Sept. 30 - I'm too tired to do a total deconstruct of remarks made by Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Frank McKenna (McKenna calls United States government dysfunctional) but he does have a few good points:

"In Canada, whether we like it or not -- and often we don't like it -- but essentially we have party discipline, and if you can convince the Prime Minister or a minister that something should be done, invariably it can end up being done," Mr. McKenna said.

And then there's this:

At the same time, he said, the United States faces "a very difficult financial situation," with predictions its deficit will hit or exceed US$500-billion this year.

"That's not to speak of the fact that that doesn't include unfunded liabilities for social security, which, some estimate, could run into the twenties and thirties of trillions of dollars."

By comparison, Canada is in its eighth consecutive year of surplus, with a dropping ratio of debt to gross domestic product, he said.

"Our pension plan, instead of being in deficit, is actuarially balanced for the next 75 years."

He also praised Canada's health care system and the country's abundance of natural resources.

(Link via Neale News.)

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Sept. 29 - Someone in my family asked why I had posted nothing on the Michaelle Jean, Canada's new Governor-General. I replied that she holds French citizenship, she has been appointed to represent the Queen of England, and what's wrong with this picture? (My kids and husband are old enough to handle my sarcasm wit.)

Well, she's announced her intention of giving up her French citizenship. I can't deny that's an improvement.

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Sept. 29 - Many thanks to David A. Giles for the following link:

Stephen Baskerville, PhD - Fathers and Men's Rights Articles.

There are a number of articles by Dr. Baskerville on the web page; some of them look interesting, some look to be controversial and a few look to be extremely uncomfortable.

Discomfort is not necessarily a bad thing; in fact, sometimes it is an extremely health sign that something is wrong and needs fixing.

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Sept. 29 - Tuning Spork reports on some very interesting developments in New London following attempts to implement the Kelo decision (known to many of us as "that damned Supreme Court ruling which allowed scum-bag developers to steal honest people's homes") in New London's Burning.

Double heh.

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Sept. 28 - David Dingwall, whose name came up during the Gomery Inquiry into Adscam and, more recently, due to his extracurricular activies as an unregistered lobbyist for grants with the Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) on behalf of Bioniche, resigned as head of the Canadian Mint this afternoon:

The former Liberal cabinet minister has become embroiled in controversy after it was recently revealed he failed to register as a lobbyist for a Toronto pharmaceutical company.

In a statement Wednesday he said he believed all of his actvities were above-board.

Mr. Dingwall stepped aside amid controversy about his lobbying activities, before his appointment to the Mint as well as questions about his expenses while heading up the Crown corporation.

His lobbying activities on behalf of Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. are under scrutiny by Industry Canada.

Dingwall's expense account was reported on only this morning:

Federal documents released under the Access to Information Act show the office expenses and pay packet of David Dingwall, president of the Royal Canadian Mint, cost more than $1 million last year.

Included in Mr. Dingwall's office billings for 2004 were $1,235 for his annual golf membership, $13,228 in one day of foreign travel, and a $5,728 meal at a posh Ottawa restaurant.

And while Mr. Dingwall has a leased car courtesy of the Crown corporation, his office ran up a $2,500 tab for limousines in 2003.

The wining, dining, globe-trotting and other office expenses added up to $846,464 in 2004, mint records show. In addition, Mr. Dingwall's annual salary -- not including up to 12 per cent in performance bonuses -- is as much as $241,000.

[...]

Other billings released to [Tory critic for the mint] Mr. [Brian] Pallister show Mr. Dingwall, a Jean Chretien-era cabinet minister, has been running up a substantial tab, which included the following in 2004:

- $5,297 for various membership fees;

- $11,173 for meals in Canada;

- $3,317 in foreign dining;

- $40,355 for domestic travel;

- $92,682 for foreign travel;

- $12,487 for domestic hospitality;

- $5,998 for lease vehicle operating costs.

Mint spokeswoman Pam Aung Thin defended Mr. Dingwall's spending, saying each claim has been approved and verified by the Crown corporation's chief financial officer.

Sept. 29 - The Toronto Sun isn't pulling any punches in today's editorial Dinged by David Dingwall:

This editorial is inspired by David Dingwall, a man who made $277,000 a year as president of the Royal Canadian Mint (until yesterday) and still charged Canadian taxpayers $1.79 for a bottle of water.

