O CANADA- The people’s prayer
From endless orations
Opponent damnations,
From tax-relief raving
And pompous flag-waving
From promises, bribes
And all pundits and scribes,
From polls and from tipsters,
Political quipsters,
The threats and the pleas
And pretentious decrees
From handbills and posters,
Grandiloquent boasters,
The bark and the bray
And the worn-out cliché,
From the orange and green
And the specious smokescreen
And the red and the blue
And the vows that fall through,
From the bull without let-up,
The photo-op set-up
The rigged town-hall meeting,
The balance-sheet cheating,
And other such things
That election-time brings,
Good Lord, deliver us.
Jim Bennet, Halifax
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RT. Hon. Robert Borden and Hon. Winston Churchill leaving Admiralty, 1912,
Library and Archives Canada, C-002082
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ONE OF MY HERO'S- HIS ELECTION RANT..... and he nails. it.... nails it...there's so much talk and so little results..... and the bitching and the hating... and the negative.... what a quote:
Election Rant: My personal Opinion
Do not get me wrong... I believe in democracy wholeheartedly and do not fail to exercise my democratic rights. But I personally have no interest in the upcoming federal election until after labour day. WTF? In today's era of Modern communications, can someone please explain why we need the longest election campaign in over a 140 years?
Smoke? Mirrors? Bullshit baffling brains? An attempt to exhaust the voting public so that they get campaign fatigue and become apathetic?
Do not get me wrong... I believe in democracy wholeheartedly and do not fail to exercise my democratic rights. But I personally have no interest in the upcoming federal election until after labour day. WTF? In today's era of Modern communications, can someone please explain why we need the longest election campaign in over a 140 years?
Smoke? Mirrors? Bullshit baffling brains? An attempt to exhaust the voting public so that they get campaign fatigue and become apathetic?
So, here are my rules for my thought processes on the election campaign.
1. Piss off until after labour day. This is non negotiable. You call, you show up at my door, you send me stuff, it all gets summarily dismissed.
1. Piss off until after labour day. This is non negotiable. You call, you show up at my door, you send me stuff, it all gets summarily dismissed.
2. After Labour Day, you had better show up with a positive platform. Period. I am already sick of the muck raking and the election was "officially" called a couple hours ago. Assigning blame and who did what to whom is a pointless exercise from my perspective. I want to know what any candidate or party is going to do to improve this country.
If you don't have that, or can't do that then Poppa Foxtrot Oscar, in the kind and nicest way.
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Published on August 02, 2015
Candidates running in the 2015 federal election in Kings-Hants are, from left, Scott Brison - Liberal; William Cooper - Green; David Morse - Conservative; and Morgan Wheeldon - NDP
Brison, Morse will go head to head
in repeat performance in Kings-Hants
Published
on August 02, 2015
NDP, Green candidates
newcomers to political scene
KINGS-HANTS - Will Kings-Hants
remain red, or will the Conservatives, New Democrats or Greens have a chance of
taking the seat?
Other news
In the only riding in southwest Nova Scotia to have an
incumbent running, Scott Brison has held the seat since 1997 – first as a
Progressive Conservative, briefly resigning his seat in July 2000 to allow
then-PC leader Joe Clark to run, and reclaiming it in the October 2000
election, before crossing the floor to join the Liberals in 2003. He narrowly
won the seat over Conservative David Morse by just 1,173 votes in 2011.
Morse is back for a second try at the seat in this
election, while the NDP will run newcomer Morgan Wheeldon and the Greens are
running William Cooper.
Scott Brison – Liberal
Scott Brison, despite his best efforts, isn’t good at
giving an interview in public. That’s mainly because people from the community
keep interrupting him to say hi and chat.
“Hi, how are you doing? How’s (insert relative’s name)?”
Brison says, while at the Spitfire Arms patio in Windsor. “Good to see ya, nice
to see ya.”
It’s a barrage of handshaking and hugs while the bus with
his face on the back drives past.
Brison has been an MP in Kings-Hants since 1997,
representing two political parties; there’s no question he’s a force in this
region.
“I’ve had a business career before politics,” he said. “I
can do business or politics… I choose to do politics because I have an
understanding of the economy and public life.”
Brison says he’s very proud of his home and life in
Cheverie with his husband Maxime and two young daughters.
“Being a parent has had a remarkable impact on how I look
at the issues,” he said. “I think we’re lucky as a family, but there’s a lot of
families out there and a lot of kids out there who haven’t been as lucky as
I’ve been. I think everybody deserves a shot.”
Brison says he’s not impressed with the marathon election
coming up.
“I think it’s a desperate and cynical move by Stephen
Harper to try to change the rules to favour him and the Conservative Party,”
Brison said. “At a time when we’re still in deficit as a country, and this is
going to cost and extra $130 million Canadian tax dollars.”
William Cooper – Green
William Cooper is perhaps better known in Nova Scotia for
his unique art than his politics, but he’s throwing his hat in the ring for the
Green Party in Kings-Hants.
Cooper certainly has a worldly point-of-view, having lived
in the U.K., New Zealand, France, Australia, South Korea and more before
settling in Nova Scotia.
“My wife and I moved back to Nova Scotia to be closer to
family, we wanted to settle in the Annapolis Valley,” Cooper said.
His next adventure? Federal politics.
“I love politics and I’m really inspired by the Green
Party’s policies,” he said. “It just seemed like an exciting thing to do and I
jumped at the idea.”
This is the first time Cooper is running for public office,
although he’s been a member of the Green Party since living in New Zealand.
Cooper said he’s hoping people aren’t voting for him, that
they’re voting for the party.
“One of the issues with the political system is people
voting for personalities rather than policy,” he said. “I hope people vote for
the green party, and I just happen to be the local candidate for Kings-Hants.”
Cooper said that for him, there’s one big issue in this
election – the environment.
“It’s global warming, the economic collapse that’s about to
happen,” he said. “It’s a lack of awareness of the ecological catastrophe we’re
facing.”
David Morse - Conservative
David Morse is an old hat at elections.
The New Minas resident, who is running under the
Conservative banner in the 2015 federal election, has previously run in seven
elections representing all three levels of government.
“It started out with me showing up at community events,
things needed to be done, and I spoke up maybe once too often and people began
looking at me to speak for the group,” Morse said.
That sparked his only run in municipal politics. He went on
to run provincially five times in Kings South for the provincial Tories,
winning the riding during his second kick at the can in 1999. He held the
position for 10 years.
Under the John Hamm and Rodney MacDonald governments, Morse
served as a cabinet minister in several portfolios.
In 2011, Morse took his first run at a federal seat but
lost to Scott Brison.
“My motivation has always been the same,” he said. “I
believe more can be done in Kings-Hants, but that cannot happen unless the representation
changes.”
His experience with elections makes one thing clear: the
11-week run in front of him will require a lot of energy.
“Elections are a marathon at the best of times, and federal
elections are a few days longer than provincial. This is like running a double
marathon. I’m sure all the candidates and volunteers will be grateful when Oct.
19 comes,” he said.
Long before the writ was dropped, Morse was already
knocking on doors.
“I think the people believe it’s incredibly important that
there be a change in Kings-Hants,” he added.
Morgan Wheeldon – NDP
Running against the Liberal incumbent and a Conservative
candidate who has vast experience in running in other elections doesn’t concern
NDP political newcomer Morgan Wheeldon at all. In fact, he believes it may help
his cause.
“It’s a great opportunity. I will be a strong voice for the
people who live in this area,” he says.
And the message he’s getting on the doorsteps is clear,
says Wheeldon, who has been campaigning already. He says that leadership is the
number one issue he’s heard about from voters.
“Most Canadians do want to end Harper. The top three issues
– number one is getting rid of Stephen Harper. After that, young people said
they need to have jobs here and people are interested in senior’s issues. The
NDP present, clearly, the best alternatives on all these issues.”
For Wheeldon, the decision to run in the election
came down to a desire to help improve the area. He grew up in Gaspereau and now
lives with his wife and daughter in Wolfville.
“I genuinely care about the region,” he said. “I chose to
move back here with my family and make a life here. I’m running because the NDP
have the best plan.”
As one of the founding members of the non-partisan
organization Fusion Annapolis Valley, he’s already working to help promote the
area to young people.
"(I’m) dedicated to opportunities and success for
young adults in this region," he says.
He also has experience in the procurement industry.
“I’ve seen how government gets business done on various
levels,” he said.
KINGS-HANTS -
Will Kings-Hants remain red, or will the Conservatives, New Democrats or Greens
have a chance of taking the seat?
Other news
The candidates in brief:
Who is Scott Brison?
Resides: Cheverie
Family: Married with two young children
Occupation: Member of Parliament for Kings-Hants
Party: Liberal
Who is William Cooper?
Resides: Wolfville
Family: Married with three young children
Occupation: local artist and staffer at Blomidon Provincial Park
Party: Green
Who is David Morse?
Resides: New Minas
Family: Married with five adult sons and five grandchildren
Occupation: Self-employed insurance broker prior to political career
Party:
Conservative
Who is Morgan Wheeldon?
Resides:Wolfville
Family: Married with a 17-month-old daughter, Nora
Occupation: Dad, with a business on the backburner
Party: NDP
http://www.kingscountynews.ca/News/Local/2015-08-02/article-4233769/Brison,-Morse-will-go-head-to-head-in-repeat-performance-in-Kings-Hants/1
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BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS:
Check out creepy cartoons, posters from 1600s onwards with tons of history FROM
Canada primary sources in the classroom- mind controlling that was so effective
in Canada- and look around what the environment electronic is controlling the
world now- look at the stories news-cartoons etc. =LOOK AT THE CREEPY LIES THAT
GOT PUBLISHED... CHECK IT OUT... brilliant link... into Canada's actual history
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Election 2015: Five key things each party needs to do for success
Five keys to success for the Green party
1. Get past the environment. To make a breakthrough, it’s important for the party to make it clear to voters that they are about more than just environmental issues. Some might still see the Greens as a one-note party. So it needs to stress economic and social policies in addition to positions on climate change and other environmental issues.
2. Persuade voters the best government for Canadians is a minority. In a tight race, some voters are likely to be reluctant to vote for a party that has no real chance of forming government. But the Greens want to win enough seats in order to be in a position to sway the balance of power in a minority Parliament — using that influence to push its policies.
3. Take advantage of the debate. Green party Leader Elizabeth May will be alongside the three major party leaders in the Aug. 6 debate organized by Maclean’s magazine — an early opportunity to capture a share of the national spotlight, as well as the attention of voters.
4. Continue to build the party infrastructure. Elections bring renewed focus, energy and volunteers — essential ingredients to long-term success.
5. Leverage online and social media. With less money to spend on traditional media advertising and whistle-stop tours, the party will need to be creative. That means turning to the Internet — especially social media platforms — to connect with potential voters.
2. Persuade voters the best government for Canadians is a minority. In a tight race, some voters are likely to be reluctant to vote for a party that has no real chance of forming government. But the Greens want to win enough seats in order to be in a position to sway the balance of power in a minority Parliament — using that influence to push its policies.
3. Take advantage of the debate. Green party Leader Elizabeth May will be alongside the three major party leaders in the Aug. 6 debate organized by Maclean’s magazine — an early opportunity to capture a share of the national spotlight, as well as the attention of voters.
4. Continue to build the party infrastructure. Elections bring renewed focus, energy and volunteers — essential ingredients to long-term success.
5. Leverage online and social media. With less money to spend on traditional media advertising and whistle-stop tours, the party will need to be creative. That means turning to the Internet — especially social media platforms — to connect with potential voters.
— Jim Bronskill
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We Are Voters; We Are Canadians with Disabilities | Council ...
www.ccdonline.ca/en/blog/we-are-voters
As in every Federal Election, CCD has been using a disability lens to review the ...Throughout its more than three decades of work at the Federal level, CCD has ... of Commons committees, which have addressed disability issues, we have seen ...running in this election listen carefully to the Canadians with disabilities who ...
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Access to Electoral Success - Elections Canada On-Line ...
www.elections.ca/res/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=16&lang...
As a group, people with disabilities are poor and have limited access to disabilitysupports (goods ... In Canada, people with disabilities who are running for office, along with the ... We will never know if this sunglass issue cost us votes … ... Sullivan thought that he could do much more for himself if he only he had the tools.
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'Extremely low' number of disabled people enter Canadian ...
www.thestar.com/.../canada/.../extremely_low_number_of_disabled_peo...
Jul 19, 2014 - “We have to start asking, 'Do people with disabilities see ... that Nova Scotia has had the most people with disabilities who sought office during the ... people with disabilities to run and parties will have to do more to encourage ...CHECK OUT THE GOOD SHEEEET.... OPEN ARMS KENTVILLE NOVA SCOTIA- finally opening..... can u believe it..... the town and country finally worked together and the poor only had to wait 3 long years more than they should have......
Saturday, July 4th (1-4pm)
"Annual 'Thank You' BBQ" for friends, volunteers & supporters
Kentville Research Station - Upper Picnic Park
Food, Music, Friends & Fun
Wednesday, July 8th (10-12)
Dedication of Painting of Harley Lawrence & BBQ at Berwick Drop-in
St. Anthony's Catholic church - 122 Mill St., Berwick
Thursday, July 30th (10am-3pm)
"4th Annual Blomidon Picnic" for Drop-in guests & participants
Friday & Saturday, September 18th (10am-2pm) & 19th (2-5pm)
"Grand Opening" at 32 Cornwallis St., Kentville
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BLOGGED:
HOMELESS HARLEY LAWRENCE OF NOVA SCOTIA- MURDERED DOWN ON MAIN- We must do better Nova Scotia- Canada- we just must- tears and prayers -a little good news-MAY 2014- CATCHING MONSTERS CAUGHT- HEALING GARDEN BUILT IN BERWICK NS-honour/June 28 2014- Another beloved Homeless Man savaged in Halifax Nova Scotia- LET'S FIX THIS- GOD'S WATCHING AND LOSING FAITH IN US /25 Famous people who were Homeless 2/ OPEN ARMS KENTVILLE- WHY AREN'T U OPENED 4 OUR BELOVED HOMELESS?? -Sept 24- AWESOME SHARE NS RCMP - RCMP NOVA SCOTIA SHARED THIS AWESOME RESPECT 4 HOMELESS AND PSYCHIATRIC -mental health or addiction PROBLEMS- 2do list
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2013/10/homeless-harley-lawrence-of-nova-scotia.html
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RCMP NOVA SCOTIA SHARED THIS AWESOME RESPECT 4 HOMELESS AND PSYCHIATRIC -mental health or addiction PROBLEMS...
Preventing violent encounters
Police officers speak to person in street.
In 2011, the Edmonton Police Service collaborated with the University of Alberta to improve the interaction between police officers and those suffering from a mental illness. Credit: Edmonton Police Service
De-escalation training for police
By Yasmeen Krameddine and Peter Silverstone, University of Alberta, and David DeMarco and Robert Hassel, Edmonton Police Service
Police officers are now frequently the first-line responders for those suffering a mental health or addiction problem, but training in handling these cases isn’t keeping up with the need.
Related story
RCMP takes holistic approach to mental health
To counter this, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) teamed up with the University of Alberta to investigate a new way to improve outcomes. This research was led by Dr. Peter Silverstone and PhD candidate Yasmeen Krameddine, and the results to date are very positive.
The training focuses on improving interactions between police officers and individuals exhibiting various forms of mental illness. What makes it novel is that it uses actors to portray real-life scenarios, developed in close collaboration between police and the University of Alberta.
Police officers then interact with the actors in these scenarios. The goal is to increase skills in active verbal/non-verbal communication, de-escalation techniques, empathetic understanding and mental-health knowledge.
This program is run as a one-day intensive training program with six scenarios: depression, addiction, schizophrenia, alcohol withdrawal, mania and a suicidal individual.
It allows officers to improve their interactions in real-life situations. One important part of the training is the use of professional actors, who give feedback to the officers after each scenario. This is in addition to feedback from more senior training officers.
The actors are trained to acknowledge both the positive and negative behaviours of each officer during the scenario, giving officers in-depth feedback on how the officer made the actor feel during the interaction. Feedback is crucial for officers to understand how their actions affect the emotions and behaviour of individuals they come in contact with. The actors were trained extensively on verbal and non-verbal communication techniques, and varied their interactions depending on what the officer said or did.
For example, if the officer rolled his or her eyes, didn’t listen to what was being said or tried to rush the actor, the actor would in turn behave more belligerently and less helpfully.
In contrast, if the officer looked engaged, gave the actor his or her attention and held eye contact, the actor would be more relaxed, helpful and supply all the information asked for.
Emphasis during the feedback for each scenario was on increasing the expression of empathic feelings and body language expressed to the actors in the scenarios.
After the scenario was complete, the feedback continued to highlight why the actor behaved in certain ways. This allowed police to have an outside perspective of their actions and body language, giving them a better view of how their actions or what they said impacted the way they are viewed.
An example of feedback from an actor would be “When you asked me my name, I felt like you actually cared about me, as a person, so I was comfortable in answering your questions” or “when you told me to calm down it made me angry because your tone suggested you didn’t care why I was so angry.”
To date, more than 650 police officers have completed this training. Results have been very positive.
Over a six-month period, EPS members demonstrated significant improvements in their communication, empathy and de-escalation skills, as observed by their supervising officers.
Additionally, there was an improvement in an officer’s ability to confidently recognize, respond and empathetically communicate with individuals in distress.
This supported a 41 per cent increase in the actual number and classification of mental health calls, with 19 per cent less time being spent on each call, thus an increase in efficiency. Over a six-month period, this led to cost savings of $83,828.
Additionally, police reported feeling significantly more confident in their training and ability to interact with a mentally ill individual. There was also a large decrease (more than 40 per cent) in the use of any kind of force when interacting with mentally ill individuals, although there were other internal police initiatives that may have helped this latter figure.
These results show promise, and continue to emphasize the positive effects of this innovative mental health training initiative. What’s interesting about the research that was done, and the tips provided, is that little things can make a big difference.
Active listening and expressing empathy in both verbal and non-verbal communication improves outcomes for police officers, particularly when interacting with those who have mental illness and/or addiction problems.
This study also shows that these skills can be taught and improved, and that this leads to true-to-life training and real-life application. Feedback from officers taking part repeatedly said how realistic the scenarios were and that they were able to subsequently incorporate these skills into their daily tasks.
Dos and don’ts for talking to people with psychiatric problems
Try to do the following:
Ask individuals their name in a conversational manner, and offer yours. This small act of bonding can go a long way in developing an understanding and empathetic relationship.
Active listening. This is done by keeping attention and maintaining eye contact on the individual. You can also summarize what they say by repeating it back to them. Nod your head up and down to demonstrate strong non-verbal understanding. If you show you are actively listening, you will increase empathy with the subject, helping you gain any information and insights you need.
Use “open” body language. Body language is an unconscious form of communication that can escalate or de-escalate situations depending how it’s used. Keep a calm and relaxed posture, try not to cross your arms, smile and show you’re concerned. These behaviours allow the subject to feel safe and trusted.
Mirroring. Copy their body language if you can. It’s a powerful way of empathizing using non-verbal communication.
Label and confirm their feelings. Since feelings and emotions are frequently a major cause of problems, labelling their feelings shows you are listening, for example, “It sounds like you’re feeling very underappreciated.” Confirming also helps them see that their feelings are normal, such as “anyone would feel sad after losing their job.”
Focus on family. By asking the person about their family or friends, you can decrease their isolation and remind them that they have people in their life. Examples may be “do you have any children?” and “what would your children do if they no longer had you in their life?”
Tell them what you are doing and why. Research shows that if you explain to the individual what you have to do and why, there will be less chance of aggression and escalation. For example “I am going to have to arrest you because it looks like there are five warrants out for your arrest.”
Try not to do the following:
Telling them to “calm down” or “relax.” These words may make them angry because they feel they’re being talked down to and told what to do. This does the opposite of making someone feel calm.
Using dominating body language. Standing over an individual with your feet planted, hands on your waist or on your gun, can indicate control and power. This may make the person feel defensive, powerless and unimportant. They are less likely to be co-operative. If they’re sitting, try instead to crouch down to their level, so you’re able to talk to them as equals.
Improper mirroring. Copying isn’t always appropriate. If they’re shouting, don’t shout back, no matter the provocation. Try talking in a softer voice so they have to stop to listen to what you are saying. Also, if the person is scared or anxious, mirroring their body language can exaggerate anxiety and fear, which may escalate the situation. Keep a calm demeanor, even if they are not. Eventually and without realizing it, many subjects will copy your body language.
