The Liberal Party, which has singlehandedly managed to turn a once proud and prosperous nation into a dismal failure economically, politically and morally, may be on the verge of collapse. Unfortunately, we don't know precisely why. There's an investigation going on of political payoffs and kickbacks, and the hearings apparently got some really shocking information. However, the Judge presiding has issued something called a "publication ban" and anyone who discusses it can go to jail. However, since MP's are immune while on the floor, Bloc Quebecqouis may raise a no-confidence motion on Monday.
They have free health care Bill. That is why all the liberals on bigsoccer have moved there, so don't speak ill of that great Country.
Ask this person At first I thought this was a parody, but she seems serious. And she does not seem to have left the country yet, as she keeps talking about visas. Frankly, I do not think Canada wants them. And a Tory government (even in coalition with the Bloc-heads) might force her to move to France.
Parody? I hope my site doesn't read like a parody! We are quite serious, and almost done with the emigration process. We are still living in New York City, but as soon as we get the green light from CIC, will be moving to the Toronto area. Canada and almost all Canadians I have met or emailed with have been extremely welcoming. I'm not sure what makes you say you "don't think Canada wants them". I guess you're just being snide. laura k www.wemovetocanada.blogspot.com
No really, thank YOU. Would you mind taking a few other mind-numbed America haters with you? I can give you some suggestions. Enjoy the donuts.
I'd say that this thread was a big success. It got Ted out of seclusion and hooked a leftie "working for justice" on her way to Canada. I wonder if she's good at cross-checking?
Why is it that anyone who disagrees with you must be mind-numbed? Didn't anyone ever teach you that different people see the world differently? Why is it necessary to insult people who don't fall into lockstep with you? Or perhaps you figured it's ok because I wasn't reading. Not much of a cross-checker, I'm afraid.
I do not think the Bloc will do it. In the last federal election, they received 54 out of Quebec's 75 seats. IIRC, that is their best result. The Tories are dead in Quebec (the Tory ascendency of the mid 1980s was due in large part to the Tories dominating Quebec) and so another election realisticly means that the Liberals will gain seats in Quebec. The Tories do not want a newe election and they (and the Liberals) are about tapped out and need to raise funds. The Bloc though actually has a surplus thanks to the fact that they received more votes than expected (the government funds political parties in part based on their expected vote -- both the Liberals and Tories did worse than expected popular vote wise last time). Unless the Tories have a breakthrough in Ontario, the result of a no confidence motion will be a Liberal majority government, sponsorship scandl or not.
Listen bitch, everyone was saluting your move to the great wasteland known as Canada, or Quebec, or whatever they're calling it now. So get of your high horse, no one was being rude to you. Slut. Your mother. STFU No but your husband is a cross-dresser. Pansy belongs in Canada. YOU KILLED MY POPE.
"Everyone" was not saluting my move. One person did. I thanked him. "Would you mind taking a few other mind-numbed America haters with you? I can give you some suggestions." is not a salute. I responded to it. ++++ Listen bitch... Slut.... STFU My, what a friendly place this is. your husband is a cross-dresser. Pansy belongs in Canada. And so mature, too. See you guys. It's been real.
Let's be nice to the newbie! In any event, if you wish to leave, please go ahead. The US is not a prison. We are not Cuba or North Korea. You are not required to go off on a raft hoping to get to Florida (and losing your government provided health care in the process) or to try and sneak into Manchuria. If you can find a country willing to take you, go. Good luck. As in the great old song: "Farewell, my dear, and amen. Here's hoping that we'll meet now and then." In any event, if you are going to Canada, please take Celine Dion with you. And Alanis Moressitte too. She just became a US citizen and I wonder who is doing background checks these days. I mean, her first album was great, but everything since then has stank.
Her problem she is what my wife calls an "Angry Woman Singer"TM and there are now so many, you can hardly tell them apart. Gwen Steffani probably is the best at separating herself from that group, mostly because she is not so much angry but sad.
