February 2019 - Page 4 of 5

Are you there, God? It's me, Josh.

Look, God, I try to give credit where credit is due. If I make a successful prediction, like Maxime Bernier imploding spectacularly, or Doug Ford winning the Premiership in spite of himself, or the Canadian left catching the next train to Radical Town, leaving Jagmeet Singh and Rachel Notley trailing behind, I don't go around claiming to be, well, You, just because I was the one man who saw it coming. I don't even claim to have any special insight. All I do is set up a trendline and collect the data points.

I have to believe You're the one who's running the show, even though I personally am not the most religious person out there. I have to believe it, because Patrick Brown being stupid and entitled enough to think that he can run for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party is not the sort of thing that cannot be chalked up to mere chaos. That level of crazy has to be planned. Cosmically planned.

And yet, it would be too perfect, wouldn't it? Patrick Brown looking across the caucus table at Kathleen Wynne, sharing ideas on how to get more women involved in politics. Patrick Brown in the Legislature, denouncing the PC Party for dragging their feet on sex-ed. Patrick Brown, giving interviews about how he's running to "protect the centre" or how he was always a Liberal at heart, shaking hands with Justin Trudeau and promising to run campaigns based on "positive politics." And that's just Patrick Brown. All the usual Liberal sycophants, having to introduce him as "the next Premier of Ontario" at campaign stops and having to cede one of their 7 ridings to him. Martin Regg Cohn's columns and Robert Benzie's tweets praising him as the antidote to Doug Ford. Bill Davis' completely serious endorsement and of course Bill Davis will still be alive in 2022, how dare you suggest otherwise?

Because of course the Liberals would welcome Brown with open arms, in their cultish way, for it would be a validation of one of their core beliefs: that we are all Liberals, whether we choose to admit it or not, and that there is no one so loathsome, no one so depraved and discredited as to be turned away should they bend the knee and accept the Grit yoke. Come all ye sinners that ye may be washed clean! (Are you still listening, God?)

Oh, and it gets better. Those Patrick Brown loyalists? The ones still filling seats, still holding down riding association positions and sitting on the executive? The ones pining for the return of the true PROGRESSIVE Conservative party? What a moral quandary for them, huh? How many dark nights of the soul will they endure? Their lips, they say no, but their eyes, they say yes, yes, yes!

And finally, the rest of the PC Party, the ones who don't think that pretending to be Liberals is a viable electoral strategy, and the ones who just really can't stand Patrick Brown, and the diehard partisans who stupidly backed his run for Mayor of Brampton because his opponent Linda Jeffrey was an open Liberal as opposed to a secret one, will be revving up their chainsaws.

The more I think about this, the more it feels a win for literally everyone involved, because literally everyone involved is pretending to be something they're not, and Patrick Brown declaring for the Liberals would be the one thing that would put everything right at once. The Progressive Conservatives could be Liberals, the Conservatives could stop pretending to care about people, and the Liberals could display that they have no ideology except power. The NDP get to present their usual non-argument that the Liberals and the Conservatives are exactly the same and be less wrong than usual, and the election itself can be open war between two men who actually hate each other instead of party leaders who are told to pretend that they hate each other because their strategists told them to.

I know everyone says spit in one hand and pray in the other and see which one fills up first, but if God has a sense of humour, he can intervene just this onceâ€¦

Photo Credit: CBC News

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.

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The first thing to note about the current SNC-Laval-Wilson-Raybould scandal is that it doesn't yet have a cool, concise nickname.

And it needs one desperately since SNC-Laval-Wilson-Raybould scandal is way too long to write.

Maybe, "Justicegate" or "SNCscam" or "Trudeau's Folly"?

At any rate, the second thing to note about this scandal is how the Trudeau Liberals are trying to limit the political damage.

Of course, by now, I'm sure you're aware of all the damaging sordid details.

According a recent Globe and Mail report, the Prime Minister's Office allegedly interfered in a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based engineering and construction company.

More specifically, the Globe story suggests the PMO allegedly tried to influence former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in criminal proceedings against the company, hoping she could convince federal prosecutors to make a deal with the company.

Wilson-Raybould reportedly refused and later (perhaps not coincidently) lost her job as Justice Minister.

So yes, this is by the far the biggest piece of dirty linen to ever fall out of Trudeau's political closet.