Telling them they shouldn’t feel a certain way. All feelings are real no matter how outrageous it sounds. Do not belittle what the subject is experiencing. For example, if a subject is hearing voices, don’t say “no, you don’t hear that.” Instead, ask more about the situation: “How long have you been hearing them?” or “How do they make you feel?”
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/gazette/vol76no1/cover-dossier/edmonton-eng.htm?fb#problems
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Halifax’s homeless get a new boost
MICHAEL TUTTON THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated July 31, 2015 - 8:12pm
Government-funded Housing First to provide shelter, support to 60 people
Justice Minister Peter MacKay comforts Judy Deal, a social assistance recipient, at a news conference on Friday announcing a program to bring shelter and support teams to 60 chronically homeless people in Halifax. Deal has accomodations but faces financial challenges. (ANDREW VAUGHAN / CP)
Justice Minister Peter MacKay comforts Judy Deal, a social assistance recipient, at a news conference on Friday announcing a program to bring shelter and support teams to 60 chronically homeless people in Halifax. Deal has accomodations but faces financial challenges. (ANDREW VAUGHAN / CP)
A program designed to bring shelter and support teams to 60 chronically homeless people in Halifax was launched Friday by three levels of government.
The approach known as Housing First will provide shelter and assistance beginning in the fall and over the next four years for people who have been living on the streets of the city.
The program will operate through the North End Community Health Centre in Halifax, which assigns a team that includes a mental health nurse and an occupational therapist to each case.
The key staff who identify participants and set up their support programs are members of the Mobile Outreach Street Health, whose nurses and outreach workers are already familiar with people who live in shelters or on the streets.
Unlike some subsidized housing programs, the Housing First approach doesn’t require participants to meet a set of eligibility criteria such as prior participation in addictions or mental health programs.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay was on hand to confirm that $2 million from the federal government’s national homeless initiative announced last year will be used in the four-year program, mostly to fund the staff who work with the homeless.
The provincial government will provide rent subsidies for the participants and the City of Halifax is also providing support for the housing.
“With these resources and with this partnership coming together, it’s my hope we can put more roofs over more heads and this caring, compassionate community will show leadership to all Canadians,” said the federal minister.
“All Canadians deserve to be safe.”
Joanne Bernard, the province’s minister of Community Services, said including mental health treatment as part of the support was a key aspect of the program.
“Based on success in other parts of the country (with Housing First), I’m confident the initiative will help people find secure, stable housing as the foundation for rebuilding their lives,” she said.
Judy Deal, a 58-year-old Halifax woman who lives on social assistance, observed the news conference from the front row and as it concluded said governments must also assist people like herself who are housed but are struggling to pay their rents.
“I want to be heard. I need help with a subsidy with my rent. And I need it now because Aug. 8 my rent is going up $40 more,” she said.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1302590-halifax%E2%80%99s-homeless-get-a-new-boost
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THEM NOVA SCOTIA HOCKEY SONS.... we love ya,..... and Sidney.... 3 Gold Medals and Sir Stanley's Cup... and ya still drop by and visit kids... and families ... and Nathan... your mommas raised u right...
A new backyard for Bryan – and a visit from Crosby and MacKinnon
EVAN WEBSTER
Published July 30, 2015 - 7:11pm
Last Updated July 31, 2015 - 10:54am
Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby dropped by the Carroll home to spend some time with Bryan Carroll and his sister, Abby, Wednesday. The community helped transform Bryan’s backyard this week so that the little boy, who is ill with leukemia, has a special place to play. (CONTRIBUTED)
Friends, family and two hockey stars made Wednesday afternoon pretty special for seven-year-old Bryan Carroll.
About a year ago, Bryan was diagnosed with leukemia. He can’t leave the house very often, so he spends a lot of time playing in the backyard with his friends.
When a child is battling cancer, support from the community goes a long way. Last week, Bryan’s father told some friends about the ragged state of the backyard. Behind his back, the community sprang into action.
After spending the day riding trains — an experience Bryan always wanted — the Carroll family returned home to find the backyard of their Dartmouth home totally transformed. Volunteers spent the day laying sod, building a firepit, planting flowers and assembling furniture.
“I was totally shocked, I didn’t even think the backyard could look this good,” said Sean Carroll, Bryan’s father.
“It feels so good knowing we’re not trying to deal with this alone. To have people come out and do this for us was unbelievable.”
A little later, NHL superstars Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon dropped by to greet the family and play with Bryan. The hockey players, who both grew up in Cole Harbour, have been active in the community this summer.
“I was pretty surprised when they pulled up,” said Carroll.
“They’re unbelievable people. They stayed at our house for an hour and a half, played Lego with Bryan and his friends, and then did some water gun fights. It was fantastic.”
Leanne Christie, whose son is a good friend of Bryan’s, set up a Go Fund Me page for the backyard makeover. In just four days, members of the community donated $4,120.
“Sean just mentioned a couple little things he wished he had time to do,” said Christie.
“I knew I had people who could do them, so I went home and made some phone calls. Someone had the Go Fund Me idea so we ran with it, and here we are.”
She said they scrambled to get the project done in time, but it was totally worth it when they saw the smile on Bryan’s face.
“I know it was a relief for Sean, and it was a relief for me that we actually got it done. They came home, they were happy and Bryan was happy. At that point, we knew Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon were coming, so we were thrilled.”
Sean and his wife are taking a break from work to enjoy time with their son.
“This is the situation we’re in. We’re trying to give Bryan as many life experiences as we can,” he said.
“It’s tough, but if you met him, you wouldn’t think anything was wrong. He’s squirting me with a water gun right now. He’s so full of life.”
Crosby and MacKinnon have been in the media a lot in the last couple of weeks. Here are links to items about impressing the manager at a local restaurant, shooting a commercial at a drive-thru and the pending launch of a hockey shool.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1302358-a-new-backyard-for-bryan-%E2%80%93-and-a-visit-from-crosby-and-mackinnon?from=most_read&most_read=1302358&most_read_ref=%2Fmetro%2F1302590-halifax%25E2%2580%2599s-homeless-get-a-new-boost
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BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS:
Ant n Grasshopper CANADA POLITICAL STYLE- politics included –biting hilarious
stories jokes and cartoons from waaaaay back and great site- GETCHA CANADA
ON/political science made eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasy- come on u know u’ll love it
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Blogged:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS:
who are u to change history?- Hey Canada , USA, Europe- and world – all history
matters- STOP SCRUBBING FIRST PEOPLES HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE IN AMERICAS and
latino and Immigrant history off the pages 2 suit the ‘MOMENT’ ... shame on the
lot of ya- USA u going all black and Californ...i...a... movie stars and such
/Canada Immigration History matters as much as First Nations- Canadians get
that/QUOTES..imho/updates
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Canadian markswoman outshoots
700 international sharpshooters
Sgt. Tatyana Danylyshyn joined
Victoria based reserves in 2002
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BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS:
Political cartooning - Politique -French and English- LATE 1800s lampoons....
/OKAY THESE ARE HYSTERICAL.... POLITICAL CARTOONISTS KICKED ARSE IN CANADA WAY
BACK WHEN- hilarious
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Canadian pop
icon helps celebrate centre’s anniversary
SPRINGHILL – The importance of the Anne Murray
Centre is not lost on fans of the Canadian music icon.
Submitted
Betty Halvorsen of Lewes, Del. meets Anne Murray
during a meet and greet at the Anne Murray Centre in Springhill on Saturday.
Visitors came from around the globe to help celebrate the 26th anniversary of
the centre that celebrates Murray’s career.
Each year they travel from far and wide to visit the
centre on its anniversary and meet their favourite performer.
“It’s an amazing experience every year,” said Stacey
Gunn Ambrose, who traveled to Springhill Pittsburgh for Saturday’s 26th
anniversary celebration. “You get to see a lot of people you see every year and
you meet some new friends as well. And, of course, you get to meet Anne.”
Gunn Ambrose remembers growing up with Murray’s music
in her home. Snowbird was one of the first songs she learned, adding as a child
she would cry until the song, Murray’s first hit, was played on the record
player.
She came to Springhill for the first time during the
centre’s 15th anniversary and has been coming back to the centre almost every
year since the 18th anniversary.
“Springhill reminds me a lot of the town my mom grew
up in in Pennsylvania. When the steel mill closed down everyone thought the
town would disappear,” she said. “The centre is a bit part of Springhill and we
have to do everything we can to support it.”
She said Murray’s popularity is still strong today
because of her personality, adding the singer has gotten to know those who come
to the anniversary.
“She knows a group of us very well,” she said. “She
even commented when I changed the colour of my hair. She’s very appreciative of
the support she has and people just love her.”
Although she hasn’t performed in several years,
Murray continues to be amazed at how fans continue to support the centre.
The centre’s anniversary was celebrated on Saturday
with VIP and patron luncheon at the Dr. Carson & Marion Murray Community Centre
and a meet and greet with Anne back at the centre.
“I think it was the most successful to date. There
was something about it this time that made it very special,” Murray said.
“There were a lot of new faces as well as a lot of familiar faces, people who
show up every year and support the centre.”
While most of those attending the luncheon (a paid
event) were American and Canadian, the meet and greet featured visitors from
around the globe including Australia, Japan and New Zealand.
The 70-year-old Springhill native hasn’t performed
since 2008 and hasn’t released an album of new material in nearly a decade.
Despite that, her popularity hasn’t suffered and she has also attracted a
younger generation of fans – something that’s not lost on a pop icon who is
considered a pioneer of the Canadian music industry.
“I’m very lucky to have such loyal fans and fans who
are very loyal in their support of the centre and the community,” Murray said.
“I’m the only connection they have to Springhill and it’s really something for
them to continue supporting the centre the way they do.”
Opened in 1989, the centre celebrates Murray’s career
while providing economic activity in the former mining community. Each summer,
thousands of fans from around the world come to Springhill to visit the
facility.
Centre executive director Marcie Meekins said the
event was a huge success.
“It was probably the best one that I’ve seen in my
eight years at the centre,” Meekins said. “There was a certain energy about it.
It was a very warm group with a lot of old friends as well as a lot of new
ones.”
