By-election Wrap Up - Conservatives-2, Coalition-1

Well the by-elections have come and gone now.  First of all I would like to congratulate the winners from last night. Conservatives easily keep their seat in Dauphin, win a Liberal stronghold in Vaughn bringing them closer to a majority, and Winnipeg North, that seat switched from one coalition partner to another (from NDP to Lib).  Conservatives were not expected to win in Winnipeg North anyway so no real loss there for them.

If this is a taste for the next general election, I suspect Liberals in the GTA will be a tad nervous as they are now vulnerable.  Winnipeg North, should Jack Layton be nervous?  Maybe, maybe not but I bet he's and his party are lickin' their wounds today. NDP didn't do that well in any of the ridings.  NDP could very well take it back next time.  Who knows?  Here is one Lib blogger's take on what happened.

As for the Liberals, Kevin Lamoureux's victory was an aberration. Lamoureux won by promising to be tough on crime. In other words, he won by promising to be a Conservative in riding that would never vote for a real Conservative.

 Do by-elections mean anything?  Well it's usually a referendum on the governing party. It's a chance for the electorate to voice a protest against the government. Look what happened just weeks ago in the US in their midterm elections. The governing party got "a shellacking."  In this case, the governing party did well so the voters must be satisfied with the way current Conservative government is governing.

So no matter what the spin doctors on the Lib and Dippers side say, Conservatives should be pleased with these by-elections and prepare for the next round of by-elections and/or the next general election which ever comes first.  It will all depend on how soon the opposition coalition want to defeat the Conservative government. Judging from what happened last night I bet their thinking long and hard if they want to take down the government anytime soon.

In the mean time and off topic  Don Martin will be gracing your television sets every night as the new host of  CTV's Power Play.

Cruel Prank on Military Families

Our brave men and women in uniform are putting their lives on the line fighting the Taliban and trying to help bring about a peaceful and decent life for the Afghan people.  Meanwhile at home here some demented sicko is playing a very cruel prank on military families who are keeping the home fires burning. This lowlife has been calling families in the middle of the night to tell them their loved one is dead.

QUEBEC - Military police are pursuing a prankster preying on families of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan by calling them in the middle of the night to say their loved ones have died.
The relatives of at least three soldiers serving in the war-torn country have been targeted by the prank, said Alex Maillé, a spokesman at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier said Tuesday.
The wife of one soldier filed a complaint with military police after someone called her last week to say her husband had died in a roadside bomb explosion.

How cruel is that? It's sick,demented,deplorable etc. Our military families sacrifice a lot so  their loved ones can serve and it's not easy. They must be constantly on edge all the time their loved one is deployed for fear they receive that dreaded  call.  Then you have some low life that does this kind of despicable act.  Just think about how the troops in Afghanistan are feeling knowing that some sociopath/psychopath is terrorizing their families like that?  It's just something more for them to worry about.

I hope they find who ever is doing this,lock 'em up and throw away the key. 

What's Happened to the Liberal Party?

Things haven't been going to well for the Liberal Party in the few years. They've tried different leaders. Last summer they send the leader on a bus tour that was  supposed to turn things around but that was to not. Today you have three columns that tell of Liberal woes.
Larry Martin traces Liberal problems way back in '93.

To find the reason for their woes, they might look back, strangely enough, at one of their successes – the election of 1993. That campaign, which gutted the Canadian political structure like no other, is known as the one that vanquished the old Progressive Conservative Party. The Tories came away with two seats. But it should also be known as the one that undermined the Liberals, who came away with a majority.
Although they won handily, that campaign effectively reduced the Grits to an Ontario party with a few regional add-ons. Post-1993, the party won successive majorities in 1997 and 2000, but in each it was an all-Ontario show, with the party registering unbelievable sweeps of 100 or so seats in that province.
That represented close to two-thirds of the party’s overall total in those elections. The warning signals were there. These majorities masked the Liberal Party’s geographical isolation.