And, oh, yeah ... $91,437 on international travel in 2004 alone.

Back in 1994, Dingwall was Liberal public works minister when he publicly vowed to eradicate patronage and corruption from the awarding of massive federal advertising contracts.

The senior bureaucrat handpicked by Dingwall to clean up the advertising swamp was Chuck Guite, the same official who helped create it under the Tories.

The rest, as they say, is history. AdScam was born in Dingwall's department the next year, $350 million was blown on the scandalous advertising sponsorship program, and Guite is now facing criminal fraud charges.

[...]

Testimony at the Gomery inquiry into AdScam indicated that in 1998, for instance, Dingwall was paid $12,000 a month by a Montreal advertising executive he apparently had never met, supposedly to provide lobbying advice to VIA Rail, a Crown corporation prohibited by law from hiring lobbyists for anything.

The Montreal ad executive, Jean Lafleur, is a key player in the AdScam fiasco, and told the Gomery inquiry he was ordered by VIA to hire Dingwall and send the bills to the public railway.

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Sept. 28 - Toronto Tory is busy digging up questionable transactions between Liberal Party leader Paul Martin, the government he leads and corporations which, after receving government money, made sizeable donations to the Liberals and/or Martin's leadership campaign. Keep in mind that Martin was Canada's Minister of Finance for several years before his campaign for party leadership.

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) lies at the center of the allegations in Entry #1:

After JD Irving Limited received $700,000 in approved funding from ACOA, they donated $100,000 to Paul Martin's leadership campaign.

Oxford Frozen Foods received $1,600,000 in 2003 from ACOA, and donated at least $50,000 to Martin's leadership campaign.

Keep in mind that the list of donors has vanished from official Canadian government archives (fortunately, Google's snapshot images endure.)

And then there's TESMA, which received received $2,600,000 from ACOA and then donated $15,000 to the leadership campaign.

Is it just me? Either these corporations are so needy that they require taxpayer subsidies or they are so financially secure that they can afford to make political contributions. I don't see a middle ground which is also ethical and, to all appearances, this is a quid pro quo arrangement and the taxpayers are footing the bill.

Entry #2 on Toronto Tory's list concerns something I alluded to earlier: Martin's dilemma in trying to sandwich the date for the next election between reports on audits. I should have included trial dates!

The Earnscliffe Strategy Group has long been associated with Paul Martin, and the article $10M in federal funds go to firm linked to PM in today's Ottawa Citizen brings new figures:

The Earnscliffe Strategy Group, an Ottawa consulting firm with close political ties to Prime Minister Paul Martin, has received more than $10 million in federal government money since the Liberals took power, new documents show.

And another Ottawa polling firm that has sometimes worked with Earnscliffe received more than $61 million in the same period.

Ottawa-based EKOS Research was awarded more than 1,600 contracts over the 111/2-year period, mostly for public opinion research.

The work was done for various departments, agencies and Crown corporations.

Records tabled in the House of Commons on Monday show that Earnscliffe and its affiliates have received 269 contracts, amendments and standing offers since 1993.

During Mr. Martin's years as finance minister, his department repeatedly hired Earnscliffe to do polling and focus groups and provide communications advice, often in advance of federal budgets.

The new records show that Earnscliffe received just under $2 million from the Finance Department alone.

The finance contracts last year became the subject of a political storm as a former public works official alleged that the tendering was specially tailored to ensure the work always went to Earnscliffe. The firm denied the allegation.

Most of the finance work was done by Earnscliffe senior partners David Herle, who ran Mr. Martin's 1990 leadership bid, and Elly Alboim, a former CBC producer.

The apparent conflict of interest hides another weakness in the Martin government. All governments pay heed to public opinion, but public opinion is usually concerned with short term objectives and governments that lead are presumed to take a longer view.

When public opinion dominates decision-making we end up with a government that hesitates, fumbles and, shall we say, dithers. Harsher types might call it opportunism, something we expect in political parties but reject in governments.

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Sept. 27 - I had been unable to remember the source, author or name of an article I had read (which turned out to be a book review!) so was unable to link it in my post on Fatherhood and Grandparenthood. I am grateful that reader Andrew P. recognized my brief description and very kindly emailed me the relevant information.

