Has Vic Toews Been Treated Fairly?

Today's poll question; has Justice Minister Vic Toews been treated fairly this week? On Tuesday he introduced a government bill to help police catch child pornographers, which had many on the left and some on the right going bananas expecting to be persecuted like child predators. By Thursday the CBC was promoting places on Twitter where you could go to attack Vic personally. One Twitter feed with a House of Commons IP address went so far as to post sensitive details from Toews personal life. All this because he introduced a bill to catch child predators, then made the ill advised comment that if you do not support the legislation then you support child pornography.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter seems to think he deserves what he's getting, but I'd rather hear what you have to say. Has this now gone too far?

Should Trudeau Run For Liberal Leader?

Today's poll question; would you like to see Justin Trudeau become leader of the Liberal Party? Previously I have endorsed Gerard Kennedy as my favoured "scorched earth" candidate, but he has been overtaken in recent days. There is no doubt in my mind that the Tories would win a second majority if JT led the party into the next election. The assortment of video clips that are piling up in his wake are becoming legendary in a bad way, and will provide priceless material for election ads. The third person references are outstanding and hopefully those will continue.

Realistically the separation fiasco this week has eliminated the likelihood that he runs against Bob Rae in 2013. He has a constituency should he decide to run, and I truly hope he does. Promoting separation as an option if you disagree with the elected government? The fact that he doesn't seem to understand why his words were so toxic, is just further evidence that he's not fit to lead the country, but lead the Liberals, absolutely. He can count on the Iceman's endorsement, because the Iceman also lives Canada in his bones.

To Catch A Predator

It is astonishing how a piece of legislation designed to make it easier for law enforcement to capture and prosecute those who produce and traffic child pornography, in matter of hours, can have the media going bananas with broadcasters comparing the bill to George Orwell's 1984 (thanks for that Lisa LaFlamme). We can all agree that producing or possessing child pornography is a despicable crime, one we would all like to see wiped out. We know that the people who commit this crime in the greatest volume are incredibly cryptic and difficult to catch.

The perverts we see on the show "To Catch a Predator" are more of the casual/curious pedophiles, the big fish generally aren't that easy to catch. If this legislation is a bad idea, then does anyone else have any better ideas on how we can increase the rate at which we capture them? Certainly having officers cruise the Internet posing as sexually curious minors is a great deterrent and should continue. We want the creeps to know that if they go online to try and find a victim there is a reasonable chance it could be a cop. I'd like to hear from those officers who specialize in capturing child predators and pornography traffickers why this legislation is good or not.

I don't need left wing journalists alleging that Stephen Harper's thought police are going to hunt down scores of innocent civilians under cover of darkness. Honestly 99% of Canadians will never be affected in any significant way by this legislation. I'm a Libertarian with no objection given the objective. But hey, maybe I'm just an idiot for trusting the police.

Justin Trudeau: Idiot At Best, Separatist At Worst

Today Justin Trudeau told a Quebec radio host that if he thought "Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper" that he would consider making Quebec its own country. This is a remarkably dumb thing for a man who sees himself one day running for Prime Minister to say. Clearly this was not something blurted out on a whim like the "piece of sh*t" cat call in Question Period, but rather something "I always say". He's put a lot of thought into it, with the intended strategy of appealing to the Bloc swing voters who elected all those Dippers last May. This might play well on the Quebec left's cocktail circuit and might make him some new friends; but outside the province, he looks like an idiot at best, a separatist at worst.

"I always say that if, at a given time, I believed that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper and that we were going against abortion, that we were going against gay marriage, that we were moving backwards in 10,000 different ways, maybe I would think of wanting to make Quebec a country."

He's going to have this one thrown back in face for the rest of his political career. I'm sure Bob Rae has no intention of instructing Justin to stop saying ridiculous things. Trudeau has a significant base of support to run for Liberal leader whenever he decides to do so, but shit like this piling up doesn't help his chances. Up until now he was probably Rae's biggest threat, and these self inflicted wounds only improve Bobby's chances of capturing the permanent leadership.

Canada's Aging Second Hand Submarines

Today's poll question; Should the Liberals have bought Canada's 4 cold war era submarines from the British 13 years ago? Hindsight is starting to show that it was a colossally bad idea, as repeated problems and frequent repairs have wiped out the savings from buying the boats used. Would you rather we buy new subs or do you think that we don't need any at all? Canada has one of the world's largest coastlines and as such submarines can serve a useful purpose (like patrolling for smugglers). If there are more efficient and less costly means of performing this function, all options should be considered. The current sub fleet is close to its end anyway, so we are going to have to start slowly decommissioning them in the not so distant future. Perhaps we can buy fewer planes and a few more boats?

Evan Soloman was trying to float the idea today that there was a mysterious cover up regarding a training accident last summer, and that the government has been "misleading" Canadians. It was reported that there was an accident, but apparently we should have been told there was a big hole in the front of the boat. None of the sailors were seriously injured (two had minor bruising), the boat made it back to base on its own power and an inquiry was held into the incident (which is why Evan even had pictures to wave around for the camera). I'm not sure why they seem to think every detail regarding damage to our military equipment needs to be broadcast immediately to the entire world. How many other countries do that?

Evan was focusing in on the fact that the damaged sub was removed from the water at night to support his cover up conspiracy "under cover of darkness". Then later he had a military rep on the show who simply explained that it was done at 4am because they needed high tide to lift it onto the dry dock. Evan struggled to come to terms with the simple truth, and that the damage was structurally like "ripping the skin off your bumper", except that it is an expensive bumper. He had a very unhappy look on his face. It was almost funny to watch him conduct his interview while trying to compute the information, after he'd been pumping a cover up of a larger story for the first hour and a half of his show.

