David Akin's On the Hill

The Hill anti-abortion rally

DavidAkin — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:50:59 -0400

It's a bit chilly and windy on Parliament Hill this lunch hour but that seems not have chilled the enthusiasm of a few thousand who who have gathered on the Centre Block's front lawn to demonstrate against Canadian abortion laws.
This is an annual event here on the Hill held ...

Bev Oda's limousine addiction

DavidAkin — Thu, 08 May 2008 07:21:50 -0400

The limo picked Oda up at her home at 8 a.m. about 80 kilometres west of Toronto, drove her downtown, hung around with her all day, drove her to a Conservative Party "boot camp" event in the evening, then drove her home after that and -- $1,300 later -- dropped her off at 11 p.m. back at her home.... The federal New Democrats, relying on invoices and receipts obtained under Access to Information requests, accused Oda on Wednesday of spending thousands more on limos, flights, hotels and food for her and her friends, some of which she failed to disclose under new federal accountability laws.

Harper won't move from crumbling official residence

DavidAkin — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:19:22 -0400

Someone needs to step up and fix 24 Sussex Drive, says the Auditor General:

Auditor says 24 Sussex falling apart; Harper will stay put

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not move his family out of 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister's official residence, even though Canada's auditor ...

Apparently the sky was not the Liberal limit

DavidAkin — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:36:04 -0400

Remember that Liberal "Sky's-the-limit" fundraiser back in February?

That was the one, held on Feb. 13, where Liberals were encouraged to bid on various auction items and they could bid as much as they want - the sky was the limit! After this poster raised some eyebrows, it became clear ...

Goodale's factors for "a rationale for change"

DavidAkin — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:50:25 -0400

In the weekly newsletter to his Regina constituents, Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale (left) talks about election timing and what he expects his leader Stéphane Dion is considering:

Three factors are coming together to create a compelling rationale for change.

First, there’s that disturbing pattern of unethical Conservative ...

Winning the carbon war

DavidAkin — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:06:57 -0400

Remember Stéphane Dion's early speeches on the environment shortly after he became Liberal leader? I'm paraphrasing but it went something like, if Canada can lead the way in figuring out how to cut megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, Canada can make megatonnes of money.

So here's a report from ...

Why we spent billion on those four C-17s ..

DavidAkin — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:37:56 -0400

Until the Canadian Forces acquired its own fleet of Boeing C-17 Globemasters that were capable of flying our biggest loads -- tanks, the DART, etc. -- around the world, we used to have to a rent a ride to get our people and gear to where they needed to go. ...

A look back at April

DavidAkin — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:25:57 -0400

An all-time record number of visitors dropped by this site in April, which is both gratifying and surprising. I've always said that I'd keep blogging even if no one was reading this because the stuff here is my digital dumping ground for notes, background, and observations that I often ...

Conservatives clean up with fundraising

DavidAkin — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:52:05 -0400

Wow. The Conservative Party raised nearly $5-million in the first three months of 2008, more than twice as much as every other federal party combined.
Not only that, but the NDP raised more money than the once-mighty Liberals.
The Liberals managed to raise less than $850,000 in the quarter. Once ...

Some surprising economic data

DavidAkin — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:42:59 -0400

Some surprising news on the economy this morning -
First, the U.S. Economy grew in the first quarter of the year so, technically, the U.S. Is not in a recession.
Second, the Cdn economy shrank in February, largely because of a decline in manufacturing. That surprised most forecasters who predicted ...

The next headline you'll read: The Toronto Maple Leafs make the playoffs ...

DavidAkin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:24:12 -0400

Since joining Confederation in 1949, the annual budget of the government of Newfoundland and Labrador has included a big helping hand from Ottawa.... Meanwhile, Newfoundland's seat in the have-not club looks to be taken up about the same time by Ontario, which hasn't taken an equalization dollar since 1983.

Humour: Nigerian e-mail scam vs. Conservative financing scandal

DavidAkin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:57:05 -0400

Calgary Grit has a good one ...

