Mid-Week Post

Was it something they said?

While many Green supporters interpret it as a social justice movement that peacefully protests Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, BDS is mired in controversy and seen by others as anti-Semitic.

“It’s causing a lot of division,” said Ervin. “I’m just beside myself. I spent 12 years trying to explain to people what we’re about. … I don’t know how to defend this.”

If no one steps up to run her Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding association within a month or two, she plans to formally de-register it.

Cyrille Giraud, who recently de-registered a riding association in Montreal, said BDS is part of why he left. “I didn’t want to be associated to this resolution,” he said, adding he feels the Greens should focus on more national topics.

I have yet to see any political party boycott China, the human-rights abuser.




While everyone is so dashed worried about yesterday's news, new e-mails reveal a waste of money that seems to be acceptable:

Newly released emails show federal officials scrambled to book expensive last-minute flights to bring a cabinet minister back to Ottawa in time for an expected vote on their doctor-assisted dying bill this spring.

International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau was in Copenhagen for a global conference on women’s health and rights this May when her officials got word the Liberals wanted her back — and quickly — for a pending vote in the House of Commons.

Bibeau was originally scheduled to head to Paris and then on to Istanbul and Geneva for other events.

The emails show officials had to book two new flight itineraries — one to get her back to Ottawa and then another from there to Turkey for the latter portion of the trip about two days later — at a cost of nearly $14,000, nearly 80 per cent of the amount spent on airfare for the minister on that trip.

What one overlooks is that this office might not be needed if savages weren't crucifying and beheading Christian boys:

Efforts by the previous Conservative government to promote religious freedom around the world were tainted by the perception of political interference, an internal government evaluation concluded.

The Office of Religious Freedoms positioned Canada as a welcomed world leader on the issue, said the review of the project.

But what it did manage to achieve in its short tenure was coloured by disagreement on how the work should be carried out, a lack of transparency about its goals and concerns the office was biased in its approach to which religions or countries it worked with, the review said.

For example, Christians make up one of the most persecuted minorities, the evaluation noted, so it would make sense for the office to support that group.

“However if this information is not communicated consistently and accurately in the politically sensitive arena, (Office of Religious Freedoms) may be viewed as favouring Christians over all other religious groups,” it said.

“Hence, some stakeholders may interpret actions of ORF as politically motivated. Not surprisingly, the misperception that ORF was a political office was one of the challenges that the office continued to face.”

Ontario's green policies are green in one way only:

You may be surprised to learn that electricity is now cheaper to generate in Ontario than it has been for decades. The wholesale price, called the Hourly Ontario Electricity Price or HOEP, used to bounce around between five and eight cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), but over the last decade, thanks in large part to the shale gas revolution, it has trended down to below three cents, and on a typical day is now as low as two cents per kWh. Good news, right?

It would be, except that this is Ontario. A hidden tax on Ontario’s electricity has pushed the actual purchase price in the opposite direction, to the highest it’s ever been. The tax, called the Global Adjustment (GA), is levied on electricity purchases to cover a massive provincial slush fund for green energy, conservation programs, nuclear plant repairs and other central planning boondoggles. As these spending commitments soar, so does the GA.

And now,  rare Arabian sand cats: