April 2012 Archives
Is Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson funded by foreign interests? Ezra Levant investigates.
Mayor really the Prince of Tides
The extremists at the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation have spent millions of dollars trying to shut down Canada’s oilsands.
Their Canadian branch plant, the Tides Canada Foundation, has too.
Abusing Canadian charities law, they’ve bankrolled dozens of front groups to jam up our country’s courts and environmental reviews.
All this, while passing off their political activity as “charitable” work.
And it almost worked. They managed to delay the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal that would ship oilsands oil from Alberta to the B.C. port of Kitimat.
They convinced their anti-oil president, Barack Obama, to delay the Keystone XL pipeline that would have shipped oilsands oil down to the Gulf Coast of Texas.
But there’s one loose end: A pipeline built
60 years ago, from Edmonton, across the Rocky Mountains, straight to the Port of Vancouver.
In fact, the oil doesn’t stop at the end of the pipe. There’s a tanker facility right there in the rivers of Vancouver. Been doing it for decades. Fits right in with the rest of the port — the biggest in Canada.
And now Kinder Morgan, the company that owns the Trans Mountain pipeline, wants to expand the pipe’s capacity.
The expansion is a slam dunk — no need to negotiate land claims, no environmental questions unanswered. The thing’s been working since 1953. They just want to make it bigger.
You’d think the mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, would be delighted — more work in Vancouver, more wealth for the port, more success for Canada.
But the thing about Robertson is that while he is the mayor of Vancouver in name, he’s the mayor of the Tides Foundation in fact.
He was a director of their Canadian branch plant before running for office.
And, when Robertson finally ran to be mayor of Vancouver, his Vision Vancouver party spending a staggering $2 million to win a vote in a city of just 600,000 people, it was his radical environmentalist friends who gave him his campaign cash — $330,000 to his municipal party from Tides officials or their associates. Including thousands of dollars from
U.S. donors. Hang on: U.S. donors to a Canadian mayor’s campaign? Yes.
So the Tides Foundation called in their marker last week. And Robertson came out against the pipeline expansion. Here’s what he wrote in a local newspaper: “For Kinder Morgan, the benefits are obvious: A dramatic increase in the amount of oil they can move to market from the Alberta oilsands project. But for Vancouver, it’s hard to find any upside.”
But Vancouver needs oil, too — more than a million cars, a busy airport. Without Trans Mountain, Vancouver grinds to a halt. Let alone lost jobs. But note the subtle xenophobia: Those Alberta rednecks will benefit, but not us. Let’s close our port to them.
Robertson wants to build a provincial firewall. A trade barrier. Because his San Francisco bosses want one. Imagine if Alberta took the same view: No imports from the Port of Vancouver may pass through Alberta by truck or rail if some Alberta mayor’s donors say so.
It doesn’t make any sense for the mayor of Vancouver to oppose shipping raw materials through the port. It doesn’t make sense for Canadian interests. It doesn’t make sense for B.C. jobs. But this isn’t about Canada, or B.C., or even Vancouver.
This is about a Manchurian candidate, put in place by extremist millionaires in the U.S., being activated. Tides doesn’t want the pipeline expansion; Vancouver’s mayor will ensure it doesn’t happen.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain April 30th 2012.
Mayor really the Prince of Tides
The extremists at the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation have spent millions of dollars trying to shut down Canada’s oilsands.
Their Canadian branch plant, the Tides Canada Foundation, has too.
Abusing Canadian charities law, they’ve bankrolled dozens of front groups to jam up our country’s courts and environmental reviews.
All this, while passing off their political activity as “charitable” work.
And it almost worked. They managed to delay the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal that would ship oilsands oil from Alberta to the B.C. port of Kitimat.
They convinced their anti-oil president, Barack Obama, to delay the Keystone XL pipeline that would have shipped oilsands oil down to the Gulf Coast of Texas.
But there’s one loose end: A pipeline built
60 years ago, from Edmonton, across the Rocky Mountains, straight to the Port of Vancouver.
In fact, the oil doesn’t stop at the end of the pipe. There’s a tanker facility right there in the rivers of Vancouver. Been doing it for decades. Fits right in with the rest of the port — the biggest in Canada.
And now Kinder Morgan, the company that owns the Trans Mountain pipeline, wants to expand the pipe’s capacity.
The expansion is a slam dunk — no need to negotiate land claims, no environmental questions unanswered. The thing’s been working since 1953. They just want to make it bigger.
You’d think the mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, would be delighted — more work in Vancouver, more wealth for the port, more success for Canada.
But the thing about Robertson is that while he is the mayor of Vancouver in name, he’s the mayor of the Tides Foundation in fact.
He was a director of their Canadian branch plant before running for office.
And, when Robertson finally ran to be mayor of Vancouver, his Vision Vancouver party spending a staggering $2 million to win a vote in a city of just 600,000 people, it was his radical environmentalist friends who gave him his campaign cash — $330,000 to his municipal party from Tides officials or their associates. Including thousands of dollars from
U.S. donors. Hang on: U.S. donors to a Canadian mayor’s campaign? Yes.
So the Tides Foundation called in their marker last week. And Robertson came out against the pipeline expansion. Here’s what he wrote in a local newspaper: “For Kinder Morgan, the benefits are obvious: A dramatic increase in the amount of oil they can move to market from the Alberta oilsands project. But for Vancouver, it’s hard to find any upside.”
But Vancouver needs oil, too — more than a million cars, a busy airport. Without Trans Mountain, Vancouver grinds to a halt. Let alone lost jobs. But note the subtle xenophobia: Those Alberta rednecks will benefit, but not us. Let’s close our port to them.
Robertson wants to build a provincial firewall. A trade barrier. Because his San Francisco bosses want one. Imagine if Alberta took the same view: No imports from the Port of Vancouver may pass through Alberta by truck or rail if some Alberta mayor’s donors say so.
It doesn’t make any sense for the mayor of Vancouver to oppose shipping raw materials through the port. It doesn’t make sense for Canadian interests. It doesn’t make sense for B.C. jobs. But this isn’t about Canada, or B.C., or even Vancouver.
This is about a Manchurian candidate, put in place by extremist millionaires in the U.S., being activated. Tides doesn’t want the pipeline expansion; Vancouver’s mayor will ensure it doesn’t happen.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain April 30th 2012.
Ezra Levant looks at how Dan Savage bullies others in the name of 'anti-bullying'.
This segment aired on The Source April 30th 2012
The government's war on cigarettes has turned into a war on personal choice, property rights and businesses. Eric Duhaime has more.
Barbara Kay on the release of her new book, Unworthy Creature, a memoir that takes a look into the culture of violence against women in South Asian communities.
This segment aired on The Source April 30th 2012.
How did the Alberta PCs win a majority in Monday’s election when every poll for a month showed them behind the upstart Wildrose Party?
Simple: They united the left and scared the middle.