Up until now the scandals hitting his government have either been inside baseball stuff government officials charging taxpayers for moving expenses or somewhat trivial a billionaire paying for his jaunt to a Bahamas tropical resort.

By contrast, Justicegate (hey, maybe it'll stick) has bite.

For one thing, what makes it so potentially dangerous for the Liberals, is this particular saga has an easy to follow, soap opera-style narrative.

Indeed, it comes across like a Hollywood script: plucky Minister bravely stands up to corrupt politicians who want her to sidestep justice to help out a soulless, faceless corporation.

My point is, it's the kind of story that, if properly stoked, can get citizens outraged.

So, Trudeau will need to come up with a good communications strategy, i.e. a strategy that won't make things worse.

And yes, politicians often do make bad things worse.

Remember, for instance, how the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper misplayed the Senator Mike Duffy affair?

If you don't remember, here's a reminder: When stories emerged alleging Senator Duffy had inappropriately claimed living expenses, Harper's Chief of Staff, Nigel Wright, gave him money so he could pay the claimed expenses back.

Needless to say, when this became public the Duffy scandal went ballistic and Wright was forced to resign.

Then there's the case of former Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Recall that Martin assumed the leadership of the Liberal Party at a time when the sponsorship scandal, i.e. "adscam" was percolating.

Martin's response to that scandal, which he blamed on the previous Liberal government, was to go on what the media called a "mad as hell" national tour in which he vocally expressed his own outraged indignation at his own party's alleged misdeeds.

The end result: he reminded Canadians of the scandal on the eve of a national election and, worse, he basically gave them permission to be outraged at the Liberals.

Not a good idea.

Anyway, this brings us back to Trudeau and the brewing Justicegate scandal.

Initially, his performance was less than stellar, or more accurately, it was terrible.

My strong impression is that the Globe story caught both Trudeau and his staff totally off guard, meaning they didn't have a strong prepared response.

Yet for some stupid reason, the Liberals still put Trudeau in front of a pack of reporters to answer questions.

When pressed on the issue, he basically kept repeating over and over again a legally weaselly line that came across as a non-denial, denial.

The end result: Trudeau looked defensive, he looked like he was hiding behind legal semantics, he looked guilty.

After that original encounter, however, the Liberals have since regrouped.

It's an old adage in politics that if you can't attack the message, attack the messenger.

And that's exactly what the Liberals are doing going on the attack.

First off, they're attacking the Globe and Mail for running what they call a "false" story, Trudeau hasn't used the words "fake news", but he can tell he's dying to.

Secondly stories are starting to emerge which paint Wilson-Raybould in less than a flattery way, i.e. anonymous sources are calling her incompetent or not a team player or hard to work with.

Thirdly, the Liberals are basically, saying anyone who criticizes them over helping SNC-Laval must hate Quebec, since that company is one of the province's biggest employers.

Basically then, they're starting to follow the example of former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

Unlike Harper or Martin, Chretien understood that voters don't really care all that much about scandals, since, after all, their default position is "all politicians are crooks."

As matter of fact, what voters are primarily looking for in a leader is competence.

So much so, I'd argue they'd rather have a crooked smart guy leading the country than an honest dope.

Hence, when Chretien was faced with a scandal, he didn't overreact; he just basically shrugged it off.

Anyway, this means the fourth line of Liberal attack will be to essentially call Conservative leader Andrew Scheer an incompetent dolt.

True, such an "attack" strategy won't make the Justicegate scandal go away, but it could defuse and dilute voter outrage.

And that's all the Liberals really need.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics

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As the number of sitting days left in the current parliament continues to tick down, I continue to be genuinely curious about the size of the reckoning that prime minister Justin Trudeau's agenda will face in the Senate the closer we get to June. With the chamber's return delayed by additional construction in their new Chamber, what is already a crisis because of an overloaded Order Paper will become all the more acute in the coming weeks, especially as the government's agenda has not abated and they continue to table ambitious new bills, with several more on the way.

