Undecided
Alberta's Next Premier....Who Cares?
The nail-biter of a race saw Alison Redford and Gary Mar tied for the PC leadership.Seriously, I couldn't care about who the next premier is, because the PC's are dead. They have become Liberals and are trending NDP. Nothing about them is Conservative.
With 62 of 85 constituencies reporting, the two opposing figures sat nearly tied, with Mar holding 40% of the vote, and Redford capturing nearly 38%, causing some to predict a close finish.
Good luck next election PC's, The reason your voting numbers are so bad is that no-one believes you anymore. Go Wild!!!!
Hudak Declares War On Unions
It is the first time he has said he would consider freezing the pay of the province's more than one million public sector workers. Wages take up 55% of the provincial budget, costing the Ontario government more than $50-billion a year.
A two-year wage freeze would save $2-billion a year.
"We're all in this together and I expect the unions to be responsible," Mr. Hudak said, referring to the province's deficit, which is projected to be $16-billion this year. "The problem is Dalton McGuinty always folds. Over and over again, Dalton McGuinty has thrown down his cards and handed over the chips. We can't afford that anymore."
I think a whole bunch of Principled Conservatives just found their reason to get off the bench.
And I think a whole bunch of Liberal-friendly unions are getting very. Very. FRIGHTENED.
Oh, and just remember, friends: McGuinty cannot be trusted to stand up to these vampires. He will most certainly be beholden to them if he wins.
I’ll not shed a tear over Anwar al-Awlaki loss of his Fifth Amendment right to due process
When American citizens take up arms against their country, they apparently cease to receive the judicial protections normally accorded citizens of that democracy. As aptly put in today’s National Post’s editorial, “Citizenship is not an immunity card against reprisal for those who 
commit acts of war, or assist others in so doing, against their governments.”
We are, of course, referring to the recent killing in Yemen of Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured), the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, by missile fire from a drone believed to be operated by the CIA.
Many of us applauded when President Obama announced that U.S. clandestine forces had assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But some see this as being different because al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico; he was not a foreign national like bin Laden. And they believe he deserved to be treated like any other American citizen, that is, he had a Fifth Amendment right to due process.
According to a report in The Washington Post, his assignation had been sanctioned by a secret memorandum written by the U.S. Justice Department. The memorandum came after a review by senior administration lawyers, who considered the legal issues raised by the extra-judicial targeting of a U.S. citizen. There was a general consensus, apparently, regarding the legality of al-Awlaki’s killing.
Some Americans already believe too many of their countrymen too easily allow their rights to be sacrificed on the alter of national security and offer too little protest when extra-judicial actions are taken by the state where al-Qaeda and Islamist Extremist terrorism are concerned. How must they be feeling now that they’ve reached the point where a president can order the pre-emptive killing of U.S. citizens overseas as a counterterrorism measure?
This fact, I suppose, should give us all a sense of discomfort, especially when rapists and pedophiles of the worst kind along with serial killers have their constitutional rights protected at great expense and with great danger to law enforcement officers, yet traitors can apparently be executed by presidential edict.
But should I care? Is this a real injustice?
Notwithstanding my sense of unease at the foregoing, I acknowledge we are living with a world order that does not fit easily with many of our traditional legal norms. Our battlefields are not always the traditional ones we once knew, such as those in the Second World War or even those in Iraq or Afghanistan where the enemy seldom wore military uniforms and often passed off themselves as innocent civilians.
Anwar al-Awlaki was an enemy of the United States in every respect. He was a senior leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He has been connected to three recent attacks against the United States. U.S. officials say his e-mails inspired accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan. al-Awlaki helped plan the failed Underwear Bomb attack, and was part of the plot to bring down cargo planes with explosives inside computer printers.
The current war we wage against al-Qaeda, and Islamist Extremist terrorism in general, is more alike a “hot” version of the Cold War between the West and the communist world. Our enemies don’t were uniforms and have co-opted many of our own citizens and are using them against us.
Every nation has a right of self-defence, a right well established under international law. And it is prudent for us to provide our government officials and armed forces the protection of a legal umbrella under which they can execute appropriate responses to this imminent danger in which we who live in Western democracies find ourselves.
When citizens take up arms against their country and/or its allies, they should be deemed to have denounced their citizenship and all the rights and privileges that go with it. So I’ll not shed a tear over Anwar al-Awlaki loss of his Fifth Amendment right to due process. We still have a firm hold on the moral high-ground in our war with Islamist Extremist terrorism.
© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.
Burlington candidates faceoff
The following is a re-print of my column at Our Burlington online newspaper.
