CBC Retirees Double Dipping?

As part of Brian Lilley's series on the CBC he's discovered that dozens of retirees have been hired back as consultants or contractors and of course we pay their pensions and their consultant or contractor fees. So could they be double dipping? I would say so.

OTTAWA - CBC hires back dozens of retirees each year as contractors or consultants.
Documents obtained through access to information show that between 2005 and
2007 the state broadcaster hired 125 people who were also receiving an annuity or pension from CBC.
The records took three years to obtain and required the intervention of the federal information commissioner. At first CBC refused to release any records, claiming all records were considered personal information and not subject to the access law.
After an investigation by the information commissioner's office, CBC agreed to release the total number of retirees hired back on contract.
The practice of retirees returning to work as consultants in federal government departments is not uncommon in the federal government and is often referred to as ³double-dipping.² In 2005 CBC hired back 21 retirees, 37 in 2006 and 67 in 2007.

Wouldn't  Mr. Braaa.....dcast Don Newman former host of the old CBC Politics show come to mind as one of those "retirees" that have been hired back?  Because he now writes a column on the CBC website and appears on panels etc on CBC television from time to time. How much is he and others sucking out of the taxpayer by doing this?  I would like to know. He's probably receiving a pension and collecting a fee or a salary or whatever.    I hope when the information committee investigates the CBC after the Christmas recess, we  can find out. 

Liberal Party Not As It Seems

Liberals say they're a strong united party ready to fight an election whenever that may come. Their leader vows to trigger an election in the new year although it looks like he's starting  to climb back down that hill a bit.

 However, when asked if the Liberals will vote in support of the Conservative budget in the coming session, Ignatieff said he cannot make a decision without first seeing the document.
"Let me read the thing first. I'm not like Mr. Layton, who votes for things before he's even read it," Ignatieff said, taking a shot at his NDP rival for saying that he would vote down the government's stimulus plan even before it had been tabled.
But Ignatieff definitively said that he would be prepared to vote down the budget and topple the government if the legislation doesn't mesh with what's good for the country.

Are they ready?  Not quite so as it seems.  Publicly the party will "appear" united and that every thing is hunky dory but privately they are deeply divided as Angelo Persichilli so aptly points out. Apparently  the Liberal infighting and divisions are vastly different than when the Tories were divided.

It took 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, for the Conservatives to put aside most of their differences and work together. It’s ironic that the same year the Tories started bridging their differences, the Liberals grew apart.Moreover, the division among them is more dangerous. The Conservative fight was in the open and the division was a clear split between two visions. The Liberals are more than divided, they are fragmented by personal vendettas, jealousies and a lack of leadership.
Despite the front of a happy family, they are fighting each other over differences from the past while creating new ones. This fight no longer has anything to do with Martin and Chrétien; it’s about the metastasis of that disease which has taken on a life of its own.

Why? Angelo answers that too:

Why is all this happening? The problem is that spoiled individuals who have taken over the party are using it to pursue feuds with their personal Liberal enemies.
This problem can be corrected only by using a big broom to get rid of them all, and a good place to start would be in the office of the present leader.
But in order to do that, you need a credible, respected and strong leader. Such a leader is nowhere to be seen.  

Oooh, ouch!  Could this be the reason he's starting to back down  from his election rhetoric again? There are plenty of problems within the Liberal party. They have a tough time raising funds, have no credible policy etc. and  all that infighting doesn't help.. Maybe, if they want to earn their "earn" their way back into office,they should stop the muckraking,trying to make the Conservatives bad, work on cleaning up their own party  instead acting like petulant little children all the time. Maybe then the public will take them seriously again.
Until then they're not ready or qualified to govern. They need to learn to govern themselves first.

Liberals Still Entitiled to Their Entitlements

It must be in the Liberal DNA because the last five years out of power, the Liberals sure have not learned anything. They still have that arrogant sense of entitlement.This right out of the leader's mouth:

“They want to win. It’s just that simple,” Ignatieff said. “They don’t like being in opposition. We’re a party that’s governed the country. We’re not like the Bloc or the NDP who think this is dying and going to heaven. We think this is purgatory and we want to get back to the business of governing the country and we know the only way we can do that is if we’re united.”

Wow! Doesn't sound like they've been very humbled at all by having to sit in the opposition benches.  Just that statement alone proves they should not be returned to power any time soon. They were voted out of office for that very reason,the sense of entitlement. Power is all the Liberals care about. They don't care the county. They don't care about you. All they care about is stealing your money. You see they have a very tough time in the fund-raising department and they need the money. . They act like junkies when they can't get their fix.

. All they do is bleat and howl like banshees at government  while offering no ideas or alternatives of their own. They cry outrage at issues that the public doesn't care about re-prorogation, Afghan detainees etc.  They've been in this constant mode,with the help of their talking head friends in the Lame stream Media of finding and manufacturing faux scandals trying to make the Conservatives look bad. They haven't done anything to earn their way back to power.

Don't let them fool you.  They will do anything, say anything, try any stunt under the sun to get those keys back.

I hope the Tory war room is tucking statements  like this away in a safe place so that they can remind voters  come next election that Liberals haven't learned a darn thing since being turfed out five years ago.

Christmas MIA for MIA

We are now in the midst of the most blessed time of the year, Christmas,the celebration of  birth of our Lord Jesus Christ who came from His home in Heaven to this wretched sinful world to give us freedom,save us from our sins and give us eternal life in which no man is able to give.

