• Adscam Scandel,  Canada

    Canadian Conservatives: Betrayal


    Prime Minister Paul Martin shakes hands with newly designated Human Resources Minister Belinda Stronach during a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday.

    In a stunning development before Thursday’s anticipated vote to bring down the Liberal Party and Paul Martin’s government Conservative MP Belinda Stronach has crossed the floor to join the Liberal Party as the new Human Resources Development Minister. The Globe and Mail has the story here:

    The stunning move could be a blow to the Tories’ hopes of defeating the government Thursday and triggering a federal election, because it will lower the hair-thin Conservative-Bloc Québécois lead in the seat count. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said the party was “devastated” and “betrayed.”

    Prime Minister Paul Martin said he met with Ms. Stronach — who had been an outspoken and moderate Conservative — for a private dinner at 24 Sussex Dr. Monday evening and after a lengthy discussion, Ms. Stronach said she felt confident that leaving the Tories was the right decision.

    “We talked about all that is at stake in Thursday’s vote on the budget and we talked most of all about what’s required to build a stronger, better future for all Canadians,” the pleased-looking Prime Minister said at a hastily scheduled press conference in Ottawa Tuesday morning, where the official announcement was made.

    “We found that on critical questions of both policy and politics that we have much in common. We both believe in a centrist, balanced and moderate set of policies.”

    Ms. Stronach said she struggled with the decision to leave the party she once sought to lead.

    “I found myself at a crossroads,” she said, adding that she has become increasingly uncomfortable with the direction that Mr. Harper has been taking the party. “The upcoming vote forces me to make a decision. And I feel that as I evaluated my options, that you know should I leave, because I do have some different viewpoints as to how the party should grow and those are not a secret.”

    Sorry, Ms. Stronach, but something smells! But, then again, what would you expect from a corrupt Liberal Party and Canadian Prime Minister.

    Ms. Stronach has been vocal about her opposition to an election. She has said she wants to wait until Mr. Justice John Gomery releases his report on the sponsorship inquiry late in the year. Mr. Martin has promised that he will call an election within 30 days of that report being tabled.

    However, Mr. Harper had not wanted to wait for the Gomery report to be released. He was gearing up for an election call after Thursday’s vote, confident that with the support of the Bloc Québécois, the Liberal government would fall.

    This decision by Ms. Stonach had nothing to do with the timing of the election call and the Gomery Inquiry. It had everything to do with blind ambition, the promises of political ascendancy and the corrupting influences of the Liberal Party political machinery.

    On Tuesday morning, a strained-looking Mr. Harper admitted the news had come as a shock to his party. Ms. Stronach had been an asset to the Tories because she held a high-profile Ontario seat — a province in which the Tories need to make gains in an upcoming election — and because she was well-known as a one-time leadership candidate and former head of Magna International, an auto parts company.

    “I know that a number of our caucus members are feeling quite devastated, quite betrayed by this,” he said. He said Ms. Stronach had called him to let him know of her decision just before her Tuesday morning press conference.

    He also admitted it will affect Thursday’s vote.

    “Obviously Belinda’s actions today make the defeat of the government on Thursday much less likely. But it doesn’t in any way change the principal position that our caucus has taken on this issue. The governing party is corrupt,” he said.

    Without a doubt this government and Liberal Party are corrupt.

    The logistics of her switch with regards to the no confidence vote on Thursday are covered below in the Globe and Mail:

    But the Opposition Leader did not leave the news conference without a parting jab at Ms. Stronach, accusing her of following her ambition rather than principles.

    “There’s no grand principle involved in this decision, just ambition,” he said.

    “I told my wife only a few days ago that I thought it had become obvious to Belinda that her leadership ambitions would not be reached in this party regardless of whether or not we won the next election. It will be interesting to watch her progress in the Liberal party.”

    Ms. Stronach told reporters she was not interested in the Liberal leadership.

