Free Republic

Calgary Sun Sun, December 4, 2005 Harper's cut wounds Grits Goods and Services axe means Red Book promise will have Tory-book ending By Licia Corbella At long last, the Liberal Party's broken election promise to scrap the GST is gouging and stumping them. Almost six years ago to the day, Paul Martin -- then an opposition MP and Liberal Party leadership hopeful, dissed the GST. "The GST is a stupid, inept and incompetent tax," said Martin, as recorded in Hansard on Nov. 28, 1989. That quote was dredged up by the Conservative Party and sent out in one of about...

TORONTO SUN Sat, December 3, 2005 Liberals put party before the people Ignatieff nomination demonstates Grit flaws By PETER WORTHINGTON You wanna know what's wrong with Canadian democracy, the way it's practiced by the federal Liberal party? Look no further than Michael Ignatieff and his nomination as the Liberal candidate for Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Here's a guy who was born in Toronto but who has mostly lived and worked in other countries. He teaches at Harvard, but returns to U of T in January as a "visiting professor," for heaven's sake. Ignatieff writes critically acclaimed books that only the elite read, and...

The candidates who fell to Earth Ottawa Sun Fri, Dec. 2, 2005 By Michael Harris Star candidates may be a boon to their parties, but their impact on democracy is more like a plummeting asteroid's This week, the Liberals introduced two "star" candidates to the Mud Bowl of the General Election. They looked more like asteroids, the ones in those horror movies that collide with Earth and blow us all back to cosmic dust. Marc Garneau was unveiled in Quebec by Paul Martin as if he were an exotic exhibit in the zoo of our national politics, a new...

After 12 years, four governments and two prime ministers, it's not just time to boot the federal Liberals out of office. It's time to drive a stake through their hearts, before they rise up again and bleed this country dry. After losing a historic non-confidence motion in the Commons last night by a vote of 171-133, Paul Martin and the Liberals must now be driven from power by Canadians. They must be defeated -- and not just because of the Liberal venality, arrogance, greed and theft exposed in AdScam. They must be defeated because patients are dying in hospital emergency...

When Canada's minority Liberal government fell Monday night in a parliamentary no-confidence vote, one line in Prime Minister Paul Martin's post-vote speech struck this expatriate Canadian as even more self-righteous than usual. "Canada is now the conscience of the world," Martin declared. While Martin and many Canadians consider themselves morally superior to Americans, simply better human beings, the implication that Canada is now the moral beacon for every other country on the face of the earth is astounding, even taking into account Canadians' deeply entrenched, obnoxious smugness. But this "We're better than them" boast is key to Martin's efforts to...

Winnipeg Sun Thursday, December 1, 2005 Not often we get a second chance By JOHN GLEESON The Mulroney Conservatives went down in flames because they failed the country. In the early '90s, Canada's economy was in a bitter recession and all Brian Mulroney could do was try to win a constitutional pact to "get Quebec into Canada" -- and, not incidentally, to get Mulroney into the history books as the prime minister who made it happen. The pragmatic virtues of free trade can be disputed but there was no mistaking Brian's failed obsession with Quebec or his legacy to every...

ELEANOR HALL: A corruption scandal has just forced the collapse of the Canadian Government. In rowdy scenes in the Canadian Parliament this lunchtime, Canada's minority Liberal Government has lost a no-confidence motion against it and the country has now been plunged into a Christmas election campaign. Prime Minister Paul Martin's Government had been dogged for months by a corruption scandal involving the misuse of millions of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded advertising contracts. And as Richard Reynolds reports from Toronto, the election campaign is shaping up as one of the dirtiest in years. RICHARD REYNOLDS: Canada's Liberal Party won the last...

4hours 50 minutes Until the Liberals Fall!Canada's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, faces a no-confidence motion in parliament which his minority Liberal government is widely tipped to lose. It is expected that an election would then be called in early 2006. Monday's no-confidence motion was introduced by three opposition parties last week, after Mr Martin rejected an ultimatum demanding a poll in February. The motion claims the Liberal party - which Mr Martin has led since 2003 - no longer has the moral authority to lead. The government has been dogged by allegations of irregularities over contracts awarded by a previous...

  A representative sample of 18,443 Canadians between November 11th and 16th, 2005.This survey features a margin of error of 2.15%, 19 times out of 20 @ 98% competency. This poll was paid for by a U.S. company doing business in Canada. Question #1 At this moment which of the following federal political leaders and their parties are you supporting? Jack Layton and NDP    22.30 % Paul Martin and Liberals    32.10 % Stephen Harper and Conservatives    32.21 % Gilles Duceppe and Bloc    13.33 % Question #2 A federal general election will be called in weeks or months. Knowing this, how...

Kilgour will add his boot Ex-Liberal Independent MP will help vote Grits out on Monday By DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN November 25, 2005 It'll be the last act of David Kilgour's long and rocky life in Canadian politics: voting with the Opposition to kick his former Liberal colleagues out of office. "This government has behaved atrociously for the last several months. It really had forfeited all right to the confidence of the Canadian people," the Mill Woods-Beaumont independent MP and 26-year veteran of federal politics told the Sun yesterday. "After all is said and done, it's up to the...

