New Found Respect For The Liberals

You have to hand it to Michael Ignatieff. He’s slowly but surely edging away from the far-left abyss of the coalition, and talking some sense. His statement on the Liberal website about the Israeli-Gaza conflict is admirable. There should be no question here that this statement would not have appeared under Mr.Dion:

Statement by Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition, on the situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip
I am greatly concerned by the deepening violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip and the fear and suffering on all sides that this mounting instability has caused.

The Liberal Party of Canada unequivocally condemns the rocket attacks launched by Hamas against Israeli civilians and calls for an immediate end to these attacks. We affirm Israel’s right to defend itself against such attacks, and also its right to exist in peace and security.

We regret the loss of life sustained on all sides of the conflict. We call on all parties to end these hostilities, mindful that a durable ceasefire will be necessary to prevent continued civilian casualties and lasting damage to essential civilian infrastructure.

The international community has a responsibility to ensure that the cost of conflict is not borne by the innocent and Canada must stand ready to assist and ensure that basic humanitarian assistance reaches those who need it.

Our thoughts are with those in Israel and the Gaza Strip whose lives are imperiled by the cycle of violence in the region. In the midst of this crisis, we continue to stand for a peaceful resolution. We firmly believe that the basis of this peace will be the mutual recognition by both Israelis and Palestinians of two states, living side by side in peace and security, with a full resolution of the issue of refugees and settlements, as well as secure and internationally recognized borders and boundaries.

“Real” progressives are not happy. To find out what a real progressive statement should have read, however, you have to visit the NDP website.

h/t to NDP blogger Robert McClelland, for visiting two websites I would not ever have otherwise visited.

Vancouver Residents Survive – No Thanks To City

The recent assault of snowfall in British Columbia this Christmas has revealed the most transparent deficiencies in the Vancouver city response to natural disasters and emergencies, and despite a completely absent media, the residents here have noticed. Not only was transportation an absolute nightmare, emergency crews left to battle snowdrifts to reach the seriously afflicted, and public transport ground to a halt, but nary a word from the recently elected council. Not even a note of sympathy.

It has been utterly shameful that weeks after the snow began piling up in spindrifts and then accumulating ice on top of older snow, that the city continues to do nothing. There are streets in Vancouver and outlying regions that have not been plowed. Period. Even major transportation corridors and routes were left to the snow tires and large 4WD crowd who managed to mash the buildup into a layer of black ice. There was no salt, no plowing, and no snow blowers. In short, a big pile of nothing.

Perhaps it’s because I’m coming from Toronto, where the biggest concern during a snowfall isn’t whether your street might get plowed, but whether it might take longer than 24 hours. But the absolute unpreparedness, the complete faith in nature’s benevolence that appears to be Vancouver’s official winter policy, is nothing short of a disgrace. Friends tell me that no garbage has been picked up in weeks. And how could it? Every alleyway and side street remains clogged with snow that is now in the process of melting and freezing, melting and freezing. Every day it melts and floods sidewalks, lawns, and basements. Every night it freezes into black ice that cause crashes, accidents, and pedestrians falling and hurting themselves. The overall sense is that the city was simply hoping to “wait it out”, assuming that the weather would eventually restore itself to the temperate climate that Vancouverites enjoy all year long.

But let me ask a question. If it is imprudent to purchase city plows and snow blowers and emergency equipment to deal with a possible 2 weeks of what would qualify anywhere else in Canada as “winter”, what are the costs of:

1. Emergency crews arriving too late to save lives because of snow and ice not cleared away?
2. Hospitals jammed with pedestrians falling in the snow and victims of car accidents?
3. Millions of dollars in lost productivity in the economy as people arrive late to work, if at all
4. Lost man-hours to preventable injuries caused by negligent city and people not clearing their walks and streets

I can tell you that as a resident of Toronto for 33 years, what I’ve seen here this winter is appalling. Someone from the city needs to stand up, and take account. And no, we don’t give a damn about VANOC’s preparedness for 2010. We give a damn about now. Right now. For shame.

Related

Another voice of dissent from Vancouver Secrets: How About More Snow Plows?

Shorter Burnaby Mayor Derrick Corrigan: Suck it up princess, there you go buttercup, cry me a river cupcake.

“It’s expensive and there’s already been well over $1 million spent by my city,” said Burnaby Mayor Derrick Corrigan.

“We only carry a certain amount of salt, we only have a certain amount of vehicles that are for snow removal mainly because it’s not worth it to invest in those vehicles when plows will end up rusting over the decade or so before there’s another big snowfall.”

Fool Me Once, Shame On You

Brenda Woe-Is-Me Martin

Fool me twice, shame on me. I think most Canadians are very compassionate, very empathetic people who become genuinely concerned with the treatment of people in other countries, and in particular how fellow Canadians are treated abroad. When we feel that our citizen are not going to receive the kind of fair trial or legal protections that all Canadians are afforded under the Charter, we decide to intervene. That’s why it always seemed to me to be a no-brainer that we should help Brenda Martin back when she asked Canadians for it. I strongly advocated for this, fearing that Ms.Martin had been unjustly held in Mexico on trumped up charges. When she was finally released, thanks to the intervention of some very influential help from Canadians, I think most people were satisfied with the turn of events.

Extricating Ms.Martin certainly was not easy. Her country, and therefore the taxpayers, paid a nifty sum of money to intervene on her behalf and bring her home:

Martin spent more than two years in a jail outside Guadalajara before being sentenced — and her imprisonment became a cause célèbre in Canada with thousands of people, including high-profile politicians, taking up her case.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper phoned Mexican President Felipe Calderon in March to discuss the file. Maxime Bernier, at the time the foreign affairs minister, spoke to his Mexican counterpart about Martin. Even former prime minister Paul Martin visited her in prison.

At one point Independent MP Bill Casey said he was mulling over calling for a tourism boycott against one of Canada’s largest trading partners to press for Martin’s release.

[...]

In April, after pleading guilty to the money laundering charges, Martin was released and allowed to return to Canada to serve her sentence.

The Canadian government loaned Martin the money to pay her $3,180 fine.

The Correctional Service of Canada then chartered a private plane to bring her home — at a reported cost of $82,000.

Surely such an act of generosity from her country would inspire Ms.Martin to take on a greater love of country, of admiration for our benevolent laws, our philanthropic people?

Well, much like the wasted money spent on Lebanese-”Canadians”, we had best not hold our collective breaths on this one:

Shockingly, Martin wrote, after being repatriated to Canada by federal authorities, her short stay at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, near Kitchener, Ont., made her long for a return to her Mexican jail cell.

She felt “threatened,” she wrote, and was ready to go back to the jail her supporters fought so hard to free her from.

“Eight days into the Kitchener, Ont., prison, I was ready to go back to Mexico! I would much rather be in a Mexican prison than a Canadian one,” she said.

“I think my ‘celebrity status’ put me in harm’s way in Canada. A lot of the inmates had the attitude, ‘You’re a convicted felon, just like us; don’t think you’re going to get any special treatment.’ I felt threatened.”

Martin said she wants to return to Mexico, “believe it or not. Mexico was my life. I lost the little life that I had. It might not have been a big life; I wasn’t rich, I didn’t own a home, I didn’t own a car, I didn’t own a telephone … but I was comfortable. I had the beach.”

How many times did you count the letter “I” in that last paragraph? Well, Brenda, I encourage you to return to Mexico as soon as you are finished serving out your parole here in uncomfortable Canada. And if you happen across trouble again when you’re there, remember these very important words: Frankly my dear, we don’t give a damn.