Now that the election is behind us, I can begin making some much needed changes to the Blogging Dippers site and I need the input of the BD’s members and supporters.

One of the changes I’ve already made is to add a section on issues that are of importance to the NDP and its supporters. This will serve as a storing house of articles and policy papers from bloggers, organizations and media pundits on these issues. If you come across an example of such an article and think it should be included, email me the link.

The second change, which is currently being worked on with the assistance of Andrew at Bound By Gravity, is the addition of an rss feed for the aggregator. I’ll let you know when that is up and running.
Update: The rss feed is now up and running thanks to Andrew. And yes, even though it doesn’t look like a standard rss feed, it is one. You can either use the autodetect feature most rss readers have or use that url to add it to your reader.

Update II: I’ve also added a calendar of events that may be of interest to NDP supporters.

As for other changes, I’m opening up the floor to suggestions. What does the Blogging Dippers site need that will make it more useful? Here’s one suggestion to get things going.

1) Discussion: Should the site have a forum for discussion or should I add user diaries with comments like the Progressive Bloggers site has?

Any other suggestions for ideas or changes that should be made to the site?

When the idea of arming our border guards was first pushed into mainstream discussion, I was against the idea for one simple reason. It’s an unjustifiable expense. Arming our border guards will require that they undergo a whole new level of training to be able to properly handle the firearm as well as to be able to identify when it’s appropriate to unholster and possibly use it. In addition to this expense, is the added expense of setting up some form of oversight, similar to what’s in place for our existing law enforcement, to look into any incidents where a border guard must resort to using his firearm.

For more than a hundred years our border with the United States has functioned with little or no problems. I can’t recall of a single incident where a border guard has lost his life and the rate of assault committed against them is negligible. And before anyone brings it up, the recent incident where several guards left their post because of an armed and dangerous criminal being chased toward the border is not really related to border security. Criminals always flee toward the border and the law enforcement of the nation they’re fleeing from is more than capable of handling their own internal matters; as was the case because the incident was resolved even before it hit the US/Canada border.

So I saw very little justification for arming our border guards. Now however, I’ve changed my position soley on the basis that the border guards themselves are asking that they be armed. I worked as a carpenter for many years and one thing that always made my tasks easier was recognition of the fact that you can’t do a proper job if you don’t have the proper tools. I mean, sure you could pound nails in with a rock, but a hammer is simply a far superior tool for the job. And it’s for this reason that I now support the arming of our border guards. They feel that they need them to do a proper job of guarding our borders.

And this is what distinguishes the left from the right when it comes to issues like this. The left recognizes that they don’t know everything and will defer to those who actually do. In the above case, it would be ludicrous of me to insist that I’m more knowledgible than the border guards when it comes to the tools required to do the job. The right however, doesn’t believe this to be true. They believe they know what is required to get the job done better than those who are actually doing the job.

Case in point. The head of Canada’s police chiefs, Jack Ewatski has once again called for the Conservatives to not scrap the federal gun registry. He asserts that it is frequently used by law enforcement officials across the country and has now become one more tool they can use to do a proper job. And true to form, the conservative pundits are claiming they possess superior knowledge when it comes to knowing whether a particular tool of the trade is of any value to our law enforcement officials.

The gun registry has become a political whipping point used by the right to generate hostility toward the Liberals. But the fact is, that it is a tool that law enforcement officials have found to be of value and for the conservatives to continue dismissing this simply for the sake of political gamesmanship shows that they don’t care if our police have the proper tools to do a proper job. When it comes to the gun registry only one group’s opinion now matters; our law enforcement officials who use it every day and PM Harper cannot afford to ignore their opinion on its value. What he can do however, is ignore the opinions of those with no real knowledge pertaining to the value of the gun registry and nothing more than a political agenda to peddle.

For those of you who are foolishly believing the bigots don’t have enough numbers to repeal the same sex marriage legislation, go read Andrew Coyne’s assessment. If he’s right, the regressives may have enough votes.

Canadian Press rewrites history in their January 28th article titled “New Democrats can find common ground with minority Tories: Layton” by making a false claim that Jack Layton attacked the Conservatives as being out of step with Canadian values.

Jack Layton meets with his 28 other New Democrat members this week to see whether they can work with the Conservatives, who were vilified by the NDP leader in the election campaign as completely out of step with basic Canadian values.

This simply isn’t true. It was the Martin Liberals who were playing the “conservative values are not Canadian values” card and not Jack Layton or the NDP. What Layton did say many times is that Harper’s policies are wrong.

