Libertarians think property owners should be armed, conservatives want the police or army to come and crush the rioters and socialists want to create more entitlements that would suggest these hooligans are owed something.
Meanwhile, on amazon.co.uk…
Nycole Turmel is the newly minted interim leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. She has stepped in while Jack Layton fights another round with cancer. Much was made about Turmel’s past (present?) associations with Quebec political parties including the separatist/communist Quebec Solidaire.
But what of the people with whom Turmel surrounds herself?
Meet Melisa Ferreira, special assistant to Turmel, according to her Twitter profile. What can we learn from Melisa’s tweets? One, that she supported the Bloc Quebecois, not years ago but during the last federal election!
On April 10th, she retweets Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe’s plea for the Twitterverse to vote for the BQ:
Voter pour le BQ, c’est voter pour les intérêts du Québec, pour des députés qui parlent pour les Québécois. #tlmep #fed2011
She herself questioned the ability of non-Bloc MPs when elected, wondering if they’d support Quebec or fold,
Que font les députés du Québec (non députés du BLOC), ils appuient ou ils plient? #fed2011 #tlmep
She was very much excited to see the Bloc leader on Tout le monde en Parle,
Bien hâte de voir Gilles Duceppe à #tlmep ! Prête à twitter!
Ferreira also writes about the Bloc’s appeal in other regions of Canada (?),
Le BLOC est admiré par les autres régions canadiennes ! #tlmep #fed2011
Regarding Quebec as a country,
2 grands courants : des nations et des peuples qui se dotent d’un pays et les pays qui se réunissent: Pour s’unir il faut exister #tlmep #BQ
She also retweets another regarding Quebec sovereignty,
La famille souverainiste unie, la marche vers un 3e référendum est amorcée, selon Duceppe. http://bit.ly/h1YnKB #congresPQ
Let’s hope that Ferreira has turned over a new leaf and has joined the federalist NDP with a commitment to Canadian unity. If she has, I’d welcome her with open arms to pan-partisan project of making Canada a better place. However, this example may illustrate how the NDP became a different party the night of May 2nd.
Taxpayers are wrapping up yet another gift to the CBC as the state broadcaster celebrates itself.
And you’re invited! (to pay for it whether you want to or not)
Yes, the CBC’s annual budget has ballooned to $1.1 Billion which included a $60 million top up from our new Conservative majority government.
QMI reports that the information commissioner is at war with the state broadcaster over disclosure of its expenses. The President of the CBC says that they’ll only respond to a court order.
Cabinet ministers won’t even expense lunch if they don’t need to and when they do, they’re more likely to show how frugal they are like when Monte Solberg expensed a $16 lunch for two with a journalist. Even when ministers abuse their expenses, like Bev Oda’s Juno junket, it’s right there for taxpayers to read in black and white online. However, when we grumble about when cabinet ministers get a driver, or fly first class, similar expenses and perks enjoyed by the CBC brass are a state secret.
Yet, our politicians are accountable; we elect them.
If they receive our tax dollars, CBC and any other crown corp should be accountable for every dime. We don’t elect their boards of directors but we should at least know how they’re spending our money
The National Citizens Coalition is calling upon the government to implement transparency legislation for crown corps including the CBC. Any organization that receives such a beautifully wrapped gift forcefully given by the taxpayer must be transparent to the same.
Last night, I was on Brian Lilley’s Byline on Sun News talking about CBC’s birthday bash. The hard newsing, straight talking plucky upstart spends in a year what CBC spends in a week. But Sun money is private, the CBC’s money belongs to us.
So, this year the CBC celebrates. It’s the most lavish office party you’ve ever be told to chip in for.
We celebrated the occasion at Sun News. Our party cost less than $14.
