Toronto Star, National Newswatch Run with Liberal Spin

If you go to the National Newswatch website today, they have an unflattering picture of Prime Minister Harper next to an evil looking Richard Nixon shot. They link to an article from the Toronto Star. Here's the first paragraph:

OTTAWA–In a move described as "Nixonian," Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested he would release potentially damaging videotapes of Michael Ignatieff after the Liberal leader called on Harper to fire Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

Who described it as Nixonian?

Ignatieff described the comment as the "most Nixonian" of Harper's many remarks to him. "Every day that goes by, he's more like Richard Nixon," Ignatieff told reporters.

Good grief. Why not just go straight to the Liberal Party website for the news?

I like how they add this nugget, to help us conjure up memories of the Nixon era:

While U.S. president, Nixon installed secret audio recording systems in the Oval Office, his cabinet room and at Camp David and surreptitiously recorded hundreds of conversations from February 1971 through July 1973.

Of course, it doesn't say that nobody is accusing Harper of releasing a bugged recording of Ignatieff. Way down in the article it explains that Harper meant there are many speeches and public appearances that Iggy made over the years, and that there is probably a few things he said that would be embarrassing.

They imply this is paranoid and ruthless of Harper. Hmmmm... Remember back in the Martin era, the Liberals quoted over and over an excerpt from a Harper speech in New York, years before when he said Canada is like a northern European welfare state? I guess it's ok if the Liberals dig up this stuff.

When you think of it, isn't Paul Martin more Nixonian? Bitter battles before getting the big job, that made him thin skinned and paranoid? Mysteriously became wealthy when not in office?

Nanny Scandal With Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla

I find these accusations fascinating and tend to believe the poor nannies. The Toronto Star chronicles the abuse in this expose:

Fast-rising Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla has become entangled in the nanny trap, with allegations two nannies hired to care for her mother were illegally employed and then mistreated.

The nannies also allege Dhalla improperly seized their passports and family members forced them to do non-nanny jobs such as washing cars, shining shoes and cleaning family-owned chiropractic clinics.

(...)

Ruby Dhalla vehemently denied any mistreatment of the nannies. "I've never held
on to anybody's passport," Dhalla said." I've never raised my voice to anyone."

Gordo, who said she was owed money after she quit, claims Ruby Dhalla called and said she would pay if the nanny signed a letter saying she was well treated and properly paid. Gordo refused. Later, Gordo said she met Dhalla's mother, Tavinder, at a McDonald's and was handed $400 cash.

In the interview, Ruby Dhalla said nannies at the home work for her family, not her.

She said she spends four days a week in Ottawa. Gordo and Tongson said Dhalla arrived at the home every Thursday and left for Ottawa on Monday. They said she occupies the biggest suite in the four-bedroom house.

Dhalla said all queries should be directed to her brother.

It sounds like Dhalla's family expected an old country servant, and used threats and intimidation on these women to get their way. Obviously, it was so bad all three of the women quit in a short time period, despite the consequences. The fact that Dhalla seems to be shifting the blame onto her family in the part I quoted, makes me think she knows that she has done wrong.

UPDATE: The boss is not happy.

Statement by Michael Ignatieff

This morning I accepted Ruby Dhalla's resignation as Youth & Multiculturalism Critic. Ms. Dhalla will continue to serve as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Brampton-Springdale. I look forward to a determination of the facts regarding her family's experience with live-in caregivers.

Beeston Disingenuous

Former Blue Jays president is "shocked' at allegations that Roger Clemens took steroids when he was with the team. New dirt being dished on Clemens

Blue Jays interim CEO Paul Beeston, who was president of the club at the time, remembers Clemens only as "a tremendous person" and says he had no inkling of possible steroid use.

Asked yesterday if he was shocked, Beeston replied, "Yeah, to be honest with you."

The guy was 10-13 in 1996, his last year in Boston. He was washed up. (His last three seasons for the Sox were sluggish with a 39-40 record.) I remember thinking the Jays got suckered for signing him, based on his past glories. He suddenly turns it around. At 34 and 35 wins two consecutive Cy Young awards. (Overall record 41-13) And Beeston is shocked that he was taking performance enhancing drugs. Please.

Galloway Ruling Feeding Conspiracies

As I have written, barring George Galloway from entering Canada is going to feed conspiracy theorists.

I said: "Next thing you know we are going to be hearing that the Free Masons secretly ordered [Galloway's speaking engagements] stopped."

Notorious leftist Linda McQuiag of the Toronto Star has stepped up: (No Free Masons though)

Indeed, it seems likely Israel had a hand in the decision to ban Galloway from Canada. In March 2008, the Harper government signed a broad-ranging security pact with Israel. The pact, which has received scant attention in Canada's Parliament or media, established close Canada-Israeli co-operation in "border management and security," under a management committee comprised of Canada's deputy minister of public safety and Israel's director general of public security.

So was the decision to ban Galloway not only absurd and anti-democratic, but also influenced by a foreign government?

Canadian government spokesperson Alykhan Velshi denied this yesterday. But what exactly does this secretive management committee do, and how might it affect Canada's Muslim and Arab populations?

via Jonathan Kay at the National Post

Kandahar on English Bay

I was chatting with a few people last night about all the gangland shootings in Vancouver, meanwhile outside the guns were blazing:

Vancouver — Gunfire across Metro Vancouver Tuesday night has left two dead, two injured and one home riddled with bullets following four separate incidents stretching from Vancouver to Burnaby and Surrey.

(...)