Hardcore Liberal apologist, Susan Delacourt gives her reasons why the Libs are having a tough time.
Then Warren Kinsella weighs in with his assesment. Liberals were had once counted on painting Stephen Harper and the Reform/Alliance/Conservative parties as scary, but that doesn't work anymore.
Liberals lack strategy 
Five years after they lost power, there’s no change in sight
For starters, Stephen Harper - once the feared Reform Party outsider - is no longer feared so much, if at all. As with all prime ministers,
Harper has become pretty familiar to the rest of us. For a decade, the Liberals kept Harper and his conservative colleagues from power with frightening tales about what the right-wingers would do to social programs, health care and race relations.
But after five years, our social network is mainly what it was; health care is more or less intact; and the party with the most racially diverse caucus in the House of Commons is, well, Harper’s.

All the Libs have done since they lost the election in 2006 is to, with the help from their friends in the media, conjure up faux scandals to embarrass the Conservatives in hopes of finding the big one that would take them back to their right full place. Hasn't worked.

What are Liberals to do?  Well, former chief of staff to Michael Ignatieff, Ian Davey has some advise, offer some conservative ideas.  This coming from from a Liberal? Wow! I guess he sees that voters are sick and tired of the social welfare entitlement programs that spend tons of money and makes the size of government balloon. Oh, well looks like Davey's former boss hasn't taken that advise.   As long as Liberals keep spinning their wheels and navel gaze, the Conservatives can keep working getting things done for the betterment of the country and PM Harper can keep reaping praise like this one.

Stephen Harper earns biblical praise for pro-Israeli stand 

Stephen Harper is being hailed as a modern-day “Abraham” for his defence of Israel in a recent speech to a conference on combating anti-Semitism.

Scott Stinson sums it all up.

Under Mr. Ignatieff, the Liberals seem to want to have it both ways again: on one hand talking up the party’s deficit-slaying efforts under Jean Chrétien, and on the other speaking about the myriad ways they would spend the money saved by cancelling corporate tax cuts.
It’s as though the party can’t quite bring itself to step away from that key part of what it sees as being “Liberal” — the notion that the government will wrap you in its warm embrace — and so the leader’s summer tour included his stories of the floppy-haired kid who was struggling just to be a student and the elderly lady who couldn’t afford to care for her ailing husband. Mr. Ignatieff would thus talk about not just the need to curb the deficit, but also about “three core priorities for a future Liberal government: learning, care, and Canadian leadership in the world.”

 It was put most simply in this line from one of his speeches: “we need to get this deficit under control, and we need to invest in Canadians.”
 

The Conservatives have recently started making noise about the need for austerity and how the next budget will be one of belt-tightening. Voters could be forgiven for snorting at that and asking what took them so long. But here’s what Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said this week: “This is not the time for dangerous and risky new spending schemes that will increase deficits and raise taxes.” It sounds like the Tories will stick to that simple message.

It sounds like something Ian Davey might have suggested.

Health Czar,Stephen Duckett and his Cookie: Fire Him!

Our health care system is in shambles. Well with a health czar like Stephen Duckett it's no wonder.  He seems to be more concerned about eating his cookie than addressing our urgent issues in the system like emergency room that is on life support. Wait times that are much too long with  patients dying and  having to call 911 to get attention . Some have to wait up to 20 hours. That's totally unacceptable!
  Duckett is in charge of  a big centralized super board where the delivery of health care is controlled and where there is layer upon layer of managers that docs have to go through to get anything done.  Watch this video and you'll see what I mean, it's bizarre. It shows how flippant and ignorant he is avoiding the media's questions. He acts like a four year old. "I want to eat my cookie"




He apologized for the cookie incident but it doesn't cut it. Mr.Duckett needs to be fired along with dismantling Alberta Health Services, the big super board and going back to the regional boards we had before. You hear that Premier Stelmach and Minister Zwozdesky??? 

Roy Green in his column states that our system in is critical condition and has a good idea that would at least be  a start in improving the system.

My fellow Albertans, pressure your MLA, the Health Minister, and the Premier and demand that Stephen Duckett be fired, dismantle Alberta Health Services and go back to the regional health boards that we used have that worked a lot more efficiently.  Then after that bring in some private health care and allow patients to have choice.

