Every bottle comes complete with its own paper bag.

Adscam was small potatoes in the Libranos legacy;

A seasoned, 30-year career Canadian diplomat, Mr. McAdam’s assignments included London, Copenhagen, Barbados, Amman, Bangkok, Bogota, Dublin, Helsinki, Glasgow, Tokyo and, twice, Hong Kong.
His second Hong Kong posting, 1989 to 1993, as immigration control officer, included responsibility for southern China. He was tasked with protecting Canada from international people-smuggling rings, murderers and drug-smuggling, organized criminals from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong.
It was his last posting.

Read the whole thing. Finally, Donna Jacobs is doing what the rest of the mainstream media “investigative journalists” should hang in their heads in shame over.
Flashback – to his credit, Peter Worthington wasn’t afraid to mention the Sidewinder report in an op-ed in 2005. A search of SDA will turn up other old items, though some of the links are now dead. If anyone has the link to the once available surviving copy of the original Sidewinder report (officially ordered destroyed by the Chretien government), let me know, and I’ll rehost them myself.
Update – here it is. Sidewinder: Chinese Intelligence Services and Triads Financial Links in Canada.

No brown envelopes for you, young Liberal!

Karlheinz Schreiber takes a turn for the credible;

Conservative MP Russ Hiebert: Can you tell the committee the name of the justice minister who signed your surrender order for extradition to Germany on Oct. 31, 2004?
Karlheinz Schreiber: From my recollection this was Mr. [Irwin] Cotler.
Conservative MP Russ Hiebert: Could you tell me which political party Mr. Cotler is a member of?
Karlheinz Schreiber: Liberal party.
Conservative MP Russ Hiebert: So is it your testimony that the Liberal party is also part of this quote ‘conspiracy and cover-up’?
Karlheinz Schreiber: Yes, they initiated the whole thing against me in Germany in 1995.

Heh.

Previous mockery.
(source)

From a reader who knows of what he speaks;

The Liberals were only interested in Perception- making sure the Musical Ride was performing well. They knew for years that a lot of experienced Officers would be retiring in a short time frame 2002 -2009 and basically did nothing about it. If the total RCMP budget didn’t have sufficient funds, they had to make difficult choices, hence a lot of their National & Federal policing units were cannibalized, including the Public Integrity unit. Who benefited? The criminal organizations are now doing $50 billion /yr.( counterfeiting & MJ are $40 billion alone). With that type of money, who can’t they buy off?
They have lost a lot of experience in the past few years and the only hope is that Veteran Officers have a full and frank discussion with the Brown Commission, top investigators are rehired or retained and that ample resources are provided. They have never been given proper resources to make up for the extra work that is needed for Charter compliance. The paperwork eats up 10 -20% more manpower- manpower that could be doing investigations or patrol work.
When the Liberals didn’t provide adequate funding, the major crooks had a field day. The major busts have been few and far between. The last were about 10 years ago with the Cuntrera/ Caruana Org and maybe a handful of others- out of 10,000 major players. That’s the real Liberal legacy. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and the anti police media are having a field day. The fact that young inexperienced officers were killed at Mayerthorpe and in the North shouldn’t be a surprise and with the bulk having less than 5 years experience, there will unfortunately be more problems that exacerbate the underfunding and understaffing.
The defence lawyers love the negative stories about the Mounties, makes it easier to get their clients off or get a reduced sentence- the credibility issue. The Liberals left these problems for the Tories- unfortunately it will get worse before it gets better unless some bold steps are taken in the short term. It’s difficult to change a major organization overnight no matter what good intentions people may have.

Check out the comments at Jack’s Newswatch – “What’s really killing the Mounties”

New light on an old Chretien administration lie;

This was a government that was so transfixed at all levels with managing relations with Washington — politician to politician, general to general, senior official to senior official — that the foundation of Ottawa’s policy on the war in Iraq was put at risk. The decisions on exchange officers and the command of Task Force 151 needlessly exposed the government’s policy to daily assault and even ridicule in the House of Commons. As McCallum recalled, “That’s when [Stephen] Harper called me an idiot.”
In an almost schizophrenic way, the government bragged publicly about its decision to stand aside from the war in Iraq because it violated core principles of multilateral-ism and support for the United Nations. At the same time, senior Canadian officials, military officers and politicians were currying favour in Washington, privately telling anyone in the State Department or the Pentagon who would listen that, by some measures, Canada’s indirect contribution to the American war effort in Iraq — three ships and 100 exchange officers — exceeded that of all but three other countries that were formally part of the coalition. McCallum himself told Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador in Ottawa, that Canada was “the opposite of Spain,” a country that originally supported the invasion of Iraq but that contributed very little militarily to the war effort.