The incident comes as Greater Vancouver has recorded almost two dozen shootings in recent weeks, nine of them fatal, ...

Does anybody know where I can pick up a flack jacket on the cheap?

UPDATE: The Toronto Star reports that the violence in Vancouver is a spill over from the Mexican Drug Wars.

Almost all cocaine in Canada comes via Mexico, the hub for South American producers. Canadian-based organized crime groups buy the drug either directly from the cartels in Mexico, or from middlemen in Los Angeles and other American cities.

When the supply of cocaine is hampered by crackdowns and the price goes up, says Fogarty, competition for the remaining kilos gets tense in Canada. The bigger players with good links to the south prevail, leaving the smaller ones scrambling.

"People are running around trying to find other sources of cocaine. The price goes up and the guns come out," said Fogarty.

UPDATE II: CBC

The shooting followed the arrest of several people over the weekend with links to the Lower Mainland's notorious UN gang, which police allege is engaged in a violent tuff war with rival gangs for control of the region's illegal drug trade.

Star Begins "Save the CBC" Propaganda Campaign

I would laugh at this solemn Star report about the CBC, but it will probably work:

The CBC is facing major cost-saving measures "that would change the very nature of our service to Canadians" as it copes with its deepening financial crisis, the national broadcaster's president said yesterday.

(...)

"More American programs on CBC-TV and commercials on CBC Radio won't help to define it as Canada's national public broadcaster," ACTRA's Waddell told the Star.

Oh! The horror! The horror! American programs! More commercials! How can we define our Canadianess?

(Slap!) Get a hold or yourselves. If Air Farce, Little Mosque on the Prairie and the Beachcombers are the glue that holds this country together we're in a lot of trouble. Isn't that a little embarrassing? These are lousy shows folks.

(I'm still searching for that person, under the age of 65 who genuinely thinks Air Farce was funny. But I digress.)

I watch some of the news programs, but they can compete with everybody else.

It's hilarious that the American programs will make it more profitable. You know, because more people will watch it.

I don't get how government funding for the CBC gets popular support. They certainly don't have a popular viewership, except for hockey.

Hat tip: Strack Attack who rants:

"I HATE the fact all these f*ckers, CBC, Actor's Union, etc... not only take our tax dollars for granted but they demand it."

UPDATE: The New York Times reports that CanWest is pretty much bust.

Fawning Headline of the Day

Obama makes Americans of us all

Oh please! From the Toronto Star no less.

Hat tip: Strack Attack

Politically Correct Speak: Women's Pay Equity

Just what the heck is "Pay Equity" for women? I hear this all the time. The Liberal and NDP benches are always claiming Harper and the Conservatives are setting back women's pay equity issues. I ran across this in a Toronto Star article today:

In this case, the Conservative attack on pay equity – the idea that men and women should be paid equally for work of equal value – provides the most telling example. Bill C-10 would end the right of federal civil servants to take pay equity complaints to the federal human rights commission. Instead, such issues would have to be dealt with as part of the normal bargaining process between union and management.

And in determining whether wage rates for men and women were fair, any arbitrator would have to take "market forces" into account.

The problem with this is twofold. First, as a federal task force wrote five years ago, collective bargaining involves tradeoffs. But a woman's constitutionally protected right to be paid fairly is hardly something that should be traded away for an extra coffee break.

Equally important is the reference to market forces. Toronto lawyer Mary Cornish points out that pay equity was designed specifically to rectify a failure in the market that permitted systemic wage discrimination against women. To turn around and subordinate equity to this same market is to negate the entire exercise.

She notes that when former Ontario premier Mike Harris made a similar attack on provincial pay equity, the courts slapped him down.

I wish they could provide specific examples of where this inequity takes place? I don't know what they mean. As far as I can tell some number cruncher came up with the stat that for average salaries, women's are 70% of men's. There are so many factors that go into that, it's meaningless to cite it. I'm sure if they did stats they could find out left handers make or less than right handers. But still they are trying silly social engineering, to bring up women's numbers. It's a fake issue. I've never met a woman who has felt they make less because they are female. There's no secret cabal of evil white men who decide that women will make less than men.

Why are we wasting time with this?

Liberals Dust Off "Hidden Agenda" Criticism Again

You can tell Iggy has hired Chretien era communications people as he uses the same doomsday accusations against the Conservatives:

"The federal government is weakened, the country becomes more regionalized. It becomes a more unjust and more unequal society bit by bit. This is (the conservatives') long-term strategic plan," he said.

Harper has been Prime Minister for three years, and people can see for themselves that it hasn't turned into a fascist dictatorship. They need new talking points, they are plain out of ideas.

Bizarre: Reading an Anti-Bailout Piece in the Toronto Star

The Toronto Star picks up David Ignatius' syndicated column on the subject of bailouts. Though he goes a little wobbly at the end, I was surprised to read this: (here)

The first precept would be that bad behaviour brings a rescue. If Wall Street investment banks can get away with it, why not auto companies? And if auto companies, why not the guy who bought a house he couldn't afford, or who maxed out his credit cards without a hope of repaying the debt? What the heck? We're all living in bailout nation. As a prominent foreign investor observes: "In America, loans have gone from `something to be repaid' to `something to be refinanced.'"

I shudder to think about a world where it's assumed that people will walk away from bad debts and get away with it. The returns to capital, let alone hard work, would be puny.

A second course, and this seems more likely, is that the bailout that's now in place won't work...

Obama tax cuts and a Star piece that trumpets individual responsibility. What a strange news day.