Vancouver Secrets

You Voted Democrat?

A good video – for us Canadians, substitute the Liberal party and it is almost 100%

Made at http://www.xtranormal.com where anyone can make a movie.. have fun.

Some useful Democrat stats here.

Over 1 Million Served

As Canadian TV viewership and newspaper circulation continues to fall off a cliff, there is one site that just keeps growing.

Small Dead Animals is one of Canada’s great blogs, and has the numbers to prove it… I am not sure if some of our Canadian news sites actually hit a million viewers a day, let alone by 8AM.

The pride of Delisle, Saskatchewan has reached a milestone of Canadian influence, proving substance beats out style.

It would be interesting to see the stats on the Liblogs’ blog aggregator… to see how the left fares online. I wouldn’t think the left blogs hit a million visitors a day combined.

It Worked Well The Last Time

Who could forget the stellar campaign that Stephane Dion ran last election. The Green Shift – No, Not the Green Shift – Yes, Let’s Paint Canada Green!

Unfortunately, Ignatieff may have been in the US, and missed out how warmly it was received. Or, the Liberals are just fresh out of ideas.

Globe and Pail: Undaunted by defeat of Dion and his carbon tax in last election, Ignatieff outlines clean energy as next campaign theme

“At the heart of our next platform will be the most significant national investment in clean-energy jobs this country has ever seen,” leader Michael Ignatieff declared yesterday, a year less a day after his predecessor, Stéphane Dion, was whupped in a federal election, in part because of his proposed “green shift” carbon tax.

Undaunted, Mr. Ignatieff, in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, laid out a three-pronged approach to making Canada a global leader in clean energy by investing in new technologies and new industries; by upgrading the energy infrastructure through a so-called “smart” energy grid, and by making the federal government – the nation’s largest employer and customer – a model of environmentally responsible behaviour.

“The jobs of tomorrow are being created elsewhere as we speak,” Mr. Ignatieff warned. “Either we act now, or we spend the next decade wishing we had.”

Actually he really means that if we don’t create new taxes on working Canadians now, we’ll miss the opportunity. In BC, the introduction of the carbon tax has been forgotten, making us poorer, under the guise of Green.

Now, after a great election deception, they are on to a new form of looting – it’s called the Harmonized Sales Tax. This should eventually do in the Liberals in BC… unfortunately they are banking on people forgetting the devious way they foisted it upon us.

We won’t forget – just as Canadians won’t forget you can’t trust the politicians when it comes to Green.

Liberals Caught Handing Out Untendered Contracts

The Liberals caught at it again, this time in Ontario:

TORONTO — Details of multimillion-dollar untendered consulting contracts are just some of the revelations expected Wednesday from a special investigation into how Ontario spent $1 billion over 10 years to create electronic health records and produced little of lasting value.

Auditor General Jim McCarter will release a 50-page special report, which was commissioned last June as the Liberal government tried to defend itself against growing reports about sole-sourced contracts and expense claims by high paid consultants at eHealth Ontario.

So far, the media have reported on $16 million worth of untendered eHealth contracts that were given to consultants, some of whom had close ties to top executives at the provincial agency, and were even paid for consulting each other, driving up their fees.

Even now, months after the scandal first broke and forced the government to replace both eHealth CEO Sarah Kramer and chair Alan Hudson, there are still almost 300 consultants under contract at the agency – down from 385 in April.

Details of some controversial eHealth contracts have been spilling out since last May, including one $30-million, sole-sourced deal for IBM that was approved by a powerful committee of the Liberal cabinet and could prove very troubling for the government.

Health Minister David Caplan is set to resign from his post as minister Wednesday, the same day Auditor General Jim McCarter will release the scathing report into the eHealth Ontario spending scandal that is expected to show $1 billion in wasted funds.

“His resignation is not official until tomorrow,” said Greg Dennis, communications director for Caplan.

Sound familiar?

The Great Liberal Sponsorship Scandal

Canada’s Gun registry $ 2 Billion Debacle – and CBC is after the Conservative government for not collecting fees with their amnesty.

If there is one thing the Liberals can do, is waste our money on their friends.

photo credit: wstera2

Republicans For Ignatieff

Great new site that is getting behind Iggy. And driving the left nuts.

Who’s really behind this?

Some of the great quotes:

OnProbation.ca – Miserable Failure

Here’s a look inside the Liberal party’s great website that was created to keep track of the Conservatives while they were on Iggy’s imposed probation …

Working with you to keep the government on track

We deserve transparency and accountability from our government so that we can address this economic crisis responsibly and plan for our recovery. Canadians want the facts. That’s why we’ve built this site. You can help us keep the government on track.

So far the site has been a roaring success…

Since March 16, 2009 there have been over 5,000 views of the above video – featured on the home page.

Other great features of the site:

- They have twitter:

following 544, Followed by 331.

In twitter terms this rates as absolutely dismal. Of note is that the CBC is one of their early followers. Iggy’s twitter is doing better, but with only 8,177 followers he’s an amateur. It’s almost as exciting as Politwitter…

- Facebook:

430 members. Even my niece has more. The site is run by:

• Marc Gendron (University of Toronto)
• Gosia Radaczynska (McGill)
• Matt Campbell (Parliament of Canada) (creator)

Great job guys.

- Alexa Stats:

Bounce rate (users that come and the leave immediately) – 7 day average 100%

Traffic Rank: 1,942,953 (#1 is the highest – this site rates with an typical abandoned website)

Referring sites:
62.50% liberal.ca
37.50% twitter.com (see twitter stats above)

Incoming links (measures a sites popularity) 108

The site probably took $10-$20,000 to build (or $60-$100,000 to a Liberal party friend), doesn’t get the basics of SEO, and if it were mine, I’d fire whoever is behind the marketing of it.

- Interactive job losses around the country map: not sure what the point of his page is.

Last week Statistics Canada reported another 61,000 net job losses in March, pushing the national unemployment rate to 8 per cent, the highest we’ve seen in seven years. Since peaking in October 2008, employment has fallen each month, putting 357,000 Canadians out of work. We’ve launched this interactive map to help illustrate this, and to help track job losses across the country since the election. You can help.

No update on the copy since March… and exactly how can I help?

- My favorite is Ask The Prime Minister.

you actually can’t ask a question and they have populated the page with questions any smart Liberal should be asking… and you vote for the top ones. Oh, you get to vote three times.  Combined votes approx 4,000.

3 votes left! What happens if I run out? (the link doesn’t work – found hidden in the code: You can change your votes by clicking on them)

How can you help this miserable site?

Have a good idea for the web site? We want to hear about it.

Send us your data, graphs or articles and after we fact-check all the materials, we’ll see how we can integrate your ideas. One thing we do ask is that you include sources for all your data.

If you prefer to reach us by email, you can find us at info@onprobation.ca. This is also a good idea if you’d like to submit several different types of files. While we may not be able to respond to every message we receive, we do promise to read each and every one.

Unfortunately, all of the ideas submitted so far haven’t been deemed good enough to get shown.

This initiative was Iggy’s way of showing his leadership potential as the leader of the opposition. If this is any gauge of the Liberal Party’s ‘net savvy… nothing to worry about here.

Are They Going To Take The Green out of Greenhouse Gas?

Global warming becomes climate change. Greenhouse gas become toxic gas.

They are close to taxing the air we breathe (out).

Once carbon dioxide (that stuff your breathe out) is legislated as a poison – which is close to becoming reality – every aspect of our lives will be fair game for government control: the homes we build, the cars we drive, the light bulbs we use, the jobs we are allowed to work at.

Even the number of children we have—because  any reduction in CO2 that we achieve will be more than offset by the households our kids will create when they grow up.

It’s time to wake up to the threat the enviro-nazis pose to our way of life… not to mention the assault on our pocketbooks.

It’s reassuring that here in BC the Green Party still hasn’t moved up a tick in the election. Here’s hoping they just go away.

Unfortunately Gordon Campbell got away with his Carbon Tax Heist.

