Harper's target practice session in Nunavut

Harper fires Lee Enfield Rifle
Prime Minister Stephen Harper shoots a .303 Lee-Enfield rifle while taking part in a demonstration by the Canadian Rangers at a camp near the Arctic community of Gjoa Haven, Nunavut Wednesday. Harper is on the third day of his annual tour of Northern Canada.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in the midst of his annual northern tour. Here’s some of the scenes shot by Reuters Continue reading Harper's target practice session in Nunavut

Biggest winner in Ontario politics this summer? Andrea Horwath. Biggest loser? Tim Hudak

Andrea Horwath and the Ontario are going to finish the summer with a caucus that has grown by 2 MPPs and with some decent political momentum. Horwath was on my program Battleground on Sun News Network Monday night and I asked her for her interpretations of the summer’s byelections and about her political objectives for the fall:

Continue reading Biggest winner in Ontario politics this summer? Andrea Horwath. Biggest loser? Tim Hudak

South Korea goes with Boeing, dumps Lockheed-Martin's F-35

F-15 Super Eagle

The Government of South Korea looks set to pick Boeing and its F-15 Super Eagle (above) over Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and the Eurofighter Typhoon. South Korea is set to spend US$7.2 billion to buy 15 two-seater jets and 45 single-seat jets.

Canada, by comparison, has budgeted CDN $8.99 billion to buy 65 new F-35s fighters  even as it undertakes an evaluation of its fighter jet options. Both the F-35 and the F-15 would be likely leading contenders to replace Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18s. The F-35 is a stealth fighter while the F-15E has some stealth technology.  Continue reading South Korea goes with Boeing, dumps Lockheed-Martin's F-35

A reader writes: Inky Mark on Merv Tweed and Stephen Harper

Inky Mark
Inky Mark on Parliament Hill in 2005 (REUTERS/Jim Young)

Inky Mark, first elected to the House of Commons in 1997 to represent Dauphin-Swan River in Manitoba, never did like Stephen Harper much and didn’t much care for the way the Reform Party he first joined morphed into the modern Conservative Party. He quit federal politics in 2010, after Harper had won his second minority.

This week, upon learning that Merv Tweed would resign his seat in Brandon-Souris — Tweed’s riding lies directly south of Mark’s old riding , Mark sends along this note:

Now that Merv Tweed has taken a plush job with Hudson Bay Rail, what will happen to the vacancy in Brandon Souris?
Will Stephen Harper appoint his replacement as he has done in Dauphin Swan River after I retired from Ottawa in 2010? Will the CPC members in Brandon Souris demand that an open democratic nomination process be followed? Hopefully the new MP won’t be just another rubber stamp for Harper.

Yours sincerely,

Inky Mark,
former Member of Parliament.

The PM looks for his 8th communication director in 8 years

Andrew MacDougall
I snapped this pic of soon-to-be former PMO Communications Director Andrew MacDougall at the Sikh Temple in Anandpur Sahib, the Punjab, India during PM Harper’s visit there in 2012.

It was just over a year on the job for Andrew MacDougall.

 

Now, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his chief of staff Ray Novak will need to find Harper’s 8th director of communications in 8 years. Continue reading The PM looks for his 8th communication director in 8 years

Atlantic Canada's Employment Insurance haul: $12.5 billion in a decade

Don Mills, Chairman and CEO of Halifax-based Corporate Research Associates, Inc., put out the following series of tweets this afternoon:

Readers write taking issue with my piece on Putin-Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok in the fall of 2012.

In our papers on Saturday and here on this blog, I wrote about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who I believe to be an anti-democratic despot with little concern for respecting the rule of law or upholding universal human rights. Many readers agreed but some did not. Here’s a lightly edited pair of responses which were typical of those who disagreed:

We’ll start with this rant from a computer sciences professor at London’s Western University: Continue reading Readers write taking issue with my piece on Putin-Harper

The frosty Harper-Putin relationship: Tales from Vladivostok

Putin waits for Harper
Waiting for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to show up, Russian President “was fidgeting, tapping his foot, and sent verbal daggers at his minions over the delay,” I write. See below (AFP PHOTO/RIA NOVOSTI/POOL/MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV)

OTTAWA – In less than a month, Russian bad boy Vladimir Putin will host Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders at the G20 summit in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg.
It’s shaping up to be a heck of a summit, if only because every leader who steps off the plane at St. Petersburg’s drab grey airport will have a giant chip on their shoulder because of their host’s recent behaviour on the world stage.

With Syria and gay rights and fugitive Edward Snowden, Putin has been offside with most of the Western world.

U.S. President Barack Obama just cancelled a one-on-one summit with Putin out of pique over Snowden, a sign of rapidly cooling Russia-U.S. relations.

But Harper and Putin haven’t exactly been getting along either. Continue reading The frosty Harper-Putin relationship: Tales from Vladivostok

The good news and bad news about federal Liberal fundraising

The federal Liberals are circulating the following to their membership.  The leader Justin Trudeau says the lastest fundraising numbers have some good news and bad news:

The Conservatives just posted their 2nd quarter fundraising numbers – and despite one of our strongest showings ever, we got out-raised by nearly $2-million.Take a look and see for yourself:

NDP Liberals Conservatives
Amount Fundraised: $1.37M $2.99M $4.88M
No. of Contributors: 18,846  38,014  30,437

That means that between April and June, every minute of every day a Conservative supporter donated 37 dollars and 27 cents. In the 10 seconds it’s taken you to read this, Conservatives donated $5 more – the same amount you could give right now to even the playing field.

But while the Conservatives out-raised us last quarter, we’ve got one number on our side – 38,014. That’s how many Canadians donated to be part of the change, and it’s 7,577 more than gave to the Conservatives.

This is exactly the spirit of the movement we’re building together – thousands on thousands of Canadians, each pitching in what they can, working together to build a better Canada through hope and hard work.

The Conservatives aren’t letting up. Neither can we. And I can’t do this without you.

Please donate now to help us keep up the momentum – and keep working harder:

https://www.liberal.ca/help-us-close-the-gap/

Thank you for being part of the change.

Justin