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Govern yourselves accordingly.

–Glen

A selection of the comments posted:

“most “white ” poeple don’t do these things sorry , i live in the Jane & Finch area …. all blacks ….hispanics … same shit ….. they all collect welfare , have their kids, cant feed them cause their on “CRACK” ….. or out pippin their whores ,buying guns …. Grow up … its a fact “

“1 in a million will you find a GOOD BLACK man.One that has respect for himself , family & wants better for his future.I know i’m BLACK …… living in a dump of an area ….. I would never DATE a black man … especially from my area … The government needs to rebuild these pockets of  the poor “ghetto” put better housing & jobs …. & get this niggers off the street.”

Much excitement today about interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel’s past dalliance with the Bloc Quebecois. Daniel LeBlanc reports in the Globe and Mail today that Turmel was a party member and made four donations to the separatist party totalling $235 over a five-year period. She quit the party shortly before she declared as the NDP candidate in Hull-Aylmer, LeBlanc reports.

Not mentioned in the hub-hub was that Turmel also gave to the New Democrats back as early as 2004 (an election year), according a quickie search of Elections Canada records. (My version of the data goes back only to that year — she may donated earlier, too.)

Her donations:

April 26, 2004: $136 to NDP (federal party)
May 31, 2004: $100 to NDP (federal party)
June 25, 2004: $25 to NDP (federal party)
Dec. 31, 2004: $10 to NDP (federal party)
Dec. 31, 2004: $210 to Hull–Aylmer Federal NDP Riding Association

It isn’t.

Substantially more fishers die on the job. Real estate agents do much better.

(Source: Insurance records compiled by Human Resources Development Canada
and the Assocation of Worker’s Compensation Boards of Canada)

Slap one on your car bumper, if you like. Put it on city police cars and ambulances, if you think it’s necessary. You can even drape a giant one in the arrivals area of your international airport.

But, really, do we need to plaster oversized “Support Our Troops” decals on the Parliament Buildings, too?

I spotted these in the first-floor windows of the Confederation Building this morning. (I’m just back from a month-long holiday and they may have been there a while, so forgive me if I’m late to this.)

The decal on the left is an a window that appears to be the office of Ottawa-Orleans Conservative MP Royal Galipeau.

The other one is in the window of another Galipeau office, or his neighbour, the Honourable Member for Las Vegas – the Islands, New Democrat Ruth Ellen Brousseau. I couldn’t tell because all the offices in that corridor were closed this morning.

Now, Support Our Troops has become such a mantra in the current political climate that no one dares question the sentiment. But should the buildings that house our government be turned into billboard to trumpet a message, no matter how widely supported?

How would we feel about a giant AIDS ribbon hanging from a window? Or what if Conservative Rob Anders dangled his “Free Tibet” t-shirt from his office window, instead of wearing in front of Chinese officials?

After all, the Federal Accountability Act strictly prohibits former public office holders from lobbying for five years after leaving government.

Day says he got the green light from the Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, but her office punted my questions to Shepherd, by email telling me that…

What you’re referring to falls under the Lobbying. Act – you should contact Nathalie (sic) in the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Shepherd, it is worth noting, is notoriously mute on these kinds of issues. In my experience, her staff invariable use the Privacy Act to trump the public’s right to know about the conduct of people paid to influence our elected officials. But, that’s my personal bugaboo.

Surely on a matter like this, which begs clarification of the distinction between  “government relations” consulting and lobbying under the FAA, we could expect some response, right?

Er, no. I asked her comms person for something, anything, about Day’s new company. Here’s the response:

Hello,

The Commissioner of Lobbying’s mandate is stated clearly in the Lobbying Act. She is responsible for administering the Act and the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct.

The Lobbying Act imposes a five-year prohibition on former designated public officers to engage in lobbying activities as defined by the Act. Former designated public office holders are prohibited from organizing a meeting or communicating, for payment, with a federal public office holder regarding certain subject as defined by the Act.