AH, see, whew! You almost caught me in your clever web of words. Which would come by way of saying that I did not suggest that "anyone who disagrees" with me "must be mind numbed." I would challenge you to prove otherwise. Rather, I implied that YOU are mind-numbed, based on a perusal of your website, and I asked if you would take OTHER mind-numbed people with you to Canada. Very good try though. Classical theory teaches us that, in fact, EVERYONE sees the world differently. It's just that some of them, like for instance YOU, are completely wrong. Some of the smartest people I know disgaree with me. I don't insult them. I insulted YOU. You know, sort of the way YOU insult, mock, berate and belittle everyone whose opinions you disrespect on your little website. Fact is, your "Political Opinion" as expressed on your little corner of Cyberspace, seems to consist of equal parts of gross distortions, leftist mythology and outright lies. It has neither intellectual depth nor basis in fact. Again, toots, none of this is argument, or even particularly original. I'm frightfully sorry, but I have no idea whatever what this is a reference to. But I'm sure you never get called for Icing, so it's OK with me. So anyway, would you do me a favor and tell me, in 50 words or less, why you are leaving for the Socialist Paradise to our North? Inquiring minds want to know. And don't mind "Microwave" - it's just his way of flirting with you.
A bit of a misunderstanding here. I was not saluting you. That would require respect. I only applaud you out of happiness and pleasure of your decision. In your website you state: I find this quite comical since this country was "far right" long before the ACLU and European policies infiltrated it. Yes believe it or not, for most of this country's history, we embraced God, morality and a strong military (I'm sure the word God offends you). You say in your website that we are bullies to the rest of the world. Name one poor, innocent country that we have picked on. Or are we the world's police and protector that most countries turn to in time of need? I applaud you for doing what most of the other lefties would not dare do. At least you've got the guts to fool-heartedly leave the best country in the world, unlike the liberal voices in Hollywood that supposedly were leaving after the last two presidential elections (Alec Baldwin comes to mind. Humm...not sure why he hasn't left yet). Let us know how that national health care system works out. Let us know about how many times you come to the states to see a qualified MD. Oh, and don't get upset with your national leaders up there when they start sucking up to GWB to ensure that your country will be protected. It's inevitable. Bullies are bad, but body guards are good. Good luck!
When I visited Toronto, I found it to be quite Capitalist. A conservative newspaper delivered to my door (http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/index.html). A large financial district. Tourist sites that cost money instead of being paid for by the government and taxes. Just remember, you get to deal with new issues up there....they don't go away, they just change. Like for example, the right to have your child taught in English....which apparently was taken away 28 years ago. If you have to move to Montreal or Quebec...good luck getting them taught in English. Some parallels could be drawn to some issue we have here.
While we're waiting (likely in vain) for some more love from Ted's new friend laura k, perhaps we can benefit from learning more, courtesy of our freind and laura's soon-to-be countryman Mark Steyn, on the ideological purity and high moral principles behind Canada's refusal to support Democracy in Iraq: Monday, 14 February 2005 Mark Steyn I always love the bit on the big international news story where they try to find the Canadian angle. A couple of months back, every time I switched on The National, there seemed to be no news at all and Peter Mansbridge was in the middle of some 133-part series of reports on “Canadians making a difference in the world,” which at least three nights a week seemed to be an “encore presentation” of the same worthy soft-focus featurette about some guy helping with an irrigation project in Sudan. Once upon a time, it didn’t seem such an effort to find “Canadians making a difference in the world”--D-Day, say, or even the early years of Pearsonian peacekeeping. But it’s a stretch nowadays. In the maple-free zone of the Afghan campaign in fall 2001, several desperate media outlets were driven to rhapsodizing over my old chum from Fleet Street days, Alex Renton, spokesman for the international aid agency Oxfam--or to give him his full honorific, as the Sun chain’s Greg Weston liked to put it, “the Toronto-born spokesman for the international aid agency Oxfam.” The Toronto-born Alex spent his formative years at Eton--not Eton, Ontario, the agreeable municipality a scenic one-day drive from Sault Ste. Marie, but Eton College, the swanky boys’ school for Brit toffs. His father is Lord Renton, a cabinet minister under Mrs. Thatcher. I’m all for celebrating the rich diversity of the Canadian mosaic, but we haven’t had a Canuck like this since Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, checked out of Rideau Hall. Still, any oasis in a desert. When I made a couple of cracks about Alex being the designated Billy Bishop of the new world war, I got a huffy e-mail from the Hindu Kush protesting that it wasn’t his fault the likes of Greg Weston had decided to anoint him as the Great White Hope of Canadian Global Relevance. And yet, throughout this period, there has indeed been a Canadian making a difference in the world-and if The National wanted to do a 133-part special report on him, for once they’d have enough material. Most of us know Paul Desmarais as the . . . well, let’s hold it there: most Canadians don’t know Paul Desmarais at all. You could stop the first thousand people walking down Yonge Street and I’ll bet no one would know who he is. But the few who do know him know him as the kingmaker behind Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin. Jean Chrétien’s daughter is married to Paul Desmarais’s son. Paul Martin was an employee of M. Desmarais’s Power Corp., and his Canada Steamship Lines was originally a subsidiary of Power Corp. that M. Desmarais put Mr. Martin in charge of. In other words, Paul Martin’s public identity--successful self-made businessman, not just a career pol, knows how to meet payroll, etc.