunded to the tune of $25 billion and is completely broken. Money has been squandered by liberals in the billions on scandal after scandal.

The only liberal value that liberals ever deliver on is patronage. If you do a nice thing for the liberal party, you get rewarded. Scott Bryson left the Conservative party and now sits as a cabinet minister. Belinda Stronach bailed out the liberals and kept them in power by the skin of their teeth and was also rewarded with a cabinet position. Glenn Murray left his job as mayor only to lose the election to Steven Fletcher, but don’t cry for Glenn. The liberals rewarded him too with a wonderful patronage appointment to chair the round table on the environment. This was an appointment that Glenn did not deserve and certainly was not qualified for.

Now it seems that John Loewen wants some liberal patronage. Surely he doesn’t think he stands a chance against Steven Fletcher in the Conservative stronghold that is Charleswood – St. James. Steven is loved by all in that part of the city.

Steven Fletcher is as non-partisan as they come. Even the most ardent liberal loves the man. Take liberal activist Rick Mercer for example. He is the comedian from the CBC show, “this hour has 22 minutes”. He considers himself flattered to get worked into Steven Fletcher’s schedule. Here is an excerpt from an August 8th Rick Mercer blog entry:

If anyone ever gets it in their head that MP’s don’t work like Torbay ponies in the summer they should check out Fletcher’s schedule. He has toured over 25 hospitals in Ontario alone this summer and has plans to see more. He is totally obsessed with his portfolio. He can talk health care until your eyes cross.

And nice? This is a guy who has absolutely no anger in his voice when he’s telling the very funny story about an airline losing his wheelchair.

Not long ago he found himself in Ottawa, sitting on a plane at 1:00am, having just flown all the way from Winnipeg through Toronto and nobody had a sweet clue where his wheelchair was. Eventually he ended up spending the entire night lying on an air mattress in the chapel. He literally had to stay there until the next day so they could find the lost chair and fly it to Ottawa. And just when you think the story has ended he tells you the part about how the chapel fills up at dawn with travelers of the Muslim faith who must take part in the Muslim call to prayer. Luckily they didn’t mind the guy lying on the air mattress in the middle of the room and Steven is partial to chanting.

This is why the good people of Charleswood – St. James elected Steven Fletcher to repersent their community in Ottawa. And he is partial to chanting.

In fact, if you listen carefully, you might be able to hear Steven chanting right now…Na na na na….na na na na……hey eh eh…..good bye.

Canadian Press Newswire was the Creator of last Week’s Gas Panic

2005-09-24T20:31:00.000-05:00

If you don’t believe that the leftist national news wire service called The Canadian Press has influence in this country, consider this. Canadians were sent into hysteria this week over the price of gas. At gas stations all across the country, vehicle owners were causing huge line ups as they rushed to fill up their tanks.

On Thursday night at the height of the panic, The Blue Maple Leaf took the route #11 Portage Avenue bus home from the St. James area of Winnipeg. The sight was eerily reminiscent of a scary Hollywood disaster movie, with cars lined up all over the roads as people tried to get to the pumps first. It was not just one or two gas stations, but every single station on the Portage Avenue strip. It seemed like there were more cars on the road between 9:00-10:00pm that night than there usually is during the morning rush hour.

As it turned out, the cause of the panic was a rumor started by the Canadian Press out of Chatham, Ontario. The rumor going around was that the newest hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, called hurricane Rita, was wiping out all the oil platforms that were missed by the last hurricane to blow through, hurricane Katrina. As a result, 20% of the oil supply was expected to be cut off and gas prices were expected to soar as high as $3.00 per liter within days. The rumor also had it that the price was already $1.75 per liter outside the city and some places in Ontario were already selling gas at $2.00 per liter.

After the panic had settled down most people realized that this rumor was a lie. Others believed that gas prices really had gone up to $2.00 per liter overnight and that evil gas companies made a killing on gas for 24 hours. Sadly, the truth is that gas prices never jumped that high anywhere in Canada and the source of the rumor was the vehemently left-wing national news wire service called the Canadian Press.

The Canadian Press newswire service is the source of much of the left-wing propaganda floating around the country these days. Many news services like radio stations and local newspapers either cannot or will not spend the money to have their own reporters verify news stories. So what these places do is simply sign up with the Canadian Press. When the Canadian Press publishes a story, then all the news outlets and radio stations pick up the report and relay it to their audience without even checking it.

People often overlook this, but every article you read in the local newspaper that has the letters (CP) in brackets is not really a story your newspaper has verified. This is simply a Canadian Press report. Here is an example of some liberal friendly (CP) propaganda courtesy of the Canadian Press and found in The Winnipeg SUN. It is a Canadian Press article about how Paul Martin gave a speech and announced that his new basic, fundamental, number one priority for the nation was the development of wind power. Funny, wasn’t wind power the number one priority of socialist NDP leader Jack Layton?

The question Canadians have to ask is, why would the Canadian Press create mass hysteria in our country by spreading propaganda with such a blatant lie?

Maybe the answer lies in the ideology of the left and the liberal/socialist agenda they are hell bent on advancing. Global warming is an invention of the left used to create hysteria and advance the liberal/socialist agenda of raising taxes in the name of saving the planet.

The roadmap of the global warming lie is easily traceable, starting with the notion that factories and people with cars cause pollution and are evil, because they cause global warming. Gas companies are evil, because they get rich polluting the Earth and causing global warming. Gas stations are evil, because they are like the drug dealers of the oil companies. Conservatives are evil, because they want to make it easier for oil companies to get rich while oil companies destroy the planet. Alberta is the most evil, because they are the headquarters for rich oil companies and worse, they are a province run by Conservatives that are all unfairly getting rich from drilling oil, destroying the planet, causing global warming and they won’t share their wealth with the rest of Canada.

The Canadian Press constantly ignores the fact that Alberta gives far more than any other province to Ottawa and gets back far less than any other province from Ottawa. The Canadian Press ignores the fact that oil and gas is the single most regulated and taxed industry in the nation and margins are smaller than most other sectors of the economy. The Canadian Press flat out lies when it portrays the Conservative Party, or any party for that matter, as being in favor of pollution.

Yet, so many Canadians buy into the whole notion that Global warming is for real when the left-wing dominated news media in this country tells them it is so. As of today, gas prices are still hovering around $1.00 - $1.10 per liter. The only shortages of gas exist at gas stations that could not get trucks out to refill their silos fast enough. Not only did the Canadian Press not issue an apology for creating mass panic nation wide, but they have followed up their activism with another one sided (CP) story about how urgent they believe Kyoto discussions have become.

The Canadian Press does not seem to be worried about fooling all of the people all of the time. Certainly they don’t fool regular readers of this blog. However, it is the people that will continue to believe that oil companies actually made a killing by selling overpriced gas, even after the (CP) rumor is exposed as a lie, that will continue to be fooled by what they hear and read from the liberal mainstream media.

Guess it is no small wonder that these Canadians are lined up down the block on a Thursday night to buy gas.

Crazy Relatives – We All Have at Least One

2005-09-24T09:31:00.000-05:00

An interesting editorial appeared in the Winnipeg SUN today. The article points out an interesting little Shell Game that liberals have been playing on Canadians for quite some time now. Maybe you have noticed that when budget surpluses grow, the liberals lie to Canadians and say there is no money for tax cuts or health care. Then after the liberals have spent months telling Canadians there is no extra money, $4.5 billion magically appears to buy off the NDP and stay in power. Canadians never seem to know the truth about the nation’s finances, but the state of our treasury seems to mirror the liberal agenda at any given moment in time.

This column in the Winnipeg SUN exposes this shell game in an easy to understand way. Below is an excerpt from the article.

Martin's Shell Game

Just about every family has a crazy relative who has big, pie-in-the-sky plans for himself and everyone he knows. Except that he can't even keep track of his own money, or do a simple household budget.

For Canadians, that relative is crazy uncle Paul Martin, prime minister of Canada. Under Martin, annual federal budget projections have become a running national joke.

The projected surplus bounces around wildly. One minute, it's $9.8 billion. That's what the federal Finance Department projected in May for the last fiscal year. The next, it's $1.6 billion. That's what the Liberals announced this week.

One minute they solemnly tell us the cupboard is bare. The next, they've magically found $4.5 billion to buy the NDP's support in a minority parliament.

Martin, both as finance minister and now as PM, is also notorious for lowballing revenues so he has lots of our money to bribe us with, particularly during elections.

To read more, please visit The Winnipeg Sun online.

Today’s CTV Online Poll – Another Attack on Stephen Harper

2005-09-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

The broken record that is the liberal mainstream media in Canada is at it again. The liberal media has been at it all day everyday since the spring pushing stories about how Stephen Harper needs to be replaced. Now CTV news is keeping the get Harper agenda alive with today’s poll question. They ask,

“A small but growing number of Conservatives are calling for Stephen Harper to resign. Do you think the party needs a new leader?”

Why is it that CTV only wants to know if Harper should resign? This is the kind of neutrality you almost coming to expect from the liberal media. A small but growing number of people want Stephen Harper to resign. Would you like to jump on the bandwagon too? Answer today’s exciting poll.

Consider Paul Martin and all that he has done for his liberal party. Paul Martin has led the liberals through one multi-billion dollar scandal to another. There was the HRDC boondoggle that cost Canadians $1 billion and the $2 billion gun registry that was supposed to cost only $85 million. There was also the Quebec sponsorship scandal, which cost taxpayers $355 million and represents the biggest vote rigging scandal in Canadian history, and it is certainly the biggest vote rigging scandal for a democracy in recent history.

For all these liberal scandals, Paul Martin was both the Prime Minister and leader of the liberal party or he was the party’s finance minister. During the time of the Quebec vote rigging scandal, Paul Martin was also the Quebec lieutenant of the liberal party. Paul Martin has done more to destroy the reputation of the liberal party than any other leader in history. He has also energized the Quebec separatist movement in a way it has never been before.

Yet despite all this, the liberal media continues, with its unrelenting avalanche of stories that say Stephen Harper needs to be replaced. And the liberal media pulls out the same tricks to push this story. They do man on the street interviews and put people on TV willing to say Harper needs to be replaced. They quote the infamous ‘high level anonymous source’. They conduct a poll asking people if Stephen Harper needs to be replaced. Not Jack Layton. Not Paul Martin. They only commission poll after poll after poll to see if Stephen Harper needs to be replaced.

It is truly amazing that the liberal media can always find nice things to say about the biggest crook we have ever had for a leader, but that same group of journalists cannot find one nice thing to say about a Conservative with integrity.

It is no wonder Brian Mulroney said even Hitler had a reporter say one nice thing about him every 10 years.

Rush Limbaugh Parody – Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-18T23:02:00.000-05:00

There is no better Conservative Radio show host than Rush Limbaugh. For seventeen years now, MahaRushie has been fighting the good fight and winning. His parodies are as enlightening as they are funny. Here is the latest example...

A Message From Hollywood

Don't forget to visit Rush Limbaugh's online, 24/7, website to enjoy his daily dose of common sense. Enjoy.

The Cost of a Miracle

2005-09-15T16:36:00.000-05:00

Mary Stansberry is an American friend from Kentucky. She often sends interesting stories to The Blue Maple Leaf. Here is latest one.

A little girl went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet.

She poured the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Three times, even. The total had to be exactly perfect. No chance here for mistakes.

Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall's Drug Store with the big Red Indian Chief sign above the door.

She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good. Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter. That did it!

"And what do you want?" the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. "I'm talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven't seen in ages," he said without waiting for a reply to his question.

"Well, I want to talk to you about my brother," Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone. "He's really, really sick... and I want to buy a miracle."

“I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist.

“His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now. So how much does a miracle cost?"

"We don't sell miracles here, little girl. I'm sorry but I can't help you," the pharmacist said, softening a little.

"Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs."

The pharmacist's brother was a well dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does your brother need?"

“I don't know," Tess replied with her eyes welling up. I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money."

“How much do you have?" asked the man from Chicago.

"One dollar and eleven cents," Tess answered barely audibly.

"And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to."

"Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man. "A dollar and eleven cents---the exact price of a miracle for little brothers.”

He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the miracle you need."

That well dressed man was Dr. Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neurosurgery. The operation was completed free of charge and it wasn't long until Andrew was home again and doing well.

Mom and Dad were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place.

That surgery," her Mom whispered, "was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost."

Tess smiled. She knew exactly how much a miracle cost...one dollar and eleven cents....

Plus the faith of a little child.

Ontario Liberals Bring the End of Religious Freedom in Canada One Step Closer

2005-09-11T20:49:00.000-05:00

The liberal assault on religious freedom in Canada has made another gain. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that he would move quickly to abolish religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario's Arbitration Act. The announcement was made while speaking to the Canadian Press, a left-wing national news wire service.

Under the Arbitration Act, people of faith that wanted to resolve marriage disputes or seek a divorce could enlist the help of their local church or synagogue. This allowed Canadians the option of avoiding the long drawn out legal process of using a divorce court. Any decision by these faith based tribunals was only binding if both parties agreed to the terms. When either party felt the decision was unfair to them, then the courts were still the final arbiter.

This decision will only serve to increase the roll that government plays in our lives. By abolishing these tribunals, the liberals have made government and government run courts the only option people have to resolve their differences in a marriage. This is great news if you are a government bureaucrat or a lawyer, but it is one more nail in the coffin of religious freedom in Canada.

This latest anti-Jewish/anti-Christian liberal initiative follows a long list of other policies that are beginning to spell the end of religion in Canada. The two most high profile liberal victories in the war on religion were bill C-250 and bill C-38, both of which came in the last few years.

Bill C-250 was the private members bill introduced by convicted jewel thief and socialist NDP politician, Svend Robinson. This bill amended the criminal code and made it a crime to say anything negative about the practice of homosexuality. Anyone who now quotes bible passages that refer to homosexuality as a sin or even quotes the verse where those passages can be found may be found guilty of inciting hatred and thrown in jail.

Bill C-38 was the same-sex marriage bill that redefined the word marriage to included homosexual couples. The institution of marriage and the definition of the term were both creations of religion. Governments adopted and promoted traditional marriage, because the traditional family has long been considered the cornerstone of civilization. Even though homosexuality is considered a sin in all three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the time is fast approaching when these religions will face discrimination charges for refusing to marry people of the same sex.

Pretty soon secular liberalism will be the only religion left in our country.

More Propaganda from the CBC – FEMA Director Fired According to Headline

2005-09-10T05:03:00.000-05:00

A CBC headline states that FEMA Director Michael Brown was fired. This is a complete lie on the part of the CBC. The goal of Canada’s state-run broadcaster in publishing that headline is to affix blame to the American government and its president George Bush for problems distributing aid following hurricane Katrina. However, Michael Brown was not fired despite the CBC’s claim.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, called FEMA, is an agency under the supervision of the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made the decision to pull Brown from field duties now that the situation in New Orleans is under control and those duties have been turned over to Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad W. Allen. Brown will continue to oversee relief efforts from Washington.

During a press conference Chertoff said, "Importantly, we must have seamless interaction with military forces as we move forward with our critical work in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. At the same time, we are still in hurricane season and need to be prepared to deal effectively with the possibility of future hurricanes and other disasters."

Left-wing media outlets like the CBC have been on a relentless campaign to blame Bush and the federal government for mismanagement of relief efforts. Liberal Democratic Senator Nancy Pelosi of California released a statement on Friday calling for Michael Brown to be fired. In that statement she affixed all blame for the relief efforts on him. This headline by the CBC is a nice attempt to qualify her comments, but it is simply more CBC propaganda.

Some things never change.

UPDATE:

The CBC, caught yet again engaging in propaganda, has modified this article. Whereas the previous version stated, “New Orleans under control, Brown fired, FEMA to stop giving out debit cards,” the article now reads, “New Orleans under control, Brown reassigned, FEMA to stop giving out debit cards.” The article itself, however, it still a liberal attempt to blame FEMA director Michael Brown for the relief fiasco and deflect responsibility toward the federal government and the Bush administration in particular. The reality is that local and state governments, governments that have been 100% dominated by liberals for the last 60 years, were the ones who dropped the ball.

Are the Liberals Making a Play to Nationalize Oil and Gas Again?

2005-09-05T21:06:00.000-05:00

This news story from the state-run propaganda machine, the CBC, should scare the hell out of Western Canadians. The CBC is putting out the idea that Canadians want the energy sector taken over by government, and they use the results of a poll to back up their claim. The CBC is infamous for skewing polls to fit their pro-socialist, pro-liberal agenda and this is just the latest example. The Headline reads:

Poll: almost half of Canadians want oil industry nationalized

The Canadian Press said Monday a Leger poll suggested 49 per cent of respondents want petroleum resources nationalized while 43 per cent said they would like to see the same fate for gas companies.

The Leger Marketing telephone survey of 1,500 people was conducted between Aug. 24 and Aug. 31, much of it before the major effects of Hurricane Katrina were felt.

The liberal love affair with raiding the pockets of Western Canadians is never ending, especially when it comes to the energy sector. In a bid to address western alienation, liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin visited a few cities western Canada and said things he though the people of western Canada might want to hear. One comment he made was that the success of Alberta’s oil and gas companies were good for all of Canada. Now, the untold story behind that comment is starting to come to light.

It looks as though this CBC poll-a-torial and Paul Martin’s read between the lines comment could mean that we will be reliving the failed liberal policies of the 1980s.

Norman Spectator describes Trudeau’s National Energy Program fiasco this way:

When Ottawa stepped in with the National Energy Program (a "sharing" program) in the 1980s, that led to destroyed businesses, a near-collapse of the energy industry, and lost livelihoods for thousands and thousands of Albertans.

That program was a textbook case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. When the Alberta energy sector prospers, all of Canada benefits. Alberta's energy industry buys much of its equipment from Ontario's manufacturing sector, for example, sustaining jobs for our Ontarian cousins. Business taxes sent by the sector to Ottawa help fund health care and other programs in every corner of the country. And on and on. When that sector experiences a downturn, the chill is felt in boardrooms, lunchrooms and living rooms across Canada.

Alberta has never said "no" to helping the rest of Canada through improvements to revenue-sharing programs. But it does say "no" to other governments that, seeing a likely-brief spurt of extra revenue in Alberta, target the province as a quick fix for their problems. History has proven that doesn't work, and in the end, the whole country suffers.

The cost to Canadians for the failed liberal policies of the 1980s is still being felt by Canadians today. One year ago this month, Ezra Levant wrote an article for the Calgary SUN. In that article he outlines how that failed socialist experiment of Trudeau’s National Energy Program cost the Canadian taxpayer over $100 billion. In that article he wrote:

Back then, Quebec's hegemony over Canada was being threatened by the rapid growth of Alberta's population and even faster growth of the oil patch. The economic centre of gravity was moving west, and the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal axis of power was being challenged. That could not stand, at least according to Paul Martin's mentors, Pierre Trudeau and Marc Lalonde.

Lalonde himself publicly admitted at the time that staunching the flow of money to the West was a guiding principle of his National Energy Program. In addition to forcing oil companies to sell oil below its market value, usurious taxes and political review of foreign investment, the NEP nationalized a good portion of the industry into the body of Petro-Canada, distorting the marketplace for all private sector competitors.

Petro-Canada wasn't about energy. It was about socialism. Proof of that was that its early president was Maurice Strong, the globo-socialist who went on to chair the Rio Summit against oil, and became chief architect of the Kyoto Protocol. Martin is connected here again. It was Strong who gave him a job in college working for him in this socialist enterprise.

All the pieces of the liberal agenda are here and fitting together like a puzzle. You have the state-run propaganda broadcaster, the CBC, preaching that Canadians and oil companies are to blame for global warming. You have a plan to implement global socialism in the Kyoto protocol, a document drafted by the creator of the biggest liberal boondoggle in the history of Canada. You have Paul Martin implementing Kyoto by shipping off Canadian taxpayer money to Communist China by the billions of dollars to purchase emissions credits in the name of saving the planet. And, at the center of blame are the people of Alberta and the oil and gas companies trying to supply a Canadian economy with supply problem brought on by decades of manipulation by liberals and their punitive government regulations.

