Freddie P's Blog

I received this e-mail yesterday from frequent FreddieP.ca visitor Trish.

"I've been meaning to say this for a while now - this revealing photo of Dion is representative of all the reasons why he'll never be PM. It's priceless!"
Trish

Yea, and how about this one Trish. It's something I put together right after the Liberal Leadership Convention.

Is it Stephane Dion or Dana Carvey?

Category: Politics

News Item

OTTAWA-Prime Minister Stephen Harper is better understood in his second language than Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is in his, according to a new Angus Reid poll that put the politicians' skills to the test with voters in French and English.

About 81 per cent of the francophones who watched a clip of Harper giving a speech in French rated him "good" or "very good" at the language. By contrast, among the anglophones who watched the clip of Dion explaining policy in English, just 56 per cent gave him a passing grade.

Interesting that this poll should come out the day after Dion visited the GTA and had a tough time communicating.

This just highlights the paramount job he has in front of him. It's going to be pretty hard to win the next election with almost half the country having no idea what you're saying.

And when they can understand you, you've got nothing to say.

Category: Politics

It's interesting to see what's happening to the "irrelevant party" of Canada.

While Jack Layton and his wife Olivia run around the country making ridiculous statements and supporting stupid causes the NDP is plummeting in the polls.

Jack Layton has done such a bad job of leading this party; it has now sunk to an all tie low in the polls tied with the Green Party at 13 percent.

How's that for failure? The Green Party doesn't have an elected member and for years they've been regarded as Canada's party for flakes, but they're tied with the NDP which has occasionally over the past four decades given the impression of a "real" political party.

But Jack has taken the NDP so far in the wrong direction that now some members of the party are making noises about moving towards the centre. Like Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin, who's even suggested creating a coalition with the Liberals.

And nobody should be surprised. Layton's position on the war on Afghanistan, and his obsession with single mothers and professional lay abouts has turned a lot of people off.

It gets back to the same old story. Socialism doesn't work and the more you press it the more people reject it and quickly realize the best way to look after yourself… is to look after yourself.

Layton's reaction to the dissension within his ranks is predictable. He denies it and claims with the growing gap between rich and poor in Canada, the country needs a strong NDP more than ever and he doesn't see a need for change.

Give it up Jack, nobodies listening.

Category: Politics

News Item

The Six Nations community has to sort out its internal differences before talks aimed at ending a year-long aboriginal occupation in southern Ontario can get back on track, Ontario's aboriginal affairs minister David Ramsay said Tuesday.

Government negotiators broke off talks last week after Six Nations Chief David General - who has spoken out against the occupation of a former housing development site in Caledonia, Ont. - was barred from attending the negotiations by several aboriginal community members.

I really can't understand this bullshit. What does an internal difference within the Six Nations community have to do with the occupation?

The occupation should have been over long ago. The Ontario Provincial Police should have moved in and physically removed them from the site.

On Tuesday I sat with a guy who's got good friends who border the occupied land and none of us have any idea what these people have gone through. It's heartbreaking.

Nobody feels safe, nobody can sell their homes and nobody has any faith in the government.

Six Nations broke the law, continue to break the law and there's nothing being done about it.

It's all fun and games for the Natives, it gives a lot of the young, yahoo assholes something to do with their time but in the meantime, hard working, law abiding Canadians are having their lives turned upside down.

Once and for all the occupation has to end. So what if it's a major confrontation and somebody gets hurt, that's life in the real world. End it now!

Category: Politics

News Item

Canada's use of the term "visible minorities" to identify people susceptible to racial discrimination came under fire at the UN yesterday - for being racist.
The world body's anti-racism watchdog said in a report on Ottawa's efforts to eliminate domestic racial discrimination that the words might contravene an international anti-racism treaty.

Wow, it wasn't long ago that "visible minority" was adopted as a politically correct term for identifying non-white Canadians. Now it's racist.

In Toronto this offers a bizarre twist because we're actually beyond the tipping point.

In Toronto a "visible minority" would be a white person and as we all know, white people can't be the victims of racism.

Category: Politics

It's been quite the week for my friend Dan Duran who went head to head with several FreddieP.ca readers over a political issue from last week.

I wrote a posting called "Security Breach" and Dan responded to it, and following that I invited readers to respond to Dan and the results speak for themselves.

To be fair, Dan's been a good sport through it all, and regardless of what the rest of us think of his position on the issue, at the end of the day Dan has something that most of us don't.

Category: Friends | Politics

There seemed to be a skepticism surrounding yesterday's public transit announcement by the Harper government.

A lot of people think it may never happen. Harper has made the announcement as an election ploy designed to get him a majority government, and once he gets a majority he'll have five years to piss-ass around and never really get to the project.

We've been conditioned to this type of behaviour by two levels of Liberal government in Ontario, so this will be the real "teller."

Ultimately will Toronto realize the public transit boost it desperately needs, or will it be just another hot poker up the ass.

I'm willing to bet the former.

Category: Politics

It's still difficult to determine what Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was trying to accomplish when he met with the big banks yesterday.

The issue was ATM fees and when he emerged from the meetings, Flaherty gave some feeble story about asking the banks to eliminate ATM fees for students, low income seniors and the disabled.

What? It sounds noble but it's unrealistic. The technology alone is probably enough to make the banks look the other way, but when it comes to something like gouging by major banks, Flaherty needed to show a bit more strength.

Let's face it, bank fees are never going away so the only way Flaherty is going to get anywhere with the banks is to threaten legislation, but the legislation should also be realistic.

Bank machines are a great convenience for all Canadians but like any convenience is comes with a cost and we know that. Where it breaks down is the double dipping that takes place when you use the machine of a competing bank.

That's where Flaherty should have aimed his attack and he should have been clear and decisive. Eliminate those fees or the government will force it through legislation.

Who knows, maybe at that point the banks would get together and make the changes as a good will gesture?

And then get together again and think of under the table ways to make it back.

Category: Politics

The BBC has just released a survey of world image and the United States ranked third on the negative list.

They asked 28 thousand people in 27 countries and only Israel and Iran had a more negative image than the good old USA. Hell, North Korea had a better image than the States.

I don't know what they plan to do with this information because it's not going to change anything, because if there's anything Americans don't give a shit about, it's the way the way the rest of the world looks at them.

As a matter of fact, most Americans will never see or hear this information because as far as they're concerned the world ends at their borders. And beyond that, the American establishment doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks either.

They have a job to do and if it means pissing a few people off, so be it.

The American attitude is summed up beautifully by a promo that's running on the FOX News Channel right now. I saw it for the first time last night.

When they come back from a commercial the screen was filled with a waving American flag and then there was a graphic that said "America has problems."

At that point I thought, "wow, at least they admit it."

But then that graphic dissolved into another graphic that said "But America isn't the problem."

By the way, in that BBC survey, Canada ranked number one in positive image.

Category: Politics

Without a doubt last weeks most popular posting was called "Security Breach"

The next day I got a response from my good friend Dan Duran, and this initiated some hot discussion on my blog. Unfortunately for Dan, he got whacked pretty good.

Having said all that if you were involved in the subject, or have an interest, you should read this article by Sun columnist Rachel Marsden

Category: Politics