Add to this, some of the bills already before the Senate are facing a concerted effort by Conservatives to ensure that legislation gets defeated, and they are slowing down the process in some of those cases. While this may not be particularly significant on the surface it's the job of the opposition to oppose, and they have no obligation to speed legislation through the process just because the government wants to this has been frustrated by the lack of grown-ups in charge in the Senate who understand how things work, and who are willing to negotiate timelines for bills. This cannot be stressed enough the vast majority of the Independent senators are new and don't understand how the institution works because there is so little mentorship available to them, and much of the advice that has been offered to them has been dismissed as being partisan because it comes from established senators. Add to that, neither the Government Leader in the Senate err, "government representative," Senator Peter Harder, nor the leadership of the Independent Senators Group, seem to understand that horse-trading is how things get done in a political setting (and as "independent" as the "new" Senate may be, it's still a political institution. Deal with it). I have heard repeatedly that they consider horse-trading to be partisan and they will have no part in it and so bills languish on the Order Paper.

I would also note that among the bills that the Conservatives want to see defeated are things like the gun control bill, C-71, and the environmental assessment bill, C-69. On the former, there has been a lot of talk about trying to pass amendments at committee that would gut the bill, which apparently the Conservatives think they may have the votes to do so if they can get Liberal-turned-Non-Affiliated Senator Mobina Jaffer on side and she's not ruling anything out. Mind you, that may not help once they reach report stage and the broader Senate could easily vote down the proposed amendments, which will of course add more time to the bill, and if any of them get sent back to the Commons, well, you know the drill. As for Bill C-69, it's pretty much a certainty that it will see amendments and the government keeps insisting that they're open to them but just when we'll see them is a very open question. After all, the energy and environment committee has decided that they'll let the committee's steering committee come up with plans for cross-country hearings, so that they can hear directly from those affected. Of course, those plans may be rejected either by the committee as a whole, or by the Internal Economy committee, which oversees the budget for these things but it seems quite clear that there is an intention to drag this out for as long as possible.

There are other bills that have been slow-walking through the Senate, such as Bill C-59, which is a comprehensive bill on reforming national security legislation and institutions. The Conservatives have largely been dragging their feet on that bill, because they thought that the old C-51 under the last parliament was so great for dealing with terrorism that they want to stymie any attempts to reform its problematic aspects and bring it into Charter compliance as C-59 is looking to do. (Fun fact: C-59 also makes the necessary changes to start getting those false-positive kids off of the No-Fly List). There was no good reason for this bill to spend three months at second reading stage in the Senate and yet it was, likely because Harder and the ISG refused to negotiate timelines around it, which allowed the Conservatives to just walk all over them.

Looking through the debates on some of these bills, I am growing concerned that we are starting to see echoes of the House of Commons play out in the Other Place that senators are more concerned with speeches (that have a self-congratulatory element to them) than with the procedure involved in moving legislation. Second reading is about the principle of a bill in a properly functioning legislative body, that tends to mean the proponent and opposition lay out their case, and then send it off to committee. That was how the Senate has largely operated, particularly at second reading stage, where the government sponsor would lay out the case for the bill, the opposition critic would take what they heard under consideration, come back in a few days with the case of why they think the bill should be opposed or amended, and then off to committee it went. But we are straying from that now.

As the romance of speechifying infects the Senate, there are still many bills on the way there in the coming weeks. I am particularly concerned for the Indigenous bills on their way, such as the languages bill tabled this week in the Commons, and the child welfare reform bill that is still on its way (apparently delayed because the Indigenous groups they were consulting with didn't feel it was up to snuff). Given that Trudeau has appointed a number of new Indigenous senators who are activists in the field, I expect these bills to be subject to even more speeches, and maybe even a little scrutiny. Come June, when the Senate realizes that they have just days left on the calendar and a raft of bills to still pass before Parliament rises for the summer and an election, a reckoning is going to happen. We'll see if Trudeau's agenda can survive it.

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Back in 2016 I loudly and enthusiastically pulled for a Trump vs. Sanders showdown on the grandest stage of them all. Two grizzled grandpa war machines, slugging it out for the Presidency. It likely would have been more brutal, more hilarious and destroyed even more norms than the campaign we actually got.

I don't know whether "Bernie would've won". No one ever will. But one thing I did know is that Sanders would have done the one thing Hillary Clinton never did, and the Democrats have failed to do since 2016, and that is ditch the moral high ground and pummel the living daylights out of Donald Trump rhetorically speaking, that is.

For all the ink and tears that have been spilled over Trump, his worst critics are still handling him with kid gloves. None of the fact-checkers, none of the late-night comedians, and none of the #Resisters with their edgy social media blitzes want to say any of it directly to the President's orange face. They're scared. They're scared of him and his crazed supporters. So they act like they're above it all.