Dearest Candidate,

Good morning, how are you and your family? I hope fine. Please, I am sorry to bother you with my problem.

Please know that it's not by mistake I am contacting you but by the special grace of God. My name ...

Canada's Two Economies? Maybe not...

DavidAkin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:10:33 -0400

For the last several weeks, one of the major themes I've been reporting so far as Canada's economy is concerned is the phenomenon of two economies within one nation. One economy is B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador and those provinces are booming. The other economy is in central ...

Bisphenol A: We hardly knew you ...

DavidAkin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:52:41 -0400

The Washington Post today looks back at more than a 100 years of Bisphenol A, the chemical recently labelled as a a possible problem by Health Canada (a big victory for environmental activists; a bitter defeat for industry types).... My government, which, above all else seems to want to be prudent, says: "The scientists concluded in this assessment that bisphenol A exposure to newborns and infants is below levels that may pose a risk, however, the gap between exposure and effect is not large enough."

Harper's a "control freak", former Tory PM says ...

DavidAkin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:40:57 -0400

Still, she's a pretty smart cookie if politically, er, unlucky. And she tells Canwest's man in Paris that Harper is "very controlling" but "competent": PARIS - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is running a competent government but should curb his "control freak" tendencies and make clear to Canadians his government won't impose a socially conservative agenda if he wins a majority, according to former prime minister Kim Campbell...

PR, journalism, ethics and Joe Thornley

DavidAkin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:55:39 -0400

They not only know stuff about the clients they represent but they know a lot of stuff about their competitors and about the industry they're in. If I'm looking to sniff out a rumour, let's say, about an airline company, the PR folks at that airline company are unlikely to tell me much.... The good ones know that relationships they establish with a journalist should outlast whatever client they're representating or whatever project their office is involved in. Which brings me to Joe Thornley of the public relations firm Thornley Fallis.

Must read: A reporter is jailed in Zimbabwe

DavidAkin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:27:26 -0400

Barry Bearak has been reporting for The New York Times from Zimbabwe's capital Harare.... His account of the arrest is fascinating: One of my captors, Detective Inspector Dani Rangwani, described the offense to me as something despicable, almost hissing the words: “You’ve been gathering, processing and disseminating the news.”

Iggy, Campaign Finance, and Obama

DavidAkin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:03:44 -0400

This line in his speech jumped out: In 2006, we ran a national leadership campaign in the world’s second largest democracy—by geographic size—for a little over 2 million dollars, and we did it with a wider base of donors than any other candidate.... The campaign finance reforms initiated first by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and then improved upon by Prime Minister Stephen Harper prove that it is possible to have a vibrant and democratic political culture, in which free speech rights are preserved, without the distorting effects of "Big Money" in the life of the state.

Looking for an AppleScript I can use on Entourage - can you help?

DavidAkin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:26:32 -0400

So I'm wondering if AppleScript can help me out here, taking any message that comes into a designated folder on my local machine and then saving that message with a unique filename in a designated folder on my local drive.... The name of the file doesn't matter just so long as these mail messages get out of their .mbox format and into a plain-text format on my drive.

Tory support leaking to Liberals

DavidAkin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:59:53 -0400

The Liberals are up four points to 30 per cent. When it comes to the who's-a-better-leader type of questions, poll respondents overwhelmingly picked Harper over Dion on all characteristics but one: When asked which leader they rated as honest and trustworthy, Dion was picked by 38 per cent; Harper by 33 per cent. And 58 per cent of those polled say the credibility of the Conservatives had been damaged by the RCMP raids.... Susan Delacourt, in her reporting on this poll, sounds a note of caution for election-hungry Liberals: Despite all this bad news for the Tories, however, the poll does not provide any strong encouragement to Liberals to provoke a snap election when the Commons returns Monday after a one-week break.

