Layton taking a Break From Politics to Fight New Cancer

Jack Layton will be taking a temporary leave as leader of the NDP to fight a new ‘non-prostate’ cancer that has attacked him until September 19, when parliament comes back from summer break.

For the time being, Nycole Turmel was endorsed as interim leader but an interim leader will be chosen shortly. She was recently voted unanimously as the chair of the caucus leader.

Brian Topps said that it made sense for the Chair of Caucus leader to take over as interim leadership despite suggestions for Thomas Mulcair by one of the French media who questioned Topps during the Question Period of the announcement.

Layton has said that his fight against his prostate cancer has been successful and that he would be following his doctor’s treatment during his medical leave as NDP leader.

Layton referenced his optimism for his goals and dreams and the country in his announcement.

“If I’ve tried to bring anything to federal politics, it’s the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart. We can look after each other better than we do today. We can have a fiscally responsible government. We can have a strong economy with greater equality in our society – greater equality that is so important in days where we see inequality growing. A clean environment; we can accomplish these things. We can be a force for peace in the world. As I am hopeful and optimistic about all of this, I have to say I am as optimistic as when I started out my life in politics. And so I am hopeful and optimistic about the personal battle that lies before me in the weeks to come. I am very hopeful and optimistic that our party will continue to move forward. That we will replace the Conservative government in a few short years from now. And that we will work with Canadians to build the country of our hopes, of our dreams, of our optimism, our determination, our values and our love.”

Party President Brian Topps praised Layton's fighting spirit and the fact that he ‘doesn’t give up’ in a question period at the end of the announcement.

Who should be entitled to child benefits?

Ottawa-area father Yannick Cloutier raised 2 children on his own for 8 years. Recently, he moved in with a common-law spouse and two years after she moved in with him, the Canada Revenue Agency decided that they would transfer the child benefits for his two children to his common-law spouse.

The “female presumption rule” states that the benefits must go to his girlfriend despite the fact that she isn’t a biological parent to any of his children, nor raised either of them with Cloutier.

His partner Chantal Huot was given 30 days to reply to a notice to accept the transfer of the benefits or risk losing the benefits all together.

Coutier said that the rule is based on sexist assumptions about the family and have no connection to modern reality.

"I don't know why the government would think today now there's a woman that my rights are gone," he said. "I told them I didn't realize I called the 1950s."

Huot filed the paperwork on time and agreed with her partner that the rule is wrong.

"I think it's wrong. I think the parent should be getting it whether you're a woman or a man."

"Not everybody's like me…Anybody could just go for it and say 'yeah I want the money'. It's not right. Nobody should get this letter."

Revenue Canada said that the rule was upheld after being taken to the Canadian Human Rights Commission in the past.

A single biological mother has a male – who has nothing to do with the child – move in after 8 years and doesn’t lose her child benefits, but a single biological father has to give up child benefits when a woman – who has nothing to do with the child – moves in with him… Does that make sense to you? Does that sound fair to you?

The Government of Canada needs to learn that biological parents know what's best for their children and put an end to this sexist rule that makes no sense at all. How should a biological father be inferior in terms of child care to a woman who had nothing to do with his child?

Comment below with your thoughts. Are you in Yannick’s situation? Who do you think should be entitled to child benefits? I made my position clear, I think that only biological parents should be given the benefits for their biological children and that the government shouldn’t interfere with such sexist and invasive rules. Now, I want to read yours.

The NDP and Conservatives Fail to Make Public Safety Top Priority

The Champlain Bridge is crumbling down but for both the NDP and Conservatives, it isn’t a big issue. With the NDP only releasing a small statement and the Conservatives breaking their heads on how to deal with the documentation, bridge users – like myself – have absolutely no guarantee that the bridge will be replaced and there is no guarantee that the replacement will come before the bridge collapses and people die painful deaths as they plummet into the St. Lawrence.

This may now be considered as old news, but it certainly won’t be old for the many who use the bridge on a daily basis – particularly those who use public transportation as the bridge has bus lanes during rush hour periods.

However, given the impending danger, not only is the Harper government thinking about the political repercussions of the facts, they are also trying to find ways of dodging the issue.

