All things Canadian.....

We've raised over $3,000 as a group.

If you were thinking about supporting the Conservative Party financially - do it now. Click over to their donation page and then come back here and tell me how much you donated and I'll add it to our tally.

There will be an election and the Conservative Party is more dependent on individual donators than any other party.

Here's one comment from Coyne's blog that I read twice:

Polls move. Nobody will hand us this election, we have to earn it. I think now is the time because we will have another few "Gomery Bombs" dropped in the pre writ and perhaps even during the campaign. Dithers has shot his bolt, what's he going to do when the next revelation starts the Libs back down, go back on national TV? That was a one-time use maneouvre. I think he probably will wish he had waited, but the spin obsessed PMO never seems to think ahead more than one week.
Time to get to work. Talk to your friends and neighbours, volunteer to canvass and donate.

I liked it.

The polls in Ontario - not just the CTV one but for years - tell me that people in Ontario and the GTA seem to be looking for a reason not to vote for the Tories - and I don't think it's based on policy differences - it's the Reform brand and Harper himself. He's ~oooooh~ scary. How do you get over this sentiment.

I think the only way is for Harper to be seen on TV, read in the papers, and heard on the radio constantly. Get people so sick of him talking about everything that instead of thinking him scary they think of him as something else - honest, boring, just another politician, angry, funny, conservative, whatever.

Once people can think of him in those terms he's not 'scary'. It would be so much easier to convince them to vote Conservative after that.

It gave the following numbers in Quebec and Ontario:

Quebec:
Bloc 55, Lib 16, Green 12, Con 9, NDP 8
Ontario:
Lib 38, Con 30, NDP, 23, Green 9

They project to the Libs losing 16 in Quebec.

In Ontario the following seats change hands:

Lib to Tory:
Barrie
Chatham-Kent--Essex
Middlesex--Kent--Lambton
Northumberland--Quinte West
Ottawa West--Nepean
Ottawa--Orleans

Lib to NDP:
Welland
Trinity--Spadina
Thunder Bay--Rainy River
Parkdale--High Park
Nickel Belt
London--Fanshawe
Hamilton East--Stoney Creek
Hamilton Mountain
Kenora
Algoma--Manitoulin--Kapuskasing

Tory to NDP:
Oshawa

That's 16 loses for the Libs in Ontario.
Don't have any regional numbers for the West/Atlantic.

Harper has work to do in Ontario. He's being beat by Martin again - at least this time it's at the start of the campaign and he has time to learn.

I was surprised to read that Buzz Hargrove has enough power to basically force the NDP to make a deal with the Liberals. The Globe and Mail goes into how the deal was struck between the NDP and the Liberals:

"We shared with him, quite forcefully, I would add, that the labour movement was not anxious to have an election," Mr. Hargrove said yesterday. "We saw absolutely no reason that we couldn't make use of the minority situation in Parliament to make some gains on the issues that were important to working people."
They told Mr. Layton they would not support him if he planned to side with the Conservatives and Bloc on an early election.
Mr. Layton got the message, and asked Mr. Hargrove to deliver one to the Prime Minister, whom the union leader was scheduled to meet the next day in Windsor.
"A little push and that was my role at the request of Jack Layton," Mr. Hargrove said. "I said to him that Jack Layton is very unlikely to make a commitment beyond the budget in writing, but I said you have to trust that he is not going to support a non-confidence motion immediately after the budget. He knows he does not have the labour unions' support for an election and we're pretty key to that."

Jack Layton said he made the deal because he wanted parliament to work. Maybe he was more worried that if he didn't make the deal he'd be looking for work?

UPDATE: Great comment by Lawrence on the E-Group: "So it's not the tail wagging the dog; it's a flea wagging the tail that wags the dog."

Chris Cuthbert is joining TSN:

TSN President Phil King confirmed that Cuthbert, a 20-plus-year sports broadcasting authority, will be TSN's primary voice of the CFL on TSN, paired with longtime colour commentator Glen Suitor.
....
Following the close of the 2005 CFL season, Cuthbert will join Gord Miller, Pierre McGuire, Glenn Healy, Dave Randorf, Bob McKenzie, James Duthie and Brian Burke, calling the play-by-play for TSN's all-encompassing hockey broadcast schedule, including the NHL and International Hockey.