The CBC National touched on another aspect of just how thoroughly the Chretien government was invested in misleading the Canadian public – while declaring a “principled” position in supposedly staying out of the Iraq war, Canadian troops were in fact, not wanted there. Instead, “Bush puppet” Chretien agreed to an American request to take on a larger role in Afghanistan.
I can’t find a text version of this report on the CBC website, so if someone has the time and technology to capture the National segment linked above to Youtube, let me know and I’ll post it.
Update – ask, and ye shall receive!

Thanks to Mississauga Matt.

The party of true believers;

According to briefing notes, obtained by The Canadian Press, only 5.6 per cent of Liberal party members have donated so far this year to the party, one of its riding associations or to one of the former leadership candidates, who are struggling to pay off about $3.6 million in cumulative debt.
Only 29 per cent of Liberal MPs have donated to the party and almost none of their staff members.

But don’t despair, dear Liberal non-supporters;

Among other things, [the party] will employ former prime minister Jean Chretien and Paul Martin to make e-mail solicitations.

They’re calling it the “brown e-envelope campaign”.

Liberals stealing from Liberals? If it keeps them from stealing from us, then I say – leave them be!

Fingers are being pointed and aspersions cast among Liberals in advance of the June 28 annual meeting of the Elgin-Middlesex-London federal riding association.
The missing [$16,000] and actions of the association’s board of directors have prompted complaints from rank-and-file Liberals upset at being kept in the dark. They’re demanding answers.
“I’ve never encountered anything like this and I’ve been in politics since I was 13,” said Lois Jackson, a St. Thomas party member. Jackson is upset the riding executive has said nothing about the matter publicly, despite conducting a nomination meeting in April for which nearly 800 party memberships were sold.
[…]
The Free Press has learned a high-ranking party official tried to solve the problem by offering to cut cheques for the missing money provided local officials agreed to take no further action and considered the matter closed.
A letter from David J. Pretlove, then interim executive director of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario), offered to cover the missing funds. That letter was given to the board in January by Suzanne van Bommel, then a member of the board and now also the party’s candidate in the riding for the next federal election.
Van Bommel said she presented the offer “on behalf of Mr. Pretlove.”
Pretlove is now director of finance and administration for the party’s Ontario wing.

What are we waiting for? Get these people a basketball court!

Three unusual cases of recovered memory;

Jean Pelletier – Former chief of staff to prime minister Jean Chrétien
Before Parliament: “We, at the Prime Minister’s Office, were in no way involved in the administrative management of the program.”
At Gomery: “Certain events would ask too much, and I would say, ‘No, that doesn’t make any sense, that’s too much.’ ”
Jean-Marc Bard – Former chief of staff to public works minister Alfonso Gagliano
Before Parliament: “Mr. Gagliano never asked me to do fundraising” for the Liberal Party of Canada.
At Gomery: “At one point, the minister asked me, because they were having trouble putting together a fundraising table in eastern Quebec, to help the person who chaired the fundraising committee. …
Chuck Guité – Former bureaucrat in charge of the sponsorship program
Before Parliament: “To say [political officials] interfered, i.e., with the selection of agencies, never. I would not let them do that because ministers are not to interfere with the selection process.”
At Gomery: “A decision was made in discussion with the minister and Mr. Pelletier what agency would get it. If I had to do the decision on who got what, the list would have been quite different.”

You know things are going badly for Dion when he gets ridiculed in MacLeans:

January, 2006: New dog. Names him Kyoto.
April, 2006: Launches Liberal leadership bid. Says a third pillar, environmental sustainability, must be added to the first two, prosperity and social justice.
May-November, 2006: 472 speeches about the third pillar. None about the first two.
(snip)
July, 2007: New budgie. Names it Al Gore.
August-October, 2007: Launches “I’m So Green I’m a Freaking Leprachaun” tour.

And that’s not all. Be sure to read it all.