Saskatchewan: Confederation's flat fatcat

DavidAkin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:06:46 -0400

James Woods reports on the front page of today's Regina Leader-Post that the flattest of provinces has the fattest of bank accounts: Saskatchewan's ever-fattening bank account may yet burst as extra cash appears likely to fall into the government's hands thanks to stratospheric resource prices.... With oil prices reaching $119 US a barrel on Friday, the province appears likely to reap more -- perhaps a great deal more -- in oil royalties than projected in the budget, with its estimated oil price of $82.36 US for the fiscal year.

A Potash bubble?

DavidAkin — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:15:32 -0400

For a long time, the most valuable company in Canada, as measured by their stock market value, was the Royal Bank of Canada. Banks are a nice steady business that throw off lots of cash every year and it made sense that RBC was king of the hill.

But ...

Canadians mark ANZAC Day

DavidAkin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:21:46 -0400

ANZAC Day, which will be marked April 25, is Australia's most important national commemoration. It marks the anniversary, according to information in my inbox this morning from the high commissions to Canada of Australia and of New Zealand, of the first time Australian and New Zealand military forces fought ...

Meanwhile in Iraq, the Canadians dropped in ...

DavidAkin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:40:11 -0400

I tore myself away from all the Conservative election scandal stuff to write this one up for tomorrow's papers: OTTAWA - Canadian Forces personnel learned to operate Canada's newest military plane, the giant Boeing C-17, by training on American jets, including flying those planes into Iraq in support of the U.S. war, according to a memo written by Canada's top general and obtained by Canwest News Service.... "Canadians have been very clear from the beginning that they wanted no part of George Bush's war on Iraq," said NDP MP Dawn Black, her party's defence critic, "and they certainly don't want to see Canadians getting involved through a back door."

Flanagan to Conservatives: Suck it up!

DavidAkin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:44:56 -0400

While some of my colleagues like Glen McGregor -- who, along with Parliament Hill freelancer Tim Naumetz, first reported on what we now know as the in-and-out scheme -- dug into the details of the nearly 700 pages of documentation that the Elections Commissioner put in front of a judge last week in order to obtain a search warrant, Elizabeth Thompson, a few desks over from mine, remembered what Tom Flanagan had said about the concept of moving money in from the national campaign to the local campaign and then back out again from the local campaign to the national campaign.... And, keeping in mind that one of the defences mounted by Conservative MPs in the House of Commons in the wake of the RCMP raids was that it just wasn't fair, that every party engages in the advertising financing schemes that they did.

Was Conservative ad scheme legal? "We are not certain beyond all reasonable doubt"

DavidAkin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:31:28 -0400

Digging through the nearly 700 pages filed by the Elections Commissioner to support his request for a search warrant is well worth the effort. There's lots there that's already part of the public record or part of the record in the lawsuit against Elections Canada.

Here's one paragraph from a ...

Conservatives versus the Media: Part 132

DavidAkin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:10:54 -0400

The application for the search warrant served on the Conservatives this week was released this afternoon by the party itself but not to Canwest News Service, CBC, Maclean's and The Canadian Press. CTV, La Presse and The Toronto Star got their own private briefings with party brass but when I ...

Visible Government: Working for online transparency

DavidAkin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:52:57 -0400

It has three projects on the go -- and it hopes to add many more -- one of which is working towards creating some kind of standardized database for the disclosure of the expenses of politicians and their political staff.... Visible Government is also working on a forum for tracking and discussing bills before Parliament, following the example of the U.S. site, OpenCongress.

Dryden Vs Moore

DavidAkin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:33:50 -0400

Ken Dryden, you might have heard, once played a little hockey. I'm told that James Moore laced up the skates, too, and racked up a lot of penalty minutes playing junior hockey on the West Coast. Dryden and Moore are now Members of Parliament and this week, during Question ...

The Public Prosecutor: A little history

DavidAkin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:11:16 -0400

If William Corbett, the Commissioner of Elections, concludes somewhere down the line that his investigation into what is being called the "in-and-out scheme" did, in fact, involve violations of the Canada Elections Act, Corbett will hand over the file to the newly minted Public Prosecutor of Canada, Brian Saunders...