man of vanity, frank klees, goes out with a bang

The Ontario PC Party is up in arms now that one of their own, Newmarket-Aurora MPP Frank Klees, has put his name forward for the speakers chair. Dalton is just one-seat shy of a majority government, and that means neither opposition parties could afford to lose one of their own to become the legislatures moderator. Andrea Horwath and Tim Hudak have been touting their opposition horns the past couple of weeks, as they should, and making demands on Dalton for great consultation in the upcoming minority parliament. With larger numbers in the legislature, I'm sure both the PC's and the NDP were eager to get back to work. Then Frank steps in... and poo-poo's their party. Am I surprised that Frank made such a move? Not really.

When I started getting involved in politics, Frank Klees was my MPP in the now defunct riding of Oak Ridges. As a former volunteer for the failed campaigns of Liberals Vito Spatafora and Helena Jaczek in 1999 and 2003 respectively, we despised Klees with a passion. He was cocky, he was vain, and those of us in the Ontario Liberal Party Oak Ridges riding would have loved nothing more than to see this man lose. But, to give Frank Klees some credit, he was a man who had political ambition. As a case in point, he once flirted with the idea of running for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance and ran and failed twice in running for the Ontario PC Party leadership.

Knowing Frank, I knew he could not bare to sit through 4 more years in opposition, especially under the bumbling leadership of Tim Hudak. What does he have to lose? The lost of "buddy status" in the Tory caucus- who cares? As this will most likely be his last term at Queen's Park anyways. A speaker's salary and status isn't shabby... nor is the amount of media coverage. Maybe he's inching to jump ship to the federal Tories in 4 years time. Though knowing Harper, he wouldn't be pleased with having such a rogue, for a lack of better words, on his team.

tim hudak playing the US style family card

Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC's were clearly playing the US style "family" card during the Ontario leaders debate tonight. Like Sarah Palin constantly mentioning her son Trig in talking points, Tim Hudak mentioned his daughter Miller multiple times during the debate (and almost made a sad puppy face at one point) in an attempt to come off as the "family man". He also mentioned a couple of times how proud he was coming from an immigrant family.

Unfortunately for Tim Hudak, those American-style "family values" talking points are only effective to a demographic that is already deeply conservative. Progressive Canadians see through such talking points as being very opportunistic and to simply put it... fake.

Tim Hudak... just not up to the job.

conservative.ca considers backbenchers to be irrelevant

I wanted to learn more about the newly elected MP here in my parents' riding of Richmond Hill. So my first instinct was to visit the Tory's official website, www.conservative.ca. I was a little mind-boggled, yet not surprised, to find that no such listing of MP's actually exists (or that it's really well hidden beyond the web-surfing capacity of the average voter). According to the "TEAM" tab at the top of the page, the only relevant parts of the Conservative "team" are the cabinet and the team of unelected Senators. What about local MP's? What about parliamentary secretaries?

Am I surprised? No... Under Harper, most backbenchers are just puppet-moles who stand up and sit down once in a while to vote as per the wishes of the PMO, in hopes they don't get whacked after saying "extreme right wing" statements to the public (i.e. Cheryl Gallant, Rob Anders). The lack of any backbencher MP presence on the Conservative.ca website, just comes to show how little the federal Tories actually value grassroots issues now that they have a majority. Yes, Martin and Chretien also had a reputation for running a PMO-controlled government, but at the very least, their local members were recognized on their respective party websites.

congrats to bryon wilfert for the order of the rising sun

Hard quality work shows for itself. Joining the likes of General Douglas McArthur, former Liberal MP, my former MP, The Hon. Bryon Wilfert, is going to receive Japan's second highest honour, the Order of the Rising Sun. Bryon has worked tirelessly for over a decade as Chairman of the Canada-Japan Interparliamentary Association, with the goal of improving diplomatic, cultural and business relations between the two countries.

It's unfortunate hard-working MP's like Bryon get swept out by populist waves. It just comes to show the extent of how party machines are the ones actually runing our federal government, and not individuals.

tory senator larry smith wants us to sympathize with him for taking a cut in his pay

Awwwe... isn't that nice? The newly appointed Conservative Senator wants us to thank him and sympathize with him for taking a pay cut (using our tax-dollars) to sit in an un-elected chamber to "serve the public". Even if and when he loses his race to sit as a Montreal MP, he'll still have a comfy padded seat in the Senate to cushion his fall. Very sneaky, Mr. Harper.

repeal of "don't ask, don't tell", a big feat in US politics

I would like to commend the United States Senate for voting to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Despite the pain the Democrats went through in losing these stronghold Senate seats, it is great to see Republican Senators like Scott Brown of Massachusetts and the newly minted Mark Kirk of Illinois, vote with socially progressive minds, despite the taboo nature of the topic amongst the conservative voter base. This is definitely a big feat and victory for Barack Obama and the LGBT community.

The lame duck Congress, isn't so lame after all.

ezra levant for prentice's calgary seat?