The book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by economist Steven D. Levitt and scientist Stephen J. Dubner was reviewed by Orson Scott Card in Freakonomics Or You Have to Find the Facts Before You Can Face Them. Some of the assertions in the book are controversial and Card touches on one of the hypotheses: that lower crimes rates came about as a result of decriminalizing abortions.

In 1973, Roe v. Wade made abortion permissible throughout the United States. The floodgates opened, and vast numbers of abortions were performed. As a result, vast numbers of children were not born.

Ah, but which children? The vast majority of the abortions were among women who would have been raising their children without a father; substantial numbers of these women were addicts. And even the abortions performed on middle-class women were somewhat more likely to be the result of liaisons in which one partner or the other, or both, had poor impulse control.

In other words, the fetuses that were aborted, had they been born, would have become children who were statistically the most likely group to become criminals. Raised by single mothers, in poverty, with genes that might not provide them with much ability to foresee the longterm consequences of impulsive actions.

The crime rates began falling exactly when that generation of children would have reached adolescence and those with such tendencies would have begun their criminal careers.

It certainly looked as if we killed off much of our criminal class in the womb.

I've only excerpted the portion of the review that fit the blog post I was writing, but the review is about much more than that and addresses one of the biggest problems of this information age: too much specialized knowledge by experts which we can neither ignore nor understand.

I was curious and read about the book at the Freaknomics site and saw something that never fails to get my attention:

[Steven D. Levitt] usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. (Emphasis added)

I need to write (or at least begin) a report on a meeting I attended yesterday evening and then catch some sleep so probably won't post again until tonight.

(Orson Scott Card link via Relapsed Catholic)

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Sept. 27 - Good friend Jack has helped launch a website for OPP IRONMEN, self-described as "two very tough cops giving it their best!" Their best includes going into the dunk tank in order to raise money for Diabetes Canada.

They're also a bit modest, but Jack's profile of them is very informative. [Blogger permalinks seem somewhat skewed today; scroll down to Sept. 26 post "Very Late Update | OPP Ironmen" or run find option (Ctrl + F for IE users) search words "OPP Ironman."]

Welcome to the crazy blogging world, Ironmen!

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Sept. 26 - Two items on the UN, one on oil-for-food and one on the lack of whistleblower protection in Canada have a common denominator: unasked questions.

From Fréchette's U.N. challenge (link via reader JM):

The oil-for-food report, by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, said the U.N.'s systems for preventing mismanagement, corruption and communications gaps were "insufficient," and that Fréchette "knew but did not act upon" reports of major program violations.

But, Volcker concluded, both Fréchette and Annan should be part of the effort to reform the world body, the task that the Montreal-born diplomat and public servant was appointed to do seven years ago, when faith in the U.N. leadership was high.

Salim Mansur, always a favourite around here, doesn't mince words: Paul Martin out of touch in reference to Martin's speech to the U.N. (text of speech here.)

Mansur speculates on the kind of speech Lester Pearson would have made:

The former PM and Nobel-Prize-winning diplomat would surely have told the UN that Canada, as a founding member, found intolerable the stain on the organization's reputation due to the corruption, ineptness, nepotism and mismanagement revealed by Paul Volcker's commission of inquiry into the Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal.

Pearson would surely have reminded the UN of his role in calling for global "partnership for development," and the necessary provision of assistance by rich countries to the poor. But he would also insist the UN cannot be trusted with increased funds unless full reform of its management practices occurred, and the UN secretariat became accountable and transparent.

His idealism was framed by realism, since he knew full well the perennial nature of evil. He would not have shirked taking responsibility for UN failure in Rwanda and the Balkans, and then in scolding member-states for their appalling disregard for the tragedy unfolding in Darfur.

Pearson would also, in my view, have made sure Canada stood firmly together with Britain and Australia as members of a great Commonwealth affirming U.S. President George Bush's message in New York on this same 60th anniversary occasion: "If member countries want the United Nations to be respected -- respected and effective -- they should begin by making sure it is worthy of respect."

Has anyone asked why Martin felt it necessary to plagiarize the president of the United States?

Claudia Rosett writes The Buck Still Hasn't Stopped (link via Newsbeat1) that the "definitive report" issued by the Volcker Inquiry is "hefty" but not definitive.

