What Will The Liberal Party Look Like on Sunday Morning?

The Liberal Party of Canada leadership started off slowly and the dullness continued throughout the summer till the invasion of Lebanon occurred. It showed where the Liberal leadership candidates stood. Some like Findlay and Rae were more critical of it. Dryden and Kennedy tried to take a neutral view to the conflict and call for de-escalation of fighting. Brison and Volpe supported it. Ignatieff showed his inexperience in politics by taking one extreme position by saying he wasn't losing sleep over it, then a few months later claiming that Israel was committing war crimes.

Harper's sudden motion to recognize Canada is a country divided and consisting of two nations has heated up the Liberal leadership race. Politicians like Rae and Dion have criticized the notion of a Quebec nation in the past but didn't have the courage to stand up to overwhelming complacency in the house that passed the motion without any resistance.

Basically the Quebecois are the original Canadians who landed here 400 years ago in Quebec City and founded Quebec City." Lawrence Cannon

The motion is ambiguous and doesn't even recognize Quebec as a nation. It only recognizes Francophones in Quebec as a nation and promotes ethnic nationalism. Comments like Cannon promote European dominance and ignore all First Nations communities in Quebec.

Two leadership candidates did decide to stand up for Canada.

In the House, Ken Dryden stood up and refused to support the division of Canada.

"Canada is centuries and centuries of aboriginal peoples,their respectful relationship to the land, their culture and history.

Canada is French and English, struggling to survive a hard, new world, to make a life for themselves; different in language, culture, religion and law, struggling to live with each other. And making it.

Canada is people from almost everywhere, coming here, changing us and themselves in ways exciting and unknown."

"It feels like games - bad, manipulative, opportunistic games. Political games. Box somebody into a corner so they say or do something they don't want to say or do just to get out of the corner. Just to save face. For them to box the other guy into saying and doing the same. So we
all save face, and all get into a bigger box - a bigger box called "the future." Except that box is somebody else's. "

"The pawn in this game is the public. As Canadians, we feel deeply about our country. Politicians and political advocates for decades have been playing games with our
emotions, manipulating them for their/our own purposes. They/we have completely poisoned the well of discussion and debate on this question. No side trusts any other, no citizen trusts any politician."

Gerard Kennedy has used similar to eloquence to defend Canada.

"The motion creates an unmistakable expectation by giving official legitimacy to the "idea" of nation, without defining it. This is an irresponsible step, as there has never been greater need for honest dialogue between Quebecers and the rest of Canadians. Rather than improving national unity, the motion will exacerbate divisions and generate misunderstanding in
Quebec and across Canada. It is for this reason that throughout this campaign I have consistently opposed the "officialization" of the notion of Quebec as a nation."

The Liberal Party has a clear choice to make. Either support Dryden/Kennedy's view of federalism that follows the "tough love" approach to separatists fought by Trudeau/Chretien in the past. This path has kept the country united and won referendums.

The other path is the Turner/Martin route. That route has supported the extreme decentralization of Meech Lake and softness towards Quebec nationalism attracts supports like Bloc founder- Jean Lapierre.

Canada is a country too great to divide. We have created a pluralistic society that embraces diversity and aggressively promotes equality domestically and internationally. Why should we allow are politicians to segregate Canada into nations and create an unequal Canada that ignites ethnic tensions?

End of the dinosaurs

Here's an interesting article about the dinosaurs becoming extinct. With so much evidence around the world confirming that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet or astroid and climate change contributing to their extinction, why don't conservatives take the environment seriously?

"Dinosaur Killer" Asteroid Only One Part of New Quadruple-Whammy Theory

End of the dinosaurs

Here's an interesting article about the dinosaurs becoming extinct. With so much evidence around the world confirming that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet or astroid and climate change contributing to their extinction, why don't conservatives take the environment seriously?

"Dinosaur Killer" Asteroid Only One Part of New Quadruple-Whammy Theory

What good will come out of Saddam's hanging?

So Saddam received the death penalty. Hardly a surprise considering the charges against him, but what good will come out of it?

Saddam was a menace during the 1980's and slaughtered may innocent people. But after losing US support, Saddam was trapped and wasn't a threat anymore. Iraq had no WMD and faced heavy survelliance from the International community who were poised to remove Saddam Hussein if he carried out one transgression. But the US believed Saddam to be such a threat they couldn't listen to rational arguments and decided to invade.

After the US seized control of Iraq clearly there were no WMD in Iraq. US republicans switched their talking points from talking about enriched uranium programs in Iraq to claiming that Saddam was the WMD they were looking for. I find it hard to believe that Saddam would have killed 300, 000 - 600, 000 Iraqis during the past 3 years and Iraq would be mired in a nation-wide civil war. The Iraq war was a gross mistake and the Iraqi death toll has matched the death toll under Saddam's entire tenure and the US is recording record deficits. It's too late for an apology from the US to Iraq for the mess they orchestrated.

Saddam's execution solves nothing. It's a hollow victory for his enemies and it infuriates his supporters. Saddam should have served life in prison where he would have been forced to live with his past deeds. But by turning Saddam Hussein into a martyr, Iraq's civil war will not lose any steam, and global jihadists will have yet another reason to kill westerners. Why would anybody celebrate Saddam's execution?

Nonis Half Right

Recently the Vancouver Canucks GM criticized the new NHL for its new wide open free agency and extensive rivalries with local divisional opponents.

"I think if you assemble a good team, fans want to see that team stick together for more than one or two years. Our current agreement does not lend itself to that." Dave Nonis

That's is the whole point of the new NHL. The new NHL was designed to create parity. It was designed to force GM to constantly to change their teams and prevent them from stacking up on players or keeping them for a prolongued period of time playing for a reduced salary.

I like it. The Edmonton Oilers were able to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals and teams that drafted poorly over the years (Toronto and Vancouver) missed the playoffs because they couldn't buy themselves out of the mess they created.

It's true Pittsburgh will be in trouble in 7 years. They could keep Crosby, Malkin, and Staal and sacrifice the rest of their team or be forced to dump one of them to make salary room. But that is years away. Right now the Penguins have 3 young players who are earning far less money than they deserve and now is the time to make a serious cup run.

Nonis is right on his other point. Each NHL team doesn't need to play all its divisional rivalries over 6 times and only play a team from the other conference twice every three years. Ovechkin and Crosby should come out to the western conference more often. And players like Thornton and Phaneuf should play the eastern conference far more.