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Western Standard: sneak preview Monday, April 23, 2007 Here's a sneak preview of our new issue, just off the presses this morning: cover ; column ; story . Normally we hold back on publishing to the Internet so that our home subscribers get the good stuff first. But this is a special case: one of the subjects of our cover story, an MP named Mark Holland, has threatened us with a lawsuit if we keep talking about him and the Liberal theft of Conservative personnel files. That's called libel chill -- an attempt to bully journalists (including bloggers) so...

Harper accuses Liberals of making political hay on soldiers' deaths Tim Naumetz, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Friday, April 20, 2007 Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested yesterday the Liberal party is exploiting the recent combat deaths of eight Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan with a motion demanding the government put a firm, two-year deadline on the mission. Another Conservative MP went further, accusing the Liberals of siding with "terrorists and the Taliban." Bitter feelings spilled out soon after debate began on the motion urging the government to notify NATO that Canada will pull out its soldiers in 2009, despite Liberal attempts...

Green Party says Potvin will not be its candidate in Vancouver-Kingsway ... as this was obviously coming, here's the vile Potvin's self-pitying barf-a-rama: To be brutally honest Author of "A revolting confession" responds to widespread media criticisms The Republic of East Vancouver "Vancouver's Opinionated Newspaper" Current Issue • April 12 to April 26, 2007 • No 161 By Kevin Potvin John Keats wrote 123 years ago, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." On the confusing afternoon of September 11, that didn’t appear to be quite enough. I went...

Quebec results good for Canada Shift in power may lead to interesting political times across the nation Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Sunday, April 01, 2007 Friday afternoon, the co-hosts of a weekly political digest show on a Montreal radio station called to ask me what Albertans thought of the results of Monday's Quebec election. I couldn't say what Albertans' reaction was, but this Albertan's thought was: It's too early to tell, but things look interesting and positive. The National Assembly is now split roughly into thirds. The Liberals have 48 seats, a loss of 28 from 2003....

Angus Reid Political Tracker: Conservatives hold 17-point lead Liberals plummet to 22% nationally, and 11% in Quebec; Greens reach double digits, overtake Bloc angusreidstrategies.com 03.30.07 Friday [VANCOUVER – Mar. 29, 2007] – The Conservative Party has extended its advantage in Canada’s federal political scene, as the Liberal Party continues to lose support, an Angus Reid Strategies poll has found. In the online survey of a representative national sample, 39% of decided voters will cast a ballot for the governing Conservatives in the next federal election. The Liberals stand at 22%, followed by the New Democratic Party (NDP) with 17%,...

St?phane Dion's Turnaround on Terror Kevin Steel The Western Standard Monday, March 26, 2007 Everyone assumed it was a done deal. With two components of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) about to expire, Stephen Harper's minority government thought they had the support of the Opposition Liberals to renew the legislation. Then, about two weeks before the vote, Liberal Leader St?phane Dion had a change of heart; no longer would his party support extending the measures. In a House vote on Feb. 27, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Qu?b?cois ruled the day, 159-124. Now police can no longer hold terror suspects...

Kennedy, two Liberal MPs begin suit against paper Libel notices served after column alleged deal cut before leadership convention CAMPBELL CLARK Toronto Globe and Mail Saturday, March 24, 2007 OTTAWA -- Defeated Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy and two Liberal MPs have served libel notices on the National Post over a column that alleged they cut a deal to scrap controversial security measures in exchange for organizing leadership-convention votes. Mr. Kennedy and the two Toronto-area MPs, Navdeep Bains and Omar Alghabra, claim that the column falsely asserted that the MPs struck a deal to bring sizable delegations of Sikhs...

Gerard Kennedy and Liberal MPs servelibel notices against The National Post Press Release from Liberal.ca website dated March 23, 2007 Kennedy, Bains, and Alghabra serve columnist Kay, publisher and John Doe source Toronto, ON -- Former Liberal leadership contestant Gerard Kennedy; Navdeep Bains, MP for Mississauga – Brampton South; and Omar Alghabra, MP for Mississauga – Erindale, served the National Post, columnist Jonathan Kay and related persons with notices of libel over statements that the three politicians were involved in deals to exchange votes in return for changes to national security policy. Included as a defendant in one of...

Tories reach 'Magic' 40% in pollLeading Liberals in every region except Quebec Norma Greenaway, CanWest News Service Published: Saturday, March 24, 2007 OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harpers' Conservatives have surged to 40% in popular opinion and entered majority government territory, a new poll says. The poll, conducted exclusively by Ipsos-Reid for CanWest News Service and Global Television after the Harper government delivered its new budget, shows the Tories have opened up an 11-point lead nationally over Stephane Dion's Liberals. "The big news is they hit the big four-oh," Pollster Darrell Bricker said of the Conservatives' numbers. "They've hit...

From Lorne Gunter's "AS I PLEASE" blog on the National Post's website: Thanks, Lorne! Oh, please, Stephane, grow up Comes the latest manufactured outrage from the furtive minds of the Liberal opposition: Stephen Harper is being mean to us. Lately, all the Liberals seems to be able to do is manufacture outrage. They were outraged when the Conservatives ran television ads depicting their leader, Stephane Dion, as weak and indecisive. They were incensed when the Conservatives altered the committees that advise the justice minister on which lawyers might make good judges, charging that the committees were being "stacked" with social-conservative...