Is There a Rift in the Harper Cabinet Re-Peter Mackay?

Well,this should put that rumor to bed.  Check out David Akin's blog, On The Hill.

Some pundits have taken Peter MacKay's less-than-subtle signals that he was unhappy with the decision made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and others in cabinet to deny landing rights airlines from the United Arab Emirates and, in doing so, forego the free use of the Camp Mirage staging base near Dubai, as a sign that he is preparing to leave the cabinet and perhaps even quit politics. My sources close to MacKay say he's going nowhere but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

In any event, here at the NATO summit in Lisbon, if there is a rift between MacKay and Harper over the UAE decision, the two are putting on a first-class job of hiding it. The body language between the two men -- at four photo ops I saw today as well as the opening of the NATO summit -- told me those two are getting along like gangbusters. I couldn't hear what they were saying in the summit room but whatever it was, they were making each other laugh and smile a lot. And, as you can see in the picture above, MacKay was Harper's wingman all day while Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon had the backseat.

Seems to me just another faux scandal the MSM have dreamed up again to make it look like trouble in the Tory family.  Kudos to David Akin for this report!

Canadians Need A History Lesson

Immigration and Citizenship Minister Jason Kenny says Canadians need to be more knowledgeable about  our history and values or the country is at risk.

OTTAWA - Immigration Minister Jason Kenney warned a conference of historians and educators that unless we do a better job of teaching history and common values, we risk social unrest in the future.
Kenney said there is a need for both native-born Canadians and newcomers to have a solid understanding of Canada’s past including our political system, and how Canada’s culture of rights and responsibilities developed.

The new study guide "Discover Canada" the government put out last year was a good start.

“That’s why the government says that 'Discover Canada' and our efforts to promote civic literacy have to be focused on all Canadians and not just newcomers,” Kenney said.
Discover Canada is the government’s study guide issued to help immigrants prepare for their citizenship test. It was released last year and replaced an older guide that spent little time on Canadian history but did teach would-be citizens the importance of recycling.

I also agree with Mr. Kenny that we just don't know our own real history because it's just not being taught. Instead revisionist history is being taught.

Kenney also took a shot at how Canadian history is often taught, saying there is too much emphasis put on social history and some recounts of Canada’s story make it sound like the country was built of oppression and injustice.
“If that indeed is the way in which we seek to teach history, no wonder that young people aren’t particularly interested,” Kenney said.

Canada has a great historical story, I believe that needs to be told.  . The progressives for some reason  are the ones who have not wanted Canada's real history taught. They would have you believe for instance that our military history is that of just peacekeeping which is not true.  
The only way for us to know our real history sadly is to actually learn it on our own and  pass it on to our children. We have to go back, take the time to research, and read the actual words that our leaders have have spoken and have written.  That's the way you get the truth about our history.

If we don't know our true history we cannot really move forward and are doomed to repeat. My hope is that someone at the new SunTV will take up the mantle just as Glenn Beck has done on Foxnews.  He and his staff have done a fantastic job doing the research and presenting it to the American people the true history of the United States of America. He has presented facts about their history that was not known by most people before just by going back and reading the actual words of their leaders.  I really truly hope that someone will do that at SunTV and  teach Canadians our real history.

Liberal Volunteers Have to be Rewarded?

What has happened to the Big Red Liberal Machine? If Jane Tabolo is to believed, there seems to be a lack of morale and enthusiasm amongst Liberal volunteers in the three by-elections that are to be decided later this month. According to Jane, volunteers have to be cajoled by rewarding them to go out and work for the party.

Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are offering up big prizes – tickets to Ottawa Senators games and even a $150 gift certificate to Hy’s Steakhouse – to round up volunteers to help them identify the Grit vote in upcoming by-elections.
But this odd pitch for help has some Liberals wondering where the Grit spirit has gone. Why do volunteers have to be cajoled?