NDP Leader Jack Layton rejected the whole Tory program.

“The Conservative platform is wrong for working women. Wrong for working men. Wrong for working families,” he said in a speech in Saskatoon.

This is not the same as saying the Conservatives are out of step with basic Canadian values and Canadian Press needs to either issue a correction of this error or they need to provide a direct quote that proves Layton actually said this.

Email CP (editors@cp.org) to inform them of their error and ask them to correct it.

Welcome to the big chair, Stephen, now here’s a slap in the face from reality. First up, Le Revue Gauche points to a couple of articles on the reality Harper is going to face trying to implement his tax cuts, such as this one from the Toronto Star.

But there’s a problem with lowering the GST rate right away.

The first income tax reductions announced by the Liberals have already passed into law. The Canada Revenue Agency has sent out millions of tax forms, incorporating the changes for the 2005 tax year.

“Can Harper change the GST rate midway through 2006?” Poschmann asks. “It’s unlikely. He may propose looking at it in 2007 instead.”

The delay makes sense. With the Liberals’ income tax measures in place for the first year, the Conservatives may not have the revenue needed to pay for their GST promise.

However, there’s danger ahead. The provinces may want to grab some of that GST money for their own purposes.

The second dose of reality Harper’s new government is already facing is a showdown with Klein over healthcare.

During the election Stephen Harper made no bones about it he defended the Canada Health Act. Well now he will get his chance. Becuase his good friend from Calgary, Ralph Klein has drawn the line in the sand and has shoved Harper with a dare ya challenge. Klein intends to violate the Canada Health Act with the hope that the newly elected Conservative goverment will not do anything. Caught in a quandry Mr. Harper is. Does he defend provincial government autonomy to do as it pleases or does he defend the Canada Health Act. This will be a test of his Prime Ministership. Gee it doesn’t get any better than this, challenged by Klein within 72 hours of being elected. Now if it had been a Liberal government, well Klein would have never had dared. He has waited since 1999 for a sympathetic Conservative government in Ottawa.

And the final bit of reality Harper now must face comes from Tilting At Windmills who points out that the new Conservative government is rethinking its position on subsidies for the manufacturing sector that continues to get squeezed by the rising dollar and high commodity prices. Ian hits the nail on the head regarding the dilemma plaguing Harper.

It’s always amusing when hard economic and political reality bumps up against ideology.

It’ll be amusing too, watching the conservative supporters as they begin flip flopping their opinions in order to justify why subsidies are now good, the tax cuts they absolutely had to have must now wait and why saving healthcare from Klein’s attempts to destroy it needs to be done even if it goes against their drive to decentralize the federal government and hand more power to the provinces.

Welcome to the reality of being in charge, rubes. You’ll find that slinging feces and blind ideology don’t solve problems.

As I’ve stated before, it’s my belief that Canada needs to seriously consider acquiring nuclear weapons of its own in order to defend itself from the only real threat to our sovereignty.

A day earlier, David Wilkins, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said his government opposes Harper’s proposed plan to deploy military icebreakers in the Arctic to detect interlopers and assert Canadian sovereignty over those waters.

“There’s no reason to create a problem that doesn’t exist,” Wilkins said as he took part in a forum at the University of Western Ontario in London.

“We don’t recognize Canada’s claims to those waters… Most other countries do not recognize their claim.”

Now given the fact that the current president of the United States has a reputation for invading sovereign countries without justification, I think it’s only prudent for Canadians to consider this a direct threat from the White House. And Harper’s plan to defend our sovereignty with icebreakers is as laughable as Saddam’s threats to defeat the US were. Neither icebreakers nor tough talk from Harper will protect us from the machinations of the Republican Empire. The only thing that will accomplish this are nuclear weapons.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” Well, Canada certainly knows how to walk softly so it’s time for them to acquire that big stick.

It looks like slappy Kinsella is up to his old tricks again now that the election is over and he’s facing the prospect of drifting off into obscurity. This time the net kook is wetting his pants over this remark by Mark Bourrie of Ottawa Watch.

And they remember Kinsella was executive assistant to Public [sic] Works minister [sic] David Dingwall. Kinsella was the guy who foisted Chuck Guite on the bureaucracy. He was a key actor in the sponsorship kickback scandal. And that scandal is about half the reason Paul Martin is on the kids.

Mark’s reply to the letter from the net kook’s lawyer is.

There will be no apology.
There will be no retraction.

Good for you, Mark.

As for the net kook, now the statement is on two blogs. Care to throw more fertilizer on it and see where else it blooms?

