The Cons mini-referendum

This summer the Conservative Party Caucus had themselves a mini-referendum about having a referendum about electoral reform. 

ERRE Committee vice-chair Scott Reid held a presser about it last Friday and was very pleased to announce a 90.6% approval rating of 73,740 YES votes from the 81,389 returned responses. 
Sure, the ballot only went out to 59 ridings held by Con MPs and allowed 4 responses per household, but still - a 90.6% approval rating for a referendum!

When a reporter asked how many ballots were originally sent out in order to get those 81,389 back, Reid expressed regret at not having those numbers available so I'm giving him a helping hand here. 

The total number of eligible electors in the 59 ridings cited is 4,613,620. I know because I added them up last night.

If 81,389 ballots were returned out of 4.6 million, that's a response rate of 1.76%. 
If 73,740 of those were YES REFERENDUM! votes, that's a 1.6% referendum approval rating, and it's a 1.6% referendum approval rating in Conservative-held ridings only, a third of which are in Alberta. 

I have no great quarrel with the 4 page CPC referendum/referendum itself - the explanations and questions are about what you might expect. But when you consider that it was received on the heels of a flyer saying a referendum was required to "stop the Liberals from rigging the 2019 election" in, for instance, Con MP Len Webber's riding of Calgary Confederation... well, lets just say that riding's 2.2% response rate probably indicates Calgary Confederationists are not setting their hair on fire over it. 

The CPC Caucus submission to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform contained the following tables about their mini-ref. I added two extra columns on the far right - total number of electors in the riding and the riding response rate to the questionnaire - to give their numbers some context. I also added the names of the MPs.  Click em to read em. 

So there ya go, Scott - your missing numbers. You're welcome.

Referendumpster fire

CPC MP and ERRE committee member Scott Reid held a presser today to lay out the CPC position on electoral reform : No referendum, no Consent to electoral reform.

Mr Reid cites the results of a householder CPC MPs sent to their constituents. Shocker : 90.6% of them voted for a referendum.

Wikipedia : 

"In Canadian politics, a Ten Percenter is a party political flyer that MPs have the right to mail — at no cost to themselves — to households in their own ridings, equivalent to 10% of the households in their constituency. They may also send the same flier to all of their constituents if they change 50% of the copy." 

Complaining that members of the public who show up to ERRE road show meetings are "self-selective" and therefore not representative of Canadians as a whole - a complaint also repeated in committee by ERRE Lib MP Sherry Romanado - Reid calls his survey of 59 Conservative ridings out of a total of 338 possible ridings "the largest sampling of views on this issue to date." Ok but 30% of ridings surveyed were in Alberta. Nothing "self-selective" there.

The 81,000 votes from across Canada returned to the Conservative office or the local riding MP include up to 4 votes permitted per household. To put that in context, 81K is the same number of voters found in the ridings of Ottawa West or North Vancouver. 
In Scott Reid's own riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston with 77,808 voters, 1400 responded to his electoral referendum questionnaire ... which works out to a 1.8% response rate. 
So, you know, good effort, Cons.

Now Scott Reid has been personally in favour of implementing a proportional electoral system like STV since 2001 and his fellow ERRE member CPC Gerard Deltell also favours PR , but alas their hands are tied by the 2004 CPC founding charter which specifies that any electoral reform must be preceded by a referendum. Apparently their Bill C-23 Fair Elections Act didn't count.

Reid also reported he thinks a five-party committee consensus to proceed with a PR system is possible, that a public referendum on PR would pass, and that Elections Canada CEOs JP Kingsley and Marc Mayrand have said there is time before the next election in 2019 for both a referendum and a new electoral reform system provided the new system is not unduly complicated in the redrawing of ridings. 

So why are the CPCs the fly in the electoral reform ointment?

Reid notes that Minister Monsef has not proposed any specific model to replace FPtP or pledged to accept the committee's consensus position, supposing they reach one after this referendum ultimatum. 
Reid :

"Up til now, she has only said she'll take it under advisement so we can move towards that model. What I don't want to have happen is this : have the committee move towards some kind of conclusion and then the government says 'thank you very much, we're doing something else' because we have an ironclad commitment about 2019 and then impose a system that favours the governing party. That would obviously be completely unacceptable and I am anxious at all costs to make sure that doesn't happen."