Last month’s ploy by Paul Martin to address the problem of western alienation may just be part of his goal to nationalize a bigger part of our lives.

Liberal Party Strapped for Cash – Expect Election to be Postponed

2005-09-01T22:54:00.000-05:00

When the Paul Martin liberals were facing an early election this year, the Prime Minister used a televised address to beg Canadians for more time in power. Paul Martin personally vowed to call an election within 30 days of Justice Gomery’s final report on liberal corruption in the sponsorship scandal. Justice Gomery’s final report is due in December. However, the liberals are in bad financial shape and Canadians should be prepared for this promise to be broken.

A relentless fundraising and propaganda drive this year by the liberal party has not had good results. The liberals continue to spam everyone on their mailing list with requests for cash. Another such e-mail was sent out today. It reads:

Dear Michael,

On Tuesday, August 23, 2005, during the Liberal Caucus meetings in Saskatoon, Prime Minister Paul Martin reaffirmed his commitment to call a general election within 30 days of the release of the Gomery Commission final report.

This means that we have less than six months to be ready to run a winning campaign. We are asking you today because your involvement now is key to a Liberal victory – and our goal is a Liberal majority.

We have made important progress since being elected. Better health care. Stronger environmental standards. Equal rights for all. Investments and commitments in every community across the country. We are making positive change together. And Stephen Harper is threatening our progress. We need your support to make sure he doesn’t get a chance.

You can make a real difference today. We need every Liberal in Canada to donate now. You will receive a tax receipt for your contribution – and join thousands of Canadians supporting the Liberal Party’s campaign for Canada.

Thank you in advance for keeping Canada strong.

Mike Eizenga
President, Liberal Party of Canada

PS. You can help us by sharing this message with your friends and asking them to support the Liberal Party of Canada today.

In the interest of helping put the federal liberals out of their misery, we wanted to share this message with our friends and loyal readers of our blog.

MPI Serving as Piggy Bank for Doer Government

2005-08-31T06:13:00.000-05:00

Jeff Niederhoffer is a Winnipeg lawyer and political activist. He is also someone that does an excellent job of exposing Manitoba’s socialist NDP government. For this reason, The Blue Maple Leaf is happy to chronicle his work. The following is his latest article:

In the wake of media reports a month ago, Manitoba motorists undoubtedly were interested to learn that the Doer government is using Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) premiums to pay for non-MPI programs and to pay the salaries of non-MPI bureaucrats.

Our Premier and his Cabinet apparently see MPI as a slush fund. From a taxpayer's standpoint, this diversion of MPI monies is a questionable arrangement in its own right, but the situation becomes even cloudier once you follow the money. The Doer government seems to be going to great lengths to encourage an unusually cozy relationship between MPI and other government agencies. The provincial Justice Department is a case in point. This year alone, MPI funds have been used to pay the salaries of fourteen probation bureaucrats, two Crown Attorneys and even a member of Attorney General Gord Mackintosh's executive staff. In other cases, MPI monies are used to underwrite government programs and even the existence of whole agencies. The Doer government funnels MPI monies into such agencies as the Public Utilities Board (PUB), the Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Compensation Appeal Commission and the Claimant Adviser Office, as well as the entire Winnipeg police auto-theft unit.

It is striking the extent to which the Doer government seems to view MPI as an all-purpose piggy bank. What is even more striking is the extent to which the Doer government is turning a blind eye to the serious conflicts of interest generated by this arrangement. PUB approves MPI's rate increases; the Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Commission hears appeals of MPI decisions. Is anybody going to seriously dispute there is something amiss in allowing MPI formal control over the budgets of the agencies which oversee and regulate it?

Although an important question, the more important question is why the Doer government would choose such an awkward, questionable and frankly unnecessary means by which to fund salaries, programs and agencies.

Nobody disputes the need, for instance, for a PUB or for an Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Commission. Nobody disputes the need to have these agencies fully funded, and the Doer government would have no problem securing funding for them through Treasury Board, if Doer & Co. were so inclined. So why the need to have these agencies funded through MPI, unless, arguably, the purpose is to give MPI subtle leverage vis a vis these agencies?

This question is unlikely to be answered anytime soon, as both Attorney General Mackintosh and representatives of MPI predictably are staying mum. Their silence is deafening. The lack of a vigorous defense from the provincial government speaks to the fact that having MPI directly fund programs and agencies is, ultimately, indefensible. Opposition Leader Stuart Murray has called the Doer government's raid on MPI funds "outrageous". It is difficult to disagree, just as it is difficult to escape the conclusion the provincial government is not leveling with taxpayers. In the wake of these revelations, MPI ratepayers are no longer innocent. If nothing else, we now know that, while our premiums may go to MPI, they will not necessarily remain there.

Homosexuality verses Incest in the Eyes of Religion

2005-08-27T10:28:00.000-05:00

A criminal court in Ontario convicted a mother and son of incest last week. The liberal media was silent on the case that involves a 43-year-old mother and her 25-yeald old son from Kitchener. Both these adults were convicted of a crime for their involvement in a loving adult sexual relationship. The couple had three children together.

The story comes only a month after the federal liberals succeeded in redefining marriage to include homosexuals. The liberals say they made the change to end discrimination once and for all in this country for people involved in adult sexual relationships.

At the same time that liberals were working to redefine the 6,000 year old definition of marriage, the liberal media was doing everything in its power to portray homosexuality as being mainstream. One of the most popular tactics they used was to give a booming voice to people of faith willing to endorse homosexuality while branding those religious followers who were opposed as being intolerant.

The media was filled with stories of ministers that would say positive things that might advance the gay agenda. When the Christian United Church lobbied the Supreme Court on behalf of same-sex marriage advocates, they were praised. The media gave loving support when Jewish Rabbis got together to sing the praises of gay marriage. Even Moslem groups that supported the gay agenda were put on a pedestal by the liberal mainstream media when they spoke in favor of same-sex marriage. The media was relentless in amplifying the few dissenters of the three major religions which overwhelmingly oppose the concept of homosexuality.

The liberal media also used the death of Pope John Paul to advance the cause of gay advocates. The media branded the late pope as being too conservative and demanded that he be replaced by a more progressive spiritual leader. When it was announced that Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger would be the next pope (Pope Benedict XVI), the liberal media was horrified. He was immediately branded a radical conservative, with extreme views that would set back the church a thousand years. The liberal media did not even try to hide their bias.

Given the reporting of Canada’s mainstream media, you could only conclude that liberal journalists were hoping for Reverend Gene Robinson to become the next Pope. The media and gay rights advocates gushed with stories of him all year. For the first time ever gay advocates had an open homosexual promoted to the position of Bishop in a Christian church. The liberal media could not hide their glee when Gene Robinson went on the recorded as saying that he believed Jesus Christ was gay and then gave his flimsy reasoning to support his belief. His comments were made in spite of the fact that Jesus himself makes it clear that no homosexual will ever inherit the kingdom of God.

How is it that the media can find clergy in every major religion willing to advance the gay agenda, but none to endorse incest? Not only do liberal people of faith not endorse incest with the fervor they use to promote the gay agenda, but they describe incest as sick. Since the bible is the book that all three major religions are based on (in addition to the Koran for Moslems), it is worth exploring that book to illustrate a point.

The bible makes it clear that homosexuality is wrong and there is not a single character in the entire book that was portrayed as being gay, not even Jesus (sorry Gene).

[Leviticus 20:13] “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; there blood will be on their own heads.

In fact, one of the most famous stories of the bible is the story of Soddom and Gomorrah. In that story, God himself rescued Lot and his family before He rained down fire and brimstone on two cities of people whose most prevalent sin was homosexuality. It is an amazing story when you consider that it took place between 4,000-4,150 years ago and the term soddomy is still used to this day to describe homosexuality. God did not do this because he believed homosexuals should have the right to marry and receive full marriage benefits from government as liberal clergy and the liberal mainstream media would have you believe.

Where then does the bible stand on incest? After all, the children of Adam and Eve did not have the childern of neighbors to marry and have children with. Nor did Noah’s children, Ham, Shem and Japheth, have anyone to repopulate the Earth with after the flood.

What is interesting about the Soddom and Gomorrah story is what so many people do not know. God rescued Lot, his wife and two daughters, because Lot was a righteous man in the eyes of the Lord. As they fled the coming destruction, Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Lot then fled to a cave where he lived with his two daughters. Not only that, but Lot fathered children with both of his daughters.

Interesting, is it not? Lot was not only a polygamist, but he was also the most famous man of incest in human history. Lot’s older daughter named their son Moab and he bacame the Patriarch of the Moabites. The younger daughter had a son named Ben-Ammi and he was the Patriarch of the Ammonites. Most importantly, Lot was considered a righteous man in the eyes of the Lord. So much so, that God himself sent his angels to rescue him. In spite of this, liberals fall silent when an adult woman and her adult son are convicted of a crime in Canada for doing the same thing that a righteous man of God had done.

This begs the question. How can gay advocates and the liberal mainstream media promote same-sex marriage by amplifying the voice of liberal clergy who defy the clear teachings of scripture while being so intolerant of incest, also in defiance of teachings from that same book of scripture? Since the religion of liberalism can always find reasons to justify their position, what justification do liberals have for continuing to discriminate against two consenting adults in a committed loving relationship when those two people just happen to be related?

The fact that liberals would use religion to advance the cause of same-sex marriage while continuing to oppose incest is baffling.

An American Rags to Riches Story - With a Twist

2005-08-25T17:41:00.000-05:00

From time to time The Blue Maple Leaf receives interesting e-mail from his American friends. One such letter arrived today from Rory Roderick, with an interesting story. Here is what it said.

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids. He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test. The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours, that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers' market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly. Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard.

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed a million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you'd had all of those five years ago!"

“Ha!" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour."

Which brings us to the moral of the story:

Since you got this story by e-mail, you're probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire.

Sadly, I received it also.

Canada's Liberal Party and its Worthless E-mails

2005-08-24T16:14:00.000-05:00

The e-mail that the liberal party sends its followers is always interesting. Today, we here at The Blue Maple Leaf received an e-mail as a follow up to a survey the liberals put out last month. In that survey, this author said that his number one priority for the federal government going forward is tax cuts. Keep that in mind as you read this latest e-mail. It reads:

Dear Michael,

In our first survey you told us that health care was your number one priority, as it is ours.

What element of our health care accord is the most important to you?

• Reducing Wait Times and Improving Access
• The Wait Times Reduction Fund
• Strategic Health Human Resource Action Plans
• Home Care
• Primary Care Reform
• National Pharmaceuticals Strategy
• Ensuring the Health of Canadians
• Prevention, Promotion and Public Health
• Accountability and Reporting to Citizens

Thanks for your participation!

Mike Eizenga, President
Liberal Party of Canada

Obviously responding to these liberal surveys is pointless. Any option that would involve for profit, private health care reform is non-existent. Although it would be tempting to select “Accountability and Reporting to Citizens,” if you do that you will most certainly get a follow up e-mail from the liberal party. That e-mail would begin with, “Dear Michael, in our follow-up survey you said that spending more on health care was your number one priority. What a coincidence, that is Paul Martin’s basic fundamental number one priority as well!”

If you ever wanted proof that the liberal party hears only themselves, just sign up for their worthless e-mails.

Divorced Father Wants Right to Marry His Daughter

2005-08-19T15:38:00.000-05:00

Paul Martin’s federal liberals officially passed a law which redefines marriage. Marriage in Canada is now defined as, “the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.”

The liberals and homosexual advocates adopted this new definition, because they claimed that the 6,000 year old definition we were using until 2003 was discriminatory. They argue that by redefining marriage this way, discrimination is now a thing of the past. Or is it? Consider the scenario found in the comments of an anonymous reader to this blog. He writes,

“I am a 50-year-old divorced father who is very much in love with his 25-year-old daughter and she is deeply in love with me.

Our relationship just started a few years back, shortly after her 23rd birthday.

She and I love each other very much and would also like the right to marry. After all, we fit the criteria established by advocates of SSM - we're two consenting adults and we're not hurting anybody else. As well, I had a vasectomy, and we're not going to be having children.

I look forward to the gay community - and straight people who support SSM - to now champion my cause. Surely, to avoid being accused of hypocrisy, you must do so. You can't argue that my relationship is "morally reprehensible" because that would make you no different than those you attack for not supporting SSM.

And if your argument is that incest is illegal, well so too was homosexuality at one point. And if it were today, would you be arguing that SSM is wrong because homosexuality is illegal? No, you would argue to first change the law making homosexuality legal THEN allowing gays to marry.

If marriage being "one man to one woman" is deemed unconstitutional, then certainly "two people" is exclusionary as well by definition.

If we're in love, we're consenting adults, and we're not hurting anyone else, what's the problem I ask the SSM advocates?

Anyway, I look forward to all the supporters of SSM supporting my cause and applauding me, because I know they don't want to be accused of hypocrisy.

Imagine two gay men getting outraged at people who do not understand or embrace their relationship and then those same two turn to me and tell me my relationship is wrong.”

If you were a supporter of same-sex marriage and you disagree with this father’s position, then you may want to ask yourself just how tolerant and accepting you really are.

The State has no Business in the Bedrooms of the Nation

2005-08-18T18:50:00.000-05:00

A high profile case of incest has finally come to light here in Canada. The case involves a 43-year-old mother from southwestern Ontario and her 25-year-old son. The two were posing as husband and wife and they had three children together. A criminal court recently found the pair guilty of incest.

The CP report was published in the Winnipeg SUN, but other players in Canada’s liberal dominated mainstream media are strangely silent on this story.

It is worth asking, why is incest a crime in this country? After all, it was liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who on December 22, 1967 uttered the famous phrase, “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” He used this line back when Canada was debating whether or not to legalize homosexuality.

Another moral relativist named Christine Overall wrote an article that appeared at the christiangays.com website. In her article, she agreed with Trudeau’s logic so long as those in the bedrooms are consenting adults. She argued that the state should have no role in limiting consenting human sexual and romantic relationships.

When Paul Martin’s liberals made same-sex marriage the law of the land this year, the Canadians for Equal Marriage celebrated. They called it a proud and exciting time to be a Canadian and added,

“In a generation, Canadians will look back on a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people were denied full citizenship, just as we look back on the days when women or Aboriginal people could not vote or times when Canadian citizens were interned because of ethnic origin. We will talk about these days and this battle. We will be proud, as Canadians, that we rejected rejection, that we ended exclusion, that we said to LGBT people: there are no second-class Canadians, you are full members of the community, without caveat or exceptions.”

They may say that a generation from now, but they would be wrong. They would be wrong because at the same time that homosexual relationships have been elevated to the status of equal to marriage, other Canadians are being thrown into jail on account of their sexuality. Children of incestuous couples are being taken away from their parents. And we are not talking about adoptive parents. These are the two biological ones.

During the same-sex marriage debate, Conservative groups stood up to denounce changing the definition of marriage. They talked about the slippery slope. They said, “If you legalize marriage for homosexuals today, will family members be allowed to marry tomorrow?” Yet, these Conservative groups were shouted down by the gay rights advocates and the liberal media always took their side.

The media spent the whole summer printing story after story, on the radio and on television, branding Conservatives as being out of touch with the mainstream of Canada. The media branded them as Neanderthals, clinging to an outdated definition of marriage. They called anyone who opposed same-sex marriage a bigot and preacher of hate. They accused every Conservative who used the slippery slope analogy of fear mongering as they pointed out the one thing which was obvious to everyone except the fear-mongering, hate-filled, bigoted, hate preaching, out of touch, Neanderthal Conservatives. That one thing is that, “Incest is against the law in Canada!”

Yes, and homosexuality was against the law in Canada until a liberal stood up and said, “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.”

Recounting VJ Day – A Reason to reflect

2005-08-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

The Winnipeg Sun published a touching article today about a Canadian World War Two survivor. George Peterson of Winnipeg was a prisoner of War and held by the Japanese for four long years. While in detention, he was starved, tortured and used as slave labor. He was taken prisoner along with 1,976 other Canadians soldiers while trying to defend Hong Kong from a Japanese invasion. Outnumbered, the Canadians did not stand a chance.

Mr. Peterson recounts the horrors he faced while he was a prisoner. At 84-years-old, he still remembers how the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about the end of the war and saved his life. He also remembers how the crew of the American Battleship USS Iowa treated him like royalty during the 6 week cruise back home.

The allied victory over Japan gives us a good reason to reflect on how our American friends helped end a war and helped bring a group of brave Canadians home.

Community Schools: Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

2005-07-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

Jeff Niederhoffer is a Winnipeg lawyer and political activist. Below is an article he wrote that deals with the issue of public school funding by Gary Doer's socialist NDP government.

It took a little under six years, but the Doer government has finally seen fit to extend its philosophy of governance - dividing and ruling Manitobans on the basis of their income and socioeconomic status – to the financing of schools.

The Doerites call it the 'community-schools' program. The government press release announcing the initiative bubbles over with enthusiasm.

"By offering a community-based approach to education and neighborhood development," the release proclaims, "community schools create partnerships, build relationships and pool resources to solve common issues."

That's the rhetoric. To understand what the community-schools program is, however, you have to understand what it does. The dirty little secret is that community schools have almost nothing to do with education. In the hands of our Premier and Education Minister, a potentially innovative approach to education has become an exercise in social engineering. The community-schools program reflects a preoccupation with wealth redistribution that is typical of the Doer government. The community-schools program allocates new funding to schools, but only if they are "located in communities with low socio-economic status". The subsidies have nothing to do with measurable educational criteria such as performance or demonstrated skills. While the program was announced amidst new-age buzzwords - ‘creating partnerships’, 'pooling resources', etc. - the truth is that the community-schools initiative is a social-welfare program. The cheques given to schools under the program come with no strings attached, at least in terms of traditional educational standards. The community-schools subsidy is fundamentally without concrete standards to define success or failure, and it arguably represents a fundamental misunderstanding by the Doer government of its role in establishing province-wide education policy.

What is indisputable is that the community-schools plan takes provincial money away from other education funding priorities. While funding under the community-schools program is channeled to 'communities with low socio-economic status', the Doer government is simultaneously ignoring legitimate educational needs in other parts of the province. Tory MLA Jack Reimer has noted that, even as the province churns out subsidies to community schools, there is a marked shortage of schools in his own constituency of Southdale. Because the Southdale area is rapidly developing, and more families are moving into the area, there is a demonstrated need for more schools. In Jack Reimer's Southdale riding, as in numerous other areas of Manitoba, the Doer government turns a deaf ear. There have been no offers of subsidies or support. And why not?

The short answer is that these areas do not have 'low socio-economic status', and thus do not warrant community schools. With not enough schools to go around, children in these areas frequently have no choice but to attend schools that are infeasibly far away from where they live. Reimer rightfully laments the social dislocations caused by this situation: "This NDP government does not recognize the importance of community stability by having children bused out of the area and not having them interact in their own neighborhood."

Thus, we have the community-schools program. As now structured, it is a program that subsidizes education in 'communities with low socio-economic status', but only by defunding education in other communities. Bluntly speaking, it robs Peter to pay Paul. In a way that may perhaps never have been intended, community schools can truly be said to provide a revealing insight into the educational priorities of the Doer government.

Stephen Harper BBQ Tour Comes to Winnipeg

2005-07-26T21:31:00.000-05:00

The Italian Caboto Center, 1055 Wilkes Avenue, was the stage last night for Stephen Harper’s cross Canada BBQ tour. The event drew a large crowd of Conservative supporters. A few members of the mainstream media were also on hand to record the event. Surprisingly, mosquitoes and left-wing political activists were nowhere to be found on this cold and windy summer night in Winnipeg.