Fantastic signing by TSN.

Ralph Goodale on February 23rd:

To sustain the growth which drives our economy and enables us to meet the needs of our society, we need to ensure a competitive corporate tax system, too, one that will allow us to attract the kind of investment that stimulates growth and creates well paying jobs for Canadian workers. Jobs is what this is all about.
Over the past few years we have given our Canadian businesses a modest but strategic tax rate advantage vis-à-vis the United States. Over that same period, the Canadian private sector generated more than one million new jobs. However, recent tax reductions in the United States will gradually erode our Canadian margin.
To maintain it, this budget proposes to reduce the statutory corporate income rate by two percentage points, from 21% to 19% by 2010.

From Hansard

Just $300 raised yesterday by the group - our worst day yet.

Did the Layton (our new Minister of Recycling) /Martin deal get Conservative supporters down? Maybe tax time made you realize you didn't have as much laying around as you thought - though wouldn't that be a reason to help the Tories?

Regardless, it looks like it's going to be tough to hit $10,000.

Four days left in the challenge.

I wanted to also say this - listened to Jack Layton on CBC radio this morning (both CFRA and the sports radio were on commercial and CBC was on when I hit the FM button) and I thought it was a little strange to hear him say, in talking about the Conservatives, that the NDP "isn't out to score political points" - they want to "make parliament work". The interviewer kept trying to get a straight answer out of him about when/if they would again consider supporting a non-confidence motion. Jack said as soon as the budget passed "it's open season".
Does this seem contradictory to you?

Momentum that is.

The Blogging Tories Challenge has raised over $2,000 in about four days. Since several bloggers are directing supporters this way and destroyed my previous two goals, I'm raising my personal blog goal up to $1,000 by the end of the month.

The group goal is to raise $10,000 by the end of April.

Thanks to those who have donated already. The Conservative Party is going to need to advertise like never before in the upcoming campaign - whether it's in June or January. Lies about the CPC health care policies that reflect reality, or serious misrepresentations of our military spending proposals, environmental policy, etc, etc, are all the Liberals have to campaign on.

It's up to Canadians that know what the CPC really stands for to help give the party the resources it really needs to campaign professionally and successfully.

I wrote a long post on the BlogsCanada E-Group - that site that many right-wingers and left-wingers both think is biased the other way (it's the Canadian blogosphere's Question Period sometimes) - giving some reasons why I think Martin should be tossed from the Prime Minister's Office. He's not the right guy to fix the system - it can't be "fixed". It requires a culture change.

Thanks to Keith and Tom (If it helps us get a right honest government it might be the best investment I've ever made.), I'm up to $210 for the Blogging Tory Challenge. The group total is over $1,500 and more bloggers are joining in.

If you think the Conservative Party needs help to get their message out to voters - that the Liberals and the mainstream media misrepresents the policies and personalities of the CPC then help us meet our goal.

This should remind you of what I'm talking about - courtesy of Mark Steyn via the Western Standard:

"The minute an election’s declared, the CBC and the Toronto Star will come on side and we’ll stop getting features on Adscam and start getting in-depth investigations on Tory plans to bring back back-street abortions and mandatory readings of Leviticus in gay bath-houses."

Oh, it's funny but you know it's not far off the mark. Good night.

Kate at Small Dead Animals is hosting a Carnival of the Newbies - if you've got a new blog (one month old) or have seen a new one you like, send her a note.

CanadaFreePress is highlighting more links between Martin and Maurice Strong via Oil companies that Saddam invested in - I think we should wait for all the facts to come out before holding an election. Between that, Arar, the questions of judicial appointments, Adscam of course, and whatever else we find out about the Liberal government, we won't be having an election for 5 years so we can "know all the facts".

From Andrew Coyne's column today:

But viewers could be forgiven for asking themselves: which Paul Martin is this? Is it the Paul Martin who was “mad as hell” about the corruption unearthed by the auditor general, or the one who dismissed it as the work of a few rogue bureaucrats? Is it the Paul Martin who vowed to “get to the bottom” of the scandal, or the one who shut down the Public Accounts committee? Is it the Paul Martin who was “personally offended” at how senior members of his party had carried on, or the one who led a standing ovation for Jean Chretien in caucus after his contemptuous appearance at the Gomery inquiry?

