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Conservative Senator Pat Carney (left), summoned to the Senate in 1990 by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is retiring.

Carney, a former journalist who was a Mulroney-era Cabinet minister who helped speed the Free Trade deal along, is retiring from the Senate three years before the legal retirement age of 75.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement and did not say why she is retiring:

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to thank Pat Carney for her 25 years of service to our country.  She has been a passionate voice for British Columbia, first as a Member of Parliament, a Cabinet Minister and as a Senator.

Pat has been a strong voice for women’s rights in Canada and aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities in her native British Columbia.

She was elected as the Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre in 1980, the first woman to serve as a Conservative MP from British Columbia, and was re-elected in 1984. Summoned to the Senate of Canada in 1990, Pat is the second longest serving member of the Conservative Caucus.

Once again, I thank Pat for all her hard work on behalf of her constituents and her country.”

Nick Bontis gets the deal of a lifetime: He buys a brand-new 2007 Lincoln Navigator which has an MSRP of $80,000 CDN for $46,200 US — the equivalent, this week at least, of $45,000.

OTTAWA — The federal government agency responsible for tracking cars and trucks imported into Canada from the U.S. is bracing itself for a record-setting year as tens of thousands of Canadians head south to buy vehicles for thousands of dollars less than they could get them in Canada.

The Registrar of Imported Vehicles, an agency of Transport Canada, is on track to deal with as many 160,000 vehicles this year, which will be bought by Canadian consumers from U.S vendors. As recently as 2002, the Registrar was averaging about 38,000 vehicles a year.

In 2006, as the loonie started its climb versus the U.S. greenback, the Registrar recorded 113,000 transactions. This year, it's on track to record between 150,000 and 160,000 transactions.

“Our numbers just went through the roof,” said Gary Moriarty, the Deputy Registrar of Imported Vehicles. “We are now receiving 5,000 phone calls a day.”

Before the loonie surged against the greenback, calls to the Registry were averaging about 900 a day, said Moriarty. Earlier today, one U.S. dollar was worth 97.63 cents Canadian. Or, put another way, one Canadian dollar was worth 1.024 U.S. dollars.

'Pretty sweet deal'

Nick Bontis, an associate professor at the DeGroote Business School at McMaster University in Hamilton, is one of the thousands of Canadians who have found significant savings south of the border. This week, Bontis took delivery of a 2007 Lincoln Navigator, a luxury sports utility vehicle, that has a manufacturers' list price in Canada of about $75,000. After winning an online auction, Bontis paid a New Jersey dealer $46,200 U.S., the equivalent of about $45,000 Canadian.

[Read the full story..]

The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) announced today the ticket pricing scheme for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. CTV, if I haven’t yet mentioned it, is the Official Broadcaster for these Games. ‘Course, even if I managed to behave myself and stay employed with CTV for another three years — a length of employment I’ve never ever matched but hope to this time! — there’s no guarantee us political reporter types will get the nod for Olympia. Aaaah, to be Todd Battis, our wonderfully talented Vancouver Bureau Chief ..

In the meantime, I plan to sell much of vinyl record collection in order to join you and yours in line for the following:

For a premium event like the opening and closing ceremonies, prices will range from $175 to $1,100, said Dave Cobb, VANOC's executive vice-president of revenue, marketing and communications.

The must-see events for Canadians are the gold medal games in men's and women's hockey. The prices reflect that. Tickets for the men's event will start at $350 and peak at $775.

Here’s the bumpf from VANOC’s press release:

As the countdown to the first day of ticket sales for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games begins, we're excited to introduce an accessible and affordable ticket program ensuring all fans have a fair chance to attend the Games and experience this once in a lifetime event.

Highlights of the ticket program include:

– tickets will go on sale in October 2008
– half of all Games tickets will be priced at $100 or less
– more than 100,000 tickets will be available for $25

Information about the ticket program is now available at vancouver2010.com, and new information will be added throughout the coming year.
http://cp20.com/Tracking/t.c?Qde-pBy-3LT656

Follow the links below to find out more about:

– ticket prices
http://cp20.com/Tracking/t.c?Qde-pBz-3LT657
– how to buy your 2010 Olympic Winter Games tickets
http://cp20.com/Tracking/t.c?Qde-pC0-3LT654
– frequently asked questions about the ticket program
http://cp20.com/Tracking/t.c?Qde-pC1-3LT655

In response to a request made under Canada’s Access to Information law, I received today some of the “House Cards” prepared in April, 2007 for then-Industry Minister Maxime Bernier. “House Cards” are prepared daily by departmental staff to prepare the Minister with a suggested answer and background information for questions they might received that day during Question Period in the House of Commons. Most departments prepare these House Cards daily even when Parliament isn’t sitting, in case pesky journalists ask about this issue or that issue.