The event, billed as an image make-over tour by the media, was very successful. Guests at the BBQ were invited to see a side of Stephen Harper that newsmakers like Paul Hunter and Terry Milewski of the CBC would never want Canadians to see. They saw a charming, witty and charismatic side of the party leader who won a resounding 84% approval at the last Conservative Party of Canada Convention.

Delivering Stephen’s introduction speech was the MP for Kildonan – St. Paul, Joy Smith, who gave a memorable speech. She talked at length about Paul Martin’s lack of character and related some interesting facts about Paul Martin’s company, Canadian Steamship Lines. The details included Paul Martin’s decision to relocate most of its affiliates to the Barbados, Bermuda and Liberia, where there are little or no corporate taxes. Canada Steamship Lines also changed the flags on its ships and began hiring foreign crews who do not receive the same salaries and benefits as Canadian crews. Finally, shipbuilding for the company began taking place offshore instead of in Canadian shipyards. After drawing the contrast between Stephen Harper and Paul Martin she said, “We have a man here that cannot be bought.”

When Stephen Harper finally took to the stage he delivered an excellent speech. He pointed out something that Conservative bloggers have been saying for some time now. Forget what you hear in the polls. Forget what the media tells you. If the liberals really believed that they would win an election if it were held right now, we would be in an election right now. When you stop to think about every dirty trick the liberals have pulled to stay in power and to avoid an election, you have to know that everyone, including the liberals, are aware that they are finished when Canadians are finally given the chance to vote.

Another concept of the liberal party that was highlighted in Harper’s speech was the concept of symbolism over substance. Much of what the liberal party has done this year is completely phony. The quality of health care in this country is abysmal and yet the media lionizes the liberals every time they sign another health accord. The liberals have spent $1 billion to date on federal daycare, something the media speaks of glowingly, and yet nobody can name a single Canadian that has received daycare with that money. The liberals have spent $2 billion on the gun registry, but gun crime is still going up.

Every time the liberals claim to be solving a problem, papers are signed with much fanfare, the media gushes over how wonderful the liberals are and somebody, somewhere…usually a liberal…gets a cheque. This has been going on for 12 years now, yet Canadians can see reality for themselves that they are not getting anything out of all this wasteful spending. Canadians only need to wind up in the emergency room of their local hospital or spend 2 years a list waiting for treatment to know that things in this country are getting worse not better.

The funniest moment came at this point of the speech when Stephen Harper was on the subject of health care. He said, “If ever there was a stinging indictment of liberal policy in this country it was the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada.” He was referring to the recent Court decision that declared ‘access to a waiting list is not the same as access to health care’. He went on to say, “Now you all know that I am not usually one to quote rulings from the Supreme Court of Canada,” at which point the crowd broke up in laughter.

Another notable point Stephen raised in his speech included the subject of Quebec separation. Twelve years of government corruption including the sponsorship scandal, which is the biggest vote rigging scandal in Canadian history, has breathed new life into the separatist movement. The liberals have created a new reality which may see the next Canadian Prime Minister preside over the break-up of Canada. It is a harsh reality, but one that we may no longer be able to avoid thanks to the liberal party.

The liberals continue to pretend they are the only federalist option as they promise to investigate their own misdeeds and clean up their own mess. Mr. Harper pointed out the obvious when he said, “Canadians don’t want a government that spends years investigating corruption. They want a government were it doesn’t happen in the first place.”

The final topic he mentioned in his speech was the Senate. One of the biggest problems we have in Canada is that Canada’s Senate is not accountable to the people. The purpose of the Senate is to temper legislation as it is passed through the House of Commons. The fact that the Senate has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for liberalism shows that the Senate is not working.

The best example of which was the fast tracking of the biggest social engineering bill ever to clear the floor of the House. The same-sex marriage bill blew through the Senate at record speed before unaccountable Senators rushed out the door to start their summer holidays. When Harper is finally elected Prime Minister of Canada we can take pride not only in voting corruption out, but also in having the opportunity to vote new Senators in.

As a supporter of Conservative values, this author walked away from the event optimistic about the future of our country. If Stephen Harper had an image problem, it was only because the liberal friendly mainstream media portrayed the man as someone who had an image problem. The reality is quite the opposite. Stephen Harper is a good man and a great Conservative leader.

“God Bless you all, and God bless Canada.”

Hospital Waiting List Numbers are the Next Big Liberal Scandal

2005-07-24T10:44:00.000-05:00

The following Tom Brodbeck article appeared in the Winnipeg SUN. It deals with the issue of hospital wait times. The federal liberals have set up a commission to deal with the issue of waiting lists which can be as long as two years in some cases. The person picked by the liberals to head the commission has a proven track record of overseeing the manipulation of waiting list numbers for political reasons. If the liberals wanted a man who would do absolutely nothing to fix a problem, while lying to convince the public that the numbers are in decline, they found their man in Brian Postl.

Here is the article as it appeared in the Winnipeg SUN:

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority CEO Dr. Brian Postl has been named head of some federal health-care wait list commission by Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Notwithstanding how bogus it is for the feds to even pretend they can have any control or influence over wait lists for procedures like knee surgery, cancer treatment or diagnostic testing.

It's pretty funny they hired a guy who heads a health authority whose policy it is to lie to people about at least one waiting list.

That waiting list is the number of people forced to wait in emergency room hallways to get a hospital bed.

Maybe Canadians would like to know the WRHA's dirty little secret on how it forces Winnipeg hospitals to fudge their numbers when counting how many patients are waiting in gurneys in drafty hallways.

If they knew this, they may not be so happy with Martin's choice.

The Winnipeg Sun exposed a few years ago how the WRHA forces hospitals to file bogus numbers with the health authority when doing daily counts of patients in hallways.

It was brought to our attention by nurses who do the counts and who weren't too happy with bureaucrats telling them to lie about how many people were languishing in ER hallways.

What the hospitals are forced to do is count, every day at 8 a.m., how many patients are admitted to hospital who are in the ER hallway.

Then staff are told to count the number of empty spots elsewhere in the ER, including space in the observation unit or examination rooms, and subtract that number from the total number of patients warehoused in the hallway.

That's the number the hospital is told to file with the WRHA, which is eventually posted on a government website.

So if there are 10 patients in the hallway but five empty spots elsewhere in the ER -- spots that may be left open for good medical reasons -- the hospital reports that there were only five patients in the hallway that day.

The WRHA has been doing this in Winnipeg for the past five to six years.

They have been claiming that "hallway medicine" is on the decline.

Well, that's in part because they started forcing hospitals to fudge their numbers.

But they also made other changes to their methodology that artificially brought the numbers down.
They stopped counting psychiatric patients waiting in the hallways, for example.

And they stopped counting patients awaiting surgery. Naturally, the reported numbers drop.

In 2003, the Winnipeg Sun, through a freedom of information request, obtained the real hallway patient numbers for the month of February at one of the city's community hospitals -- Victoria General Hospital.

We compared them with the fraudulent numbers reported by the WRHA and found the real patient counts in hallway were as much as nine times higher than what was reported.

So if Paul Martin is looking for someone who knows how to manipulate waiting list data, he's found the right guy in Brian Postl, who rakes in a salary of $352,344 by the way.

Maybe Brian Postl should figure out how to reduce soaring waiting lists in Winnipeg for knee and hip replacement surgery and for diagnostic testing like MRIs, CT scans and ultrasounds before he hits the national circuit.

People in Winnipeg routinely wait a year or two -- sometimes longer -- for knee and hip surgery.
And Postl's going to be the national expert on waiting lists?

Please.

And where is Dr. Postl going to find the time to perform his new federal task?

Shouldn't he be busy running the WRHA's massive bureaucracy -- which has tripled in cost over the past few years and now occupies six floors of plush office space in downtown Winnipeg?

Canadians may be getting a new commission on how to reduce hospital waiting lists, but they should take it with a grain of salt.

Hell’s Angels Steal a Page from the Liberal Public Relations Play Book

2005-07-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

A chapter of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle gang has launched a public relations campaign to shore up their image. After being hit by police raids last week, the B.C. chapter of the Hell’s Angels has decided to engage the public in a bid to clear up the misconception people have that they are anything more than a men’s club for motorcycle enthusiasts.

Speaking on behalf of the Hell’s Angels, public relations spokesperson Rick Ciarniello said blaming his organization for the misdeeds of a few bad apples would be like calling the entire police force a criminal organization on account of the Stanley Park six. The Stanley Park six was a group of Vancouver police officers that were convicted of assaulting suspected drug dealers.

The campaign to shore up public opinion comes within months of watching another criminal gang soar in public opinion polls despite months of testimony at the Gomery Commission. The Libranos Party of Canada has engaged in widespread criminal activity including money laundering and bribing public officials dating back to 1994. Money stolen from Canadian taxpayers frequently changed hands in brown paper bags as the libranos stole elections for over a decade.

Since 1994 the libranos have laundered taxpayer money in many ways. The most popular tactic they used was to funnel the money to ad firms for little or no work. These ad firms then funneled the money back to the libranos who enjoy a tax exempt status similar to that of charities.

During the month of May, key members of the libranos’ Ottawa chapter sought to bribe government officials including members of the Conservative Party and Bloc Quebecois. One such official, Gurmant Grewal, made audio recordings as he was being bribed by senior members of the libranos. Mr. Grewal has since enrolled in a witness protection program while enforcers for the libranos seek to assassinate his character.

In spite of the wide spread knowledge in Canada that the libranos are a criminal organization, they still enjoy huge support from the public, especially in Ontario, according to left-wing friendly polling firms such as Environics and the Strategic Counsel.

The libranos positive image is the direct result of an effective public relations campaign which works in concert with the liberal friendly mainstream media. The image they portray of their gang is that of a group of people who simply enjoy being chauffeured around Ottawa in stretched limousines. Whenever a librano member is caught breaking the law, the public relations people go to work blaming a few bad apples while deflecting criticism away from the organization as a whole.

Members of the Hell’s Angels have obviously figured out that if the libranos can have a good image in spite of their criminal activity, then anyone can.

Bloggers Unraveling the Liberal Smear Campaign against Gurmant Grewal

2005-07-16T23:41:00.000-05:00

Gurmant Grewal is the Conservative MP who exposed liberal vote buying by recording his conversations with senior staff of the liberal party. In the run-up to the confidence motion in May, the liberals were desperate to avoid an election. What the liberals did was peddle influence by bribing members of the Conservative Party in exchange for their vote in Parliament. Sick of seeing the liberals get away with denying that bribes were being offered, Gurmant Grewal took it upon himself to tape conversation as senior staff of the liberal party tried to bribe him. Exposing the liberals this way put Mr. Grewal in the crosshairs of the liberals and the liberal friendly mainstream media.

Since those tapes were made public, the liberal media has been on a relentless campaign to smear Gurmant Grewal. Every accusation has been thrown at him including accusations he doctored the tapes and accusations that stole campaign contributions for personal use.

The accusations that he doctored the tapes are ridiculous. The tapes in question run over one hour in length and Ujjal Dosanjh, the liberal Health Minister, can clearly be heard talking to Gurmant about foreign appointments and cabinet positions. Tim Murphy, the Prime Minister’s chief of Staff, can be heard just as clearly as he coaches Mr. Grewal on how to lie to the media in the event he decides to take the liberals up on their bribes. There is simply no way to spin the content of those tapes, so the liberals and the media have moved on to accusations he stole campaign contributions.

Terry Milewski filed a CBC story that alleges Gurmant Grewal cashed cheques that were supposed to be campaign contributions. As a result, the people making the contributions were never given receipts. Terry Milewski proudly displayed the cheques in his news piece and all but declared him guilty of stealing money from his campaign, but bloggers looking into this story have turned up some interesting facts.

An article by Back off Government points to a news story that was covered by Nicholas Read of the CanWest News Service.

The article titled Grewal donor who wants tax receipt acknowledges ties to Dosanjh says it all. It turns out that Sarup Mann, the Vancouver businessman that is demanding a tax receipt for money he says he gave to Gurmant Grewal, is actually a member at large of Liberal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh's riding association.

Small Dead Animals offers a letter written by Jim Holt, president of the Conservative Newton – North Delta riding association, to Terry Milewski of the CBC. The letter points out many facts that were overlooked when the CBC reported its hit piece and shows copies of the chques in question.

Firstly, we have a Mr. Kandola, who gave a donation of $200. He did receive a proper receipt and his contribution appears in the Elections Canada records.

Then there is the claim of Mr. Dhahan who attended a political dinner for Mr. Grewal back in December of 2003. Mr. Dhahan also happens to be a good friend of liberal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh. The $600 cheque he wrote may have been made out to Gurmant Grewal, but if you look at the endorsement it was not cashed. Rather, it was signed over to The Grand Taj Hall in Surrey to help pay for dinner.

The next person mentioned by the CBC was Mr. Mann who wrote two separate cheques. He is also a very good friend of Ujjal Dosanjh, who, when the story broke about Mr. Grewal taping liberals breaking the law and offering bribes, called Mr. Grewal to voice his displeasure. Mr. Mann’s first cheque for $600 also cleared the same way as Mr. Dhahan’s. It was signed over to The Grand Taj Hall to pay for dinner. Mr. Mann’s second cheque for $1,800 was made out to the campaign of Mr. Grewal’s wife in June of 2004. Gurmant’s wife Nina is also a Conservative MP. That cheque clearly shows it was properly endorsed by the Registered Agent for Nina Grewal, and deposited to the EDA account.

The last cheque that was mentioned in the CBC story was a cheque for $1,000 made out by Imperial Plumbing and this one seems to be a mystery. It is worth noting that the cheque was cashed but it was never endorsed on the back. The cheque seems to have been cleared at the Khalsa Credit Union the same day it was drawn. Equally baffling is the fact the item was processed at a branch of that credit union about 20 miles from where the cheque was prepared. Even more baffled is the fact that the date the transaction(s) occurred Mr. Grewal was in Ottawa, and either in his office, or in the House of Commons.

The liberal mainstream media loves to assassinate the character of Conservative politicians, but bloggers are now here to set the record straight.

The Guys' Rules

2005-07-14T22:07:00.000-05:00

Mary Stansberry is a friend from Kentucky, USA, that always sends interesting e-mail. One such letter arrived today called the Guy’s Rules. At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down. Finally, we can hear the guys' side of the story and it's pretty good. We always hear the rules from the female point of view, well, now here are the rules from the male side. These are our rules!

Please note... these are all numbered 1 ON PURPOSE!

1. Men ARE NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports is like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done, but not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...Really.

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this.

Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; but did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

Liberals Gearing Up for Renewed Fight to Preserve Socialized Medicine

2005-07-12T18:35:00.000-05:00

Today, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein unveiled his plan for health care reform in his Province. The plan allows for some private care to exist side by side the current public system. Access to health care will still be available to everyone.

The reforms are designed to allow the private sector to find solutions to problems that government politicians created when they imposed our current socialist health care system on the country. Long waiting lists, people being treated in hospital hallways and substandard care are just some of the problems. There have even been cases of Canadians dying on waiting lists, waiting to receive the care they need.

Ralph Klein’s new plan called the third way, will go a long way to fixing many of these problems. The most significant change will involve non-necessary health care. So much of a provinces health budget is used on things like abortions, sex-change operations, chiropractors and podiatrists. Allowing the people of Alberta to pay for these kinds of non-essential medical services will free up more of the Province’s money for emergency care, diagnostics and other medical services that save lives.

Already the liberal mainstream media has the Alberta Premier on the defensive with accusations that his proposals amount to two-tier health care. Two-tier healthcare is the favorite buzz word of left-wing Canadians that object to any reform of Canada’s broken health care system. The only solution the left has for fixing our health care system is to spend more tax payer money. This is the reason Paul Martin was lionized for agreeing to extra health care spending spread out over 10-years.

These reforms are long overdue in a country that has embraced socialist healthcare, watched it fail miserably for decades and refused the bitter medicine necessary to fix the problem.

God Recalls Independent Canadian MP - Chuck Cadman

2005-07-10T10:49:00.000-05:00

The independent Member of Parliament, who was largely to blame for prolonging the life of the most corrupt federal government Canada has ever known, has died. MP Chuck Cadman died yesterday after a two year battle with skin cancer. He was 57-years-old.

His vote in the May 19 non-confidence motion on the $4.6 billion NDP budget amendment gave the liberals the 152-152 tie they needed to survive and avoid facing the Canadian voters. With the liberal party way behind in the polls and drowning in debt from overspending in the last election, the liberals were expected to be ousted from power. Cadman’s vote was all that saved them.

Chuck Cadman comes from the more Conservative end of politics. He represented the riding of Surrey North first as a member of the Reform Party and then as a member of the Canadian Alliance. When the right was finally united in this country, Chuck was not able to win the riding nomination for the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada. Instead, he chose to run as an independent in the 2004 election which he won.

His decision to enter politics was the result of an unfortunate death. Chuck’s 16-year-old son Jesse was murdered in October of 1992. As a result, Chuck played a role in federal politics as an advocate for victim’s rights and against youth violence. Yet, after thirteen years of liberal rule youth crime is worse than it has ever been and convicted mass murders like Karla Homolka are walking free while the families of murder victims look on in horror. All of this is the direct result of liberal policies which coddle criminals and completely ignore victims.

When Chuck Cadman had the opportunity to defeat the party that stood for everything he fought against, he instead voted to prop them up. Mr. Cadman said his reason for propping up the liberals had to do with his constituents not wanting another election so soon after the last one. This excuse was an obvious lie for two reasons. Number one, Paul Martin vowed in a televised address to call an early election anyway; and number two, this is the exact same excuse that the liberal Health Minister and Paul Martin’s chief of staff voiced while trying to coach Gurmant Grewal on how to lie to reporters in the event he left the Conservative Party to join the liberals. Political analysts agree that the true motivation for Chuck’s propping up the liberals had to do with the bitterness he felt after losing the Conservative nomination.

It is a loss to see Chuck Cadman recalled, but for Canadians, life goes on.

Karla Homolka Justice Pool – Guess the Day Justice is Done on Karla and Win

2005-07-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

The mainstream media is full of stories concerning the prison release of Karla Homolka. Canada’s propaganda broadcaster, the CBC, went so far as to interview her in an effort to show the human side of pure evil.

Karla Homolka is Canada’s infamous killer wife, who with the help of husband Paul Bernardo took part in kidnappings, rapes and murders of many young schoolgirls, including Karla’s own sister. Her twelve year sentence, the result of a plea bargain, came to an end this week and now Karla is out of jail and walking the streets of Montreal a free woman.

In her CBC interview, Karla said that she feels that people are out to kill her. The media is reporting that she received many death threats in the weeks leading up to her release.

For that reason, we at The Blue Maple Leaf would like to start a pool. The person who comes the closest to guessing the date and time that justice is finally served on Karla Homolka will receive an autographed and framed portrait of The Blue Maple Leaf.

To enter the contest all you need to do is e-mail this author with your name and the city you live in. Then give the month, day, year, and approximate time that Karla Homolka meets her inevitable fate.

This contest is open to everyone, but please...no cheating. hehe

Tom Brodbeck follows up with Two More Stories of a Socialist NDP Nightmare

2005-07-04T23:34:00.000-05:00

Last week we presented the real life story of Thomas Hanaway. Mr. Hanaway is the 80-year-old Winnipeg resident who’s life was taken over by Manitoba’s Socialist NDP appointed Public Trustee. He had no chance to appeal and the trustee started withdrawing money from his bank account right away. His life was completely taken over, including everything he owns, by the province even though he lives at home with his wife and 47-year-old son and he commited no crime.

Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun followed this story up with an article titled Unwanted Takeover. In it he describes what it is like living under the thumb of a public trustee. The first thing the Hanaway family realized is that Hanaway’s wife, Grace, cannot access her pension cheques because they are deposited into a joint bank account she shares with her husband.