I get this concern. I do. The dreaded Alternative Vote, a non-proportional system considered capable of keeping the Libs in power forever because the Libs are everyone's presumed first and/or second choice on a ranked ballot in a single seat riding, is right there in the ERRE committee road show handout and was included in the public e-consultation on the ERRE site.  

But after months of sending out householders like the one pictured at the top here - sent out prior to the committee rejig in May which allowed the Bloc and Elizabeth May a seat at the ERRE table and reduced the number of Liberals on committee from a majority of six down to four Libs plus the chair - together with your failure to hold town halls in your communities to inform yourselves and voters about possible alternatives to FPtP, and the fact your official seven page Conservative Caucus submission to ERRE today is about nothing but holding a referendum ...  well, Cons, you failed miserably at reaching out further afield than just to your dog-whistled fear-mongered householder base here to achieve that all-party consensus you claim to aspire to.

h/t Pat McGrail and James Valcke for the householder viz.
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Terrorism-To-Go Advisory System

Rob Nicholson's communications team set Foreign Affairs bureaucrats a quota of producing three terrorism-related statements per week for minister Rob Nicholson to make to the media. 
They were to be crafted from an event reported by the news media. 

"One Foreign Affairs bureaucrat, who spoke to CBC News on condition of anonymity, said: "We're not making a special effort to fulfil this odd request."

What a bunch of slackers. 

Here's 6 terrorism-related news reports from just the past 24 hours :

1) Inquisitr, July 23 : Lafayette Movie Theater Shooting: Terrorism Fears Raised After Six Shot In Louisiana Theater

Old white guy starts shooting spree 20 minutes into the movie Trainwreck

2) Intercept, July 22 : Why Wasn't Dylann Roof Charged With Terrorism?

Dylann Roof, the white 21-year-old man who allegedly gunned down nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17 in order to "start a race war" not charged with domestic terrorism.

3) Truthdig, July 22 : Israel Brands Rock-Throwing at Moving Vehicles as Terrorism; Charge Could Carry Up to 20 Years in Prison

"Tolerance toward terrorists ends today. A stone-thrower is a terrorist and only a fitting punishment can serve as a deterrent and just punishment,” Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said"

4) Guardian, July 23 : Canada's controversial terrorism law criticised by UN human rights group

5) CBC, July 22 : Bureaucrats told to provide Rob Nicholson 3 terrorism-related statements a week

6) Ricochet, July 22 : Why the Harper government flatters Saudi Arabia’s tyrants

“The honourable minister [Mackay] expressed his appreciation for the major leading role played by the kingdom on the international arena,” wrote Prince Saud. “He emphasized Canada’s desire to develop relations with the kingdom in all fields.”

OK so admittedly that last one doesn't have the word terrorism right in its header like the others but just add this handy graph and you're good to go :

There ya go, Rob. You're welcome.

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Call for Heave Steve! National Campaign

Damn good tune. Yeah, it came out two months ago - keep posting it till everyone knows the words.

Then we need to pick a day for a national sing-along - I suggest the day the writ drops - with people right across Canada posting themselves with their own Heave Steve signs  - just like the folks in the vid - to some central site for possible re-mix including everyone if Lon Borgerson agrees to it.  Cross-party participation. So who's up for organizing this?

Lon Borgerson, NDP candidate for Prince Albert, and friends... 26,830 views, coming up on 500 "likes".  

Well, the ship of state is sinking and the seas are getting rough
The captain's drunk with power and we have had enough
He's cutting all our rations, pulling tricks out of his sleeve
Only one thing we can do, we've got to heave Steve

Heave Steve! Make him walk the plank
Heave Steve! He's gonna break the bank
Heave Steve! We'll have ourselves to thank
If we all join together and just Heave Steve!