You should read the whole thing, but this is a CanCon post so I only excerpted this bit about the man said to be Paul Martin's mentor, Maurice Strong, from page 2 of the article:

Part of the problem is that Volcker has imposed on his inquiry the standards not of a prosecutor, but of an accountant. Faced with a pole too tall to measure by hand, he instead tells us its precise circumference on the ground, and lets it go at that. Much has been aired already of Volcker's account of Annan's strange and abiding ignorance of his own son's lively lobbying for U.N.-related business. So let us focus on another character, Annan's former special adviser Maurice Strong, longtime U.N. guru of good governance. (Strong did depart the United Nations this spring, but with Annan's office expressing fervent hopes he will soon return.)

At some length, Volcker does the genuine service of laying out how Strong, in mid-1997, received a check for $988,885 made out to his name (a copy can be found on page 106, Volume II). The check was drawn on a Jordanian bank, funded by Saddam's regime, and delivered by Korean businessman Tongsun Park, who was a U.N. "back-channel" go-between with Saddam. Strong endorsed the check over to a third party to invest in a Strong family-controlled business, Cordex Petroleum. Interviewed by Volcker's team earlier this year, Strong said he did not recall receiving such a check. When shown a copy, he said he did not know the money came from Iraq. Volcker leaves the matter there, concluding that "the Committee has found no evidence that Mr. Strong was involved in Iraqi affairs, matters relating to the [Oil-for-Food] Programme or took any actions at the request of Iraqi officials."

But how hard did the Volcker committee look? In July 1997, the month before Strong cashed the Saddam-backed check, Annan was issuing his first U.N. reform program, reshaping the secretariat. Strong was the major architect of that reform, and was thanked profusely by Annan at the time for "his important contributions." A significant aspect of that reform was the consolidation of the then-new, ad hoc, and diffuse Iraq Oil-for-Food program into a single, more firmly entrenched office. This move tilted control of the daily administration of Oil-for-Food away from the Security Council and toward the secretariat. When the new, unified office set up shop three months later, in October 1997, Annan appointed Sevan as executive director. That marked the beginning of the stretch in which Sevan began taking bribes from Saddam, and the Oil-for-Food program, urged on by Annan, began to grow astronomically in size and scope. Lacking any disclosure of the secret U.N. paper trail that led to the creation of this office and its expanded mission, it is impossible to know whether Strong took a direct hand in setting up the office from which Sevan then, in effect, collaborated with Saddam. Perhaps Strong had nothing to do with it. But Volcker doesn't even ask the question.

The last item, Whistleblower fires back at Immigration and Refugee Board (link via Let It Bleed), concerns the dismissal of Selwyn Pieters, a man who had gone public with allegations of wrongdoing at the Immigration and Refugee Board:

In March 2004, Mr. Pieters complained to the Public Service Integrity Office that the politically appointed board members who are supposed to decide the fate of refugee claims were violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by not writing their own decisions.

The refugee protection officer also went to the media with his allegations that civil servants were the ones who were doing the decision-making.

Following a probe by a board-hired investigator, IRB chairman Jean-Guy Fleury conceded “improper conduct occurred” in three cases and “appropriate administrative measures” were taken against four board members.

In firing him last month, executive director Marilyn Stuart-Major credited Mr. Pieters with exposing the wrongdoing in which he participated.

However, she lashed out at him for his “deliberate fabrication” in calling the problems at the board “systemic,” and for alleging a “code of silence” existed around the misconduct.

He also maintains it failed to delve thoroughly into his claim that the problems with decision writing were widespread.

“I said it was a systemic issue and they're saying there's no evidence of any systemic issues here,” Mr. Pieters said.

“There's no evidence because (they) didn't investigate it.”

After all, if you don't ask, you won't know. Nor will we.

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Sept. 25 - I've been scratching my head trying to figure out what to post about the latest anti-war demonstrations but Ith puts it into wonderfully clear perspective in Expectation.

We have well-attended science fiction conventions in Toronto too! They last a few days as opposed to a few hours, so I totally expect commensurate news coverage.

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Sept. 25 - Long ago I desisted from reporting on gun crimes in Toronto. There may have been a slender window of opportunity to crack down on the gangs, but I think that time has passed and gangs are securely entrenched.

But when I wonder about the money and resources that have been squandered on the useless gun registry, the reduced number of personnel in the RCMP and Toronto Police who actually work on capturing criminals, and the seeming inability of border guards to control weapons imports and keep previously deported criminals out of Canada, I realize that I really should have majored in Compiling Data from Diverse Sources to Present Myth-Busting Papers instead of History. Unfortunately, numbers induce a deer-caught-in-headlights response from me so I may believe these things are connected but can't yank up numbers to prove it.

Back on topic. It's been a long, bloody summer here, but you people outside of Toronto can rest assured that Toronto City Council is doing nothing everything they can to end the bloodshed.

The shooting death of a child last summer was hailed as "The Last Straw" by our intrepid mayor, so I suppose this latest can't really be called "the last straw" but maybe this will be "the really last straw" or "the really really last straw" ( Cops review tape in hunt for gunmen who shot one 17- and one 18-year old as they stood at a counter ordering pizza.)

(N.B.: I don't know the colour of the victims in this case and, quite frankly, I don't care: it's irrelevant. Two men were shot and they shouldn't have been shot. The other patrons in the pizza shop shouldn't have been forced to dive for cover and the owner and staff shouldn't have to endure the trauma of returning to work in the following days, relive the incident and see bullet holes. I really hope that sounds judgemental because I am!)

23:31 - It's not just Toronto, by the way. Read this, ponder the questions, and follow the link.

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Sept. 25 - I linked this in a post below but it really deserves its own spot. The alarm bells that went off when we were told that the feds had spent $1 million in software were not false, and it may well be that the gun registry is a 'Bigger fraud than AdScam':

Critics of the gun registry are eagerly awaiting Auditor General Sheila Fraser's "Canadian Firearms Program" audit which is scheduled to be released in February -- if we're not in the midst of a federal election campaign.

Fraser isn't doing interviews about the audit, which has been underway for months.

The last time her office attempted to look into gun registry spending was 2002 and the results were explosive. In fact, her team was forced to abandon its attempts to follow the spending on the gun registry because of the absence of records.

"The information on cost recovery provided to the government changed as the program developed," Fraser wrote at the time.

Originally expected to be self-financing by 1999-2000, Fraser and her auditors discovered the target for the firearms program to break even was pushed to 2013 -- an assumption that the program collect $419 million in fees in 2002-03 and about $828 million by 2007-08. (Emphasis added)

There is a sick, twisted mentality at work here. Paul Martin has to time elections these days with an eye on inquiries into scandals and the reports they generate.

To reiterate an old rant, if those who froth at the mouth when they read "Halliburton" would apply some of the same passion when they read about the seemingly endless list of government mis-spending and "absence of records" we might find a lot of common ground.

To re-iterate another rant, let's see some concrete proposals from the CPC to force accountability into public spending (and that includes accountability from any agency, institution or foundation that recents public funds.)

Or, to take another view, if the aim of the Libranos is to initiate "Scandal Overdose" then they are succeeding. I know I'm weary of being angry and I can't help but wonder how many Canadians have begun to block out this kind of news simply to bring some sanity back to their lives.

(Link via Newsbeat1 via NealeNews, two of the most informative sites in Canada.)

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Sept. 24 - I read two posts yesterday that really stuck with me. They both concern parenting, or more properly, the lack of full parenting, and raise some disturbing issues.

David has written an outstanding post about The Ultimate Victims of single-parent families and he's backing it up with more than abstract speculation. Some of the figures cited are alarming and point to the need for a sober evaluation of the impact on families without a father's influence.

It's a touchy subject. There are a great many women (and a few men) who are raising children singlely and it is not always by choice. Some were deserted or one of the parents died. Others wisely left abusive or destructive relationships. I doubt anyone would argue that remaining together "for the sake of the children" is a good thing when the kids are forced to endure the fighting, bitterness, and animosity that often arises when a marriage has crumbled. Yet the acceptance of "no-fault divorces" argues that we as a society do accept that marriages can fall apart for a number of reasons that don't cast either spouse as villainous but simply as incompatible.

But somehow there has been a shift whereby dropping the belief that it's best to stay together for the sake of the children has led to assertions that a non-custodial parent, usually the father, is dispensable. Mom can do it all, be both father and mother, and the kids will turn out just fine because ... well, actually, that part is kind of left out. Dad's good for presents and trips to amusement parks, but when it comes to guidance, discipline and that most important parenting tool which we are literally stuck with, setting a good example, he's too often considered inconsequential. Evidently, two heads are not better than one.

