[spatso]

"The Canadian Tourism Commission wants to attract same-sex couples to Canada.

The agency has launched an advertising blitz in the United States to woo gay couples to tie the knot in Canada."

Just way too funny. I noticed this one did not get the routine ping to all Canadians, thought I might help out. Does the Canadian Tourism Commission get money from the new conservative government?

[fanfan]

Interesting that you should ping me to this thread Spatso.

For some reason you think I want to have a discourse with you on the subject of homosexuals in Canada.

You would be incorrect.

Canada ping!

Please FReepmail me to get on or off this ping list.

[conservative in nyc]

According to the Canadian Tourism Commission's website, the commission is a Crown corporation of the federal government and a public-private partnership. 17 of the board's 26 seats are held by members of the private sector, the other 9 are held by public sector officials from the provincial and territorial authorities responsible for tourism. I have no idea who has responsibility to name the public members of the commission, but given that the Librano$ were in power for 12 years before the Tories came to power less than six months ago, I suspect a lot of the members were appointed by the Liberals, if they are appointed.

The commission's Chairman is the Honourable Charles Lapointe, a former Liberal MP and Trudeau cabinet member from Quebec. The commission seems to get some funding from the Canadian federal government - here's a letter from the commission whining to the Liberals that their proposed $80 million funding for FY2006 wasn't enough; they wanted $100 million more.