The temperature is rising and the weather's no fun
The glaciers are melting and there's water on the run
We're burning up the oil when we've got the wind and sun
And with Stevie at the helm, nothing's being done

CHORUS

There's pirates down on Bay Street hiding treasure from us all
There's pirates getting richer while we all take the fall
There's pirates in the wheelhouse making robocalls
There's pirates in the statehouse helping Stevie run it all

CHORUS

And the ships don't get our grain cause they're waiting for the rail
And the economic action plan has built another jail
And Duffy's on the poop-deck, and seniors wait to no avail
Cause Stevie and his buddies won't deliver mail

CHORUS

So if you want a good voyage and a fair and equal boat
And you want all your mates to live long and stay afloat
You don't really need a sea, an ocean, or a moat
To throw Stevie overboard you just need to vote

CHORUS (Twice)
CHORUS (and Farewells)

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Hard Workin' Steve - "It's hard work!"

It's attack ad season from now to Election 42!  

Steve isn't doing TeaPaw Pawlenty this time round, harkening back instead to earlier roots.

Con Party ad - not exactly as shown here.

Justin Ling on the whole batch : 

"... the Conservatives have another ad, featuring Sad Harper sitting at his desk, all alone, late at night.

But it'll be the Trudeau attack ad that you see again, and again, and again.

You know why? Because the Conservative Party has (and this is the proper accounting term) a fuckload of money.

By the end of 2013, the party had $11 million in unrestricted cash in the bank to spend. Since then, they've raised another $27 million."

Stephen Lautens nailed it.

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Dear Fred :

Thanks for yet another letter about how your anti-terrorism bill will crack down on ISIS recruiting Canadians over social media.

Have you heard of twitter by any chance? 

But the show must go on, eh? 

Gosh, was it only a year ago you announced a $10 to $14 billion General Dynamics contract to build and sell military LAV IIIs to Saudi Arabia because jobs jobs jobs? 

Sadly the whole jobs jobs jobs angle hasn't really taken off for you, has it? 
So its jihad jihad jihad all the time instead now and later today Steve will announce in the HoC he's going to expand getting his war on in Iraq and Syria for another year because following the US into yet another disastrous cycle of seeing how much worse the next bunch of rabid killers we will create out of it will take Steve's 'war president' shtick past the next election.

Anyhow, Fred, I wanted to thank you for this inspirational line from your letter :

"Those who would attempt to abuse the rights enjoyed by Canadians to spread their ideology of hate must be stopped."

Yeah, come the next election I think the majority of Canadians will be looking into that.

Alison

P.S. Almost forgot - please send $15.
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Chris Alexander unplugged

David Climenhaga dissects Alexander's speech here and links to the entire Ukrainian Canadian Congress event but I thought I'd extract Alexander's remarks for posterity.

Alexander is particularly outraged about any mention that Ukraine might have a neo-Nazi problem, which he blames on :
 "dangerous ideology. Which is present in our own city of Toronto! Which is present across Canada! Which comes to us through state-sponsored Russian channels that are preaching absolute poison." 

while evidently being unaware Canada has a Right Sector chapter of its very own.

Perhaps he'd rather hear about it from the BBC :



or the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany last month :



Climenhaga : 

"Alexander was followed as speaker by Andriy Parubiy, deputy chairperson of the Ukrainian parliament and founder in 1991 of that country's evocatively named Social-National Party, which the Wikipedia describes as having "combined radical nationalism and neo-Nazi features" before changing its name to Svoboda ("Freedom") in 2004.

In his speech Mr Parubiy said his fighters in Ukraine are standing for the entire civilized world.
He says "Canada has an “authoritative voice” on the conflict in eastern Ukraine and could help persuade the United States to send lethal weapons to Ukraine."

"This is going to be a great struggle," said Alexander, " We are just at the beginning of this struggle."
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Fundraising at the mall - terror for the win

Friends,

As one of our strongest supporters, you know the fourth quarter fundraiser of 2014 was our best in a decade. But we could raise so much more!

Why just this week, 20 cheerleading teams withdrew from a competition at West Edmonton Mall due to fears it would be bombed by a Somali terrorist group that has never committed a terrorist act outside of East Africa. Terror for the win!

But wait - there's more! 
When we put our West Edmonton Mall mujahideen ad up on Facebook, many of the responses demanded we allow Canadians to open carry guns in malls to defend themselves against our ad. 

Shockingly, the hug-a-thugs Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair have not made any terrorist ads of their own. 