The Commissioner will not comment on specific individuals.
Thanks,
Natalie
_________________________________________________
Natalie Hall
Senior Communications Advisor | Conseillère principale en communications
Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada | Commissariat au lobbying du Canada
255 Albert Street, Ottawa ON K1A 0R5 | 255, rue Albert, Ottawa ON K1A 0R5
Natalie.Hall@ocl-cal.gc.ca
Telephone | Téléphone 613-952-4306
Cell | Sans-fil 613-875-2579
Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-957-3078

After all, the Federal Accountability Act strictly prohibits former public office holders from lobbying for five years after leaving government.

Day says he got the green light from the Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, but her office punted my questions to Shepherd, by email telling me that…

What you’re referring to falls under the Lobbying. Act – you should contact Nathalie (sic) in the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Shepherd, it is worth noting, is notoriously mute on these kinds of issues. In my experience, her staff invariable use the Privacy Act to trump the public’s right to know about the conduct of people paid to influence our elected officials. But, that’s my personal bugaboo.

Surely on a matter like this, which begs clarification of the distinction between  “government relations” consulting and lobbying under the FAA, we could expect some response, right?

Er, no. I asked her comms person for something, anything, about Day’s new company. Here’s the response:

Hello,

The Commissioner of Lobbying’s mandate is stated clearly in the Lobbying Act. She is responsible for administering the Act and the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct.

The Lobbying Act imposes a five-year prohibition on former designated public officers to engage in lobbying activities as defined by the Act. Former designated public office holders are prohibited from organizing a meeting or communicating, for payment, with a federal public office holder regarding certain subject as defined by the Act.

The Commissioner will not comment on specific individuals.
Thanks,
Natalie
_________________________________________________
Natalie Hall
Senior Communications Advisor | Conseillère principale en communications
Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada | Commissariat au lobbying du Canada
255 Albert Street, Ottawa ON K1A 0R5 | 255, rue Albert, Ottawa ON K1A 0R5
Natalie.Hall@ocl-cal.gc.ca
Telephone | Téléphone 613-952-4306
Cell | Sans-fil 613-875-2579
Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-957-3078

Caldwell was dispatched with Orwellian aplomb. His bio was expunged from the website and there was no mention of his exit on air. Instead, Sun News ran lots of promos for his replacement, author and sometime AM talk radio host Michael Coren.

Viewers might well wonder if Theo had been but a figment of their imaginations, like that long forgotten military action in Eastasia.

For anyone who ever watched The Caldwell Report, it’s departure comes as faint surprise.

But was it fair, based on the numbers it pulled?

I took a peak at the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement numbers for the week the most recent five days before Caldwell’s exit. They show that Caldwell actually held his own during the afternoon, compared to other daytime Sun shows.

Indeed, average viewership on the network took a slight dip when Krista Erickson took over from Caldwell at 3 pm, these numbers show. On Friday, he scored 50,000 sets of eyes, though finished well behind TVO’s ersatz monkey lemur on Zoboomafoo, with 73,000.

But at night, Caldwell swooned. On Thursday, for example, he drew but 6,000 viewers (all numbers here based on individuals age 2 or greater, average viewers per minute). By contrast, the top show at that time, E-Talk daily, pulled 568,000.

Caldwell’s show was the second-worst rating that night at 7 pm, according to the BBM numbers. The only thing with fewer viewers? Darts, on Sportsnet East+, which got 5,000.

Worth noting, however, is that Caldwell’s numbers tanked even worst on Friday, but he was up against the NHL draft on TSN, with 1.1 million viewers in the average minute.

The numbers also show that radio host Charles Adler isn’t burning up the track in the attractive 8 pm time slot, either. The numbers aren’t great for David Akin’s The Daily Brief, but in fairness, he’s up against the big boy evening newscasts.

Clearly, wacky conservative bloviating carries the day, as Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley rate at the network studs. On Friday night, Lilley pulled an audience more nearly twice the size of CTV News Net was pulling at the same time but about half the share of CBC News Network. Still, not bad for a start-up.

Because I’m a Bell TV subscriber, I haven’t been watching much Sun News recently — like most everyone else in the country.

But the few times I’ve tuned in while at work, I’ve heard a rotating casts of Sun hosts railing about a nefarious deal between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to hog the TV rights to the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill.  The feds sold the rights to the show to itself, the Sun alleged.

“Heritage Canada inked a deal with the taxpayer-funded CBC worth an estimated $600,000 to air a star-studded line-up of Canadian greats, including Sam Roberts, Great Big Sea, indie rocker Dan Mangan, pop star Pierre Lapointe and salsa princess Florence K.,” the Sun reported.