Our nation was build on Christian principals.  Even The Charter of Rights of Freedoms that Liberals tout all the time, begins with the preamble of the "Supremacy of God"
 Ezra Levant points out the dearLiberal leader Michael Ignatieff's Christmas card is well not a Christmas card. 

Michael Ignatieff’s Christmas card isn’t a Christmas card.
It’s a “holiday” card. It has a Jewish menorah on it, which is great. Fully 1% of Canadians are Jewish and though Hanukkah was three weeks ago, it’s a nice thought.
The card has some snowflakes on it, too, and mittens and a gingerbread man (or a ghost, it’s not clear). Those are symbols of winter. Which is great, because it is winter time.
But there’s not a single Christian symbol on the card, the religion of the majority of Canadians. It’s the faith our Queen Elizabeth is officially the “defender” of, the religion that inspired the names of so many places in this country, from the St. Lawrence Seaway to St. John’s.

As Ezra also points out we have many Christian symbols in the coat of arms in the provinces, our anthem etc.

It is the religion whose cross adorns the coats of arms of almost every province, the religion from whose Bible comes Canada’s motto, “From sea to sea.” Our anthem asks God to keep our land, and the French version says we will “carry the cross.”
Even the Charter of Rights begins with the reminder that neither judges nor politicians are at the apex of Canadian society, but rather both are under the “supremacy of God.”

Also on the Peace Tower on the Parliament Building, you have inscribed from the Psalm 72:8 in the Bible,
"He shall have dominion from sea to sea."
So see you have symbols of Christianity all around you.  Our country is based on Christian principals.  For Michael Ignatieff to ignore that is ignoring what our country was build on.  Most Canadians identify themselves with the Christian faith.  If Ignatieff is trying to win back Christian voters back from the Conservatives ignoring them will not help.

On a side not:e: I would like to take this time to wish everyone a very Merry and Blessed Christmas.  As we do our shopping, baking, visiting friends and family, let us just take the time to reflect on what this time of year is really about.  Jesus is really the reason for the season.

Iggo Waffle's Delusion

I don't know what Iggo Waffle been smokin' but he believes that their win in Winnipeg North is a sign of things to come for the Liberals.  He believes that the public is starting to fall in love with the Liberals all over  again..   Yes they won handily over the NDP in the by-election that was held last month but that was only because the Liberal candidate was well known and the NDP candidate was not and volunteers were exhausted from working for Judy W's .mayoralty race.. Voter turn out was extremely poor too. Plus Conservatives never had a chance there anyway. The NDP will easily regain that seat next general election.

OTTAWA -- Voters in one of the country's most troubled ridings voted for hope over fear when it comes to battling crime, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday.
During a day of year-end interviews with national reporters, Ignatieff told the Free Press the results in the Nov. 29 byelection in Winnipeg North are significant.
"Winnipeg North is a community that has been devastated by crime," said Ignatieff. "And yet we stood up there and fought it block by block and street by street, blew the NDP away, blew the Conservatives away with a message that said 'yeah we need to be tough on crime but we need to be smart on solutions.' "
Kevin Lamoureux won the byelection for the Liberals, defeating the NDP in a riding it had held for more than a decade. The Conservatives finished a distant third. Much of the Conservative campaign was focused on the party's tough-on-crime approach.
Ignatieff called that the "politics of fear" approach and said Winnipeg North voters, who deal with violent crime every day, rejected it.

Umm.... has he forgotten about Vaughn, a Liberal stronghold which they held for 22 years?Conservatives  were able to break that stronghold. Voters there must have bought the Conservative message over the Liberal one.  Thus we have  Julian Fantino a new Conservative MP in caucus.

He later claims his leadership is fine at the same time you have a poll that came out just a few days ago stating a good number of Liberals who want a new leader.

He thinks Liberals are ready for an election.but  you have this from a senior Liberal. 

This is where the divisions emerge, because Mr. Ignatieff is clearly to the right of many Liberals, who would dearly love for their party to consolidate the progressive vote.

 Says one senior Liberal: "There are all kinds of problems -- money, candidates, the leader's various issues -- but they could be overcome to a very large degree if the party had the courage to chart a clear, values-based progressive course. That ain't going to happen under His Igness, who is basically a conservative dressed up as a progressive."

This is an argument that seems to be being whispered with increasing volume.

He  believes he's connecting with voters?  

“I think I am connecting with the voters who are paying attention,” said Mr. Ignatieff. The situation is far better than it looks, he insisted. “The party believes in itself, believes in its message, the organization is good.”More important, he maintained, the Liberal Party remains the most legitimate party of the centre, which is where most voters are. “The Conservatives only win when they pretend to be a liberal party. They have to defang themselves.”
Most Canadians still believe in public health care, help with post-secondary tuition, a meaningful pension plan and the protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he maintained.
“The Liberal appeal is: we’re the people who put that granite under your feet,” he said. “The message is as persuasive now as it ever was – in fact, more so, because that middle class is under a lot of pressure.”
But for the past three elections, more of those middle-class electors have turned to the Conservatives than to the Liberals. Mr. Ignatieff can only hope that once a campaign is under way, they will be open to changing their minds.
The Liberal Leader is ready to find out sooner rather than later.

Wow! Is he deluded or what?  That fact is voters are not turning away from the Conservatives and flocking to him and his Liberals. They are quite satisfied with the current government and not hankering for change. Allow him to have his delusions. If he want's an election, bring it on.  I gotta feeling he'll be heading back to Haavard or  where ever asap after the election.   But when all is said and done, even though he's saber rattling about bring the government down right now, I bet he'll find a way once again to climb back down that hill.