Fortunately we can count on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to pass our new Anti-Terrorism Act to keep Canadians safe. At the mall. Remember, they hate us for our values at the mall.

Please send $15 and add your name to stand with our Prime Minister and his strong stable throbbing authoritarian majority here.
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Update : Heh and heh
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Come on down, Patrick Brown!

Here's SoCon MP Patrick Brown at the now infamous Rob Ford Family BBQ listening to Harper make his plug for a Stephen Harper/Rob Ford/Tim Hudak governing Con trifecta for Canada. FinMin Flaherty made a special point of thanking Brown for "being key to organizing this event". 

Writing about Patrick Brown shifting from Parliament Hill MP into provincial politics as a candidate in the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race, John Iveson says that "nobody knows where he stands on any given issue".

Oh come on, John, we do so know a couple of things.

We know his campaign co-chair doesn't believe in evolution.

We know in 2006 he voted Yes to reopen the definition of marriage to remove teh gays, something Harper campaigned on in 2005 but no longer needed after he was elected.

We know in 2008 he voted Yes for Con MP Ken Epp's C-484 to recognize fetuses as persons.

We know in 2010 he voted Yes on Con MP Rod Bruinooge's Bill C-510, Roxanne's Law, another anti-abortion bill.

We know in 2010 he voted No on Bill C-384 to legalize assisted suicide.

WE know in 2012 he voted Yes on Con MP Brian Storseth's Bill C-304 to take hate speech out of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

We know in 2012 and 2013 he voted No on Bill C-389 to add gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act.

We know in 2012 he voted Yes for Con MP Woodworth's C-112, yet another covert effort to give the state legal custody over us breeding vessels.

Not really what I'd call a dark horse actually, John.
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Won't you please give until it hurts ...

Susan Delacourt notes the Conservative Party of Canada is piqued that the "Ottawa media elite" have utterly failed to report just how rich their party is. The CPC success story of raising $20.1-million in party donations last year, including their 24% increase in donations and 28% rise in donors in the last quarter of 2013, has gone quite unremarked by the meanies in the lickspittle press. The fourth quarter, say the CPC in their letter to supporters below, was their best in a decade - which is pretty amazing all things considered. 

The only thing that will make them feel better is if you send them even more money :

"We simply cannot let the media elite and the opposition parties try to spin our victory into a loss. Help us fight back. Click here to make your contribution for 2015."

There is another campaign you might consider that won't cost you a dime.

h/t Trapped in a Whirlpool
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Monument to Victims of Communism ... and friends

Not a week goes by recently without an editorial reacting to Tribute to Liberty's proposed Monument to the Victims of Communism with a loud WTF? Here's the latest one from the G&M : New Victims of Communism memorial in Ottawa a looming disaster

"Only a fool would deny that millions have been the tragic victims of communism, but that number pales, surely, in comparison with the victims of capitalism."

And here, in case you haven't seen it, is the winning submission for the Monument : 



With $3-million from the federal government on donated land valued at $1-million across from the Supreme Court and announced in the 2010 Speech from the Throne, Harper and Kenney were ground level supporters - presumably due to their oft-sited statistic that one quarter of Canadians are survivors or relatives of survivors of communism.

Media Co-op, Sept 2013 : Government has close ties to 'victims of communism' monument project

"The leader of a group receiving $1.5 million [now up to$3M] in federal funds to build a monument to victims of communism says Canada's Prime Minister and Minister for Multiculturalism have been part of the project from the start – a role uncommon for politicians in the creation of public monuments.

“True inspiration comes directly from the PM,” Tribute to Liberty Chair Ludwik Klimkowski told the Toronto Media Co-op in a recent phone interview. “It was Stephen Harper’s idea of recognizing the contribution of people who came from communist countries.”

Klimkowski also said Tribute to Liberty “has its beginnings in 2008 when [Multiculturalism Minister] Jason Kenney was visiting a memorial erected by another group,” but declined to answer further questions about the politicians’ histories with the organization."

I wonder what that 'other memorial erected by another group' might be?

The US Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation boasted George W Bush as Honorary Chair from 2003 - 2009 and Grover Norquist as a Principal Officer. 

