Canada – Prog Gold

Did you really expect anything different from Ignatieff?

Published on May 18, 2011

Derrick O’Keefe on the failed intervention of Michael Ignatieff in Canadian politics:

In January 2005, three insiders from Canada’s Liberal Party came calling on Ignatieff at Harvard. Writing in The Walrus, Ron Graham described the meeting. The kingmakers from Ottawa outlined a scenario whereby Ignatieff would return to Canada after three decades abroad, win the party leadership and in short order become prime minister of Canada. The Liberals were the country’s “natural governing party,” after all. It’s not known whether there was mention of sweets and flowers. Ignatieff accepted the invitation.

In the end, however, his visions of conquest proved almost as delusional in Canada as they did in Iraq.

It depends on how you view his mission. As I understand it the Liberals were a centrist, left leaning party before Ignatieff got his mitts on them, while he always has been a rightwing courtier to power. So if you needed somebody to not wage opposition against Harper’s conservatives, destroy the liberals as a party and hand Harper a majority in parliament, he was the man to do it, and he did. Just like with Iraq, where all the meaningless guff about being greeted with flowers had always clearly been nonsense, the idea that Ignatieff could do anything else was idiotic. Assuming the people who wanted him as leader weren’t idiots, they may have gotten just what they wanted — and bugger the liberal voter.

Political terrorism in Canada

Published on October 6, 2008

No, not a joke: fourteen people got the brake lines of their cars cut last Saturday night because they had Liberal Party signs on their lawns:

Affected residents live in the riding of St. Paul’s, in a swath of the city around Eglinton Ave. between Bathurst St. and Mount Pleasant Rd., and had Carolyn Bennett signs on their property. Although Meloche confirmed 10 cases of vandalism last night, Liberal riding headquarters said the number was going up, reporting 14 by 9 p.m.

The cars were also damaged in other ways; some were scratched and keyed with L signs. Phone and cable lines of some homes were cut.

“There are two child seats in the back of my car,” said Andrew Lane, chief financial officer for Bennett’s campaign. “To cut the brake line on a car like that is just evil. Awful.”

Added Lane, whose children are 6 months and 22 months: “You have to crawl under someone’s car and cut the brake line, knowing that it could kill someone, or their whole family.”

Lane discovered his brakes didn’t work on his silver Saturn View as he tried to pull up at a stop sign near his home yesterday. He kept slamming the brakes and, in a “moment of terror,” narrowly avoided slamming into a bus.

Later, the garage called to tell him it had been no accident. When Lane expressed disbelief, the mechanic told him: “Look, this is a big, heavy rubber hose and it’s been cut through with a very sharp knife. You should phone the police.”

Police later said Lane was not alone and asked if he had an election sign, telling him, “The Carolyn Bennett sign seems to be the one thing linking events.”

It didn’t stop there. More vandalism happened on Sunday, with twelve more incidents in another riding (election district):

The 12 new acts of vandalism – cutting of brake, phone and cable lines and graffiti defacing homes and garages – come on the heels of 14 similar incidents reported Saturday in St. Paul’s riding.

The 26 incidents are likely connected and the work of one person since they are so similar in nature, Liberal party insiders say.

“There is this hatred thing that is so upsetting – hatred of Liberals,” said Carolyn Bennett, Liberal incumbent for St. Paul’s. “There’s no other excuse for this in terms of this kind of intimidation.

“That’s what’s so upsetting. We don’t know who’s doing it at all. We just think this is somebody who really is not well.”

Have the Republicans been sending advisors to their counterparts up north?

Comment of the Day: Canada edition

Published on July 5, 2008

Nicked wholesale from James Nicoll:

Dr. Henry Morgentaler, famous women’s rights activist, to be named to Order of Canada.

Catholic priest Lucien Larré, whose two criminal convictions were related to the collapse in a flurry of financial woes and allegations of abuse of Larré’s Bosco Homes, returns own 1983 Order of Canada because granting the Order of Canada to Dr. Morgentaler “degrades” the honour.

Further comments are unnecessary.

You Say “Stuffed French Toast”, I say “Poutine!”

Published on January 10, 2008

Funny, isn’t it, the bemused contempt felt for the customs of any given country by it’s nearest neighbours: the French freak out the British, who freak out the Dutch, who freak out the Americans, who freak out everybody, not least the Canadians…

From Paulitics:

“Top 5 things I saw in America which, as a Canadian, freaked me right out”

[…]

To celebrate my return to this frigid, yet comparatively sane country, I felt it worthwhile to relay a list of five items which I saw during my travels which the locals thought was perfectly normal (I presume), but which freaked the heck out of me as a Canadian:

[…]

#4

A breakfast creation in upstate New York called “Stuffed French Toast”. What does “Stuffed French Toast” entail, you naïve non-American might ask? It’s French Toast (which, keep in mind is cooked in butter) stuffed with bacon, eggs and processed cheese (which they proudly call ‘American processed cheese’, I presume, to distinguish it from real cheese which could, after all, be French and/or offer unAmerican nutritional content). But here’s the kicker: on top of your “Stuffed French Toast” cooked in butter, you will find… a square of butter.

Did I mention Poutine?

Border Incidents

Published on November 15, 2007

As the British government once again attempts to prove the futility of borders in a globalised economy, let’s see how other countries are getting on, shall we?

Video shows Polish traveler dying after Canadian police use Taser

US guards prevent Canadian volunteers from answering an alarm call just over the border because one of the firefighters has a funny name.

Croatian Serb arrested for war crimes on US/Canada border: Goran Pavic, a 42-year-old Croatian Serb, was crossing the Ambassador Bridge from the Canadian town of Windsor enroute to Detroit when he was stopped.

Shoppers complain customs posts are overwhelmed and allege victimisationas the declining US dollar sends Canadians on a US spending spree.

The charges of smuggling illegal immigrants made by Canada against Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, an American refugee rights worker arrested in September at a Quebec border crossing while helping 12 Haitians seek asylum, have been dropped.