When Paul Martin announced the Gomery Inquiry, those who had actually read Sheila Fraser’s report into Sponsorship instantly recognized that the narrow scope of his mandate was designed to expose Chretien’s gang, while keeping the Martinistas off limits. That’s about to be rectified, if MIchael Fortier gets his way. Ignore the gratuitous editorializing questioning the motives – the Star knows better than anyone that the Martin – Earnscliffe relationship stunk to high heaven;

The Conservative government will launch an investigation today into alleged Liberal-era irregularities in taxpayer-funded opinion polling.
Public Works Minister Michael Fortier will launch the probe at a Parliament Hill news conference this morning, casting it as the fulfilment of another election campaign commitment from 2006, according to government sources.
But the announcement appears designed to place Stéphane Dion’s Liberal party under a cloud of suspicion, on what could be the eve of a federal election campaign.
The public works department and major polling firms have been negotiating the terms of the investigation for months.
But rather than a wide-ranging look into the relationship between the federal government and polling companies, sources suggest it will have a narrow focus on the relationship between the Liberals and Earnscliffe Strategy Group, an Ottawa-based government relations and communications firm that had close links to former prime minister Paul Martin when he was finance minister.
David Herle, a former senior Earnscliffe partner, was among Martin’s top political advisers and ran the Liberal party’s election campaigns.
The investigator will determine whether further action, such as a judicial inquiry, is required, and then provide a final report to the public works minister.

Party at Kinsellas!
Search SDA for previous entries regarding Paul Martin’s special relationship with Earnscliffe.

A would-be candidate in Victoria finds out how the new Liberal nomination system works;

Then, yesterday, I received a telephone call from Bruce Young – a BC Campaign co-chair from head office in Vancouver. He advised me that he intended to install a woman by the name of Anne Park Shannon in the riding. He advised me that this could be accomplished in any number of ways including her direct appointment, denying approval for myself or anyone else to run against her or by manipulating the process in a variety of other ways.
Mr. Young then offered a variety of incentives to persuade me to step aside. He advised that the Liberal party has a “good record of taking care of people who agree to step aside.” I have advised him that I have no interest in anything of this nature.

Ottawa, February 15, 2007;

RCMP “A” Division Ottawa Commercial Crime, assisted by the Integrated Market Enforcement Teams, laid a charge against Serge Nadeau earlier today in connection with the income trusts investigation.
The investigation was initiated in December 2005 when the RCMP received allegations regarding a possible breach of security and illegal transfer of information in advance of the Government of Canada’s Nov. 23, 2005, announcement of changes to the taxation of Canadian corporate dividends and income trusts.
Serge Nadeau, age 50 of Ottawa, General Director, Analysis, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance Canada, is charged with Criminal Breach of Trust, in connection with the duties of his office. It is alleged that he used confidential Government of Canada information for the purchase of securities which gave him a personal benefit. Breach of Trust, under Section 122 of the Criminal Code of Canada, is an indictable offence with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for up to five years.
The RCMP works to maintain confidence in Canadian markets by preventing, detecting and deterring crimes that affect the Canadian economy. The RCMP has conducted an exhaustive investigation. The investigation into the income trusts matter is now concluded.

Click on over to Officiallyscrewed.com.

Via David Akin, paraphrased;

He was for “consequences” for the oil industry before he was against nationalization, before he was for “limits” on oil sands expansion before he was against limiting expansion, before he was for a “cap” on oil sands emissions before he was against a cap on expansion, before he was against growth of the auto industry plant in his home riding that has no hope in Hell of expanding, and he is for Albertans who are also for him.

Faster, please.
Another, somewhat longer transcript. Holland’s serpentine backpedalling act was nearly as good on Mike Duffy Live.
Update – Conservative MP Diane Ablonczy (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, CPC) : “Mr. Speaker, a Liberal has slipped up and given Canadians a glimpse of the Liberal’s secret agenda.”
Previous posts.

Claudia Rosett does some investigating into Maurice Strong’s murky dealings in the U.N.:

Along the way, Strong has also been caught up in a series of U.N. scandals and conflicts of interest. These extend from the notorious Oil-for-Food program to the latest furor over cash funneled via U.N. agencies to the rogue regime of North Korea, which involves, among other things, Strong’s creative use of a little-known, U.N.-chartered educational institution called the University for Peace. Above all, the tale of Maurice Strong illustrates the way in which the U.N., with its bureaucratic culture of secrecy, its diplomatic immunities, and its global reach, lends itself to manipulation by a small circle of those who best know its back corridors.

Ed Stelmach has finally forced the Mark Holland controversy into the mainstream. Unsurprisingly, the Canadian Press piece is framed as a dismissive rebuttal and expose’ of Alberta’s failure to curb emissions. That’s what “journalists” do when they’re dragged kicking and screaming to a story they’d prefer be buried – they get even;

EDMONTON — Premier Ed Stelmach warned Monday of “dire economic consequences” if Alberta were ever forced to slow oilsands development to curb emissions that cause global warming.
Stelmach called reporters to his office to respond to what he said were recent comments by Ontario MP Mark Holland, the Liberal natural resources critic.
Holland was asked on a radio talk show if the Liberals would nationalize the oilsands if Alberta refused to go along with federal efforts to curb developments that increase emissions.
He responded by saying that a Liberal government would try to “work with (Alberta) collaboratively,” but added “there will be consequences” if the province refused.
Stelmach described the comments as “reprehensible” and insisted the Liberals were threatening to grab control of the oilsands.
“When we hear talk of perhaps nationalizing the oilsands — a moratorium on oilsands development will bring about dire economic consequences right across the country.”
In fact, Holland had issued a news release Friday in an effort to correct what he described as attempts to distort his comments.

