Brian Lilley has a great breakdown on the Richard Colvin story. He is the Canadian diplomat who testified before the Commons Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan that Canadian-transferred detainees were all tortured in Afghan jails.
Lilley cites Christie Blatchford’s story (see here) on Colvin’s time line in reporting torture to his superiors. He also shows us how upset the Red Cross is with Colvin. (see story here)
Also: see my previous post on Colvin (here)
You almost hate giving any further exposure to such a ridiculous “news” story. The Ottawa Citizen splashed this incendiary headline: PM’s former communications director, Tory aide fined for ethics violations
Oh my, what dastardly and underhanded thing did Sandra Buckler do? Well, she failed to file a written disclosures of assets, liabilities and activities within 30 days of working for minister Peter Van Loan and was fined the grand total of $100. (see story here)
I don’t believe for one sec that this wasn’t some sort of pay back from reporter Greg McGregor. How else could this possibly been even filed as newsworthy not to mention accepted by the editor? Another black eye for Canadian journalism.
Doesn’t look like the BC NDP Party faithful care about what the optics are by electing Moe Sihota as their party president during their convention held over the weekend. It will also be fun watching Moe compete for the limelight with current NDP MLAs. No matter what he says, he will be front and center whenever a TV camera is around. (see story here)
Sihota twice resigned from government over ethical lapses – once after the Law Society of B.C found him guilty for borrowing money from clients funds and a second time after a government investigation concluded he exercised poor judgement in intervening in a friends application for a limousine licence.
An interesting article in The Hill Times about how the minority government kept the Liberal Party from the much-needed revitalization of a very stale and dated political party.
The thesis is that because the Libs have had to worry about an election at anytime, they haven’t been afforded the luxury of the “safe” time a majority government would have allowed. That they have been always under the threat of an election so they have been unable to deeply cleanse themselves and reemerge a revitalized political force that is relevant today.
The only problem with this theory is that you have to assume the Liberals know that they need to re-exam themselves and I believe that they would rather pretend to change then actually do the very hard task of tearing down and rebuilding.
This statement from MP Wayne “Door Knob” Easter telling us how they sacrificed their own best interests to keep Canada from us dangerous Conservatives shows that the arrogant Liberals are not ready to look at themselves in the mirror. (see story here)
“It would have been easier for the Liberal Party had that been the case, but I think it would have been a disaster for the country, and I firmly believe that,” said Liberal MP Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.). “I don’t think people really understand how much this guy, Stephen Harper, has turned this country backwards in so, so many areas.
I received a call from a staffer at CTV’s question Period yesterday morning asking us to provide a representative on a panel that would discuss the upcoming HST vote in Ottawa this week. Our HST point man is Chris Delaney who agreed to do the 6AM taping and was easily the most coherent and well versed of the panel.
If you can get through Gerald Kennedy’s non-stop blather (Craig Oliver lets him go on and on ad nauseum) without putting your foot through your monitor, check out Chris’ performance especially his point about the Bloc voting on a taxation matter here in BC. (watch video here)
