#1 — CBC | Tory MP apologizes for tantrum
Helena Guergis, minister of state for the status of women, issued an apology Thursday to Charlottetown airport workers and Air Canada staff for throwing a tantrum last week.
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#2 — CBC | Flight fees rise to cover security costs
Air travellers will pay higher fees to cover the costs of new security measures and technology, the federal government announced Thursday.
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#3 — Globe | Canadian women power the podium
VANCOUVER – If Canadian Olympic officials really wanted to own the podium at the Vancouver 2010 Games, they should have picked an all-female team.
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OC | IOC wants slower luge tracks in wake of Kumaritashvili’s death
#4 — Globe | Budgets, boomers and ticking time bombs
Stephen Harper, like any TV action hero worth his salt, can afford to ignore the cries of warning and wait a little longer before defusing the demographic time bomb in his lap.
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#5 — NP | Security review urges more Mounties on Parliament Hill
OTTAWA — A review of the RCMP’s handling of a Greenpeace security breach on Parliament Hill recommends that there should be more Mounties on patrol and improved security in other unspecified areas.
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#6 — NP | Not guilty, now what?
On the second day of his trial for attempted rape 20 years ago, Anthony Hanemaayer changed his plea to guilty. He was acting on the advice of his lawyer, after the victim’s mother identified him as the man she saw in her daughter’s bedroom.
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#7 — OC | Reduce number of watchdogs, committee says
OTTAWA — The federal government should consider “consolidating” the growing number of watchdogs and other oversight bodies, which can take up too much of management’s time and make public servants too risk-averse, says the prime minister’s hand-picked advisory committee on the public service.
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#8 — OC | Suspect in RCMP death scrawled apology to family before arrest
IQALUIT, Nunavut — Investigators searching the house of a Nunavut man on trial for the murder of an RCMP officer found a letter signed by him apologizing to his friends, family and unborn son, a jury in Iqaluit heard Thursday.
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#9 — MG | Third minister eyed by electoral officer
QUEBEC – Transport Minister Julie Boulet is the third minister in the Charest government subject to a “verification” by the chief electoral officer, after suggesting that companies finance the Quebec Liberal Party.
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#10 — Star | MPPs decry linking Israel to `apartheid’
In a rare show of unanimity, Ontario MPPs of all political stripes have banded together to condemn “Israeli Apartheid Week.”
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Re #1: Not good but who hasn’t been frustrated by airport security but the optics are really really bad !
A bad case of the ” STUPID SECURITY MEASURES DON’T APPLY TO ME “, because it’s stupid: Yes it is stupid, but I guess random checks apply to Government Ministers also, if every 90 year old grandma also has to be checked !
So what are the odds that a Cabinet minister is a terrorist ?
Really stupid to give the opposition a legitimate issue that makes one look ridiculous at the next question period when Parliament will be sitting again soon !
Re #4. If there is going to be a massive amount of boomers retiring over the next 10 years,then that means that the Gov’t will be able to start to tax the billions of dollars that is shielded in RRSPs. Only people with the lowest levels of retirement income will not have to pay taxes on RRSP or RRIF withdrawls.
mid island mike
“The trial also heard from the RCMP officer who arrested Kolola. Const. James Morrison was a friend and mentor to Scott, when the younger officer was undergoing field training in Iqaluit.’
There is no excuse for an officer still on field training (6 months duration) to be sent on calls alone. I know they did it back in 1975 when I was but 2 weeks out of training. I was left to work midnight shift (midnight to 8am) alone for 7 day stretches in a town of 10,000 people. I survived obviously, but no thanks to the RCMP. This unauthorized (violation of RCMP policy) practice should never have been permitted by detachment commanders back in 1975 let alone 30+ years later.
Geurgis is my MP and is an embarresment. Shes been in trouble a few times before plus never shows up tor riding meetings when she says she will. Sends a junior staff member instead.
And then theres her husband. A former Tory MP from Alberta who is up on charges for drunk driving and have drugs in his car.
Of course, the local lieberals are smacking lips thinking they now have a shot at taking this riding..
Re Topic #4: Mike when us baby boomers start to die off a lot of the younger generation will inherit money that they will spend and the remaining RRSP money will be taxed at the maximum tax rate.
