Hill Times story on Libs

“Crawley is the unilingual Turner-Martin guy, and Copps is the multilingual Trudeau-Chrétien person. That’s why it’s attracting a lot of attention, at least among Liberals,” said Mr. Kinsella, a former adviser to Mr. Chrétien and a former Cabinet ministerial staffer. “If Crawley wins, it’ll signal a return of many of the folks who consigned us to opposition status in the first place. But don’t take that to mean I support Copps holus-bolus: her statements about Rae and the leadership have done her a lot of damage, and she was wrong to say what she said. If she loses, it’ll be because of that.”


In today’s Sun: Church, State, Wall

Foreign Affairs minister John Baird believes in religious freedom. Just ask him.

In interviews in recent days, Baird — not someone we’d regard as a regular churchgoer — has been trumpeting the Conservative Party’s election promise to create a $20-million Office of Religious Freedom (ORF) within Foreign Affairs.

“Freedom of religion is one of the first things in the Charter, it’s one of the first things in the Bill of Rights, it’s front and centre in the UN Declaration of Human Rights — it’s an essential human right,” Baird told The Canadian Press.

Now, I can’t recall Baird or his government being particularly enthusiastic about the Charter before — his boss, Stephen Harper, once called it “seriously flawed” because it promotes equality — but let’s give Baird the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

Personally, I think this initiative — which the Opposition has largely been silent about — is a very bad idea.

Here’s 10 reasons why: