Quote approval

The New York Times is preoccupied with the practice from another angle.  Me, I do it for all of my books – and always in situations where I think there is a possible libel action lurking in the wings.  Quote approval isn’t the defence of consent, per se, but it’s been legally useful to me more than once: due diligence, responsible communication defence and all that.

That’s what I did, in fact, in this case involving me and the CBC, which went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada – and which we won.


Paul Martin’s right

Never thought you’d see that headline here, eh?  But he is.

Just had lunch with a very senior Conservative – friend of Mike Harris, Brian Mulroney, all of them – and he said the same thing.

“This notion that the Liberal Party is dead is total bullshit,” he said.


West Wing returns

The thing below is both funny, and a coincidence.

A coincidence because a DNC guy was in here yesterday, and I told him (a) I once reviewed West Wing for CBC, and said I didn’t really like it because nobody in politics is ever as smart as the characters on the show, or is walking around and talking so much, and (b) everyone in Ignatieff’s office was obsessed with West Wing, which suggested to me that they were headed for a thumping, which they were.  Because they secretly considered West Wing to be what really happens in politics.  Um, no.

Funny, because it is.  A bit too long, but it makes its point (over and over).

Now, start hectoring me, West Wing maniacs.  If you must know, Star Trek is really the best politics series: fly in, convert the locals (by force, guile or good looks), dress it up as “values,” and then fly away.  That’s politics.


CTFN: this is my daughter’s First Nation

…and this statement shows that, when it comes to self-government, the Harper cabal are a bunch of damned liars.

Canada’s great experiment in aboriginal self-government is about to collapse – or, at least, it certainly looks that way for a Yukon first nation that has successfully managed its own affairs since 2006…

As it happened, Stephen Harper was scheduled for an unrelated visit to CTFN territory in August to tout his vision for Canada’s North. While federal bureaucrats threatened to undermine self-government, Mr. Harper arrived for a barbecue. During the requisite photo-op with CTFN’s leaders, the Prime Minister quietly assured them he had been informed of the funding issue and had instructed his minister to look into it.

On the road leading to the barbecue, a group of locals had assembled a peaceful protest. A member of the Prime Minister’s security detail marched over to ask what they were up to. “Exerting our aboriginal rights and title,” he was told. “Oh,” he said, “I thought you were going to dance for us.”

The Oct. 1 deadline looms, and a precedent is about to be set. There is still time to decide whether it will stand for bullying or for fairness.