Hence the Trudeauesque candidacy of Beto O'Rourke. Another youngish, telegenic, ethnically fluid blank slate with an endless repertoire of seemingly intelligent statements (that don't make a whole lot of sense upon closer examination) who listens to punk music so he'll appeal to The Millennials. Can you imagine the photo-ops when he and Trudeau show off their totally tubular boardin' moves and then discuss how radical and sweet it is to be living personifications of nihilism? Brooooo!!!

Are you sick of these broken-down Trudeau knockoffs like Varadkar, Renzi, and Macron yet? Doesn't it feel like they're the result of foreigners taking their superficial understanding of Canadian politics and trying to duplicate "the Canadian model"? But even if one of these establishment rubber stamps enjoyed the sort of institutional dynasticism of a Trudeau, Trump would still consume them like they were so many hamberders. I loathe Trump, but if he sticks the Fake News label on Beto's astroturfed buzz, I'm going to nod my head.

This is not going to be the election cycle for appeals to our better nature or aspirational politics. We need someone who will get down in the mud with Trump. We need someone un-triggerable and unflinching. That's why Uncle Joe Biden is the hero we need, and the hero we deserve, but he's not the hero we're going to get. If it were any other time, I would understand Beto's appeal, but the point of the exercise here is not to look good it is to get rid of Trump by any means necessary, or at least accurately take the electorate's temperature and nominate someone who can channel the anger out there effectively.

We've got people out there clamouring for 15-year old kids to be doxed and destroyed, and news outlets blowing whatever little cred they have left chasing some quickly debunked rumour about Michael Cohen being directed to lie by Trump on the grounds that it might get the President impeached, and the Democrats are still worried about whether Biden's considerable baggage constitutes a liability.

This is the danger of cults of personality, and the belief that the populist monster can be pushed back under the bed. Rose coloured memories of Obama's two terms are clouding everyone's sight. The stubborn and ultimately fatal idea that Trump is nothing more than a blip is the only reason why the Dems are failing to do what is necessary instead of what is easy.

I am really not looking forward to a few months from now when it becomes apparent that "taking the high road" is not having the desired effect. Or maybe it will never become apparent, and we'll get some version of "Some people are just too good for politics!" in lieu of an honest self-examination. Which is very sad, because if nothing else, we could always count on the USA to do the right thing after they had tried everything else. Perhaps they will, after another four years.

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Written by Josh Lieblein

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Whether they've seen them in grade 11 history class or on actual network TV, all Canadians remember Heritage Minutes. Their brevity and simplicity makes satire, some of which is actually pretty funny, almost inevitable. The Historica Foundation, the non-profit behind the Minutes, have historically been good sports about these parodies. But as the Conservative Party of Canada communications team learned this week, they have their limits.

Had the Tories not scrubbed their Heritage Minute ad entirely, Historica might have pursued legal action. What would have come of that action is uncertain, as specific protections for satire in the Copyright Act are only seven years old. Still, if the perfectly nice people who brought us burnt toast tell you to knock it off, it would simply be rude not to do so. But it really is a shame when you consider the spoofs we'll never get to see. . . .

Rejected Liberal Party parody of "Superman"

(Liberal operatives GERALD BUTTS and KATIE TELFORD walk through Pearson International Airport.)

BUTTS: And he can get anyone to vote for him. Anyone at all. He's that charismatic.

TELFORD: Gerry Butts, will you stop it? You'll miss your plane.

BUTTS: Charismatic, but devoted to the middle class. Sleeves rolled up, blue jeansâ€¦

TELFORD: Honestly. You McGill kids.

BUTTS: He'll be in this canoe.

TELFORD: What?

BUTTS: A canoe. Wearing no shirt.

TELFORD: A prime minister wearing no shirt? Really?

BUTTS: Listen, Katie, this guy is more positive than anything! I swear!

TELFORD: And I'm positive you're gonna miss your flight to Ottawa.

BUTTS: That's it! He'll bring Canada back! He'll say "Canada is back!"

TELFORD: Come on, get in the security line. No one's gonna vote for a PM with no shirt, Gerry! It'll never fly!

BUTTS: Fly, noâ€¦ but he's really good at jogging.

TELFORD: See what the membership says at the Westin.

(She starts to head off.)

BUTTS: Wait, wait, Katie! I've got something for you.

(He hands her a folded piece of paper.)