Meekins said Murray continues to be popular because
almost every Canadians have found themselves humming one of her songs at one
time. While she doesn’t perform anymore, her songs continue to be played on
radio and are part of many record collections that have been passed along from
one generation to another.
One of the reasons Murray remains popular is not only
her status as a Canadian music icon, but because she’s so approachable and
continues to maintain her small town Nova Scotia roots.
Oddly, it was an appearance on the popular American
cartoon Family Guy in 2013 that introduced her to a lot of younger fans.
a little good news - anne murray 1983
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One of Canada's Greatest Women...... #1BRising and pure tory... through and through....Rita MacNeil.... so many great women .... who changed the world for girls in Canada.... we are now equal by law in Canada... yes... WOMEN EQUAL MEN.... something the USA and UN have failed yet... to do.... Peace of Christ Flora.... u raised up up... and believed in each and every one of us.... God is lucky
I’ve long been a fan of the documentary work of Peter Raymont, so was delighted to find an extraordinary NFB production by him of Flora MacDonald’s leadership bidfor the Conservative party in 1976. The film captures her confidence, eloquence, and determination to change direction for her party. For instance, when asked about women’s labour in a debate on the economy, MacDonald took the opportunity to advocate for valuing the unpaid work of women in the home (this is 1976 in the Conservative party!). She was the first woman to run a full election campaign for leadership of the Conservative party. She didn’t have corporate backers to bankroll her, and as a result came up with the ingenious idea of inviting people across Canada to send in $1 to support her campaign (crowdfunding before the internet?). As a result she generated more individual supporters than any other candidate -- and more than the party itself had in the previous year.
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One of Canada's Greatest Women...... #1BRising and pure tory... through and through....Rita MacNeil.... so many great women .... who changed the world for girls in Canada.... we are now equal by law in Canada... yes... WOMEN EQUAL MEN.... something the USA and UN have failed yet... to do.... Peace of Christ Flora.... u raised up up... and believed in each and every one of us.... God is lucky
Remembering Canadian politician and humanitarian Flora MacDonald
| AUGUST 2, 2015I’ve long been a fan of the documentary work of Peter Raymont, so was delighted to find an extraordinary NFB production by him of Flora MacDonald’s leadership bidfor the Conservative party in 1976. The film captures her confidence, eloquence, and determination to change direction for her party. For instance, when asked about women’s labour in a debate on the economy, MacDonald took the opportunity to advocate for valuing the unpaid work of women in the home (this is 1976 in the Conservative party!). She was the first woman to run a full election campaign for leadership of the Conservative party. She didn’t have corporate backers to bankroll her, and as a result came up with the ingenious idea of inviting people across Canada to send in $1 to support her campaign (crowdfunding before the internet?). As a result she generated more individual supporters than any other candidate -- and more than the party itself had in the previous year.
Flora Macdonald died last week, on July 26, at the age of 89. Despite her high profile in the Conservative Party, and her political breakthroughs (for instance, she was Canada's first female Foreign Minister -- one of the first women to occupy this position in the world), Flora MacDonald wasn’t a politician we heard a lot about. Her Conservative political background combined with her progressive views (for example, she didn’t hide the fact that she voted NDP in recent elections) is perhaps a combination that makes partisans feel uncomfortable. This may explain, in part, Stephen Harper’s snub this week-end: he has announced that he is not attending her funeral.
She was a Red Tory -- a socially progressive MP at a time long before the Harper-style Conservatives. She fought for equality and inclusiveness. Following her political career she turned to her passions for women’s rights and international humanitarian work -- spending much of her life traveling to work on women's issues internationally.
I had the honour of spending part of day with her at her Ottawa apartment several years ago, as research for Ten Thousand Roses, a history of Canadian feminism by Judy Rebick.
Following are never published excerpts from that interview: on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women; on women and politics; and on her work to limit election spending -- the latter a timely reminder as Harper is rumoured to be launching the most expensive election in Canadian history today.
Whether or not you share her political philosophy, Flora MacDonald broke new ground for women in Canada, and her story sheds a different light on some key moments in Canadian history.
On the Royal Commission on the Status of Women
There wasn’t anything in the way of a women’s organization in the 1960s. I’m talking now other than in political parties. In political parties women were always looked at as adjuncts, you know, to help out when the time came, but not to make the decisions. But Laura Sabia headed the Canadian Federation of University Women and they, every year, met with Cabinet, and brought recommendations to Cabinet. They were a non-partisan organization who represented a great swath of women, women’s groups, all across the country. They were the leading women’s organization. Among other things, they were always lobbying for better representation of women in Parliament, but particularly in Cabinet.
At the time, in the late 1960s, when Lester Pearson was still Prime Minister, before Trudeau, Mr. Pearson had one woman, Judy Lamarche, in the Cabinet. Laura and the CFUW were lobbying for greater representation in Cabinet. Mr. Pearson had said to them, "you know, I have a woman in the Cabinet." Laura said, "well, we want a Royal Commission on the Status of Women to find out where women stand". It was refused and he wasn’t at all willing to listen to what she said. So, she said, "well, then I’ll have two million women march on Parliament." And it was really due to the threat of that, that reconsideration was given to set up the Commission to look at where women stood at that point in Canada. Not just in politics, but in a much broader spectrum. So, as a result of that we got the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.
Anne Francis was set up to head the Commission. Monique Bégin became the Secretary of the Commission. I was then working at Queen’s University, and I had a call from Anne Francis saying they would like me to write the section on women and politics. There wasn’t much to write about in Canada, as up until that point, there had been very few women involved in active politics, you know, not more than a dozen. In 1921, Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament, and in 1971, fifty years later, there was still only one woman in Parliament. It really, really was incredible.
At the time, I had been traveling in India and had been doing a lot of work on the way women had become involved with Ghandi in the protest movements against the hold of the British government over India. What interested me was the way women had marched equally, had been jailed equally. When India gained independence, one of the things that happened was that the government of Nehru wanted women in Parliament, but they weren’t nominated and they weren’t chosen. So he set up what were called Women’s Constituencies. They divided the country into large constituencies and then had women stand to represent them. They were in addition to the members of Parliament... Eventually that was done away with because there were enough women being elected. I think that India has regressed since that period, but it was a bright shining period and there were a number of very important women who came to the fore at that time.
I remember doing an analysis of what had happened [in India]. I submitted this, but Anne Francis was much more conservative in that respect than I was, and she didn’t want to accept anything quite as radical as that. So she accepted the paper but took out what I thought was the guts of it. It came out, I thought, much weaker than I would have liked to have seen it.
About her own role in an elected Parliament
This was 1971. I was nominated to be the Progressive Conservative candidate. I was in Hong Kong with a class when I got a cable from friends at the university, saying we think we are going to put your name forward as the candidate. Now this was a seat held by the Minister of Finance, Ben Benson. So, you know, everybody thought well, what is the harm, there is no way she’ll ever get it. But actually when I got home for the last three weeks before the nomination meeting, I went and arranged to speak to any number of women’s groups in Kingston and said, look, if you really think it would be good to have a woman in Parliament, why don’t you come to the nomination meeting, join the Conservative Party and vote for me.
The turn out was amazing. It was incredible. When I got up there, on the platform, against a man who was a well known lawyer; whose family had been there for many generations; who was president of the board of trade, I saw all of these women. I thought, well isn’t that great! So that is how I got nominated. These women became a tremendous force in my campaign, and I won.
I was the woman in the Opposition. The only woman. I was named as a critic: the single woman who was on a front bench. On the other side there were three women. Monique Bégin who at that point was still a backbencher, Albanie Morin, and Jeanne Sauvé who was named to Cabinet. And there was Grace MacInnis – from BC in the NDP.
Has the situation for women in Parliament has changed with time?
One of the things that a number of us worked on early in the 1970s was getting the electoral rules changed to limit the amount of money that anyone could spend during an election campaign. The way it was then, you put your money into the election campaign, you didn’t do an awful lot of advertising at the local level before the election was called. It was just senseless, nobody knew who the candidate was going to be or whatever. But there was always a lot of money put in during the election campaign by those who could afford it. Well, women couldn’t. So we had a limit on spending put in place. It enabled others, from different cultural backgrounds, from different ethnic backgrounds to run, as well as women.
That was one of the main things that I contributed. It was a major achievement of the political make-up of the early1970s. As a result women have benefited. But it took a lot of hard work to get it done. Now there is a much larger number of women in the House. I’m glad to see that there are more in Cabinet, though not nearly enough. But, I don’t hear much about forwarding women’s rights. It is almost as if we’ve arrived, and I don’t think we have. I’m also worried that I don’t hear a great deal from younger women, from people in university. There is not the clamor that there was in the 1960s and 70s. That was a very heady time to be involved in politics.
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Blogged:
Canada's season of
political disconnect-so let's shake things up Canada/Strengthening Teamwork and
Debating Skills among Youth/Changeup the horrifying global indifference 2
humanity and basic decency/why history matters
My Grandpa and Uncle (WWII) said they were the saviours of
the sea.....and never failed.... just look at this magnificence....... The
Newfoundland Dog.... right back 2 WWI
Pin-Ups For Vets with Holly Funk and 3 others
A Coast Guard Hero...here's a
Newfoundland dog getting ready to jump into the ocean to make a rescue of a
person in distress. Check out the photos here of this dog in action jumping
from a helicopter to make a rescue: http://imgur.com/a/7Rf02
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UNITED KINGDOM
Canada's political landscape undergoes seismic shift with election in
Alberta
Once-marginal New Democratic Party sweeps to victory over conservatives in
setback for prime minister Stephen Harper’s Keystone XL pipeline efforts
Canada’s rockbound political landscape has undergone a seismic shift with the election of a leftwing government in oil-rich Alberta, the country’s wealthiest and – until now – most conservative province.
The once-marginal New Democratic Party swept to victory in the western province on Tuesday night, humiliating the Progressive Conservative party that has ruled the province since the first term of US president Richard Nixon.
“We made a little bit of history tonight,” the province’s New Democrat leader, Rachel Notley, told supporters.
The result marks the latest and most surprising setback to prime minister Stephen Harper’s signature diplomatic effort to transport bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands to world markets through the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
During the campaign, Notley promised to withdraw provincial support for the project, raise corporate taxes and also potentially to raise royalties on a regional oil industry already reeling from the collapse in world prices.