In the final follow up article, Tom Brodbeck explains the process that leads to government taking over your life by way of the public trustee. First, a doctor (any doctor) can deem a person to be unfit. The doctor does not have to tell the patient or the patient’s family about the decision, he simply fills out a one-page, Manitoba Health certificate of incapacity and sends it to the province's director of psychiatric services.

The province’s director reviews the certificate and gains instant access to all the patients’ personal medical information. At this point the director sends a letter to the person named in the certificate and tells them that the government now owns their life.

The troubling thing about this process is that the province’s director makes absolutely no attempt to meet with the person in question. There are no interviews and there is no home visit. The most disturbing thing of all is the lack of an appeals process. Once the director makes his decision there is nothing you can do.

The socialist NDP have always believed they can run our lives better than we can and this scandal is the best example yet.

Liberals Stroke the Base with A Letter Full of Garbage

2005-06-28T15:30:00.000-05:00

The liberals sent yet another letter to party faithful in an effort to pick the pockets of its supporters. The liberals continue to stress that they have important work to do, but so far the only thing they are doing is clinging to power any way they can. Below is the content of the letter:

June 28, 2005

Dear Michael,

It was one of the most intense sessions of Parliament in Canadian history. Last month, Stephen Harper and the Bloc Quebecois almost got their wish for an election by putting their personal ambitions ahead of the needs of the country.

Canadians almost faced an election to further a neoconservative and separatist agenda.

When parliament resumes this fall, Mr. Harper will try to bring the house down once again - even when Prime Minister Paul Martin has committed to an election 30 days after the final report from Justice Gomery.

Because of the ongoing Conservative – Bloc threat, we have to ensure our readiness to mount a winning campaign at any time. Your donation today will keep Canada working and moving forward under the leadership of Paul Martin’s Liberals.

We are fortunate not to be going to the polls today. There is important work yet to do. But we also have to be ready to fight an election at a moment’s notice.

Please respond before Canada Day with your gift and help us keep Canada working.

Thank you in advance for supporting the Liberal Party’s Campaign for Canada today.

Happy Canada Day!

Mike Eizenga
President

P.S. Summer’s here – and we need your support to keep our Campaign for Canada moving forward.

Is it not ironic that the liberals continue to try and portray Conservatives as being in bed with the separatists after the liberals themselves made a deal with the seperatists to invoke closure on Bill C-48 and save their necks once again?

The Sick Reality of Socialism – When the Government Takes Control of Your Life

2005-06-27T19:40:00.000-05:00

Imagine you are 47-years-old. You live at home with your mother and 80-year-old father. Your father is getting pretty old and a nurse comes by once per day to care for him. Being a good son, you also care for your father when you can.

Then one day your socialist government declares your father not mentally competent to run his own affairs. The government then appoints an official to take control of your father’s life without the consent of your mother or yourself. The government starts by withdrawing $900 from your dad’s bank account to cover its costs. This government official now owns all your father’s assets and can force him to move into any living arrangement he chooses.

Because this is a totalitarian state, there is no appeals process. The government official has no knowledge of your father’s circumstance before he is appointed to take over. You are not consulted even though you live with your father. Your mother is also not consulted even though she has the power of attorney over her husband. The government official is simply appointed and then takes over your father’s life immediately, without ever scheduling a home visit or meeting with your dad. He simply comes in and takes control.

Once the government official has stepped in and taken all of your father’s money and seized all his assets, you have one chance to appeal. Unfortunately, the cost of the appeal will run into the thousands and you don’t always win. As well, the official gets a 3% cut of your income which puts him in a conflict of interest.

You would imagine that this kind of scenario is common in socialist countries like North Korea, China and the former Soviet Union. Would it surprise you to know that this is exactly what happened in the socialist NDP province of Manitoba?

Above is the true story of the Hanaway family who live in Winnipeg’s North End. Manitoba’s Public Trustee Anne Bolton has triggered a firestorm of controversy in the power her office wields when she took control of the life of Thomas Hanaway on June 6th.

The more clients the Public Trustee has, the higher their revenue. This agency currently has 3,500 living ones now. To read more about this unbelievable story, please read the Tom Brodbeck article in the Winnipeg Sun.

This is just one sick reality of the kind of socialism that the NDP is bringing to Canada.

CBC to Portray a Conservative as Something Other Than Scary

2005-06-25T20:13:00.000-05:00

Conservative Health Critic Steven Fletcher will be featured on the CBC’s Moving On program Sunday, June 26th at 2:00 pm.

Moving On is a documentary program about people with disabilities who are developing ways to live more independently. The people seen in the program are neither victims nor heroes, but human beings striving to lead as full a life as possible. Moving On depicts people with disabilities at work, receiving healthcare, using and developing technology, forging relationships, producing art and entertainment and playing sports. In the process, the program challenges stereotypes and provides useful information about disability issues.

Steven Fletcher is an MP from Winnipeg who was left a paraplegic when his car crashed into a deer. He won his seat in the 2004 federal election beating out a very popular Winnipeg Mayor named Glenn Murray.

When you consider that the CBC cannot portray a Conservative as anything other than scary, this special on Steven should be interesting.

Understanding the Logic of Same-sex Advocates

2005-06-23T20:07:00.000-05:00

Have you ever debated the issue of same-sex marriage with someone who is in favor of same-sex marriage? If you have, you have no doubt been frustrated by the lack sense that comes from these people. On most issues people have at least one positive and sensible thing to say that makes you wonder if maybe you are wrong. On the issue of same-sex marriage, nothing the left says holds any water.

For those of us that oppose redefining marriage there are a multitude of solid reasons why we believe changing the definition of marriage is wrong. Dr. Charles McVety, President, Canada Christian College and Canada Family Action Coalition gives us 31 Reasons to Vote "No" to Changing the Definition of Marriage. For another seven, you can visit Enshrine Marriage Canada.

On the issue of why heterosexual couples deserve marriage benefits, Conservatives point out the obvious. Heterosexual couples create and raise children. In fact, the same scientists that say there is a gay gene are unanimous in pointing out that in spite of this, the opposite sex mother/father/child relationship is still the best environment for children. They all agree that this is the ideal scenario in which to raise the next generation. As a result, governments have every right to create laws and give beneficial treatment to people in order to promote this ideal.

The same-sex marriage advocates argue that not every opposite sex couple has children. While it is true that not every opposite sex couple has children, virtually all do. In contrast, not one single same-sex couple is capable of having children of their own. And while it is possible for same-sex couples to raise children not their own into happy vibrant members of society, every child still has the right to claim the love of both their biological mother and father. Again, this is the ideal which governments have every right to promote while discouraging alternative relationships.

What same-sex marriage advocates always overlook is that marriage is not about equality. Civil marriage is not about equality. All government policies are preferential on purpose. If you want welfare, veteran’s benefits, child support or marriage benefits, then you have to qualify for them. In all cases government, for its own good, discriminates in favor of some people, and some relationships, and not others.

The absence of equality is not really a good argument against these kinds of policies. Same-sex partnerships already receive the same benefits as married couples, but something else is at issue for same-sex marriage advocates. They want to persuade the public that such partnerships are of the same value to society as marriages. But the only way they can do this is by denying the unique contribution of marriage as a biologically-uniting, child centered institution.

When women gained equal rights in Canada, they were not renamed men and there is no reason why homosexuals need to use the term marriage.

Vote on Bill C-48 Tonight

2005-06-21T18:03:00.000-05:00

The vote on the $4.6 billion NDP budget deal is less than 15 minutes away. The last time this bill was voted on the result of the vote was a 152-152 tie with the liberal speaker breaking the tie to keep the liberals in power. That vote was also taken after Belinda Stronach had crossed the floor to accept a cabinet position.

Since that vote, the liberals picked up one seat in a byelection and lost one caucus member, Pat O'Brien, who vowed to vote against the liberals in a vote of non-confidence to topple them before same-sex marriage can pass. Without Pat O'Brien the liberals do not have the votes to remain in power.

Grewal, Stinson and Chatters appear to be missing from the Conservative side. A Conservative motion to the bill was defeated 93-205.

Chuck Cadman also appears to be absent, leaving only Parrish, O'Brien and Kilgour in the independent chairs. Parrish is voting with the government on all ammendments, while O'Brien and Kilgour are opposing government.

The vote on bill C-48 passes 152-147.

The Battle Against the NDP Budget Bill – Next Week

2005-06-16T17:20:00.000-05:00

Next week is when Bill C-48 is expected to come up for a final vote. This is the bill that includes the extra $4.6 billion of spending the liberals added to buy the votes of the NDP and keep their corrupt government alive. Defeating this bill is the last opportunity the Conservatives have to bring down the liberals before summer.

The mainstream media is pumping out stories today that the Conservative Party is trying to trade support for the NDP budget if the liberals will delay a vote on same-sex marriage. According to the liberal press, the liberals are not willing to make any deals with the conservatives to delay same-sex marriage. The idea that Conservatives offered a deal like this seems very unlikely for two reasons.

First of all, we are talking about an NDP budget bill that is filled with spending. The spending initiatives included go against everything Conservatives stand for. As well, it allocates money for things with no plans on how to spend it. This is exactly the kind of wasteful spending bill Conservatives loathe. If the Conservatives will not stand up for the Canadian taxpayer, then who will?

Secondly, the Conservatives are the only ones standing up to preserve the traditional family. Once the budget bill passes, there will be nothing stopping Canada’s left-wing extremists from rewriting a six thousand year old definition of marriage. The Conservatives have the votes now to topple the liberals with the defection of former liberal Pat O’Brien. Pat O’Brien has said he will vote against the government in a vote of non-confidence if he believes it is necessary to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. Now is the time for Stephen Harper to rally the troops for next weeks vote. This is the last chance we have to stop this liberal juggernaut and the idea that he is making a deal to sell out the Canadian taxpayer the way socialist NDP leader Jack Layton did seems ridiculous.

For the sake of the Canadian taxpayer and the traditional family which forms the cornerstone of society, Conservatives need to make this next opportunity to defeat the liberals count.

Doer Government Circling Wagons on Crocus

2005-06-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

Manitoba is living through the biggest provincial investment scandal ever. The socialist NDP government of Gary Doer mismanaged a provincial investment fund and ignored all the warning signs along the way. Winnipeg lawyer and political activist Jeff Niederhoffer weighs in with some insight into this socialist boondoggle.

How the mighty have fallen! Crocus Investment Fund, a Manitoba-based investment fund that was once an industry leader, is now a brand name synonymous with plummeting share values, managerial incompetence, alleged criminal conduct, and pending litigation.

If Auditor General Jon Singleton’s recent report on Crocus has done nothing else, it has provided a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the anarchy and ineptitude that until recently characterized the management of the fund. Of course, as the report also makes clear, there was plenty of anarchy and ineptitude to go around. The provincial government was empowered by statute to supervise the fund – but despite warning signs that Crocus was in trouble, the Doer government made no attempt to investigate, did not even make the most basic inquiries.

And there were certainly ‘warning signs’. Over the past four years, at least, the provincial government received a steady drumbeat of warnings about Crocus from officials in the Industry and Finance Departments. In 2001, the Industry Department provided the government a detailed analysis of Crocus’ cash-flow problems, going so far as to predict that the fund would eventually face a liquidity crisis. And in January 2002, an official in the Finance Department independently wrote an email memo warning of possible mismanagement at Crocus. On top of all this, at some point in 2002, then Industry Minister Maryann Mihychuk had been briefed by Industry Department officials as to the difficulties they were having in monitoring the fund. Throughout 2002 and 2003, as Mihychuk now recalls, she and her staff had repeatedly discussed the need for new legislation to improve provincial monitoring of Crocus.

In the face of these warning signs, the Doer government’s response was to do nothing. Tory Industry Critic John Loewen has criticized the Doer government on its failure to monitor the fund. “Quite clearly here, we see they had warnings,” Loewen rightly notes. “And for some reason which they’re going to have to justify, they refused to act.” Loewen speaks for a good many Manitobans; he is certainly reflecting the concerns of the nearly 34,000 Crocus shareholders who have seen their investments decimated. Manitobans have every right to wonder why the government dropped the ball in terms of its oversight responsibility.

It is difficult to believe, as Doer & Co. want us to believe, that these warnings about Crocus never made it beyond a handful of bureaucrats and an Industry Minister. It is laughable to suggest that Mihychuk, as her department was making plans to draft legislation, would not have brought Cabinet up to speed. Nevertheless, past and present members of the Doer government maintain that Cabinet was collectively out of the loop, and, in particular, that Premier Doer was never informed. This is, to put it mildly, difficult to swallow. What is far more likely is that Premier Doer’s Ministers and advisors, much like ‘the President’s Men’ of three decades ago, are instinctively hunkering down. They are circling the wagons. In the final analysis, Doer’s ‘men’ seem prepared to be the quintessential loyal soldiers who will do whatever it takes to protect their boss – and, not incidentally, their own political futures.

Jeff Niederhoffer is a Winnipeg lawyer and political activist.

Live Blogging of Non-Confidence Vote Marathon

2005-06-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight at 10:00 pm. EDT (15 minutes from now) Parliament will be voting on 18 bills. Fifteen of these are considered confidence motions by liberal House Leader Tony Valeri. Pat O'Brien, the independant liberal MP that defected from the liberal party this month, has said that he will vote to bring down the liberal party unless they delay their plans to implement the same-sex marriage bill. His vote could be the tipping point. Tonight is the best chance Canadians have to bring down the most corrupt federal government we have ever known and call a new election for this summer.

Here is a link if you want to watch the action live on C-PAC.

The first vote of the night was a BQ ammentment dealing with older workers. The vote was not one of non-confidence. The vote passed 301-0.

The MPs are now voting on a motion introduced by Conservative Rona Ambrose. This vote deals with the liberal desire to socialize babysitting for pre-school children in Canada. This is vote is also not one of confidence. All three of Canada's left-wing parties are lining up against this one. The final tally is 95-205.

Voting is now being done by unanimous consent of party whips. The Conservative and Bloc parties are voting against the government. The unholy liberal/socialist NDP alliance has lined up to push the wasteful spending bills through. Carolyn Parish and Pat O'Brien are siding with the government. David Kilgore is voting against. One such motion passed 153-149.

Bill C-43, an act to implement the 2005 budget is now being voted on. The liberals are are standing up in support. Not surprisingly, the NDP are standing up in support. The Conservatives are also supporting this bill since this budget bill does not include the $4.6 billion dollars of pork that was added to buy NDP support.

The liberals survive to rule until another day.

Good night.

Liberals Caught in another Lie – Working to Postpone Election

2005-06-13T20:38:00.000-05:00

Former liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has long been arguing that Justice Gomery has a political bias. Justice Gomery has done an excellent job of uncovering the wide spread corruption that permeates the liberal party. On May 30th of this year, lawyers for Jean Chrétien ended their efforts to have Justice Gomery removed from the commission looking into the sponsorship scandal. That same day, these same lawyers received a letter from the current liberal government who advised that if they ended their attempts to stonewall Gomery they would be free to reintroduce a challenge to Justice Gomery in an effort to delay the Commission’s final report. Paul Martin has said he will call an election within 30 days of that report’s release which is expected in December.

When knowledge of the letter surfaced last week, Conservative deputy leader Peter McKay asked the liberal government if this meant they would be trying to postpone the final report in an attempt to delay the election. The liberal reply was that no such letter existed and lawyers for the liberal government had not been advising the lawyers of Jean Chrétien on the subject.

This is another obvious liberal lie since members of the Conservative party are in possession of the letter which has been widely circulated. Once again the liberals have been confronted with evidence of their lies and cover-ups and once again the liberals are changing their story.

The liberal party now says that a letter did change hands, but that no deal was made to delay the final report of the Gomery Commission or the election. The fact remains that, according to lawyers for the liberal government, if Jean Chrétien decides to challenge the partiality of Justice Gomery again; the election will again be postponed.

Given what the liberals have done to avoid that election until now, it would not be a surprise if the liberals backed out of a deal Paul Martin made to Canadians during a televised address.

Book Tagged by Canadi-Anna – The Blue Maple Leaf Responds

2005-06-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

Canadia-Anna is a Conservative blogger from Toronto, Ontario. She is the author of a site called Canadianna’s Place. It is worth noting that The Blue Maple Leaf was originally born and raised close by in Mississauga, but moved to Winnipeg in October of 1990.

On Tuesday, The Blue Maple Leaf published an article titled ‘More anti-American propaganda from the CBC – Liberal Hypocrisy in Story of Sovereign Airspace. In the comments section of that article Canadi-Anna applied a book tag.

The Four Questions of the book tag with my answers are as follows:

1. How many books do you own?

I own less than 10 books. I have two books on computer networking that I bought and never read. I have Tom Clancy’s novel ‘Rainbow Six’. I have two textbooks on instrument flying, since I hold a commercial pilot’s license with all the important ratings, including an IFR rating. I have an encyclopedia of airplanes that a good friend, Dr. Al ‘the man’ Jones, bought for me. I have a copy of the ‘NIV study Bible’ that was a gift of Sheldon Loeppky and Paul Martins, two of the nicest, old school countries boys I have ever known. I have a copy of H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s biography, ‘It Doesn’t Take a Hero’ (General Schwarzkopf was the four star General in charge of allied forces during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the first Persian Gulf war against Iraq in 1991). And finally, I have an autographed copy of David Earle Johnson’s book The Land is Still Mine which I won in a contest from Israel National Radio’s Tovia Singer Show.

2. What is the latest book you bought?

‘The Land is Still Mine’ is the latest book I received, but ‘Rainbow Six’ was the last book I actually paid for.

3. What is the last book you read?

The last book I read was ‘The Land is Still Mine’, but I was not able to finish. The last book I finished was ‘It doesn’t take a hero’ and it was the fourth time I read it in full.

4. Which 5 books mean a lot to you?

The Bible is the one book that means the most to me, because it is the one book that has had the most impact on my life. The Bible also has a lot of clearly written end time prophecy. When people say things like, “the way things are going in Canada with the liberal MSM and Ontario voters, the liberals are destined to retain power until Kingdom come,” it is reassuring to know that this is not such a long time.

‘It doesn’t take a Hero’ is my next favorite book, because there are so many life lessons in it. There is no questioning the fact that war is profane, but for sake of peace, we must always be prepared to wage it and win decisively. Since we (Canada) are not prepared, it is good to know that our closest friend and trading partner (The United States) is.

Thank you Canadi-Anna for taking the time to book tag me.

Liberal MP Pat O’Brien Leaves Party to Sit as Independent

2005-06-06T18:17:00.000-05:00

Liberal Member of Parliament, Pat O’Brien, left the liberal party to sit as an independent today. Mr. O’Brien is one hundred percent committed to killing the same-sex marriage bill C-38. His strong opposition to this bill nearly led him to leave the liberal party over a month ago, but he received personal assurances from the Prime Minister that there would be full, fair and meaningful public hearings on bill C-38. This has not happened.

According to Pat O’Brien, the legislative committee looking into redefining the definition of marriage has been anything but full, fair or meaningful. Instead, the liberals imposed an artificial and unnecessary June 14th deadline to pass the same-sex marriage bill as fast as possible. Witnesses at the hearings that oppose same-sex marriage have been berated, lectured and insulted. The committee has shown little respect for witness by giving them less than 24 hours notice to appear in some cases.

All this adds up to liberal contempt for the Parliamentary process. The liberals are trying to ram same-sex marriage down the throat of Canadians without hearing what the people of this country have to say.

Pat O’Brien went on to explain how liberal activist judges were used to impose same-sex marriage on Canadians. For over two years, Mr. O’Brien served as Pierre Pettigrew’s Parliamentary Secretary for international trade. At this time he was appointed to the Justice Committee. The first topic of that committee was same-sex unions and the possibility of redefining marriage.