BUTTS: Take it. It's a gift. You never know, it might be worth something someday.

(She unfolds the paper to find a sketch of JUSTIN TRUDEAU, opening his suit jacket to reveal a shirt with a stylized T on it.)

BUTTS: Is he great or what? Bye-bye, Katie!

Rejected Conservative Party parody of "Jennie Trout"

(The LIBERAL MEMBERS of the all-party Parliamentary Women's Caucus slap their desks repeatedly.)

LIBERAL #1: Send them home!

LIBERAL #2: Get rid of them!

CAUCUS CHAIR ANITA VANDENBELD: Ladies, ladies, please! And, so, this legislation, which I regret I cannot name because of the presence of these members of the less woke party . . .

(We see LISA RAITT and MICHELLE REMPEL seated together.)

VANDENBELD: . . . who, although they are women, could not possibly endure . . .

(The slapping resumes.)

REMPEL: Patience, Lisa.

LIBERAL #3: Get them out!

RAITT: Patience . . . !

LIBERAL #4: Get them out!

(RAITT stands up in a fury.)

RAITT: MADAM CHAIRWOMAN!

VANDENBELD: Mrs. Raitt?!

(RAITT marches up to the front of the room.)

LIBERAL MP #2: There's no place for Tories at a feminist thing!

LIBERAL MP #3: Get them out!

(The slapping resumes as RAITT approaches VANDENBELD.)

RAITT: If you do not get this committee under control, I will repeat every word of this disgusting meeting to Maclean's!

(The room falls silent. RAITT and REMPEL storm out.)

REMPEL (VO): My friend Lisa Raitt was not the only Tory to face this kind of thing in Parliament. But she would become the first Conservative allowed to call herself a feminist in Canada.

Rejected Friends of Canadian Broadcasting parody of "Laura Secord"

(CBC president CATHERINE TAIT overhears some Netflix executives chatting on the corner of Front and John in Toronto.)

NETFLIX EXEC #1: You expand our selection in Canada, the national cultural industry will be . . . broken.

NETFLIX EXEC #2: How many shows can we produce?

NETFLIX EXEC #1: 50 nature docs, battery of Jim Gaffigan specials. Rodriguez can't manage more than two Anne of Green Gables reboots. Not a serious resistance, if you're equal to the enterprise.

(TAIT immediately starts running for days over hill and dale, though mud and stream, until she collapses from exhaustion. She wakes up to find a group of NEWFOUNDLAND COMEDIANS staring at her curiously.)

TAIT (raising her hand weakly): Take me to Rodriguez.

VOICEOVER: Catherine Tait delivered her message to the Culture Minister. The regular lineup at Yuk Yuk's forced the surrender of 50 L.A. showrunners, and the American invasion was stopped.

Rejected Rebel Media parody of "Halifax Explosion"

(A group of REAL CANADIANS stands at an unguarded stretch of the Quebec-New York border. A BORDER GUARD desperately runs up to EZRA LEVANT.)

BORDER GUARD: There's a caravan, boys! You've gotta get out of here! It's full of illegals!

(EZRA immediately starts trying to hustle everyone indoors.)

EZRA: Please, everyone, get out of here! This border's gonna blow, now!

(Everyone shrugs dismissively. EZRA runs inside and starts tweeting madly on his phone.)

EZRA: "Canadian border erased. Visit StopIllegals.ca."

(He sends the tweet and waits.)

EZRA: Please, Canada. RT this.

(People's Party of Canada leader MAXIME BERNIER runs in.)

BERNIER: Ezra, there's no time!

EZRA: The caravan coming toward Montreal. I've got to warn them.

BERNIER: Come on, Ezra, come on!

EZRA: There are 600 illegals in that caravan and I've got to stop them!

(He grabs his phone pleadingly.)

EZRA: Come on, come on, send me your money!

(Finally, some donations come in. EZRA sighs in relief, until he hears screams from outside. We hear a loud boom and then see a photograph of the landscape, now covered in halal food trucks.)

VOICEOVER: Canada was devastated. A few Canadians dead, probably, and others banned from criticizing immigration policy, including Ezra Levant, Rebel Commander, unless you donate now to StopIllegals.ca.

Photo Credit: Huffington Post

Written by Jess Morgan

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'Dirty oil' is an epithet thrown around by environmentalists when referring to Alberta's oil sands.