Bush dedicated the US Victims of Communism Memorial in June 2007. 

The foundation's chair, Dr. Lee Edwards, is also Chairman of the Board of the Global Museum on Communism.

In 2008, the three founders of the Canadian Tribute to Liberty were :

• Philip Leong : Honorary Patron of TtL, now VP and Director at RBC.  In 2012 John Baird and Ed Fast appointed him to the APEC Business Advisory Council.

• Alide Forstmanis : former Canadian Alliance Party field organizer; TtL Chair from 2008 - 2012.  Quote :  "the Cold War victory remains incomplete..." In 2009, she wrote in the Western Standard Shotgun Blog, former home of Ezra : "there will be no public money going toward having the memorial built". Well, that was then.

• Wladyslaw Lizon, who became a Con MP in 2011, beating out the former Lib MP by 1½% of the vote. At a donation of $100 per brick Mr. Lizon is Brick #2938-2942 in the proposed Monument. You may recall Lizon teamed up with fellow Con MPs Maurice Vellacott and Leon Benoit a year ago to write a letter to the RCMP requesting they investigate late term abortions as homicides.

In 2009, after Harper had written to Kenney assuring his support for the monument, the National Capital Commission, an advisory board on commissions to the parliamentary grounds, suggested changing the name of the monument : 

"It’s not communism itself that we should be fighting here. It is rather totalitarianism we are against in any form."

Well, that didn't fly and ultimately the government also ignored the majority of the commission's choice of design for the monument. The monument's footprint is to be in place in time for the October election; it has the backing of all four of the major parties.

Meanwhile regarding victims closer to home, Stephen Harper told Peter Mansbridge in December re missing and murdered aboriginal women that : "… it isn't really high on our radar, to be honest."

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Con candidates Go Newclear

Remember three years ago when charts like this one mapped the links between the various Ethical Oil players in the Con regime spanning cabinet ministers, media personalities, and political contractors and web designers?

The connections were based on research by Emma Pullman at DeSmogBlog and the website Deep Climate : Conservatives Go Newclear . They each discovered that Hamish Marshall, former Manager of Strategic Planning in the Office of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and then principal at pollster/strategist Abingdon Research, had created and hosted some 50 Con-connected websites at his Go Newclear Productions :  “experienced in the development of both conventional and unconventional online weaponry” to “blow away your competition".

Well, funny thing ...

The Port Moody/Coquitlam Election 2015 blog was having a look at some of new young Con contenders hoping to be nominated to run in the next federal election and discovered that their very similar election websites were also hosted by Go Newclear -- home to Jason Kenney, Joe Oliver, Ethical Oil, Abingdon, and the Wildrose Party. 
Even before they bagged their nominations, notes PM/C-E 2015, some of them had already pulled some heavyweight Con endorsements.

So ... having a quick look at a couple of them for myself in two newly created ridings ...

Garnett Genuis is running in the newly created federal riding of Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan. Vice President at Abingdon Research under Hamish Marshall and like him also a former PMO staffer, Genuis had the public endorsements of Jason Kenney, Joan Crockett, Chris Warkenton, Michelle Rempel, Ken Epp, Ric McIver - Alberta's Minister of Jobs, Stockwell Day, and Mike Martens in the bag even before he was nominated. 

Wait - Mike Martens? Who dat? Former CPC Regional Organizer for BC and current Director of the School of Practical Politics, Manning Centre for Building Democracy. One might say Mertens' job at the Manning Centre is building short pantsers/Con staffers into credible candidates and campaigners. 
Genuis is a former provincial Wildrose candidate. In 2010 he went to work for the think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Studies, which advocates defunding the CBC entirely and hosts tribute dinners for Mark Steyn and Ezra.


Tom Kmiec, former aide to Jason Kenney, was endorsed in his nomination to the new riding of Calgary Shepard by Jason Kenney, Ted Morton, Stephen Blaney, and Calgary lawyer and Republican booster Gerry Chipeur.
Tom Kmiec, Calgary Chamber of Commerce :

In his most recent role, Tom was an advisor to the federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, and led the regional communications outreach. Tom has also served as a political aide to the Minister of National Defence. At the provincial level, Tom served as the policy advisor to the Minister of Sustainable Resource Development and the Minister of Finance and Enterprise. Tom has a BA from Concordia University in Montreal, a Certificate of Graduate Studies from Regent University in Terrorism and Homeland Defence, and is currently completing an MA in Government Studies at Regent.

