Politics in 2014

[a_majoor]

The real test is to get him off script and see what happens. My money is something like his comments on China will pop out....

OTOH most of the media will probably be more than willing to throw softballs and not do followup questions to make sure that does not happen.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Brian Jean, Conservative MP for Fort McMurray – Athabasca has just announced his resignation citing being "needed more right here at home in Fort McMurray,” as his reason.

No pundits are guessing as to why ... yet.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Jean Chrétien is 80 years old today. He shares his birthday with Sir John A MacDonald.
I disliked M. Chrétien's politics and most of his policies, and I still think there is a cloud of criminality hanging over him ... but all that being said I most sincerely wish him a Happy Birthday  :cheers:  and many more to come.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Toronto Sun is an article that might point to a good political issue for 2014, corrupt aboriginals and outsiders trying to derail Canada's economic engine of growth, the energy sector:

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/01/17/first-nations-chief-received-55000-from-tides-foundation

First Nations chief received $55,000 from Tides Foundation

BY EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

FIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2014

A left-wing lobby group in San Francisco wired $55,000 to the bank account of an Indian chief in Northern Alberta, paying him to oppose the oilsands.

And sure enough, that chief – Allan Adam, from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation – earned his money. Last weekend, he flew to Toronto to sit on a stage next to Neil Young, the folk singer who was in town to demonize Canada’s oil industry.

Now, $55,000 might sound like a lot of money to pay, just to rent a politician for a day if all the chief did for his money was to appear on stage in Toronto beside Neil Young. But to the Tides Foundation, it’s well worth it. Think of Adam as an actor, hired to play a part in an elaborate theatrical production.

Neil Young had his role: he’s the American celebrity who can draw crowds of fawning Baby Boomer journalists. But at the end of the day, he’s just another millionaire celebrity. When he talks about the oilsands, he quickly reveals himself as a low-information know-nothing.

Adam brings what Young can’t: authenticity. Young likes to wear an Indian-style leather vest, but Adam really is an Indian, and he really lives near the oilsands.

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam looks on before
musician Neil Young's "Honor The Treaties" concert series at the Centennial
Concert Hall in Winnipeg, Manitoba, January 16, 2014.
(REUTERS/Trevor Hagan)

Adam didn’t do a lot of talking in Toronto. He was more of a prop than an actor. See, the Tides Foundation is from San Francisco. And Neil Young lives on a 1,500-acre estate near San Francisco. Without Adam, this would have just been some California millionaires coming up here to boss Canadians around. That’s why they had to hire Adam, to aboriginalize their attack on Canada. It was political sleight of hand, to distract from the fact that this was a foreign assault on Canadian jobs.

Tides could have hired an actual actor, like maybe Lorne Cardinal, who played the Aboriginal policeman in the comedy series Corner Gas. But they didn’t hire an actor. They hired an elected public official. That’s the problem.

Adam’s official title is “chief.” But it’s not a religious or cultural title. Under the Indian Act, that’s just the legal title given to the elected mayor of an Indian Band.

The Tides Foundation put $55,000 into the bank account of a mayor to get him to take a particular political position. Depending on what Tides was getting the Chief to do, the payment might well have been a bribe. But we won't know, because no one is talking about the $55,000 payment.

How is it acceptable that a foreign lobby group can simply deposit cash into a bank account of a Canadian politician? Who else is being paid cash to oppose the oilsands?

This fact almost escaped detection. It was buried in the Tides Foundation’s 138-page filing with the IRS, who only disclosed it to get a tax break. Even then, it was shrouded in secrecy.

The money was paid to a numbered company, 850450 Alberta Ltd. Only a search of Alberta’s corporate registry revealed that 850450 Alberta Ltd. was owned by another company, called Acden Group Ltd., that had changed its name twice in the past four years. Adam and other band politicians were directors and shareholders, in trust for the band.

The payment was well-hidden – and Adam certainly didn’t disclose it when he was on stage with Young.

