TorStar's Linda McQuaig on PM Harper, Fox, SunTV and a Sinister Plot

Left wing Toronto Star journalist, Linda McQuaig tries to connect PM Harper luncheoning in New York with Rupert Murdoch whose company owns Foxnews and Roger Ailes, president of that news channel with the new SunTV News channel due to come on air in 2011 and a plot to poison the Canadian public with right wing extremism. Oh the horror!

So it should be considered no big deal that, among those the PM has lunched with, is U.S. media billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has probably done more than any single individual in recent years to push American politics sharply to the right.
It’s interesting to imagine, however, why our Prime Minister would want to meet with Murdoch, whose Fox News TV channel has poisoned U.S. political debate and nurtured America’s extremist right-wing Tea Party movement.
If you subscribe to the notion that Harper has no particular political agenda, his lunch with Murdoch in March 2009 might seem harmless, perhaps a purely social affair.
But the evidence suggests they were discussing plans to transform the Canadian political landscape by creating a right-wing, Fox-style TV station in Canada. Present at the lunch was Fox News president Roger Ailes, known for bringing cutthroat Republican campaign tactics to the screen.

She says there is evidence to suggest they were discussing creating a Fox TV here. What evidence? Having lunch together? How does she know what they were talking about?  Was she there?  I doubt it. Ooh,something sinister must have been going on.

She then goes on to suggest that just because Kory Tenecyke was in attendance that he must have been in on that  dark plot. Kory was PM Harper 's communications directer at the time and is now spearheading SunTV News. He had every right to be there.

Also present at the lunch was Harper aide Kory Teneycke, who has since become the front man in the bid by Quebec media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau to get a specialty TV licence for a Fox News-style network in Canada.

Then the plot thickens:

Harper also met twice in early 2009 with Peladeau, according to Cheadle.

Whoa!  Big deal. PM Harper meets with Peladeau.  Were any of the media privy to what they were discussing?  Thought so.  Just more speculation.
Then there's the speculation that the PM is interfering with CRTC so that SunTV will obtain their license by trying to force big wig, Konrad von Finckenstein to resign.

Of course, Harper doesn’t hand out TV licences. That’s the job of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
But Morrison says he’s heard that Harper has been trying to encourage CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein to resign, by offering him plum jobs. Von Finckenstein appears likely to stymie Peladeau’s bid for a first-tier licence that would deliver his station to all cable subscribers in the country.

 Does she have proof?  Didn't think so.  Morrison heard. Heard where and from who? More speculation.
Then there's that nasty right wing extremism.

 There’s been a tendency in the Canadian media to dismiss the threat of a Fox News transplant, on the grounds Canadians wouldn’t fall for that sort of nasty, right-wing extremism.
But that comforting notion may be naive. Most citizens don’t have time to follow political stories in detail. If they hear constant sound-bites suggesting global warming is a hoax or public health care just doesn’t work, after a while the message starts to seem believable.

She's afraid that the public might see that global warming is hoax?  Yup, because it actually is!   Public health care doesn't work?  You bet!

Oh and the media is already moving to the right.  Yeah right!

Indeed, the Canadian political debate has already moved considerably to the right, particularly since Conrad Black created the National Post in 1998.
While the Post has struggled to capture audience share, it’s had a big impact on the media landscape. Its sneering attitude toward progressive ideas — now echoed by the Harper government — has pushed other media rightward, including the CBC, which is ever frightened of offending those in power. The CBC even hired Teneycke, an Ann Coulter-style pit bull, as a commentator.
The media already blast Canadians with a steady chorus of right-wing ideas. A Fox-style network here — if Harper gets his way — would turn that into a deafening cacophony.

Oh, the horror that Canadians get another point of view and have a choice in TV news instead of the left wing, anything anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-Harper pablum everyday. I think Linda is another one of the left wing, liberal, lame stream media who are very afraid that the public will get some truth and facts for a change instead of Liberal fiction. 

This story is another perfect example of that fiction. Just making things up. No proof, no evidence, just speculation.  I think Canadians are tired of that.  I am, aren't you?

Iggy's Magical Bus Tour is a Flop!

A new poll from Leger states the Liberal Express summer tour hasn't exactly turned the public on.

OTTAWA — The Liberal Express summer bus tour has been a flop, according to a new Leger Marketing poll.
At least it's failed if the plan was to introduce Michael Ignatieff to Canadians.