Antonia Zerbisias and Tod Maffin have more on the net kook’s desperate attempt to avoid becoming a nobody.

Cathie From Canada hits the nail on the head.

We don’t get to choose the battle. We only get to choose our side.

Read the rest of her post. It shows that it doesn’t matter whether or not the ground we fight on is the ground we’d like to fight on. All that matters is that once the battle is engaged we choose a side to fight on and not wait for ground that is better suited or risk losing the battle entirely.

No BMD, Eh has more info on Derek Burney, the man fronting for the political movement to get Canada into Bush’s Ballistic Missile Defense program, and now in charge of Harper’s transition team.

Now it’s January of 2006, and Burney is leading the transition team for PM-designate Stephen Harper. Since Harper himself is on record as a supporter of ballistic missile defence, and has mused during the campaign about re-opening talks with the American administration if elected, it will be interesting to see if BMD-booster Burney’s calls for ‘leadership’ on the issue (i.e. ignoring the views of Canadians) will now fall on more receptive ears.

Le Revue Gauche also chimes in with some info about Burney and how this signals Harper’s intent to continue the Ottawa tradition of pandering to special interest groups.

It should come as no surprise that Burney and the Conservative party plan is to revive Missle Defense, develop a contiental expansion of NAFTA and look at creating an economic union with the United States.

Burney’s life after being a diplomat has been to become a mover and shaker of the Corporate elite in Canada within the corridors of power.

His recent appointment to TransCanada Pipeline last fall indicates that his pipeline to power within the Conservative Party is appreciated by the Oil Barons in Calgary.

As I pointed out in my post on this, the optics of this hiring are not good considering Harper spent more than a year criticizing the Liberals for this type of thing and then spent 8 weeks on the campaign trail promising to put an end to it. Prime Minister Harper needs to either leave the issue of Canada’s involvement in missile defense off his agenda or he needs to hire someone who isn’t directly involved in an effort to make it happen. Otherwise he’ll demonstrate to the Canadian electorate that his talk of cleaning up Ottawa was nothing more than empty campaign rhetoric.

Update: In a related post, Balbulican over at Stageleft indicates how the hiring of Burney shows that Harper is gearing up to begin slashing civil service jobs by stealth.

I don’t know how he did it, but Optimuscrime has the details about President Bush’s phonecall to Prime Minister Harper.

Who needs Diebold to steal an election when it’s so much easier just to insure the ballots handed out to voters are pre-marked for the Conservative candidate.

Accidental Deliberations has the news on the results of an auto theft reduction program in Saskatchewan that shows tougher sentencing is not the way to reduce crime.

Oh my, this election, despite the win by the Conservatives, is turning into a nightmare for the conservative liars. Hot on the heels of their lie about liberal bias dominating our media and how this translates into negative coverage of the Conservative Party all the time being debunked by the new McGill study comes this result from the Student Vote exercise that debunks their lie that our education system is brainwashing students with leftwing ideology.

To sum up what the Student Vote program was about, it simply held an election where students were the participants. They first learned about our democratic process, the party platforms and local candidates then come election day, they held a vote of their own.

There were over 400,000 students participating in this learning experience and the results were rather surprising. Blogging Party of Canada has created a table of the results for you to see. But here is how the 3 major federal parties did.
CP: 31.5%
LP: 21.9%
NDP: 23.2%

So how can it be that the Conservative Party received the highest share of the popular vote by these students when, according to conservative pundits, our education system is nothing more than a leftwing indoctrination centre? Clearly our children must be getting all points of political view in their studies or else the results wouldn’t be so diverse.

So another conservative lie is put to rest and it should now be clear to everyone that when a conservative starts talking about political bias it means nothing more than they’re about to lie to you.

Sinister Thoughts catches the National Post editorial board making a racist comment.

The Amazing Wonderdog catches the Toronto Sun publishing stupidity.

Le Revue Gauche catches NewsMax peddling a lie first propagated by David Frum and repeatedly debunked, even by conservatives.

Update: Crawl Across The Ocean puts to rest the silly liberal media bias lie with the results from this year’s McGill study on media bias during the election campaign.

During the campaign there were 3,753 articles written about the election in the 7 newspapers studied (The Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, the Toronto Star and the Vancouver Sun, La Presse and Le Devoir).

Of those 3753, 3035 mentioned the Liberal party. Out of those 3035, there were 40 with positive mentions of the Liberal party and 445 with negative mentions of the Liberals, giving a 11 to 1 ratio of negative mentions to positive (slightly higher than last election’s 10-1 ratio).