Mark Holland’s comments are on tape and in the public domain. For Canadian Press to weasel his statements into a case of “he said, he said” is a blatant example of journalistic misdirection. Contrast the brevity of the “quotes” selected from Rutherford interview with the space devoted to damage control;

“The Liberal party will continue to support the development and expansion of the oilsands in a reasonable and sustainable manner,” he said in the release. “Any other characterization of our position is nothing more than an attempt to fear-monger.”
In an interview from Ottawa on Monday, Holland said he couldn’t figure out why the Alberta premier and others were twisting his comments.
“Perhaps by creating fear and distorting not only what I said, but the position of our party, that they think they can extract some political gain from it,” he said.

Warren Kinsella, fearmongerer? Now, watch the tables turn as they uncover Stelmach’s ‘lie’.

Stelmach also threw out some figures Monday suggesting Alberta has taken a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Alberta is the only province on record that has actually reduced CO2 emissions by 16 per cent,” he said.
But the premier later conceded he was talking about so-called emissions intensity, which is a measurement against the growth in industrial production rather than a total measurement of what’s coming out of the smoke stack. If a company increases emissions at a slower rate than it increases production, then emissions intensity is reduced even though absolute emissions have increased.
An Alberta Environment official later confirmed that total emissions have increased by 40 per cent since 1990, but emissions intensity is down by 16 per cent over the same period.
NDP Leader Brian Mason described Alberta’s record as appalling and called for a moratorium on new oilsands projects.
“There’s approximately 50 (projects) that are up and running or in some form of approval and 100 more awaiting various stages of approval,” Mason told a news conference.

The same reporters who couldn’t be bothered to phone the Alberta premier for his response to Holland trotted over to an NDP news conference to record their reaction? In Alberta?
If you thought the silence of last week was a mainstream media shielding Mark Holland from his own words, you’re wrong.
They endorse them.
Previous posts
Update The Calgary Sun’s Darcy Henton was standing closer to the front.

LIB MP HOLLAND: “THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES”
When will the Mainstream Media start covering the Liberal Agenda?
by Charles Adler
As I apply my ink stained fingers to the trusty keyboard, it’s been more than 72 hours since Mark Holland, the Liberal Natural Resources critic, belched out the most threatening words I have heard in a political conversation in years.
But for some reason the Mainstream Media has seen them not worthy of attention.
Pierre Bourque of the Bourque Newswatch asked me to scribble my thoughts on the interview with the Liberal MP which contained serious threats to the Western Canadian economy all in the name of respecting Kyoto.
When I asked Holland whether a Liberal government under Stephane Dion would shut down or limit oil sands production if necessary to meet Kyoto targets, his response was, “Exactly.” He then went on to say “I think what you are going to see is we’re going to say you cannot exploit that resource, basically go in there and pump it out as fast as you can to give it to the Americans and sell out our national interests and blow apart our emissions targets.”
[…]
It’s much easier for Liberals to demagogue the issue and pretend that it is ALBERTA energy that embarasses Canada in the hallowed shrine of Kyoto. Perhaps one ought to stop giving the mainstream media excuses for ignoring Mark Hollands sourgas? Maybe it’s the oldest reason in the hills. Holland is to the left of the Canadian centre. Does anyone doubt that if a member of Harper’s gang were to say something that came right out of rightfield that might be embarassing to the leadership that it would find itself planted firmly on the front pages as well as the teleprompters of Mansbridge, Robertson and Newman?
Warren Kinsella, who was interviewed on Adler on Line after Mark Holland offered his emissions, said he coudln’t believe what Holland was saying and thought the Liberal brain trust would immediately disown this stuff.
But they haven’t.
[…]
A day after Mark Holland’s threatening remarks, he appeared on my Corus colleague Dave Rutherford’s program and was asked whether a Dion government would consdier nationalizing oil companies if they didn’t meet Kyoto standards. Holland replied, “If they refuse to work with us….there will be consequences.”

(Emphasis mine). Read the whole thing here.

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