Whether the moniker is fair or accurate is debatable.

But there is a more conventional oil and gas industry cleanup required in the province. The Supreme Court of Canada recently supplied a new broom to help, but it will take political and industrial will, money and elbow grease to actually sweep away the sad legacy of orphan and abandoned wells in the province.

The Supreme Court decision at the end of January overturned earlier Alberta court decisions which allowed creditors to proceed with claims on bankrupt resource companies before money would be expended on the cleanup of the oil and gas wells.

The top court ruled that insolvency doesn't allow a company to walk away from its environmental responsibilities.

"Bankruptcy is not a licence to ignore rules, and insolvency professionals are bound by and must comply with valid provincial laws during bankruptcy," wrote Chief Justice Richard Wagner.

Orphan wells, abandoned oil and gas wells with no owner, are becoming an increasing liability for the province and the industry. The neglected wells can pose an environmental hazard to surface and groundwater and soil. If they're leaking there is also a safety hazard related to explosions and toxic gas.

Orphan well numbers have increased from less than 200 five years ago to more than 3,000.

Oil and gas companies pay into an Orphan Well Association fund to help pay for cleaning up and reclaiming derelict sites around the province. But it's not an easy or cheap process. The pump and other equipment has to be removed, the well bore filled with cement and properly capped and the site reclaimed to its original state.

Orphan wells are only the tip of the ice berg of the overall issue of inactive wells in the province. Companies can sit on inactive wells for years or sell and buy them in hopes of gas or oil prices going high enough to make marginal assets worth another look. And abandoned wells, which will never come back into play, may be plugged by their corporate owner but not fully reclaimed. A Globe and Mail investigation last year found tens of thousands of these abandoned wells languishing on the prairies.

Getting abandoned and orphaned wells reclaimed is a huge irritation for rural landowners faced with dealing with the sites for years and sometimes decades.

Alberta Energy Minister Margaret McCuaig-Boyd told reporters last week that the province is working on regulations but she wouldn't put a specific date on when those rules might appear.

"We are looking at hard targets and timelines for abandoning and closing the wells. There will be more to come on those timelines. This is a very big issue. We're taking the time. We're working with industry to come up with the rules that are going to work for everyone. We need to have tight timelinesâ€¦in the past we've made it easier to just pay rent rather than cleanup."

The oil industry has welcomed the Supreme Court decision. Responsible, established players in the oil patch don't want to foot the cost of cleaning up after irresponsible fly-by-nighters. The Orphan Wells Association collects about $60 million from industry players in a year.

But the court decision only addresses a small sliver of the overall blight of abandoned wells.

In 2017 the C.D. Howe Institute estimated 155,000 of the 450,000 wells in the province "are no longer producing but not yet fully remediated."

The Institute's authors stopped short of recommending strict timelines but recommended drillers be required to post a bond covering a portion of the ultimate liability of cleanup and once the well is deemed inactive carry insurance to cover the final cost.

Alberta politicians are quick to defend the oil patch as being more environmentally sensitive than competing oil jurisdictions. But orphaned and abandoned wells are at the very core of the issue of whether the industry can reliably clean up after itself.

Will government follow through the logic of the Supreme Court decision with the necessary regulation?

The chances are slim that the NDP can actually put in place timelines or stiffer requirements for companies to deal quickly with their abandoned wells before a spring election.

And will the United Conservative Party, already beating the campaign promise of deregulation, be willing to act on the file if it wins?

The problem is as clear as a prairie blue sky over rolling farmland. It's just a matter of all the players taking their cleanup responsibilities seriously.

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Michelle Rempel has been back at it recent. "It," in this case, means tweeting a bunch about immigration policy.

The Conservative immigration critic was upset that a press release she put out was challenged, and went on to lay out a series of, as she labelled them, facts. Basically: the government's decision not to do some sort of crackdown at the border and allow people to continue claiming refugee status between border crossings is jamming up the immigration system and forcing delays elsewhere in the system.

"Trudeau allocated another $110M+ today to process, house and pay the social welfare payments for illegal border crossersâ€¦.How many more parents and grandparents could have been processed using these resources?" Rempel tweeted.

The "illegal border crossers" she refers to are people crossing between border checkpoints. They are crossing there, instead of at a normal crossing, because of the way the "Safe Third Country Agreement" (STCA) is structured. Because Canada has designated the U.S. as safe, individuals claiming refugee status who are coming from the States are turned around. Except if they cross the border between checkpoints. It's a loophole of sorts meant to discourage people from claiming refugee status if they've already landed in the U.S.