Meanwhile, for the Conservative Party, the figures were 2730 total articles, including 144 positive mentions and 127 negative mentions, for a slightly positive overall slant (the positive mentions were similar to last election, but the negatives were cut in half).

No doubt the conservative liars will simply ignore this study just as they did the `04 one and continue to falsely claim the media is biased against them. But none the less, that’s two studies in a row that have clearly proven the Conservative Party received more favourable coverage during election campaigns.

On behalf of the Blogging Dippers I’d like to congratulate the 29 New Democratic Party candidates who were either re-elected or newly elected to Parliament. Congratulations to all and I know you’ll do us proud.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who did not win for their efforts. Even though they lost, they worked tirelessly to show Canadians that the NDP is a viable alternative to the other two national federal parties. Thank you for all your hard work and I hope to see all of you return in the next election.

As well, I’d like to thank all those who volunteered to help run the campaigns. It is because of your work that the NDP managed to send 10 more MPs to Ottawa than they did in the last election. Thank you for your efforts.

I’d also like to thank on behalf of the Blogging Dippers, the professionals who set up and administered the CTV Election Blog and the CBC’s Blogger Roundtable for giving amateur bloggers a voice on the national stage. Thank you for including us in your coverage of this election.

Well that didn’t take long. After campaigning on a slogan of “Vote for change” and railing against Liberal corruption, it took the new Harper government less than 24 hours to signal it will be business as usual in Ottawa. I’m referring to the press release announcing the selection of Derek H. Burney as the man who will lead the team helping the Conservatives make the transition between governments.

So who is Derek H. Burney? I’m glad you asked. Derek H. Burney served as ambassador to the US during the Mulroney government and is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Trade Policy and Law. He is currently the Director of Quebecor World and Shell Canada Ltd. Oh, and more to the point, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of CAE Inc. from October 1999 until August 2004 and is an influential executive member of both the CCCE and the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.

Now why are those last two parts important? Again, I’m glad you asked. You see, CAE’s former CEO, Derek H. Burney, along with other lobbyists for the afformentioned CCCE and Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, are amongst a small but elite group of Canadians who are the driving political force behind getting Canada to sign onto George W. Bush’s Ballistic Missile Defence program. And on top of that, CAE is the recipient of subcontract work from Boeing on the BMD program.

Now considering Stephen Harper signalled his intent to reopen the issue of Canada’s participation in the BMD program, is it a sign of government accountablility when his first act as PM is to hire a man who has an interest in seeing Canada sign on to that very program and will most likely be lobbying him about it in the future? I think not and it just goes to show the only change Canadians got on January 23rd was which party’s special interest groups would now be the recipient of governmental largesse. Clearly Mr. Harper’s idea of cleaning up the government is no different than that of the last occupant of 24 Sussex Drive.

During this election campaign there was frequent speculation as to how a Harper minority government would get its policies passed through Parliament. Stephen Harper said he wouldn’t form a stable coalition with another party but would instead approach them on a case by case basis.

This is not an acceptable plan for governing our nation. Neither is it an inclusive plan as it simply speaks to the conservative’s selfish trait of wanting their, and only their, entire platform implemented. And it’s not in the interest of the other three parties to go along with this, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” style of governance.

This means it’s incumbant upon Stephen Harper to forge a stable alliance with either the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party or the Bloc Quebecois. To do otherwise would to leave Canada in a permanent state of instability as the government could fall every time a vote of confidence arose. Canada has just gone through a year of such turmoil and I doubt Canadians are willing to face another of the same.

So who is it going to be, Stephen? Can you work with the separatists? Can you work with the Liberal Party you just spent more than a year claiming was corrupt to the bone? I doubt it since neither will do anything for your image. So the choice is clear. Only by forming a stable and equitable coalition with the NDP will your government last long enough to get anything done.

If Harper balks at this idea and decides to go his “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” route of governance, then I think its incumbant upon the three opposition parties to end Harper’s rule even before it begins. They can then form a stable coalition government of their own that will work for all Canadians, not just the conservatives.

The big board currently stands at;
CP: 108
LP: 92
NDP: 25
BQ: 52
Other: 1

With much of BC still to report it’s looking good for the NDP.

Update: With nearly all ridings reporting in, the big board now stands at;
CP: 121
LP: 100
NDP: 29
BQ: 50
Other: 1

Go Dippers.

Update II: Jack wins!

Update III: 32! And I saw it was a close race in one or two other ridings. By the way, it looks like SES nailed the popular vote.

