The General's Last Move

Nobody has been able to answer the single most important question about Andrew Leslie's exorbitant moving expenses.  What on earth costs $72,000 to move a few blocks?

Did he need to unearth a terracotta army and bury it at the new location?  So what was it then?

I'm sure every tax paying citizen recognizes that this is just too much to stand whatever the reason.  Faced with a move that would cost Seventy Two Grand most Canadians would find another way or take the loss. Entitled Ottawa elites however just send us the receipt.

Andrew Leslie is probably an honorable enough man.  He is also angling for the job of Minister of Defense.  A Defense Minister has to oversee troop movements a heck of a lot farther away than a couple of affluent blocks in the Nation's Capitol.  Why can't he tell us what went wrong with his move?  How did it end up being so expensive?  It was nearly double the 2nd highest all time moving expense claim (and even that ones gets me angry.  $42,000!  What the hell!).

And what are we to make of a man who calls the genuine concern of a taxpayer like myself a "partisan attack".

How dare we little racing rats question a man with such a gilded resume?  He would make a fine non-liberal Liberal Senator wouldn't he?  Generals and Senators can do no wrong you know.  He's faced down a fearsome enemy with real bullets (an enemy that remains in place after 13 years) and made six healthy figures doing it.  That really is amazing.  Who said you'll never strike it rich serving in the military?  Maybe Corporal Tremblay?

Oh?  Was that an attack?  Is there a lie in it somewhere?  Because the truth is a potent weapon.  Go ahead.  Knock us down with the truth about the move.  We can handle the truth.

It's the old entitlement showing its face again.  No please or thank you.  -Just pay in 90 days or pay more.  It's tax time again, and with Tax Freedom Day far off behind I'm not really interested in the wealthy former general's poor feelings.

Its up to Leslie to help us understand.  The public supports the Military and in no small part thanks to the efforts of the Harper Government.  We have open minds.  Tell us.  There have already been suggestions of kickbacks or at best incompetence.  Silence only reinforces the idea there is something wrong.  Leslie claims that everything was legit, so what's the problem with the details then eh?

Look I support the military more than anyone I know.  I do not worship them.  I do not revere them.  So excuse me if I share the secret.  Armed forces members and veterans are still just people.  There are good ones and bad ones.  There are real heroes, traitors and even some brutally evil bastards too.  Its hard to compare them to priests and teachers or doctors and scientists, many of whom aren't paid what they are worth, but we already know the truth about all of them.  We know that while some people are strong others are weak and fallible. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of hat they wore at some point.  It's wrong to say that a person in a uniform is beyond reproach simply because of that uniform.

It's not like the press is going to do any reproaching.  Here we see the hypocrisy of the media clearly.

Remember the hoopla disseminated when a Senator repaid to taxpayers some $90,000 of a private individual's money?  The damning part of the "scandal" being that Harper allegedly commanded that the right thing be done.  In reality the person who did the right thing was terminated for doing the right thing wrong along with the people who did the wrong thing in the first place.  Go back and read the many varied opinion pieces just dripping with venom and hatred at the time.  Now a Liberal candidate is found taking a similar amount from taxpayers.  Its an old fashioned liberal style cash grab and all we get is excuses from the same Band of Butt-lickers.

No wonder Leslie didn't make the cut.  It turns out he tried to get on the Conservative slate first.  Imagine how this would have been portrayed by the media if Leslie were a Conservative?  The Media party would freak.  I'm glad the system worked.  Leslie went where he belongs.: to the party that sees public office as a lottery that pays out on election day.  The Liberals can keep him, but I want my money back.

Thank You Brad Wall. Abolish The Senate.

Brad Wall moved to abolish the senate today.  He explains it best:



Thank you Honorable Brad Wall.  You are the leader of the West and someone I would be very comfortable with as Prime Minister.  Best of luck to you and all of us.  May we abolish the Senate and have sober second hindsight by 2020.