 Could it be the internal numbers are not encouraging?  Is it the the Waffle's leadership or just the party itself?   As a long time Liberal MP has put it:

But a long-time Liberal MP sees it differently: “It speaks to the lack of morale and enthusiasm. It used to be that people eagerly volunteered. Now they have to be ordered or rewarded.”

It says a lot about the current Liberal party if the grass roots have to be bribed to go out and work.

I don't see them winning   Dauphin-Swan-River-Marquette in Manitoba, that will stay CPC.  I believe the NDP will probably retain Winnipeg North.  As far as Vaughn, it could very well swing CPC.   That riding will in my opinion  depend on GOTV but do you have to bribe your workers to get that vote out?

Charles Adler on "Michael Clouseau Ignatieff"

Charles Adler had a another great monologue yesterday on Michael "Cluoseau" Ignatieff playing games with race and culture concerning the by election that's going in Winnipeg North where the Waffle has accused the CPC of playing games running a Filipino candidate splitting the vote to hurt the Liberals.

You can listen and/or read it on Charles's website.

 Charles sums it up with a bang as usual.

 If Michael Ignatieff, the has-been BBC interviewer, the has-been Harvard professor, and by next spring he could just be another has-been leader of a party that has gone from being the Natural National Governing party to a Party of Has-Beens. That's what happens to political outfits that play games instead of The Game. They get washed away like fishing boats in a Filipino Monsoon.

Iggo Waffle Has Egg on Face and Insults Voters

The Winnipeg Free Press this morning is saying Iggo Waffle has egg on his face.  Why?  Well the Waffle made a comment when asked a question on the weekend when he was in Winnipeg campaigning for the Liberal candidate for the by-election later this month. He accuses the CPC of playing games? because there is a candidate of Filipino decent running in the riding of Winnipeg North in the by-election to be held later this month? What? The riding does have a large Filipino population and is traditionally held by NDP.   The Waffle also claims CPC candidate Filipino Julie Javier is a fake candidate and will split the vote hurting Liberal's chances.  Well boo, hoo, hoo!

Does anyone know what Michael Ignatieff is talking about?

The Liberal leader was in Winnipeg on the weekend campaigning for Winnipeg North candidate Kevin Lamoureux when he accused the Conservatives of fighting dirty by running a Filipino candidate in the riding.
Voters, he said, deserved "a straight-up fight" and not "a bunch of games." He was apparently referring to speculation that the Tories were trying to weaken Mr. Lamoureux's support by running Filipino Julie Javier in a riding that traditionally supports the New Democratic Party and which has a high number of Filipino residents.
Once again, does anyone know what Mr. Ignatieff is talking about? Is he really suggesting that the Conservatives should have fielded a non-Filipino candidate to make it a fair fight for the Liberal contender? Is it his view that Ms. Javier is a fake candidate who has cynically offered her name to spoil Liberal ambitions and ensure an NDP victory?
Mr. Ignatieff's comments were an insult to voters in general and Filipinos in particular. To be fair, it doesn't look like he anticipated the question, but the leader of an institution like the Liberal Party of Canada should be smarter on his feet. In the big leagues, you're only allowed so many stupid mistakes.

Insult to voters? You bet! Does the CPC not have a right to run a candidate of any nationality if based on merit?  I have news for the Waffle, this is not kindergarten!  This is the big leagues!
 Good luck to CPC candidate Julie Javier and may the best candidate win! 

National Post Today's Letters: Israel's Friend, Harper or Ignatieff?

Today's National Post letters are in response to David Frum's column  and this column in the National Post the other day on PM Harper's speech vs. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's speech at the Combatting Anti-Semitism conference on Monday. 
The letters clearly are in support of PM Harper and against the Waffle's approach.

What’s a (once) leftie Jewish Canadian supposed to do? Voting for a Tory was the one thing my Zaida told me not to do. That was then and this is now. There are few friends of Israel of this stature with such willingness to shout for all to hear. Thank you Stephen Harper (and sorry, Zaida, but he turned out to be the good guy).
Janis Rosen, Toronto.

