Questions for the Alberta Tories

"Who in the PC party could do any worse than Ed?"or "Who wants to be head of government in a recession?" or "Who in the PC party will admit they made mistakes with: oil and gas royalties, raises for cabinet, H1N1 roll out, Bill 50 - transmission lines down our throats (and lousy media ads too!), wasting money for re-branding the province “Freedom to Create. Spirit to Achieve” - BLAH & LAME, etc. etc.

Update:
Mike Blanchard of AM770 CHQR read my email on air this afternoon (09Nov2009). Basically paraphrasing the above comments.

Balloonboy/Liberal Editorial Cartoon from "Metro"

Balloonboy/Liberal Editorial Cartoon from "Metro" October 19, 2009. Maybe not such a bad idea for Iggy and the Libs?

Premier takes pay cut of 15%, but he increased his pay by 34%?

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach announced today a personal pay cut of 15% http://tinyurl.com/stelmpaycut. However, he failed to mention that in May 2008, his personal salary was increased by 34% http://tinyurl.com/stelmraise. Additionally, earlier in 2008 all politicians received an increase of 4.7%.

Salary $152140 pre-March 2008.

Salary with 4.7% increase $159,291 March 2008 ("mandatory....")

Salary with 34% increase $213,450 May 30th, 2008.

Salary with 15% decrease $181,432 October 2009.

So the 15% gesture is just that.... a gesture.

This does not take into account all the tax-free portions......

I had to take a real 20% decrease in my salary due to the recession.

Actually more now that commission has been reduced by half....

See the premier's speech here.... http://www.premier.alberta.ca/speeches/2009_Premiers_Address.cfm

Former Winnipegger near top of poll to replace Diane Sawyer - VOTE HERE

Taken from www.charlesadler.com:

A former Winnipegger, Ashleigh Banfield, is one of the top two contenders in an online poll conducted by TVNewser.com asking who should replace Diane Sawyer on ABC's Good Morning America.

Banfield is best known for her coverage from New York during the 2001 terrorist attacks.

VOTE FOR ASHLEIGH here.

Update: Ashleigh Banfield Wins the GMA Co-Anchor-Off

Kanye West Likes Fish Sticks

Kanye West Likes Fish Sticks. I guess that makes him a gay fish! And hates successful teenage white female singers:




Kanye West Storms the VMAs Stage During Taylor Swift's Acceptance Speech

His "apology" on Jay Leno's new talkshow was less than humble and believable.
Excerpt from msn online report below:

West took a long pause when Leno asked what his mother would have said about the incident. West was very close to his mother, Donda, who died in November 2007. He said yes when Leno asked whether his mother would have given him a lecture.

Stelmach Doesn't Congratulate Hinman

Paul Hinman of the Wildrose Alliance wins the Calgary Glenmore byelection.
Premier Ed Stelmach's official news release does not give congratulations.

Ezra Levant tweeted that:

Classless Stelmach doesn't congratulate Hinman in byelection news release. The sore loseritis begins. http://bit.ly/bEpas #calgaryglenmore

The Official Statement from the Premier (which may have changed from the screen capture above taken at ~10:35pm) is pretty classless.

City of Calgary to Install Pedestrian Cameras

The City of Calgary along with the Calgary Police Service have announced today a new program to install pedestrian monitoring cameras at locations where the current intersection safety "speed on green" cameras exist. The Intersection Safety Camera program now consists of 45 intersections monitored by 36 cameras throughout the City of Calgary. The new pedestrian monitoring camera system with be linked by a wireless network to a centralized computing centre where a high-powered supercomputer cluster will run cutting edge facial recognition software. The system will be linked to motor vehicle branches, local police, RCMP, and INTERPOL databases to access face photographs. In addition to monitoring for criminal activity, the system will automatically detect jaywalking, loitering, and panhandling. A positive facial match when a criminal or civil act is in action will result in photos and video recorded for prosecution. For civil charges a ticket will be sent out in the mail.


Should you require any further clarification please contact Sergeant Clive Marsh of the Traffic Section, at 403-567-4000. Please do not contact him for media inquiries, especially on or after April 1st!