The Wildrose won 34% in the election — almost all of it from the carcass of the PCs. Those voters were the C in the PC party — the true conservatives.
But instead of trying to win those voters back, PC leader Alison Redford invited new voters into her party — the P’s in PC. Progressives. Or, as they’re usually called, Liberals.
In the last Alberta election, the Liberals received a hearty 26.4%. (By contrast, Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals got less than 19% nationwide.)
Redford spoke to those 26.4% with a compelling argument: You’ll never elect a Liberal government in Alberta. So why not vote for a party that believes in the same things, but just calls itself PC?
Redford said she would consider a coalition government with the Liberals or NDP, but not with the Wildrose. She couldn’t have been plainer — she wanted Liberals to vote for her, and those frightening Albertans considering the Wildrose? Well, good riddance to them.
And it worked. The Liberal Party plunged to less than 10% this time. Most voted for the Liberal who could win: A PC named Redford.
It was a unite-the-left strategy, to keep out Wildrose.
When Tom Olsen, Redford’s spin doctor, attacked the federal Reform Party and Deborah Grey on TV, true conservatives saw it as a gaffe. When Redford put out an ad mocking their “father’s” PC party, when Redford specifically distanced herself from Ralph Klein’s record as a fiscal conservative, it looked like a mistake.
But those weren’t errors. Conservatives had long ago left the party. They were never coming back. It was all about attracting Liberals. And it worked splendidly.
That’s how Redford won the PC leadership in the first place, by inviting in temporary Tories — teachers’ union members who flooded in just for the vote, and who were immediately rewarded with a $100-million gift when Redford won.
She just did that again last week on a province-wide scale.
It almost didn’t work. Because even with the addition of almost 150,000 Liberal voters to the PCs, the Wildrose briefly pulled ahead during the campaign, as Albertans took a look at their leader Danielle Smith and liked what they saw. But that’s the thing — it was brief.
A few poorly worded comments from Smith’s less well-known and less likeable candidates were the spark for a two-week bombardment of negative ads by the PCs and their liberal allies — including the Alberta Federation of Labour and its 1.5 million robocalls.
The massive attack in the last half of the campaign had its effect. It was enough to scare 10% of the Wildrosers back to the PCs.
It wasn’t a pretty way to win, but so what — a win is a win. Final score: PCs 44%, Wildrose 34%. Which meant 61 seats to 17.
So Smith isn’t going to go from being a novice to premier in one leap. But maybe she’ll do it in two leaps. That’s how Peter Lougheed did it. In 1967, his PCs only won six seats. Albertans wanted to size them up for four years before giving them a majority.
Or take Stephen Harper. In the 2004 federal election, polls briefly suggested he might win. Voters pulled back after a massive Liberal fear attack. But in 2006 — after a lacklustre term by Paul Martin, a term where Harper proved himself to be unscary — he finally won.
The challenge for now is Redford’s: What rewards can she give her new Liberal base that won’t drive the remaining true conservatives to the Wildrose? The next four years will be interesting.
This column appeared in The Sun Chain on April 28 2012.
Simple: They united the left and scared the middle.
The Wildrose won 34% in the election — almost all of it from the carcass of the PCs. Those voters were the C in the PC party — the true conservatives.
But instead of trying to win those voters back, PC leader Alison Redford invited new voters into her party — the P’s in PC. Progressives. Or, as they’re usually called, Liberals.
In the last Alberta election, the Liberals received a hearty 26.4%. (By contrast, Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals got less than 19% nationwide.)
Redford spoke to those 26.4% with a compelling argument: You’ll never elect a Liberal government in Alberta. So why not vote for a party that believes in the same things, but just calls itself PC?
Redford said she would consider a coalition government with the Liberals or NDP, but not with the Wildrose. She couldn’t have been plainer — she wanted Liberals to vote for her, and those frightening Albertans considering the Wildrose? Well, good riddance to them.
And it worked. The Liberal Party plunged to less than 10% this time. Most voted for the Liberal who could win: A PC named Redford.
It was a unite-the-left strategy, to keep out Wildrose.
When Tom Olsen, Redford’s spin doctor, attacked the federal Reform Party and Deborah Grey on TV, true conservatives saw it as a gaffe. When Redford put out an ad mocking their “father’s” PC party, when Redford specifically distanced herself from Ralph Klein’s record as a fiscal conservative, it looked like a mistake.
But those weren’t errors. Conservatives had long ago left the party. They were never coming back. It was all about attracting Liberals. And it worked splendidly.
That’s how Redford won the PC leadership in the first place, by inviting in temporary Tories — teachers’ union members who flooded in just for the vote, and who were immediately rewarded with a $100-million gift when Redford won.
She just did that again last week on a province-wide scale.
It almost didn’t work. Because even with the addition of almost 150,000 Liberal voters to the PCs, the Wildrose briefly pulled ahead during the campaign, as Albertans took a look at their leader Danielle Smith and liked what they saw. But that’s the thing — it was brief.
A few poorly worded comments from Smith’s less well-known and less likeable candidates were the spark for a two-week bombardment of negative ads by the PCs and their liberal allies — including the Alberta Federation of Labour and its 1.5 million robocalls.
The massive attack in the last half of the campaign had its effect. It was enough to scare 10% of the Wildrosers back to the PCs.
It wasn’t a pretty way to win, but so what — a win is a win. Final score: PCs 44%, Wildrose 34%. Which meant 61 seats to 17.
So Smith isn’t going to go from being a novice to premier in one leap. But maybe she’ll do it in two leaps. That’s how Peter Lougheed did it. In 1967, his PCs only won six seats. Albertans wanted to size them up for four years before giving them a majority.
Or take Stephen Harper. In the 2004 federal election, polls briefly suggested he might win. Voters pulled back after a massive Liberal fear attack. But in 2006 — after a lacklustre term by Paul Martin, a term where Harper proved himself to be unscary — he finally won.
The challenge for now is Redford’s: What rewards can she give her new Liberal base that won’t drive the remaining true conservatives to the Wildrose? The next four years will be interesting.
This column appeared in The Sun Chain on April 28 2012.
Ezra Levant reveals the truths behind cigarettes and why politicans have allowed a harmful industry to thrive.
This segment aired on The Source April 27 2012.
Billy Hallowell, an editor at The Blaze.com, brings some of the hottest stories on fire at The Blaze this week.
This segment aired on The Source April 27 2012.
McGill University student, Marc Fortin, on Quebec students comparing their protests to the Arab Spring
This segment aired on The Source April 27 2012.
Germain Belzile of the Montreal Economic Institute on their new study that says Quebec should be drilling itself out of poverty.
This segment aired on The Source April 27 2012.
Jeffrey Addicott looks at how Barack Obama is wearing rosy glasses when he says the war on terror is over.
This segment aired on The Source April 26 2012.
Author Charles Murray discusses the growing cultural divide in teh United States and how the middle class may soon become a thing of the past.
This segment aired on The Source April 26 2012.
Ezra Levant looks at the continuing fight against snobbery that we must all be conscious of.