Mr. O’Brien served on this committee until June of 2003. At that time, the Ontario Court of Appeal led the way in declaring that the traditional definition of marriage was unconstitutional. Pat O’Brien called this the most insulting and arrogant judicial decision of all time, anywhere in the world. This court instantly usurped the democratic role of Parliament in imposed same-sex marriage on the people of this country. No other court in the world has instantly rewritten the definition of marriage in this way.

Since the liberals had their will imposed on Canadians by judicial decree, the committee’s work was shut down and no committee report was written. Following the Ontario Court decision, Pat O’Brien introduced a motion to recommend that the government appeal the Ontario Court’s decision to the Supreme Court. However, the motion was turned down and the liberals refused to appeal this decision.

The liberals narrowly survived a recent non-confidence vote when the liberal speaker of the House broke a 152-152 tie. When Pat O’Brien was asked how he would vote in the next vote of non-confidence now that he will be sitting as an independent, he would not say for sure. However, he did make it very clear that he would bring down the government if it was necessary to defeat the same-sex marriage bill.

This author agrees fully with Pat O’Brien when he says, “I cannot accept the headlong rush of this government to redefine marriage.”

More anti-American propaganda from the CBC – Liberal Hypocrisy in Story of Sovereign Airspace

2005-06-02T21:04:00.000-05:00

Last night, the CBC delivered a story about a security measure proposed by the United States. The proposal would require information on passengers flying through American airspace to be given to American security services. Many flights including Montreal to Halifax, or Toronto to Calgary, cross U.S. airspace to save time and fuel. Under current rules, America only requires passenger lists when a plane will be taking off or landing at an American airport. Now the Americans are proposing that any flight flying through American airspace provide this information even when no stop in the US is scheduled.

For now it’s just an idea, draft legislation in the US, but if passed it would affect plenty of flights because so much of Canada’s population is close to the US border and the fastest way across Canada is often through American airspace. More than 2,000 domestic flights a week go that way.

The CBC’s Paul Hunter began his story using the infamous man on the street interviews to portray the anti-American attitudes we are supposed to have in this country. One person interviewed said, “I think that that’s my business, not the American government’s business.” Another person said, “I’m for fighting terrorism and stuff like that, but there are certain lines I just don’t agree with yet.”

According to the story, the Minister responsible calls this a matter of sovereignty. Liberal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre said, “We don’t think it’s a good idea that Canadians traveling from one city to another would have to be checked under the American no-fly list.”

Paul Hunter continues by saying, “The thing is, it’s their air, leaving Canada with little more than its own persuasiveness with which to convince the Americans to back down. If not, the simple apparent options: comply or use longer, costlier, but fully inside Canada routes instead.” The insinuation Paul Hunter makes is obvious. America is a big evil dominant country imposing its will on poor defenseless Canada once again.

Paul Hunter went so far as to use an expert to convince Canadians that we deserve special treatment in this country despite the anti-American attitudes we show our southern neighbor. Paul hunter put it this way, “Canada, says this air industry analyst, ought to get a break.”

Referring to the Americans, the air industry analyst said, “It’s really a matter in my feeling of being caught up in a larger policy that they’re trying to invoke on the world, forgetting that Canada perhaps has a special circumstance because we share the continent with them.”

Is it not amazing that just a short time ago the tables were turned and the propaganda wing of the liberal party, the CBC, was doing a story about Canada’s sovereign airspace?

Remember when Paul Martin and the liberals turned their back on America and said on behalf of our country that they would not support ballistic missile defense? And the liberals did this within days of the Canadian Ambassador to the US saying we are already committed to supporting the missile defense system.

It was at that time Prime Minister Paul Martin himself rebuked America at the thought they would dare defend themselves from missile attack by shooting any incoming missile down in Canadian airspace. This was when Paul Martin gave his infamous rant and said, “This is our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission.”

Liberal bloggers and the entire liberal mainstream media screamed bloody murder when America brushed off the notion that it would have to ask Canada for permission before shooting down incoming missiles targeting American cities. The left in this country really believed that America had some obligation to consult with us before daring to defend the lives of its own people. And this is the same sickeningly selfish anti-American left that is disgusted with the idea of divulging so much as their name to America, even if that information could, again, be used to save the lives of the American people.

The anti-American garbage and blatant hypocrisy that continues to flow out of the CBC is sickening beyond belief.

Question Period – Stephen Harper Exposes Liberal Lies

2005-06-01T17:46:00.000-05:00

The liberal party was facing a vote of non-confidence only two weeks ago. In the days leading up to that crucial vote, the liberals were at work bribing Conservative MPs with offers of senate seats, cabinet posts and diplomatic appointments. These acts of influence peddling are criminal in Canada. Yet, the whole time the liberals were trying to buy more time in power, they were also lying to Canadians by denying that these offers were being made.

The liberal friendly mainstream media took the side of the liberal party the whole time this was going on. When the liberals denied they were soliciting Conservatives, the left-wing journalists of this country demanded that Conservatives offer proof. Eventually, one lone Conservative named Gurmant Grewal decided to tape conversations he had with senior liberal party members who had begun to target him. The Gurmant Grewal tapes were released to the public yesterday and copies have been given to the RCMP to help them with their criminal investigation.

When Gurmant Grewal first notified the public that he had been offered a cabinet post, the liberal party, including the Prime Minister, denied that anyone had ever talked to Gurmant. When Gurmant said that he had been recorded his conversations with liberal party members, the Prime Minister changed his story and said that liberal party members were negotiating with Gurmant, but that Gurmant initiated the negotiations. Paul Martin added that at no time did he ever agree to meet with the Conservative MP.

However, the audio tapes clearly show that the chief of staff for Prime Minister Paul Martin said, “The Prime Minister is prepared to talk to you directly both by phone and in person.” During question period in the House of Commons Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper asked the Prime Minister why he said he was unwilling to meet with the Conservative MP when clearly he was.

Paul Martin answered by repeating his previous lie, that Gurmant initiated discussions with the liberal party. The Prime Minister also said that he gave specific instructions to senior party members that no offer could be given to entice a defection and at no time was the Prime Minister prepared to meet with the Conservative MP. Then Paul Martin ended his answer by saying, “obviously anyone would meet with somebody that was interested in crossing the floor.”

Stephen Harper then said, “The Prime Minister is shifting his story, because now he admits he did authorize his senior people to engage in discussions. Now yesterday in the House, I repeat, the Prime Minister said this, ‘at no time did I ever say that I would meet with the Honorable Member, yet his Health Minister is on tape saying, I talked to the Prime Minister moments ago. He will be happy to talk to you over the phone or in person. Why did the Prime Minister not tell the truth in the House of Commons?”

Paul Martin again changed his story by saying that he would not be willing to meet with the Conservative MP unless he joined the liberal party with no preconditions or offers from the liberals.

Stephen Harper pointed out this new story when he said, “Well this is another story, because the Prime Minister said he would never meet with him. Now he says he would meet with him under certain conditions. When the government was courting the member for Dauphin – Swan River (Inky Mark), the president of the treasury board said, ‘Only the Prime Minister has the authority to make an offer. Is not the reason the Prime Minister wanted to meet the Member from Newton – North Delta (Gurmant Grewal) is so that he could make him an offer, just as he did in several other cases that we are aware of?”

Treasury Board President Reg Alcock replied by saying, “The Prime Minister gave his chief of staff one instruction, not to make any offers and that was the case. The Prime Minister has been very clear about this.”

So the question remains, if the Prime Minister was so clear about not offering any deals to Gurmant Grewal for him to cross the floor and join the liberal party, why do the tapes reveal that this is exactly what happened?

When Gurmant talked to Sudesh Kalia, discussions were made about a senate seat. The transcripts also talk about a diplomatic position in India. They talked about procedure involving a hand shake to seal the deal, with a delivery on promises one to two months in the future. When Gurmant talked to Ujjal Dosanjh, the liberal Health Minister, the conversation involved an offer of a cabinet position, which could be arranged right away. A cabinet position is what former Conservative MP Belinda Stronach was given when she joined the liberal party. Scott Bryson, another former Conservative also sits in the liberal cabinet. The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Tim Murphy, is also on tape coaching Gurmant Grewal in what to say to the media in the event he was to join the liberals. “Am I being offered anything? You say ‘NO’,” is what Mr. Murphy said.

Oh what tangled web Paul Martin is weaving, by lying, lying about his lies and telling more lies in the hope it all go away.

Liberals Break the Law Again – Gurmant Grewal Releases Taped Audio Conversations with Liberals

2005-05-31T16:04:00.000-05:00

The most corrupt federal government in history of Canada continues to hang on to power any way it can. In the run-up to the budget vote only two weeks ago, the liberals were hard at work influence peddling. Bribing opposition Members of Parliament with government appointments and senate seats is against the law in this country and that is exactly what this liberal Prime Minister and senior members of his party did.

Today Gurmant Grewal, the Conservative MP for Newton – North Delta, released taped telephone conversations and recordings of in person meetings with senior liberal officials as they tried to buy the absence of Gurmant and his wife (also a Conservative MP) in the key vote.

The liberals had denied that any offers were made to influence the vote of Gurmant and his wife when he first went public with details they had tried to bribe them. After listening to the liberals lie and deny that any offers were made, Gurmant released information to the press that he had audio tapes to back up his claim. Once the liberals knew that Gurmant had them on tape, the liberal story changed from one of “it never happened” to “it happened, but Gurmant initiated it”.

In the meantime, the media pressured Gurmant for weeks to release the tapes he said he had. When asked why the tapes had not yet been released, Gurmant told the press they were being translated, since much of the conversation is in his native Indian language of Punjabi.

Now that the tapes have been released, the public is getting another first hand look at the criminal behavior of our federal liberal government. The RCMP is also in possession of some taped conversations and criminal indictments of senior liberal Ministers, including the Prime Minister himself, may follow.

What will it take to finally put these liberals in the jail cells they belong?

What were you thinking?

2005-05-28T23:12:00.000-05:00

The Winnipeg SUN recently ran a story about a grade 9 student that was being bullied at school. This 15-year-old student named Darci Voss has a mild form of cerebral palsy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In the last eight months of school, Darci has been beaten up, taunted and threatened. This is the kind of unfortunate scenario many of us have had to deal with growing up.

The Winnipeg SUN printed a cover story about this young man’s problem with a photo on the front page of the city paper. The photo showed the bully victim cuddling with his mommy and his head was resting on his mommy’s shoulder. The photo was as humiliating as it could be for a young 15-year-old man.

This author could not resist writing the Winnipeg SUN to point out how a photo like this would only embolden bullies. The letter to the editor was published in Saturday’s paper and said the following:

What were you thinking?

You ran a cover story in (yesterday's) paper about a Grade 9 student who was being bullied at school. As if attending school with a disability is not challenging enough, the mother of this 15-year-old let her son get both ears pierced and dye his hair some goofy rainbow color. What was most infuriating about your article is that you idiots at the Sun published a photo with this kid cuddling his mommy, his head on his mommy's shoulder and you published it on the front page of your paper!

Imagine you were in his shoes and that article was about you being bullied. Now imagine that is a photo of a 15-year-old you cuddling your mommy on the front page of the city newspaper. Are you trying to get him killed? What the hell were you thinking?

Michael Napier
Winnipeg

As is always the case, the editor gets the last barb. In his rebuttal he said, “The Voss family showed real courage by going public on this serious issue. Your attitude shows what we're all up against.”

Well Mr. Editor, this is something that Darci Voss is up against and we support him, but publishing a photo that makes him look like the ultimate momma’s boy will not help his cause.

Deveryn Ross is the President of the Brandon-Souris Liberals and a Convicted Criminal

2005-05-27T23:30:00.000-05:00

Travis Smith is the author of The Smyth Report. He recently published an article on his website that gave details of Deveryn Ross’ 1995 criminal conviction for fraud. Deveryn Ross was a lawyer bofore being convicted, but has since been disbarred by the Law Society of Manitoba.

Deveryn Ross currently serves as the Riding Association president for the liberal party in Brandon-Souris. The point of the Travis Smyth article was that Mr. Ross portrays an excellent example of the types of people you will find in the Liberal party; those who care not for a greater cause, but who are willing to compromise good morals and values to achieve their goals.

Travis Smyth wrote, “I and many others tend to think this website does a fine job of portraying many Liberals as they truly are: corrupt, arrogant, wasteful, and mismanaging. Surely not every Liberal would fall into all of these categories, but I would bet that every Liberal falls into at least one.”

After publishing the article, Travis Smyth received an e-mail from Deveryn Ross. The e-mail included a comment you would expect from a washed up, disbarred lawyer. Deveryn Ross wrote:

“I sue people for fun and recreation, and can easily have a statement of claim filed against you by the close of business tomorrow. You have until then to delete your post, as well as all of the responses.”

What a wonderful life Deveryn Ross must live to be the president of a criminal party of Canada riding association, himself a convicted criminal and disbarred lawyer, who served jail time and sues people for fun and recreation.

These were the worst of times – These were the worst of times

2005-05-27T17:12:00.000-05:00

It is hard to be an optimistic Conservative these days. Canada’s minority liberal government is mired in a scandal that involved blowing our money and rigging elections. A member of the Conservative party sold out the country for a cabinet seat, by propping up this corrupt government on a budget vote. And the icing on the cake, the liberals won a by-election this week.

The Gomery commission continues to reveal more details of the sponsorship scandal. This week we learned that the liberal party lied when they said that only $250 million was spent buying elections. A crack team of investigators testified that the actual number is closer to $355 million. Groupaction president Jean Brault’s revelation of money kicked back to liberal party in brown envelopes was again confirmed, this time by Joe Marcelli, a key player in the scandal.

Belinda Stronach, the Paris Hilton of Canadian politics, crossed the floor to accept a cabinet position with the liberal party. This former founder of the CPC and former leadership candidate of the Conservative party helped the liberals survive a vote of non-confidence and stay in power. You would expect some humility from people who just survived a near death experience. Instead, the liberals were grandstanding the same day, with Belinda Stronach and the Prime Minister's chief of staff dancing on a speaker in an Ottawa bar to the tune of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’. Naturally the liberal friendly mainstream media spoon-fed Canadians on what a wonderful victory for Canada this was.

Then came news this Tuesday that the liberals won a by-election in Atlantic Canada. Canada’s newest Member of Parliament is Todd Russell, a liberal candidate from Labrador. He replaces another liberal MP, Pat O’Brien, who created a vacant seat when he died in December of 2004. The people of this riding replaced one liberal with another despite everything that the liberals have done until now.

These may be the worst of times, but the bright side is, things can only get better from here.

Bjornson Deserves Failing Grade on Seven Oaks Land Deal

2005-05-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

The following article e-mailed to us by Jeff Niederhoffer. Jeff is a Winnipeg lawyer and political activist. Here is what he had to say:

Since 2002, the Seven Oaks School Division in Manitoba has arguably been breaking the law. As has been reported, the School Division spent $2 million of taxpayers’ money to develop vacant land into 70 residential lots, which the school division then sold for $2.7 million. Since the provincial Public Schools Act expressly forbids school divisions from developing and selling residential property, this is not a difficult legal question to resolve. Impartial observers would generally agree that the school division has violated the Public Schools Act.

All of this would have made an interesting story in its own right, but what makes it more interesting is the fact that officials in the Manitoba Department of Education not only knew about the land deal but, incredibly, gave formal approval to the school division to proceed.

It is interesting, to say the least, that provincial education bureaucrats were not familiar with the Public Schools Act. Then again, there was nobody who told them they had to be. Throughout this whole episode, the Minister of Education, Peter Bjornson, was invisible. For two years, neither Bjornson nor his staff was aware there even was an issue with the land deal. In mid-2004, bureaucrats finally brought Bjornson up to speed – and provided him the inexplicable opinion that the school division's actions were legal. As Bjornson later publicly admitted, he passively accepted what his officials told him. He made no effort to scrutinize what he was told, nor did he ever follow up on it. Even after the Public School Finance Board provided its own legal opinion in February 2005 that the school division was breaking the law, Bjornson took no action.

We might well wonder what Peter Bjornson was doing when he should have been running his department. The Minister, to put it mildly, does not run a tight ship. He has shown that, to a large extent, he lacks basic managerial instincts.

On top of all this, Bjornson put a large chunk of his credibility in question when he was first confronted on this issue by Opposition MLAs in early May. During Question Period, Bjornson’s initial response was to claim that he had no prior knowledge of the land deal. A day later, Opposition MLAs produced a copy of a year-old letter, signed by Minister Bjornson and sent out to a private citizen a year ago, addressing some very specific issues relating to the Seven Oaks land deal. When confronted with this letter, Bjornson was forced to admit that yes, he had been informed about the land deal a year ago. Does this letter prove that Bjornson was lying when he previously stated he had no prior knowledge of the deal, or does it simply indicate he was the victim of a memory lapse? In a way, the answer doesn’t matter. The enduring lesson is that, whenever you deal with Peter Bjornson, be sure you get it in writing.

Reg Alcock Needs to Resign – Please Sign the Petition

2005-05-23T13:38:00.000-05:00

The time has come to sign a petition calling for Reg Alcock to resign. Reg Alcock is the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South. He is also the president of Canada’s Treasury board. When Reg first accepted this position he bragged that as president he would manage the government’s financial, personnel and administrative responsibilities with an unwavering commitment to fiscal disapline. He said he would ensure greater accountability to Parliament.

Since 1998-1999, government spending has increased from $106.5 billion to well over $150 billion next year. Under Reg Alcock’s watch, government spending has grown exponancially.

In the last few weeks the gvernment has embarked on a multi-billion dollar spending spree. $4.6 billion worth of spending was added to the budget to buy the votes of 19 socialist NDP Members of Parliament. Other spending promises have been made to buy the votes of Canadians directly in the form of greater payouts to provinces like Ontario and Saskatchewan. The spending spree this government has begun is unprecedented and the implications to the country's economy should cause alarm. As Treasury Board president, Reg Alcock is directly responsible for this travesty, by spending without restraint.

For Reg Alcock to engage in this kind of spending spree is a betrayal of all that he said he stood for. Ultimately, this spending spree is a betrayal of the Canadian taxpayer. Reg Alcock has let us down and the time has come for him to step aside.

Please join the rest of Canada in signing this petition to ask for Reg Alcock’s resignation.

Live Blogging of Budget Vote 2005 - Vote Ends in a Tie 152-152 - Speaker Breaks Tie To Preserve Corrupt Liberal Government

2005-05-19T16:44:00.000-05:00

[4:45 pm CDT] All members of Parliament are now taking their seats for the budget vote. Bill C-43 is up first. This is the original budget bill that the Conservatives have said they will support. This budget bill does not include the additional $4.6 billion of spending that the liberals agreed to add to buy the votes of the 19 socialist NDP members.

[4:53 pm CDT] As expected the full slate of Conservative MPs are voting with the government to implement the original 2005 federal budget.

[4:55 pm CDT] The members of the socialist NDP are now being counted and all three independents have joined in to pass the original budget.

[4:57 pm CDT] The entire separatist caucus is being counted. They are voting against this budget.

[4:49 pm CDT] The bill passes with only 54 votes against coming from the seperatists

[5:00 pm CDT] Vote for the bill to add $4.6 billion of spending to please the socialists is underway. This is it Canada...

[5:06 pm CDT] Parrish and Cadman voted for the budget. The government now has until an opposition day before it can be voted out of office. Assuming Jack Layton keeps his word about bringing the government down now that he got his $4.6 billion of extra spending.

The liberals and socialists all voted in favor of the extra $4.6 billion in spending. This unholy alliance of left-wing zealots got the support of turncoat Belinda Stronach and two independents: Carolyn Parrish and Chuck Cadman.

The Conservatives and separatists all voted against the bill. Independent MP David Kilgore also voted against the liberals.

As a result, the vote ended in a 152-152 tie. The speaker of the house, sighting precedent, cast the deciding vote in favor of the budget bill. That is the story Canada.

The most corrupt liberal government this country has ever known just spent $4.6 billion of taxpayer money and gave a plum cabinet position to an incompetent blonde bimbo in order to buy their way out of a vote rigging scandal.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul – Why Belinda Stronach left the Conservative Party

2005-05-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

Belinda Stronach and Paul Martin held a press conference to announce Belinda’s betrayal of the Conservative Party yesterday. Belinda Stronach said her reason for leaving amounted to a disagreement over that party’s policy of toppling the liberals before the Conservatives had enough of a presence in Quebec. Following short statements, the pair stayed to answer a few questions. One French speaking reporter put an excellent question to the Paris Hilton of Canadian Politics. He asked Belinda:

“You said that the Conservative party is basically non-existent in Quebec. In what shape is the liberal party in Quebec in your opinion?”

Belinda was shocked to hear the question. The answer according to every poll in the country makes the answer to that question rhetorical. Fumbling for an answer, Belinda replied, “Well I think that is for the Prime Minister to address that question and not for me to address.”

Every poll for the last month has said that the liberal party is essentially Quebec’s public enemy number one. It is small wonder she dodged this question.

Belinda then continued by saying, “What I don’t want to see is that we hand or we give a larger deck of cards to the Bloc Quebecois. I don’t feel comfortable lining myself up to defeat this budget. I don’t feel comfortable lining myself up with the Bloc to do that.”

What she does not say is that even if the budget passes, this minority liberal government is on its last legs. Jack Layton, leader of the socialist NDP, has already gone on the record. He specifically said that his support for this corrupt liberal government is only to get the budget passed along with its $4.6 billion of extra wasteful spending. Once the floodgates of government spending are fully opened, Jack Layton will vote to topple the government. This will happen as soon as the liberals allow an opposition day, something they are obligated to do six more times this Parliamentary cycle.

Consider what Manitoba Conservative MP Inky Mark must be thinking. Last week, Liberal Treasury Board Minister Reg Alock said that if he wanted to buy the vote of a Tory MP he would go higher up on the gene pool than Inky Mark. It makes you wonder just how far down on the gene pool the liberals think Inky Mark is after buying the support of Belinda Stronach.

Then there is the issue with Peter McKay. Belinda Stronach, already divorced twice, just stomped on the heart of this upstanding, loyal Conservative. For years the liberals have been beating up on the Canadian taxpayer only to tell voters, “Please take me back. I really mean it this time.” Who could imagine a better election script than one that involves a loyal Conservative who gets his heart broken by a shameless liberal?

This takes the saying ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ to a whole new level.

Letter to Liberal Faithful – We Need Your Money for an Election

2005-05-17T20:43:00.000-05:00

Today Belinda Stronach crossed the isle and joined the liberals. This should come as no surprise. One of this author’s favorite comments about Belinda is, “the only Conservative bone in Belinda Stronach’s body comes courtesy of Peter McKay on Saturday nights”. For a long time she has been the necessary evil. She put a moderate liberal face on an otherwise morally sound party. The fact that she had no loyalty to the Conservative party was there for all to see.

In spite of this bad news, the liberals still feel an election is immanent. The sound of desperation in their most recent letter to party faithful says it all. Below is what they had to say:

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Dear Michael,

In 48 hours – through this one pre-campaign e-blast - we need to raise $48,000 and be ready to hit the pavement and run a winning campaign.

At 10:30 this morning, Belinda Stronach crossed the floor and joined the Liberal Party of Canada stating disappointment in the Leadership of Mr. Harper over his intention to throw this budget out the window and all the important investments for Canada with it.

Prime Minister Paul Martin praised Ms. Stronach’s demonstration of leadership this morning as he appointed her to Cabinet.

In 48 hours, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives with the support of Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Quebecois will still attempt to force Canadians into an unwanted election.

You can show your leadership right now by supporting the Liberal Party with an online donation.

If each of you donate now a gift of $48 – this goal can be easily achieved. But we need much more to mount a nation-wide campaign. Please consider $50, $75, or whatever you can afford.

Time is running out, and we can only rely on the support of caring Canadians, like you.

Thank you so much!

Mike Eizenga
President

Did you know…

• A $41 donation represents $41-billion that the Liberal government has committed to a 10-year investment in healthcare.

• A $62 donation is equivalent to the $62-billion in national debt that has been reduced under the Liberals.

• A $500 donation equates to $500-million that Budget 2005 invests over the next five years to fund global peace and security initiatives.

In 48 hours – Harper and Duceppe could just toss it out the window, wasting an entire year of progress. There are many Canadians like Ms. Stronach who see the only solution to a strong Canada is a Liberal solution. Tell Harper and Duceppe “no election now, pass the budget”!

Please be as generous as you can with a gift today!

National Citizens Coalition Says Elections BC is Trying to Censor Political Speech on the Internet

2005-05-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

“Elections BC officials want bloggers who post `partisan’ message on their sites during the provincial election to register as advertising sponsors,” says NCC vice president Gerry Nicholls. “That’s a ridiculous infringement on free speech. Why should anyone be forced to register with the government just to express a political opinion?”

Nicholls says government bureaucrats are trying to control the free flow of information over the Internet.

“What’s next? Will Elections BC require newspaper columnists and talk show hosts to register with the government too?” asks the National Citizens Coalition vice president. “How do these bureaucratic barriers to free speech help the democratic process?”

Nicholls also points out the registration regulations are the remnants of an election gag law which the courts declared unconstitutional five years ago.

“The registration requirement was supposed to help the government police an election gag law that limited how much money private citizens or independent groups could spend on election advertising,” says Nicholls. “That law was overturned so why keep the registration regulation?”

The National Citizens Coalition helped to overturn the B.C. election gag law in 2000 and has also battled federal election gag laws.

Manitoba NDP's Foray Into Film a Flop

2005-05-13T05:44:00.000-05:00

The following article was written and e-mailed to The Blue Maple Leaf by Jeff Niederhoffer. Jeff is a Winnipeg lawyer and political activist. Here is what he had to say:

Perhaps the least noticed - because the least reported - story of the past month is that the Manitoba provincial government has gone into the movie business.

You heard right. As of a few weeks ago, "Today's NDP" took a step closer to looking like yesterday's Dominican Republic when the Province of Manitoba announced it would bail out and assume ownership of a money-losing film studio.

The red-ink-drenched studio in question is Prairie Production Centre. The Manitoba NDP government initially claimed that the cost of the bailout/buyout was around $1.78 million, but then admitted that, because the province had also agreed to forgive certain loans it made to the studio, the real cost to taxpayers was actually over $3 million.
Culture Minister Eric Robinson justifies the provincialization of Prairie Production Centre by arguing that the studio is "very valuable" and that, were the province not to inject public funds into the studio, "Opportunities would be lost."

Uh huh.

While Carole Vivier, CEO of Manitoba Film and Sound, is on record as being understandably "thrilled" at the NDP government's spending plans, Manitobans may well wonder why their hard-earned tax dollars are being funneled into a movie studio that has a track record of failure. Adrienne Batra, director of the Manitoba Taxpayer's Federation, rightly blasts the bailout of Prairie Production Centre as corporate welfare. As Batra has said: "The fact the industry wasn't viable on its own doesn't mean tax dollars should be spent bailing them out." Certainly, the onus should be on Eric Robinson and Today's NDP to demonstrate to taxpayers what "opportunities" will accrue to the province by keeping this insolvent film studio in business. Having Prairie Production Centre absorbed into the provincial bureaucracy will do nothing to improve the studio's profitability or marketability. On the contrary, the security offered by public subsidy will take away any incentive for the studio to innovate or to develop a new business plan. The effect of this government bailout will only be to insulate the studio from commercial reality - and to give it a license to keep on losing money indefinitely.

Another effect of using taxpayers' money to bail out Prairie Production Centre will be to divert money and resources away from legitimate priorities such as health care and education. Tory MLA Jack Reimer, who acts as the Opposition watchdog on culture-funding issues, condemns this bailout as "frivolous" and argues that the money "could be well-spent in other areas." Eric Robinson and the provincial NDP government would do well to heed Reimer's advice. There is only so much money to go around in the budget. Even taking into account the tolerant attitude of this government toward debt, the $3 million being splashed on Prairie Production Centre necessarily means that, at some point, there will be $3 million less to spend on other things. The decision by the NDP government to provide $3 million to prop up this film studio is effectively a decision not to use that money to reduce emergency-room waiting times, or to cut Pharmacare premiums, or to hire more Crown prosecutors.

In the end, that is what this issue boils down to. The money a government spends, like the money a household or business spends, reflects its priorities. It is difficult to believe that the silent majority of Manitobans would agree with Eric Robinson (and Premier Doer) that there is no better use for $3 million of taxpayers' money than to buy a money-losing film studio. Is the continued existence of Prairie Production Centre really so pressing to Manitobans? Would the average Manitoban miss it if it were to close its doors? It is doubtful that the average Manitoban would even have heard of Prairie Production Centre had not the provincial government suddenly decided the studio had to be saved from itself. While artists and film-industry types in Winnipeg have undeniable cause to celebrate the Doer government's plans, and likely will benefit enormously from them, most taxpayers will feel nothing but resentment at the fact that part of their paycheques will now be going to support a movie studio they could not care less about.

Parliament Adjourned a Second Time in Two Days

2005-05-12T11:57:00.000-05:00

For the second time in as many days the opposition has shut down Parliament. Today, with a vote of 152-144, a motion to adjourn Parliament was passed which closed the House of Commons. The message of these votes is clear. The majority of the House has lost confidence in the minority liberals and no longer feels they have the moral authority to govern.

These back to back adjournments come on the heels of a vote of non-confidence that also passed two days ago. The minority liberal government ignored the result of that vote and is continuing to hold on to power any way it can. Prime Minister Paul Martin has said he will hold a budget vote on May 19 and his government will recognize that vote as one of non-confidence. The opposition has already said that this is not good enough.

Paul Martin has used the last few weeks to spend the taxpayer’s money wildly to retain power. The liberal finance minister added $4.6 billion in spending to the budget to buy the 19 votes of the socialist NDP. In total the liberals have announced almost $23 billion in spending promises to buy votes from the public. The Prime Minister himself has been crisscrossing the nation, signing deals and giving pre-election speeches and photo opportunities at the taxpayer’s expense. Next week the Queen will be visiting Canada and Paul Martin will again use the opportunity to get free pre-election exposure.

The events of the last three days in Parliament make it clear that the liberals have lost the moral authority to govern. They have lost one vote of non-confidence and two votes of adjournment.

Past precedent dictates that the minority liberals have a moral obligation to call a vote of non-confidence immediately. In 2001 when the Saskatchewan government lost a vote on a supply bill, they immediately introduced a vote of non-confidence to test their moral authority to govern. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson also lost a supply vote and immediately called a vote of non-confidence in 1968. In both cases the incumbent government won the vote, yet this liberal government dodges its constitutional responsibility to ensure it has the confidence of Parliament.

The desperation of this minority liberal government is becoming more obvious with each passing day.

The Confidence Convention and the May 2005 Vote on the Public Accounts Committee Report

2005-05-11T03:00:00.000-05:00

Mike Riordan sent an e-mail to The Blue Maple Leaf yesterday. In the e-mail was a link to an essay by Andrew Heard. The essay outlines some of the precedents on non-confidence motions in Canadian history. Here is an excerpt of what he wrote:

Canadian parliamentary democracy is hinged upon the fundamental principle that the government of the day must enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons. The principle of collective responsibility provides the basis of deciding who has the right to form a government after an election. Canadians do not vote for a prime minister or for a cabinet, they vote in general elections to elect 308 individual members of parliament. The leader of the party who is able to command a majority on confidence votes in the House of Commons is the person who has the right to be prime minister. It is a firm constitutional convention that prime ministers must either resign or call an election if they lose a vote of confidence in the House. The May 10, 2005 vote on the public accounts committee report is essentially a vote on whether the government should resign, and as such it should be considered a clear vote of confidence.

The confidence convention

There are three generally-agreed categories of confidence votes:

• a motion that explicitly states the confidence (or lack of it) of the House in the government of the day
• votes on the main budget motion and on the address in reply to the speech from the throne
• any other matter that the government states to be a matter of confidence before a vote

If a government loses a confidence vote it has only two choices: to resign or to call an election. Generally speaking a government would only resign if it lost a confidence vote within a few months of an election. For example, Ontario premier Frank Miller resigned in 1985 after losing a vote on the first speech from the throne right after provincial election, and the Lieutenant Governor appointed the leader of the opposition as the new premier (who then won a subsequent vote of confidence).

Occasionally a government is defeated on a vote that calls into question whether it still enjoys the confidence of the legislature. In the most prominent of these loses, governments have introduced their own explicit motion of confidence for the House to vote on; this is an important response which is needed to settle whether the government still has a right to govern. For example, the Saskatchewan government introduced (and won) a confidence vote in 2001 after their legislature's finance committee had defeated a supply motion. Prime Minister Pearson introduced (and won) a confidence vote in 1968 after losing a supply vote.

The May 10, 2005 Vote

The House of Commons vote on the Conservative Party's motion has generated considerable controversy over whether it is a vote of confidence. The question is whether the vote constituted one of the first categories of confidence motions listed above. The motion passed by a 153-150 vote reads:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following:

"the First Report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Thursday, October 28, 2004, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend that the government resign because of its failure to address the deficiencies in governance of the public service addressed in the report.”

At first glance the motion appears to be simply a procedural matter, sending a matter back to the finance committee with an instruction to amend its report. However, it should not matter what procedural context a vote of confidence occurs in.

What makes a vote one of confidence is the content of the motion. In order to qualify as a confidence vote, a motion has to contain wording that states the lack of confidence explicitly, calls upon the government to resign, accuses the government of gross impropriety or incompetence, or questions the authority of the government to remain in office. However the motion is worded, the essence of a confidence motion is to embody the House's judgment that the government is unfit in some way to govern. That specific wording can take many forms, and examples of this variety are found in Canadian provincial and federal precedents.

The fundamental basis of a confidence vote is that the elected members of the legislature express their collective view of the government. If that view conveys a loss of confidence or states that the government should resign, then the government must either resign or call an election.

The wording of the motion passed on May 10, 2005 indicates that it should be considered a clear vote of confidence. What is important in this motion is that the House had to collectively is express its view on whether the government should resign. One could not vote for the motion without agreeing that the government should resign, which is the essence of a non-confidence vote. While the wording of the motion is convoluted, the essential content is a clear expression of non-confidence.

The current motion is also strikingly similar, in procedural terms, to that proposed by H.H Stevens on June 26, 1926. That motion also recommended that a committee report be amended and precipitated the whole King-Byng crisis, when the Governor General refused a dissolution to King on the grounds that he should not avoid a confidence motion then before the House but not voted on; this was the Stevens' motion. For information on those events, see: House of Commons Debates, 1926, Vol.V, June 22 to June 25.

In light of the past precedents, and especially the relevance of the 1926 motions on the Customs Affair, the current motion appears to be clearly a vote of confidence which would normally require the government to resign or call an election after losing the vote. It is a fundamental blow to the government's authority for a majority of the House to agree on a motion that it should resign.

This all adds up to the fact that this minority liberal government has lost the moral authority to stay in power.

The Flame of Democratic Freedom in Canada is Dimming in Canada

2005-05-10T20:05:00.000-05:00

At 5:45 PM today, a vote of non-confidence was held on the floor of the House of Commons. The motion recommended that the minority liberal government resign because of its failure to address deficiencies in governance of the public service. This motion was a clearly worded vote of non-confidence.

This motion passed 153 – 150, but liberals have vowed to ignore the results. Canada’s minority liberal government, mired in the worst political scandal in Canada’s history, will instead continue governing in defiance of the vote.

Since 1993 when the federal liberals came to power under Jean Chrétien, they have been rigging elections by using taxpayer money to buy votes with the sponsorship scandal. They engaged in a money laundering scheme that funnelled hundreds of millions in taxpayer money through liberal friendly ad firms and back to the liberal party. They used taxpayer money to pay people working on liberal election campaigns and they used taxpayer money to pay bills directly for election campaign expenses. Since 1997, the liberals have gained power in Canada illegally.

Now that the details of liberal corruption have surfaced through the Gomery Inquiry and support for the liberal party is at an all time low, the liberals are doing everything to hold onto power.

Recently, Paul Martin included an extra $4.6 billion of spending in order to buy the 19 votes held by the socialist NDP in Parliament. The Prime Minister has been criss-crossing Canada at the taxpayer expense to sign childcare deals before the budget has even been passed. The liberals have racked up almost $23 billion in spending pledges in the last three weeks alone in an effort to buy their way out of this scandal.

Now the liberals have dimmed the light of democracy in Canada by refusing to recognize a vote of non-confidence in a minority Parliament. The legitimacy of this liberal government to stay in power is now gone.

The need for Canadians to begin a peaceful protest until elections are called and democracy is restored is fast approaching.

Liberals are Desperate for Campaign Cash – Another Letter Released

2005-05-10T17:40:00.000-05:00

The liberal party released another letter to supporters today. The purpose of this letter was to raise money for the election that the liberal party is doing everything to avoid. Here is what the liberals had to say:

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Dear Michael,

All the great initiatives this government has planned are about to be tossed out the window – thanks to Mr. Harper and Mr. Duceppe. It is their self-interest driving them to bring down a government that is committed to strengthening our healthcare, environment and child care.

Canada is working under the strong leadership of the Paul Martin Liberals. And as Liberals – we remain steadfast in our commitment to passing the budget and moving our agenda forward – not back.

Next week could start the beginning of an election – one that Canadians do not want right now – one that we’ve promised within 30 days of Justice Gomery’s final report.

Elections cost money – and with one behind us only a year ago – we need you to step forward today with your most generous donation possible.

It’s a double-edge sword – taxpayers pay for the election process – and as Liberals, we donate funds to help mount campaigns that express Canadian values and win elections.

Donations to political parties have changed since 2004. Corporations cannot contribute anymore. Only individuals can donate to federal parties. And individuals can only donate a maximum of $5,200 this year.

You are key to our ability to mount a campaign to keep Canada working.

Please donate now with the most generous gift possible. Canada is working. The only option to keep it working – to keep it progressive - is a Liberal government.

Thank you,

Mark Marissen
Co-Chair, British Columbia, National Campaign

Brenda Kurczak
Co-Chair, Ontario, National Campaign

Prime Minister Paul Martin recently stated, “As Liberals, we believe in a Canada that is generous and just; prosperous and proud. We believe that the government must eliminate obstacles to success; that it must help people help themselves. We know that Canada is a wealthy nation, not only in terms of material goods, but also rich in talent and potential. Liberals are united by an unshakable belief in the values that have made our country one of the fairest, most respectful and most progressive in the world.”

Yes, elections are a double edged sword; either you give your money to the liberal campaign voluntarily or they just take their campaign money out of your taxes.

Paul Martin Wants Canadians to Know the Truth before an Election – Don’t You Believe It

2005-05-08T23:26:00.000-05:00

Last year Paul Martin made a promise to Canadians that he would not call an election until Canadians knew the truth about the sponsorship scandal. Instead, he broke that promise. He shut down the Public Accounts Committee that was looking into liberal corruption and called an unnecessary early election in June of 2004.

In a passionate plea to the committee Chair, Member of Parliament Jason Kenney told the committee what information would be suppressed by Paul Martin’s decision to pass a motion and call that early election.

Here is what Jason Kenney said on May 11, 2004, twelve days before Paul Martin called last year's election:

Mr. Chairman, I don't believe that my colleagues opposite, for whom I have considerable regard, believe any more than I do that this committee is coming to the end of the process. Yes, we have had hearings for some ten weeks, but I would point out that the judicial inquiry plans to begin holding hearings in September of this year and not to issue its final report until December of 2005, a 14-month period.

I would not hope this committee would take that long to examine these matters, but clearly it's going to take longer than the ten weeks we have been working to hear, for instance, from the some 90 witnesses on the prospective witness list from whom we have not yet heard, beginning, for instance, with former minister Boudria, the former Minister of Public Works.

