That John Heaney photo, below, prompted some BC friends to send me a great video about John’s good pal, the BC NDP leader, John Horgan.

I always love a good weathervane ad. This one is particularly deadly.  Brutal, even.

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Okay, my pal Brian Topp is coming home.  That’s good for him and his family, not so good for Rachel Notley.

Her new top aide is a guy named John Heaney.  Who is John Heaney, you ask?  Well, he’s the young guy in the picture, to the far left (typical).  In the centre (typical), wearing a dog collar, sleeveless homemade Sex Pistols shirt and snarling? That’s Your Humble Narrator.  The young thugs pictured? The prairies’ first punk rock band, the Social Blemishes.

John Heaney (who went to both of my high schools, Bishop Carroll in Calgary and Loyola in Montreal), I apologize for embarrassing you in front of everyone important in Alberta, but you should’ve stuck with punk rock.

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Here.

A young woman is left troubled and worried for her safety after finding three ‘alt-right’ propaganda flyers posted around the parking lot of the Upper Canada Mall in Newmarket Monday.

The woman, who is bi-racial and in her early 20s, has asked not to be identified by name. She works two jobs at the mall. She uses public transit to get to work and after walking off the bus at the mall stop near Davis Drive Monday morning, she noticed a white flyer with black lettering taped to a tree. The flyer started with the phrase “Hey White People”, before posing a series of questions to the reader about political correctness, diversity meaning “less white” people, stopping immigration and being accused of racism for celebrating a person’s heritage.

 

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…Alberta Liberal brothers and sisters, here we go!

I'm not saying it's impossible for @RachelNotley to be re-elected. I'm saying it's now TOTALLY impossible. #ableg https://t.co/WCfXnWAGZG

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) December 14, 2016

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Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, festive Kwanzaa, and jolly holidays from Daisy Group! (Daisy Dogs Sloane and Roxy say hi, too.)

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Over the next four years – as you lose your health care, as your country’s environment is destroyed, as joblessness soars and the cost of everything rises, as your sons and daughters are being sent off to fight in wars declared by your president – know this: you deserve every bit of the misery and despair that you experience.

You did it to yourselves. 

Oh, and this:

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Walked into Sonic Boom last night and saw this up on the wall. That was kind of cool.

You can get yours here, by the way. Excellent Christmas/Hanukkah present!

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From Angus Reid Institute, here. The conservative ones are popular, perhaps a reflection of the times. Perhaps.

But there’s no correlation between newness or time in office, however: Wynne and her party have been there since 2003 – but Clark and her party have been in power since 2001.  So it’s not that.  In the former case, my hunch is that the albatross of hydro bills is turning into a noose.

Oh, and Angus Reid? Prince Edward Island is still a province, last time I checked.  You hurt your credibility with those kinds of dumb omissions.

Anyway. Comments are open.

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加拿大不是美国。唐纳德·特朗普是混蛋，不是我们。

真诚，加拿大

 

 

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To whom does democracy belong?

Its parentage is uncertain. As with “values” – about which the Lilliputian Kellie Leitch arrogantly claims to be the final arbiter – “democracy” gets invoked by politicians all the time. They insinuate that democracy, and the values that make up a democracy, are known to them and them alone.

But democracy, as clichéd as it may be, belongs to the people. The politicians apparently need to be reminded of that, these days.

Last year, of course, the Liberal Party of Canada offered up high-sounding promises about democracy in its election platform. Tucked in there were four vague sentences about electoral reform. The platform solemnly promised that Canada would never again conduct an election under the so-called “first past the post system.”

The promise was designed to suck in New Democrat voters, and it worked smashingly. New Democrats always believe that they lose elections because the system is at fault, and not them. So Dippers stampeded over to Justin Trudeau.

The paradox, historians will note, is that the Liberal Party never expected to be lifted from a distant rump in the House of Commons to a commanding first place, and a huge majority government. They, like everyone else, thought they would hold Stephen Harper to a minority, and then take back government in 2017 or 2018. Thus, their platform was chock-full of promises they never, ever expected to keep: deficits of no more than $10 billion, revenue neutral tax breaks, fighter jet procurement, restore door-to-door home mail delivery, revolutionizing C-51, and – as noted – comprehensive electoral reform. And so on.

A year later, the electoral reform promise is in shambles. And, when you think about it, the “democratic reform” file has been an utter fiasco from the earliest days. From those four oblique sentences in the Liberal Party platform (promising bold change but not saying what the bold change would be), to now, when the whole thing has spiraled downward into Twitter hashtag farce (there are some really good ones, too!): it’s been a disaster, from start to finish.

The minister responsible, Maryam Monsef, bears responsibility for some of that. Monsef did herself no favours by criticizing the work of an all-party committee into the issue – or by sounding less-than-candid when some conservative conspiracy theorists earlier cooked up a racist “birther” narrative to destroy her and her policy.

But she has also been subjected to more abuse and derision than any cabinet minister since Bev Oda, she of the $16 orange juice fame. This writer’s strong suspicion is that the hostility and hatred that Monsef has endured (as with Oda) possibly had something to do with (a) her gender and (b) her race. We’ll never know that for sure, of course, but (as with Oda) Monsef’s coming punishment seems to be far, far out of proportion to the offence.

There is plenty of blame to go around, however. Personally, this space is unimpressed with all of the combatants in what has become a hellacious mud-wrestling match. There is much to oppose, if you are a sensible person.

You should oppose the “referendum solves everything” approach – favoured by Conservatives and separatists – because we still don’t know what the question would be. (And, irony of ironies, what kind of referendum would it be? Fifty per cent plus one? Two-thirds? Ranked ballot style? )

You should be against the New Democrat approach, which is proportional representation by stealth. They want that system because it guarantees them seats, even when they run a crappy election campaign, which is something they do with impressive regularity. For Dippers, proportional representation is like an electoral pension plan without end.

You should also be against the Liberal approach, which is to tinker with democracy for no apparent reason whatsoever. It may be imperfect, per Churchill, but our system of electing and governing is a Hell of a lot better than all of the alternatives, isn’t it? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, etc. To wit: before now, was anyone standing around the water coolers of the nation, saying: “God almighty, I didn’t sleep again last night because our elected representatives are insufficiently informed about the Gallagher Index!”

Enough time has been wasted on this file, politicians. Donald Trump is bringing the world towards the brink of some sort of a war with China, and this is all you have to worry about?

Get a life. It’s our democracy, not yours, you solipsistic, self-interested egomaniacs.

 

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