This segment aired on The Source April 26th 2012
Giving Omar Khadr a coronation when he returns to Canada will not only threaten our security, but that of our neighbours as well, Ezra Levant has more.
This segment appeared on The Source April 25 2012.
Jeffrey Addicott, founder of the Center for Terrorism Law has strong language for Canadians who would think to embrace convicted terrorist, Omar Khadr.
This segment appeared on The Source April 25 2012
Jason Loftus of The Epoch Times on all the latest news out of China.
This segment appeared on The Source April 25 2012.
Ezra Levant is joined by Alison Redford’s campaign manager, Stephen Carter to discuss where the Wildrose went wrong, and where the PCs went right in the Alberta election campaign.
Ezra provides his take on what happened in the Alberta election that left all pollster predictions dead wrong, and what it will mean for the province.
Ezra is joined by PC MLA Ric Mciver on his decision to run as a PC despite being one of the most conservative guys Ezra knows, and how the PCs won Alberta.
Ezra checks in from his 'home base' of Calgary, where he's sensing a big win for the Wildrose party Monday.
Monday is a once-in-a-lifetime election in Alberta — literally. You’d have to be 63 to be old enough to have voted in the last Alberta election that the PCs didn’t win.
In this space I have made the case for the conservative alternative to the PCs, an upstart party called the Wildrose, led by a bright, 41-year-old woman named Danielle Smith. My second choice would be Alberta’s NDP because they, too, are criticizing the PCs for overspending. That’s how far left the PCs have drifted.
But in the name of balance, let me play devil’s advocate. Let me make my best case for Alison Redford, the premier and PC leader. Here goes:
I believe that Alison Redford deserves to be Alberta’s premier and leading citizen. I believe that when she left Canada, and applied for citizenship in South Africa, it was just a moment of disorientation, and she really, truly believes Alberta is the best place in the world, and she’s running for premier because she loves it, not just because the South African government rejected her application to become a citizen there.
Alberta is her second choice. But I’m sure whatever South Africa offered her has been forgotten, like an old flame.
I believe Redford’s slogan — “real life leadership” is exactly right. Because nothing says “real life” like her work as a jet-setting lawyer and bureaucrat for the United Nations.
I believe that Redford’s clear promise to scrap the censorship provision of the province’s human rights act has just slipped her mind. I don’t believe her promise to restore free speech — made to me on my Sun News TV show — was just a cheap trick to get my endorsement, which it did.
As the author of the book Ethical Oil, I am excited about Alison Redford’s promise to support energy companies. The fact that she flew to Toronto to give a keynote speech about how awesome wind turbines and solar panels are shows she’s futuristic, not out of touch with the province’s core industry. And the fact that her TV ad about the oil patch had pictures of a Chinese offshore oil rig, instead of the Alberta oilsands, was surely a typo — not a sign of her cluelessness about the industry.
She is very futuristic. Like her campaign ads that boasted her party isn’t “your father’s PC party.” To prove the point, she denounced former PC premier Ralph Klein’s fiscal policies.
No, it’s not your father’s PC party. But maybe it’s your grandfather’s party. Redford wheeled out 83-year-old ex-premier Peter Lougheed and 77-year-old ex-premier Don Getty for their endorsements.
I agree with Redford that voting for untested candidates in the Wildrose party is risky. On the other hand, the fact that the PCs are running 40 candidates who have never been MLAs before isn’t a sign of their inexperience. It’s a sign of their freshness. Like reheating leftovers for 41 years in a row.
Like Redford, and her Toronto-based campaign strategists, I am positively terrified of Danielle Smith and what she might do to, uh, women. Or gays.
Like Redford, I am pretending her PC party itself isn’t full of anti-gay, anti-abortion social conservatives, including Redford’s token conservative, Ted Morton.
When Morton wrote in the National Post in 2003 that he would invoke the charter’s notwithstanding clause to oppose gay marriage, I’m sure he was just talking that way to smoke out anti-gay bigots. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.
I like that Redford won the important endorsement of the Toronto Globe and Mail. That will turn some heads in places like Beiseker and Drayton Valley.
I’m joking. I like Alison Redford for one reason only — and it’s the same reason I like Kim Campbell. She is the undertaker who will finally inter the PC party that should have been fired years ago.
This article appeared in the Sun Chain April 21st 2012
In this space I have made the case for the conservative alternative to the PCs, an upstart party called the Wildrose, led by a bright, 41-year-old woman named Danielle Smith. My second choice would be Alberta’s NDP because they, too, are criticizing the PCs for overspending. That’s how far left the PCs have drifted.
But in the name of balance, let me play devil’s advocate. Let me make my best case for Alison Redford, the premier and PC leader. Here goes:
I believe that Alison Redford deserves to be Alberta’s premier and leading citizen. I believe that when she left Canada, and applied for citizenship in South Africa, it was just a moment of disorientation, and she really, truly believes Alberta is the best place in the world, and she’s running for premier because she loves it, not just because the South African government rejected her application to become a citizen there.
Alberta is her second choice. But I’m sure whatever South Africa offered her has been forgotten, like an old flame.
I believe Redford’s slogan — “real life leadership” is exactly right. Because nothing says “real life” like her work as a jet-setting lawyer and bureaucrat for the United Nations.
I believe that Redford’s clear promise to scrap the censorship provision of the province’s human rights act has just slipped her mind. I don’t believe her promise to restore free speech — made to me on my Sun News TV show — was just a cheap trick to get my endorsement, which it did.
As the author of the book Ethical Oil, I am excited about Alison Redford’s promise to support energy companies. The fact that she flew to Toronto to give a keynote speech about how awesome wind turbines and solar panels are shows she’s futuristic, not out of touch with the province’s core industry. And the fact that her TV ad about the oil patch had pictures of a Chinese offshore oil rig, instead of the Alberta oilsands, was surely a typo — not a sign of her cluelessness about the industry.
She is very futuristic. Like her campaign ads that boasted her party isn’t “your father’s PC party.” To prove the point, she denounced former PC premier Ralph Klein’s fiscal policies.
No, it’s not your father’s PC party. But maybe it’s your grandfather’s party. Redford wheeled out 83-year-old ex-premier Peter Lougheed and 77-year-old ex-premier Don Getty for their endorsements.
I agree with Redford that voting for untested candidates in the Wildrose party is risky. On the other hand, the fact that the PCs are running 40 candidates who have never been MLAs before isn’t a sign of their inexperience. It’s a sign of their freshness. Like reheating leftovers for 41 years in a row.
Like Redford, and her Toronto-based campaign strategists, I am positively terrified of Danielle Smith and what she might do to, uh, women. Or gays.
Like Redford, I am pretending her PC party itself isn’t full of anti-gay, anti-abortion social conservatives, including Redford’s token conservative, Ted Morton.
When Morton wrote in the National Post in 2003 that he would invoke the charter’s notwithstanding clause to oppose gay marriage, I’m sure he was just talking that way to smoke out anti-gay bigots. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.