The Liberals threatened to sue the Conservatives yesterday after Tory leader Stephen Harper accused the Liberal party of "breaking every conceivable law in the province of Quebec with the help of organized crime." Mr. Harper made the accusation during debate on the Conservative motion to topple the Liberals by a vote that is to take place Monday evening. Within hours, Prime Minister Paul Martin's director of communications, Scott Reid, fired off an e-mail to reporters to fight back. "We are collecting all transcripts of what was said by Mr. (Peter) MacKay, Mr. (John) Reynolds and the rest of the Harper...

Reform party founder Preston Manning yesterday warned of an "explosion" of separatist sentiment in Quebec if Paul Martin's Liberals win the next federal election. And he said there will also be "quasi-explosions" of separatist sentiment in Western Canada. Speaking at a meeting of the Canadian Club at the Palliser Hotel, Manning recalled the federalist side won the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence by just 1.2% of the vote. "It was a scary moment, and it's coming back -- the separatists again have the cause they need," Manning said. Separatism was dying in Quebec until the revelations by Justice John Gomery's...

Election campaign starts out on the low road Accusations of sleaze and organized crime Alexander Panetta, Canadian Press National Post Friday, November 25, 2005 OTTAWA -- Slurs about Liberal sleazebags and references to organized crime are setting the tone for what could be a long, nasty federal election campaign even before the race officially begins. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper got things rolling Thursday - just minutes after he tabled a non-confidence motion that's expected to trigger an election next week - when he accused the Liberals of being in cahoots with criminals. "(Liberals have) been found guilty of breaking...

Let me go out on a limb here. If the three federal opposition parties ever stop posturing long enough to topple this government, we will see a Conservative victory in the ensuing election. Maybe even a Tory majority. There. I've said it. While I've put a lot of thought into this, the prediction is really based largely on my faith in my fellow Canadians. I honestly think we are too smart to be had yet one more time. We are too smart to buy the transparent obfuscation already coming our way and PM Paul Martin is not smart enough to...

THE LIBERALS KNOW -- AND THEY HAVE GOOD REASON TO BE CONFIDENT ... AGAIN Permit me to apologize for last week's column. In it, I predicted voter support for Paul Martin and the Liberals would bounce back across Canada, particularly in Ontario, within a month of the release of the Gomery report. While technically accurate, even I didn't think it would only take three days, which is what happened, according to the polls. In that context, then, please join me today for a brief tour inside the mind of the typical Liberal voter in Ontario. - - - Hi there,...

The Canadian government has put nearly $9 billion into "foundations" that are beyond the reach of the auditor general. Given the corruption that exists in other government programs that ARE in sight of the auditor general we must recognize the likelihood that these funds may be subject to government misuse too. Please sign this petition urging Paul Martin to open these foundations to the auditor general... http://www.petitiononline.com/cdsmith/petition.html

A federal judge proclaimed last week that in the final years of Canada's Chretien government, untold millions of dollars were channeled from the treasury into the bank accounts of the federal Liberal Party, several Liberal-friendly advertising agencies and a few senior party backroom gentry in Montreal. His report was viewed with alarm by the media, the politicians and the pundits – by everybody, it seemed, except the Canadian people. They knew that already. They had gathered it conclusively from a report of the auditor-general three years ago, and reaffirmed it in the testimony of the sordid parade of Liberal insiders...

Liberal support sinks after sponsorship report CTV.ca News Staff The Gomery Report has pushed the sponsorship scandal back into the spotlight, and the Liberals' popularity among Canadians slid 10 points the past month, according to a new poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail. In the days since Tuesday's release of the Gomery report, support for the Liberals has dipped and the two parties are essentially running neck-and-neck. The Conservatives have the support of 31 per cent of Canadians while the Liberals have the support of 28 per cent. (That's a statistical tie given a 3-point margin of...

To: The Governor General of Canada and The Chancellory of Honours The Meritorious Service Decoration is awarded to a Canadian citizen whose specific deeds demonstrated an outstanding level of service, set and exemplary standard of achievement, and brought honour and benefit to Canada. Mr. Allan Cutler is the public servant, who despite a lack of whistle blower protection in the Canadian civil service, revealed to auditors in 1995 that there was political interference and bid-rigging occuring within the Sponsorship Program. His honesty and courage exposed a fraud that was being perpetuated upon the Canadian taxpayer, and revealed corruption within the...

EXCLUSIVE POLL: Liberals sink Global National Thursday, November 03, 2005 PM Paul Martin gave his response to the release of the Gomery inquiry Tuesday. (Julie Oliver, Ottawa Citizen) While Federal NDP leader Jack Layton flirts with the possibility of pushing a Christmas election, an exclusive Global National/Ipsos Reid poll shows the Liberals taking a heavy beating in popularity, dropping seven per cent since the Gomery Report was released Tuesday. Layton emerged from the NDP's weekly caucus meeting Wednesday warning that if he doesn't like what he hears from Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh today, the prime minister can forget about continued...