The same IRS disclosure shows Tides made 25 different payments to Canadian anti-oilsands activists in a single year, totaling well over a million dollars. And that’s just one U.S. lobby group. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund out of New York, spends $7 million a year in Canada, with an explicit campaign strategy of fomenting Aboriginal unrest, through protests and lawsuits.

If a foreign oil company – say, ExxonMobil – was depositing secret payments in the bank accounts of MPs, it would be a scandal. Those MPs would face an RCMP investigation, Exxon would likely be charged with bribery, and the media on both sides of the border would have a field day.

Yet none of those things will likely happen with Adam.

Because the Tides Foundation knows that the Canadian media and even the police are cowards when it comes to Aboriginal politicians. They don’t dare hold them to account, for fear of being called racist. If you doubt this, look at the continued success of Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat’s chief.

Tides got its money’s worth.

Ezra Levant, being Ezra levant, is hyperbolic ... but he's also right. This is a "foreign assault on Canadian jobs," a foreign assault on Canadian productivity, and a foreign assault on Canadian sovereignty, made worse by buying the political services of an elected official which ought to be a crime.

Now, the notion that the Tides Foundation is corrupting our officials for its own nefarious purposes needs to be "dressed up" a bit, less Ezra Levant and more, say, Jim Prentice, but it ought to resonate with a Canadian Conservative "base" that is still shocked and angry about the Senate Scandal and with some of those "undecideds" who make up the 10% Stephen Harper needs for another majority in 2015.

 

[George Wallace]

Corrupt Aboriginal Chiefs is not new.  The Chiefs in the Reserves around CFB Gagetown and outside of Fredericton have been found to be corrupt over three decades ago.  We have witnessed the corruption in Northern Ontario with Chief Spence.  These types tarnish the image of all the Chiefs who have lead their Bands to prosperity without the influences of corruption from outside.

 

[ballz]

Having lived 7 years in Fort Mac, this article has popped up on my FB news feed a few times.

I can't verify it, but everyone is also saying that the band in question also owns a company which has a janitorial contract with one of the oil sands companies.  :not-again:

 

[a_majoor]

Traction. Instapundit has posted the article today and given Glenn Reynolds "viewership", the story will now go viral and international:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/182729/#respond

Best comment so far:

Fred Z January 19, 2014

U. S Attorney
Federal Courthouse
450 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
via Fax: 415- 436-7234

I write to report the possibility of a breach of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 by the Tides Foundation of P.O. Box 29198, San Francisco, CA 94129-0198, and its various employees, agents, officers and directors.

In particular, they have apparently bribed an elected Canadian official, and conspired to do so, as set out in the newspaper column attached hereto and published on January 19, 2014 in the Canadian Sun chain of newspapers.

Fred Z

I'll post again if I hear anything.

And Glenn finishes the post with this comment:

I wonder if they’re getting Saudi money, too?

Hmmmm

 

[George Wallace]

An opinion piece in the Calgary Sun on Neil Young in Calgary, 2014-01-19:

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

LINK

Canadian rocker Neil Young's anti-oilsands tour shows energy industry needs to add star power

By Michael Platt ,Calgary Sun 
First posted:  Sunday, January 19, 2014 05:58 PM MST  | Updated:  Monday, January 20, 2014 10:17 AM MST

Underneath the ghoulish make-up, Alice Cooper is said to have the heart of a true-blue conservative.

Meat Loaf, according to lore, is a Republican who wouldn’t think twice about leaving the engine running to keep his dashboard aglow.

Kid Rock? Maybe Taylor Swift? If really desperate, there’s always Ted Nugent.

In any case, the message is now clear: what the oilsands need is not sensible debate, or reasonable compromise and direction.

What the oilsands need is a star.

“Now we’re all talking about this, and no one was talking about it before, so it’s a win for us,” said Neil Young, speaking to reporters from the stage at Calgary’s Jack Singer Concert Hall.

“No matter how you feel, there’s a discussion going on at the breakfast table — that’s big, that’s real.”