I like that Redford won the important endorsement of the Toronto Globe and Mail. That will turn some heads in places like Beiseker and Drayton Valley.
I’m joking. I like Alison Redford for one reason only — and it’s the same reason I like Kim Campbell. She is the undertaker who will finally inter the PC party that should have been fired years ago.
This article appeared in the Sun Chain April 21st 2012
Ezra honours mother nature in his own unique way ahead of Earth Day.
Ezra Levant speaks with guest Stephen Kushner about some unseemly alliances Alison Redford and her Progressive Conservatives hold.
Ezra Levant runs down just some of the many reasons to keep Omar Khadr out of Canada.
Why does convicted killer Omar Khadr get so much empathy in Canada? Ezra Levant examines how Khadr is used as a political tool.
Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley discuss the looming return of convicted terrorist Omar Khadr.
Ezra Levant looks back at the last successful year of Sun News Network.
This segment appeared on The Source April 18th 2012.
Ezra Levant looks at the continued hypocritical, biased behaviour being undertaken by 'charitable group' Forest Ethics.
This segment appeared on The Source April 18th 2012
Lorne Gunter on teachers' union shilling for Redford PC's and why it is a daft move.
This segment appeared on The Source April 18th 2012
Ezra Levant takes the pro-bono case for Arnon Levy, another citizenship who's getting the shakedown by the kangaroo courts of the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
This segment appeared on The Source April 18th 2012
Mark Steyn joins Ezra in studio to discuss the state of free speech in Canada and the rise and fall of freedom around the world. This segment appeared on The Source April 17th 2012.
Canada’s first female Leader of the Official Opposition, Deb Grey, reacts to fear-mongering comparisons of the Wildrose to the Reform Party. Ths segment appeared on The Source April 17th 2012.
On the Charter’s 30th birthday, Ezra Levant looks how this document has made more millionaires than the lottery. This segment appeared on The Source April 17th 2012.
The similarities between Kim Campbell and Alison Redford are startling.
Both are Red Tories, feminist lawyers, elected from urban ridings.
Both were appointed to cabinet right away, and served as justice ministers.
Both were improbable candidates for the leadership of their respective parties, squeaking through in close-fought leadership contests.
Campbell was 46 years old when she went to the polls as prime minister. Redford is 47 as she goes to the polls as premier.
And both women faced the same competition in Alberta: An upstart conservative party tapping into prairie populism.
Will the similarities end there? Campbell led her party to its worst showing in history, taking Brian Mulroney’s second majority and losing every seat but two.
Redford also inherited a massive majority. Will she wipe out her party? Will she lose her own seat, like Campbell did?
Redford seems like she’s trapped in the great Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day. It’s like she’s doing everything Campbell and the Red Tories did wrong in 1993, all over again.
When Campbell bashed the upstart Reform Party as “too conservative” and “extreme,” it didn’t work — it reeked of condescension and name-calling, at least in Alberta. And it was an admission that the Red Tories themselves had drifted to the left. Redford’s similar attacks on the Wildrose Party are finding an enthusiastic reception in the liberal media, particularly out of Toronto. But they don’t vote in Alberta.
It’s not just the tone-deaf attacks on “bigots” and “extremists” and anyone who is a traditional conservative Christian. It’s Redford’s lack of conservative policy, too — just like Campbell in 1993.
Redford’s policy book is chock full of bureaucratic buzzwords. Mainly about spending. The words “invest” and “fund”— code for taxing and spending — appear 58 times in the PC platform. The word freedom appears once.
It’s a Toronto liberal’s dream of what an Alberta premier should sound like.
Even on oil — the one subject any Alberta PC should know in their sleep — the Redford PCs sound confused and bored. Their platform promises that Alberta will “serve as the catalyst for a pan-Canadian Energy Strategy that promotes inter-jurisdictional collaboration to develop a sustainable energy roadmap based on common goals and priorities.”
Say what?
No one in the oil patch talks that way. That was written by someone without the faintest clue. Alberta’s oil patch doesn’t need a “collaborative development of sustainable roadmaps.” It needs someone to stand up for Canada’s most important industry. Instead, Redford promises multi-billion-dollar corporate welfare. For oil companies.
In a final gambit, the PCs released a new TV ad about the economy, and defending the oil patch. That’s the stuff that wins!
But there was something that just didn’t fit about the ad. It didn’t look like anything in the oilsands. The oilsands are on the ground. This looked like a boat, actually. There was no ground. You know, no sand in the oilsands.
A keen-eyed blogger named Stephen Taylor zoomed in and saw that it was indeed a boat — an offshore oil rig. In the Yellow Sea. Flying two Red Chinese communist flags.
But to Redford’s Toronto strategists, it’s all the same. Oil is oil, right? Offshore rig, oilsands, whatever. Anyone who complains is just an extremist, right? After 41 years in power, the PCs need a decade or three in the wilderness. The real question is whether the party will exist at all in 10 years.
This article appeared in Sun Newspapers April 16 2012
Both are Red Tories, feminist lawyers, elected from urban ridings.
Both were appointed to cabinet right away, and served as justice ministers.
Both were improbable candidates for the leadership of their respective parties, squeaking through in close-fought leadership contests.
Campbell was 46 years old when she went to the polls as prime minister. Redford is 47 as she goes to the polls as premier.
And both women faced the same competition in Alberta: An upstart conservative party tapping into prairie populism.
Will the similarities end there? Campbell led her party to its worst showing in history, taking Brian Mulroney’s second majority and losing every seat but two.
Redford also inherited a massive majority. Will she wipe out her party? Will she lose her own seat, like Campbell did?
Redford seems like she’s trapped in the great Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day. It’s like she’s doing everything Campbell and the Red Tories did wrong in 1993, all over again.
When Campbell bashed the upstart Reform Party as “too conservative” and “extreme,” it didn’t work — it reeked of condescension and name-calling, at least in Alberta. And it was an admission that the Red Tories themselves had drifted to the left. Redford’s similar attacks on the Wildrose Party are finding an enthusiastic reception in the liberal media, particularly out of Toronto. But they don’t vote in Alberta.
It’s not just the tone-deaf attacks on “bigots” and “extremists” and anyone who is a traditional conservative Christian. It’s Redford’s lack of conservative policy, too — just like Campbell in 1993.
Redford’s policy book is chock full of bureaucratic buzzwords. Mainly about spending. The words “invest” and “fund”— code for taxing and spending — appear 58 times in the PC platform. The word freedom appears once.
It’s a Toronto liberal’s dream of what an Alberta premier should sound like.
Even on oil — the one subject any Alberta PC should know in their sleep — the Redford PCs sound confused and bored. Their platform promises that Alberta will “serve as the catalyst for a pan-Canadian Energy Strategy that promotes inter-jurisdictional collaboration to develop a sustainable energy roadmap based on common goals and priorities.”
Say what?