If this motion passes this morning, we will never hear from Don Boudria, the Minister of Public Works immediately following Mr. Gagliano. He inherited the department; he inherited the sponsorship program. I don't know whether he was given instructions to clean it up. What I do know is that Mr. Boudria had a very close working relationship with Claude Boulay, and that raises all sorts of reasonable questions, which we should want to put. We do know that Mr. Boudria disclaimed any personal knowledge of or any relationship with, Charles Guité; but Mr. Guité testified, effectively, that Mr. Boudria was very, very familiar with him and his activities. But we won't hear from Don Boudria if this motion is passed.

We won't hear from Art Eggleton, who was President of the Treasury Board for three years during this program's operation. If we are, indeed, pursuing the question of ministerial responsibility, we might want to know what the presidents of the Treasury Board knew during this period, when they knew it, and what they did about it. We won't hear from Marcel Masse, who was the President of Treasury Board for two and a half years, the critical years during this process. We won't hear his testimony about what he knew as Treasury Board president, including the audits that were received, the internal audits, and the external audits. We won't hear from the Honourable Lucienne Robillard, who was President of the Treasury Board for another three and a half years. She's on the prospective witness list, but if this motion is passed and an election is called, we'll never hear from her in this regard.

We won't hear from ministers such as Anne McLellan or Andy Scott, who were sitting on the cabinet communications committee, chaired by Alfonso Gagliano, which met and discussed issues related to the sponsorship program. We won't hear from David Anderson, who was also on the ad hoc communications committee, and whose constituency office intervened to ensure that constituents received favorable attention from this program, and whose constituency staff said to the media that this sponsorship program was “a secret slush fund”.

We will not have an opportunity, if this motion passes and an election is called, to hear from Denis Coderre, whose name has come up at virtually every one of these meetings, who apparently was a frequent caller to the sponsorship office and who communicated frequently with the senior managers of that office, who of course had a relationship with several senior ad agency personnel.

We won't hear from the industry professionals that Dennis Mills wanted us to interview, such as people from the Advertising Standards Association of Canada. We won't hear from the Institute of Communications and Advertising. We won't hear from the association of Quebec advertising agencies, who Liberals had asked be put on the witness list, should this motion pass and a whitewash report be tabled in the House.

We'll never hear at this committee from Robert Scully, the president of L'Information essentielle, who was a key player in the Rocket Richard series that was highlighted so clearly by the Auditor General. Nor will we hear from Claudette Théorêt, who was the senior staffer at L'Information essentielle, about the financial transactions between the various crown corporations and the CCSB.

We won't hear from the various experts on ministerial accountability, which Mr. Murphy says is a key issue. I agree with him. And the Liberals have added to the prospective witness list a dozen leading academic and former political experts, like Professor Donald Savoie, from the University of Moncton, probably the leading expert in this field in Canada; like John Roberts, former Liberal cabinet minister; and like David Zussman, professor at Carleton and a leading adviser to the government on these questions. They won't testify and we won't have the benefit of their expertise.

If this motion passes, we won't hear from key ministerial staff on our witness list, such as: Steve VanderWal, special assistant to David Anderson; and Tony Chang, Minister Anderson's constituency assistant, who told Jamie Kelley, a constituent in Victoria, that they could help him access money from a “secret slush fund”, which turned out to be the CCSB. We won't have heard from Mario Laguë, the Prime Minister's communications director, who was the secretary to the cabinet communications committee chaired by Alfonso Gagliano, and who attended meetings to sanitize the publication of audit reports on the sponsorship program.

We won't hear from Bruce Hartley, the gatekeeper to former Prime Minister Chrétien, on what information passed his desk with respect to the program. We won't hear from Carl Littler, whose name is cited in the retail debt strategy memos that were brought to us by Allan Cutler. We won't hear from Terrie O'Leary, former executive assistant to the current Prime Minister, who was deeply involved in seeking a sole-source contract for Earnscliffe and pushed that Groupe Everest receive government advertising contracts. We will never hear from her.

Warren Kinsella is a key witness, and we won't have heard from him, Mr. Chair. We can't draw any conclusions from testimony from him that we haven't heard. He's the former executive assistant to David Dingwall. Mr. Guité has said that he had meetings with Warren Kinsella. I mean, we've probably had over a dozen witnesses testify to the central role of Warren Kinsella in the office of David Dingwall, on the knowledge he had. Mr. Kinsella came up even in Allan Cutler's testimony.

And there's Jean Carle, Mr. Chair. I'm advised by the clerks that they've been trying to contact Mr. Carle to arrange possible testimony this week. Again, Mr. Carle was an absolutely key player. Not only was he the right-hand man to Jean Chrétien, but Jean Pelletier himself, former chief of staff to the former Prime Minister, said that Jean Carle attended meetings, including meeting with Chuck Guité about the sponsorship program. Here is one of the two key links between Guité, the sponsorship program, and the top level of the Prime Minister's Office. We haven't heard from him, and we won't if this motion passes and an election is called.

Nor will we have heard from Pierre Lesieur, who was special assistant for Quebec to Alfonso Gagliano, who worked directly with Jean-Marc Bard and Pierre Tremblay in that office. He was responsible for political files in Quebec and clearly would be a source of very pertinent testimony.

Nor will we have heard from Albano Gidaro, who was legislative assistant to Alfonso Gagliano as Minister of Public Works, who had a long-standing relationship with former Minister Gagliano and could shed light on the very peculiar workings of that office.

We won't have heard from Elly Alboim, one of the principals at Earnscliffe, who of course benefited from sole-source contracts that bent the rules, whose name was raised by Allan Cutler, the chief whistle-blower, etc.

We won't have heard from Jacques Hudon from Groupaction. He was a registered lobbyist, Mr. Chair, for Groupaction, hired by Jean Brault, a man now under criminal charges. It also happens that he was a former speechwriter to the current Prime Minister, Mr. Martin. I can't imagine why we wouldn't want to hear his testimony.

We won't have heard from Senator David Smith, a man I have a lot of regard for. Now, he was a lobbyist for the former Canada Communication Group and attempted to extend the privilege of administrative arrangement provided to that company to provide a monopoly over most federal printing contracts.

We won't have heard from a number of key players in the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec who could testify about the fundraising activities of the party as they relate to the ad agencies. We know there have been criminal convictions of former officials involved in the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec with respect to influence peddling, and it would be extremely relevant to hear from such people as Raymond Garneau, Daniel Dezain, Stephen LeDrew, Senator Paul Massicotte, Buryl Wiseman, Giuseppe Morselli, and Françoise Patry, just as an example of key players in the Parti libéral du Canada au Québec who could testify about what they knew and whether there was any mutual back-scratching going on between the ad agencies and the Liberal Party.

Mr. Chair, it is a key question whether money found its way back into the Liberal Party. It's not just a partisan point. I know the Prime Minister has said he wants to get to the bottom of that question, which is why the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec has appointed its own forensic auditor to pursue these critical issues.

If this motion passes and an election is called, we won't have heard from Pierre Brodeur, former political assistant to Alfonso Gagliano, who worked in the office and would have interesting light to shed.

Mr. Chairman, what about Vincenzo Gagliano, son of Alfonso Gagliano, who obtained printing contracts from Groupaction and Groupe Everest? There have been very interesting questions raised about whether he was given preferential treatment and what happened to the money he received from those contracts.

We won't have heard, if this motion passes, from Senator Wilfred Moore, chair of the Bluenose II Preservation Trust, who can give us a full accounting of the very questionable Bluenose sponsorship program.

We won't have heard from Roger Collet, former head of the Canada Information Office established by former Minister Copps, which eventually became the CCSB; he's a critical witness.

We have asked--I think members opposite have asked--that the prospective witness list include a certified fraud examiner or money-laundering expert from the RCMP who could help us to deepen the knowledge we gained last week from KPMG on the nature of money-laundering transactions and how they're executed.

And of course, Mr. Chairman, we will not have heard from the Right Honorable Jean Chrétien about what he knew and when he knew it. We heard from his chief of staff that he, the chief of staff, had regular and ongoing meetings with Chuck Guité. We've heard from every senior witness that such a relationship between the chief of staff to the Prime Minister and a mid-level bureaucrat was extremely unusual. We've heard that Jean Chrétien made the visibility of the federal government of Canada one of his top priorities. We've heard him boast about how in the 1980 referendum he bought up all the billboard space in Quebec for the Government of Canada, a tactic eerily reminiscent of what Mr. Guité testified to.

Mr. Chairman, I do not believe this committee's work will be complete until we hear directly from Mr. Chrétien under oath about what he knew, what instructions he gave, and what advice he received from Jean Pelletier and from Jean Carle. Mr. Pelletier said he heard rumors about potential fraud in the program; we'd like to know if Jean Chrétien heard similar rumors.

We will not, if this motion passes and if an election is called, have an opportunity to hear for a second time from Mr. Gagliano, David Dingwall, and Diane Marleau, all of whom are former Liberal ministers responsible for Public Works. All of their testimony has been contradicted by other witnesses appearing before us, most spectacularly that of Mr. Gagliano. David Dingwall, for instance, testified that he basically didn't know who Chuck Guité was, and we've heard from at least three witnesses that Mr. Dingwall in fact had met with Mr. Guité with some degree of frequency. Mr. Guité claims he never had the discussion with Madam Marleau where she told him he wasn't welcome to report directly to her. These are central questions.

You can see, Mr. Chairman, I've just gone through a small selection of the list of prospective witnesses yet to be called. There are more than twice as many witnesses from whom we have not yet heard as witnesses from whom we have already heard. In that respect we are roughly a third of the way through this inquiry in terms of the number of witnesses on the witness list.

Now that Canadians know what Paul Martin suppressed from Canadians last election, it is time for a do over at the ballot box.

The Undeniable Link between Paul Martin and the Sponsorships Scandal

2005-05-06T19:43:00.000-05:00

Here is a startling revelation about Jacques Hudon. Jacques Hudon was a speechwriter for Prime Minister Paul Martin. This revelation came out on May 11, 2004, from the public accounts committee that was looking into the sponsorship scandal before last year’s election. Fearing that damning evidence about liberal corruption was starting to leak, Paul Martin had his government dissolved twelve days later (May 23rd) and called an election while Canadians were still in the dark about liberal corruption.

Before Jacques Hudon began crafting speeches for Paul Martin he worked as a lobbyist for Groupaction. Groupaction is the ad firm which received millions in sponsorship contracts and was headed by President Jean Brault. Jean Brault was the one who told the Gomery Inquiry that he paid kickbacks to the liberal party with cash stuffed in brown envelopes. He also testified that in order to get contracts from the liberals he would have to pay money directly to the party and hire liberal campaign workers to do campaign work.

This is the testimony that was under publication ban, a ban which bloggers (including the Blue Maple Leaf) defied. Justice Gomery eventually lifted that ban in part and Jean Brault’s testimony was revealed.

As recently as this week, Jean Brault’s testimony was confirmed by Chuck Guité. The testimony of Chuck Guité was also under publication ban, until his testimony was partially lifted this week. Guité testified that back in 2000, he was told that then-finance minister Paul Martin had intervened to ensure a Liberal-friendly ad firm wouldn't lose its lucrative contracts with the federal sponsorship program.

Paul Martin has denied that he knew anything about liberal corruption and he continues to deny that he intervened on sponsorship contracts.

Now it is revealed that a key lobbyist, who lobbied on behalf of a major player in the sponsorship scandal, was also a speechwriter for the Prime Minister himself. A fact, which when it came to light last year, prompted Paul Martin to dissolve government and call an early election.

Jacques Hudon no longer writes speeches for the Prime Minister. Instead, he has been appointed to a government position at Industry Canada. He is now the Regional Manager that oversees the awarding of government contracts in Quebec.

The noose that is around this government’s neck is growing ever tighter.

Life is Precious – Drive Carefully

2005-05-06T18:01:00.000-05:00

Mary Stansberry is a good friend who lives in Kentucky, USA. She is a Conservative American who goes to church regularly and has two daughters. She works very early mornings in a daycare and the e-mails she sends often makes you consider how precious life is. Sometimes she sends a story, sometimes a poem, but always she sends words from the heart. The following is a story she sent today.

Jack took a long look at his speedometer before slowing down: 73 in a 55 zone. It was the fourth time in as many months. How could a guy get caught so often?

When his car had slowed to 10 miles an hour, Jack pulled over, but only partially. Let the cop worry about the potential traffic hazard.

Maybe some other car will tweak his backside with a mirror. The cop was stepping out of his car, the big pad in hand.

Bob? Bob from Church? Jack sunk farther into his trench coat. This was worse than the coming ticket, a cop catching a guy from his own church.

He was a guy who happened to be a little eager to get home after a long day at the office. A guy he was about to play golf with tomorrow.

Jumping out of the car, he approached a man he saw every Sunday, a man he'd never seen in uniform.

"Hi, Bob. Fancy meeting you like this."

"Hello, Jack." No smile.

Guess you caught me red-handed in a rush to see my wife and kids."

"Yeah, I guess." Bob seemed uncertain. Good. "I've seen some long days at the office lately. I'm afraid I bent the rules a bit -just this once."

Jack toed at a pebble on the pavement. "Diane said something about roast beef and potatoes tonight. Know what I mean?" "I know what you mean.

I also know that you have a reputation in our precinct." Ouch. This was not going
in the right direction. It was time to change tactics. What'd you clock me at?"

"Seventy. Would you sit back in your car please?"

"Now wait a minute here, Bob. I checked as soon as saw you. I was barely nudging 65." The lie seemed to come easier with every ticket.

"Please, Jack, in the car."

Flustered, Jack hunched himself through the still-open door. Slamming it shut, he stared at the dashboard. He was in no rush to open the window.

The minutes ticked by. Bob scribbled away on the pad.

Why hadn't he asked for a driver's license?

Whatever the reason, it would be a month of Sundays before Jack ever sat near this cop again. A tap on the door jerked his head to the left.

There was Bob, a folded paper in hand Jack rolled down the window a mere two inches, just enough room for Bob to pass him the slip.

"Thanks." Jack could not quite keep the sneer out of his voice.

Bob returned to his police car without a word. Jack watched his retreat in the mirror. Jack unfolded the sheet of paper. How much was this one going to cost?

Wait a minute. What was this? Some kind of joke?

Certainly not a ticket. Jack began to read:

"Dear Jack, Once upon a time I had a daughter. She was six when killed by a car. You guessed it- a speeding driver. A fine and three months in jail, and the man was free. He was free to hug his daughters, all three of them. I only had one, and I'm going to have to wait until I get to Heaven before I can ever hug her again.

A thousand times I've tried to forgive that man. A thousand times I thought I had. Maybe I did, but I need to do it again. Even now. Pray for me.

And be careful, Jack, my son is all I have left."

"Bob"

Jack turned around in time to see Bob's car pull away and head down the road. Jack watched until it disappeared. A full 15 minutes later, he too, pulled away and drove slowly home, praying for forgiveness and hugging a surprised wife and kids when he arrived.

Life is precious. Handle with care. Drive safely and carefully, and remember, cars are not the only things recalled by their maker.

Unofficial Liberal Election Campaign Continues with Letter to Supporters

2005-05-03T20:42:00.000-05:00

The liberal election campaign is well underway. The letters have gone out to liberal supporters in an effort to distort reality and raise money for the left-wing agenda. The most recent e-mail from the federal liberals tries to portray Stephen Harper as the uncooperative Opposition Leader with a lust for power. The liberals continue to portray Conservatives as unfairly toppling the government before Canadians can see the final report from Justice Gomery. Liberals say this in spite of the fact that Paragraph K of Justice Gomery’s mandate specifically forbids the commission from expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization.

Remember Canada, it was Paul Martin and the liberals that shut down the public accounts committee last year when evidence of liberal corruption was starting to surface. It was the liberals that tried to hide their corruption from the public as they called an unnecessary early election in June of 2004 in a bid to reaffirm their grip on power, while Canadians were still completely in the dark about the sponsorship scandal. Now that the evidence is out in the open, the liberals want ten months to campaign, raise funds, and spread lies about Conservative hidden agendas before Canadians can get rid of them.

Below is the letter:

Friday, April 29, 2005

Dear Michael,

Since being elected, Paul Martin’s Liberals have delivered on their commitments to Canadians. In less than one year they have negotiated a 10-year health care agreement, started a nation-wide early childhood development program and are committing gas tax revenues to ensure Canadians have vibrant communities to live and work. Paul Martin’s Liberals are committed to making this government work. But today this progress is being threatened.

Paul Martin’s Liberals need your support today.

On Thursday, April 21, Prime Minister Paul Martin spoke directly to Canadians – accepting responsibility and claiming accountability as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada – and encouraged us to allow this government to continue moving forward with an ambitious agenda still to be accomplished in the House of Commons.

He also promised an election call within 30 days of Justice Gomery’s final report on the Sponsorship Program.

It wasn’t so long ago that Mr. Harper was threatening to bring the government down if the Liberals obstructed the work of the Gomery Commission

Now, sensing opportunity, with his perception skewed by visions of increased political power, Mr. Harper is threatening to pull the plug on Parliament and hold an election before Judge Gomery can complete his work!

Mr. Harper feels this would be in his own personal best interest, and that of the Bloc Quebecois. But it is certainly not in the best interest of the majority of Canadians who want Justice Gomery to complete the job entrusted to him.

Mr. Harper has made it clear that an election is coming – because he wants one. The Liberal Party is gearing up to be ready if the Conservatives and Bloc gain the votes needed to dissolve Parliament.

It takes time and effort from tens of thousands of volunteers - and it takes money to mount a winning campaign across this great country. Your support today is critical to our success.

Please donate now with the most generous gift possible. Canada is working. The only option to keep it working is a Liberal government.

Thank you for your past, current and future support. We will keep you informed of the progress we are making together.

Sincerely,

Honourable Marc Lalonde
Member, National Campaign Committee

Honourable David Smith
Member, National Campaign Committee

*P.S. We can no longer accept corporate donations. We can only depend upon your personal support to be ready at any time. Please don’t delay – and make your gift today.

Reading this letter from the liberal party reaffirms the notion that liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Bloggers Hot on the Trail of the Polling Firm that Released the Latest Liberal Friendly Poll

2005-04-29T19:36:00.000-05:00

A new poll by CTV and The Globe and Mail was released today. Already the poll’s results and the firm that conducted it have come under question. Brent Colbert has found three really good articles on the polling firm that conducted the poll, the GPC.

The first article is from Conservative Life. This article details the dubious history of GPC in Canada. One of the highlights was a poll commissioned by the University of Western Ontario which was so deeply flawed that its results were boycotted.

Next, the fine people at Occam’s Carbuncle ran the name of this polling firm through the Elections Canada database. It turns out they have been a big, long term supporter of the liberal party of Canada. This should come as no surprise.

Another article was written today in the Cannuckistan Chronicles. This article links to a Commons paper that details how the GPC polling firm provided stats for the botched gun registry. It also draws a link to this polling firm and many liberal friendly supporters including former premiers, cabinet ministers, senior bureaucrats and political advisors. It also includes a list of big names in liberal politics associated with the GPC and it includes work the GPC has done in other areas of international political activism. The article provides links to back up all its claims and provides evidence that it received money from the public works department, the same department that oversaw the scandal plagued sponsorship program.

Angry in the Great White North adds more research to the GPC poll with a breakdown of political contributions to the liberal party by senior members of the GPC polling firm. The breakdown of their contributions since 2003, when Paul Martin came to power, shows 100% of contributions going to the liberals. Furthermore, Otto Lang (senior counsel for GPC) was named co-chair of the Manitoba chapter of the National Liberal Campaign Committee.

This poll is not yet twelve hours old and already it is putrefying.