Young is right — and that’s a rarity for old Shakey over the past week, as the aging rocker leads his Honour The Treaties tour across Canada, and into Calgary on Sunday.

As the mouthpiece for the whole oilsand-bashing spectacle, Young has repeatedly proven himself ill-informed and often hypocritical in his preaching, showing only superficial knowledge of Alberta’s key industry, while confessing to a rock star-sized carbon footprint.

“I do fly on private jets, sometimes I even brush shoulders with the oil executives in those terminals — sometimes to play my shows I have to use them, to get from one place to another to do my job and be in good enough shape to do it when I get there,” said Young.

That was Young’s answer to yet another question about personal fossil fuel consumption — Young has faced dozens on his trek from Toronto to Calgary — with the answers inevitably showing a man who consumes plenty. But so what?

Grill him on the oilsands industry, and the rocker’s replies are equally suspect.

He thinks most of the oil is going to China and that Alberta’s mining produces the same daily pollution as all the cars in Canada — both wrong, and that’s on top of his failure to mention how many Natives work in oil, as one of the biggest First Nation employers in Canada.

It doesn’t matter none: he’s Neil Young, and what the author of Old Man and Cinnamon Girl offers his side is charisma and headlines.

There been more than 340 of them since the Honor The Treaties tour was announced in December, and that’s not counting television news.

This column adds another headline to the pile — because Neil Young is the big story right now, and what he says, right or mostly wrong, is what people are talking about.

Insult him or praise him, and it’s all the same to Young. He says he’s happy to be the whipping boy for those angry at his oilsands stance, so long as the result is people talking about treaty rights in the Fort McMurray area.

“It’s like water off a duck’s back, my friend,” said Young, asked if he’s bothered by the criticism.

“It really doesn’t bother me — we’re getting our message out, which is honour the treaties.”

As a public relations campaign, it’s been a stellar success, generating $75,000 for the cause and raising ire and interest across Canada — something tour moderator David Suzuki has never managed, even on his crankiest anti-Alberta days.

Fame equals attention, and Young has plenty.

The pro-oilsands lobby, meanwhile, can only issue dry statements of defence via press releases, and hope Young’s interest in this cause fades quickly.

They could wait — or they could try using fame to get their message across, the Neil Young way.

Young has shown you don’t need to understand the nuances of the cause to speak about them, and a pro-oilsands concert or two might get people talking about the positive side of this industry for once — both the economics of bitumen and attempts to reduce the environmental impact.

Whether it’s Alice Cooper, Taylor Swift or Kid Rock, it’s a public relations defence Alberta’s key industry desperately needs, even if it is simple and superficial.

At least no one will be asking if the stars flew in on private jets.

michael.platt@sunmedia.ca

LINK

 

[Rifleman62]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/neil-young-concludes-anti-oilsands-concert-series-1.1646062

They succeeded in reaching their goal of raising funds: $75,000.

Wow, impressive. A lawyer doing "work" for the Indians will blow through that in less than a week.

 

[George Wallace]

The Calgary Herald's take on Neil Young in Calgary, 2014-01-19:

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

LINK

Corbella: Neil Young chooses his own comfort over his convictions

By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald January 20, 2014

While Neil Young spoke to a Calgary news conference at the Jack Singer Concert Hall prior to his Sunday night show, five rock star-style motorhomes were left running outside, spewing fumes into the Calgary air, even though they were mostly unoccupied.

Inside the concert hall, the 68-year-old rock ‘n’ roll legend was talking about the “elephant in the room,” which he later explained was man-made global warming. The only elephant I could see was his enormous carbon footprint and his even bigger hypocrisy between his walk and his talk.

Oh, his talk is righteous, all right. His walk, however, remains an abomination.

Calgary was the last stop on Young’s four-city Honor the Treaties tour, which is designed to raise awareness and money for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, which is suing the federal government and Shell Canada in an effort to stop Shell’s Jackpine Mine expansion proposal in northern Alberta.