No one in the oil patch talks that way. That was written by someone without the faintest clue. Alberta’s oil patch doesn’t need a “collaborative development of sustainable roadmaps.” It needs someone to stand up for Canada’s most important industry. Instead, Redford promises multi-billion-dollar corporate welfare. For oil companies.
In a final gambit, the PCs released a new TV ad about the economy, and defending the oil patch. That’s the stuff that wins!
But there was something that just didn’t fit about the ad. It didn’t look like anything in the oilsands. The oilsands are on the ground. This looked like a boat, actually. There was no ground. You know, no sand in the oilsands.
A keen-eyed blogger named Stephen Taylor zoomed in and saw that it was indeed a boat — an offshore oil rig. In the Yellow Sea. Flying two Red Chinese communist flags.
But to Redford’s Toronto strategists, it’s all the same. Oil is oil, right? Offshore rig, oilsands, whatever. Anyone who complains is just an extremist, right? After 41 years in power, the PCs need a decade or three in the wilderness. The real question is whether the party will exist at all in 10 years.
This article appeared in Sun Newspapers April 16 2012
Alberta's PCs appear ripe for a big election loss, and Ezra couldn't be happier. He explains why Alison Redford's party should be "crushed."
This appeared on the The Source April 16th 2012
Why is socialist, typically pro-labour NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair opposed to Canada's great job engine, the oilsands? MP Michelle Rempel joins us to discuss.
This appeared on The Source April 16th 2012
David Suzuki says Sun News played a major role in his stepping down from the board of his foundation. Ezra and Lorrie Goldstein look at why he's fair game.
This appeared on The Source April 16 2012
Ezra Levant weighs in on the history of Alberta politics, the leadership capabilities of Danielle Smith, and what to expect in the last week of the Alberta election.
This appeared on Sun News April 15th 2012
The federal Conservatives used to be called the Progressive Conservatives. Not anymore — they legally changed their name to the Conservatives. It’s more accurate.
In the remaining eight days that the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta will exist, let us be equally accurate, and call them just the Progressives. It’s more accurate that way, too.
Under their liberal leader, Alison Redford, the Progressives have tried something new this election. They’ve run against Alberta.
That has worked for political leaders before. But they’ve usually been federal Liberals running against those scary western rednecks. It was safe for Jean Chretien and Paul Martin to run against Alberta when they knew they wouldn’t get seats in the province anyways. It’s novel for an Alberta politician to do the same.
For example, Redford says she is “frightened” by the Wildrose view on conscience rights. Redford says voting for the Wildrose would be a “stumble backward” to a less-tolerant society where not everyone is “included and respected.”
Redford never quite speaks clearly — she prefers a fuzzy language of legalese and buzzwords, a tic she picked up in her years working for the United Nations. But her campaign surrogates fill in the blanks. Tom Olsen, a Progressive spokesman, warns that voting for the Wildrose will lead to a province-wide “bloodletting.” Seriously, he says that.
Susan Elliott, the Progressive campaign manager, suggests there is a blacklist of “targets” for citizen-initiated referendums, part of the Wildrose plan.
“Ethnic minorities are targets. Gays and lesbians are targets.” Seriously, she says that.
Elliott says that Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose — a 41-year-old, modern woman — represents the “party of the middle-aged male.”
But the Progressives aren’t just using this “insult” against Wildrose. They’re using it against their own party, too. The Progressives are running newspaper ads showing a greasy 1950s-era man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, with the slogan, “Not your father’s PC party.” They are running against middle Alberta — the people who gave them majority governments in every election since 1971. Olsen makes the ultimate insult: He says Wildrose is “being run by Reformers.” He mocks Wildrose for receiving the endorsement of Deborah Grey, the first Reform MP elected back in 1989. Olsen says Albertans “don’t want to go back” in time.
We’ve seen this campaign before. It’s what the Toronto and Montreal-based Liberal Party ran against Preston Manning, then Stockwell Day, then Stephen Harper. It’s smears and fear-mongering and accusations of bigoted secret agendas. It works well out east — it wasn’t until just last year that the Conservatives finally won seats in Toronto. But it never worked in Alberta. Despite those slanders, Reform always won nearly every seat.
It’s a smart approach for federal Liberals who purposefully write off Alberta. But it’s suicide for an Alberta party. The Toronto Globe and Mail’s endorsement won’t pay off in Calgary or Fort McMurray.
Perhaps Redford thinks her personal appeal is strong. Maybe she thinks her choice of party colours — NDP orange — is better than old Tory blue. But she is not well known — she spent much of her adult life out of the country working for the UN and other organizations, and even applied to become a citizen of South Africa. She squeaked into her own riding with just 42% of the vote. You’d think someone like that wouldn’t take potshots at the federal Conservatives, who won 67% of Alberta’s vote.
The campaign isn’t over yet. But Redford’s debate performance was a dud, and the polls put her at least 10 points behind. The 41-year winning streak of the Alberta PCs is about to come to an end. They’re about to be beaten by a conservative party called Wildrose. But equally to blame are the leftists who ran the Progressive campaign, and thought calling Albertans bigots would work as well in Calgary as it always did in Toronto.
This column appeared across the Sun Chain April 14th 2012
In the remaining eight days that the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta will exist, let us be equally accurate, and call them just the Progressives. It’s more accurate that way, too.
Under their liberal leader, Alison Redford, the Progressives have tried something new this election. They’ve run against Alberta.
That has worked for political leaders before. But they’ve usually been federal Liberals running against those scary western rednecks. It was safe for Jean Chretien and Paul Martin to run against Alberta when they knew they wouldn’t get seats in the province anyways. It’s novel for an Alberta politician to do the same.
For example, Redford says she is “frightened” by the Wildrose view on conscience rights. Redford says voting for the Wildrose would be a “stumble backward” to a less-tolerant society where not everyone is “included and respected.”
Redford never quite speaks clearly — she prefers a fuzzy language of legalese and buzzwords, a tic she picked up in her years working for the United Nations. But her campaign surrogates fill in the blanks. Tom Olsen, a Progressive spokesman, warns that voting for the Wildrose will lead to a province-wide “bloodletting.” Seriously, he says that.
Susan Elliott, the Progressive campaign manager, suggests there is a blacklist of “targets” for citizen-initiated referendums, part of the Wildrose plan.
“Ethnic minorities are targets. Gays and lesbians are targets.” Seriously, she says that.
Elliott says that Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose — a 41-year-old, modern woman — represents the “party of the middle-aged male.”
But the Progressives aren’t just using this “insult” against Wildrose. They’re using it against their own party, too. The Progressives are running newspaper ads showing a greasy 1950s-era man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, with the slogan, “Not your father’s PC party.” They are running against middle Alberta — the people who gave them majority governments in every election since 1971. Olsen makes the ultimate insult: He says Wildrose is “being run by Reformers.” He mocks Wildrose for receiving the endorsement of Deborah Grey, the first Reform MP elected back in 1989. Olsen says Albertans “don’t want to go back” in time.