Notley led her party from a four-seat toehold in the provincial legislature to a commanding majority of 54 with a buoyant campaign that contrasted sharply with the flatfooted effort of the Progressive Conservatives under leader Jim Prentice, a former Harper cabinet member often touted as a future Conservative prime minister. Despite being one of a handful of PC candidates returned to office, Prentice resigned both his new seat and his leadership after the rout.
Canadian oil stocks slid slightly in response to the NDP win, with tar-sands giant Suncor Energy Inc losing 4.3% of its value in the first few hours of trading in Toronto before recovering half the loss by noon. The election of the NDP is “completely devastating”, declared financier Rafi Tahmazian of Canoe Financial LP in Calgary, Canada’s oil capital. “The perception from the market based on their comments is they’re extremely dangerous.”
But analysts say that the market itself that has done the most damage to the Canadian oil industry so far this year. Dozens of major projects in Alberta have been mothballed or delayed and thousands of workers laid off from high-cost tar-sands operations in response to plummeting oil prices.
With Barack Obama continuing to delay approval of the Keystone pipeline, which is designed to move Alberta bitumen to refineries in the southern US, Harper’s grand ambition to make Canada an “energy superpower” – despite widespread misgivings over the potential cost to the environment – was already foundering by the time of Notley’s ascension.
Among other effects, Alberta’s unexpected revolution casts a shadow over the federal government’s imminent proclamation of sweeping new anti-terrorism legislation, which has provoked opposition from all corners of the political landscape.
Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians were reeling from the sheer magnitude of the shift in Alberta, which has placed the country’s most notoriously conservative province, taken for granted as an impregnable redneck kingdom, in the hands of its most progressive regional government. To explain the phenomenon, Toronto-based writer Doug Saunders asked his American Twitter followers to imagine socialist presidential candidate Bernie Saunders “becoming Texas governor by a big majority”.
Still, to put
what just happened Canada in context for you Yanks, imagine Bernie Sanders
becoming Texas governor by a big majority.
At the same time, observers note significant limits on the new government’s hope to chart a course substantially different from its predecessor. Plunging prices have put the once-rich provincial government into deficit for the first time since the oil began to flow, and expectations of limitless prosperity remain high in a region that has recently enjoyed the country’s richest public services and its lowest taxes.
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GREEN SHOULD BE LEADING THIS COUNTRY OF OURS.... and Elizabeth May must step back and mentor.... she's 61 and everyone looks at her... and remembers the 'DRUNK SPEWAGE ABOUT MEN'S GENITALIA AND KHADR FOR SENATE.... and this party .... this green party is soooooo darn worthy.... so let's get the young in our communities working..... and make sure they impress that ALL CANADIANS MATTER.... SECURITY... EDUCATION... AGED... YOUTH... JOBS... ENVIRONMENT ETC... u can do it....
IMHO....
just can't help it.... look at elizabeth may and think of the drunken spewage about men's genitalia and Khadr being in the senate.... POINT OF ORDER- the Green Party is getting awesome now with some new youngblood and incredible Canadian identity of Canadians caring about all Canadians and our Nation and our environment..... so why shouldn't smart young men and women of our communities rattle the chains and create the work ethic we did and change our Canada and make us GREEN. Truly do pray that elizabeth may (she's 61 after all- and we want young) becomes a mentor and lets new youngblood Green Party leader take over.... Canada should/could be green... don't cha think.... and to be honest ... this year only looking at the community NOT the federal scheme.... like used to.... and NDP.... not looking 2 bad.... really liked and voted for provincial Dexter first time... couldn't the second ... just 2 many f**king crazies hanging on 2 that party....imho- but this time federally.... Mulcair seems 2 expect AND keep better behaviour from the crazies.... O Canada... it's election time...
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COMMENT: We need more visible recognized young Green party Candidates and it's time May passed the banner 2 a youngblood- The Green Party should be the top contender in Canada- we need better organized and youngbloods and Elizabeth May just has 2 step over and guide new leaders - it's time.... 61 YEARS IS JUST 2 OLD FOR OUR YOUNG CANADA- this ain't the USA or Europe imho pic.twitter.com/3fObJyqaHY
Green Party Canada @CanadianGreens 51s51 seconds ago
Live announcement coming soon from Sidney BC w/ @ElizabethMay and west coast candidates. #elxn42
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Jonathan Kay: How the tragedy of 9/11 made Canada a
better, more sensible country
Jonathan Kay | September 11, 2012 12:01 AM ET
More from Jonathan Kay | @jonkay
More from Jonathan Kay | @jonkay
·
·How
9/11 changed Canada for the better
How much has Canada changed in the last eleven years?
Consider this: As the World Trade Center rubble was still smoldering, the
then-leader of Canada’s left-wing NDP party, Alexa McDonough, declared: “As
responsible international citizens, it is important to reaffirm our commitment
to pursuing peaceful solutions to the tensions and hostilities that breed such
mindless violence.” A year later, in a CBC interview broadcast on the first
anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, then-prime minister Jean Chrétien
suggested the 9/11 attacks might have been a reaction to Western greed and
arrogance: “You cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation for the
others.”
Such remarks would be unthinkable now. Canada is a place
where even most mainstream leftists recognize the need for military
intervention as a means of disrupting terrorism and protecting local
populations.
Before 9/11, for instance, Canada’s involvement in the
bombing of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists in Libya in the spring of 2011 would
have been a major political issue: Ms. McDonough and other well-known Canadian
activists such as Naomi Klein and Judy Rebick would have locked arms and
marched on Parliament Hill, demanding a “peaceful solution.” Yet in the 2011
federal election campaign, the word “Libya” was scarcely mentioned by any
politician of note, even as the bombs were falling. Nor did anyone make much of
Afghanistan, where 158 Canadian soldiers have died.
In short, the last 11 years have fundamentally transformed
Canada’s attitude toward foreign policy, and the use of force more generally.
After a quarter-century pacifist interregnum, we once again became comfortable
with our proper historical role as an active military ally to the United States
and Britain. Canadians now stand up and salute their soldiers at NHL hockey
games. A major part of Ontario’s Highway 401 — the road travelled by fallen
soldiers from CFB Trenton to the coroner’s office in Toronto — has been renamed
the Highway of Heroes. These are small, symbolic gestures that any American
would see as entirely normal. But they would have been unthinkable in the
pre-9/11 era, when our Liberal leaders still entertained gauzy visions of a
world without war.
For students of the Canadian response to 9/11, it is
important to remember what the country’s response to previous major terrorist
attacks had been. The worst of these was the June 23, 1985, mid-air bombing of
Air India Flight 182. The destruction of that aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean
killed all 329 people on board. The main suspects were militant Canadian Sikhs
seeking to punish India in the wake of the Indian army’s 1984 attack on the
Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab.
Until 9/11, the downing of Air India flight 182 was the
deadliest attack in the history of modern terrorism. In per capita terms, it
was roughly equivalent to 9/11. Yet the effect on Canadian attitudes was
miniscule. While 270 of the 329 victims were Canadian, most had some tie to
India. Bizarrely, the Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, phoned his
Indian counterpart in India to express his condolences — as if this were
primarily an Indian disaster. There was a feeling that Canada and the West
weren’t being targeted, but rather a country far away.
Most white Canadians didn’t feel that they were under any
risk from the Sikh threat; and they hadn’t the slightest interest in the
foreign-policy issues underlying the attack on flight 182. At the time militant
elements within Canada’s Sikh community were campaigning openly to create an
independent Sikh state called Khalistan in the Indian Punjab — a region that 99
out of 100 Canadians couldn’t find on a map. While many Americans became
interested in the Muslim faith after 9/11, there was no comparable intellectual
movement in Canada following the downing of flight 182. Canadian laws remained
largely unchanged, and the criminal investigation of the flight 182 attacks
stumbled along in amateurish fashion for two decades.
Prevailing Canadian attitudes remained similar in the 1990s,
when Canada was used as a base of operations and a source of financing for the
Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan terrorist group and insurgent army. Many of these
extremists had come into the country as refugees following Sri Lanka’s descent
into civil war in the 1980s. The fact that the Tigers got much of their funds
by extorting Tamil-owned businesses in the suburbs of Toronto was well known in
Canadian security circles. But there was little incentive to act on the matter,
because the problem was seen as a Tamil one, not a Canadian one.
Canada’s status as a self-consciously multicultural state
also was a hindrance to any sort of muscular response to the presence of
terrorist bagmen and operatives in the country. The Liberal party in particular
enjoyed a lengthy run in power between 1993 and 2006, building much of its
support on being known as “the party of immigrants.” Many of the most powerful
and cohesive voting blocs at Liberal leadership conventions were Sikhs, Tamils
and Muslims — groups that all had their own reasons for opposing an aggressive
anti-terrorism campaign. Sikh gurdwaras were seen as especially rich targets,
since the trove of cash donations they collected every week could easily be
channeled into political donations or get-out-the-vote drives.
Most scandalously, Liberal members of parliament in the
Toronto suburbs would appear at events where the Tamil Tiger insignia was on
open display. Politicians from all parties would attend Sikh parades where
floats bore the image of “martyrs” who had blown up flight 182 or performed
assassinations in India. “Ethno-politics” exercised a huge disincentive on any
Canadian politician who sought to rein in extremists within immigrant
communities.
One particularly telling episode occurred in 2000, when it
emerged that Liberal cabinet ministers had attended a May 6 fundraising dinner
organized by the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils, a group that
had been identified in a report by the U.S. State Department as a front for the
Tamil Tigers. When pressed about the issue in parliament, the Liberals
deflected questions, suggesting that they were simply engaging in multicultural
outreach.
Even with respect to Arab terrorism against Israel, the
goal among elite Canadian politicians and academics was largely one of staying
neutral and promoting “dialogue.” Canada prided itself on being an “honest
broker” in the world. At the United Nations, Canada regularly lined up with
developing nations to support ritualized denunciations of Israel. Even as late
as 2002, at the Francophone Conference in Beirut, prime minister Chrétien sat
just a few seats away from Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and gave
a speech with Nasrallah in the crowd. When questioned about this, he didn’t
seem to see anything wrong with it. Terrorism was simply not a subject that
Canadian political leaders thought about.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001 changed this attitude massively.
