A federal politician doing what federal politicians are supposed to do: you know, be leaders. Promote tolerance. Oppose division and nativism. Show courage.

Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair? They’re cowards.

(Now, prepare for the braying and screeching of Con and Dipper trolls, who will say: “We shouldn’t needlessly antagonize the separatists!”)

QUEBEC – Justin Trudeau has pressed one of the hottest issue buttons in Quebec, saying there’s no need to toughen the province’s language laws.

During a visit to Quebec City, the Liberal leadership candidate was asked by reporters about plans by the new Parti Quebecois provincial government to create a new Bill 101. The government calls the matter urgent, following census data that suggests a decline in francophones’ demographic weight.

Trudeau’s response: the PQ’s language policy is unnecessary and counter-productive.
His remarks come as a new poll suggested a Trudeau-led Liberal resurgence in Quebec, a province the party once dominated under his father.

His opinion on language also echoes the position of his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who brought official bilingualism to Canada and criticized the French-only policies of the PQ.

The younger Trudeau says adding teeth to Quebec’s Charter of the French Language risks reigniting old battles.

The new Parti Quebecois government has vowed to strengthen the law, saying it needs to protect the French language and culture. It campaigned on a promise to extend the law to junior colleges and smaller businesses. In the wake of this week’s census data, it calls the matter urgent.

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From the ever-resourceful Steve Ladurantaye, who got me to subscribe to the Globe again: here.

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Sam Sutherland’s much-anticipated book about Canadian punk rock, which I stayed up reading way too late last night, is crucially important.  And not just because I was part of the first wave of Canadian punk, or that he writes a bit about the Hot Nasties herein.

It’s important because Sutherland captures the cultural significance, dare I say it, of Canadian punk.  He researches, and he interviews dozens of people, from coast to coast: the result is a book that covers territory no one else has before.  (My book on punk, Fury’s Hour, was about more than just Canadian punk, and was more focused on the philosophy of punk.)

Great writing, great insights.  Get it, maaaaan.

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I know judges.  I have worked for and with judges.  I have appeared before judges.

Judges don’t like supplant the peoples’ judgement with their own.  Even when the facts and the law clearly point them in that direction.

So, if that’s the reality in the case of an election won by two dozen votes (Opitz), it is almost certainly going to be the result in the case of an election won in a landslide (Ford).

Judges, however much conservatives cynically suggest otherwise, consider the peoples’ will to be supreme.

Not theirs.

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Story here.

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This isn’t what Nanos found, as I recall.

But, wow.

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Here.

My only comment is I have no comment about what everyone is commenting about.

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…that I never thought I’d live to see grown men saying the things they’re saying about rape.  

Some days, there’s so much evil in this world, you just don’t know what to say.  This is one of those times.

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Why, yes.  Yes they are.  Glad you asked.

From the ever-quick Justin Tetreault:

During the Mike Harris/Ernie Eves years, the Ontario PCs prorogued the Legislature five times: Dec. 18, 1997 to April 23, 1998 – 126 days; Dec. 18, 1998 to April 22, 1999 – 125 days; March 2, 2001 to April 19, 2001 – 48 days; March 1, 2002 to May 9, 2002 – 69 days; and March 12, 2003 to April 30, 2003 – 49 days.

When the Ontario NDP was in government, their party prorogued three times during their five year majority reign: Dec. 19, 1991 to April 6, 1992 – 109 days; Dec. 10, 1992 to April 13, 1993 – 124 days; and Dec. 9, 1994 to April 29, 1995 – 140 days, after which they dissolved government and called an election.

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Finance Minister Dwight Duncan will not run to succeed Premier Dalton McGuinty as Ontario Liberal leader, the Star has learned.

Duncan will announce his decision Wednesday, paving the way for former minister Sandra Pupatello, his close friend and fellow Windsor native, to return to politics and contest the Grit leadership…With the minority Liberal government expected to fall next spring, triggering an election, his Windsor—Tecumseh riding would open up for Pupatello, 50.

She represented neighbouring Windsor West for 16 years until retiring shortly before the Oct. 6, 2011, provincial election.

Now the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP director of business development and global markets, Pupatello was deputy Liberal leader in opposition until 2003.

In government, she served as minister of economic development, education, and community and social services.

A political firebrand, observers say she would inject some enthusiasm and passion back into a Liberal government that even McGuinty admitted needs “renewal.”

Unlike most other potential candidates, she is untainted by controversies now plaguing the governing party, such as the Mississauga and Oakville gas plant debacles, the ORNGE air ambulance scandal and problems with teachers’ unions who have turned on their former Liberal allies.

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