The first question Young was asked was, does he ever fly on private jets?

“Yes, I do fly on private jets,” said the 68-year-old rock ‘n’ roll hall of famer. “Sometimes I have to brush shoulders with oil executives,” he said, his face screwing up in distaste. The horror! Poor old Neil. If that’s supposed to absolve him of some of his environmental guilt, he needs to recognize that oil executives don’t tend to lecture others on how to live absolving them of the sin of hypocrisy, at least.

“Sometimes to play my shows I have to use them (private jets) to get from one place to another to do my job and be in good enough shape to do my job when I get there,” explained Young.

So, what’s the main thing wrong with that explanation? If you said Young’s use of the words “I have to,” you’d be right. Neil Young does NOT “have to” fly on a private jet. He chooses to

In other words, for Neil Young and other hawkers of hypocrisy like him, he chooses his own comfort over his convictions. Actually, scrap that. If he actually truly believed that human created CO2 causes catastrophic global warming, he wouldn’t even so much as look at a private jet let alone climb aboard one.

Flying by private jet is the most carbon intensive way to move humans next to space travel.

According to a 2008 report entitled High Flyers: How Private Jet Travel is Straining the System, Warming the Planet, and Costing You Money,” private jet travel is at least five times more carbon intensive than commercial air travel.

For example, the report states that four passengers flying in a private Cessna Citation X from Los Angeles to New York would each be responsible for more than five times as much CO2 emitted by a commercial air passenger making the same trip.

But that’s a very forgiving calculation when you consider about 40 per cent of private jet flights are empty as pilots often return home rather that waiting for the return trip.

What’s more, private jet travelers pay lower taxes and fees than ordinary commercial travelers.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that the person who chirped up to come to Young’s defence on his high-flying lifestyle was David Suzuki, the CBC television star who is fond of flying hither and yon and is severely over housed — as he owns several large homes and often insists on his own limo when he goes on CBC shoots rather than travel with the rest of the film crew. Two CBC camera men, who have asked to remain anonymous, have told me so.


Outside, Young’s diesel buses spewed away, keeping the interiors toasty warm, with a big-screen television displaying a football game to no one at all.

How do I know that the buses were running while Young was inside the Jack Singer concert hall? Because I spoke to a security guard tasked with keeping fans away from the five buses parked along 9th Avenue across from the Epcor Centre of the Performing Arts and also in the parking lot and in the loading dock.

When asked if the buses had all been kept running for the past hour, he said they had been running for longer than that.

I knocked on the doors of all of the buses, rented or leased from Florida Coach Luxury Design and Leasing, and only one was opened by a young man who introduced himself as a cook. The chef explained that the motorhomes, must be kept running to run the equipment aboard.

“But some of the buses don’t appear to have anyone on board,” I said.

“We just always keep them running whether they’re occupied or not, but we use bio-diesel which is trucked in from the U.S., so it’s OK.”

Get it? A little bio diesel here a little solar power there and the gigantic greenhouse gas footprint of the likes of Neil Young and David Suzuki should be overlooked by us peons who have much smaller carbon footprints.

Never mind that biodiesel is causing great hardship for the world’s poorest citizens since staple food crops like corn are used to power vehicles rather than grow their food, causing their food prices to spike.

There is no doubt that Neil Young is a very talented musician with a heart of gold. Too bad his facts are made of mush and his lifestyle and rock-star livelihood is the very thing that makes Saudi Arabia’s bloody oil gush and pressure for Alberta’s oilsands to continue to grow.

Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor.
lcorbella@calgaryherald.com

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Also on LINK:

Photos of Young's visit to Calgary.

A review of Young's Sunday night benefit concert.

Read the full story on Young's press conference in Calgary.

 

[Edward Campbell]

IF this (Canadian Press) report in the Globe and Mail is true then kudos to M. Trudeau for taking a bold and helpful stand.

Sending the Liberal senators out of the Liberal parliamentary caucus will not make them less Liberal, not at first, anyway, but it will give them some leeway in voting and speaking their views (although it would be naive to expect that the LPC national office wouldn't keep in close touch with them).