It was not just the 24 Canadians who perished in the 9/11 attacks, or the
searing media images. It was also naked self-interest: Canada’s export economy
is almost entirely based on the U.S. market. And in the days after 9/11, there
was a very real threat that the border would become impassable to the thousands
of goods-laden trucks that cross every hour. Unfounded rumours began
circulating that some of the 9/11 terrorists had come through Canada on their
way to the United States. Given the political climate, Canadian politicians
knew that they would have to update Canada’s anti-terrorism policies in a
hurry, or risk watching Canada’s export economy become another casualty of
9/11.
Within a few months, Canada had passed the Anti-Terrorism
Act, which provided police and justice officials with the right to convene
secret trials and pre-emptively detain suspects, among other powers. The
Canadian government also worked to create a large array of co-operative
security protocols with the United States. At the time, these provisions were
controversial: Many Canadians seized on them to give voice to the usual
Canadian anxieties about being bullied and subsumed by the United States. But
as episodes of terrorism multiplied around the globe, from Bali to Madrid to
London, Canadians came to realize that their country was under threat as well.
Over a decade later, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the increased vigilance toward
terrorism that it represents, generally has become uncontroversial.
In the years following 9/11, there were other changes as
well. Canadian Jews, seeing the cause of fighting terrorism in Israel and North
America as one and the same, became more assertive in challenging Canada’s
policy of voting with the Palestinians at the UN. In time, the Liberals began
changing their UN policies. They also sent a sizeable delegation to
Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan operation marked a historic change in
Canada’s military identity. While Canada had played an outsized role in both
World Wars, its military had largely been left to rust in the years since the
end of the Cold War. Protected by the United States, and ideologically
intoxicated on the pacifistic cant of Pierre Trudeau, many Canadian
intellectuals developed a fetish for peacekeeping, as opposed to offensive military
operations.
Canada’s initial large-scale deployment to Afghanistan had
many elements of traditional peacekeeping and nation-building: We were out of
the fight, for the most part, and headquartered in Kabul. But Paul Martin made
the courageous decision to transfer the main Canadian contingent to the Taliban
heartland of Kandahar province. This proved to be momentous for Canada. Though
Canadian troops had faced live fire in the Balkans and other hot spots for
decades, this was different: For the first time since Korea, our military was
on the front line of a real, full-time war against a declared enemy of Western
civilization. In 2006, for instance, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light
Infantry led the fighting in both Battles of Panjwaii, brutal encounters
featuring close-range combat amid mud huts and trenches.
Americans might not see this as such a big deal: American
GIs have seen Panjwaii-type combat in Vietnam, both Iraq wars, the brief and
bloody intervention in Somalia and Afghanistan. But in Canada, two whole
generations of Canadians had never seen our soldiers fight this way before. And
the sight of it filled us with a pride that has manifested itself in a
renaissance in Canadian patriotism. Even in Quebec, a province historically
known for anti-war agitation, the response to the Afghan campaign was more
muted than expected. Indeed, many Quebecers were justly proud that the largely
francophone Royal 22e Régiment distinguished itself in a variety of operations
in Kandahar.
Canada seemed to find a sense of mission off the
battlefield as well. Our status as an amoral “honest broker” no longer made
sense in the Afghan War era: When your troops are shooting and killing an
enemy, you have chosen sides. We became the loudest critics of the Durban “anti-racism”
sham, and an unabashed friend to Israel when it fought wars against Hezbollah
in 2006 and Hamas in 2008.
Even in the purely domestic context, the after-effects of
9/11 have been remarkable. Aside from our anti-terror policies, we no longer
let multicultural pieties get in the way of denouncing the barbaric misogyny of
some unassimilated immigrants. “Honour killings” once were the stuff of
back-page crime stories. Now they are on the front page, for we recognize them
as vestiges of the ideology that produced 9/11 and the Taliban. It became clear
that Canadians had become tired of the political correctness they had been fed
during the long period of Liberal rule, and the years after 9/11 witnessed a
vigorous right-wing political backlash. As a result, Canada now is a far more
conservative country than it was in the 1990s. Tory leader Stephen Harper is
now ensconced in his third term as prime minister, and his opposition is
fractured and leaderless.
The 9/11 attacks must be remembered first and foremost as
an epic terrorist crime, and as a great tragedy for the victims and their
families. Yet they also have had profound political and cultural ramifications
that have transformed Canada into a more serious country, and one that plays a
bolder and more helpful role on the world stage.
This
piece originally appeared in the collection Terror in the Peaceable Kingdom,
edited by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Senator Linda Frum and published by FDD
Press, a division of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The article is
adapted from an editorial published in the National Post on Sept. 10, 2011.
--------------
'Hate speech' no longer part of
Canada's Human Rights Act
A contentious section of Canadian human rights law, long
criticized by free-speech advocates as overly restrictive and tantamount to
censorship, is gone for good.
A private member’s bill repealing Section 13 of the
Canadian Human Rights Act, the so-called “hate speech provision,” passed in the
Senate this week. Its passage means the part of Canadian human rights law that
permitted rights complaints to the federal Human Rights Commission for “the
communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet” will soon be
history.
The bill from Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth passed
in the House of Commons last summer, but needed Senate approval. It has
received royal assent and will take effect after a one-year phase-in period.
An “ecstatic” Storseth said the bill, which he says had
wide support across ideological lines and diverse religious groups, repeals a
“flawed piece of legislation” and he called Canada’s human rights tribunal “a
quasi-judicial, secretive body that takes away your natural rights as a
Canadian.”
It was a poorly-written piece of
legislation in the first place
“(Section 13) had actually stopped being used as a shield,
as I think it was intended, to protect civil liberties, and started being used
as a sword against Canadians, and it’s because it was a poorly-written piece of
legislation in the first place,” he said.
Various human rights lawyers and groups such as the
Canadian Bar Association say Section 13 is an important tool in helping to curb
hate speech, and that removing it would lead to the proliferation of such
speech on the Internet.
But critics of Section 13 said it enabled censorship on the
Internet, and are calling its repeal a victory for free speech.
“We’re pleased with the repeal,” said Cara Zwibel, director
of the fundamental freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association
(CCLA), who testified before a Senate committee on the topic.
Related
Zwibel said Section 13 had “some serious problems from a
freedom of expression perspective.”
“We don’t want there to be a chill on speech that is
controversial but not necessarily hateful,” she said. “We felt that given the
impact that it has on freedom of expression, and given that it hasn’t really
proven to be a very effective method for dealing with discrimination, that it
shouldn’t be on the books anymore … We really encourage countering hateful speech,
rather than trying to censor it.”
Zwibel, at the CCLA, also said there’s not a lot of good
evidence that marginalized groups have used the statute to curb discrimination.
“Section 13 is not something that minority groups were
already embracing and making use of,” she said, noting that a large majority of
the tribunal cases “were brought by a single individual.”
That person is Ottawa-based human rights lawyer Richard
Warman, who has brought 16 successful Section 13 complaints before the human
rights tribunal against neo-Nazis and white supremacists since 2001.
Virtually every other Western democracy
has these kinds of civil law controls on hate speech
On Thursday, Warman said Section 13 had helped sideline
neo-Nazis from the Internet because of its power to obtain cease-and-desist
orders from Canada’s human rights tribunal and enforce them through the courts.
“Virtually every other Western democracy has these kinds of
civil law controls on hate speech,” Warman said. “Now, Canada just moves one
large step further out of line from realizing that these kinds of controls are
necessary and imperative.”
Producing and disseminating hate speech remains a crime in
Canada, but regulating it will fall to the courts, not to human rights
tribunals. Under the Criminal Code, spreading hate against identifiable groups
can carry up to a two-year prison sentence.
But Liberal Sen. Nancy Ruth noted that while any citizen
can file a human rights complaint, criminal charges for hate speech require the
attorney general’s approval.
She said she left the Senate “heartbroken” after the bill
passed, saying it creates a gap regarding discrimination based on sex, age and
disabled people.
“This is a victory for hate speech. To remove protection
from disadvantaged groups in society … this is a protection for hate speech,”
she said, accusing the Conservative senators who voted for the bill of “tribal
loyalty.”
“It is not about freedom of expression. It’s about freedom
to hate, in my opinion.”
Warman also said institutional barriers make it “virtually
impossible” to convince police to lay criminal charges for hate speech on the
Internet.
However, Storseth said the government has committed to
“buffing up the Criminal Code to ensure that these types of groups would not be
left open to hate speech.”
----
Basic Facts About Canada
It never hurts to review the basics. Here’s a collection of introductory facts that don’t quite fit in anywhere else, but still remain crucial to understanding how Canada works.
- Basic Facts – Canadian time zones, electricity, mail and stuff like that.
- Canadian Language – How Canadians talk.
- The People – Demographic profiles of Canada’s population.
- First Nations – Canada’s aboriginal people.
- The Economy – How Canada makes its money.
- Money – Canada’s currency.
- The Military – Canadian armed forces.
- Canadian Foreign Policy – what Canada does around the world, and why.
Other Canadian Info Sites:
- National Geographic Canada Guide
- Lonely Planet Canada Guide
- Canada profile, BBC World Atlas
- Canada profile, The New York Times
- -----------------
----
The real reason why youth don't vote
By Ilona Dougherty, canada.com
Ilona Dougherty: "If we want youth to vote, we need to
ask them to participate. As simple as that may sound, it’s not happening right
now."
At this point in the election campaign, you have probably heard this
statistic: only 37.4% of Canadians aged 18-24 voted in the last federal
election.What you may not know is that this is part of an ongoing trend—youth turnout has been steadily declining for decades. To make matters worse, if a young person doesn’t vote in the first two elections after they become are eligible, they’re likely to never opt into the democratic system throughout the rest of their lives.
Why is this happening? Why don't young Canadians vote?
Well, it’s not because they don’t care. A study by the Dominion Institute before the 2008 federal election found that 78% of 18-25 year olds think that their vote matters. Only 29% of them think that politics are boring.
So if young people care about democracy, why aren’t they opting in?
The first reason is that often youth feel like they don’t have enough information to cast an informed vote. At www.ApathyisBoring.com Apathy is Boring is working to change that. Since 2004, we've been educating young Canadians about the democratic process. During every election, we seek out unengaged youth—not just students or young leaders—and offer them resources. We explain everything from how to vote to where political parties stand on the issues.