This is yet another example of the media breaking a story before they have completed their research. In the modern 24 hour news cycle and Twitter universe, journalists compete to be the first to break a story, and often do so before completing their due diligence. The bloggosphere and punditry class then go on to draw conclusions based on incomplete information. When they end up looking like idiots, they'll blame the government for not telling everyone every detail about everything immediately.

Three Cheers For Pandas!

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's trade mission to China has been a roaring success. Not only did he secure Canada billions of dollars in trade agreements, but he scored Toronto and Calgary a pair of pandas. Nice touch! Granted, there are some people who don't want us to sell resources to China or accept their pandas. Rather what we should be doing is boycotting trade until they change their foreign and domestic policy to something that's more agreeable with Canadian values. Evidently making public statements disagreeing with Chinese policy is insufficient, we should cut off trade altogether until they change (because doing so will surely make them change course).

The poll question today on the CBC's Rosemary Barton Show was; is Canada putting trade with China ahead of human rights? 83% said yes. It's ridiculous that Soloman has started naming his polls "the ballot box question", when most of his loaded questions are completely irrelevant to how people vote. I'd like to see Rosemary permanently take over for Evan. The better question is; should Canada halt trade with China until they adopt more agreeable foreign and domestic policies?

Warning Shots-gate

The controversy of the day on Thursday was whether or not it is appropriate to fire warning shots with a gun to deter someone threatening your life. Recent comments by the Justice Minister set off a small media firestorm, including attacks in Question Period and a grilling on the Soloman Show. Though when Evan ran a poll asking "should you be able to defend your property with a gun?" it is unlikely he was expecting 80% of his audience to answer "yes". You can lead sheep to water, but you can't always make them drink. He should have asked if it is cool to fire warning shots.

Today's poll question; if you are being threatened, is it acceptable to fire warning shots with a gun?

Liberals For Life

Looks like the pro-life wing of the Liberal Party is starting to become more active, but I don't see rampant media accusations that the Party is trying to re-open the abortion debate and threatening women's rights. Instead the conspiracy is that "some federal Liberals fear single-issue pro-lifers are trying to hijack their weakened party." That was the opening sentence of Joan Bryden's recent exposé in the Globe. Thanks Joan. Any mention of the word "abortion" coming from the right is generally like "cat nip" for the left, but they struggle to process it when the words come from their own side.

Remember when Bob Rae tried to pass legislation for Canadian taxpayers to fund abortions in foreign countries? That bill died on the floor of the minority House of Commons because a handful of "Liberals for Life" declined to show up for the whipped vote. Now Liberals for Life are trying to get a pro lifer nominated for the Liberal Party in the upcoming byelection in Jack Layton's old riding. Rest assured Bob Rae will overrule the candidacy even if they succeed, but it will be interesting to see how he goes about stomping out this fire. The Liberals have been attacking a Tory "hidden agenda" on abortion for over a decade. Meanwhile it is an agenda shared by a number of Liberals who don't get anywhere near the attention of Tory backbenchers.

What Happened To Kevin Page's "Demographic Time Bomb"?

Certainly I can't be the only one who remembers Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page hammering the Tory government's long term budget projections in 2010 because they did not take into account Canada's "demographic time bomb" (aka: our aging population). Fast forward to 2012 when we are debating pension reform and suddenly everything is sustainable and does not require change? Well Kevin, which is it? Is a bomb about to explode, or is everything sunshine and lollipops? Forgive my confusion, maybe Kevin has just been so busy booking Liberal fundraisers that he's taken his eye off the ball. Certainly Andrew Coyne thinks we have a very serious problem.

Government Promoting Torture?

The big controversy today on the Soloman Show was a "government directive to CSIS" to use information that MAY have been obtained through torture if that information can save lives. As you can well imagine, the usual suspects went bananas claiming that this was tantamount to promoting and encouraging the use of torture. Gerard Kennedy was damned near ready to ship Vic Toews off to the Hague. Evan kept referring to "groups" who might use torture, when in fact what he's talking about are foreign governments, a number of them our allies.

Canada has intelligence sharing agreements with roughly 150 countries, and a chunk of them allow what we define as torture. Does that mean we should immediately stop accepting all intel from those countries, or should we have them prove that no torture was used on a case by case basis? I was hoping that Evan would list all our allies who permit torture that we should stop sharing intel with, but he would only mention the United States and Afghanistan. Today's poll question; should we stop accepting all intelligence from countries known to on occasion use torture? We're going to have to stop using most intelligence coming out of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. I'm not sure how much we can use from South America either.

One thing that kept coming up today was that the information obtained through torture "is not reliable" or "tainted". It is most unreliable when obtaining a confession, but I would be curious to see the actual numbers when it comes to the locations of militant bases, future attacks, or the names of operatives. That data is likely classified, but my guess is that the more specific the information, the more reliable it is. I don't condone torture nor want to see my country torturing enemy combatants, but if Saudi Intelligence informs us that there could be an attack on a subway on a certain day, we certainly can't ignore that because someone may or may not have been tortured. It may not be 100% reliable, but neither is it 100% unreliable.

The letter Vic Toews wrote to CSIS (which Evan kept waving around for the camera today) made perfect sense. It is not creating a "market for torture" if we accept intel that may save lives. One panel loon even
went so far as to say that this memo was going to lead to rendition, where we start shipping off prisoners to foreign countries for the sole purpose of having them tortured. Come on man! Seriously?