Canadian Bank Lending Rates

Measures need to be taken to ensure that banks pass on savings when prime interest rates are lowered. It is my understanding that the Bank of Canada lowers the prime interest rate in part to encourage lending and make borrowing less expensive for consumers and businesses. The prime rate is now at an historic low of 0.5%! In my experience, the banks are changing the relationships between mortgage products and their own internal rates to get around the lowering interest rates.

As an example, my bank has a prime rate of 2.5% - a value that is 2.0% higher than the Bank of Canada rate. My variable rate mortgage is up for renewal next month. Currently, I am paying a rate of 3.25%. This is all well and good, but the new mortgage products that are available now do not match that rate, even though the Bank of Canada prime rate has been reduced! The new mortgage plans all have a +0.8%, or +1.0%, or higher adjustments to the bank's internal prime rate. I was told by my banking officer that all banks are performing the same adjustments. This is not fair. The lowest variable rate I can now obtain is 3.3% or 3.5%. Why should my rates go up at all when the prime rate drops? I realise that many may say that it is only a difference of 0.05% or 0.25%, but with house prices still at many times an average income, it can have a large effect on post-mortgage expendable income.

If all the banks are acting together with changes to their mortgage products, it is collusion and they are effectively a banking cartel instead of doing business in a free market economy. I hope this kind of practice is not one of the reasons why the Canadian banking industry is the healthiest in the world. To me, it just seems like a profit-grab, kind of like the Canadian banking fees, except this is more blatant.

If you consider this important, please email the prime minister (pm@pm.gc.ca, HarpeS@parl.gc.ca), the minister of finance (FlaheJ@parl.gc.ca), and your member of parliament (do searches of the government directory at the government of Canada website.).

Change Americans Can Believe In?

UPDATE: 04Feb2009
I guess change is good. President Obama seems to be leaning to ease the "buy American" protectionist measures in his stimulus package. Leaders from around the world have been putting pressure on the American government to avoid trade and tariff restrictions akin to the 1930s.

Michael Ignatieff message to Liberals

A possible speech from Michael Ignatieff:

I declare that the Liberal party will support the Conservative government's proposed budget. I am instructing all Liberal Members of Parliament to vote in favour of the budget.
Except in Newfound and Labrador, where they can vote any which backward way they wish, as long as they vote one-half hour after the rest of their Liberal caucus.

Do the Liberals Know how to Spell Their Leader's Last Name?

On the day that the Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff informed the public that his party will monitor the effects of the Conservative budget, but basically approve it, I decided to check out the ( Liberal website ). I clicked for the leader information and noted that no-where in the bio is Michael's last name in the text. His wife's full name is listed: Zsuzsanna Zsohar - whose name is even harder to spell.... But I cannot find Ignatieff. It is mentioned in the Latest Headlines link section though.....

Here is the direct link:
Information on the Liberal Leader at http://www.liberal.ca/leader_e.aspx

Just in case, they decide to update their site find below a screen capture as of January 28, 2009, 13:14 MST.

Perogying Parliament

I believe that perogying parliament is the only option for our dysfunctional government. Everybody likes perogies. A cooling off period with snacks of yummy hot perogies is just what is needed. They are a diverse food that will bring harmony to parliament. Different fillings can be used for different likes and dislikes: from potatoes and cheese, to onions and bacon, to spinach and almonds, to strawberry chocolate dessert perogies. They can be boiled, baked, fried, or even microwaved for cooking purposes. I agree wholeheartedly with the Conservatives on perogying parliament. Even diverse parties like the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, and Bloc (sorry - no Greens allowed yet) can agree on the merits of perogying parliament. Perhaps sending bags of perogies to every household in Canada could bring about unity and provide economic stimulus to help lift Canada out of the worldwide economic downturn. I sincerely hope that Governor General Michaëlle Jean will accept Prime Minister Harper's request for perogying parliament; however, it is still her perogy-tive.

Learn more about perogies:
wikipedia perogies
google perogy search

Prorogation

Prorogation is the period between two sessions of a legislative body. When a legislature or parliament is prorogued, it is still constituted (that is, all members remain as members and a general election is not necessary), but all orders of the body (bills motions, etc.) are expunged. (In the British parliament, this has now changed somewhat in that Public Bills can be carried over from one session to another.)