We’ve seen this campaign before. It’s what the Toronto and Montreal-based Liberal Party ran against Preston Manning, then Stockwell Day, then Stephen Harper. It’s smears and fear-mongering and accusations of bigoted secret agendas. It works well out east — it wasn’t until just last year that the Conservatives finally won seats in Toronto. But it never worked in Alberta. Despite those slanders, Reform always won nearly every seat.
It’s a smart approach for federal Liberals who purposefully write off Alberta. But it’s suicide for an Alberta party. The Toronto Globe and Mail’s endorsement won’t pay off in Calgary or Fort McMurray.
Perhaps Redford thinks her personal appeal is strong. Maybe she thinks her choice of party colours — NDP orange — is better than old Tory blue. But she is not well known — she spent much of her adult life out of the country working for the UN and other organizations, and even applied to become a citizen of South Africa. She squeaked into her own riding with just 42% of the vote. You’d think someone like that wouldn’t take potshots at the federal Conservatives, who won 67% of Alberta’s vote.
The campaign isn’t over yet. But Redford’s debate performance was a dud, and the polls put her at least 10 points behind. The 41-year winning streak of the Alberta PCs is about to come to an end. They’re about to be beaten by a conservative party called Wildrose. But equally to blame are the leftists who ran the Progressive campaign, and thought calling Albertans bigots would work as well in Calgary as it always did in Toronto.
This column appeared across the Sun Chain April 14th 2012
From the Source April 13th 2012
Something of a libertarian, Danielle Smith has been a welcome change to the political landscape of Canada, Rob Breakenridge joins Ezra to discuss. From The Source April 13 2012.
After decades of Progressive Conservative rule it is time for a change in Alberta, and according to Ezra Levant the Wildrose is the party to deliver that change. From The Source April 13 2012
Ezra Levant and John Robson look at why Alberta may be looking at the rest of Canada, Quebec especially with some animosity. From The Source April 13 2012
Should the CBC be dabbling in things like porn and music distribution? Certainly not, according to Ezra Levant and guest Fred Litwin. From The Source April 13 2012
The Alberta Leaders' Debate:
Tonight starting at 6:00pm MT (8pm ET, 5pm PT) we're LIVE from Alberta with a pre-debate special. The main event gets going at 6:30pm MT as Smith and Reford do battle on the debate stage. We'll have Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley in Edmonton to give you their usual colour commentary. It's a can't miss night of programming...especially for those of you outside the province who are looking for a primer on the campaign.
Tonight starting at 6:00pm MT (8pm ET, 5pm PT) we're LIVE from Alberta with a pre-debate special. The main event gets going at 6:30pm MT as Smith and Reford do battle on the debate stage. We'll have Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley in Edmonton to give you their usual colour commentary. It's a can't miss night of programming...especially for those of you outside the province who are looking for a primer on the campaign.
Alberta’s PC education minister, Thomas Lukaszuk, went out door-knocking in his Edmonton riding of Castle Downs on the weekend.
With close to 50,000 citizens, there was no way he’d be able to cover it all in a 28-day campaign.
Door-knocking is a simple science: Skip dedicated supporters (they’ll vote for you no matter what) and skip dedicated opponents (they’ll never vote for you, but will waste your time). Focus on the undecideds, especially when you’re unlikely to visit more than a few thousand homes.
But not Lukaszuk. When he went out canvassing, he deliberately chose a house that had a Wildrose lawn sign on it.
Al Michalchuk answered the door. He says he’s ordered Lukaszuk off his property before. And so he did so again — and pushed him out the doorway.
A bad moment. But then the PCs cracked. Lukaszuk called the cops — and the PC party rushed this news to press. Campaign strategist Stephen Carter breathlessly told the world Lukaszuk was “assaulted.”
Lukaszuk played the victim card — finally, something to turn the campaign around for them, with just two weeks to go. That victim card worked for about five minutes. One local TV station reported Lukaszuk was “kicked and punched in the face.” Lukaszuk made nearly 20 Twitter comments about the incident and did the media circuit. He also filed a police report.
But funny thing, his story kept changing about the alleged assault and how it happened. He left the home immediately when attacked. Or did he leave, but only after he asked at least four questions about why Michalchuk wanted him to leave?
Oh well. It was a case of he said, he said — and Lukaszuk had a witness. But Michalchuk used to be in the security business, and he had a closed circuit camera on his porch — something Lukaszuk didn’t realize when he was telling the beautiful story of him as a victim and a hero.
Lukaszuk had said that Michalchuk chased him into the street, screaming. But the video shows Michalchuk never left his home. Lukaszuk claimed Michalchuk attacked him immediately, and he retreated immediately. But the video shows Lukaszuk wouldn’t leave for nearly two minutes.
But most of all, the video shows who Lukaszuk’s attacker was: An asthmatic senior citizen, almost 70, dying of liver disease.
It’s bizarre that Lukaszuk deliberately chose to go to the home of an opponent. It’s bizarre that he didn’t leave immediately. It’s bizarre that he claimed he was chased on to the street when he wasn’t.
But what’s even weirder is that the PC campaign thinks this is a winning issue — even bringing in Premier Alison Redford herself to comment on it, once in a press release, and once on camera.
Usually, embarrassments are kept away from the boss. But they’re bringing her to it.
Maybe they think it will make her look vulnerable and likeable. Maybe it will make the Wildrose party look like meanies.
Maybe. Or maybe it will prove that after 41 years in office, the PCs are out of gas and out of ideas, and have so little to offer themselves that a candidate’s embarrassing run-in on a senior’s doorstep is the best thing they could think of campaigning on for four days in a row.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain April 9 2012
With close to 50,000 citizens, there was no way he’d be able to cover it all in a 28-day campaign.
Door-knocking is a simple science: Skip dedicated supporters (they’ll vote for you no matter what) and skip dedicated opponents (they’ll never vote for you, but will waste your time). Focus on the undecideds, especially when you’re unlikely to visit more than a few thousand homes.
But not Lukaszuk. When he went out canvassing, he deliberately chose a house that had a Wildrose lawn sign on it.
Al Michalchuk answered the door. He says he’s ordered Lukaszuk off his property before. And so he did so again — and pushed him out the doorway.
A bad moment. But then the PCs cracked. Lukaszuk called the cops — and the PC party rushed this news to press. Campaign strategist Stephen Carter breathlessly told the world Lukaszuk was “assaulted.”
Lukaszuk played the victim card — finally, something to turn the campaign around for them, with just two weeks to go. That victim card worked for about five minutes. One local TV station reported Lukaszuk was “kicked and punched in the face.” Lukaszuk made nearly 20 Twitter comments about the incident and did the media circuit. He also filed a police report.
But funny thing, his story kept changing about the alleged assault and how it happened. He left the home immediately when attacked. Or did he leave, but only after he asked at least four questions about why Michalchuk wanted him to leave?