However, solving the turnout problem isn’t just a matter of educating young people. If we want youth to vote, we need to ask them to participate. As simple as that may sound, it’s not happening right now. Canada's political leaders have been consistently ignoring young voters for years, and young people are returning the favour.
Every candidate says that they want young Canadians' support. But for the most part, political campaigns are more interested in persuading the people who already voters than in encouraging young people to cast their first ballot.
Don't believe me? Ask anyone you know under the age of 30 about the last time a candidate got in touch with them. At Apathy is Boring we have an office full of 20-somethings, many of whom live in competitive ridings. None of them have received a knock on the door during this election. Or the 2008 election. Or the 2006 election. Or the 2004 election. In the last four elections, none of the parties have bothered to ask for their votes.
During this election, Apathy is Boring has already reached over 190,000 young Canadians through our “I WILL VOTE” social media campaign. (link:
http://on.fb.me/iwillvote2011) More than 55,000 of them have pledged on Facebook—where all of their friends can see—to vote on May 2nd.
What can you do? Get someone you know to make the pledge. There are more than 5.5 million eligible voters under the age of 30, and we all share the responsibility of engaging them in Canada’s democracy. Talk to a young person, and ask them to say three simple words: “I will vote.”
----------------
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Most Militaries of Nato 65% retirement age- and youth aren't interested/ Pope Francis/ Global News/Military News/F**KING PAEDOPHILES/if colonization was such a bitch, why are so many children, aged, disabled all nationalities still worse off 2da/Environment matters folks/Mexico steals First Peoples-Indigenous lands/O Canada/july 15-JUST IN WIKILEAKS Pacific Rim
Canada's military is better in the Arctic than people believe: report
Canada’s military is doing a much better job of protecting Arctic sovereignty in an increasingly busy North than Canadians think, says a new think-tank report.
“Canadians need to understand what I believe the military already understands,” said Adam Lajeunesse of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. “They recognize that their role up there is not traditional military.”
In a report released Tuesday, Lajeunesse said too many Canadians believe other countries look to shows of military force when considering who controls northern waters — especially in light of mammoth Arctic military exercises staged recently by Russia and the Scandinavian countries.
“They need to understand that presence does not equate to sovereignty,” said Lajeunesse. “We could have 50 icebreakers sailing back and forth and it does absolutely nothing.”
Sovereignty, he said, is reinforced by control over day-to-day activities.
“Forces in the North contribute to sovereignty by doing something useful. “A warship sailing back and forth isn’t really exercising authority.
“Controlling foreign shipping is exercising authority. Providing services is exercising authority.”
Lajeunesse gives the military good marks for using its Arctic exercises to get better at working with government departments such as the RCMP or the coast guard that have the job of enforcing Canadian law and keeping people safe in the Arctic.
Most of the simulations run during so-called “sovops” have more to do with responding to a civilian emergency than with a military attack, he said. New Arctic patrol vessels may be only lightly armed, but will be highly flexible ships for transporting police or fisheries officers.
“They’re never going to fight with the (Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships).”
The Canadian Arctic is in a much different situation than the area around the Barents Sea, north of Norway, Lajeunesse suggested.
“No one in NATO, I am sure, actually expects any fighting in the Canadian Arctic.”
Still, the message of soldiers defending Canada’s borders is what comes across when the military goes North.
“Part of that is the government’s own making,” Lajeunesse said. “The easiest thing to show is warships and airplanes.”
What those soldiers, sailors, police and park wardens are really learning to do is work together.
There’s been progress, Lajeunesse said, but the Forces still need to improve their operational capabilities, especially as climate change makes the North increasingly accessible to everyone from miners and drillers to tourists. To do that, the military needs consistent, long-term support from the government.
“Canada’s interest and investment in the North comes in surges,” he said. “Canada has to approach the North in an entirely different manner. “It can’t be a 10-year surge, then apathy for another decade.
“This is something we’re going to have to keep an interest in and maintain a continuous investment in.”
-------------------
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blogged :
PAN AM and PARAPAN AM GAMES 2015 Americas and Caribbean-HOSTED Toronto Canada July Daily Global Updates/ Getcha ur Games on folks.... greatness has come 2 Canada /Canada's participation and initiatives in PEN Americas Summit 2015 / History and daily updates- Look at the glorious and finest young athletes EV-A/Welcome 2 Canada and Canadian teams - we looooooooooooooove u so much- win lose or draw- u raise us up/ Guatemala Congrats/Canada strong/5.5 Million Canadians tune in 2 THE GAMES.... /JULY 16- finally TEAM CANADA gives us help on following the games thanku
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/04/pan-am-games-2015-toronto-canada-getcha.html----------------
LEAGUE OF NATIONS EARLY 1900s.... until 1945- when United Nations formed upon the ashes of the Jewish Holocaust.... with NEVER AGAIN...
Seriously.... USA-Russia-China...... UNITED NATIONS.... must be disbanded...how can so few nations completely run this planet like the League of Nations did way back in the 20s...
Sweet Jesus, Mother Mary and Joseph-
the USA created the Arab Spring destroying that whole part of the
world without ANY solutions – and now over a billion suffer.... and now
this... again!!!
Commentary: U.S. spying on Japan proves it has never treated allies as
equals
|
BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The
recently exposed U.S. spying on Japan, one of its most loyal
"allies," has once again proved to the world that U.S. foreign
polices are still based on realpolitik and it only sees other countries as
objects to control, no matter whether they are "friends" or foes.
The Wikileaks website on Friday posted National Security
Agency (NSA) reports and a list of 35 Japanese targets for telephone intercepts
of senior Japanese government officials including the Japanese Cabinet Office,
the Bank of Japan, the country's finance and trade ministries and major
Japanese trading companies.
However, the world is not completely caught off guard when
the Wikileaks websites posted NSA reports revealing the United States is also
spying on Japan.
The United States is often criticized for applying double
standards on various issues, but the world's "freedom leader" has
been very realistic and consistent when it comes to eavesdropping: from the
potential rivals such as Iran and Russia to close allies such as France and
Germany. So there is no reason to believe it should treat Japan differently.
The United States has been trying to maintain its dominance
in global politics, economy and military power. And one of the most important
reasons for the United States to spy on other countries is that it wants total
control -- to be in total control. Namely, it needs to be
"omniscient."
Spying on the telephone conversations and emails of other
countries' leaders is not only immoral but is also in violation of international
law. But the United States did it anyway, because it knew perfectly well that
even if it got caught, no one would be there to punish the only super power in
the world.
The United States' licentious spying on other countries
once again proves how hypocritical its course of defending freedom and
democracy is. The truth is that the United States has never treated its
"allies" on an equal footing, but sees itself as their superior,
having the right to do whatever it wants on them.
It is also noteworthy that stepping up of espionage
activities against other countries actually coincides with the rise of emerging
markets and the unification of Europe, which, in the eyes of the United States,
is gradually encroaching upon its dominance over economy as well as other
fields.
The United States is afraid of losing its status as the
single pole in the present unipolar world, and the almost reckless spying
means, however futile it would be, that it attempts to turn the tide around.
But no matter how much the United States has benefited from
knowing other countries' secrets, it will always lose more for the distrusts
and mutual suspicions it has stirred up among countries.
Seeing how the United States treats its "allies,"
the world can have a better measurement of the values it actually
"upholds."
Related:
BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government has
remained relatively silent since the WikiLeaks website published documents
Friday showing the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has spied on the
Japanese government and Japanese companies.
The documents, dated from 2007 to 2009, include five NSA
reports -- four of which are marked top-secret -- that provide intelligence on
Japanese positions on international trade and climate change. Full Story
TOKYO, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Japan would protest against the
U.S. government if the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) did spy on the
Japanese government as the Wikileaks website revealed, local media reported
Saturday.
The Wikileaks website on Friday posted NSA reports and list
of 35 Japanese targets for telephone intercepts including the Japanese Cabinet
Office, the Bank of Japan, the country's finance and trade ministries and major
Japanese trading companies. Full Story
--------------------
#1BRising One of Canada's bravest, brilliant and truly best of Canada- Flora MacDonald..... she raised us up... Peace of Christ Hero.... they may make it all about Taylor.... but u worked the engine in Canada 2 help our American Brothers and Sisters flee Iran..... we will remember always... Friends and family have gathered for the funeral of Flora MacDonald. Remembering her legacy: CANADA'S MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE...
The truth about ‘Flora Syndrome’
Flora MacDonald trailblazed for women, but suspected they ultimately let her down
“These perceived ‘deficiencies’ in my gender, resumé and political orientation might, I knew, weigh heavily on the minds of some of the male delegates at the convention,” she wrote, then went on: “What I did not anticipate was that they would weigh just as heavily on many of the older women delegates who, though they counted themselves among my supporters, could not, in the end, bring themselves to vote for me. Did the women simply follow their men, when it came to casting their ballots? I don’t think so. I think they made their own choices. And I think the women of the Tory party, in the mid-1970s, were cautious and conservative, perhaps even more cautious and conservative than the men. They were sympathetic and encouraging to me. They liked the idea that I was running, and I think they would have been happy if I had won, but they could not quite bring themselves, personally, to take a chance on me.”
(Jeff Goode/Toronto Star/Getty Images)
MacDonald’s team estimated that her firmly committed first-ballot support at that epic convention was no fewer than 325 votes, which was about the same level some journalists and other leadership camps gave her. It would have been enough for third place and a solid chance on subsequent ballots. But she got only 214, a stunning disappointment, relegating her to sixth. Ultimately, she had to throw her support to Joe Clark, securing his victory over Claude Wagner and Brian Mulroney. And so the term “Flora Syndrome” was coined for instances when declared backers, no matter whose button they pinned to their lapels, switched their votes in the privacy of the ballot box at a delegated party leadership convention.
During his brief tenure as prime minister after the 1979 election, Clark named MacDonald his external affairs minister, making her the first woman to represent Canada in that post on the world stage. After Clark lost the 1980 election, and was later ousted as leader, Mulroney took over. During his first term as prime minister, he also appointed MacDonald to senior cabinet roles, including employment and immigration. She lost her seat in the 1988 election, but soon threw herself into international development causes, taking on key roles with the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, and the International Development Research Centre. In 2007, she founded Future Generations Canada, an aid group that supports schools, health and farming projects in Afghan villages, many of which she visited herself.