*blink*  *blink*  Pat Robertson's Regent University in Virginia, formerly known as the Christian Broadcasting Network University?  "Christian Leadership to Change the World"?   That one?  The one Bush got so many staffers from?

Seems so. Tom is featured in Regent's Aug 2014 newsletter as "full-time Canadian Ministry of Defense employee Tom Kmiec". Excerpted :

"Kmiec explained that he always wanted to expand his knowledge of the American system of government and learned about Regent University from a flyer at a Youth Republican National Convention with the Conservative Party of Canada. "Once I looked at the RSG faculty profiles and courses offered, I knew Regent was for me," says Kmiec

Kmiec wanted to learn more about how a Christian worldview connects to public policy and government.

Kmiec says he is inspired like former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to be a passionate promoter of conservative principles and tireless defender of doing what is right in public life. "As flawed as our world is, there is so much good that we can do as Christians held to the highest standards of integrity, character and morality." 

But here's a puzzle. Mr Kmiec's election website addy, also featured as a link from his twitter site, is provenconservative.ca, . If you click it, you get Kmiec. 
An odd choice. Provenconservative.com is a US Tea Party site and movement. Sarah Palin uses it, as does Ted Kruz here in his 2011 senate bid endorsed by the Koch brothers' FreedomWorks.

Garnett Genuis, I just noticed, also refers to himself as a "proven Conservative", although more casually.

Can't say I'm happy to hear this old teabagger branding and dog-whistling up here from former short pantsers turned candidates in ridings newly minted for the next federal election.

And as Port Moody/Coquitlam Election blog asks : Don't Con riding associations get to pick their own candidates anymore? Here's Jason Kenney :

I'll be adding more candidates to this post a bit later. Port Moody/Coquitlam blog continues to edit and update with more info.

Meantime you could be adding your name to the petition requesting UN election observers for Canada. 

h/t to Jennifer McMackon for her link to the Port Moody/Coquitlam Election blogpost on Go Newclear & the Cons' Youth Strategy for the Upcoming Election. Good in depth overview of the Cons' new target youth candidates/audience now they've presumably maxed out the ethnic vote. 
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Feb1 Update : Ha ha. Re above question from Port Moody-Coquitlam Election 2015 on whether local riding associations get to pick their own candidates anymore. 
A further post from PM-CE 2015 notes that "a recent notice regarding the upcoming Annual General Meeting of the Port Moody-Coquitlam Conservative Electoral District Association to be held on February 14th" to elect a new board of directors and featuring an address to members by Jason Kenney... mis-spells Coquitlam four times. 
Yeah, that's likely - that the local Coquitlam riding association can't spell Coquitlam.
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The Conservative Broadsided Corporation

                                                               updated below

Noam Chomsky : "That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."


All graphics from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting




I get Dr Dawg's point : "Dismantle. Then remantle out of new material" 

But I'm afraid once the goal of dismantling is achieved, there will be no remantling.
More likely, just as the dismantling is almost complete, the Cons will opt for keeping a severely controlled ConBullshitCorp limping along under an ever diminishing mantle as a useful and somewhat less ridiculous version of SunNews.

CBC is really just a reflection of our society at large - a whole lot of self-serving repetitive corporate-driven drivel interspersed with occasionally rewarded bright sparks of public-spirit, principles, and courage.

So how about we support those who splash some much-needed cold water on CBC from time to time without actually drowning the CBC in the Cons corporate cronies' bathtub :

Friday Update : Progressive Economics Forum : The CBC - the Corporate Broadcasting Corp.
Good overview of Canadaland/Amanda Lang controversy and CBC's pro-corporate evolution from former CBC insider Bruce Livesey

Predictable response and hit piece on Canadaland from Globe and Mail: 
Journalist Jesse Brown is quick to expose the failures of Canadian media. But what about his own?