Damian Penny has a roundup of reaction from around the Canadian political blogosphere.

I think Layton made a big mistake in trying to cut a deal with the Liberals. I can just hear the Conservative campaigners in ridings where there is a three way race - don't vote for the Liberal-NDP coalition - a vote for the NDP is a vote for to support the Liberals.

UPDATE: Matt Fletcher says what I was thinking:

As prime minister, I will never hesitate to describe what happened on the sponsorship file for what is was — an unjustifiable mess.

This is were he completely lost me. An unjustifiable mess ?! That's how the prime minister characterizes the worst kind, the often illegal, misuse of public money for partisan and personal gain? This wasn't an accounting error. This wasn't a few details missed. This was rampant, organized, partisan violation of the machinery of government and the public trust. Those two words finished it. If unjustifiable mess, is the terms under which the prime minister refers to the sponorship problem, he has to resign right now.

The group has raised over $1,000 in the first day.

I'm not setting the place on fire here but I can say that I'm on pace to hit my goal of $125 by the end of the month.

Paul Martin is getting 10 minutes of free advertising tonight - if the Conservative Party is going to speak to Canadians they are going to have pay for it. I'm not optimistic that the networks will be giving Harper time after Martin.

Click here to donate to the party so they can pay for a national campaign and then comment here so I can add it to my total.

UPDATE: Okay, a $100 donation smashed my goal so I've taken the advice and doubled my target.

I think, with the possibility of an election increasing, the Blogging Tories should put our money where our mouths are.

I propose a challenge to the group.

I propose we try to raise a minimum of $10,000 for the Conservative Party by the end of month. There are about 80 members of the Blogging Tories so if each of us can raise on average $125 we reach the goal.

Ask readers to go to the Conservative Party donation page and contribute. Tell the readers to, after they donated, comment the amount they donated so the Blogging Tory member can keep track of their total.

I'll ask Stephen Taylor to post a running total at the Blogging Tories homepage as the members inform him of their totals.

The Conservative Party saw the Liberals run brutal misleading TV, radio, and print ads infront of the Canadian public last year. Let's help give the party the resources it needs to tell Canadians what the Conservative Party really stands for so they can make an informed choice.

So, Warren's found me out. No, I'm not a civil servant - and I actually don't spend as much time on this blog as I would like to. I do have a young family and they are more important to me. That's the reason I don't say my full name - a promise to my wife who was worried about strange people.

Yes, I've written a lot about Warren Kinsella. The more I've written the more I've learned and I think he's worried about it - you see, he, or someone from his company comes to this site at least 2 times a day.

I initially exposed Warren's attempt to smear Justice Gomery and his family back in October when he sent a 'confidential' e-mail around to bloggers implying that Gomery gave the lead counsel contract to Ogilvy-Renault because John's daughter is a partner there.

I wrote about that here.

Here are more of Warren's links to Adscam - link, link.

Well, I've gotta run - I've got some explaining to do to my wife I guess. She's not going to be happy with me.

On the bright side, I'm hoping this will make Warren's actions more transparent.

UPDATE: I enjoyed reading the comments below. I did delete a couple of comments Monday morning. The Chretienite victim complex doesn't need to be fed.

UPDATE: Jonathon has averaged the CBC, Star, and CTV/Globe polls and presented the numbers on his site.

And here's what the CBC / Environics numbers would translate into:

	Conservative	Green Party	Liberal	N.D.P.	Bloc Québécois
Newfoundland and Labrador	3	0	4	0	0
Prince Edward Island	0	0	4	0	0
Nova Scotia	3	0	5	3	0
New Brunswick	3	0	6	1	0
Quebec	5	0	1	0	69
Ontario	38	0	50	18	0
Manitoba	10	0	0	4	0
Saskatchewan	11	0	1	2	0
Alberta	28	0	0	0	0
British Columbia	20	0	3	13	0
The North	0	0	2	1	0
Totals	121	0	76	42	69

A commenter to my post on Kinsella last week wrote the following:

How is Kinsella being on the payroll of a B.C. advertising firm any different from all the Quebec Liberal political operatives on the payroll of Groupaction?
While undoubtedly pulling in a 6 figure salary, he continued to pursue his political machinations, even running for the Liberals in the 1997 election. He even seemed to have time left over to write newspaper columns, books and play in punk bands.
The value of Kinsella's political connections to Chrétien is undeniable, but how much work he did really do for Palmer Jarvis? Kinsella has some explaining to do. No wonder he holds Gomery in such contempt.