The alarming part is that family courts also seem to regard the other parent as superfluous by their reluctance to enforce visitation rights when the custodial parent deliberately (and one might argue maliciously) denies it.

The seeming indifference of the courts when a parent's visitation rights are denied allows for a second injustice: the child's rights have also been violated. Judges and family courts, by inaction, diminish the worth of the love between the child and the non-custodial parent. Although the impact of that has yet to be assessed, one has to wonder how a child will develop emotionally when love for one parent is intentionally thwarted by the other or if the child comes to feel ashamed or disloyal because of that love.

I believe we need to find a way to encourage and support those who are raising children alone without diminishing the very real need for children to have two involved parents because, in this instance, we really do need to think about the children.

Anyone who prefers words like "resilient" and "survivor" over "irreparable" and "victim" will be intrigued by this next post. Raskolnikov evokes the former as he examines a different kind of parenting issue in Gramma's House by looking at the large number of grandparents who have taken on the child-raising of their grandchildren in aboriginal communities. That mirrors what is happening throughout Canada and the U.S.A. but there's a twist: the grandparents who are raising these kids are of the generation that is often viewed as having been so damaged by res-schools that they were rendered incapable of good parenting skills.

Evidently there has been a lack of any noticeable concern exhibited by Tribal Child and Family Service workers and community leaders, which is surprising and perhaps even alarming, but both of the outcomes Raskolnikov suggests contains the hope of healing.

(The comments, by the way, offer some different perspectives and worth the read.)

Sept. 25 - 17:05 - Read Is There Really a Fatherhood Crisis? for more (it's long and I'm still working through it, but it's already pretty hard hitting.) I don't know what to say; it's all very sobering.

I read an article this week (but can't find it now) linking the lowered crime rates in some major American cities with readier access to abortions. That was really a mind-stopper (if you know the one I'm referring to please drop me a line so I can link to it as well.)

Sept. 27 - 07:14 - Many thanks to Andrew P., who remembered that the article was Freakonomics Or You Have to Find the Facts Before You Can Face Them by Orson Scott Card and - bonus - that it had been linked by Kathy at Relapsed Catholic which was how we both came to read it.

21:50 - John Leo is linking Katrina casualties to single-parent families, although I think he may be streching it a bit far. One of the most uplifting things I saw during the early coverage were two men who had delivered their wives and children to the Convention Centre and were heading out to see if anyone else needed help. They had such a matter-of-fact attitude - neither exhibited humility or arrogance - and just said they had done what men need to do. I wish I could remember their exact words.

An honest report on Katrina might well show that a lot of men stood up and, well, acted like men so often do: strong and true.

I enjoy some wine with dinner so I'm going to indulge in some sauce for the gander is good for the goose whimsy: Imagine, if you dare, what would happen if all the men in the world went on strike. [And before you mention Lysistrata, be sure and read the damned play. The women barricaded themselves in the town treasury, which was a bigger problem for the Greek men than doing without sex!]

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Sept. 24 - Hurricane Rita Hits Texas, Louisiana but thus far there have been no reports of fatalities directly attributable to the storm. It's not over yet and could still turn sour, but it looks as though the worst predictions have not materialized.

The second-guessing will be inevitable, but I'm from earthquake country and the idea that people actually have prior warning about the approach of a hurricane and can take measures to safeguard their lives and property makes me downright envious. I suppose it's just human nature to be irritated when precautions turn out to be unnecessary, but hey! we're alive, therefore we bitch.

Going further with a half-full glass stance, the evacuation of a city the size of Houston can be spelled opportunity as local, state and federal officials review evaluation reports and those lessons learned can provide invaluable information for all cities in the event they need to get millions of people out in the event of a natural or man-made catastrophe.

Media coverage of both Katrina and Rita have been much as we'd expect: breathless, drama-building reports from some poor schlubs who are forced to file their reports out of doors just so we can get a "feel" for what not having enough sense to come in out of the rain is like, but there have been some things they failed to report such as these:

Americans breathe a sigh of relief as
Texans stop bragging for 5 minutes...

Floridians count blessings...
Dems demand recount...

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Sept. 24 - Bill and Angry continue to keep their eyes on the growing questions about how some Technologies Partnerships Canada (TPC) loans were obained. Two weeks ago it was about $3.7 million made to 3rd party intermediaries who were used to help obtain the loans, and now it appears that the investigation has expanded from four to as many as 15 companies that are improperly using lobbyists or middlemen.