Of course, resting our policy on the STCA requires us to look away from what's going on beyond our southern border at the moment. The U.S. government is trying through various means to limit as much as possible any immigration, legal or otherwise.

There are two types of refugees as the Canadian government defines them. Convention refugees: "They are not able to return [to their home country] because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on: race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in a social group, such as women or people of a particular sexual orientation." And people in need of protection: "A person in need of protection is a person in Canada who cannot return to their home country safely. This is because if they return, they would be subject to [the] danger of torture, risk to their life, or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."

Statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, show that about half of the claims of people who have crossed between checkpoints the board has ruled on have been accepted. That's some 3,100 people who have been admitted to the country. There are another 28,314 claims the IRB still has to process. How many of those will be accepted as refugees? How many people are fleeing some country for their lives

This is the problem of the Conservative approach. They talk about trust in the system and the integrity of the border, but they never talk about the people who are escaping god knows what horrors finding a home here.

Those 3,100 who have been are people fleeing danger and persecution and all sorts else. They exist, and now their lives are going to be better off.

And the thing is, the government is deporting those that are rejected, in the vain attempt that this sort of measure will be taken in anything approaching good faith by their opponents. It's the typical sop of a government that wants to be progressive but not, you know, too progressive, in the hopes they can have a bit of both worlds*.

But that's not enough for the Tories. What Rempel wants is to turn those people away because they are jumping some kind of imagined line up.

It is a shame that people's grandparents aren't able. But to suggest that we should sacrifice people who need our help for those grandparents?

That's, in a word, awful. It's an awful way to treat people, and it's an awful way to try and win an election.

What the Conservatives are proposing â€” in as far as they're proposing anything â€” is to make Canada a place that turns its back on the world's most vulnerable. It is a a vision for a smaller, harder country. A place that isn't a beacon for anything. Just a northern outpost not of opportunity but of grim adherence to standing in line.

What Rempel has put a fine point on, without maybe meaning to, is that Conservative Party vision for immigration has nothing to do with what is good. There's no moral core there. Unless of course I'm misremembering, and the first commandment is Thou Shall Not Butt In.

***

*See: Pipelines, buying of.

Photo Credit: Macleans

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is going to shine so much positivity â€” and splash so much money on the media â€” this election year that most average Canadians will be blindfolded from seeing his hatchet men (peoplekind) and apparatchiks at work spewing negativity and smear campaigns against his opponents.

The combination of spending nearly $600 million to bail out the legacy media and $7 million to get Liberal-friendly organizations to police alternative media, as well as the Liberals' friends at Google, Twitter and Facebook helping remove critical content and undesirables from the mainstream internet, will ensure most Canadians don't see much of the ugly side of the Liberals.

The latest example of whitewashing bad behaviour of a Liberal was of Toronto Liberal MP and notorious progressive bully Adam Vaughan's latest bozo eruption on Twitter.

Vaughan tweeted out Saturday morning: "So Ford's [sic] gang could get folks upset over hurting Kindergarten students instead of being angry over the damage he's done to University students. Next he will go after young offenders & end 'free school' in detention centresâ€¦instead of playing whack-a-mole; Let's just whack him."

No public figure should be able to call for the whacking (i.e. murder) of any other public figure without round condemnation from all parties, including the individual's own, and the media. But because the Liberals are the Natural Governing Party and the supposed Mr. Nice Guy is their leader, the rules of civility do not apply to them.

Sure, Vaughan would try and backtrack and wriggle out of his despicable tweet by following it up with a pathetic mock apology that included kids playing whack-a-mole with Ford's face photoshopped over the toy moles in an attempt to try and make light of saying they should "just whack him", but this was only after swift backlash from Conservatives had ensued.

A belated, half-hearted apology would come in the evening of the same day, yet the offensive tweet remains up to this day. And when Trudeau was confronted by opposition house leader Candice Bergen he excused the parliamentary secretary's tweet since he made an apology, despite still leaving up the call to "whack" Premier Doug Ford.