I also read this in Jim Travers column in the Star today:

If paying party workers with taxpayer dollars worked in Quebec, then why not elsewhere? In fact, way back in 2002 The Toronto Star reported that similar tactics were allegedly used coast-to-coast.
In Atlantic Canada, a fantasy federal contract is said to have paid a provincial Liberal campaign organizer. Out West, a prospective candidate's salary was allegedly reimbursed through inflated advertising payments.
Neither case has been tested in court or heard by Gomery, who is narrowly focused on Quebec. And it's also true there is little incentive to break what until now has been a circle of silence protected with all the ferocity of junkyard dogs.
Will Brault's surprisingly candid revelations finally expose all that noise as just the yapping of those with much to hide?

(emphasis mine)

We'll see. To be clear --> Travers never mentions Kinsella and I'm not implying anything.

My readers aren't the only curious people. Somebody else was wondering about Palmer Jarvis around the time of Kinsella's arrival - here's an Access to Information request from last year:

TBS2003000320 - Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Date received: 2004-04-06
I request certain records that pertain to federal government advertising contracts awarded to Palmer Jarvis from 1994 through 1996. The documents I request are a list of contracts, or the contracts themselves, including the budgets, for all the advertising contracts awarded from all federal government agencies to the advertising company Palmer Jarvis during 1994, 1995 and 1996.

And here's what the Globe / Ipsos numbers would translate into:

	Conservative	Green Party	Liberal	N.D.P.	Bloc Québécois
Newfoundland and Labrador	3	0	4	0	0
Prince Edward Island	2	0	2	0	0
Nova Scotia	5	0	4	2	0
New Brunswick	6	0	3	1	0
Quebec	0	0	7	0	68
Ontario	43	0	48	15	0
Manitoba	5	0	5	4	0
Saskatchewan	7	0	4	3	0
Alberta	26	0	2	0	0
British Columbia	15	0	4	17	0
The North	0	0	2	1	0
Totals	112	0	85	43	68

I ran the Star/Ekos numbers through the fancy shmancy spreadsheet and got the following seat projection:

	Conservative	Green Party	Liberal	N.D.P.	Bloc Québécois
Newfoundland and Labrador	3	0	4	0	0
Prince Edward Island	0	0	4	0	0
Nova Scotia	5	0	6	0	0
New Brunswick	5	0	4	1	0
Quebec	1	0	7	0	67
Ontario	66	0	24	16	0
Manitoba	6	0	2	6	0
Saskatchewan	6	0	1	7	0
Alberta	28	0	0	0	0
British Columbia	10	0	7	19	0
The North	0	0	2	1	0
Totals	130	0	61	50	67

Discussion on the E-Group.

... and time to use Andrew Coyne's suggestion from last year for a Conservative slogan - "This time I'm voting Conservative"

One of the funniest things I read today was from Sean at PolSpy when he comments that he hasn't read anything from the usual Liberal apologists:

I'm guessing it's because a turd that big takes a while to chocolate coat.

The question being raised is whether this will 'wake up' or 'anger' Ontario. In a word - yes.

Seeing thousands of people coming here from Google.ca and I can't point to anything.

The reason you are being directed here is because of what I wrote months ago about Warren Kinsella's (a former aide to Jean Chretien) attempts to damage the credibility of the inquiry and Justice Gomery personally.

I don't have any inquiry testimony here.

Keep searching.

I think this article in the Globe and Mail would help you:

Ed Morrissey -- Captain Ed to his friends -- published on the weekend what no Canadian is allowed to print or broadcast. On his Internet blog, he posted testimony before the Gomery commission that is subject to a publication ban.

Good luck.

UPDATED....

I'm a chicken.

Boundy by Gravity had been compiling information but has decided to stop.

I'm sure, if you've got any patience, that you'll find it after a couple of more searches.