Some recent revelations bear yet more resemblence to Adscam-style dealings, namely claims that a lobbying firm, Wallding International, is owned by former Cabinet minister and president of the Royal Canadian Mint David Dingwall, was paid a $350,000 "success" fee for his assistance in getting $15 million in federal financing for Bioniche. Angry has more in this post that poses some questions about the lobbying activies of Dingwall and another former Cabinet Minister, Marc Lalonde, who served under Pierre Trudeau, and now works on behalf of TM Bioscience, a company that has also received money from the TPC.

The TPC is now being phased out and replaced with a new agency, the Transformative Technologies Program. Okay, so they discard a name that has been touched with scandal. But now I'm wondering if it is something more after reading this:

NORTH CAPE, P.E.I. (CP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin said Saturday that he intends to make Canada a major producer of renewable energy.

Martin made the commitment as he toured the site of the new Canadian Wind Energy Institute at North Cape, a blustery village at the northwestern tip of Prince Edward Island.

On Friday, the federal government, through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, announced it will contribute about $3.6 million toward the establishment of the institute.

As well, starting with the 2006-07 fiscal year, Natural Resources Canada will contribute $1 million annually for two years toward operating costs.

That commitment, however, is expected to extend well beyond two years, but tail off gradually as the institute's own sources of income grow.

Bill and Angry are doing fantastic jobs staying on top of this story and, like Adscam, the allegations of wrong-doing involve people who were once entrusted with the governance of this country.

This is very timely: Toronto Tory has set a self-imposed challenge:

Every day, for the next 30 days, I will post an example of a company or individual who has an unethical relationship with Paul Martin, and/or the Liberal party of Canada/Ontario.

Sept. 25 - 17:49 - I missed this post by Kate that expands on the role David Dingwall played in Adscam and connects some more dots.

So many scandals, so little time. The gun registry could be a fraud bigger than Adscam (link via Newsbeat1)"

[Auditor General Sheila] Fraser isn't doing interviews about the audit, which has been underway for months.

The last time her office attempted to look into gun registry spending was 2002 and the results were explosive. In fact, her team was forced to abandon its attempts to follow the spending on the gun registry because of the absence of records. (Emphasis added)

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Sept. 23 - One last thing before I head out. Friday is VDH day at the National Review, and he manages to bring freshness to the old debate over keeping Iraq one, intact nation (Strategy, Strategy Everywhere ....)

I haven't intentionally quit making the case for the war in Iraq, but I find it hard to keep re-cycling the same arguments (besides, it makes me cranky to keep saying the same thng over and over and, you know. Over. Blame it on my kids.)

I can't excerpt from Hanson. The narrative is too tight. Just read it.

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Sept. 23 - It's a cleverly disguised PR campaign, I tell you! A lot of people are still mad over last season's lockout and going "meh" over the new season, so perennial boring-campaign organizer Martha Burk has been retained to build the interest in hockey by another stupid whine (Burk shifts energies from Augusta to NHL ads) against the new NHL ad claiming it is - you guessed it - "offensive on many levels." (She's probably not referring to the cost of tickets.)

The response from an NHL spokeswoman is wonderful:

"This ad shows no disrespect for women," [Bernadette] Mansur told The CP. "On the contrary, the woman is the spiritual and physical trainer for the 'Warrior' and is his mentor."

There is some merit to the claim of "mentor," though. Tacitus wrote that the women in Germanic tribes urged the men to battle, baring their breasts and reminding them that their children would be enslaved if they lost to the Romans.

Um, maybe I should stop while I'm ahead. And, you know, "Go Leafs!"

(Via Kathryn Lopez at the Corner.)

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Sept. 23 - Crazy Paul's billion dollar shell game: maybe Canadians pay closer attention to US matters than Canadian ones in order to stay sane!

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Sept. 23 - This was news I didn't expect to awaken to: the future of New Orleans and, worse, actually contemplating that rebuilding it might not be the best course, received another blow today with a new breach in the levee (Texas Braces for Catastrophe; New Orleans Flooding Again.)

