Rick Mercer Rants About Swine Flu
“Although, who am I kidding? I live in a riding represented by the NDP. I ain’t seeing no vaccine. Meanwhile, if you live in Jim Flaherty’s riding you get three vaccines and a giant novelty cheque for five grand!”
I love it!
Tory Logos Everywhere
First came the release of Canada’s 2010 Olympic uniforms, and outrage that one of the designs supposedly looks like the Conservative Party of Canada logo. Honestly, I have to disagree with my fellow New Democrats. It just doesn’t look close enough to the Conservative logo to make me concerned. It just looks like hyper-partisanship fueled false outrage to me. I doubt the average Canadian is going to see a link. If some of the people who are making the accusations came forward with some proof that the CPC actually had a hand in influencing the designs I’d certainly be willing to change my mind.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally believe the HBC has botched the uniforms for our athletes ever since they won the contract for them. I’m not a big fan of the designs this time around. A couple of the designs I’ve seen featured in the Kelowna Bay are actually pretty nice, and I wouldn’t mind having a nice shirt with one of those logos. Too bad they’re so ridiculously high priced, and probably made in China. Some of the other designs, however, just look ridiculous to me. Our athletes were way better served when their outfits were designed by Roots. At least this time around they look better than the disaster HBC came up with for the Beijing Olympics.
Next, we have Conservative logos on cheques from the federal government. Conservative MPs all across the country were caught handing out taxpayer dollars and slapping that dirty little party emblem on them. And when I say all across the country, I mean in Conservative ridings across the country, because god knows Stephen Harper hasn’t stuck to a single campaign promise yet, especially one regarding ethics or patronage. At least one Conservative MP, Gerald Keddy, claimed he didn’t notice the giant party logo or his own signature on the ceremonial cheque he was handing out in front of the cameras. Is he fucking blind? Somebody better get Gerald some new glasses!
Keddy even defended his actions saying he was just doing his job, he “never gave it another thought”, and he “Would absolutely do it again.” At least that’s what he was saying until Stephen Harper slapped a muzzle on him. The next day he was claiming it was all a big mistake and “It was certainly inappropriate and not something I would do again.”
How stupid do the Conservatives think Canadians are? There’s no way someone could accidentally slap a logo that big on a cheque without noticing. They’re only sorry they got caught in the act.
Tags: cheques, Conser, Conservative Party of Canada, Conservatives, CPC, Gerald Keddy, HBC, Hudson's Bay Company, NDP, New Democrats, Olympics, patronage, Roots, Stephen Harper, stimulus, taxpayer dollars, The Bay, uniforms
Provincial Liberals and federal Tories doing the tango
I found this excellently written column by Denise Savoie via her Faceboook page. She points out some very interesting things about the incomming B.C. HST. Some I already knew about, some I didn’t.
B.C. Tories try to duck furor over HST
Consumers, not corporations, pay for this piece of incoherent policyBy Denise Savoie, Special to Times Colonist October 6, 2009
Few things can rally citizens together like taxes. As voter cynicism rises and turnout plummets, I’ve been wondering what it would take to engage Canadians actively in the political process.
Last weekend, as I spoke to one of 19 cross-province rallies against the proposed harmonized sales tax, I found a unique group of people. Some told me they have never been to a political rally, and most likely had never attended one on the same issue with each other — yet there they were together, galvanized into collective action. It was remarkable.
However, as I said to this group of several hundred Victorians behind the legislature on Saturday, don’t expend all of your anger on Premier Gordon Campbell.
This HST dance is a tango, and Campbell’s partner from Ottawa is clearly the lead.
For all the times Prime Minister Stephen Harper has awkwardly claimed to loathe all forms of taxation, his federal Conservative government is awfully fond of the HST.
Their 2009 budget, backed by the federal Liberals, insisted on harmonization. On page 166, it specifically mentioned B.C. as one of its targets.
Then the feds offered a staggering $1.6 billion to the B.C. Liberals to make the HST happen, and they got stingy when the province tried negotiating any limited exemptions.
Yet our province’s Conservative MPs have run for the hills on the HST, saying it wasn’t their idea. The local Liberal MP has become suddenly opposed after having supported the budget, and after Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff committed to keeping the HST if he wins the next election.
I enjoyed the recent week-long HST coverage in the Times Colonist that included the critical federal angle, but two critical points were missed.
First, besides the obvious injustice of shifting tax from big business to the consumer as verified by a recent TD Bank analysis, the HST represents sloppy, incoherent public policy. Just last week, the House of Commons approved a new home renovation tax credit that the government deemed so important as to risk a fall election over it. But the HST would negate any benefit derived from the credit by adding tax on renovations.
Second, the HST isn’t really about tax hikes. I accept both Harper’s and Campbell’s assertions that they strongly dislike, as they put it, taking money out of the pockets of the everyday citizen.
However, given an opportunity to cut taxes for their pals in big business, all other principles are secondary. It then becomes an issue of who has to pay for those tax cuts.
Over the past decade, we Canadians have had to pay for huge corporate tax cuts by suffering through huge cuts to social services, health care, education, and now arts funding, health research, community grants and parents’ councils.
With the HST, we are now paying for corporate tax cuts by paying more at the till — for basic needs like food and vitamins, bicycles, haircuts, funerals, and even taking your pet to the vet.
Campbell and Harper will argue that businesses will pass their $1.9-billion tax savings on to consumers, but of course he offers no guarantees, and past experience shows the exact opposite.
It is the perfect tango for two governments — in Victoria and in Ottawa — that want tax relief for big business even it means hiking taxes on the rest of us.
The HST fight is thus the latest chapter in the growing economic gap between the very rich and the rest of us in Canada.
By allowing these measures to go through without at least mitigating the impacts on Canadians who are already struggling, we allow that gap to grow again.
Let’s not let it happen this time.
Denise Savoie is the NDP MP for Victoria.
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist
If you’re a British Columbian opposed to the HST I encourage you to write not only to your Liberal MLAs, but also your Conservative MPs. Ask them why they want to shift such a huge tax burden from businesses to the middle class.
Tags: B.C. Liberals, British Columbia, Conservative Party of Canada, Denise Savoie, Harmonized Sales Tax, HST, NDP, taxes
RMR: Slap Chop
Another great clip from Rick Mercer.
No election means consequences for everyone
Rick Mercer does it again.
Tags: EI, election, Jack Layton, Liberals, NDP, Rick Mercer, Rick Mercer Report, RMR
Big surprise here…
I can’t understand why nhl.com is reporting this as news. Noone is really surprised are they? Bettman has been opposed to the Balsillie bid from the very beginning because he has some problem with him personally. It looks like Balsillie will have to wait until the NHL does the right thing and gets rid of Bettman and his buddies on the board of governors before he’ll be able to own an NHL team.
Bettman says judge made right decision on Coyotes
Thursday, 10.01.2009 / 5:57 PM / News
NHL.comNHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Thursday that he believed U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Redfield T. Baum made “the right decision” when he rejected two multimillion-dollar offers for the Phoenix Coyotes.
Bettman said that as a result of the decision, “we’re actually starting to get calls from people who are expressing interest in the franchise.”
Baum’s decision to reject a bid by the NHL and another made by Canadian electronics entrepreneur Jim Balsillie allows the League to amend its offer in terms of paying creditors but, in Bettman’s words, “disqualifies” Balsillie’s effort to buy the team from current owner Jerry Moyes and move the team to Hamilton, Ont.
“We got an important decision from the judge yesterday, in effect disqualifying the Balsillie bid,” Bettman said. “It’s the decision that we believed was the right decision and the one we hoped for because the two most important decisions that any sports league can make is who it wants to allow into membership as an owner, who the partners will be, and where the franchises will be located.