I had asked on May 23, 2007 for the House Cards prepared in April for Bernier. After much review by government officials, I finally received the heavily censored 37 pages of Bernier’s April “House Cards.”

Here’s one: On Thursday, April 19, an unknown bureaucrat at the Competition Bureau prepared a House Card to answer this question: What is the Government doing to address the high price of gasoline?

The minister’s suggested response is entirely blacked out — a section of the Access to Information Act allows bureaucrats to black out anything that remotely resembles “advice to the Minister” and a ‘suggested response’ qualifies as ‘advice’ — but there is some interesting background provided to the Minister. Here is that background:

Since 1972, the Bureau investigations in gasoline and heating oil have led to 13 trials lnvolving local price maintenance, eight of which resulted in convictions. The Bureau also conducted six major investigations into allegations of collusion and other anti-competitive behaviour since 1990. In each of these investigations, the Bureau found no evidence to suggest that periodic price increases resulted from a national conspiracy to limit competition in gasoline supply, or from abusive behaviour by
dominant firms in the market Instead, it found that market forces such as supply and demand and rising crude oil prices caused the price spikes.

On June 2.2006, the Commissioner of Competition confirmed that the Competition Bureau was investigating allegations of price fixing between competitors in the retail gasoline industry in local markets in the province of Quebec. The investigation is ongoing.

High prices during volatile market conditions are not contrary to the Act. However, agreements among competitors to artificiall fix or raise prices unduly are prohibited under the criminal conspiracy provisions of the Act. The provisions are strictly enforced by the Bureauat all times.

MP Dan McTeague recently blamed closures of refineries in Canada for current shortages in supply and high gasoline prices. Recent supply problems are due to unforeseen events including a fire at the Nanticoke refinery and limited transportation alternatives for refined products.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games will announce details of the ticket program tomorrow:

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games are a global event and will be an experience of a lifetime for everyone who attends,” said Dave Cobb, VANOC Executive Vice President, Revenue, Marketing and Communications. “It’s been our goal since day one to develop a fair, affordable and accessible Olympic ticketing program and we look forward to sharing the details of the plan this week with Canadians and potential spectators from around the world.”

VANOC’s announcement on Thursday, October 11 will include the on-sale date for tickets to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, how and where the public can access tickets, the pricing of the tickets to each event and a flavour of what the public can expect to experience when they attend Vancouver 2010 events.

Well, Danny Williams is still Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. And sadly, his Opposition — and yes, Virginia, Danny will have an Opposition — will not include Elvis Loveless. Though I don’t know him, I was rooting for him largely because of his name and also, because some Newfoundlanders here in the capital whose opinion I respect, were also rooting for Elvis.

But, sadly, Tracey Perry, the Progressive Conservative candidate in Fortune Bay—Cape La Hune, proved to be nearly twice the candidate Elvis was — beating him 2,539 to 1,395.

Elvis, a Liberal candidate who once worked in former Premier Brian Tobin’s office, shouldn’t feel so bad. His leader, Gerry Reid lost by seven votes in his riding and, across the province, just three Liberals were elected. I’m calling it a Danny Tsunami. They join NDP Leader Lorraine Michael — the only NDP candidate to win — as King Danny’s opposition.

 

 

The Western Standard, a voice of (largely) Western-based Conservatives, has shut down its print edition. Publisher Ezra Levant says the twice-a-month publication wasn't close to making a profit. The Standard claims it had a readership of about 250,000.

Even before they saw the evening newscasts or read the newspaper coverage, staff in the Prime Minister’s Office say they were pleased with the press conference Stephen Harper gave yesterday afternoon in the National Press Theatre (NPT). It was the first time since he became prime minister that Harper used the NPT, the preferred venue of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Moreover, it was the first time in more than a year that Harper gave a press conference in Ottawa in which a member of his staff did not act as moderator. That issue had sparked a long-running battle between the PMO communications staff and the Parliamentary Press Gallery (PPG). PPG executives had argued that one of their own ought to be moderator and that ‘a list’ of questioners maintained by a member of the PMO’s staff had too much potential  for abuse.

Yesterday, Hélène Buzzetti, a journalist with Le Devoir and a member of the PPG executive, was the moderator whereas, for most of the last year, it was Dimitri Soudas, the Deputy Press Secretary for the Prime Minister.