I've always had a pet theory that inviting the newly-American inhabitants of the city to join us in fighting the British - and beating the Recoats soundly - brought New Orleans and Louisiana securely into the American fabric and reduced the abandonment many felt when Napoleon sold them along with the territory. We cannot think of Andrew Jackson without remembering Jean Lafite, and the Battle of New Orleans is remembered with a glory which is scarcely diminished even when we consider that it took place after a treaty had been signed.

Abandoning New Orleans is literally a case of abandoning an important part of our heritage and an integral part of the history of extending our borders from sea to sea.

And then there's the personal. So many of us have wonderful memories of the times we visited there (and sometimes the memories are the more cherished because we can't exactly remember!) furthering the dilemma beyond logic and reason. The cuisine. The music. The people. The mystique. New Orleans is part of the American soul in ways I can feel more than articulate.

I can't even imagine how those who call New Orleans home are feeling today, but maybe it is time to bite the bullet and make some hard calls. It is going to hurt. Deeply. Even thinking about it hurts. Part of me knows that with time we'll do what we've always done: cling to that part of the American spirit that has always held that a new future means a better future, but for now I thinks its permissible to grieve.

18:25 - The news out of New Orleans is getting worse. Thank God the city stayed closed, but spare a thought for the troops there.

Glad to see the President sensibly cancelled his trip to the region. People on the ground there have enough to contend with and don't need the security nightmare.

I finally received word that my Texas friends are safely out of Rita's path. I have to go to work tonight (although I really don't want to leave the storm watch) and I'll be holding my breath even though I know on most levels that we'll weather it.

I can't help thinking that the destruction wrought by the hurricanes have brought us together again. I don't mean the politicians and other Important People but just us, the normal, everyday American whom everyone takes for granted. The press was all a-twitter at the lapses at every level of government but for me, it just reinforced the soundness of the joke "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Say a prayer for Texas. We owe them: the people of Houston electrified the nation when they strode in with a "we can help" attitude and gave refuge to thousands of NO Katrina survivors (and, more importantly, challenged other cities to do the same) and rekindled belief in something that we've seen too rarely in these modern times: neighbourly actions. Southern hospitality and Christian charity have combined to remind us (again) that we are a decent, good people and that we can help and stand by one another.

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1 Yes, they are most definatly in my prayers. It is quite sad really, the poor people there. But I do wonder what the mayor was thinking when he told people that they could go back to New Orleans so soon. I think he has had a bit too much stress... I haven't had the opportunity to visit anywhere around the gulf, though I was hoping to visit some old family friends sometime, who are in Texas. Major prayers from me are going that way. Keep up the good blogging

Posted by: Em at September 23, 2005 09:27 PM (Uagor)

2 This is short but revealing reflection of what a local American thinks of our Celine and a mindset about some of those sloshing around a flooded NO. ================================================ A homemade Salma Hayek would be a Celine Dion! On Larry King she said she didn't understand why G. Bush didn't send kayaks to rescue those poor people carry the 25 pair of jeans they just stole. That was after she "opened" her TV. Some days it is more embarrassing than others to be a Canadian! Neat pic of the dudes with the rifles. I can see the rumors about barefoot ================================================ OK the Fleur de Lys page design for the new site was awful... The fleur de Lys was nice but the layout and the font...eeew. Please take a look now... way better, and the Blog roll toggles open and closed.. nice? http://Anchorpin.Redpin.com That's more like it.. eh? 73s TG

Posted by: TonyGuitar at September 24, 2005 01:56 AM (rmMzv)

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Sept. 23 - News that billing fraud is widespread in Canada's health care system isn't exactly unexpected (Health fraud rampant) but it is dismaying to see it confirmed:

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. - Canada's health care system is rife with fraud that costs the public and private sectors an estimated $3-billion to $10-billion a year, the country's first-ever survey of health fraud indicates.

"It's a big problem. It's a multi-billion-dollar problem and that's a big drain on the health care system," said Michael Chettleburgh of Fraudbox Inc., which did the survey for the Canadian Health Care Anti-Fraud Association.

[...]

Speakers at the anti-fraud association's annual conference told about fraudulent billings by pharmacists, dentists and other health care professionals, as well as the growing problem of people stealing caregivers' identities to illicitly claim payments.

The Canadian Health Care Anti-Fraud Association page doesn't have the report on its page yet but the results of the survey are available in .pdf here at the Fraudbox Inc. site.

(Via Neale News)

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