Vacated prime real estate in Ottawa!

Paulina Ayala is the NDP Member of Parliament for Honoré-Mercier in Quebec. She was elected on May 2nd in the Orange Crush that saw the NDP take most of the seats in that province.

Here are some photos from the hallway outside of her Ottawa office today.



Has Ayala moved in yet? Calls to her Hill office at 1:30pm went unanswered and to voicemail. How can the NDP represent working families if they don’t have a working office?

Thanks to the staffers who got tired of walking around these boxes every day for weeks for sending these pics!

#occupyconfed

UPDATE: Ayala’s been in the House, but why not her office?

Occupy Eviction Day

Occupiers in Toronto and Ottawa stand to be evicted from their tents today as St. James Church and Ottawa’s National Capital Commission have issued trespassing notices to those camping out in downtown parks.

I got wind of the Ottawa eviction from Rob Snow of CFRA. Snow Facebooked this rumour earlier this afternoon and sure enough, at 2:45pm an official notice was given out to occupiers in Confederation Park to vacate by 11:59pm this evening. The protesters are likely to go without much of a fight.

However, in Toronto, it seems that the 20-30 protesters are digging in.

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The news media is descending upon St. James Park to capture images of the spoiled brats of capitalism behaving badly.

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However, that doesn’t mean that is will be an eviction. Enter the labour astroturf. Ontario trade unions at a conference at the Sheraton on Queen street have marched down Bay street to join the occupiers. It has been reported that a few hundred have joined.

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The occupiers in Toronto have also planned a hunger strike. Local eateries however will likely see a boom from the influx of well-to-do union representatives occupying the park.

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Some protesters are reportedly planning on chaining themselves to the occupy site.

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The city of Toronto and Mayor Ford are providing live updates on what is an evolving story

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Canadian Auto Workers union boss Ken Lewenza tells protesters that some people are above the law,

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Syria now on UN human rights committee

Maariv via The Weekly Standard,

A short time after UNESCO, the UN’s organization for education and science, accepted the Palestinian Authority as a full member despite strong U.S. and Israeli opposition, it is now Syria’s turn to receive a present from the organization.

On Wednesday, the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was chosen to be the Arab representative on the UNESCO committee the deals with issues relating to the implementation of human rights.

UNESCO’s decision comes after Assad’s regime managed to kill 3,500 demonstrators and arrest tens of thousands, without any due process whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Canada has told all Canadians in Syria that they should now leave. Also, DFAIT has been engaged in talks with the Syrian opposition.

Further to this, this weekend, Defense Minister Peter MacKay indicated that Canada stands by ready to assist in Syria as this country did in Libya.

Meanwhile, the RCMP has been called in to investigate a Canadian web hosting company that has been hosting Syrian ministry and media websites.

The company, iWeb in Montreal also hosts the NDP’s website.