26 April 2011 — I’m puzzled that the Harper Conservatives’ are getting such a free ride from the other parties and from the media on their main campaign mantra: that they are the best economic managers, that Canada is leading the international pack to economic recovery, and that Harper knows best what’s good for jobs and the economy going forward.

Let’s look more closely at the Harper record, beginning with his response in the fall of 2008 to the recession that engulfed the world, the deepest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Vote with your heart, vote with your mind

Vote to clean out of government those who hold you in contempt

It's been a federal election campaign like no other. It started with a yawn but it's fast approaching the finish line with the sense that Canadians are prepared to break the chains of tradition that for too long have choked democracy in our country.

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"News is what (certain) people want to keep hidden. Everything else is just publicity." -- PBS journalist Bill Moyers.   Your support makes it possible for True North to clear the fog of "publicity" and keep you informed on what's really happening in the world today. Please send your donation to:   Carl Dow, True North, Station E, P.O. Box 4814, Ottawa ON Canada K1S 5H9.   Or use our new Paypal system! Just click the secure link below — and if you're paying by credit card, you don't need a PayPal account to make a donation!

 

The Droz Report

A warm wind blows from the (centre) left

Jack Layton's positive campaign bears unexpected fruit

By Geoffrey Dow

Managing Editor, True North Perspective

I admit it. Neither I, nor anyone else here at True North Perspective, saw it coming. And even now, there is an aura of doubt, of disbelief, as we watch the polls and see the continuing assent of the New Democratic Party under Jack Layton.

Can this really be true? we wondered last week, when the New Democrats began to poll even with Canada's one-time Natural Governing Party. One poll led to another and another and another.

If stated intentions turn out to be votes on Monday, it looks like it really is true. — 599 words.

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Good intentions quickly dissipate for new MPs

Like the citizens who elected them, MPs often grow disillusioned with Ottawa's day-to-day realities

By Alex Binkley

True North Perspective

29 April 2011 — The reality of life in Parliament quickly scuttles the ambition of most new MPs to make a difference in public life and their communities, say men and women who have spent time in the House of Commons.

With a new Parliament on the way, what better time to deal with the issue?

A report on life on the Hill prepared by Samara says most MPs come “to Ottawa determined to create a different politics from that which was on offer — one where their communities were better represented, and where the political culture encouraged more citizens to pay attention to their country’s politics. — 907 words.

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From the Desk of Dennis Carr, Sustainability Editor

Bruce Carson scandal greased by Harper's oil sands agenda

So much more than sex and sleaze at heart of Harper Government scandal

By Andrew Nikiforuk

TheTyee.ca

27 April 2011 — Everyone loves a good political scandal and the Bruce Carson affair squarely fits the bill.

A 66-year-old former senior policy advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemingly lobbies the government on behalf of his 22-year fiancée, a former sex worker.

She dresses in sexy lingerie. Newspapers publish lurid photos.

Ottawa talks, yet its busy gossipers recognize Carson as your average political fixer with an active sex life and a couple of criminal convictions.

Everyone that is, except the Prime Minister. Harper, a tough guy on crime, acts appalled and abruptly refers the whole matter to the RCMP.

The scandal seemingly ends.

But that's not the full truth, let alone the real scandal. — 5,093 words.

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F-35 service costs may be more than twice

Harper Government's estimate

By Murray Brewster

The Globe and Mail

25 April 2011 — National Defence says it's been told the unit price of the F-35 stealth fighter will be higher than the $75-million it planned for, but the military insisted late Monday it can still deliver the program on budget.

The Pentagon, in a recent report to the U.S. Congress, outlined a laundry list of cost increases in the $382-billion (U.S.) development of the advanced fighter-bomber. — 744 words.

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In Canada, human rights stop at the farmers' gates

 

Supreme Court rules farm workers have no right to unionize

 

By Kirk Makin

The Globe and Mail

29 April 2011 — The Supreme Court of Canada dealt a harsh blow to the union movement today, ruling in favour of an Ontario law that restricts the right of farm workers to bargain collectively.

The Court said that the constitutional right to free association guarantees that “meaningful” negotiations take place between workers and their employers – but it is not intended to police the mechanics of how those negotiations take place. — 1,332 words.

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The wind done gone

It wasn't a tornado but gale force winds that lashed eastern Ontario Thursday, April 28, winds that were strong enough to blow the roof off this sturdy barn near Campbellford, Ontario. Intrepid East Central Ontario Editor Ken Jeffries got drenched with rain while capturing what remained of the barn. ______

A lesson to be learned from the wild geese

29 April 2011 — While the wild geese are passing through on their way to their nesting grounds, we Canadians are wrestling with another election. We think we are the smartest species on this planet and yet, we can learn much by watching animals in their natural habitat.

Humans hold grudges. This is how we ended up with Mike Harris as Conservative leader in Ontario years ago. Harris proceeded to make massive cuts to education. Schools lost special services in arts, physical education, music and library. School libraries became practically dysfunctional or were taken over and run by volunteer parents. He cut budgets meant for the purchase of books, all the while throwing new curriculum our way. — 712 words.

Frances scours Parkdale in search of clean needles

29 April 2011 — I was visiting my Family Medicine Clinic at the local Health Centre the other day. As I was waiting in line for my number to be called, I looked around the room. There were a lot of new parents.

Some were both parents attending to their tiny offspring. Others, just the mother, or, in one case, just the father.

As I enjoyed watching these parents doting over their babies, I noticed a woman in her late 20's walk timidly into the reception area. 

You could tell she had never been there before. She appeared out of place as she shyly looked around.

I immediately went up to her and explained, "You have to take a number and in turn the receptionist will call you."

She thanked me, took a number, sat down still looking very uneasy and out of place.

From the Desk of Darren Jerome, Ottawa, Canada

WikiLeaks reveals U.S. comments on

Harper's 'about-face' on Senate reform

CBC News

28 April 2011 — WikiLeaks released hundreds of U.S. documents on Thursday, including those with comments about the Harper government's "about-face" on Senate appointments, remarks on the Liberals' "muted" response to the prorogation crisis and criticism of Canada's failure to enact copyright reform.

	Cartoon by Steve McNabb. For much more, click here.

 

By David Leigh, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke

The Guardian

25 April 2011 — More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America's controversial prison camp in Cuba.

The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called "worst of the worst", many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment.

The 759 Guantánamo files, classified "secret", cover almost every inmate since the camp was opened in 2002. More than two years after President Obama ordered the closure of the prison, 172 are still held there. — 1,315 words.

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27 April 2011 — One of the world's best known climate scientists, an Australian, watched in amazement earlier this month as Canada's four federal leadership contenders debated the country's future.

"I was mystified to see that the environment just didn't rank at all," Tim Flannery, best-selling author of the Weather Makers, told Postmedia News after the televised debates.

Flannery's remarks underscore a strange reality lost on most Canadians: The international community appears to worry more about Canada's environmental commitments -- particularly around climate change -- than many of our own elected officials.

Science

'Exotic' planet is densest of its kind

55 Cancri e as dense as lead and has year less than 18 hours long

26 April 2011 —

You might think that with so much riding on the tests, every civic-minded person in the country would be demanding transparency, proof of validity, assurance that every item on every test had been examined from every possible perspective.

Money and Markets

Arrogance and authority

The Great Recession's 'recovery' is a tale of private gain and public loss

26 April 2011, WASHINGTON, DC — It is increasingly common to hear prominent American and European central bankers proclaim, with respect to the crisis of 2008-2010, the following verdict: “We did well.”

Their view is that the various government actions to support the financial system helped to stabilize the situation. Indeed, what could be wrong when the United States Federal Reserve’s asset purchases may have actually made money (which is then turned over to the US Treasury)?

But to frame the issue in this way is, at best, to engage in delusion. At worst, however, it creates an image of arrogance that can only undermine the credibility on which central banks’ authority rests. — 916 words.

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Book Review

Prose to Go: Tales from a Private List

Edited by Irene Davis, Fred Desjardins, and Barbara Florio-Graham

Reviewed by Lois Henderson

New York Journal of Books

 

21 April 2011 — This collection of short nonfiction accounts is linked by a common thread of veracity and sincerity that has one reading through the whole gamut of emotions from humor to pathos.

 

Prose to Go is divided up into a number of sections, regaling the reader with humorous anecdotes (“Misadventures”), reaching out with pathos to the very heart of the reader’s awareness (“Rearview Mirror”), coming to grips with life’s milestones (“What in the World”), remembering those who have meant the most in our life (“Love and Loss”), and sharing the good times (“Exit Laughing”). — 448 words.