 I am not Jewish but my heart stands with the state of Israel as it continues to be maligned by so many people. The hatred of the Jews is not different from the hatred aimed at the Christians in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other areas of the world. We strongly applaud Mr Harper for his poise and balance and his strong sense of truth and justice. In contrast we hear confused statements from the Leader of the Opposition. As usual, the latter was aimlessly trying to gain political points at the expense of Israel. What a tragedy.

 George E. Tabet, Mississauga, Ont.

 After reading about Michael Ignatieff’s convoluted take on the issue of anti-Semitism, I was reminded of the notion that a Liberal is a person who won’t speak in favour of his own argument.

 Ronald Rea, Oakville, Ont.

I hope that Michael Ignatieff will never see the prime minister’s chair. He is playing dirty politics, hoping that his appeal to Muslim Canadians will bring him the leadership. I hope that Canadians show him the door.

Isaac Glick, Thornhill, Ont.  

Until this one from Anita Cruella Neville Liberal MP from Winnipeg:

David Frum’s column on Michael Ignatieff’s speech to the Ottawa Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism misrepresented both the substance and the authenticity of Mr. Ignatieff’s remarks. Mr. Frum’s contention that the Liberal leader was strangely ambivalent about Israel is not consistent with the text. Regarding the hateful comparison of Israel with apartheid South Africa, Mr. Ignatieff forcefully argued that to conflate the two is to delegitimize a democratic state. Regarding the Middle East, Mr. Ignatieff made it clear that a democratic state like Canada cannot be neutral between a democratic state and terrorist organizations. There is no honest broker.

 Readers of the Post deserve the full story. Printing Mr. Frum’s diatribe without the context of an excerpt from Ignatieff’s speech — as was provided for the Prime Minister’s remarks — allows for Mr. Ignatieff’s principled and unambiguous statements to be corrupted and maligned. The Liberal party stands firmly against both the old and new anti-Semitism. That’s the full story.

Anita Neville, MP for Winnipeg South Centre, Ottawa

So she calls her leader's statement principled?  News to me!  He was talking from both sides of his mouth.  The fact is Liberals would sell us out just for a seat on the Security Counsel in the corrupt UN.  PM Harper on the other hand has not sold his soul or his principles just to curry favor with those that those on the left tend to love. It's clear he is a staunch friend of Israel.
 Who would want a  seat on the Security Counsel when Iran and Saudi Arabia are going to be sitting on  a new panel for Women's rights and Libya sits on the UN Human Rights Council?.You gotta be kidding right? Believe it or not but.Liberals would sell Canada out for an organization like that.  The UN is no longer a credible organization and neither is the Liberal party of Canada or it's leader.

Meanwhile, PM Harper is still the most trustworthy federal leader.

Update: A great monologue from Charles Adler on the speeches and who is the real leader.  Listen here. Go Nov.10 @ approx. 2:05pm. He continues then after the news at the bottom of the hour. 

Be Very Proud of Our Prime Minister for Standing Against Evil

I know I am very proud of our Prime Minister,especially after yesterday when he gave a very powerful speech at the Conference for Combating Anti-Semitism.  He is very staunch in his support for Israel whatever the cost. We lost a seat on the UN Security Council for it but I don't care.  For that I applaud him.  Here is an excerpt from his speech.