It's a "good" political idea and I'm a bit surprised by it.

Well played, M. Trudeau!

 

[Remius]

Interesting.  I was talking to someone very well connected in Ottawa a few months ago and that someone had proposed that exact idea of having Senators excluded from caucus as a partial solution.

I mentioned this in a previous thread but I think Mr. Trudeau has been getting some good advice of late. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

In fairness:

    1. Prime Minister Harper started this by excluding senators from his cabinet; but

    2. A cynic might think that M Trudeau has been given a sneak preview of some pretty horrible results from the forthcoming Auditor General's report on senators' expenses and he's just innoculating the
        LPC by booting the all Liberal senators from caucus now, before the shit bad news hits the fan.

Even so, I rather like the idea of a less partisan Senate as part of the lead up to broader reforms, especially to Senate elections. Thus, pending the AG's report, I still give M Trudeau an

Edit: corrected a spelling error  :-[

 

[George Wallace]

Will we then just ignore the fact that they were "Liberal" Senators at the time of their indiscretions, or consider them now to be "Independent"?

 

[Rifleman62]

What will the media do!!!?

 

[PuckChaser]

Will we then just ignore the fact that they were "Liberal" Senators at the time of their indiscretions, or consider them now to be "Independent"?

Even though they still consider themselves Liberal Senators, which won't help Trudeau distance himself at all.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I an article in today's Ottawa Citizen Michael den Tandt calls M. Trudeau’s Senate gambit a tactical masterstroke. It may be, but, as Mr de Tandt acknowledges, "There are downside risks for the Liberals. Short-term, the ousted senators, among them some heavy hitters, could stir the pot. Longer-term there are the questions of how future senators would be chosen (likely along lines similar to Order of Canada selection, but that’s still a broad brush) and how legislation gets passed, in a hypothetical Senate dominated by free agents." But he, de Tandt, is correct in saying that Team Trudeau handled this "gambit" deftly. It shows a level of political courage and ruthlessness that gives me some reason to admire the young Liberal leader.

 

[GAP]

he's just playing catch up.....and suddenly it a miracle......nuts...

 

[pbi]

I think this will blow up in Trudeau's face.

He has defrocked all of his Senators, leaving them with no official connection to his caucus. Listening to Sen Jim Munson (former Liberal Senate whip) tonight on CBC, clearly at least some of them are very upset and can no longer be counted on to follow a Liberal line in every case (or, maybe, any case). Munson referred to his own separation as "liberating". (And he was the Whip!!!)

I don't know how Trudeau thinks this will help the Liberals in any meaningful way, since there now doesn't seem to be any mechanism for exerting Liberal influence in the Red Chamber. The Conservatives now control the Senate even more decisively than they did before.

I wonder what they were thinking of when they came up with this.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I think young Trudeau has just opened a big can of worm for himself.

While there is no doubt a majority of Canadian, in all provinces, want the senate reformed, it is also true that the very core of the demand for reform is greater, not lesser, democratic accountability.

I just can't see how Trudeau junior is going to get his idea that a senator appointed (not elected) by an alleged independent committee (itself not elected), is going to give us senators that are more accountable for themselves. The current system of appointment by the Pm is not democratic either, but at least we can hold the P.M. accountable for his/her appointments in actual elections. How will we hold the Committee accountable? And in which forum?

Does Junior remember that his own dad exacted a splurge of appointments to the senate and various posh jobs for the boys from John Turner as a condition for stepping down before the election? That led to the infamous rebuke by Mulroney during the leader's televised debate: "You had a choice, Sir. You could have said no." It certainly played a part in the people holding someone accountable for these appointments: Turner's Liberals were democratically defeated in part as a result.

Does Trudeau junior think that, should the auditors report find skeletons in the liberal senators closets for things they did while still in the Liberal caucus, he wont be made to answer for it in the House just because he has now excluded them from the caucus?