New Poll Released by CTV and The Globe and Mail

2005-04-29T11:21:00.000-05:00

A new poll was released this morning. The results show that the Conservatives have lost most of their gains. The poll also says that the liberals lead the Conservatives 38% to 30% in the province of Ontario. The results are baffling when you consider how much they differ from the many polls that have been released the last two weeks.

The poll was commissioned by both CTV News and The Globe and Mail. Readers of this blog will know that both these media outlets are well known for their left-wing bias. The polling firm they used to carry out the poll is called The Strategic Counsel. According to a press release dated April 20, 2005 (only nine days ago), CTV, The Globe and Mail and The Strategic Counsel formed an alliance.

One of the partners in this polling firm is Allen Gregg who is a well known lobbyist. A May 5, 2001 article at the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, makes a mention of Allan Gregg.

When you consider that the federal liberals have been caught in the biggest corruption scandal in the history of Canada, these polling numbers defy logic. When you know that this poll was commissioned by two of the most left-wing media outlets in the country warning bells go off. When you understand that left-wing media types love to use polls to push their agenda, like the CBC did recently, you know that there must be more to this story.

Readers are encouraged to leave comments, or e-mail this author with anything you may want to share regarding this.

Liberals Continue to Campaign and Buy Votes – Still No Election Call

2005-04-28T16:41:00.000-05:00

The federal liberals are continuing to buy votes in the election that has not yet been called. Paul Martin will be making a campaign stop in Winnipeg tomorrow morning. The Prime Minister’s meet and greet will involve the signing of a $25 million childcare deal with the province. Manitoba is currently under the control of socialist NDP premier Gary Doer.

The signing will take place at the Discovery Children’s Center, 367 Hampton St. (between Ness Avenue and Silver Avenue), not far from Winnipeg Airport. The time of the event will be 9:30 am.

This $25 million payment to Manitoba is the first installment of a 5 year, $5 billion allocation of funds to socialize daycare in Canada. The signing of this deal is the first of its kind and will not be reversible even if Jack Layton’s socialist NDP budget falls in the House of Commons next month.

It is no coincidence that Paul Martin has chosen to sign this deal at the Discovery Children’s Center. 367 Hampton St. falls on the border of the federal riding Charleswood--St. James—Assiniboia, which is currently held by Conservative Health Critic Steven Fletcher. In last year’s election Mr. Fletcher ran a very close race with liberal candidate Glenn Murray.

Glenn Murray was the very popular Winnipeg mayor who was urged to run for the federal liberals in 2004. He was one of Paul Martin’s chosen ones, appointed to run in defiance of a vote by grassroots party members. Glenn Murray agreed to resign as mayor of Winnipeg to run in this federal campaign. Steven Fletcher beat Glenn Murray by only a 2% margin, or 734 votes.

After going down in defeat, the liberals have done their best to placate Mr. Murray with a patronage appointment. Prime Minister Paul Martin nominated Mr. Murray as chairman of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. The House of Commons Standing Committee that looked into Glenn Murray’s qualifications for the position ruled that he was unqualified for the appointment. Parliament then voted to rescind Murray's appointment. A majority of democratically elected MPs voted against the appointment. Yet, Martin's appointment stands.

Now with a new election on the horizon, the liberals are in full campaign mode. Making campaign stops in a riding the liberals narrowly lost, with a candidate that was appointed despite his incompetence and appointed against the will of liberal members in that riding. A desperate Prime Minister has showed up to use taxpayer money to buy a different outcome in the next election.

If only Paul Martin would call the election and make his campaign official.

Socialists in Control of Nation’s Finances as Liberals Try to Buy Their Way out of Scandal

2005-04-27T09:23:00.000-05:00

The socialist NDP offer to prop up the most corrupt federal government in Canadian history has been accepted by Canada’s minority liberals. Desperate to stay in power, Paul Martin and his liberal party will not include $4.6 billion dollars of tax cuts they originally proposed. Instead, they will spend that money in a bid to retain power.

The irony for Canadians is tragic. Evidence from the Gomery Inquiry continues to detail how the liberals used taxpayer money to buy elections for the last twelve years. Revelations of liberals wasting taxpayer money have cost them heavily in recent polls. Now this liberal government will spend another $4.6 billion dollars of taxpayer money to buy a few more months in office and this price tag comes with no guarantee.

In order to stay in power the liberals will need a majority of votes in the 308 seat Canadian Parliament. The liberals will not have enough support to fight off a vote of non-confidence even with NDP support. In order to guarantee the liberals have the votes to stay in office, they need the support of all three independents plus the vote of the speaker of the house to break a tie or they need to buy off opposition members with senate appointments. At least one independent has already said he will vote against the ruling party.

There is good reason for Canadians to be concerned about this unholy alliance of liberals and socialists. With the nation’s finances in control of the most extreme left-wing party in the country, Canadians will continue to pay the price for this liberal scandal. The liberal budget had already allocated $5 billion for global warming and $5 billion for socialized daycare. For Jack Layton, these numbers were too low and he specifically demanded more spending on the environment.

At this point, defeating the budget is the only thing keeping Canadians from being separated from their money.

Alfonso Gagliano Points out Paul Martin’s Hypocrisy

2005-04-26T11:54:00.000-05:00

We at The Blue Maple Leaf pointed out some of the blatant hypocrisy that flowed out of Paul Martin’s recent televised address. In the article this author wrote:

“The fact that he recalled Alfonso Gagliano from Denmark should also tell a story to Canadians. Mr. Gagliano was not recalled, because he was a poor Ambassador. He was recalled, because Paul Martin knew the full extent of Gagliano’s involvement in this liberal corruption scheme. Again, Paul Martin did not wait until the final report of Justice Gomery to condemn Gagliano and destroy his career. He simply recalled the man to Canada and terminated him.”

This statement is now being validated by Gagliano himself. In a recent interview with CTV news, Alfonso Gagliano says he is the vitim of Paul Martin’s double standard. He says he has been unfairly singled out for blame in the sponsorship program, and believes the prime minister is a hypocrite for judging him so swiftly.

When he spoke to the nation in a rare televised speech last Thursday night, Prime Minister Paul Martin made special mention of the former public works minister.

"I fired Alfonso Gagliano, the minister responsible for the sponsorship program, from his appointment as ambassador to Denmark," Martin said as he recounted a list of his responses to the scandal.

As the prime minister has often repeated, he commissioned veteran Quebec Justice John Gomery to head an inquiry into program as soon as he took office.

But Gagliano says Martin's plea that Canadians wait until Gomery reports before passing judgment on his party or government smack of hypocrisy.

"If he asks Canadians to wait ... before they can pass judgment on him and his government, why didn't he wait for the Gomery report before he fired me (in February, 2004)?"

Pointing to current senior cabinet ministers Pierre Pettigrew and Anne McLellan, both of whom were in charge of once scandal-plagued departments, Gagliano said there was no precedent for his being singled out on this file.

Denying any direct links to allegations of wrongdoing in the sponsorship program, Gagliano said, " I did everything I could when I was aware, I acted."

"I learned the same time you learned that these things took place ... there is no direct link with me," he added. "So why didn't the prime minister wait for the report and what Gomery will say before he judges me."

Mr. Gagliano, the answer is obvious; Prime Minister Paul Martin is a desperate hypocrite.

Voting is No Day at the Beach – It is the Duty of Every Canadian

2005-04-25T15:04:00.000-05:00

The mainstream media has been hard at work fighting off an election call for their friends in the liberal party. They have been using polls and man on the street interviews to push the liberal agenda of postponing an election at all costs. Paul Martin even used a televised national address to make a desperate plea to Canadians in a bid to hold power. The entire liberal juggernaut in Canada is stalling for time.

What is most troubling is how the media is working to pacify Canadians. When they commissioned polls in the past that showed the liberals leading, the stories they presented were all about how Canadians love the job liberals are doing. When the polls show Conservatives ahead of liberal, the left-wing media talks only about how Canadians do not want an election right now.

Asking Canadians in a poll if they want an election is pointless. Pollsters do not ask Canadians if they want to clean their house, shovel their driveway or mow their lawns. We all know that going to the polls is not exactly a day at the beach, but voting is more than just a right or a privilege; it is the duty of every Canadian.

What the liberals did in the sponsorship scandal was more than simply blow our money. Wasting taxpayer money is nothing new for liberals. Since they came to power in the early 90s the liberals have squandered our money by the billions of dollars. The HRDC boondoggle cost taxpayers over $1 billion. The gun registry scandal was another $2 billion. Billions of dollars in grants to Bombardier, scrapping the EH-101 project cost $500 million, the Shawinigan scandal and the list goes on.

The sponsorship scandal only represents another $250 million dollars of wasted taxpayer money, a small loss compared to the other liberal scandals. But what makes this scandal so important is the degree to which these liberals subverted our democracy. By introducing campaign finance reform the liberals ensured that the hands of other political parties would be tied financially.

At the same time, the liberals completely disregarded the rule of law and bought elections outright. They lied, they laundered money, they used the taxpayer’s wallet to fund their elections thereby ensuring that they could outspend all political parties by hundreds of millions and guarantee themselves reelection.

And now the CBC and other elements of the liberal mainstream media use self serving polls and man on the street interviews to feed the notion that Canadians should do nothing.

Only a few months ago, Canadians watched as ten million people in Afghanistan and eight million people in Iraq braved death threats, mortar attacks and suicide bombers to vote for a chance that they could one day enjoy freedom. One brave Iraqi spotted a suicide bomber heading for people who were lined up to vote. He grabbed the fanatic and they were both killed when the bomb belt detonated. This brave Iraqi died to save others who went on to vote. Other Iraqis stood in front of cameras in defiance of terrorists and showed off their blue stained fingers, proof they had voted.

Look also at what happened in the Ukraine recently. A Russian friendly communist style politician engaged in voter fraud. The fraud he was guilty of paled in comparison to the grand money laundering scheme and kickbacks the Canadians liberals organized. As a result of that voter fraud, the Ukraine ground to a halt. Its population stopped working and gathered en masse in the city center, sleeping and eating in the streets for weeks on end. They wore orange clothing. They sported orange flags. They did not relent until new elections were held to restore democracy and ensure that those election fraudsters were rightly kicked out of power.

And yet, in Canada we sit on our butts and complain about how voting two times in twelve months too much work. Every single day the CBC sets out to do its infamous man on the street interviews. The CBC always shows at least one person who complains they don’t want another election right now. I’m too tired. It would cost too much money. My wrist is sore. Whatever the excuse, the ones that complain about having to vote are the ones the CBC puts on TV. The whole thing is just sick!

55,000 Canadians died fighting in World War I. Another 37,000 Canadians died in World War II. Canadians have died fighting in many other wars including the American lead war on terrorism in Afghanistan. Those Canadians died fighting for the rights and freedoms we enjoy today. They did not die fighting for mythical rights like the rights of people to have sex with barnyard animals or the right to marry Canadians of the same-sex. They died fighting for democratic rights and the right to honest, transparent and accountable government.

Those Canadians laid down their lives so that we could elect a government of the people through free and fair elections, not governments that come to power by rigging the election system and engaging in election fraud of epic proportions. Given the sacrifice of all those Canadians who came before us, the least we can do is mark an X to preserve what has been given to us for nothing.

Voting in a federal election may not be a day at the beach Canada, but for the sake of our freedom and our democracy, get off your lazy asses and vote!

Jack Layton’s Socialist Strategy – An Election Ploy or Political Suicide?

2005-04-24T08:29:00.000-05:00

Paul Martin’s federal liberals are mired in scandal. The polls have them trailing the Conservative party as they desperately try to avoid an election. After watching the Prime Minister beg Canadians to stay in power during a pre-recorded television address, socialist NDP leader Jack Layton has offered an olive branch. Jack Layton is willing to prop up the most corrupt federal government in the history of Canada if the liberals remove a tax cut from the upcoming budget.

The proposed budget includes a cut in the corporate tax rate from 21% to 19% and removes all tax surcharges, cuts which would amount to about $4.6 billion this year.

The socialist NDP has always been adamantly opposed to tax cuts. Members of Canada’s most extreme left-wing party favor huge tax increases to pay for every worthless idea they can dream up, from building giant windmills in the arctic to putting warning labels on bottles of beer. The socialist NDP is also the party that is pushing hardest for same-sex marriage and legalized prostitution in Canada.

The socialist ideology of the NDP has always been so left-wing to the extreme that they never win more than 25 seats in the 308 seat Canadian Parliament. The question is, has Jack Layton resigned himself to the reality that the NDP will never be a mainstream party and decided that selling out is the only way to advance socialism in Canada or is Jack Layton making an election ploy?

One idea has been advanced which suggests that Jack Layton’s offer may be nothing more than an election ploy to seal the liberal’s fate. By making this offer they are showing Canadians that the NDP is willing to do whatever it takes to make this minority government work. As soon as the liberals fail to give in to one NDP demand then Jack Layton can simply jump on board with the rest of the opposition and topple the government while saying that the liberals were simply impossible to work with.

Jack Layton may think that an offer to sell out Canadians by propping up the liberals is a brilliant election ploy, but in the end, it may be nothing more than political suicide.

Paul Martin Impeaches himself in his Own Public Address

2005-04-22T02:55:00.000-05:00

In an act of complete desperation, Prime Minister Paul Martin delivered a pre-recorded address directly to Canadians. The speech was a clear attempt to buy time from voters. The emphasis of the speech was on allowing the liberals to govern while Justice Gomery continues doing his job. It was also an attempt to win over public sympathy and portray himself as a trusted political figure that is innocent of this scandal.

Consider what The Blue Maple Leaf predicted the day before the speech. This author wrote, “He [Paul Martin] will distance himself personally from this scandal. He will allow the public to condemn the people he deems a few rogue members of the party, but he will ask Canadians not to condemn him until after Justice Gomery releases his full report sometime in December.

This is exactly what Paul Martin did. In his speech he said:

“On December 12, 2003, I cancelled the sponsorship program. It was my very first act on my very first day in office. In addition, I fired Alfonso Gagliano, the minister responsible for the sponsorship program, from his appointment as Ambassador to Denmark. To recover taxpayers’ money – money that went to those who did not earn it -- I ordered my government to sue 19 people and companies for more than $40-million.”

The fact that Paul Martin cancelled the sponsorship program as his first act in office should tell Canadians that he knew the full extent of the criminal activity of that program. He did not have to wait until Justice Gomery gave his final report to conclude that this was a corrupt money laundering scheme. He simply shut it down.

The fact that he recalled Alfonso Gagliano from Denmark should also tell a story to Canadians. Mr. Gagliano was not recalled, because he was a poor Ambassador. He was recalled, because Paul Martin knew the full extent of Gagliano’s involvement in this liberal corruption scheme. Again, Paul Martin did not wait until the final report of Justice Gomery to condemn Gagliano and destroy his career. He simply recalled the man to Canada and terminated him.

Paul Martin also, by his own admission, picked 19 people and companies to sue to recover $40 million of taxpayer money. Again, Paul Martin did not wait for Justice Gomery to issue his final report before deciding to retain a legal team to go after 19 scapegoats to recover lost money. These lawyers were commissioned to condemn these people and organizations without any information coming from the Gomery Inquiry.

Paul Martin has proven through his own actions, and through the words of his own public address, that he knew the extent of this sponsorship money laundering scheme. He knew who was involved. He knew what companies were involved in illegal activity. He knew all this and he has condemned them all without hearing anything about these people or these groups from the Gomery Commission. Paul Martin named and fired Gagliano and invites Canadians to condemn him and all these other groups without waiting to hear the final report from Justice Gomery.

And yet, in spite of his own admissions, the Prime Minister asks Canadians not to judge him until after the final report of the Gomery Commission is released in December. He makes this plea in spite of the knowledge that he was Finance Minister in charge of public money during the sponsorship scandal. He makes this plea despite knowing of all the corruption and all those who were involved. He makes this plea even though he knew and did nothing about it.

He begs for more time to rule, despite growing evidence that he himself directed sponsorship contracts. Despite evidence he lied under oath about his relationship with Claude Boulay, the President of ad firm Groupe Everest, who received $67 million in sponsorship contracts.

He says this despite the fact that he himself shut down public accounts committee that was looking into this scandal and called an unnecessary early election last year in a bid to win a new majority government while Canadians were still completely in the dark about liberal corruption. And by his own admission in this public address he knew everything about this scandal including all those who were involved before he called that snap election! But now, Paul Martin says that an election must wait until Canadians hear the whole truth about the sponsorship scandal, which he says can only happen when Justice Gomery issues that final report in December.

Paul Martin did not wait to condemn a handful a scapegoats for this corruption scandal and he is a desperate hypocrite to think that we need to wait until December to condemn him now.

What to Expect From Paul Martin Address to Canadians

2005-04-20T20:57:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, Prime Minister Paul Martin will deliver a speech directly to Canadians. The speech will be a prelude to an election that we know is only weeks away. Whereas the liberal party has always had everything it says echoed by the liberal mainstream media, this time Paul Martin will talk to us directly. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The liberals have no positive agenda for the country and they have rallied behind such losing left-wing causes as legalizing drug use, legalizing prostitution and changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples. That is why the liberal strategy in this coming election will be a classic smear campaign of the Conservatives. The liberals also intend to portray their leader, Paul Martin, as a virtuous saint that had absolutely nothing to do with the biggest corruption scandal in this nation’s history.

Look for Paul Martin’s speech to include comments about how Jean Chrétien’s camp of liberals was to blame. He will talk about how it is necessary for Canadians not to judge the whole liberal party on account of a few rogue party members that did not have the country’s best interest at heart. He will distance himself personally from this scandal. He will allow the public to condemn the people he deems a few rogue members of the party, but he will ask Canadians not to condemn him until after Justice Gomery releases his full report sometime in December.

However, Canadians do not need to have their minds made up by a judge. Canadians have seen the evidence and will continue to see more damning evidence between now and the middle of May, when the Gomery commission is expected to wrap up. The job of the Gomery commission is to look into this scandal and make recommendations for criminal charges. The moral standards that Canadians use to hold their political leaders to account are much higher than that of the criminal justice system. For this, Canadians can make up our own minds.

Paul Martin will also talk about national unity. He will portray the Conservative party as a regional western party that is more of a separatist party than the Bloc Quebecois. Out of this speech you will hear slander and lies that will expose the true desperation of the liberal party of Canada. Paul Martin will make a pathetic attempt to portray the liberal party as the only Federalist Party capable of saving the nation.

Paul Martin will do this in spite of the fact that what the liberals did in Quebec probably means Quebec is gone already. It is possible that this scandal, the biggest in our nation’s history, has already convinced the majority of Quebecers that enough is enough. It may well be that the damage these liberals have done is irreversible. Even a majority Conservative government with a strong mandate to de-centralize the power of this overwhelming federal government may not be enough to save it in time. Canadians should take this to heart.

The speech will also be one designed to invoke fear in the hearts of Canadians. There will be talk of how the country will be screwed if liberals cannot continue governing. He will say things like: “If our government falls you won’t get same-sex marriage. The government will not raise your children for you in a socialized daycare program. The Maritime Provinces will not get money promised to them. The cities will not get the cash they need to operate.” The list will go on and on.

He will paint the picture of a nation grinding to a complete halt if the liberals are not allowed to continue running it. The liberals have been in power so long, they cannot imagine themselves no longer running it. Canadians will get a sense of his desperation at this point of the speech. Government power has changed hands many times in our nation’s history and life went on for Canadians. People will see this lie for what it is.

This speech will have the look and feel of a campaign throne speech. Everything you can expect from the liberal party in this coming election will be included. Readers are encouraged to return and visit this article to post your comments on how close these predictions ring true.

See you tomorrow at The Blue Maple Leaf.

Will Justice Be Done? - AntiCorruption.ca

2005-04-20T15:51:00.000-05:00

Readers are strongly recommended to vist this new website. They have a FLASH into that you will not want to miss!

Anti-Corruption.ca

Because Canadians Deserve Better Government

Enjoy.