There are grumblings in the Alberta political scene that the almighty Ezra Levant may vie for the Conservative nomination to replace Jim Prentice in Calgary Centre-North. If that's the case, we should definitely have Warren take him on.

harper ploy to frame ignatieff makes headlines on UK papers

Harper's embarrassing and blatantly obvious ploy to frame and blame Ignatieff for the failed UN vote has made it alllll the way across the Atlantic to the UK Guardian. Harper is truly an international embarrassment beyond riches. Who's gonna get the PMO axe for being ineffective puppets? Cannon? Dmitri Soudas?

blogging tories finger pointing after UN vote

So after yesterday's sad rejection from the UN, I thought I'd flip the channel over to our Conservative friends over at the Blogging Tories to see what their reactions were. Basically it's a lot of excuses and finger pointing: "Ignatieff's fails the test of leadership" says one, "Bob Rae's lack of class" says another, and the "regressiveness of the UN" says the third, etc... but NOTHING about the Conservative's FAILED foreign policy that has brought our great nation, that Lester B. Pearson fought so hard for, to epic embarrassment. Surprised? Not in the least. It is the quint-essential Tory brand to blame others instead of being accountable and taking responsibility for their negligence.

Talk about lack of class. I guess this what happens when you have a puppet-foreign affairs minister who instead of exercising respectable diplomacy, decides instead to give out bottles of maple syrup, play domestic partisan games, and pretend like he and his Tory cronies are suddenly in love with the UN. According to Tory reaction, this rejection was not because of their apathy toward southeast Asia and Africa; and its wasn't due to their misguided/ill-timed trade announcement with Israel, but the fault, instead, lays solely on the super-powerful man in Stornoway. What a joke! The buck stops at the top. But this buck has lost his edge.

I can just hear Pearson and Mackenzie-King turning in their graves in embarrassment.

pmo-puppet lawrence cannon injects unwanted BS onto the world stage

Harper puppet minister, Lawrence Cannon, recently accused Michael Ignatieff of putting his party over the country by apparently not wanting Canada to sit on the UN Security Council. By injecting domestic partisan politics into the international scene, aren't the Tories, by just making that accusation, putting party over country?

Lawrence Cannon likes to talk a lot (with scripts from the PMO), like he did when during the G20 regarding family planning. Everytime he opens his mouth, it's either obviously hypocritical or just plain BS. It gives me stomach pains knowing that we have such a pathetic/moronic Foreign Affairs Minister representing us on the world stage. The respectable days of Lloyd Axworthy, John Manley, Flora MacDonald, and Joe Clark are long gone.

time for change in mississauga ward 7... say no to nando

"Nando is not your run-of-the-mill, ordinary citizen. He is a professional politician who has been feeding off the teat of the public purse for quite some time."

— Peter Nazwaski, Mississauga (Letter to the Editor, Mississauga News)

nando iannicca... it's time to go

"One of the great blessings that we have in municipal governance is the fact that few people vote."

- Nando Iannicca, Mississauga Ward 7 City Councillor, December 13, 2006 (www.nandoiannicca.com)

Is that so, Nando? I think it's time for change. Mississaugans cannot be taken for granted.

liberal contraception motion defeated - shameful down to the core

A Liberal motion (whipped vote) to include contraception within family planning programs for developing nations has been defeated. As a Canadian development aid worker currently living in Africa, this is absolutely shameful. I even had a few Zambian co-workers question me on Canada's logic.

How can we, as people of the Western industrialized world (especially as Canadians), continue to claim our progressive knowledge on issues such as health care when working with people in developing nations, when even our own government is stuck in a swamp of decades past. This makes me sick to my stomach.

Shame, especially on those Liberals who either didn't show up for the vote, or abstained from voting.

Below is a photo I took near a high school deep in the villages of rural Zambia. The message on this outdated government HIV/AIDS awareness billboard, in my opinion, is no different than what our Canadian government and legislators are promoting.

the tumbling of king obama's deck of cards

With the rising federal deficit and a very confusing national health-care plan, tea-party participants have every right to be angry with law makers in Washington. We have recently seen this anger turn into consecutive elections losses for the Democrats in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey; two of which were thought to be a cake-walk for the ruling party. If the revered political god that is Obama wants to stop this disastrous domino effect and survive the mid-term elections coming up at the end of this year, he needs to move to the center... and fast. He needs to move away from the ultra-idealistic Nancy Pelosi and closer to the middle now that he has no choice but to work together with the GOP.

There was no Bush-factor involved in what looks to be the tumbling of the cards for the almighty President Obama. It wasn't Bush's fault that the Democrats were not unified when they controlled both houses with huge majorities. If the GOP takes back
congress this November, the Democrats will have no one to blame, but themselves.

Let's hope Obama takes a card from the Clinton years of moderation and pragmatism, instead of blindly stumbling into the swamps of over-spending and idealistic left-wing fiscal politics that we so often see.

it's about time we fight back!

The federal Liberals have finally decided to fight back. "Highly partisan" flyers are now being sent out to Conservative-held ridings.

It's about time we fight back! Fight fire with fire. Playing Mr. Nice Guy has been slightly ineffective, in my opinion.