Update IV: Since the clownservatives are winning, I think it’s fair game to make fun of them. Here’s the first arsewipe sighting of the night.

Not Good Enough.

I don’t know what the assholes in hogtown need to have happen before they stop voting for the most corrupt, arrogant, manipulative, scaremongering, lying, rude, foul government in our history.

What can you say. These right whingers are repulsive regardless of whether or not they win.

Update V: The one party banana state dream is complete in Alberta. The cons have swept the province. Now I’m off to see if any liberal bloggers have fired up the stop Ignatieff campaign yet.

Update VI: Time to update the big board.
CP: 120
LP: 105
NDP: 31
BQ: 50
Other: 1

The NDP has picked up just over 50% more seats and the Conservatives have been held to a bare minority. Somebody start the non-confidence countdown clock.

Update VII: Prime Minister Martin? Angry in the Great White North is chewing his guts out over a parliamentary technicality that could return Paul Martin to 24 Sussex Drive.

Here’s a scenario to curdle the blood of some voters: Conservative Leader Stephen Harper wins the most seats but Prime Minister Paul Martin stays in power.

Governor General Michaelle Jean is entitled to choose the next prime minister and it’s not just a question of which party has the most seats.

Jean could favour the Liberals if she had indications they would get support from the New Democrats, for example.

Now this is an interesting situation. Should Jack Layton support such a move or should he accept that the Conservatives have won and help Harper into the top job for a price? I would opt for the later if the price is right. Either way, it looks like Jack will once again be in the driver’s seat in the next session of parliament.

Update VIII: Paul Martin has just conceded. Would Harper have done the same if the situation were reversed? Anyway, even though the votes are still being counted in a few close races, here is pretty much what our next government will look like.
CP: 125
LP: 102
NDP: 29
BQ: 51
Other: 1

Now it’s time to get to work insuring the Harper government is held accountable for his government’s actions. Keep in mind, even if his crazier members try to sneak through some garbage legislation and it fails to pass, the intent was still there. We cannot allow Harper to act like Bush; saying one thing while doing another.

Update IX: As expected, the Liberal leadership race is on. Who will be in the running? Ignatieff’s, Stronach’s and McKenna’s names have been bandied about. Any others?

Update X: Sweet. Harper is right now giving his “I have a mandate” speech. Oh yeah, this is going to be a short minority parliament.

A few thoughts on the big night. I have to say I’m dreading tonight’s outcome even though I know I should have faith that it won’t be so bad. It’s just that after getting pasted by the Ottawa Senators in the last 3 games by a combined score of 23-2, I fear there is going to be little joy in Leafland again tonight.

On the other hand, I believe there will be plenty to celebrate in Dipperland once the polls close. Barring a last minute panic attack by the NDP’s soft supporters that sends them scurrying to the Liberal camp or a weird anomolous result due to our first past the post electoral system, the NDP is poised to make a significant gain on their `04 total. And that will be good news all around as it will signify a return to significant representation for progressives in this country rather than just having to make do with the faux progressive Liberals.

Anyway, I’m still sticking to my earlier prediction of 113 seats for the Liberals, 90 for the Conservatives, 46 for the New Democrats and 59 for the Bloc. For the record, my prediction last election was pretty close. Here it is with the actual results in brackets.
LP: 145 (135)
CP: 97 (99)
NDP: 21 (19)
BQ: 45 (54)
GP: 1 (0)
IND: 0 (1)

Last of all, here’s a heads up to everyone. I will be turning on the comment moderation feature at My Blahg and will be temporarily suspending the rss feed aggregator at the Blogging Dippers from 7pm EST to 10pm EST in order to insure compliance with Elections Canada blackout rules. Then I’ll be off to watch the Leafs get torn a new one before starting my election result coverage around 10pm; at which time I’ll approve any comments made during the blackout. So that’s it. There really is nothing left to say at this point other than make sure you get out there and vote; preferably for the NDP. Then sit back, relax and enjoy both of tonight’s games.

The final SES numbers (pdf) on the eve of election are quite interesting. Instead of just showing their usual 3 day rolling average, they’ve also shown the individual numbers for each day.

It shows the Conservative support at 38.3% according to the results from Friday, Jan. 20, but only at 33.2% today. Are people rethinking their support for Harper now that they’re faced with actually voting for him or is this just a common type of occurance we never got to see because SES has only shown the 3 day average until now?

I certainly hope the former reason is responsible for this and that it’s not just an anomaly since the last day of polling also shows the NDP sitting at 22.2%.

Either way, tomorrow is going to be an interesting election day.