A senior advisor I spoke with last night in the PMO says Harper himself was very pleased with the press conference. Harper believes he was able to get across a few key messages and that the diversity and quality of questions allowed him a chance to speak about several topics. In fact, advisors and the PM are kicking around the idea of doing a Q&A session with reporters on a quarterly basis.

“The preparation is tough. It’s like spotting for an exam,” an advisor said.

The advisor says the idea to hold the presser camer from Harper himself. “No one would even think of pitching such an idea to him,” the advisor said, a recognition, perhaps that advising the PM to ‘make nice’ with the media was probably a contributing factor to the departure of William Stairs as Harper’s director of communications and his replacement by the current incumbent, Sandra Buckler. 

On Tuesday morning, Harper half-jokingly said to some key staffers that he didn’t think he’d been in the media enough in the last several days. That, as it turned out, was his main motivation — he just felt he hadn’t been getting enough press. And so, after thinking about it, Harper himself proposed to do a Q&A session and do it yesterday. So far as timing goes, yesterday would have been the last possible day to do it as Harper has now headed west towards Calgary to spend Thanksgiving with his mother and then when he returns to Ottawa it would be too close to the Throne Speech for him to do such a presser.

The idea of having Harper read an initial statement or make an announcement was considered, then rejected. It was also Harper’s idea to use the National Press Theatre. Up until yesterday, Harper, on the advice of his staff, has held pressers most often in the foyer of the House of Commons. He once told his staff he didn’t think he looked good sitting down behind a desk as one does at the NPT. Still, he thought the NPT would fit the bill and so he picked that that venue. Then, in the moring yesterday, he and his staff went through a list of likely questions and responses — many of which he never had to use.

For example, Harper was expecting journalists to ask about the Ontario election, where Progressive Conservative leader John Tory is trailing badly in the polls. Harper’s response, had he been asked, would have been that he supports John Tory — and then Harper would have added  something along the lines that he supports all Progressive Conservatives who are seeking to be premiers of their province — even Danny Williams!

 

The Conference Board of Canada took a look at the problems in the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market and has concluded that it’ s unlikely the problems will spread north.

CANADIAN ECONOMY LIKELY TO OVERCOME U.S. SUB-PRIME CRISIS

Toronto, October 4, 2007 – Canada’s economy should emerge without serious damage from the U.S. sub-prime debacle—if the U.S. economy can stay out of recession—according to a Conference Board of Canada analysis released at its Business Outlook briefing today.

“The combination of the strong Canadian dollar and slowing U.S. growth will decrease exports in sectors such as wood products and automobiles, but the Canadian domestic economy remains robust and should offset declines in exports,” said Kip Beckman, Principal Research Associate and author of The U.S. Housing Market Meltdown: Implications for Canada. “In addition, most Canadian banks have limited direct exposure to the sub-prime mortgage market, and should be able to weather the storm. [Read the Conference Board report]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at the National Press Theatre yesterday, responds to questions about the Afghanistan mission:

Jennifer Ditchburn, Canadian Press: Mr. Harper, on Afghanistan, a two-pronged question: What do you say to people who say why should we, why should our men and women in uniform be shouldering the burden in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan? Why doesn’t the rest of the world step up? We have been there long enough. And the second part of that question is, you talked in the spring about building a consensus on Afghanistan with the other parties. It is clear that consensus doesn’t exist. So how will Canada, Parliament and the Canadian people find out what we will be doing after February 2009?
Harper: Well, in terms of burden of other countries, we have been clear: Other countries have to do more. NATO has to do more. I think the future of NATO does hinge on this mission ultimately being successful.
As you know, several NATO countries have put their shoulder to the wheel, others not so much, but I do notice in the last several months, there have been a series of announcements of various countries who are putting in more troops. I think they are moving in the right direction.
It may not be enough or fast enough, but we obviously want to encourage that. I don’t think we encourage other people to do more by saying we will do less.
The question is why are we shouldering such a heavy burden? Because we are in one of the most difficult provinces, if not the most difficult province in the country. The decision to take the responsibility for that province was the decision of the previous government.
They weren’t offered a choice of you can take this province now and you get to change your mind later if it turns out to be too difficult. We took that responsibility as a country. I think we should see that responsibility through to the best of our ability. I think our men and women in uniform are committed to doing that. They are the ones who are making the sacrifice and, as I think I have told you before, I call the families when there are — I obviously speak to troops regularly — but I call families when there are losses and almost inevitably, what they demand of the government is not get out, they demand of the government that we complete the job in which their son or daughter strongly believed, or husband or wife strongly believed.
So we think we have a moral responsibility there. It is not a matter of just playing to the polls. Ultimately, in retrospect, the choice of the word “consensus” was wrong. I didn’t mean to imply we would get every party on side. What I simply meant to say was the government can’t obviously assure a majority vote on its own.
We have to have the support of some members of the opposition to get a majority vote in favour of deployment. We are committed to the principle that our military deployment should be supported by Parliament and we have also communicated clearly through our allies that future deployment will be dependent on getting that parliamentary support.