    She takes over from Lucienne Robillard, who had been HRDC minister and national campaign co-chair. Ms. Robillard keeps her Intergovernmental Affairs Minister role and remains President of the Queen’s Privy Council.

    The unexpected news boosts the Liberal seat count and could alter the outcome of Thursday’s budget vote.

    Ms. Stronach’s move to the Liberal ranks bolsters the Liberal and NDP to 151 seats in total and decreases the Tory and Bloc numbers to 152.

    There are three independent MPs in the House — Carolyn Parrish, Chuck Cadman and David Kilgour.

    Ms. Parrish, a former Liberal, has said she would vote with the Liberals, which means they would need only the vote of either Mr. Cadman, a former Tory, or Mr. Kilgour, a former Liberal, to win a confidence vote.

    (The Speaker would likely break a tie and would vote for the Liberals.) However, it’s still unclear which party Mr. Cadman or Mr. Kilgour will support, thus, Thursday’s outcome is not known.

    Ms. Stronach represents the Ontario riding of Newmarket-Aurora. Mr. Martin said Tuesday that Martha Hall Findlay agreed to stand down as the Liberal candidate.

    Ms. Stronach had served as international trade critic for the Conservatives. Mr. Harper has asked Tory MP Rona Ambrose, the party’s former intergovernmental affairs critic, to take over the portfolio.
    The move by Ms. Stronach came about after she voiced her disaffections last week when she met former Ontario Liberal premier David Peterson at a public event in Toronto.

    Mr. Peterson promptly called Tim Murphy, a former Ontario Liberal MPP and now the No. 1 official in the Prime Minister’s Office.

    By Monday evening, Ms. Stronach and Mr. Martin were working out a deal over dinner.

    After that meeting, she called deputy Tory Leader Peter MacKay, to whom she had been romantically linked, and told him what had happened.

    Mr. MacKay was gobsmacked, said one of his confidants. He picked up the phone and broke the news to Mr. Harper on Tuesday morning.

    Ms. Stronach was sworn in to her new cabinet post at Rideau Hall late Tuesday afternoon.
    Reaction was swift and strong Tuesday after the announcement.

    Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, who is preparing for the Queen’s visit later Tuesday in Regina, said he’s pleased with her decision.

    “I believe that Belinda Stronach has done the right thing. I believe she’s done the right thing for Canada.”
    Callers to radio talk shows and websites had mixed opinions. Some accused her of being overly ambitious, while others said it was a courageous move.

    NDP Leader Jack Layton said he hopes it will mean a win for the Liberals on Thursday because the House of Commons needs to get back to governing.
    And Ontario Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty refused to comment on Ms. Stronach’s defection.

    Read the other links on this Tory defection:

  • Media

    New York Times: No Further Charges for Web Access

    Flap reported on the New York Times charging subscribers for complete access to their on-line content yesterday. The post is here.

    Now the NYT has clarified their subscription plans. Besides the TimeSelect subscription they have decided to charge no more. Read the piece here:

    The New York Times Co.’s decision to charge for online access to Op-Ed and news columnists should not be seen as a first step toward placing even more articles behind a subscription wall, a Times executive said Tuesday.

    Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president for the Times’ digital operations, said the newspaper settled on charging for columnists after a “very robust discussion inside the company.”

    “There were people arguing to put the entire thing in,” Nisenholtz said. “There were people arguing to put none of it in. … I think we’ve made the decision we’ve made for the foreseeable future.”

    His remarks at the Syndicate conference on aggregation and syndication technologies came a day after the Times announced plans to charge $49.95 a year for non-print subscribers to read the columns. Access comes free for home delivery subscribers.

    Available beginning Sept. 19, the TimesSelect subscription will also come with an early look at some articles, including those in the Real Estate and the Magazine sections, and access to the Times’ online archives, eventually going back to 1851. Non-subscribers to TimesSelect would pay up to $2.95 for each article older than a week.