The Sun pins the blame on Heritage Minister (and moderate Tory) James Moore. “Moore said Sun News could have bid for the broadcast rights, but chose not to. But what he didn’t say is that CBC has an unfair advantage because it receives federal funding and can afford commercial-free broadcasts, unlike private networks which rely on advertising dollars.”

The Sun’s campaign sounded torqued, so I made some calls to CBC to find out what was really going on. It turns out the $600,000 figure is, apparently, pulled out of thin air.

The CBC is not paying Canadian Heritage $600,000 for rights to broadcast the Canada Day show.

Instead, the networking is providing production — cameras, trucks, switching, lights, blah blah– and is also sharing other unspecified costs of the show, but not at $600k.

For their part, Heritage lined up copyright permissions from the 106 scheduled performers that allowed CBC to legally broadcast it.

If you’ve ever been to a Canada Day show, you know that it is not — how to say this kindly? — a particularly attractive television property.  Of the acts listed by the Sun, I’ve heard of only Sam Roberts and Great Big Sea. For me,  Canada Day will forever evoke images of CanCon crap like Rene Simard and Patsy Gallant, as well as lots of native dancing and fiddlers.

So, not surprisingly, when Canadian Heritage cast around for broadcasters interested in carrying the show, only the CBC showed any real interest.

After they inked the broadcast deal, however, we learned that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Catherine, would be attending the event.  Add the Royals, and suddenly other broadcasters — Sun TV, come on down –  wanted a piece of the pie.

But because negotiating copyright clearances is a huge pain in the ass, there’s no time to do that for other broadcasters.

And, besides, CBC had already won the rights fairly by being the only bidder, fair and square.

The Sun’s gripe, it appears, is just sour grapes over not getting the video rights to Wills and Kate.

Because I’m a Bell TV subscriber, I haven’t been watching much Sun News recently — like most everyone else in the country.

But the few times I’ve tuned in while at work, I’ve heard a rotating casts of Sun hosts railing about a nefarious deal between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to hog the TV rights to the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill.  The feds sold the rights to the show to itself, the Sun alleged.

“Heritage Canada inked a deal with the taxpayer-funded CBC worth an estimated $600,000 to air a star-studded line-up of Canadian greats, including Sam Roberts, Great Big Sea, indie rocker Dan Mangan, pop star Pierre Lapointe and salsa princess Florence K.,” the Sun reported.

The Sun pins the blame on Heritage Minister (and moderate Tory) James Moore. “Moore said Sun News could have bid for the broadcast rights, but chose not to. But what he didn’t say is that CBC has an unfair advantage because it receives federal funding and can afford commercial-free broadcasts, unlike private networks which rely on advertising dollars.”

The Sun’s campaign sounded torqued, so I made some calls to CBC to find out what was really going on. It turns out the $600,000 figure is, apparently, pulled out of thin air.

The CBC is not paying Canadian Heritage $600,000 for rights to broadcast the Canada Day show.

Instead, the networking is providing production — cameras, trucks, switching, lights, blah blah– and is also sharing other unspecified costs of the show, but not at $600k.

For their part, Heritage lined up copyright permissions from the 106 scheduled performers that allowed CBC to legally broadcast it.

If you’ve ever been to a Canada Day show, you know that it is not — how to say this kindly? — a particularly attractive television property.  Of the acts listed by the Sun, I’ve heard of only Sam Roberts and Great Big Sea. For me,  Canada Day will forever evoke images of CanCon crap like Rene Simard and Patsy Gallant, as well as lots of native dancing and fiddlers.

So, not surprisingly, when Canadian Heritage cast around for broadcasters interested in carrying the show, only the CBC showed any real interest.

After they inked the broadcast deal, however, we learned that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Catherine, would be attending the event.  Add the Royals, and suddenly other broadcasters — Sun TV, come on down –  wanted a piece of the pie.

But because negotiating copyright clearances is a huge pain in the ass, there’s no time to do that for other broadcasters.

And, besides, CBC had already won the rights fairly by being the only bidder, fair and square.

The Sun’s gripe, it appears, is just sour grapes over not getting the video rights to Wills and Kate.