Two weeks ago I visited Ukraine for the first time. At the killing grounds of Babyn Yar, I knew I was standing in a place where evil – evil at its most cruel, obscene, and grotesque – had been unleashed. But while evil of this magnitude may be unfathomable, it is nonetheless a fact.
It is a fact of history. And it is a fact of our nature – that humans can choose to be inhuman. This is the paradox of freedom. That awesome power, that grave responsibility – to choose between good and evil.
Let us not forget that even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust, men were free to choose good. And some did. That is the eternal witness of the Righteous Among the Nations.
And let us not forget that even now, there are those who would choose evil, and would launch another Holocaust, if left unchecked. That is the challenge before us today.
In response to this resurgence of moral ambivalence on these issues, we must speak clearly.
Remembering the Holocaust is not merely an act of historical recognition. It must also be an understanding and an undertaking. An understanding that the same threats exist today. And an undertaking of a solemn responsibility to fight those threats.
Jews today in many parts of the world and many different settings are increasingly subjected to vandalism, threats, slurs, and just plain, old-fashioned lies.
Let me draw your attention to some particularly disturbing trends.
Anti-Semitism has gained a place at our universities, where at times it is not the mob who are removed, but the Jewish students under attack. And, under the shadow of a hateful ideology with global ambitions, one which targets the Jewish homeland as a scapegoat, Jews are savagely attacked around the world – such as, most appallingly, in Mumbai in 2008.
We have seen all this before. And we have no excuse to be complacent. In fact we have a duty to take action. And for all of us, that starts at home.
In Canada, we have taken a number of steps to assess and combat anti-Semitism in our own country. But of course we must also combat anti-Semitism beyond our borders, – an evolving, global phenomenon. And we must recognize, that while its substance is as crude as ever, its method is now more sophisticated.
Harnessing disparate anti-Semitic, anti-American and anti-Western ideologies, it targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so.
We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is. Of course, like any country, Israel may be subjected to fair criticism. And like any free country, Israel subjects itself to such criticism – healthy, necessary, democratic debate. But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack – Is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand. Demonization, double standards, delegitimization, the 3 D’s, it is a responsibility, to stand up to them.
And I know, by the way, because I have the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the United Nations, or any other international forum, the easy thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israeli rhetoric, to pretend it is just being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of “honest broker.” There are, after all, a lot more votes, a lot more, in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But, as long as I am Prime Minister, whether it is at the UN or the Francophonie or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are, in the longer term, a threat to all of us.
Earlier I noted the paradox of freedom. It is freedom that makes us human. Whether it leads to heroism or depravity depends on how we use it.
We are free citizens, but also the elected representatives of free peoples. We have a solemn duty to defend the vulnerable, to challenge the aggressor, to protect and promote human dignity, at home and abroad. None of us knows whether we would choose to do good, in the extreme circumstances of the Righteous. But we do know there are those today who would choose to do evil, if they are so permitted. Thus, we must use our freedom now, and them and their anti-Semitism at every turn.
Our work together is a sign of hope, just as the existence and persistence of the Jewish homeland is a sign of hope. And it is here that history serves not to warn but to inspire.
As I said on the 60th anniversary of its founding, the State of Israel appeared as a light, in a world emerging from deep darkness. Against all odds, that light has not been extinguished. It burns bright, upheld by the universal principles of all civilized nations – freedom, democracy, justice.
By working together more closely in the family of civilized nations, we affirm and strengthen those principles. And we declare our faith in humanity’s future, in the power of good over evil.

He doesn't cower to the corrupt UN for the sake of a seat on the security counsel.   On the other hand you have the leader of the Liberal party, Michael Ignatieff's speech that David Frum so aptly  points out  as confused and pointless.  Iffy would be disastrous as PM on the world scene and well the domestic scene as well. He really stands for nothing.
PM Harper is decisive, strong, and bold when it comes to his support for Israel, it makes me proud.
You can watch the whole speech here.  It's well worth it.  It's different watching it than reading it. I thank God for putting Stephen Harper in such a position for such a time like this.

God Bless PM Harper! God Bless Canada!

Keith Martin Going Rogue

Oh,oh, Liberal MP Dr. Keith Martin going against his party on health care again?  Well good for him!  Obviously this hasn't gone down well with in his own party especially with Ujjal Dosanjh.

Dr. Keith Martin, the Liberal MP, is continuing his campaign to encourage a realistic debate over health care reform (as opposed to just talking about it, which is the preferred option in Ottawa and 10 out of 10 provinces).
His suggestion last month that Canadians should have the right to pay for health care outside the system if they wished had his own party doing backflips to separate themselves from his dangerous ideas. “That is absolutely not a solution to any of the problems that we’re facing today,” said Ujjal Dosanjh, a charter member of the Status Quo club. Liberal policy is to acknowledge that something really needs to be done, while refusing to address any serious alternatives.
But Martin isn’t backing down. Today he expanded his view with a list of criteria for repairing the system:

 Health Care Reform Do’s and Don’ts 
by Keith Martin, M.P., M.D.

