Wooooot!

Great game Bombers! All the way to the Grey Cup, for Stegall and all of Winnipeg!

Reality Check

There is no way Canada could of made Kyoto, and that is largely due to the Liberals.

What the party should be doing is attacking Harper on his inaction to provide anything to replace it. 20 months in office, no long-term plan set in place.

Speech from the Throne: My Thoughts

Todays speech from the throne was many things.

Boring, directionless, vague. Not a whole lot of change. A vast majority of the policies were taken from Liberals as the Conservatives try to hide their reform ideas in the centre-right.

Stephane Dion has one of two options: Have all of his MPs vote against the speech; or be the only Liberal to show tomorrow and vote against it. The latter option would show that the Liberals oppose the speech while not plunging the nation into an election. It is quite clear that, from a general public perspective, an election is not wanted. Personally, an election sounds better than the prospect of continuing drama and suspense that is destined to occur if one is not called.

Its seems the Bloc is under the thought that if the speech is passed, they will support the most plausible next vote of confidence, the anti-crime legislation, and probably most others until the budget. This does give some hope to Mr.Dion if he can pull through this week.

More of my opinions in the coming days, especially with Stephane Dion announcing his intentions tomorrow.

Election time?

Sign that summer is officially over: Election Speculation

Now us Canadian bloggers have something good to discuss again. The upcoming speech from the throne on Tuesday and the following vote on Thursday are not going to cause the election. It's the fact that Harper plans on making each of his priorities from the speech a vote of confidence that will, ultimately, bring Parliament to a halt.

This does give a lifeline to Stephane Dion and the other opposition party leaders. If they can unite on an issue that would work against Harper, such as legislation on Afghanistan or the environment, they will clearly show where they differ on such important topics. This will send a very important message to the public on one particular policy. If this card is played right, it could lead to a Liberal win.

Al Gore's Propaganda Film

A British judge has decreed that students must have disclosed to them the following truths, when being shown Al Gore's movie which essentially won him a Nobel prize. He is requiring 11 of Al Gore’s lies to be exposed to the children before they see the movie.

"In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children."

1. The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
2. The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
3. The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
4. The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
5. The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
6. The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
7. The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
8. The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
9. The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
10. The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
11. The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

(source)

Does Al Gore deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for this?

Happy New Year and Predictions for 2007

Happy New Year to all Canadians and Liberals! 2006 has been a year of necessary change that will improve Canada as a country.

2007 will be a year of hope for us Liberals. We must stand united against this Conservative government with its hidden agenda.

I believe in 2007 we will see:

More Conservative talk of economic and financial stability that is simply riding the coat tails of years of Liberal budgets.
An Environmental plan that will benefit none.
The Conservatives try to spin their performance so it seems like they actually do what is right for Canadians.
And a Liberal government.

Only, if we actually campaign, and don't screw up like we did last time.

We must learn from our mistakes, so we can rebuild our Canada.

"Super Weekend" Analysis

With nearly a month passed since the delegate elections happened, I want to examine what happened. To start, the delegate results are as follows (with ex-officio):

Ignatieff: 1,471 (28.2%)
Rae: 947 (18.2%)
Kennedy: 825 (15.8%)
Dion:784 (15%)
Dryden: 231 (4.4%)
Volpe: 218 (4.2%)
Brison: 185 (3.6%)
Martha Hall Findlay: 41 (0.8%)

As we can see, the top two candidates are among the worst people to lead the party. How idiotic is it that one of the top contenders would be the leader of a party who only joined the party not even a year ago. Am I the only one that finds something wrong with this? Ignatieff is just totally wrong and unliberal on so many topics. I can only hope that the delegates for the candidates begin supporting Dion with support leaving Rae and Ignatieff.

The actual voting was an embaressment. It took over a week to get atleast two thirds of the results available to the general public. The party needs to modernize it's voting system.

Why Ignatieff is bad for the Liberal Party

It has come as a suprise to me that Michael Ignatieff has been able to gain so much support within the party. For a man that has relatively nothing at all to do with the Liberal party for the last three decades, why is he qualified to lead it? His stance on many issues would give a blurred choice between the parties during an election. He is for the continuation for the Afghanistan mission which is heavily favored by the Conservatives. Potential anti-war or people simply against this mission would have no choice but to vote NDP.

What the Liberal party needs is a strong leader that has the experience and ideas to make us Canada's government. Ignatieff is not the person to do this. Already he has shown that he cannot stand against minor attacks from other Liberals during debates and the fact he is already making apologies for things he has said is a sign that he should not lead. The Liberals have enough scandals in our past, and we don't need a new leader coming in with any.

A Liberal party run by Michael Ignatieff is not a party that will be able to create a majority government. Electing him as leader will be handing that position to the Conservatives.

Franklin Graham in Winnipeg

The recent arrival of Franklin Graham in my hometown of Winnipeg has got me interested. The biggest newspaper in Manitoba did an interview with Mr.Graham in which he called Hinduism a Satanist religion. I'm all for freedom of speech, but sometimes people take it a bit too far. Mr.Graham has every right to practice his religion and so does everyone else. When you gain an ethnocentric view of your religion, your going to end up looking like an idiot. Mr.Graham should perhaps consider why he must condemn all other religions besides Christianity and adopt a more welcoming point of view. For someone with so much influence, he could do much more with a better attitude.

Immigration: An issue that needs attention

Immigration. Such a vital part of Canada is not getting the attention it deserves. One of Canada's Government's top priorities should be having a much more comprehensive Immigration strategy. Often, fully qualified immigrants with MDs and BAs are not recognized in Canada. When we have a shortage of doctors in many rural areas, why are these people overlooked? Anybody that has taken schooling in medicine for a dozen years can write a basic prescription no matter where they come from. All of the parties need to make this a central goal. Since so many Canadians were at one time immigrants and this entire country is basically built around it, we need a far better system.