“That’s not something that should be abdicated to the courts because someone decides to file a bankruptcy petition. While the court disallowed our bid on some technical basis, in terms of how we treated the creditors, we’re looking at it and we will be reacting.
“We’re deciding how best to amend our bid. Since the overhang of the Balsillie bid seems to be removed, we’re actually starting to get calls from people who are expressing interest in the franchise. We’re going to have to follow up on those as well. Our belief is, despite all the damage this process has done to the franchise over the summer, and I think it’s going to take some time for the franchise to rebound, it can work with the right ownership and the right management.
Bettman made his remarks during the NHL Hour, his weekly Thursday afternoon broadcast, from the Pepsi Center in Denver prior to the Colorado Avalanche’s season-opening game against the San Jose Sharks. Longtime Avalanche captain Joe Sakic will have his No. 19 retired in a ceremony at 8:45 p.m. ET that will be streamed on NHL.com and seen on the NHL Network.
Bettman said he was relieved for the Coyotes’ players and their families, who have been in limbo since May when Moyes announced his intention to sell the team to Balsillie through the bankruptcy process.
“I’m glad for the players’ sake, that they now have a little bit more certainty that this is where the franchise is going to be this season,” Bettman said.
Broadcast partner Ed Olczyk asked Bettman if the League was now in control of the Phoenix franchise.
“Not exactly,” the commissioner replied. “From Day One, we have been in a hybrid situation, supervised by the bankruptcy court. The debtor, as the term is used, is technically Jerry Moyes, who was the owner, and we. So we are kind of in joint control. But that gets overblown because the day-to-day operations are being run by Doug Moss, the president. (General Manager) Donnie Maloney, who I think has done a very good job with putting the team together and keeping things stable, is making the hockey decisions.
“Extraordinary decisions involving spending lots of money or the like have to be approved by both the Moyes group and by us, but it’s not like we are in there actively running the club right now. It’s not our desire to ever really run the club. We put in the bid as a last resort to get control of the situation.
“Hopefully, with the process being simplified with the Balsillie bid now gone, that overhang, and I think, whether or not intentional and I won’t throw stones in that regard, a lot went on this summer to further destabilize that franchise, perhaps in the hopes that nobody would want to bid on it and the team would have to move. And, that was something that we resisted mightily and it probably cost a lot of money.”
Bettman said the NHL will continue to try to buy the Coyotes from Moyes, then sell it to a qualified buyer.
“First, we’re going to try to continue to buy the club. Once we own the club, even if it’s going to be for a short period of time, we will control the club so we won’t have to be checking with anybody else in terms of what moves Doug and Donnie make. And we’ll control the sale process which we think will expedite the sale process and make it more efficient and, hopefully, more successful.”
Tags: bankruptcy, Gary Bettman, Hamilton, hockey, Jim Balsillie, National Hockey League, NHL, Pheonix Coyotes
Prime Minister attends “elitist” gala.
Most Canadians who are interested in politics will remember that Stephen Harper defended his government’s cuts to arts and culture by saying that “ordinary people” don’t care about the arts. He slammed arts galas, saying they were events where rich artists gathered to whine about their grants. As it turns out, Stephen Harper is all for arts galas when he can use them for political stunts that portray him as a down-to-earth regular Canadian. Don’t be fooled by those who are pushing this as a “surprise” or an “impromptu” performance. This was planned well in advance. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media are lapping this up and pushing it as surprising and impromptu.
You may be interested in checking out A Creative Revolution‘s pop up video edition.
Tags: arts, friends, galas, mainstream media, music, political stunts, singing, Stephen Harper, The Beatles
Taliban Stanley?
General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is openly supporting reintegrating the Taliban with the rest of Afghan society. His plans apparently include giving jobs to the Taliban, since he believes that 50 to 80 percent of them would give up fighting if they were employed.
I wonder if those who labelled Jack Layton “Taliban Jack”, for his suggestions that we negotiate with these thugs, will now attack the general in the same way.