Candidates representing Ontario’s three main parties in the Oct. 6 election faced off last Tuesday at a question and answer event hosted by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce. The Q&A format gave little opportunity for the cut-and-thrust I enjoy in these all-candidate encounters; however, the event did provide an opportunity to see the politicians in action.
Considering that every response given was already available on the parties’ websites, I could just as well have stayed home and surfed the Internet. There was nothing new, nothing spontaneous, no insights gained. So I won’t give a detailed reportage—that’s already been done elsewhere in these pages. My objective was to take the measure of the candidates themselves and get a view of how well they think on their feet and how persuasive they are.
Anyone who attended expecting spirited debate left disappointed. The candidates mainly read from prepared notes, giving the impression these were not the well-prepared, self-confident, facts-at-their-fingertips sorts one might hope for, or even expect, from politicians seeking high office. Quite a contrast to the polished performances we saw later that day on the televised Leaders’ Debate. I place great emphasis on “form” at such events. After all, candidates have every reason to be well prepared and at their best, just as their leaders were—none of them read from briefing notes.
Is it too much to ask that candidates memorize their party platforms and related statistics? And, when questions are not specifically covered by party material, don’t we expect them to speak from their hearts? Furthermore, not answering the question asked and not answering in the allotted time may well be symptomatic of not properly preparing oneself and/or lacking personal discipline.
Liberal candidate Karmel Sakran was the least effective performer. Given his legal background, I expected more from him, and his audience deserved better. He spoke with his head down as he read in a monotone from prepared notes, as might a shy grade niner seeking the class presidency. And he so poorly planned the length of his opening remarks, he barely got the chance to tell us who he was and to give his connection to Burlington before running over his allotted time. Throughout the morning, he offered little eye-contact, no spark, no spontaneity. And he also ran over his allotted time before completing his closing statement.
Mr. Sakran did, however, introduce the main elements of his party’s platform and defended its record in government. He also showed he knows our community. Unfortunately, however, he read answers without enthusiasm and was unconvincing. When he had nothing specific in his briefing notes to cover a question, he seemed to select a phrase—like “health care”—and matched it to a general response from his notes, ignoring the question’s context. I only remember him answering two questions in an impromptu fashion, looking up at the audience and without reading from his papers. They related to an immigrant business tax credit, which he defended ably, and the relocation of a gas plant in Oakville. All candidates were, uncharacteristically for the morning, spontaneous and animated as they agreed that the gas plant should not relocate to Burlington.
Those already inclined to vote Liberal, are unlikely to have changed their minds because of this event. But, while he might not have harmed himself or his party, he missed an opportunity to shine and convince voters in attendance and watching on Cogeco Cable that he was ready and able to take over from the retiring incumbent MPP Joyce Savoline.
Conversely, New Democrat Peggy Russell made a lot of eye-contact and showed flashes of passion, although, she also depended too heavily on prepared text. At one point, she read the wrong prepared answer. And there were opinions she expressed that I found curious:
First, on the issue of education, she blamed former premier Mike Harris for the lost schooldays due to strikes. I don’t remember Mike Harris locking out the teachers as much as the teachers withholding their labour at the expense of students. But I quibble.
Secondly, Ms. Russell claimed small businesses will benefit from a higher minimum wage, because workers would have more to spend. Following her logic, businesses should all give massive across-the-board raises to their employees. How strange it is they haven’t cottoned on to this NDP strategy?
Ms. Russell also went overtime on several responses, but she seemed sincere and seemed to “own” her answers. In my view, she won the morning in that she was passionate, made eye-contact and showed a level of political maturity not as evident in her rivals.
I rated the PC candidate Jane McKenna’s performance somewhere between that of her rivals. Following the pattern of the morning, she referred too frequently to her briefing notes, but, at least, she was animated and made far more eye-contact with her audience than did Mr. Sakran. She also, for the most part, finished her statements and answers within the allotted times. And she gave the best closing statement of the three.
She sounded nervous at times, but her deliveries, even when read out, seemed to be her own opinions and beliefs. That is, she, like Peggy Russell, seemed to own her answers despite them being couched in party rhetoric.
Ms. McKenna gave clear, unambiguous responses, convincing me that (a) while the mid-peninsula highway is important to Ontario’s future economy, it would not be crossing Burlington’s section of the fragile Niagara Escarpment; and (b) Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital will receive provincial funding for its expansion project, should the PCs gain power. And, on a couple of occasions when she did not have an answer to a question, she said so without trying to retrofit her prepared text and offering it in place of a meaningful and specific answer.
So there you have it: an astonishingly amateurish affair with an NDP winner, a solid performance by the PC and a lackluster one by the Liberal.
© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.