Oh well. It was a case of he said, he said — and Lukaszuk had a witness. But Michalchuk used to be in the security business, and he had a closed circuit camera on his porch — something Lukaszuk didn’t realize when he was telling the beautiful story of him as a victim and a hero.
Lukaszuk had said that Michalchuk chased him into the street, screaming. But the video shows Michalchuk never left his home. Lukaszuk claimed Michalchuk attacked him immediately, and he retreated immediately. But the video shows Lukaszuk wouldn’t leave for nearly two minutes.
But most of all, the video shows who Lukaszuk’s attacker was: An asthmatic senior citizen, almost 70, dying of liver disease.
It’s bizarre that Lukaszuk deliberately chose to go to the home of an opponent. It’s bizarre that he didn’t leave immediately. It’s bizarre that he claimed he was chased on to the street when he wasn’t.
But what’s even weirder is that the PC campaign thinks this is a winning issue — even bringing in Premier Alison Redford herself to comment on it, once in a press release, and once on camera.
Usually, embarrassments are kept away from the boss. But they’re bringing her to it.
Maybe they think it will make her look vulnerable and likeable. Maybe it will make the Wildrose party look like meanies.
Maybe. Or maybe it will prove that after 41 years in office, the PCs are out of gas and out of ideas, and have so little to offer themselves that a candidate’s embarrassing run-in on a senior’s doorstep is the best thing they could think of campaigning on for four days in a row.
This column appeared in the Sun Chain April 9 2012
Do you think doctors who are opposed to abortion on religious grounds should be forced by the government to perform them anyway?
It’s not a real issue in Canada, where abortions are available on demand, for any reason or no reason, from the moment of conception until the moment of birth, paid for by taxpayers.
Doctors who believe in it do it. Doctors who don’t, don’t.
Canada has no legal limits on abortion whatsoever. It’s a pro-choice utopia.
But on the campaign trail last week, Alberta Premier Alison Redford said she no longer believes abortion is a matter of personal conscience.
True, for years, she was the justice minister of Alberta where that was the rule. But Redford is losing the Alberta election badly — a new poll put her 17 points behind the upstart Wildrose party, with just two weeks to the election —so she hit the panic button.
So, off the cuff, she told reporters that doctors should now be compelled to provide abortions on demand, even if they don’t believe in it. She styled it as an attack on the Wildrose party, whose platform supports freedom of conscience— like Redford herself did, until about fifteen minutes ago.
“I was very frightened to hear the discussion today,” said Redford, who bravely managed to overcome that fear during her four years in a government where that was the law. “I certainly respect people’s personal beliefs,” she said. Unless, of course, she happens to disagree with them.
“All of the unique families in this province have the opportunity to know that when they’re accessing services, they can trust those services can be provided. And when they take on professional responsibilities, I expect them to be able to meet those professional responsibilities.”
That’s buzz words and clichés and newspeak. What is a “unique family”? What is an “opportunity to know”? How does a unique family take on a professional responsibility?
No matter. Her meaning was pulled out of her: She opposes freedom of conscience for doctors.
She now believes that the government should have the power to force someone to perform an abortion.
So much for pro-choice and respecting diversity.
But see, there’s this little thing called the Charter of Rights, and the very first freedom mentioned in — even ahead of free speech — is freedom of conscience. It’s so important, it’s in a special list in the Charter called “fundamental freedoms.”
Redford might have heard of that, being a self-described human rights expert and all.
In fact, when she was justice minister back in 2009, her government brought in a law that guaranteed freedom of conscience for parents and their children in schools. Under Bill 44, parents can withdraw their children from classes where religion or sex ed were being taught in a manner that offended parents.
But desperate times call for desperate measures — and being behind 28% to 45% is certainly desperate. So now Redford isn’t an advocate of freedom of conscience. She’s its undertaker. And the token conservative in cabinet, Ted Morton, the Charter expert, is happy to help.
Imagine a world under a Redford-Morton government: A doctor who has moral concerns about abortion can pull his children out of a class at school. But then at work, he will be compelled to perform an abortion.
This is incoherent. It’s desperate.
It’s illiberal. It’s pitiful.
It’s a whimpering end to a 41-year political dynasty. It’s not just an attack on the Wildrose party. It’s an insult to the common sense of voters, who Redford thinks will go along with this.
Redford was a Red Tory back in 1993, when the Reform Party threw every single federal PC out of Alberta. In that desperate campaign, the PCs attacked Reformers as bigots and rednecks and dangers to minorities. It didn’t work.
Panicked and exhausted, confused and angry, Redford and Morton are reaching for that old PC playbook again.
May it backfire in their faces as badly as it did back then.
This article appeared in the Sun April 7 2012
It’s not a real issue in Canada, where abortions are available on demand, for any reason or no reason, from the moment of conception until the moment of birth, paid for by taxpayers.
Doctors who believe in it do it. Doctors who don’t, don’t.
Canada has no legal limits on abortion whatsoever. It’s a pro-choice utopia.
But on the campaign trail last week, Alberta Premier Alison Redford said she no longer believes abortion is a matter of personal conscience.
True, for years, she was the justice minister of Alberta where that was the rule. But Redford is losing the Alberta election badly — a new poll put her 17 points behind the upstart Wildrose party, with just two weeks to the election —so she hit the panic button.
So, off the cuff, she told reporters that doctors should now be compelled to provide abortions on demand, even if they don’t believe in it. She styled it as an attack on the Wildrose party, whose platform supports freedom of conscience— like Redford herself did, until about fifteen minutes ago.
“I was very frightened to hear the discussion today,” said Redford, who bravely managed to overcome that fear during her four years in a government where that was the law. “I certainly respect people’s personal beliefs,” she said. Unless, of course, she happens to disagree with them.
“All of the unique families in this province have the opportunity to know that when they’re accessing services, they can trust those services can be provided. And when they take on professional responsibilities, I expect them to be able to meet those professional responsibilities.”
That’s buzz words and clichés and newspeak. What is a “unique family”? What is an “opportunity to know”? How does a unique family take on a professional responsibility?
No matter. Her meaning was pulled out of her: She opposes freedom of conscience for doctors.
She now believes that the government should have the power to force someone to perform an abortion.
So much for pro-choice and respecting diversity.
But see, there’s this little thing called the Charter of Rights, and the very first freedom mentioned in — even ahead of free speech — is freedom of conscience. It’s so important, it’s in a special list in the Charter called “fundamental freedoms.”
Redford might have heard of that, being a self-described human rights expert and all.
In fact, when she was justice minister back in 2009, her government brought in a law that guaranteed freedom of conscience for parents and their children in schools. Under Bill 44, parents can withdraw their children from classes where religion or sex ed were being taught in a manner that offended parents.
But desperate times call for desperate measures — and being behind 28% to 45% is certainly desperate. So now Redford isn’t an advocate of freedom of conscience. She’s its undertaker. And the token conservative in cabinet, Ted Morton, the Charter expert, is happy to help.