 Don’t:
•    Allow people to pay to jump ahead of the queue in the public system
•    Allow people to divert taxes to private services. Everyone will pay taxes and ALL will have access to the public system. This is akin to our education system that has private and public schools. People who pay tuition for their children to attend private schools still pay taxes that pay for public schools.

Do:
•    Look at 17 of the 20 top health care systems that are all in Europe. All provide for better access to quality care when people fall ill at a lower cost (Canada ranks 22nd in the world, the US is 26th).
•    Allow people to pay for health care services in completely separate private clinics. ONLY private monies would pay for these clinics and services.
•    Enforce common standards for public and private health services.
•    Develop a medical manpower strategy.
•    Allow physicians to provide essential services in the private sector if they spend a minimum of 50% of their time working for the public system.
•    Allow hospitals to be paid on the basis of patient services rendered as opposed to receiving block funding alone.
•    Implement a National Head Start Program for Children. This is a powerful preventative program.
•    Implement E-technologies to improve the flow of medical information e.g. E-Health records.

Most of the reforms I agree with. It's a start.  I say kudos to him for  going against the status quo although it could get him into a heap of trouble with the party but oh, well. Remember, it's taboo for any politician anywhere in this  country to talk about health care reform. At least he's taking the initiative for to start talking about something that needs to be talked about. Reforming our  increasingly failing unsustainable health care system.  As the National Post states:

 That ought to really bug the Liberal leadership. Here’s a guy who won’t just shut up and let them ignore the health care issue. Better drag out Ujjal again.

Yup, better fetch Ujjal!  Can't have one of your members going rogue now. I hope he doesn't shut up. I hope he keeps it up!  At least, it just might get an adult conversation started  which is well overdue.
To Keith Martin, don't allow your party to muzzle you, you keep speaking out!

Related: Here is a very sensible column in the Globe and Mail by Andre Picard on health care reform. It's well worth the read.

First and foremost, we need to throw off the shackles of the Canada Health Act, a well-meaning law that has become an impediment to reform.    Amen!

Justin Trudeau To Stump for Vaughn Liberal Candidate

Pretty boy, Justin Trudeau will be stumping for Tony Genco, Liberal candidate for the riding of Vaughn   before a by-election that is to be held on Nov.29

Just a few weeks after lending a hand to failed Toronto mayoral candidate George Smitherman, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau is hoping to raise his party’s fortunes — this time in Vaughan — when he joins that riding’s local candidate Tony Genco on a promotional tour Thursday in advance of the federal by-election later this month.
Mr. Genco is headed into a fierce fight against Conservative Party candidate and former Ontario Provincial Police Chief Julian Fantino for a seat that has been a Liberal stronghold for 14 years.
The Tories are hoping to break the Liberal domination in the November 29 by-election with the high-profile Mr. Fantino, a well known figure in the Italian Canadian community.
According to Liberal Party ads, Mr. Trudeau, MP for the Quebec riding of Papineau and the son of late former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, along with the “rest of the Liberal team,” will stop by Vaughan’s DiManno Bakery for lunch, followed by a visit to the West Woodbridge Seniors Club.
It’s not clear why the Liberals feel they need Mr. Trudeau’s help to win a riding in a province in which the young MP does not live.
Maurizio Bevilacqua, the former Liberal MP who has held the seat since it was created in 1996, was recently elected as Mayor of Vaughan, leaving a hole the Conservatives hope to fill this time around.

Justin stumped for George Smitherman a few weeks ago in the city of Toronto mayoral race and we all how that turned out.   If that election was any indication of the affect that Trudeau has, I think CPC candidate Julian Fantino's chances have just increased.

Why Haven't the Police Been Called In?

It's extremely rare I agree with anything from NDP MP Pat Martin but I do believe he's right on this one. That, the cops should be called to investigate Rentgate. for fraud.