Liberals furious at Harper's Taliban accusation Last Updated: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 | 7:12 PM ET CBC News Prime Minister Stephen Harper went into attack mode in the House of Commons on Wednesday, accusing the Liberals of caring more about Taliban prisoners than Canadian troops. Prime Minister Stephen Harper leaped to the defence of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor during question period in the House of Commons on Wednesday.(Tom Hanson/Canadian Press) The attack came during Question Period, as the Liberals called for the resignation of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor over the erroneous information he provided to the government two weeks ago....

Dawn of a Conservative era? Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Monday, March 12, 2007 In her stimulating new book, French Kiss, journalist Chantal Hebert suggests we could be moving into a period of majority Conservative government, depending partly on how successfully Stephen Harper continues to woo Quebec. If true, this pending sea change will have as much to do with complacency and confusion on the centre-left as with the appeal of Harper's personality and policies. Starting with the Liberals, Hebert suggests the natural governing party was undone in the last election, not solely by the sponsorship scandal or...

Harper gives opposition election fever If there's a vote, PM will be ready Winnipeg Free Press Sunday, March 11, 2007 Paul Samyn - National Report OTTAWA -- You can't help but admire the minority swagger of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. With a budget that will either make or break his government just a week away, Harper isn't wasting time praying it will pass through the Commons. Nope. Instead, Harper is summoning Tory troops to Toronto for a high-level campaign school. Conservative MPs, senior staff, campaign managers and candidates will all hunker down for a three-day electoral planning session that's...

Stephen Harper's beaux stratagems BRIAN LAGHI Toronto Globe and Mail Saturday, March 10, 2007 OTTAWA — About a month ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper buttonholed Stéphane Dion in a backroom off the House of Commons. According to sources, he wanted to discuss the progress of legislation to reform the Senate — which sounds innocent enough. But four weeks later, Mr. Dion's allies are starting to wonder whether the Prime Minister had an ulterior motive: Would he somehow use the meeting against them in the future? “I have no doubt,” a senior Liberal said. “They're going to play silly buggers...

Law and Order: Conservative intent Harper says Dion’s Liberals too soft on crime and terrorism By JENNIFER DITCHBURN Halifax Chronicle-Herald Wednesday, March 7, 2007 OTTAWA (CP) — Guns, gangs, drugs. Oh my! The Conservative party is warning that life will be grim indeed on your street if you don’t cast a ballot for a Tory in the next election. The Liberals don’t like the police, and they’re just plain soft — soft on crime and soft on terror, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper. On the other hand, if you do vote Conservative, your government will be looking out for...

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research Canadian Conservatives Reach 40% MarkMarch 2, 2007 (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The Conservative party holds a 14-point lead in Canada, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 40 per cent of decided voters would support the Tories in the next election to the House of Commons. The Liberal party is second with 26 per cent, followed by the New Democratic Party (NDP) with 15 per cent, the Bloc Québécois with 10 per cent, and the Green party with eight per cent. In Quebec, the Bloc has the support of...

Polls hide the truth about climate change Questions should ask what we're prepared to give up Diane Francis, Financial Post Published: Friday, February 23, 2007Canadians, like Americans and others living in developed countries, always tell pollsters they are concerned about protecting the environment. But this is like being asked if you are in favour of apple pie and motherhood. Of course you are. But that's not the point. The real question that pollsters, and politicians, should put to the public is how big is your footprint and how much are you prepared to shrink it to protect the environment?...

Harper pulls some Liberal whiskers Only possible recourse of the Dion crowd is to scream in unison at the PM Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Friday, February 23, 2007 So the Liberals are outraged at Prime Minister Stephen Harper? I'm not surprised. No one manufactures outrage better than they do. Did the PM go too far in the House of Commons Wednesday when he (almost) raised the possibility that the Liberals' recent opposition to Canada's anti-terror laws was motivated by the self- interest of one of their own rising-star MPs? Probably. Yet, the Liberals also responded too unanimously...

David Suzuki vs. Michael Crichton Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Last Thursday, environmentalist guru David Suzuki stormed out of a Toronto AM640 radio interview with host John Oakley because Oakley dared to suggest that global warming might not be the "totally settled issue" Suzuki insisted it was. Oakley only reported a fact: Many accredited scientists -- some full professors from top universities, including Nobel prize winners and a former president of the National Academy of Sciences -- would argue that "global warning is at best unproven and at worst pure fantasy," according to novelist and...

Tories surge on Harper's leadership Conservatives building momentum for spring election, poll finds BRIAN LAGHI: OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF Toronto Globe and Mail Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Canadians in overwhelming numbers say Stephen Harper is the most decisive federal leader with the clearest vision of where he wants to lead the country, according to a poll that suggests the Conservatives may now have the winning conditions needed for a spring election. The new survey also finds that voters have failed to warm up to recently elected Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, and that his party has lost its postconvention bounce to...