Imagine a world under a Redford-Morton government: A doctor who has moral concerns about abortion can pull his children out of a class at school. But then at work, he will be compelled to perform an abortion.
This is incoherent. It’s desperate.
It’s illiberal. It’s pitiful.
It’s a whimpering end to a 41-year political dynasty. It’s not just an attack on the Wildrose party. It’s an insult to the common sense of voters, who Redford thinks will go along with this.
Redford was a Red Tory back in 1993, when the Reform Party threw every single federal PC out of Alberta. In that desperate campaign, the PCs attacked Reformers as bigots and rednecks and dangers to minorities. It didn’t work.
Panicked and exhausted, confused and angry, Redford and Morton are reaching for that old PC playbook again.
May it backfire in their faces as badly as it did back then.
This article appeared in the Sun April 7 2012
In a disgraceful low blow, a staffer with the Alberta PCs (they don’t deserve to be called Conservatives) attacked their chief rival, Wildrose party Leader Danielle Smith, because she doesn’t have kids.
Amanda Wilkie, a political staffer working for PC Premier Alison Redford, wrote this on Twitter: “If (Smith) likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own?”
There are many levels on which Wilkie’s comments are odious.
Most obviously, it’s personal. It has nothing to do with the merits of Smith’s policies about family taxation.
Second, it implies that not having children is a moral flaw.
Third, it suggests that unless you live a particular life, or have a certain identity, you cannot participate in political decisions. Saying only parents can comment on family tax policy is like saying only soldiers can have a public view on a war, or only women can have a view on domestic violence. It’s treating people as mere tokens of a demographic group, instead of individuals.
Fourth, it’s a sexist double-standard. It’s unthinkable that a male politician without kids — say, Defence Minister Peter MacKay — would be attacked on that basis. The fact the attack came from Wilkie, a woman working for Redford, another woman, only guarantees that the slur was meant to hurt.
Wilkie’s comment spread like wildfire, to the point where Smith was compelled to put out a press statement the next day, pointing out that she and her husband had tried to conceive, and sought medical help, but to no avail. That such a press release had to be issued in 2012 is a shock in the province that was home to the Famous Five suffragettes.
The province-wide revulsion against Wilkie (who quit) and Redford (who apologized) was near-unanimous. But it wasn’t unanimous. And that’s the second part of this story.
The Toronto Globe and Mail thought that Danielle Smith was the one who needed to be put in her place.
They published a story headlined: “The childless Danielle Smith protests too much.” The story questioned why, if Wildrose officials found the comment so offensive, did they retweet it — and draw reporters’ attention to it — instead of simply ignoring it.
That uppity Smith. Why does she have to go and make such a big fuss about her childlessness?
In the face of a personal slur from the PC premier’s own aide, Smith issued a brief personal clarification, explaining her family situation and pledged not to mention it again.
But the Globe wanted to extend this disgraceful moment for days longer — and to turn it around on Smith herself. To repeat the slur in the headline itself. She’s childless. Is that really the chief characteristic of Danielle Smith? Is that really the most notable thing about her? To the bigots at the Globe it is.
How laughable that these sexists also ran a front-page headline when Redford herself became premier, screaming “Alberta steps into the present.” As if all those knuckle-dragging rednecks in Alberta were just catching up with the enlightened snobs at the Globe’s Ontario headquarters -— in a province that has yet to have a female premier, in a newspaper that has yet to have a female editor-in-chief.
If things hold, Smith will crush Redford — four polls in a row have given her a 10-point lead. And the Globe and Mail will continue to be as out of touch with women and the west as you’d expect a 168-year-old doddering old newspaper to be.
Published in The Sun April 3 2012
Amanda Wilkie, a political staffer working for PC Premier Alison Redford, wrote this on Twitter: “If (Smith) likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own?”
There are many levels on which Wilkie’s comments are odious.
Most obviously, it’s personal. It has nothing to do with the merits of Smith’s policies about family taxation.
Second, it implies that not having children is a moral flaw.
Third, it suggests that unless you live a particular life, or have a certain identity, you cannot participate in political decisions. Saying only parents can comment on family tax policy is like saying only soldiers can have a public view on a war, or only women can have a view on domestic violence. It’s treating people as mere tokens of a demographic group, instead of individuals.
Fourth, it’s a sexist double-standard. It’s unthinkable that a male politician without kids — say, Defence Minister Peter MacKay — would be attacked on that basis. The fact the attack came from Wilkie, a woman working for Redford, another woman, only guarantees that the slur was meant to hurt.
Wilkie’s comment spread like wildfire, to the point where Smith was compelled to put out a press statement the next day, pointing out that she and her husband had tried to conceive, and sought medical help, but to no avail. That such a press release had to be issued in 2012 is a shock in the province that was home to the Famous Five suffragettes.
The province-wide revulsion against Wilkie (who quit) and Redford (who apologized) was near-unanimous. But it wasn’t unanimous. And that’s the second part of this story.
The Toronto Globe and Mail thought that Danielle Smith was the one who needed to be put in her place.
They published a story headlined: “The childless Danielle Smith protests too much.” The story questioned why, if Wildrose officials found the comment so offensive, did they retweet it — and draw reporters’ attention to it — instead of simply ignoring it.
That uppity Smith. Why does she have to go and make such a big fuss about her childlessness?
In the face of a personal slur from the PC premier’s own aide, Smith issued a brief personal clarification, explaining her family situation and pledged not to mention it again.
But the Globe wanted to extend this disgraceful moment for days longer — and to turn it around on Smith herself. To repeat the slur in the headline itself. She’s childless. Is that really the chief characteristic of Danielle Smith? Is that really the most notable thing about her? To the bigots at the Globe it is.
How laughable that these sexists also ran a front-page headline when Redford herself became premier, screaming “Alberta steps into the present.” As if all those knuckle-dragging rednecks in Alberta were just catching up with the enlightened snobs at the Globe’s Ontario headquarters -— in a province that has yet to have a female premier, in a newspaper that has yet to have a female editor-in-chief.
If things hold, Smith will crush Redford — four polls in a row have given her a 10-point lead. And the Globe and Mail will continue to be as out of touch with women and the west as you’d expect a 168-year-old doddering old newspaper to be.
Published in The Sun April 3 2012
Seriously: Out of a $276-billion budget, the Conservatives found only $5 billion in cuts? And only over three years?
That’s like someone who weighs 276 pounds saying they’re going to lose five pounds. Over three years.
Except even that’s not true. Because three years from now, the government’s own budget document says it’s going to be spending
$297 billion.
That’s not cutting. That’s expanding. That’s not leaner. That’s 7.4% fatter.
That’s like someone who weighs 276 pounds saying they’re going to lose five pounds. Over three years.
Except even that’s not true. Because three years from now, the government’s own budget document says it’s going to be spending
$297 billion.
That’s not cutting. That’s expanding. That’s not leaner. That’s 7.4% fatter.
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