OTTAWA — The House of Commons should explain why there hasn’t been a police investigation into two MPs who paid back tens of thousands of dollars in tax dollars they improperly received for rental expenses, says New Democrat Pat Martin.
The Chronicle Herald reported Saturday that Toronto-area Liberal MPs Judy Sgro and John Cannis were both ordered to reimburse taxpayers for years of rent expenses they received in violation of the rules — more than $60,000 for Sgro and more than $80,000 for Cannis.
Both MPs had transferred their Ottawa condominiums to the names of family members, which allowed them to claim rental expenses that are higher than the amounts MPs can claim for condo fees. Earlier this summer, an investigation by The Chronicle Herald and Ottawa Citizen uncovered the arrangements through searches of property records.

   Even a fraud investigator agrees that the police should be called in.

Steve Harrar, a fraud investigator with Nexia Friedman, a Montreal financial services firm, said that if MPs have been filing false expense claims, the police should be called in.
"The police should be called at that point, to at least make a report of the situation," he said. "They might want to interrogate the person."
Harrar said the fact that the MPs transferred ownership to a relative suggests they knew what they were doing.

Why the cops haven't been called, I don't know why but they should be.  Is it up the Board of Internal Economy to make the call?  Probably.  There should be an investigation toot sweet.  No doubt if this were CPC MPs, the cops would have been called long ago. 

Another thing why is this not front and center in the 24hr. news cycle?  Again if it were CPC MPs, it would be a non stop, leading story for days if not weeks.  The media again covering Liberal butts?  Yeah I think so.

Something's In the Air

  Something is going on, you can feel it in the air. You take a look at what happened in Toronto, a latte sipping lefty bastion, last week where  small c-conservative Rob Ford won the Mayor's seat.  A month before Conservatives won an overwhelming majority in the election in New Brunswick defeating a Liberal government making David Alward the new Premier.

It's going to be a bloodbath tomorrow in the House of Representatives in the US midterm elections for the Democrats.  Republicans are poised to gain power of Congress and possibly the Senate as well by huge margins.

What is the catalyst for all of this?  I think Roy Green has nailed it.

So what may have acted as catalyst for a ballot box attack on the status quo? Arguably, the Great Recession.
Certainly Canada didn’t face the same level of fiscal clear-cutting experienced by our American neighbours, who watched major financial institutions crash and burn, frequently saw their pensions and savings compromised, experienced the trauma of home foreclosure and grew increasingly furious as Washington, first under George W. Bush and then more spectacularly under Barack Obama, spent more than a trillion non-existent federal dollars propping up what was considered “too big to fail”.
Americans watched thousands line up for very few available jobs while corporate gangsters pocketed publicly announced severance payments in the millions.
“What can we do” was replaced by “dammit! No more”!

Simply the public is sick and tired of the big out of control spending, the big nanny style government at all levels that has a noose around our necks that seem to get tighter and tighter with each passing day.  We are in debt up to our eye balls and our children and grandchildren will have to pay  the bills. Our freedoms are being stripped away at every turn it seems and people are finally starting to wake up.  It's about time.

What this shows is that voters are mad as hell and are not going to take anymore.
John McCain has it right when he says " big government spending is generational theft"

So what does this all say?  Well, that socialism doesn't work and is on it's way out and  small c-conservatism is coming into style because it's small government, more freedom that is really what works. It's good for everyone.

If federal CPC  gets with the program, plays it right, listens to the public and offer some real small c-conservative solutions, they can catch the wave and a majority would most likely be theirs.  Perhaps they've already started the ball rolling with Maxime Bernier out there talking about some of those small c conservative libertarian solutions.  You bet on it that he wouldn't be out there speaking like that if he didn't have the PM's blessing.



 This at the end of Green's article:

Once again analysts are analysing and post mortems will feature dumbfounded analytical attempts to make sense of “wha’ happened”.
There will be more of that following tomorrow’s U.S. mid-term vote and no doubt trailing future federal and provincial elections here.
It’s no mystery. The answer has been “blowing in the wind” of political talk radio for some time now. Cup of tea, anyone?

Amen!  I believe there is a wave coming and it's a big blue wave!  Get ready for it!