If you don’t remember how the 2011 election campaign went down, you had Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals who vigorously campaigned for a new bridge as soon as possible, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives who ruled out replacing it – calling it too expensive – and opted to repair the bridge instead and Jack Layton’s NDP who very quietly agreed with the Liberals.

Of the three parties, the only party that is rigorously going after the new bridge is the Liberals. Interim Leader Bob Rae said that for the past 5 years, the Conservatives have neglected the aging infrastructure that is set to collapse in the next earth quake.

Federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel refused to release the Pre-feasibility Study Concerning the Replacement of the Existing Champlain Bridge, written in February 2011, a report on the condition of the bridge, this week and justified his actions by claiming that he wanted to avoid panic. Twenty-four hours later, he realized that he made the situation sound worst and released the documents. However, he didn’t release all of the information on the bridge and if he did, the traffic arteries in Montreal would become a headache as motorists flee the Champlain Bridge all together. It just goes to show how military jets and prisons stifle public safety every step of the way.

CTV News footage of Liberal call for new Champlain Bridge

The report said that it could cost as much as $25 million to try to prolong the life of the 49 year old bridge and wouldn’t be enough to keep it from collapsing.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are stepping up their calls for the bridge to be replaced.

"The question is not whether or not a new bridge is needed, but rather when the working group's proposals will be submitted," Rae said in a statement Thursday.

"Even now we do not have all the information which is at the base of these reports," said Rae. "...The fact remains that we have wasted five years -- five years in which work has not been done."

Liberal Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Critic Denis Coderre said that even if the government were to decide to build the new bridge today, it would take years before the mandatory environmental impact studies were completed which would delay the time that the shovels would hit the ground.

The Bridge has about 160,000 crossings daily and is the busiest bridge in Canada – imagine a collapse during rush hour.

"Champlain Bridge users have had enough," concluded Rae. "They have the right to know the condition of the infrastructure they use every day, if the road they travel every morning and evening is safe and, above all, they have the right to know the government's time frame for finally building a new Champlain Bridge."

It is expected to take nearly a decade to build a new bridge which is expected to cost $1.3 billion or $1.9 to build a tunnel instead. Both estimates include the estimated cost of $155 million that is required to demolish the bridge.

While it is nice to see the Liberals take the initiative and fight for public safety, with only 34 seats in the House of Commons and spots of seats in Orange Dominated Quebec, it is likely that their roar right now will become nothing more than a whisper as the Conservatives and NDP shove them aside to fight more ideological battles.

Meanwhile, the NDP are tucked away and unheard of. Apart from a small statement issuing quotes from Olivia Chow, the NDP is unheard of. So where is Jack Layton? Wasn’t he supposed to represent Quebec and its needs? A new bridge should be at the top of the list – or he will have deaths to tend to. You would think that with his status as Official Opposition and his will to make things right, that he would jump on this case for every person who crosses that bridge on a daily basis – guess not. 

So far, the Liberal Party is the only party who cared enough to come down to the bridge. Bob Rae spoke in Montreal – in front of the bridge – as he demanded its replacement. Meanwhile the Conservatives and NDP just don’t care.

I would like to remind all of the Quebec NDP voters, that they voted for this man to fight for their causes, and he is doing a miserable job. Regardless your ideology, regardless your agenda, Public Safety should come first and foremost. The Champlain Bridge is federally owned so the users have no choice but to count on you to make sure that they don’t plunge to their early graves because you decided to venture off into your ideological wars.

In this situation, the Liberal Party is certainly looking like the party that cares about my safety as I cross that bridge. Don’t forget that the Liberals were the ONLY party in the 2011 election campaign to actively promise a new bridge and are now proving to be the only party to enact on that promise.

Will it have to take my life, and those of the 160,000 others who use the bridge, before the government realizes that its purpose is to serve the people and not play political games?

Ethics Commissioner: Helena Guergis Broke Ethics Rules

Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson released a report today saying that former Conservative MP Helena Guergis broke ethics rules when she wrote a recommendation for a constituent whose business was linked to her husband’s.

She wrote the letter to the town council of Simcoe Ontario in 2009 suggesting they look at a green waste-disposal company that was owned by one of her constituents. Her husband, former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer had business connections with the constituent, Jim Wright.

"I concluded that Ms. Guergis contravened section eight of the code by sending the letter relating to Wright Tech, because she was acting in a way to further Mr. Jaffer's private interests," Dawson wrote.