Less than one-in-ten Canadians say they know more about the Liberal leader now than when the tour began, and most of them are already Liberal supporters.
Of the 8% who say they know more about Ignatieff now, 59% say their opinion of him has improved, while 18% say it's worsened.
A total of 30% of Canadians still say they know nothing at all about the Liberal leader, with women and young people (under the age of 35) most likely to know nothing about him (36% and 34% respectively).

Also if an election were held today the results would be:
Conservatives-37%
Liberals-28%
NDP-16%
Bloc-9%
Greens-8%

So it looks like after the media and bureaucrat driven census hub bub and Iggy visiting fairs, festivals, etc. in the dog days of summer all across the country has not produced the results that the Liberals and their supporters would have liked. Iggy and the Libs are just not getting any traction. He's been preaching mainly to the converted even among some of those his image has worsened.  What his handlers have been doing has not been working.  Maybe they should try a new strategy.

This pretty well sums it up, the plan for the public to get to know him better.

"If I was a Liberal party handler and was trying to do whatever I could to increase his (Ignatieff's) likelihood of getting elected, they're just not going about it the right way, obviously," Scholz said. "The Conservatives have a nine-point lead on the Liberals, which is a slightly higher gap than what we saw at the start of the summer.
"I think the Liberal Party would like to forget the summer of 2010."

Zing! Why else have we not heard much about the tour?  Because it hasn't been going the way they wished. They thought by now Iggymania would be sweeping the nation.  Hasn't quite worked out like that. After all he was supposed to be the second coming of Trudeau, right?

You've Got to Be Kidding!

Andrew Coyne's piece in Macleans really has my head shaking. Maybe I don't get it but I don't understand his latest.
People willing to endure what the Tamils did are just the kind we want 
What? Oh,really! If they go through the proper channels and not deemed to be a threat to our national security or a burden on the taxpayer, maybe.

So why all the fuss? There’s a suspicion that the organizers may be Tamil Tigers, the notorious terrorist group. The Tigers themselves are a despicable bunch, but helping hundreds of desperate people to reach freedom would seem the least of their crimes. Sometimes this is called “human smuggling” or “trafficking,” to give it an unseemly taint. But smuggling implies an attempt to evade detection: this ship, by contrast, went about its business openly. And while trafficking in human beings is obviously horrific when the “cargo” is destined for slavery, in this case the destination is Canada. However unpleasant their conditions may have been aboard ship, the $50,000 each of the Tamils reportedly paid for their passage is surely a bargain, if it means a chance to live in Canada.

Uh,Mr.Coyne, first of all, the captain of that boat has said to be a member of the Tamil Tigers. Secondly, human trafficking is against the law.  Thirdly, no it is not a bargain if they are slaves indebted to whoever they owe the money to, being shaken down all the time to pay back their $50,000.  Besides that money most likely would go to fund the Tiger terrorist group.  No thanks!

Is that the problem, then: are the Tamils, as it is said, “jumping the queue”?
Yes it is que-jumping because they get immediate medical care, processing etc. while others that go through the proper channels have to wait inline for a very long time.  They have already jumped the que for healthcare.

Some are concerned that this might be the first (well, the second: the first arrived last October) of many similar deliveries.
Umm...yeah. It sets a precedent and there are already reports that there are more going to be on their way soon.  Eighty boats have already been turned away from Australia this year!

A few thousand more refugees is not going to overwhelm us.
How does he figure that?  It's costing us millions to feed them, give them healthcare, process them etc.  Then what about when they cleared?  Many will be on welfare.

Perhaps it will be decided that the Tamils are mere economic migrants. Many people are very exercised about this, preferring that economic class immigrants go through the battery of tests the Immigration Department has devised to predict which of them will flourish most in Canada’s economy. Very well. I have a simple test for this, too. Here it is: have you just spent four months in the bottom of a boat to get here?
Huh?

Remember the Vietnamese boat people of the 1970s?
Yes I do. That was a little different. Many of the Vietnamese boat people had to have sponsors. I remember,our church sponsored a family. Who is sponsoring the Tamils?

I don't think we should allow just anyone into our country.  We shouldn't allow anyone who will be a burden on the taxpayer or a threat to our national security.  If Mr. Coyne wants all these migrants,fine, he can take them in and support them with his own money and be responsible for them if any poses a threat to our safety and security.

Ezra Levant vs Liberal MP Gurbax Singh Malhi

Kudo's to Sun Media! Brian Lilley has called out Lib MP Gurbax Singh Malhi when he responded to a column that  Ezra wrote earlier in the week stating that Malhi supported the Tamil Tigers.  He claims Ezra has the facts wrong about a rally that he spoke at earlier this year.