Sober Second Thoughts

I've tuned out the whole Senate debacle.  I just won't click on anything to do with it.  I'm sick of it.  I'd rather do something else; anything else. 

That is why I came upon this clip from Ezra Levant's show so late.  Sometimes I just let the Sun News clips stream one after the other and this one came up on its own.



What do I know at this point?

1. The Media Party cannot be trusted.
2. The Senate must be reformed. 
3. Stephen Harper isn't perfect and still the best Prime Minister ever.

Did I miss anything?

Duffy Goes Nuclear

Have you read Duffy's speech?  This is the best he could do with all that threatening from his lawyer.

It's good to know that I'm the problem in all of this.  Sitting in my little home, surrounded by my little family, my little dog, living my little life, writing this little blog to do what little I can to make this big country just a little better; I find out that its me who is the problem. 

According to Duffy's hearsay "it’s about the perception of what you did that has been created in the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base."  Its not exactly clear but I think he means to say that Harper said these words to Duffy.  All of it hearsay and impossible to prove. 

Duffy has done nothing wrong in his view.  Fraudulent expense claims are his entitled right as a Senator.  It's us, and our Prime Minister that are the problem according to Senator Duffy.  Why I didn't understand what a privilege it was to pay the magnificent Senator Duffy for not living in a certain house in PEI.  What an ignorant rube I am.  I do hope the good Senator will deign to accept our apology and of course horrendous amounts of money.

The line "The rules are inexplicable to our base," is interesting to me.  Harper said publicly that he did not come to Ottawa to make excuses for Senators.  Of course not.  We didn't send him there for that either.  I would not sit and listen to Duffy try to explain away his abuse of public money let alone Stephen Harper of all people. 

Perhaps Duffy has edited that line in his mind over time.  This happens to some older men especially ones under so much stress as he said.  Duffy is also experiencing health issues as well that may not exclude mental health issues.  Perhaps he was told the Senate rules are indefensible for surely they are indeed indefensible to the public.  Remember he believes there is nothing at all wrong with expense fraud, so it isn't out of the question.

I'm also being told that I should be angry with my Prime Minister because he seeks to please "the base."  Would the correct thing for him to do is say "yeah those idiots just don't get that we rule and we make the rules and they should just sit down, shut up and pay us."  That's not Stephen Harper and I'm glad its not.  I'm glad this Prime Minister cares what I think even if Senators are beyond the reach of a corrective vote. 

None of this might even be true, but even in the worst light Duffy can't make the Prime Minister into something he is not.  Even "the base" doesn't seem right.  Surely the Media Party is mutually exclusive to "the base" and yet they both agree that Duffy's expense claims are a problem.  The fact is that even if this is all true the motivation of the Prime Minister is to express the will of Canadians, not just "the base."

Senator Duffy embodies everything that is wrong with the Senate.  That is the remorseless gorging on entitlements outside "the power" of ordinary Canadians to do anything about it.  If this is within the rules then the rules are wrong.  The Senate itself is wrong.  "Those are the rules," holds very little water with people paying the bill.  This is our country.  These are our laws.  We have the natural right to change any one of them.  We have the power to disband the Senate itself if we chose to unambiguously determine it through a National Referendum.

Woe unto those who stand in the way of the peoples self determination.  There have been silly laws in the past that have been wisely retired for the greater sake of peace order and good government.  The Senate inches closer to a transformation of some kind each day.

I hope the Senate decides to suspend Duffy for everyone's sake.  He does not recognize any wrongdoing. He will therefore keep on doing it and encourage this behavior in others.  This can only negatively impact the Senate's already damaged reputation with Canadians and further weaken its diminished authority.

Canada's Criminal Senator

Liberal Senate Appointee Raymond Lavigne* still hasn't resigned from the Senate.  On Friday Senator Lavigne was convicted of fraud on at least two counts.  He was caught making false travel claims and using government staff to cut down trees on his personal property.

The staff member turned personal gardener was overzealous in his lumberjack role and ended up cutting down other trees that did not belong to the Senator.  This is the only reason the corrupt Liberal Senator was caught.  If not for the ensuing investigation the Liberal Senator would be busily obstructing the will of the people as Liberal Senators and MPs are wont to do.

The larger crime is that the Liberal Party wants to keep it this way.  Liberals elevated this crook to the Senate and there is nothing we Canadians can do about it.  The Liberals like this just fine.  Your taxes will pay convicted fraudster Raymond Lavigne $132,300 every year until he retires because that is how the Senate works.

The Senate is not elected but appointed.  This is the system the Liberal Party loves so much.  They, including Senator Lavigne , have the power to veto any law our elected representatives approve in the House.  It doesn't matter how you vote.  Senator Lavigne can overrule you and you still have to pay him for the insult.  Liberals and their entitlements, figure that one out.


I want reform to come gracefully to the Canadian Senate.  The chamber of Sober Second Thought has reached a mature phase whereby reform is necessary and desirable to our highly educated and responsible citizenry.  The Conservative Party of Canada is the only party that will realize the inter-generational dream of an elected Senate.  They will add and redistribute Senate seats based population.  This can only be accomplished with a Conservative Majority parliament.

However strong the Bloc may appear, they will wither and die without taxpayer life support.  Conservatives plan to remove the per vote party welfare subsidy.  Their best idea for the Senate is the same as their coalition partner the NDP.      

The NDP and Bloc take a more extremist route.  They want to abolish the Senate outright.  I call this the Nuclear Option.  Even some Conservative appointees have become traitors to the people.  Even if they promise the Prime Minister to support Senate reform there is no method to hold them to account.  Senators are untouchable.  The thieving, lying, crooked Senator Lavigne is ample proof of that.  If the Senate cannot be reformed it will need to be disbanded.  I will support the NDPs nuclear option if reform fails.  What sort of extra-legal means would the NDP employ if the Senate refuses to disband?  That is a question you'll have to ask them. Pitch forks can quickly induce early retirements by threat or by re-purposing.  Don't you pompous Liberal fools dare let it come to that!

As much as certain Senators and MPs may deserve a day at the gallows, this is not the Canadian way.  The way to Canadian greatness is through the leadership of  Stephen Harper and an able majority government.  Conservative economic stewardship though these troubled times are unquestionably competent.  Your vote on election day will empower the Conservative government to reform the Senate into an elected body.  At that point YOU, not some lawyerly elite will be able to finally remove the corrupt Liberal Appointee Senator Lavigne from public office.

That is democracy.  That is the Conservative priority.  Empowering individual Canadians is a value held by no other federal Party.  Vote Conservative.  Put an end to the hyper-partisan games.

*Senator Levigne still identifies as a Liberal even though Liberals are quick to disown him.  I would expect nothing less from that lying slippery crooked bunch.

Praise for the Conservative Senate's scrubbing of the Climate Change Accountability Act

Peter Foster wrote a marvelous piece in the Financial Post last week titled "Canada Doges Carbon Suicide." 

Its definitely worth the read but here are some the relevant and juicy bits. 

Mr. Harper has always clearly grasped-- apparently unlike the majority of his international counterparts--that the greatest threat facing humanity is not climate change, but climate-change policy. Bill C-311 was a perfect example. Opposition parties, in thrall to radical green groups or sheer hypocrisy, were supporting a piece of draconian legislation that would not have had one raindrop's worth of perceptible effect on the global climate. Nor would it have in any way influenced the way other countries are attempting to writhe away from this issue.

So there.  Harper and the Conservative Government are doing one heck of a job.  Here's one for the Harper haters out there:

Anti-Harper carpers niggle that three years ago Mr. Harper declared that climate change was the "greatest problem facing humanity." Good grief, could that have been mere political expediency, based on the necessity of pacifying a needlessly alarmed electorate? Did he not really mean it? You'll be telling us next that he really favoured that BHP takeover of Potash!