Canadaland's Jesse Brown responds by publishing email exchange between himself and author of G&M hit piece. Ha!

Saturday update : Amanda Lang's softball CBC interview with Royal Bank CEO Gord Nixon on TFWs and RBC/iGate in-and-outsourcing in April 2013 was revisited when Canadaland revealed Amanda Lang is in a relationship with RBC board member Geoffrey Beattie.  

I don't really care who Lang is doing.

My own interest in Lang stemmed from her outrageous G&M opinion piece, also from April 2013, defending outsourcing while attacking her CBC co-worker's TFW coverage as "a sideshow" - a mere 10 days before Lang's scheduled keynote address at an iGate/RBC sponsored conference on outsourcing. 

Dear G&M : re your piece on Canadaland's Jesse Brown yesterday and your many "disclosures" including one on Lang's piece for your paper.

You missed one. 

The US Security and Exchange Commission - General Electric 2013 Annual Meeting of Shareholders lists Lang's beau Geoffrey Beattie as "a director of the Globe and Mail" in addition to being on the board of RBC. That bio is also repeated here.

You're welcome.
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Tuesday update : 
George Monbiot at The Guardian : Our ‘impartial’ broadcasters have become mouthpieces of the elite reviews the CBC debacle

Frank Koller : CBC Ombudsman Declines To Review Conflict-of-Interest Policy Violations
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Erin O'Toole and "an insurance company like Veterans Affairs"

Evan Solomon spent much of Power and Politics two days ago trying to get Con MP and ParlSec Erin O-Toole to respond to recently revealed records showing nearly 900 job positions eliminated across Veterans Affairs with the biggest cuts going to the Disability Awards branch. 

60 senior VA managers were paid $360K in bonuses for making the cuts, spun by Harper in the House last Wednesday as "taking resources out of backroom administration and putting them into services".

"How are these backroom cuts", asked Solomon, "when some people might call them front line services?"

O'Toole didn't answer the question directly, you'll be shocked to hear, instead opting for various bizarre defences like this one at the 5:17 mark:

"The Veterans Independence Program was notoriously cumbersome. I think all MPs heard about the bills for snow removal, lawn maintenance, house cleaning. We're pre-approving now and so some of these changes have led to less paperwork."

What's he on about? More troops have taken their own lives since than were killed in action in Afghanistan and he's going on about lawn maintenance and paperwork.

But ok, let's go with that.

The Veterans Independence Program awards eligible veterans with health needs money to pay for housekeeping, grounds maintenance, personal care and other services. 

In April 2012, over two and a half years ago, Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney announced veterans would no longer have to pay for the services upfront and then submit individual receipts for services to the federal government for reimbursement. Instead they would receive the payments upfront.

"It's all about cutting red tape," said Blaney.

Sounds good. But here's what Major Mark Campbell, who lost both his legs in Afghanistan in 2008 and is one of six vets taking the government to court in BC, had to say about the changes to that very VIP program four days prior to O'Toole's remarks [10:00 mark]:

"What the government says on the one hand with the spin and denials, and what I see on the other hand as a recipient, a client of Veterans Affairs, are two very different things. And this is the problem - there is a fundamental disconnect between what the government is saying and what we veterans, especially the new veterans under the new Veterans Charter, are actually experiencing on the ground. 

I mean we're seeing reductions in the Veterans Independence Program for lawn care and house care under the new grant program. They didn't bother to tell us that under the new needs matrix by and large results in about a 50% reduction in the previous benefit. There's things like that go on left, right, and centre and it boggles the mind what you experience dealing with an insurance company called Veterans Affairs."

Jesus, O'Toole, even the responses you give to avoid answering questions are crap.  Veterans Affairs underspent its budget by $133 million in 2013-14 and your bunch are dicking veterans around about things like house and lawn care and then bs-ing about it?

Un-friggin-believable.

Major Mark Campbell, as Boris has already pointed out, is a powerful advocate for the Equitas-backed court case. If you're curious about what it's like for new veterans to deal with "an insurance company like Veterans Affairs" when their injuries exceed the allowed financial payout limits, here ya go ... Also an excellent summation of the whole debacle.

Update : Erin O'Toole responds in comments
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