Dawson writes that Guergis asked Jaffer “on a number of occasions” about his business relationship with Wright.

"This indicates that she was aware that there was an issue... Ms. Guergis had the right instincts in raising the concerns with her husband but she should not have let the matter go at that."

Guergis testified that that she saw Wright’s technology as an alternative to a municipal plan which she opposed, the report said.

"I believe that this was indeed a significant part of her motivation," Dawson wrote.

"While we accept that the commissioner found a technical conflict of interest, we are pleased that she accepted and found support for Ms. Guergis' position that this was not her purpose in sending the letter, and that she sent it based on her understanding at the time that there would be no conflict," Guergis’s lawyer Howard Rubel wrote in an email to CBC.

Dawson’s recommendations come as a result of a complaint by NDP MP Libby Davies who pointed out the link.

Dawson’s report also points out inconsistencies between Guergis’s and her husband’s testimonies.

Dawson says that there were significant delays in her inquiry due to the rules pertaining to accessing email accounts of MPs and documents on the Commons server. Guergis and her lawyer vetted everything.

In 2010, PM Stephen Harper kicked Guergis out of her cabinet position and the Conservative Party due to a slew of negative publicity around her and her husband. Dawson’s report at the time found no wrong doing and didn’t request an investigation.

"My office found no evidence in the course of this inquiry to indicate that there were additional matters relating to Ms. Guergis' conduct that warranted investigation under the Act," Dawson wrote in her report.

Guergis lost her seat in the May 2 election to a Conservative replacement.

Read the Document

Ethics Commissioner Report on Helena Guergis

Stephen Harper’s Misunderstanding of Where He Stands in the Public Eye

At the Calgary Stampede Barbeque, Harper took an opportunity to do what he does best: attack his opposition. However, his pitch to convince party faithful that their party has the big Mo may be unfounded.

Harper told the crowd,

"Conservative values are Canadian values. Canadian values are conservative values. They always were.

"And Canadians are going back to the party that most closely reflects who they really are: The Conservative Party, which is Canada's party."

Well, that is news. While the first Prime Minister of Canada was Conservative, historically, the Liberals have been in power for many more years than the Conservatives under all their different names.

If we take into account that Stephen Harper was never a Conservative, but rather a Reform or Canadian Alliance leader – since the Reform Party changed names multiple times, Stephen Harper’s ‘Conservative Party’ will only have 9 years in comparison to a dominating Liberal 84.

Even when Harper’s mandate will finish in 2015, the Conservatives will only have had 64 years in power. To say that Conservative values are Canadian values is false as the Liberal party and its views have been in power the longest in Canadian history. Based on 84 years, nearing 60% of Canada’s life, The Liberal Party of Canada has pretty much built the country and everything we see today.

Side Note:

Let’s take a look at the record. This is a tally of the amount of Prime Ministers each party has had (including all of the Conservative party variations) up until the date of this article.

	Prime Ministers	Years in Power
Liberal	9	84
Conservative	12	60

Source: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/former.asp

Given the results, either Stephen Harper needs a refresher course on Canadian History or he is trying to further brainwash the Canadian population into believing that despite getting only 39% of the vote, he really does represent what we believe and what we think.

"I believe the long Liberal era is genuinely, truly ending. As with disco balls and bell bottoms, Canadians have moved on," Harper said, failing to realize that the Liberals re-launched their website as a blog, and raised $150,000 in 4 days and managed to find ways to cap the financial bleed out by his end to party subsidies which was much more political than austerity.

If the Liberals bring Justin Trudeau as their leader, it is also likely that Harper may be done in his tracks, not to mention that as his run in power continues, people will start feeling the financial pinch and will eventually do what they did to Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives lead by Kim Campbell in 1993. The Progressive Conservatives were slaughtered, left with two seats after building the country’s largest deficit – broken by Harper’s government – and the introduction of the 7% GST.

That would leave either Layton or a Liberal leader in power. Using history as an index, the Liberals will win this one, it will be a repeat of Mulroney – it is just Harper’s turn.