The only way to stop the scam is to punish politicians in elections. If only we had a party in BC that was a little to the right of Castro…

David Suzuki Fails Again

BC-STV soundly defeated in electoral reform referendum

Me… I think most thought they were voting for STD. And with David Suzuki on the yes side, color me suspicious. He was deciding factor in my no vote.

This hasn’t managed to pass anywhere in Canada, so if Vancouver can’t get it done, it’s time to banish this idea from future elections.

I really believe that people are really afraid that that STV would allow the third parties (NDP in most cases), and everything below them, onto government benches.

I’m still not sure if this was a good thing or bad… the people have spoken.

Vancouver Liberal Convention – Green Shift Green Lighted

The Liberals don’t really want to get elected:

1) Continuing on with the legacy of Stephan “head shot” Dion, the Liberals at the Vancouver convention decided they too will tax the hell out of Canadians that drive, heat their homes, have lights and buy food:

Stephane Dion’s “green shift” legacy lived on today, as Liberals voted in favour of an environmental policy that could in future include a carbon tax.

The climate change resolution adapted by the party at its biennial convention includes “establishing a carbon tax, a cap and trade system, or a combination of both.” The resolution also includes “hard limits” on green house gas emissions.

The resolution also commits Canada to a 25% to 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and an 80% reduction by 2050.

During the Fall, 2008 federal election, then-Liberal leader Dion proposed as his key platform plank a policy that would “shift” taxes to carbon emissions while reducing them elsewhere. The Liberals’ “green shift” was rejected by voters, however, as the party slid from 103 to 77 seats in the House of Commons.

Speakers at the convention did not seem concerned about reintroducing carbon pricing. Dion himself repeated his view in a speech Friday night that a Liberal government must put a price on carbon.

A second resolution also suggested taxation could be used as an incentive to persuade people to pollute less.

2) Expand the reach of the “Human Rights Commission” – the most embarrassing thing Canada has ever created:

Convention delegates also approved a resolution to make the Canadian Human Rights Commission accountable to the House of Commons and expand its reach to include discrimination based on citizenship status and socio-economic class.

“We strongly encourage the Liberals to vote in favour of this resolution, which will give legislative strength to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which is in the great Liberal tradition,” said the delegate introducing the motion.

But there was considerable debate over the implications the resolution might have.

“There is an aspect of this resolution that absolutely terrifies me,” said an Ontario delegate.

“We have had over the last few months a demonstration of an abuse of power by the human rights commission. This resolution would actually add to the probability that the human rights commission would continue to abuse its power,” he said.

The vote for the resolution passed 223 in favour to 185 against.

The Human Rights Commission actually takes away human rights, and should be abolished. Let’s hope Canadians learn more about the abuses this group of fascists has foisted on Canadians, and recognize it as “the great Liberal tradition”.

The also passed the same feel good resolutions that they, and the NDP, pass every time:

Support for reducing child poverty, implementing a national child care plan and declaring water a human right.

Great stuff from a party that hopes to lead Canada one day.

Color Me Confused On STV

The only thing compelling me to vote in the BC Election next month is a referendum on changing the voting system to the “BC Single Transferable Vote“… and because of the reasons they are using to promote this new system, I am just a little suspicious.

For example:

The Green Party of BC is backing the chance to change the way the province elects its MLAs, from the current ‘first past the post’ system – in which voters have just one vote to elect one MLA and may see a party taking a majority of seats without a majority of the vote – to the BC Single Transferable Vote (BC-STV) system, in which voters can rank their support for candidates in order of preference to make sure their ballot always counts.

In other countries, STV has enabled more women and minority candidates to be elected to government because it more accurately translates votes into seats.

Ok, so more women and minorities will get in.. noble.

So how does it work?

More »

Dion’s Camera Crew Strikes Again

Michael Ignatieff responds to some questions about homelessness in Canada.

Iggy decided to borrow the Dion video team.

He wants to be Prime Minister someday.

The Kinsella Brothers?

The Missing Brother?

The Kinsella touch has once again set back the Liberals in the BC election…

Documents from the legislative library list lobbyist payments of almost $300,000 from BC Rail to Patrick Kinsella, a well-known Liberal strategist, were brought up in court yesterday, in the Basi-Virk corruption trial.

