Personal attacks against Harper and wife from Globe’s TV critic

 

Just before the Globe and Mail’s John Doyle takes off for his vacation to Ireland, he pens this piece whining about the leaders’ debate including some personal swipes at Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen:

“Among the iconic images: the mournful face of Laureen Harper as she endures yet another tightly scripted appearance with Hair in the Fridge”

“TV reporters shouting questions at Hair in the Fridge from behind a barrier that appears to be about two miles from the man”

Seriously, why is a guy who critiques Glee for a living being allowed to write personal attacks against the Prime Minister and his wife? (see here)

Globe’s Taber helps Liberals “spread the word” on debate win

A great example of when reporting becomes cheer-leading from Jane Taber of the Globe and Mail today who cheerfully regurgitates an email sent out to the party faithful by Liberal campaign manager Peter Donollo.

“A copy of the note was obtained by The Globe.”

Oh come on Jane… (see here)

Update: Jonathan Kay of the NP mocks Taber’s puff-piece “scoop” here

National Chief Atleo should be the one apologizing for native poverty

APTN is reporting that “Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo is calling on a star Conservative candidate to retract a claim that no Third World poverty exists in Canada”.

This stems from a poverty forum in which Conservative candidate Chris Alexander said that 3rd World poverty is non-existent here in Canada (see here).

Atleo should be careful who he is pointing his finger at for native poverty on reserves as more people might just start looking at who is “filling their pockets with the share of the $7B” a year spent by Indians and Northern Affairs Canada.

That quote about the $7B came from a very prominent Liberal and “star” candidate currently running in Alberta who also had all this to say about the money spent on the “native industry”:

- “I saw the callous disregard some chiefs had for their people”

- “I was particularly galled by the Reverend Dr. Chief John Snow, the long-serving Stoney chief, who did not appear to be the least bit interested in the well-being of his people” “People were afraid to talk to me, afraid to say anything because of “repercussions.”

- “The federal government extracts $7-billion annually from the Canadian taxpayer and dumps it into the black hole of INAC (Indian & Northern Affairs Canada), where it gets sucked up by civil servants, consultants, lawyers and Indian chiefs who squander it with impunity, while on-reserve education is usually substandard, medical care and addictions counselling are lacking, child welfare funding is inadequate, and everything is subject to the vagaries of political interference”

- “Why doesn’t someone put an end to it? Because dysfunctional Indians are an industry from which too many people make too much money. Actually healing the native population would be like killing the goose that laid the golden egg for all of those civil servants, consultants, lawyers and Indian chiefs who are filling their pockets with their share of the $7-billion”

- “I would dissolve INAC and repeal the Indian Act. I would terminate funding to the Assembly of First Nations. In my view, the AFN is a chiefs club that looks after chiefs, many of whom just look after themselves and do very little for the poor and the children of their reserves” (see here)

Back to you Chief Atleo…

Last night’s debate results summed up nicely by a Star Harper-hater

 

After going through the multitudes of punditry commentary on last night’s leader debate, this piece by David Olive who gives all the other Harper-haters at the Toronto Star a run for their money for top spot, best describes how it went:

“Stephen Harper was the big winner in last night’s English-language leaders debate. He was statesmanlike, fielding almost every question, no matter how tough or gratuitous, with grace and an impressive command of detail, as you would expect of a chief executive. In doing so, he managed to make the others look like glib malcontents when they weren’t squabbling among themselves” (see here)