If this was another politician without a reputation for being rude and aggressive towards those on the other side of the political aisle this could possibly be passed off as a bad joke, but in Vaughan's case there is a long, bitter history between him and the Fords at Toronto City Hall, not to mention his alleged intimidation of Tory MP Alice Wong. And there was the disgraceful incident in which he thought it appropriate to sit in the front row at Rob Ford's funeral after being sworn enemies with him for years.

The media finally got around to writing stories by Saturday evening about Vaughan's tweet, but they downplayed it. CBC didn't think it relevant to mention which party Vaughan is with, until finally updating the story to include it after being called out for the glaring omission.

Other Liberal MPs, PMO staffers and Trudeau himself continue to make baseless accusations that conservatives are trying to stoke division and fear in the electorate for simply trying to get answers from a government on its out-of-control spending and open border policy.

Trudeau says this is going to be the nastiest elections in a long while, but if that's the case it takes two parties to tango.

"Sunny Ways", as portrayed and interpreted by the pliant mainstream media, doesn't necessarily mean warmth and kindness. A bit odd they would think that since they believe the sun will fry our planet imminently, which would be a more apt metaphor for the current regime's actions consequences for our country. But parsing that metaphor further, the term "Sunny Ways" comes from the parable that the Sun is able to get a man to take off his jacket, besting the Wind's attempts to blow it off, which only makes him hold tighter. So it's the sun's heat that forces the man to take off his jacket.

The Liberals and Trudeau similarly apply heat on their opponents via Twitter and the allied media, who are all too happy to frame Conservatives as out-of-touch bigots. As the Liberals ratchet up the heat in the coming months, expect the paid pipers to describe the piping hot rhetoric from the Liberals as nothing more than harmless, warm rays meant to melt Conservative's frigid hearts.

Photo Credit: CBC News

Written by Graeme C. Gordon

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The last time I saw Paul Dewar was at the Maclean's Parliamentary awards. I arrived late as I was otherwise occupied, but I wanted to drop by anyway to show my support. He had just been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as a dedicated Member of Parliament and a strong Foreign Affairs critic for the New Democrats.

No doubt, the strength and high spirits he showed following the cancer diagnosis played a role in him receiving this award, as he decided to use the time he had left to do what the Dewar family has always been known for: serve his community, this time through a new charity called Youth Action Now, which he established with friends and has since been a success and a fitting legacy.

Paul Dewar was surrounded by well-wishers, politicos of all types looking to show him support and love. A few minutes earlier, Dewar had made a plea to his former colleagues: "Is it not time to take off the armour of our political party and work together as people representing citizens to build a better country for everyone?" he asked.

"Why not welcome and interact with the people from different political parties? Imagine â€” imagine how different it would be if we put our swords down and our shields down for a moment. This is my proposition to you." In the moment, all in the room agreed with him and wanted to tell him that. Most of them would soon forget and move on with the blood sport that is politics.

I waited patiently in a corner of the room, not wanting to barge in while he was surrounded. As he was preparing to leave, he spotted me and smiled. He was visibly tired and ready to go, but he still took time to talk to me. "I saw you across the room. I'm glad you came. How are you?" he asked. "I'm fine, but how are you?" He said he was fine, but didn't seem interested in talking about himself.

"How's the family? What are you up to these days?" That was Paul Dewar in a nutshell. He was genuinely interested in others and certainly didn't want to dwell on his own fate. We spoke a few minutes, shook hands. I wished him well, and he departed, gently, slowly, his son at his side.

A few years earlier, mere weeks after the 2015 election debacle and his own defeat, we had agreed to go for lunch and talk about the future. Paul Dewar had been asked by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair to serve as a Senior Transition Advisor to help re-organize the party. We were both still stunned about the results and processing what it all meant, for the party and for ourselves. There was lots of work to do.

What struck me, however, was what happened once we left Brothers, a newish beer bistro located in the Ottawa Byward Market. As we were chatting and walking away, men and women of Ottawa were stopping by to shake his hands and wish him well.

"Thank you for your service," one young man said. "I am so sorry you lost," an elderly woman told him. "You are a good man. I hope this isn't it for you," interjected another. It was at the same time beautiful and annoying: I couldn't help but notice a certain sheepishness about most of them.

"They are kind, but it feels like these guys didn't vote for you", I told Paul after a while. "It all sounds like buyers' remorse to me," I added, in a snickery fashion.

"They did what they thought was right," he responded, before adding:

"I am okay with that. We must all be."

Photo Credit: Global News

Month: February 2019

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