“What we don’t know is why would BC Rail have a lobbyist and pay him $297,000,” McCullough told the judge, adding that the defence was seeking third-party records to partly answer that question. And apparently neither does BC Rail.

In an e-mail to Kevin Mahoney, then vice-president of BC Rail, from another executive, asking: “Why are we paying this guy?” and that the response was that Kinsella was a “backroom Liberal.”

The Liberals sold off the government-owned railway’s freight operations to Canadian National Railway for $1 billion in 2003.  During this period , Kinsella chaired two successful B.C. Liberal election campaigns.

Now it looks like the past has risen up to haunt another Kinsella… and it’s going to be doing some serious damage to the BC Liberals.

Now that the documents have been unveiled in  the courts, there is no way the “Kinsella” spin can be used to hide the facts. Watch the Liberals duck for cover.

Here’s Our Report Card

Seems Iggy thinks Canadians are all waiting for his opinion, or his report card, on the Conservative government’s performance…

In a laughable stunt, Michael Ignatieff is giving us his assessment on employment insurance  and infrastructure ahead of his first report card on the Harper government.

In exchange for allowing the Conservatives to remain in power and for allowing the federal budget to pass—Ignatieff put the party on “probation”. (Roflmao)

The, even more laughable, is the Canadian version of the “fairness doctrine” read bt the speaker of the house, Peter Milliken, ordering MPs to stop making disparaging comments against Iggy. Of course Iggy’s body guard jumped all over it.

Here’s your report card Iggy… can we remove you now?

How to Short The TSX

You may have noticed that every time Obama speaks the market tanks. Looks like his big speech may cause the Dow to fall in the 6,000 range.

The TSX seems to be a day behind.

You might want to try a ’short’ strategy around this.

Seems like a safe bet.

Stimulate This Ignatieff!

The Liberal party will only support the minority Conservative government’s federal budget if Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to an amendment calling for a “clear marker” of regular updates to Parliament on the impact of economic stimulus projects, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday.

Stuff it Iggy… quit playing games with our future. A firestorm is on the horizon and Iggy is deciding whether or not we’ll get water.

It’s a play to get a non-confidence vote every three months, and Canadians should see this as another cynical liberal game.

Harper needs show some backbone on this.

Prime Minister Harper – do the right thing and cut personal taxes and EI employer contributions now. You’ll succeed with the stimulus by March 1st. Plus, you’ll have the worlds best stimulus plan and Canada may avoid the world of hurt that’s on the way.

Public work projects, for the sake of stimulus, are a ridiculous waste and won’t change a thing. They force cities and provinces to take on debt, just to get a road paved to nowhere. $30 billion in debt becomes $90 Billion fast this way. I can live with potholes for a couple of years.

Am I missing something here?

photo credit: terfe

Garth Turner’s Long Goodbye

Seems Garth finally realized that his political career is finished in politics.

Long, long ago, before I’d met Stephen Harper, before I once again won a seat in Parliament, before anyone believed a Conservative government could lose $50 billion in four years, before I was kicked out of my own party live on TV, before I learned Conservatives were no longer Progressive Conservatives, before I became a refugee Liberal, before I lost my seat, before I understood it’s all about power and not the people, before I wasted three years and neglected my wife, before my Tory colleagues shunned and hurt me and my new Grit family embraced me, before I was dooced, before the crash and when I still believed passionately in the integrity and worth of individual democracy, I started this blog.

Now it ends.

So long Garth. Don’t let the door hit you….

Boxing Day Online Guide

If you are one of the fortunate that still has a little room on your credit card, today is Boxing Day… here’s an easy way to take advantage of the specials online.

The site to start at is www.redflagdeals.com.  They even have a boxing week section.

Best Buy has flat screens on for American prices – although they tax you for a disposal fee in BC – even though you’re not going to be disposing the thing for a good 10 years.

The Canadian version of popular American online retailers also have specials – although Apple seems to have forgotten us.

We are set to get another 10 cm of the white stuff in Vancouver – so it’s the best (only) option.

photo credit: ீ ๑ Adam