--is entirely derived from the patronage of M. Desmarais. That in itself is a remarkable achievement. Imagine if Jenna Bush married the chairman of Halliburton’s son, and then George W. Bush was succeeded by a president who’d been an employee of Halliburton: Michael Moore’s next documentary would be buried under wall-to-wall Oscars and Palmes d’Or. But M. Desmarais has managed to turn Ottawa into a company town without anyone being aware of the company. We’re a G8 economy; it would be reasonable to expect a prominent British or American businessman to number prominent political figures among his friends, but to have brought so many of them into his company and even family would surely excite some comment. Power Corp.’s other alumni range from Quebec premiers to Canada’s most prominent international diplomat, Maurice Strong. In fairness, you don’t have to work for M. Desmarais to reach the top of the greasy pole-Kim Campbell managed it, for about a week and a half. But this is just the hicksville stuff. What’s really impressive is that, when one considers the epic events of the last three years, the truly Canadian content is not Toronto-born aid spokespersons, but the ubiquitous presence of M. Desmarais. During the Iraq war, for example, I mentioned en passant that Power Corp. is the biggest shareholder in TotalFinaElf, the western corporation closest to Saddam Hussein (it has since changed its name to the Total Group). Total had secured development rights to 25 per cent of Iraq’s oil reserves, a transformative deal that would catapult the company from a second-rank player into the big leagues with Exxon and British Petroleum. For a year, the antiwar crowd had told us it was “all about oil”--that the only reason Iraq was being “liberated” was so Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the rest of the gang could annex in perpetuity the second biggest oil reserves in the world. But, if it was all about oil, then the fact--fact--is that the only Western leader with a direct stake in the issue was not the Texas oilpatch stooge in Washington, but Jean Chrétien: his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren stood to be massively enriched by the Total-Saddam agreement. It depended on two factors: Saddam remaining in power, and the feeble UN sanctions being either weakened into meaninglessness or quietly dropped. M. Chrétien may have refused to join the Iraq war on “principle,” but fortunately his principles happened to coincide with the business interests of both TotalFinaElf and the Baath party. As I said, I mentioned this curious footnote at the time. Stockwell Day picked up on it. The CBC, CTV, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s and all the rest steered clear. A bland perfunctory 200-word CP story reporting M. Desmarais’s denial--“Power Financial Head Refutes Saddam Link”--was carried by far more media outlets than had bothered going anywhere near Day’s original remarks. Well, okay. Let’s take M. Desmarais’s word for it. But, getting on for two years later, we’re in the middle of the UN Oil-for-Fraud investigation, the all-time biggest scam, bigger than Enron and Worldcom and all the rest added together. And whaddaya know? The bank that handled all the money from the program turns out to be BNP Paribas, which tends to get designated by Associated Press and co. as a “French bank” but is, as it happens, controlled by one of M. Desmarais’s holding companies. That alone should cause even the droopiest bloodhound to pick up a scent: the UN’s banker for its Iraqi “humanitarian” program turns out to be (to all intents) Saddam’s favourite oilman. I’m not a conspiracy-minded guy, and, if I were, I’d look for a sinister global organization with a less obvious name. If “Power Corp.” was the moniker given to the sinister front operation for the latest Bond villain, critics would bemoan how crass the 007 franchise had become. And a “Power Corp.” that controlled the “Total Group” would have them hooting with derision. But it’s nevertheless the case that M. Desmarais’s bank functioned as the cashier for Saddam’s gaming of the global-compassion crowd: if a company agreed to sell Iraq some children’s medicine for $100 million, Iraq would invoice BNP Paribas for $110 million, pay the supplier and divert the skim-off into other areas. Everyone knew this was happening. It seems impossible, even with the minimal auditing, that BNP Paribas did not. So here is a Canadian “making a difference in the world.” Suppose Conrad Black controlled a bank that had enriched a brutal dictator with a fortune intended to go to starving children, and that he also had an oil company that had cooked up an arrangement to make billions from the same dictator’s oil resources. Think Maude Barlow and the CBC might show an interest? But Paul Desmarais’s no-publicity clause is apparently enshrined in the Charter of Rights. So on it goes. Only the other week, M. Desmarais was hosting at his home in Quebec Nicholas Sarkozy, very likely the next president of France. Even after they’d become heads of government, neither Bush nor Blair could be bothered swinging by Ottawa to look in on Chrétien; not for years. But an invitation from M. Desmarais, and France’s coming man can’t wait to hop on the plane. M. Desmarais’s spectacular rise from an obscure Quebec bus company operator to an obscure global colossus is an amazing story. Instead of struggling to find a local angle on the international scene, why doesn’t the CBC just start from the basic premise that whatever the subject--Iraq, oil-for-food, the European Union--somewhere at the heart of it will be the world’s least famous Canadian. Instead, not a whisper. The good news is it’s not because Robert Rabinovitch, president of the CBC, is another discreet Power Corp. alumnus. He’s not. Rabinovitch’s close buddy, John Rae, who ran Chrétien’s campaigns, is. And so’s Rabinovitch’s old colleague Joel Bell, who was Trudeau’s chief economic adviser. And so’s Rabinovitch’s old boss, Senator Michael Pitfield. And so’s . . . P.S. If, by the time of publication, Power Corp. has bought the Western Standard, please disregard all of the above.
