A tail dragging romp through the swamps of the world
“Our country is a global energy player in a world market, but can no longer operate as individual provinces and territories as we head into that future,” Redford said in a speech at the Shaw Conference Centre.All very well and good, except that what Redford is suggesting is that we all get behind Alberta, it's tar extraction industry, its shitty environmental stewardship and its ability to make tons of money.
“Every Canadian jurisdiction must have control over its own resources and I would never propose any plan that would take away provincial sovereignty over those resources. I think we in Alberta know far too well how important that is to us as a province. But we also know we can’t get our products to market without infrastructure the crosses other provinces.”
Redford’s comments come days after prominent Calgary economist Jack Mintz publicly attacked the idea in a speech, saying it was“highly dangerous” and should be abandoned.Jack Mintz. Where have I heard that name before?
Mintz, who heads the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, said the plan could “backfire on the provinces that jealously guard their constitutional rights over resource development,” the Globe and Mail reported.
Last October, MacKay told CBC Radio's The House the Libyan mission had cost taxpayers less than $50 million.Except that he committed the great sin of omission. He knew the estimates were much higher and he withheld the information - intentionally.
"As of Oct. 13, the figures that I've received have us well below that, somewhere under $50 million," MacKay said.
"And that's the all-up costs of the equipment that we have in the theatre, the transportation to get there, those that have been carrying out this critical mission."
Maj.-Gen. Jon Vance said MacKay did not mislead the public and pointed out senior military leaders referenced the figures publicly during Senate committee hearings.Allow me to speculate for the general.
But he concedes the minister would have known the estimated cost at the time and did not speculate on why MacKay chose to go with the lower figures exclusively.
Six years after the Harper government declared the Arctic to be a new operations area for the Canadian military, the army has struggled to find enough parkas, cold-weather tents, lanterns and heaters to equip forces that take part in its annual summer exercise.
University of Calgary Associate Professor, Rob Huebert, who pays keen interest to Canadian Arctic operations was, well, shocked. (Emphasis mine)
The "critical equipment shortfalls" were so bad last year, the head of the army approved a request by area commanders to buy missing gear themselves, say internal briefing documents.
"The most likely scenarios they need to respond to are a ship going aground and an airliner going down up there. I mean, that can occur any day now, and so to say we don't have enough equipment, even to keep our own troops warm, says a lot about the priority the government places on the Arctic."And then the Mulroney shot.
"Are we back to Mulroney's time period, when it was a lot of talk and no action?" said Huebert.Actually, Mr. Huebert, the current crop of self-adoring Conservatives are much worse. The Mulroney gang didn't parade about in uniforms they hadn't earned or take salutes to which they were not entitled.
The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations.Gets fired for it.
Scores of critics on the site complained that I had not read the dissertations in full before daring to write about them—an absurd standard for a 500-word blog post.Cough.
The Conservative government's list of troubled multi-billion-dollar military procurement projects continues to grow as a plan to obtain a fleet of armed vessels to patrol Canada's Arctic waters has been hit with a three-year delay.
Well, isn't that brilliant? Here's something you probably didn't know: There is no real statement of requirements for these ships because the RCN really didn't want them. Until Harper invented the idea, the RCN had no requirement for an ice-breaking fleet.
The Defence Department had been expecting to take delivery of Canada's first of between six and eight Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships in 2015.
But documents tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday show the timeline has been pushed back to 2018. In addition, the $3.1-billion project is now expected to cost $40 million more than anticipated.
The Harperites talk large. They deliver something completely different. Nothing.Prime Minister Stephen Harper's much-ballyhooed plan to build a naval facility at Nanisivik, Nunavut shrank dramatically last month, when Department of National Defence officials told regulators about big cutbacks to the project."The planned changes result in a significant reduction of the site layout and function plan that was submitted for review in 2011," DND's project manager, Rodney Watson, said in a Feb. 24 letter to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, which is now screening the project.Under DND's new scheme, the Nanisivik naval facility on Baffin Island would become a part-time summer-only fuelling station for Ottawa's proposed fleet of Arctic offshore patrol ships, along with other federal government vessels."The facility will only be operational during the navigable (summer) season. All facilities will be shut down and secured when not in use. On-site support will likely be reduced to an as-needed basis," Watson said.
Why is one of the three CIMS reports downloaded by Andrew Prescott - phone numbers identifying supporters and non-supporters - now missing from CIMS?A simple explanation, one which would pass muster with any one of the tech geeks who hang around our small group, would be appropriate.
[I]gnoring the other 199 ridings that are being investigated, there is the very important point I made at the beginning of the article. Someone with Administrative Rights to the CIMS database blanked out the log records which point to the Poutine List pull. Now I am fairly certain, that no one in their right mind is going to allow people who are under suspicion of being Pierre Poutine or who are even associated the Burke Campaign to be allowed access to the CIMS database in order to prep a copy of the database that is intended to be sent to Elections Canada for this investigation. So it is obvious that we have a person higher up the CPC food chain actively and knowingly attempting to cover up this crime.As Zorpheous makes clear, the only way to delete the records which have apparently gone "missing" is to deliberately overwrite them and that requires someone with Administrator Privileges. In a network that is commonly referred to as a superuser and it's a safe bet that the CIMS database didn't extend that flexibility down to the riding level.
The Harper government is throwing its weight behind a private members' bill that would give police the power to arrest anyone hiding their identity during a riot or unlawful assembly.... but because the offence already exists in the Criminal Code section 351(2) and carries a maximum period of imprisonment of ten years.
Conservative backbencher Blake Richards is proposing penalties of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000 for protesters who wear a mask or disguise.