    Most of the news, features and multimedia items will remain free.

    This is still a poor business decision and will only embolden competing news sources to remain free on the internet.

    Look for a reversal of this policy come January 2006.

  • Blogosphere

    Blogs Not Yet Mainstream

    Poor Richard Larsen over at the Ventura County Star. He has become delusional about the blogosphere.

    Read his piece here.

    From his politics we know that he is a tree-hugger but never to the detriment of mining newsprint…but this is ridiculous.

    Richard, on-line media is the future. The blogosphere is, but, one part.

    And, hopefully, we bloggers will never become mainstream media types.

  • Politics

    Wine Shipping Bans Overturned

    The Ventura County Star has the story of the recent U.S. Supreme Curt ruling that has struck down laws that banned the shipping of wines interstate. Twenty-four states barred their residents from having wine sent from out-of-state wineries. Read the story here:

    Co-owner Chuck Brigham was unable to join the party, but workers were celebrating at the Leeward Winery in Ventura on Monday after the Supreme Court struck down bans on direct shipments to out-of-state customers.

    The ruling, long sought by the nation’s vintners, is expected to boost sales at smaller wineries such as Leeward that cannot get large distributors to market their wines to supermarkets and other retailers.

    It will allow customers who enjoyed what they sampled in tasting rooms to buy from home through wine clubs or over the Internet. Until Monday’s ruling, 24 states barred their residents from having wine sent from out-of-state wineries.

    In a 5-4 decision, the high court struck down shipping bans in Michigan and New York, saying it’s unconstitutional for a state to allow in-state wineries to ship directly to consumers while stopping other wineries from doing the same thing…

    California wines account for 90 percent of the country’s $21.6 billion in wine sales, but the state’s vintners are under increased competition from wineries in New Zealand, Australia, Latin America and Europe, said Jack Kyser, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.’s chief economist.

    He expects small wineries statewide to benefit, but said the ruling could prove an especially big boon to those in Santa Barbara County, where sales are already up in the wake of the hit film “Sideways,” about two buddies on a wine-tasting trip in the Santa Ynez Valley.

    California wines account for 90 percent of the country’s $21.6 billion in wine sales, but the state’s vintners are under increased competition from wineries in New Zealand, Australia, Latin America and Europe, said Jack Kyser, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.’s chief economist.

    He expects small wineries statewide to benefit, but said the ruling could prove an especially big boon to those in Santa Barbara County, where sales are already up in the wake of the hit film “Sideways,” about two buddies on a wine-tasting trip in the Santa Ynez Valley.

    Finally, free market captitalism meets the wineries.

    This will be a terrific boon to the California Wine Industry – about time!

  • Adscam Scandel,  Canada

    Conservatives Unleash Attack Ads

    The Canadian Conservatives have unleashed a series of radio ads bashing the Liberal Party and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. The Globe and Mail has the story here:

    The federal Conservatives unleashed a series of radio attack ads yesterday that declare Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberals “desperate” and mired in corruption — a tone that could carry through an election campaign anticipated to begin later this week.

    The Tories are also preparing to publish their campaign platform which, The Globe and Mail has learned, will include a number of Liberal-oriented social initiatives, including a commitment to increase foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product by 2015. The pledge, along with cash for daycare and infrastructure spending, are an apparent effort by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to prevent the Liberals from blaming his party for the death of their budget.

    The Tory advertisements released yesterday accuse the Prime Minister of being willing to “do anything to hang on to power” and of “trying to avoid you, the voter.”

    In one ad, a man’s voice says: “Paul Martin says ‘wait.’ For what? More waste? More corruption?”

    The Tories rolled out the ads as the Prime Minister Martin pleaded for a return to civility in Parliament.

    “We’ve got to find our way back to the high road,” he said yesterday in Halifax after signing a $137.3-million deal to improve child care in Nova Scotia, the fifth province to sign on…

    The election season has begun early.