Maybe it is more serious than I realized. The Canadian government has banned publication of the report. However, a couple of US blogs got hold of the report, and have been publishing excerpts. Canadian websites that link to these excerpts have been threated by the government, including with arrest. One of the blog (Captian's Quarters) reports a huge spike in traffic, much of it from Canada. Here is one scenario. The Tories do not want to be seen as purposefully taking down the government. So they will bide time and see if the BQ and/or NDP push for no confidence motion. If the BQ especially pushes a motion (and the NDP or a part of it joins in), the Tories then push it ovre th etop, and claim it really was the BQ/NDP. (The Tories and NDP cannot do it alone, but the Tories can do it with BQ help.) To form a majority, the Tories need 56 seats. The Tories have pretty much swept their regional Western base, and probably could pick up 6 or 6 seats total in BC and Manitoba. Maybe they could pick up 1 or 2 seats in the Maritimes, especially if some of the Red Tories return home. That means they would need to pick up a bunch of seats in Ontario. Doable, but I think unlikely to get majority status (I doubt they could pick up a seat in Quebec). That means the possibility of a Tory minority government, maybe with silent BQ support. While that seems strange, they might be able to get the BQ to support an American style federalism platform.
For those interested - including laura k, who seems determined to move to this den of corruption, theft and immorality - The Captains Quarters blog has the whole sordid tale. Interestingly, the Canadian government has taken notice of his efforts and are making noises about prosecuting him. It presents an interesting Internet case: can you be prosecuted for something you wrote in a country where it was legal but was read in a country where it wasn't? As for the immediate futre, this mess is going to make it impossible for the Liberals to govern, IMO. They've been caught funneling taxpayers money through a contracotr so it can be routed directly back to the Liberal party's campaign warchest. laura k would probably tell you that the US has a corrupt election process. Apparently though, Canadas is worse. Go figure. I think there's a strong possibility for a Tory minority government along with BQ before June.
The statement that Liberals would not be able to govern because of funneling money through a contractor and back to the party is a serious underestimation. This is standard level corruption for European governments, especially France and Germany, and these governments persist without much trouble. An occassional stink might erupt, but changes in party occur with changes in thought with voters. The voters will vote in the group of corrupt politicians that will the keep the other group of corrupt politicans that they don't agree with from doing something they don't like.
For a long time the govenor of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards, admitted he lied to the people of LA and had been under many investigations with ties to the mafia. The mostly democratic residents kept re-electing him. They didn't care because they felt he did a lot of good for LA. He was eventually nabbed by the FBI, convicted and I believe is in the fed prison now.
Courtesy of Professor Reynolds (I got grief last time for calling him "Glenn") is a list of links to info. The first one is suggesting that the Liberals are panicking and will dissolve the government and call for immediate elections to try and get one in before the publication ban is broken or is lifted. Also, apparently the BQ is considering using the immunity of the floor in Parliament to air it all out of National TV. The courts can't touch them if they do. http://myaisling.blogspot.com/2005/04/very-long-list-of-links-on-adscam.html I'm just wondering how long a "publication ban" - if anyone was really dumb enough to try it - would last in the US. Five minutes? Ten?