After the baby boom generation is mostly dead the need to fund retirements will suddenly get very much smaller and the problem will self-correct in 20 years or 30 years tops !
It’s an ill wind that blows no one good … in this case we gained have the threat “don’t make me go Geurgis on your a$$” as well as (seen on twitter earlier), “Team Canada is gonna go Geurgis on the Americans come Sunday“.
Or Gorgeous Geurgis strikes yet again. She used to be a beauty pagent queen. Maybe she’ll cross the floor like the lady MP Tory from Aurora and become a ‘beer & popcorn’ lieberal.
Re: 7 — Get off Helena’s back UV. Here’s truth.
You would never get me on a flight in future. I would rather walk and I say that because the west has caved into terrorism and at the moment looks utterly ridiculous. Exactly what “Sammy Bin Elvis” wanted to achieve.
The reason I would “walk”?
Because going through customs now is a very humiliating experience for anyone that flies and all it says is that the US is “running scared” thanks to the media who promote everything that frightens the motoring public.
Maybe we should set up a “scare day” and NOBODY flies that day just to make the point.
Or maybe we just exert control over our media and end the bullshit with a warning.
“Don’t screw with us because you won’t like what happens next.”
Rommel and Patton rolled across the Middle East like it was their private sandbox. Make no mistake — that can happen again.
@Jack: The truth is that a prominent member of Cabinet got away with something that most of the rest of couldn’t – she’s a member of the government side of the House that put the latest security regulations in place, and she set a poor example for what the rest of us are told we have to accept willingly and without complaint.
The other truth of the matter is that the Harper government, like the Liberal government before it, capitulated to US security demands without protest. Canada is a sovereign nation and we could have told the Americans that if they were not satisfied with our existing security measures to simply deny landing rights to flights originating in Canada – does anyone actually think America would have done that?
Answer: No, they would not. For one thing they couldn’t afford to, and for another the American people wouldn’t have stood for it if they tried.
Instead what happened after the latest failed incident in American air space was that Stephen Harper and John Baird meekly said “yes sir, whatever you’d like sir, our people are ready and willing to bend over and take it for you whenever you’d like sir” – and just like that we’re paying extra to be delayed and harassed to a geater extent than ever before.
Lay the blame where it really belongs Jack, it’s not on the media, its at the front door of Parliament.
Re # 9 “Lay the blame where it really belongs Jack, it’s not on the media, its at the front door of Parliament.”
“Yup” — a minority parliament.
Maybe people should change that picture.
Sorry Jack – I do not recall a vote in the House about whether or not full body scanners would be put at Canadian airports, and the latest decision to charge us all an extra $2 or so per trip to pay for it certainly didn’t go through the House.
These are decisions made by the PM and his cabinet.
John Baird was reported in the media a while back as essentially saying that the US was driving our security measures and decisions, the Harper government has chosen to allow that.
The idea that any of the present federal political parties getting a ‘majority’ scares the hell out of me. No ‘safety valve’ should they screw up and they will. Look how all of the federal parties favours Quebec over the ROC and particularly Alberta that pays for much of Quebec’s social programs.
And none will stand up for majority language rights.
http://www.languagefairness.ca/
“the Harper government has chosen to allow that.”
Not that I’m letting the Conservatives off the hook, but, let’s face it, the general public is essentially reacting in their usual doormat-entitlement manner. What really pisses them off is that someone else isn’t paying for it.
Really interested in testing our airport security yourself? Over the past year my wife and I have done so (wife somewhat reluctently). This is what we intentionally did all domesltically within Canada. Swapped passports, airline checking staff looked at them and didn’t notice. Most times we printed our boarding passes at home prior and did not have to ‘check-in’. Proceeding thru security presenting each others boarding passes. Immediately prior to boarding when asked for boarding pass and photo ID we intentionally did the following at different times. Produced each other’s boarding passes, covered up the photo ID with the boarding pass or presented photo ID upside down. Nobody even noticed. On a few occasions the photo ID was actually looked at and compared, but the majority of times it wasn’t. Go ahead, try some of these youself. If they do happen to notice just look surprised and say “oops”. You’ll be surprised how lax the security actually is. It seems the priority is ensuring you’re getting on the right flight over anything else. We live in a ‘don’t worry be happy world’.