Conservative Party using U.S Republican Playbook.

Just a quick note.

Today in the House of Commons every question directed at both the Minister of National Defense Peter McKay and Prime Minister Stephen Harper regarding the Afghan detainee issue was greeted with a response of: "Asking questions regarding the treatment and potential torture of detainees handed to Afghan officials by the CF means you don't support the troops!". This is eerily similar to the approach used by the Bush White House whenever there were questions about the regimes handling of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

What a shameful farce this "Most Open and Accountable Government in Canadian History" has become. Unfortunately they have sufficiently stalled, stonewalled and obstructed the search for the truth on this issue to take us into the Christmas break. They are now banking that the average Canadian forgets about this issue over the Holidays, an issue which a recent EKOS pole says is hurting Conservative chances of forming a majority government. Unfortunatly they are probably correct in this assumption as Canadians (even the politically involved) will be focusing on the spring budget and its potential to bring us to yet another federal election.

Today Richard Colvin, a current Intelligence Officer and former diplomat in Afghanistan, testified before a House of Commons committee that Afghan detainees transferred from the Canadian Forces to Afghan officials were knowingly tortured by the Afghan officials and prison system.

To make this worse, Mr Colvin claims, that many of the detainees transferred were actually innocent Afghan civilians. Mr. Colvin goes further to say that his department made the government, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper's foreign policy adviser aware of the situation. They were told in no uncertain terms to stop writing details of torture into their reports and to handle reports of such claims verbally. Also Mr. Colvin claims that his department was told not to report or speak publicly about the deterioration of security in Afghanistan in 2006-2007 even though it was plain to them that things on the ground were getting much, much worse. Mr Harper stood in front of Parliament and the Canadian people and said that Afghan detainees were not being tortured and if there was reason to believe they were that they would not be handed over to the Afghan government. This was plainly either an informed or uninformed lie. Now begins the Conservative smear campaign. Mr Colvin will be attacked both professionally and personally by the Government in an attempt to make this all go away.

The most pathetic part of this is that Harper will most likely win a majority in the next election as the Canadian populace seems to be much more concerned about who plays the best Beatles tune on the piano than human rights. We are supposedly losing soldiers in Afghanistan to make the country a free and better place for its populace. I may be mistaken, but allowing the torture of Afghan civilians to proceed doesn't seem much like nation building to me.


-Son

Is this the birth of a european based IRL?

The FIA and FOM are busy trying to destroy Formula 1. Or at least the F1 that I know and love. I am a person who belives that F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsports. It is supposed to lead to new innovations and technologies through competition. Under a budget cap system and technical and component standardization as favoured by the FOM and FIA this will soon be a series of identical cars. The three new teams coming in are a testament to what the "new" F1 will look like. They are all going to be running Cosworth engines, gearbox's etc and will probably share chassis info with a bigger team. This seriously effects the commercial value of running a manufacturer based F1 team at all. The FIA and FOM are in affect trying to create a european based IRL. They believe that as long as the teams can call their cars a Ferrari or a Mercedes or BMW and paint them in their own colours they'll be happy. Maybe the time has come for these teams to switch into a sport where technology and competition are still at the forefront. This weekend I saw a diesel powered Peugeot beat a Diesel powered Audi and a gas powered Aston Martin in an international sporting event. Seeing a Ferrari LMP1 car at the 24 hours of LeMans next year may be a good sight to see as well.

A letter to my city councillor...

Good evening Councillor Jellett,

Enough is enough.

My wife and I have suffered through these 41 days of no transit service and yet this is the first time we have written to our councillor, Member of Parliament or an ATU union representative. Why? Because we have (or rather had) faith in our city government and the union to keep the interests of the citizens of Ottawa front and centre in this debate. Clearly, that has not been the case.

We began this stoppage of what we consider an essential service by blaming the union and backing the city. While we still blame the union and the senior drivers for taking the city and our most vulnerable hostage, we lately have become frustrated with the city's ambivalence towards binding arbitration and the refusal to remove the scheduling issue from the bargaining table, however temporary. A cynic, Mr. Jellett, would accuse the city of stonewalling in order to reap the maximum financial benefit while the buses remain off the road. We know Mayor O'Brien has no incentive to get the buses running again - he walks to work (at least I hope he does) and the 3-million dollar per week savings looks good in the city coffers. The union bosses really don't give a toss about what happens - their senior drivers will be protected from any layoffs due to seniority and life will go on, raises and choice of shifts intact. Meanwhile, the poor, elderly, and otherwise disadvantaged population of Orléans and Ottawa continue to suffer through a harsh and unforgiving winter, while the union and the city act like children arguing over control of the sandbox in the playground.

We moved to Ottawa from Nova Scotia three years ago. We moved here partly because of the availability of public transit, something we had never had the advantage of using in any of our previous places of residence. We took pride in promoting Ottawa and indeed its transit system to anyone who would listen. We considered both the city and our public transit system to be models for the rest of Canada.

No more. I only talk about our city, our municipal government, and our transit system in negative terms now, as no-one seems to have the ability, skill, or incentive to get things running again. While Councillor Doucet may have spoken out of turn, at least he had the courage to do so and to generate discussion. The city, Mr. Jellett, is on the verge of running off of the high road and it won't be long before you're no better than Mr. Cornellier and the rest of the union management. That is an unfortunate state of affairs, and does not bode well for the future.

I plead with you to do whatever you can to bring this needless and idiotic strike to a close before more people lose their jobs, suffer from a lack of medical treatment, miss their education, are involved in traffic accidents, or suffer the other effects of this dispute. Our livelihoods, as well as the reputation of the city and our entire municipal government hangs in the balance.

Sincerely,