In the British and Canadian parliamentary systems, this is usually due to the completion of the agenda set forth in the Speech from the Throne in the UK, called the legislative programme). Legislatures and parliaments, once prorogued, remain in recess until summoned again by the Queen, Governor General, or Lieutenant Governor, and a new session is begun with the State Opening of Parliament and the Speech from the Throne.

In the parliament of the United Kingdom, prorogation is immediately preceded by the prorogation speech. Prior to the speech, the House of Commons is summoned by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to the House of Lords. The speech is approved by the queen but is rarely delivered by the sovereign in person (Queen Victoria being the last sovereign to attend prorogation in person); instead it is presented by the Lords Commissioners and read by the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. This speech looks back at the legislative session, noting major bills passed and other actions of the government. The Lord Chancellor wears a tricorn hat for the occasion and the Lords Commissioners wear bicornhats.

When King Charles I of England dissolved Parliament in 1628 after the Petition of Right, he gave a prorogation speech that effectively cancelled all future meetings of Parliament, at least until he once again required finances.

In Australia, the Parliament is prorogued before an election to prevent the Senate from sitting during the campaign and to expunge all existing senate business before the start of the next parliament. Prorogations not related to the conduct of an election are unusual.

This text above is an excerpt taken from wikipedia

Political Crisis!!!!

We should keep this political crisis in perspective:

Robert Mugabe is not holding on to power by dispatching killing gangs across the country

Gulags do not exist in Canada

There is no gross exploitation or persecution of minorities (except maybe persecution of Conservatives)

That being said, however, paraphrasing CBC mouthpiece Rex Murphy "Stephen Harper should never have pushed the metaphoric hand grenade down the pants of the opposition parties in the form of pulling their funding."

The reaction from the opposition parties was predictable, bring down the government or form a coalition government. There are no other viable alternatives.

The coalition is something that should not be permitted. There is no Canadian precedent for a three-party coalition government - let alone one with a separatist party holding the balance of power! The Bloc presence alone should be repugnant enough for the GG to refuse Dion's proposal.

Libs, NDP, Bloc - Change we can Believe in???

Someone please pinch me. Wake me up from my restless sleep filled with nightmarish visions of separatists in bed with liberal socialists. Perhaps these political lapdogs took the Obama election slogan - "Change we can Believe in" - too much to heart. This Coalition of the Willing Sore Losers do not have the best interests of Canadians in mind. They have their political pocketbooks, personal egos, and non-so-hidden-socialist and separatist agendas as their top priorities. I can only imagine what effect this will have on the already downtrodden Canadian stock market.

The last time I checked Elections Canada, the Parliament seat count and the percentage of the popular vote was:

National Party Party standing %   Popular vote %

AAEV Party of Canada	0	0.0		529	0.0
Bloc Québécois	50	16.2		1,379,565	10.0
CAP	0	0.0		3,508	0.0
Christian Heritage Party	0	0.0		26,722	0.2
Communist	0	0.0		3,639	0.0
Conservative	143	46.4		5,205,334	37.6
FPNP	0	0.0		1,640	0.0
Green Party	0	0.0		940,747	6.8
Independent	2	0.7		89,524	0.7
Liberal	76	24.7		3,629,990	26.2
Libertarian	0	0.0		7,382	0.1
Marxist-Leninist	0	0.0		8,753	0.1
NDP-New Democratic Party	37	12.0		2,517,075	18.2
neorhino.ca	0	0.0		2,263	0.0
NL First Party	0	0.0		1,801	0.0
No Affiliation	0	0.0		5,458	0.0
PC Party	0	0.0		5,920	0.0
PPP	0	0.0		185	0.0
Radical Marijuana	0	0.0		2,319	0.0
WBP	0	0.0		195	0.0
Work Less Party	0	0.0		423	0.0

Total number of valid votes:

13,832,972

Polls reporting: 69,601/69,630	Voter turnout: 13,832,972 of 23,401,064 registered electors (59.1%)
The number of registered electors shown in this table does not include electors who registered on election day.