And here is some more with a damning quote from the IPCC:

Before he was forced to talk the minority talk, Mr. Harper described climate change as a "socialist plot." Intriguingly, this fact is now openly acknowledged. This week, German IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer said in an interview: "[O]ne must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy....One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy any more."

I shared this article on Facebook and its triggered a huge debate on Global Warming with a warmist friend of mine.  I'll post it here when it winds down but its tens of thousands of words long already.  

I strongly suggest you read the whole article for yourself because its that good.  Mr. Foster and I are of one mind on this. 

Senate Reform: Our One Chance

Its time to remake the Senate. Its time to set this country straight once and for all. We won't have this chance forever. Its worth fighting an election over. Its worth losing an election over. This is the one issue where polls don't matter. In fact, the worse the polls get, the more urgent this issue becomes. The Senate must be reformed.

The big problems with the Senate include:

1. Appointed, Not Elected.
2. Long Term Lengths.
3. Unfair Distribution of Senators.
4. Unfair Veto Power over Bills.

Appointed, Not Elected
Make them elected by the people. Democracy overrides any objection to this. I don't care about the cost or the hassle. We are spending billions in stimulus for the sake of the economy and nobody can tell me that Democracy is not important enough. Democracy is the only thing more important than the economy. The voice and will of the people is not the place to weasel out. Its going to cost money. Suck it up.
The other excuse is that it will just make another partisan house. So? Should the House of Commons be appointed then? It seems to me that the Senate has been pretty partisan so far. The only difference between an appointed Senate and an Elected Senate is that the people can change the partisanship themselves rather than waiting for a Senator to retire while holding government.

Long Term Lengths
Once appointed they stay there forever almost. The Government is working on changing term lengths already. The Library of Parliament says this:

The main argument in favor of a single term of eight years is that it is long enough to allow senators to acquire the experience needed to perform their legislative duties while being short enough to allow a regular renewal of ideas and experiences in the upper chamber.

I like new ideas.

Unfair Distribution of Senators
There aren't enough Senators. Some provinces are over represented while others are under represented. There is just no excuse for this. BC has 6 Senators, while QC has 24. Seem fair to you? The best excuse that Ontario and Quebec can produce for their over representation of the Senate is that changing it needs the constitution to be changed. I don't care. That isn't a reason, that''s an excuse. Canada does not owe Quebec and Ontario dominance. Especially not after how they behaved in Copenhagen. Use every trick in the book. Redistribute or increase Senate seats by any means necessary immediately. If there is one thing that can be changed about the Senate this is it. Its not like I'm saying Alberta Senators should dominate the Senate or anything. I'm just asking for a fair distribution. That's all. For some its too much.

Unfair Veto Power
How in the heck does an appointee vote get the power to override a majority vote of elected representatives? It boils my blood. Don't give me any crap about being appointed by an elected official. No. Once there, they are totally independent and stuck there beyond anyone's reach. We don't need sober second thought from an appointee of a long defunct regime.

Nobody East, West, English, French or Native would agree with this configuration of a Senate. This is one area that can't be shelved or backed out on. I agree with stimulus so long as it doesn't involve increasing taxes. I don't believe in AGW, but I have to swallow hysteria and excuses for drastic or severe penalties. I will not swallow skipping out on Senate Reform. If new Senators aren't a part of a plan to reform the Senate I don't think I could support this Government. If the Senators themselves, once out of reach of the Prime Minister, decide to sell us out for a sweet job, they will be vilified forever. That Senator will have people spit when they hear their name. When they show their face people will throw things.

If on the other hand a sincere and determined effort is made on the above problems, people will fight hard to help. Success on any of these issues will be honoured and respected forever. Oh I'm sure some Liberals and Premiers will be up to their old dirty tricks and we aren't guaranteed to win. But the time for change is now. This year. We don't know when we'll get this chance again.