VIDEO: Believe it or not, Canada has a conservativ(ish) news channel!

In North America, TV news and information programming -- on cable/satellite and over-the-air -- is pretty much the domain of the lamestream media. In the Excited States of America, if you want to listen to the news, you're pretty much in the thrall of the Big Three: NBC, CBS and ABC. On cable you get the additional "choices" of CNN (the Clinton News Network) and MSNBC (even worse). 

All of them, all of them broadcast "news" and opinions ranging across the political spectrum from left(ish) to far left to Rachel Maddow. We can include as well the talk shows populated by sufferers from TDS like The View's Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg.

If you're an American of a conservative mind or political bent, and think the lamestream news outlets are full of shit, and would like an alternative, your only choice is Fox, but you'll have to wait until The Simpsons and Family Guy are over.

If you're one of the 30 million or so Canadians who live within 100 miles of the World's Longest Undefended Border (TM), you might be able to pull in some US stations over the air, and you can watch all of them on cable/satellite. But you won't find any Canadian news there unless someone makes an attempt on Hair Boy's life. [Would the lamestream media notice? Ed.]

If you can't or won't watch American TV, you still have the Canadian Broadcorping Castration (CBC), owned and operated by the Canadian Ministry of Truth. There are two other major networks -- CTV and Global -- which generally toe the Liberal party line. But wait! Suddenly a new news outlet has appeared in the ether, and... can you believe it... they seem to be at least somewhat conservative! Here's the trailer for The News Forum "where all voices matter".  

Yes, they're new and (mostly) not broadcast professionals. Some of them still don't know which camera to look at. There are some, like Tony "Gazebo" Clement, Joe Oliver and their ole boss, Lyin' Brian Mulroney, who will be instantly disliked by Canadians who know their back stories. But then there's Tanya Granic Allen, for whom Agent 3 (who sent us the link to this video) has all the time in the world. Walt agrees and commends The News Forum to you, but not without reservation. See "Warning from Agent 3", below.

Ed. here. On reading V.1 of this post, Agent 3 called to warn us to restrain our enthusiasm for The News Forum. He says: Don't kid yourself (he adds) that you're going to see and hear truly conservative opinions there. The new medium is dominated by former and present Members of the Canadian Parliament who were elected as Conservatives, or, in the case of former Prime Minister Mulroney, Progressive Conservatives. Lyin' Brian actually appears in a promo spot saying that Canuckistan needs more immigrants! 

What you're going to hear on The News Forum is the centre-right (more centre than right) Conservative Party line, as enunciated by new leader Erin O'Tool, and MPs Pierre Poilievre and Dean Allison... but not Derek Sloan, the "Conservative Without Apology" who finished last in the CPC's recent leadership contest. 

And don't expect appearances by Maxime Bernier, Ezra Levant, Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, Gavin McInnes, Mark Steyn or Mike from Simcoe-Grey County-Clearview Township. As "Mad Max" said a few weeks ago in "Is there any hope for conservatives in Canada?", his People's Party of Canada is the only truly conservative party in the Great Not-so-white North.

Canuck cabinet ministers not really up for official bilingualism

A person who speaks many languages is multilingual.
A person who speaks two languages is bilingual.
A person who speaks only one language is... English!

That joke has been around for centuries. Of more recent vintage is the one about the southern Baptist preacher whose argument for having English as the only official language of the USA was "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!"

You hear a lot of such talk in Armerica, as the use of Spanish in day-to-day life spreads north and east, buoyed on the wave of immigrants (legal and otherwise) from south of the border. Those who insist that the USA should have only one official language -- English -- point to Canada as an example of the confusion and cost of bilingualism.

For those who don't know [most Americans. Ed.], Canada has two official languages -- English and French. Notice that I didn't say "national languages". That's because the word "national", common to both English and French, has slightly different meanings. The French "national" refers to ethnicity -- Frenchness -- and is thus a heavily loaded word in the multicultural mess that Canada has become.

But never mind. Bilingualism has been a principal policy of the Canadian government for half a century, and has given a certain style to all communication, written and oral, by public bodies and officials. The style is sometimes called "AirCanada-speak", from the days when AirCan was the national -- oops, can't say that -- the state-owned airline. Here's an example. "Veuillez boucler vos ceintures de sécurité, please fasten your seatbelts." -- all said in one breath. Which language would be spoken first depends on whether the closest city is in a French-speaking or English-speaking area. Really.

But that's the law in Canada! And there's even a Commissioner of Official Languages/Commissaire aux langues officielles to make sure that all public pronouncements are made in both languages. Not kidding. Check out his website.

Uttering platitudes in English and French simultaneously is no biggie for Canuck Prime Minister Steve Harpoon, whose dogged determination to learn the language on the other side of the corn flakes box has served him well. But some of his top cabinet minister apparently flunked high school French and can't be arsed to take remedial lessons.