Clark was on-hand last fall when MacDonald received a lifetime achievement award at the annual Maclean’s Parliamentarians of the Year gala in Ottawa. Interviewed for that occasion, MacDonald sounded ambivalent about being cast as a role model for women in politics. Asked for her view of organized efforts to encourage more women to run for office, she said, “I’ve seen groups of women do that since I’ve been around the political scene; I’ve never considered it particularly healthy.” She didn’t approve of dividing aspiring politicians into the women and the men, and said her core advice to both sexes was exactly the same: Polish your public speaking skills and learn to “relate to the difficulties somebody down the street is having.”
----------------
EDITORIAL: Flora MacDonald’s stellar legacy
Canadians are mourning one of this province’s most illustrious daughters this week following the weekend death of former Tory cabinet minister Flora MacDonald.
Born in North Sydney, Ms. MacDonald’s interest in politics and the world was piqued by both her grandfather, a widely travelled clipper skipper, and her father, a trans-Atlantic telegraph operator.
SEE ALSO:
- Tributes pour in for MacDonald
- Missing Flora and traditional Tories
- Noted filmmaker recalls a hero in Flora MacDonald
She began her career in the mid-1950s as a secretary and worked her way up to become a key staffer for both former prime minister John Diefenbaker and former Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield.
Ms. MacDonald, who had a rebellious streak, moved from the PC back rooms into the political spotlight after attending a year-long educational program sponsored by the National Defence College in Kingston where she once donned a red negligee to address her all-male colleagues.
After only three years as MP for Kingston and the Islands, she was among a group of 12 vying for the Conservative party leadership in February 1976.
Ms. MacDonald was bitterly disappointed when, on the first ballot, a third of her promised votes failed to materialize; Joe Clark became leader and prime minister.
But as Canada’s first female Foreign Affairs minister, she helped bring some 60,000 Vietnamese immigrants into Canada and secretly OK’d the issuance of passports and cash to rescue six U.S. diplomatic staff from Iran after the 1979 storming of the American embassy there.
Ms. MacDonald was a member of Brian Mulroney’s cabinet and helped keep cultural industries out of NAFTA before she lost her seat in 1988. She accepted it with her trademark charm and frankness.
She demonstrated a respect and empathy for others, both in her political career and later volunteer work, that is too often missing in public life in Canada.
In Parliament, Ms. MacDonald “was always standing there with her back ramrod straight and in respectful discourse, surrounded by, you know, sort of yapping,” recalls Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.
In defeat, she had her pick of prominent and highly paid appointments but turned them down in favour of international humanitarian work.
Despite her work as a trailblazer for women in politics, Ms. MacDonald disliked the division of society into groups by means of gender or anything that set people apart from one another. Indeed, she opposed the merging of her party with the Canadian Alliance in 2003 because she felt some Alliance members’ views on women’s rights, immigration and bilingualism clashed with Progressive Conservatism. Ms. MacDonald was a populist and Red Tory who saw the need for strong social programs and was not afraid to speak up for ordinary Canadians.
As both her political career and her volunteer work in Afghanistan demonstrated, Ms. MacDonald was a builder, setting up training sessions for women and girls in 75 villages in Afghanistan to ensure they have a voice.
She received many accolades over the years, including Companion of the Order of Canada.
But Ms. MacDonald’s honours, while richly deserved, are not her legacy. Nova Scotians mourn a talented, indomitable woman who brought to both public life and volunteer work her homegrown values of high integrity, hard work and determination — and a selfless concern for others.
------------------
Noted filmmaker recalls a hero in Flora MacDonald
It was Peter Raymont’s big break: the chance to do an all-access documentary capturing Flora MacDonald’s run at becoming the first female leader of the Progressive Conservatives.
The pair had a history and the North Sydney native gave her blessing. There, the then 26-year-old filmmaker was at the 1976 Tory leadership convention. He was part of the drama, in the middle of it all.
SEE ALSO: EDITORIAL: A stellar legacy
A year later his film, Flora: Scenes From a Leadership Convention, would be released by the National Film Board of Canada. It premiered at the Toronto Internatioal Film Festival in 1977. The film and Raymont are highlighted in the pages of Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film.
Almost 40 years later and with more than 100 films under his belt, Raymont still relishes the experience and the chance to have been so close to one of his heroes.
“Flora let me in,” said Raymont. “That’s the most remarkable thing about Flora. She really believed that for democracy to work it had to be open and transparent. I found that so refreshing and very different from what I imagined most politicians were like.
“I’m a child of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and all that sort of thing. Apart from Pierre Trudeau, the feeling about politicians in general was that they were in it for themselves. A lot of them were corrupt and here was someone that was totally different, so refreshing and open and transparent in everything she was doing.”
MacDonald’s death on Sunday at age 89 was met with an outpouring of condolences from politicians of all stripes. The former humanitarian and longtime Tory MP, who held various cabinet position under prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark, was remembered as a tireless worker, putting aside partisan politics in favour of advancing important public policy.
After retiring from politics, she was involved in several non-governmental organizations, including Future Generations Canada, an organization she founded to help with education and development in Afghanistan
But MacDonald’s leadership bid was, on face value, a failure. She had the support of more than 300 delegates but dropped out of the running after receiving just 214 first-ballot votes.
“It was devastating, unbelievable,” recalled Raymont. “She says in the film, when the results came in, she was so shocked, she couldn’t breathe.”
“I was surprised how vulnerable she felt. Although she was surrounded by all these people helping her, she was alone. She was alone all her life. She was never married and never had a real partner in her life. She was prepared to display that, to know that my camera was rolling and I was right beside her.”
Raymont first encountered MacDonald when he was a politics and film-studies student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. MacDonald was a member of the university’s political studies department, and the pair hit it off. MacDonald was first elected to the House of Commons in 1972 after winning the riding of Kingston and the Islands, and it was Raymont who filmed each of her TV advertisements. She was re-elected four more times until she lost her seat in 1988.
Raymont’s support for MacDonald never wavered. The pair remained friends over the years.
“She had no hidden agendas,” said Raymont. “She opened up the process of government. That’s why so many young people came to the convention and slept on couches just to work on the campaign. We haven’t seen that since.
“Part of that has to do with her roots, coming from North Sydney, Cape Breton Island.”
The film can still be viewed on the NFB’s website atwww.nfb.ca/film/flora_scenes_from_a_leadership_convention.
----- 
comment:real, raw and righteous..... for over 50 years there has been nothing .... we have just noted that many of us since the 70s and 80s have donated over $2TRILLION 2 the Africas.... 2 despots and thieves... whilst our First Peoples.... our own Canadians.... especially in the North have horrific conditions......CANADIANS SAY... IDLE NO MORE....
IDLE NO MORE...
COMMENT: The best share of
the day... outside my grandbaby's picture...... over 50 years of chatting
chatting.... by all .... enough..... our First Nations and we Canadians deserve
better ..... and this grassroots movement gives us strength 2 change the world
for our children and theirs.... imho...
"Our issues are Canada's issues," said
National Chief Bellegarde. "I am calling on all Canadians and all
candidates to commit to working with us as partners to close the gap. This
election comes at a time when Canada is poised to begin the era of
reconciliation. The AFN is doing its part to inform First Nations about how to
participate in this election. Our leaders and citizens are mobilizing to vote.
Our ask today is that Canadians from all walks of life consider the potential
of healthy, well-educated and fully participating First Nations peoples across
the land. We are asking Canadian voters to support the leaders and the candidates
who commit to a brighter future, one that includes First Nations as true
partners in Canada."
OTTAWA, Aug. 2, 2015 /CNW/ - Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Perry Bellegarde said today that the federal election, now underway, is an opportunity for all Canadians to help close the gap in the quality of life between First Nations people and the rest of Canada.
"This election presents the first opportunity for Canadians who watched the Truth and Reconciliation proceedings unfold to cast a vote in favour of a brighter future for all Canadians, including First Nations," said National Chief Bellegarde. "There is a very high cost of maintaining the gap between First Nations and the rest of Canada, and there are great benefits to all of us in closing that gap. Closing the gap builds not only stronger First Nations communities, but a stronger economy and a stronger Canada."
The gap is well established. In recent years, Canada has ranked between 6th and 8th on the UN Human Development Index while First Nations fall between 63rd and 78th. The federal government's own Community Well-Being Index shows that the gap has not closed at all since 1981. The gap in quality of life results in First Nations facing poorer health, a shorter life span, housing shortages and over-crowding, communities under boil water advisories, First Nations vastly over-represented in jails and the high numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls among many other stark statistics. Studies have shown that closing the gap would add $400 billion to Canada's economy and save an additional $115 billion in social costs related to poverty.
"Our issues are Canada's issues," said National Chief Bellegarde. "I am calling on all Canadians and all candidates to commit to working with us as partners to close the gap. This election comes at a time whenCanada is poised to begin the era of reconciliation. The AFN is doing its part to inform First Nations about how to participate in this election. Our leaders and citizens are mobilizing to vote. Our ask today is that Canadians from all walks of life consider the potential of healthy, well-educated and fully participating First Nations peoples across the land. We are asking Canadian voters to support the leaders and the candidates who commit to a brighter future, one that includes First Nations as true partners in Canada."
The AFN is the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada. Follow AFN on Twitter @AFN_Comms, @AFN_Updates.
SOURCE Assembly of First Nations 
For further information: Alain Garon AFN Bilingual Communications Officer 613-241-6789, ext 382; 613-292-0857 or agaron@afn.ca; Jenna Young Castro, AFN Communications Officer (613) 241-6789 ext 401 or (613) 314-8157 or jyoung@afn.ca
http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/assembly-of-first-nations-national-chief-says-the-2015-federal-election-must-be-about-closing-the-gap-between-first-nations-and-canada-520419092.html
BLOGSPOT:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: we everyday people of western nations have donated over $2 TRILLION in last 50 years 2 Africas, India, Asias/ 50 years whilst our First Peoples of the North suffer in our Canada??? let's change Canada and look after our own and make education free for each and all
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/08/canada-military-news-we-everyday-people.html
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS - CANADA: True Patriot Love ...
nova0000scotia.blogspot.com/.../canada-military-news-canadas-innu.htm...
Jan 26, 2015 - Let's make our First Nations Inuit People feel our love n devotion- lotsoflinks. ... http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2013/07/canada-nova-scotia-nouvelle ... SHANIA TWAIN- feed your own children first- that is Canada's travesty ...
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