Andrew Mayeda, CanWest Prime Minister, you talked about completing the job in Afghanistan, but…the campaign is not going well on the ground. There has been an increase in IE attacks, there has been an increase in suicide bombings. The Canadians are essentially fighting for territory that they claimed last fall. I’m just wondering, in your opinion, militarily, is Canada winning the war?
Harper: Well, first of all, I can’t comment on the country as a whole. I can tell you that our commanders continue to believe we are making progress.
The fact of the matter is last year, the Taliban was often confronting Canadian troops in a conventional and offensive stance. That is not the case any longer. The Taliban has retreated purely to guerrilla and defensive tactics and so, in a sense, I think we have made some significant progress there.
But you know, I don’t think the objective of Canada, even in the long term, can be that we will root out every single piece of resistance to the government of Afghanistan.
I think our objective is to get security in Afghanistan to the point where the Afghans themselves can be responsible for their own security and hopefully, a state where other things will happen, where development will be able to proceed at an enhanced pace, where governance can be establishing through Kandahar province and Kandahar city.
So you know, our objective is not to fix all the problems of Afghanistan. It is to transfer a viable situation to the Afghan armed forces. We believe we are making progress in doing that, both in terms of the security that is being established and in terms of the training of the Afghan forces themselves, along with some of the initial steps that are being taken on development and governance and reconstruction and other matters.
We do have to lay out some timelines, some realistic timelines to achieve those things but I don’t think that timeline is necessarily today or necessarily February 2009 but we will address that as directly as we can in the Throne Speech.

Mike Blanchfield, Ottawa Citizen: Prime Minister, on Afghanistan, would you be willing to fight an election on the future of the mission if you thought that the debate wasn’t on a level that you thought was serious enough or that weighed the issues clearly enough or if you saw evidence, say, of partisan politics being played? You’ve described it as a moral responsibility and you’ve been quite forceful in that depiction of how you feel about it. How far would you be willing to go to do the right thing?
Harper: The Speech from the Throne will lay out what the government believes, where the government believes the country should head. And what we believe the major priorities are and what we intend to do on those major priorities.
It’s a decision of the opposition if they want to force an election on those things. Obviously, anything we put forward in the Speech from the Throne in a confidence vote are things that we are prepared to run on and prepared to defend in front of the Canadian population.
When it comes to matters of global security or leadership of a military deployment, I believe strongly that anyone who wants to possess the office of Prime Minister has to be prepared to make those kinds of decisions based on the long term best interest of the country, based on whether we fulfill our responsibilities to the poor people of Kandahar whose security we have accepted to take care of, at least in a transition period.
We have responsibilities to the international community with whom we must work on a range of international foreign affairs and defence issues and of course, we have a responsibility to the men and women of the Canadian Forces who we’ve asked to do a job and I think they expect that leaders will stick with those commitments, not abandon them at the first sign of wavering poll numbers or increasing casualties.
I think on these things, what the public is looking for is leadership and that we make decisions for the right reasons and I would urge anyone who aspires to the office of Prime Minister, I would say that I think it’s unwise politics and will be proven to be unwise politics, to play to short-term or uninformed political sentiment on issues that are so critical to the long-run interest and security of our country, to our obligations to others and frankly our obligations to our own men and women in uniform.
That’s what I will urge and hopefully, this debate won’t simply be about do we stay after 2009 or do we pull out after 2009, but the debate will be, what are the options in terms of staying or in terms of leaving or in terms of doing some things and not others? What are the options? What are the up sides and the down sides and what are the costs and what are demands on the military and what’s the best option?
You know, Mr. Dion, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Dion has criticized me for many things. One of the things he criticized was that the last decision was taken too hastily.
Now, I think there’s, there’s some validity to that in the sense we’d only been a government three months and we were nine months away from a decision so we had to take a hasty decision. But I think there’s some validity in the criticism.
But I don’t think if you’re going to make that criticism, that you then turn around and say well, we want the government to make a decision on the next deployment two years in advance before we have any facts.
What all the members of the opposition like the government should be doing is trying to gather all the facts and determine what’s in Canada’s best interest and I don’t think our best interest is unrelated to the interests of the people we’re trying to help or of our fellow nations who are working with us on that particular mission.