Walt refers to "Johnboy" Baird and "Skinny Tony" Clement, who preside over the Foreign Affairs Ministry and Treasury Board respectively. Messrs Baird and Clement love to demonstrate their coolness and connectedness by Twittering and tweeting about this, that and the other. [Especially "the other", in the case of "Nancy" Baird. Ed.] But they do so mostly in English, since that's the only language in which they are more-or-less fluent. Too bad for them, because the language police are on their case!

Jason Fekete, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, tells us that the Commissioner of Official Languages is trying to determine whether cabinet ministers, on their personal Twitter accounts, have responsibilities under Canada’s language laws when tweeting on government business or posting information for their departments. "The outcome of the investigation, could put a chill on federal ministers’ use of social media and erode the spontaneity of communicating directly, in real time, with the public."

What do the ministers concerned have to say? One of the most government's most prolific tweetie-pies, Michelle Rempel, the Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, told the Citizen, "My dept. is fully compliant (tweets in both languages) – as it should be. Press releases are the same. While my French is coming along nicely, and I have a great desire to be fully proficient in it, English is still my primary language and as such tweets from my personal account reflect the same."

Mr. Clement went a little farther, tweeting, "I think it’s a ridiculous waste of time. I sometimes tweet in French, much in English. If he [the Commissioner] proposes to overlord me [sic], I will quit Twitter." Dare we hope!

Walt's advice to all of them: If you can't write coherently in proper English, don't write at all. As Mark Twain said, "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Canadian government OKs "Merry Christmas"

Walt has reason to believe that the Honourable (?) Tony Clement, President of Canada's Treasury Board -- part of the financial apparatus of the federal cabinet -- has read and taken to heart "Learn this new Christmas song... and pass it along!", posted here November 29th.


Why do I think so? Well, the Supreme Pork Barreller has sent out a memo to all Canadian civil servants telling them it's OK to celebrate Christmas and Chanukah. The part about Chanukah was doubtless added in to please the boss, "Call me Steve" Harper, aka Israel's best friend. But still, Walt can only applaud Tip Tony's attempt to keep Canada from sliding further down the slippery slope of political correctness and offence avoidance.

Go ahead and tack those Christmas cards on your cubicle walls, he tells his staff. String up some Christmas lights and hang the tinsel. Put candles in your tiny Menorah [local, provincial and federal fire codes permitting] and make your office a place to celebrate the warmth of this special time. Let joy reign unconfined! And so on.

The reason for his memo, Mr. Clement explained, was that "there are those who would like to snuff out the holiday spirit in the name of political correctness or expediency.... [But] our government will not allow the Christmas spirit to be grinched!"

"Hurray for Tony!", shouted the majority of Canadians. But the feeling was not catholic. [He means "not universal". Ed.] About six nano-seconds after the minister's memo was made public, talk-show hotlines lit up like, errr, Christmas trees with calls from "progressive thinkers" and professional promoters of diversity who believe government workplaces should be secular. Or at least, not Christian.

What the atheists, secular humanists, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Druids etc etc are really whining about is that their religious beliefs -- yes, atheism is a belief system -- are being made to take a back seat to the celebration of the birth of Jesus Our Saviour.

What they forget is that Canada -- and the USA and every other Western nation -- was founded on Judeo-Christian values, including peace on earth and goodwill to men. [Walt means "men" in the legal sense, including women and those who aren't sure.] Which is precisely why Muslim immigrants from places like Afghanistan and Iraq chose to come to the West, rather than, say, Saudi Arabia, where Muslims rule and Christianity is not tolerated.

Walt says, good on Tony Clement. And now that you know the Canadian government approves, go ahead and wish Merry Christmas to all!

What went wrong: another thought

Continuing the theme of what's wrong with the West and when it all started to go pear-shaped...

Some of you [most of you? ed.] may not know who Tony Clement is. He is an Ontario politician -- the pencil-necked, nerdy-looking guy with the big glasses you occasionally see in pictures when he's pulled his head out of Stephen Harpoon's bum long enough to be photographed.

Before taking his ambition to Ottawa, Tony boy was a member of Mike "Slasher" Harris's Progressive Conservative* government, which devastated Ontario in the 90s. In John Ibbitson's book on the Harris years, Promised Land, Clement said this about what made him a conservative:

"What I saw...was the failure of the American democractic impulses. Around us was the fall of Vietnam, the emasculation of American power, Watergate.... What I remember was the frontal assault on American power, and the encroachment by communism all over the world.

"And in Canada, there were the failed experiements of Pierre Trudeau. His economic experiments were a shambles, his anti-Americanism wasn't getting us anywhere, the increasing role of the state in all aspects of our lives was, in my view, creating more problems than it was solving." [My emphasis.]

Unfortunately, Tony was then and is still part of the problem, not part of the solution. But the sentiment of the last sentence is right on the money. Tea party, anyone?

* Note to American and other readers not familiar with Canadian politics: There really is a party with the oxymoronic name of Progressive Conservative. Federally it was subsumed by Harper's Conservative Party of Canada, who like to think of themselves as neo-cons, but it still exists in Ontario, where it wanders in the wilderness under the "leadership" not of a Tony but a Timmy...and I don't mean Tim Horton!

