The Canadian Senate Gets Busy and Other Unlikely Stories

If you're rubbing your eyes or you're sitting there thinking to yourself, "Good one Karl! Always room for more sarcasm when discussing Canada's sleepy Senate." Well, think again. Members of the Senate are unhappy with Harper's omnibus style budget that is loaded with crap that has nothing to do with the budget and are getting ready to carve it up. They even have the support of Progressive Conservative Senator Lowell Murray.

 

Since Bill C-9 is a confidence matter that could bring down the government if it is defeated, the Conservative government has stacked it with measures that the opposition finds unpalatable. They are unlikely to act on this as the political parties are all led by not so brave men who spend all their time reading polls and do not want to go to the polls right now.

 

One of its more egregious proposals would exempt a wide range of commercial projects from rules designed to protect the environment - does this idea make you think of the Deepwater Horizon? And the cabinet would have the right to sell off the country’s nuclear corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada, without parliamentary approval. Top it all off with Harper's law and order obsession - Harper seems intent on sending more Canadians to prison at a time when crime in Canada is decreasing - and and it's altogether a nasty sh** sandwich they're serving up to Canadians.

Good for the Senate!

You're going to love this: Mexican president Felipe Calderon, embarrassed his host Stephen Harper at a joint press conference, stating, "We cannot wait for the developed countries to make a decision. Some of them, like the U.S., could take another eternity to decide on what they had decided since the Kyoto Protocol. We know that the quality of life, and the future, is at risk. And I mean the future of a great deal of humanity.”

Mexico will host the next round of UN-sponsored climate change talks in Cancun at the end of November, and in a speech to the House of Commons earlier in the day, Calderon that stressed the need for Canadian leadership on climate change. 

 Needless to say, asking for Harper to lead on anything other than American ass-kissing is a long shot at best.

 

Here's what our MP's do in Parliament most every day - one of the main issues of the day was nyah-nah-nah nyah-nah!

 

This is a problem all across North America and even sexy, urbane Montreal is not exempt - black youths get targeted unfairly by Montreal police and are more than twice as likely to be arrested as white teens.

 

The one billion dollar plus pricetag of the coming G8 and G20 summits are on everyone's mind and so the Liberals have asked for an audit. I don't believe that's going to change much. The real problem is these events are staged - it's all pro-forma - and everything has already been agreed to in advance. This meet-up is entirely for show and at these prices it's a shameful waste.

Were you aware that by 2021 the elderly will outnumber kids? The number of people over 65 will more than double, from 4.7 million in 2009 to between 9.9 million and 10.9 million by 2036. Seniors will surpass children aged 14 and under between 2015 and 2021.

To close with a bit of good news, the Nature Conservancy of Canada has bought 14 square kilometres of land in an environmentally sensitive area of southwestern Ontario that is home to dozens of endangered species of animals and plants. The land will help fill in gaps between areas that are already protected, giving the threatened wildlife more terrain to live in and increasing its chance of survival.