OTTAWA - An MP who stood in a sea of Tamil Tiger flags and listened as protesters chanted “Tamil Tiger, freedom fighter” is striking back at columnist Ezra Levant.
Liberal MP Gurbax Singh Malhi says a column that ran in QMI Agency newspapers earlier this week by Levant “misrepresents the facts in suggesting that I support the Tamil Tigers, when my allegiance is to the protection of human rights of individuals around the world.”
In a letter to the editor, Malhi stated that he has spoken out against violations of human rights wherever they have occurred around the world.
“Also note that the event at which I was present and that is mentioned in the column was actually a Tamil-Canadian community rally,” Malhi wrote.
Levant, in a column under the headline, End refugee free-for-all, had questioned why Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka were being treated as refugees when the United Nations does not.
“Let’s ask Gurbax Singh Malhi, a Liberal MP who spoke at a Tamil Tiger rally on Parliament Hill last March, surrounded by the terrorist group’s flags and portraits of Prabhakaran,” wrote Levant.

Here is the video that Brian Lilley posted with  his column with Malhi standing at Parliament Hill at a Tamil Tiger rally speaking in support of their cause. 



Tamil-Canadian community rally?  Right! Was it really?  Take note of the Tamil Tiger flags in the video.  Did he not notice the terrorist flags when speaking at that event?  Don't tell me he didn't.
Me thinks either Mr. Malhi is not exactly tell the truth, he's using revisionist history or he didn't do his homework before he attended that rally.  Gurbax, should maybe  go back and take a look at that video.
It might trigger his memory. That facts in that video speak for them selves   It clearly shows him lending his support to the group.   In any case he's wrong in his response to Era's column.


 Ezra Levant-1,  Lib MP Gurbax Malhi-0!   Thanks to Brian Lilley and Sun Media for bring this to light!

Compassion, How Far Should It Go?

The Liberals and Paul Dewar NDP MP both say the government should show "more compassion" where the Tamil migrants are concerned.

Earlier in the day, the federal Liberals called on the government to show more compassion and to “lower the tone” on the possibility that some of the Tamil refugee claimants might be criminals or terrorists with links to the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
NDP MP Paul Dewar said the government should focus on helping Sri Lanka to rebuild after a long civil war, instead of trying to block Tamils from entering Canada.

PM Harper has vowed to take a tough stand against illegals.  

This time, Ottawa is taking a tougher stand on illegal arrivals, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper Prime vowing to stop the flow of ship-borne migrants to Canadian shores, saying he will “not hesitate to strengthen the laws if we have to.”
“Canadians are pretty concerned when a whole boat of people comes – not through any normal application process, not through any normal arrival channel – and just simply lands,” Mr. Harper said at a news conference in Mississauga, Ont., on Tuesday.

David Warren aptly expresses that "compassion" as public policy is nearly always a fraud.

As a public policy, "compassion" is nearly always a fraud; and I have inserted the word "nearly" only in case I think of an exception after filing this column. I can't think of one now.

He then goes on to state what "compassion" for the Tamils mean for the Liberals.

 We are lucky, for the moment, to have a party in power that owes nothing to the Tamil Tigers. For the Liberals, the sham of "compassion" extended to fundraising events with their goons, and the settled party understanding that any large, fairly desperate, and culturally exotic pool of welfare-propending immigrants will make reliable Liberal voting fodder. Hence side-splitting expostulations of compassion.

Brian Lilley says how that "compassion" can be deadly. 

Canadians outraged over the queuejumping boat filled with would-be refugees are being told to be a bit more compassionate, to open their hearts.Unfortunately, the type of compassion being advocated could get someone killed.

L.Ian Macdonald clearly states that these Tamil migrants are taking advantage of our "compassion" jumping the que and suggests we invoke the Notwithstanding Clause.

It is quite another for human traffickers to make a mockery of Canada's territorial and political sovereignty. Nor can there be any doubt that this is a test case or a probe of Canada's capacity to fend off rogue ships before they reach our shores. And Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has warned that two more ships might already be in the water bound for Canada. Apparently, the first and only line of defence is to stop these ships before they ever leave their home ports. We would have to rely on the Sri Lankans for that. Criminal sanctions could also be considered against Tamils living in Canada who can be proved to have sent money home to bring relatives here illegally. And then there is the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution - it's there for a reason, use it or lose it.

Yes let's have compassion but only for those who are truly refugees. We cannot solve the world's problems, we have enough problems of our own.  What about compassion for our own.  Let's have compassion for our security and sovereignty.  What about our own that are living on the street, the elderly, and our veterans?  Above all,please, let's not allow our selves to taken advantage of.