Harper now looks to Quebec, a province that hates Harper so much that they elected 59 NDP MPs as a way of saying that they don’t want anything to do with him or his party. Politically, the NDP is as opposite to the Conservatives as it gets. Ideologically speaking, it would be more suitable for these voters to go to the Liberals or back to the Bloc if they get fed up with the orange wave before ever going to the Conservatives despite polls suggesting that the Conservatives are second choice among both NDP and Liberal supporters which would make a merger between the two parties a catastrophe for both.

Harper told the crowd, "As many provinces know well, no honeymoon passes as quickly and as completely as one with the NDP." 

However, given that people awoke to ridings where they didn’t know their candidate or in the case of Ruth Ellen Brosseau, didn’t know where the riding was, that ‘honeymoon’ may have never existed.

Brosseau did what any politician could possibly dream of: Take a vacation in Las Vegas during an election campaign and get elected in a riding where she cannot speak their language (French), has never even visited, and lives far away from. She got elected without doing anything.

As Harper tells his party to have their hands open for the influx of Quebecers that will flee the NDP protest vote, he fails to realize that they did it because they didn’t want him to have a majority mandate and were sick of the Bloc Quebecois and frankly didn’t want to vote Liberal given the Liberal track record in Quebec – the scars are still alive in Quebec.

In the end of the day, when Canadians get pinched in their wallets, Harper won’t be able to pass through his mandates as he has with his tactical reasoning of command and conquer. He will be governing Canada in next to absolute power until October 2015 with under 40% of the popular vote. Surely, after winning a majority government, he must truly think that his values are Canadian values – especially being on the far right of the political spectrum and being a Reformer in Conservative clothing.

The numbers don’t lie. In 144 years, the Liberals have been in power for 58% of the time, how does that translate into Conservative values being Canadian values and having always been?

European Broadband Makes North American Broadband look like expensive Dialup

If you leave Canada and the United States and go to England, you will notice a big difference in terms of your internet connection. Not only is it much cheaper, it is much faster. England didn’t pump billions into the system to get its widespread coverage and extremely low prices, they used regulations to increase competition and the companies that feared a loss in profits are now booming.

Currently, there are limited choices when it comes to choosing the best and most affordable internet service.

In the UK, for example, increased completion due to a regulatory action to force the big companies to share their wiring with other companies has boosted access to high-speed internet at much lower costs. Not only do customers pay less for more, the companies that provide this cheaper and better quality service make more than when it was unregulated and companies were greedy, selfish and afraid to lose its profits.

In Britain, users can get phone and broadband internet for as low as 3.49 Pounds per month which translates to $5.38 per month Canadian. That is for both the phone and high speed internet.

In the past, Britain used to have the same internet framework as Canadians and Americans. The British Telecom Company was their largest service provider and ran a monopoly of high prices for low quality service. Regulators noticed this and forced British Telecom to unbundle its copper wires.

This meant that the company still owned its wires but it had to allow other broadband service providers use them to reach their customers. British Telecom initially rejected what the regulators wanted to do, fearing it would lose profits to smaller companies. Regulators, however, kept up the pressure on British Telecom until it finally complied. British Telecom now reports that it is as profitable as ever and the one company monopoly became a place where 400 companies competed for the broadband market share driving costs lower and profits up, as well as the quality of service was more than doubled as a result.

The British government didn’t invest a cent into its broadband infrastructure. The only thing that happened was regulators forced more competition into the market.

Even as Britain significantly improved with this change of ways, it is nothing in comparison with their neighbors.

In Amsterdam, the largest and fasted broadband internet network is being built and it isn’t using any government funding either. As a result of their faster internet services, maintenance costs at many companies dropped and business improved.

The regulator actively embarrassed British Telecom until they complied stating each of its failures as a company in its aggressive standoff.

In the end of the day, what is keeping internet companies from big profits and what is keeping Canadians from high quality low priced service is the right-wing ideology that suggests that government regulation is bad for business and must disappear. In this case, government regulation made internet a win-win for both business and customers. In the end of the day, the Conservatives won’t bring you better internet, nor will any party that promises to boost public funding into the system. As it stands, the best way to increase internet coverage, quality and decrease its costs is to enforce and encourage greater competition.

Meanwhile, British Telecom touts its superiority to the US (and since Canada’s framework is similar) and states that since the US doesn’t have a good competitive base, it will never reduce operating costs or offer the best service to their clients and get greater profits as a result.