Fake lake update

Check out this parody of the Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had a Million Dollars", written by Jennifer Smith in honour of Stephen Harper's fake lake, Tony Clement's steamboat, and the billion dollar bill for the G8 and G20 Summits. Performed by the writer and Lesley Stankaitis, accompanied by Iain Smith.

Note: Don't be startled by the sound cannon effect about 2.5 minutes in. It's part of the joke!

And don't forget the boat!

There's more to "the great fake lake caper".

What would a lake be without a boat? Turns out -- at least according to Liberal MP Siobhan Coady -- that there's a big ole steamboat, the SS Bigwin, rusting away in one of the lakes in the Muskoka riding of Conservative Industry Minister Clement Clement.

So, as long as we're splashing a couple of mill for a lake [geddit? ed.] why don't we fix up that leaking boat too? It'll only cost another $400,000 or so.

Of course we wouldn't actually be able to bring the boat into the Media Centre in Toronto in time for the G20, but the world leaders attending the G8 could maybe go for a little toot around the lake. And we could take pictures of it and put them in our press kits. So it wouldn't be a waste. Right guys?... Guys?....

Walt's source inside the Harper cabinet reports that the idea was about to be torpedoed [geddit? ed.] until Defence Minister Peter McHackey threw out a lifeline. [Stop torturing the metaphor! ed.] After the summit, the SS Bigwin could be renamed the HMCS Bigwin and attached to the Royal Canadian Navy for service in Afghanistan!

"But... errr... isn't Afghanistan landlocked?" asked Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence "Loose" Cannon. Said Harpoon, "Either stay on the message or shut up! If we don't all swim together, then we'll sink!"

The contemptuous...or contemptible...Mr. Harper

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made one of his infrequent revelations of his true self on Monday. In an interview with BNN (Business News Network) he let slip his true feelings about Parliament.

He is openly contemptuous of it. He dismisses it an unnecessary check on his power to govern Canada. He wishes it would just go away.

Mr. Harper (I will no longer write "Call Me Steve", for he reveals himself as a dangerous autocrat, and ought to be taken more seriously) actually said that having Parliament sitting creates instability, because your elected representatives, Canadian friends, like to "play games" like holding enquiries into Harper's decisions regarding Afghanistan, or calling for votes on his legislation, or generally asking his lordship to be accountable to the people.

Yes, the Prime Minister, who holds office by grace of the votes of about 37% of the 50-odd percent of Canadians who bothered to vote, suggested that his prorogation of Parliament gives him the opportunity to do the serious business of the nation without the distractions of democracy, e.g. having to appear during Question Period to answer those annoying queries from opposition MPs.

Here are a couple of other viewpoints.

The Harper government's attack sheep, the pencil-necked Tony Clement, said that prorogation was only of interest to "the chattering classes" and certain "Ottawa elites". He'd only had "around three dozen" e-mails from his constituents in snowbound Parry Sound, Clement said. Walt says that if 36 voters in Parry Sound, where the chief concern is getting out of winter's blast, bestir themselves to e-mail their M.P., the issue is one of serious concern!

Also yesterday, Mr. Harper’s sometime mentor and chief of staff, Tom Flanagan, now teaching politics at the University of Calgary, gave his own explanation for prorogation. On CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon the professor said that everyone knows the only reason Mr. Harper prorogued was to “shut down the Afghan inquiry.” Mr. Flanagan was talking about the special Commons committee investigation into the Afghan detainee affair. The committee now finds itself silenced as a result of the prorogation.

Mr. Flanagan also said that it's too bad Mr. Harper doesn't really like democracy. Exactly. Contemptible.

A couple of days ago I gave you a link to en editorial in the Economist saying just that. In case you didn't read the piece, let me just quote the last paragraph. Read it and heed it.

Mr. Harper is a competent tactician with a ruthless streak. He bars most ministers from talking to the media; he has axed some independent watchdogs; he has binned [British English for "trashed", ed.] campaign promises to make government more open and accountable. Now he is subjecting Parliament to prime-ministerial whim.

He may be right that most Canadians care more about the luge than the legislature, but that is surely true only while their decent system of government is in good hands. They may soon conclude that it isn't.

Tax dollars pay for "gay pride" events -- but not in Montreal

Organizers of the Divers/Cité festival in Montréal are having hissy fits because the Conservative federal government refused to approve funding for the event. The directors said bureaucrats told them their funding request "met all the criteria", but that final approval was up to Industry Minister Tony Clement. Reports that Clement said "I may be a geek, but I'm not queer!" are undoubtedly untrue.

According to CBC News (which knows a thing or two about the gay community) Suzanne Girard, director of Divers/Cité, said Wednesday the event's organizers are "reeling" from the news.
"They have millions of dollars but they chose not to give to Divers/Cité. The reasons we don't know. Is it we're gay? Is it we're Montéalais? We're Québecois?"

Walt says maybe it's "all of the above"!