The Canadian Rant

Just a quick update to my previous post because there has been a recent development in the story. A western Canadian political magazine has republished the cartoons today in reporting the story. The magazine, the Western Standard, has published the cartoons and the ditor has stated that his reason for doing so is not in support of either side of the controversy but instead because he is reporting on the issue that has the world up in arms. This has made the Muslim community in Canada very angry and one group is trying to lobby the government to lay charges against the magazine and editor. This is very significant because Canada and the United States have been, for the most part, refusing to publish the cartoons while most countries in Europe and the rest of the world have been publishing them since the issue started. Most of the editors in North America say they are refusing to publish the cartoons out of repect for the Muslims. However, I do not believe that this is the exact truth. I...

Let's take a little time to reflect on the internatiional community. When thinking of international events usually a person has one or two really profound events that stand out to them. Whether it be the War in Iraq or the conflict between Israel and Palestine there is always a lot of attention paid to it. Usually this issue or event draws attention from the entire world and is focused on by the majority of the international community. If someone asked you what you think is the major international event going on right now what would you say? My guess is that for the most part everyone would come up with the same thing. However, the interesting thing here is that right now there are a few of these 'major international events' instead of the usual one or two. I believe that there are four of these such events and in no particular order they are the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy; the ongoing protesting and conflict regarding the Muhammed cartoons in the Danish newspape...

TORINO 2006 OLYMPICS DAY 1 RECAP (Feb. 11) The first day of competition is over in Italy and the Canadian olympic team has captured their first medal, and it's gold. Jennifer Heil came first in Women's Moguls skiing. We're off to a good start in reaching our goal of coming in the top three in overall medal standings and achieving at least 25 medals. Along with the strong performance in women's moguls were all 4 Canadians made it to the finals we also saw the Canadian women's hockey team obliterate the Italian team in their first game by a score of 16-0. In the 20km Men's Biathlon the best Canadian finish was Robin Clegg who finished 36th. Other Canadians were Jean Phillipe le Guellec in 48th and David Leoni in 65th. In the Nordic Combined Men's Individual race the top Canadian was Max Thompson in 40th followed by Jason Myslicki in 46th. For speed skating in the Men's 5,000m Final Canadians were Arne Dankers in 5th, Steven Elm in 22nd, and Justin Warsyle...

After the results of the Jan. 23 election had sunk in with all Canadians a lot of people had the feeling that a Conservative minority government would just mean that we would have another election 1 year or 18 months down the road catapulting the country into another election campaign, the third of its kind in less than 3 years. There is doubt in the minds of some Canadians that the Conservatives will not be able to hold the confidence of the House of Commons. I believe that people are severely underestimating the longevity of our current government and that instead of the 18 months that some people are projecting I think that a three year mark is more accurate. There are a number of reasons why this government will be around for at least the next 3 years and the biggest factor in all of that is that no party is willing to go back to the polls anytime soon. Each party whether its the Liberals, the NDP, or even the Bloc has its own reasons why they don't want to get involved in brin...

Once in awhile I will shy away from talking about our government and more specifically the Conservatives and Stephen Harper. And as Martha Stewart would say, "It's a good thing." You can get pretty bored reading about the same people and the same issues everyday so that is why I'm switching it up a bit to another very interesting topic. What is this topic I speak of you might ask? The Liberal leadership race. The contest to decide the leader of the party that has been governing our country for the past 12 years will be much more interesting than the last one. There is no goliath front runner such as Paul Martin this time and there might actually be some competition in this one. Paul Martin was touted as the next great leader of our country, but who knew at the time that it would turn into a brief 2 year stint as PM that would be plagued by scandal and minority government. I firmly believe that if the sponsorship scandal did not turn into what it did or not happen at a...

This will be my first real rant other than the introduction I left here this morning. An since this is my first rant it will be considerably difficult to start off on some political rant from Feb. 9 (my sister's birthday, by the way) without out any context leading up to it or any previous information given. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to assume, and we all know how this may end up, that the reader (aka. you) has a basic understanding of Canadian politics. And by basic, I mean basic. If you're still trying to find out who won the election or sitting there saying, "what election?" then this is not the place for you. If you know who our newly elected prime minister is, what the major political parties are in Canada, what they're about, and who their leaders are you should be just fine. And also, before I get started on whatever it is that flows from my fingers I decided you should all know just a little bit about who I am. Like I said...

This is the first of what will be many postings or, as I like to call them, rants. My main focus will be on federal Canadian politics and the Conservative Party of Canada. There will be some personal stuff here too, however it will be minimal. I am second-year political science and law student at Dalhousie University in Halifax. I am a member of the Conservative Party of Canada and a strong supporter of their message and leader, Stephen Harper, our newly elected Prime Minister. Why Canadian politics? Politics surrounds us every day and in some way, shape or form it affects our lives on a daily basis. Decisions made by the government through legislation and policy decisions shape our country into what it is today. Politics are relevant and important and that is the reason why I talk about it. To people who say that the decisions made in Ottawa don't affect me and that this is the reason why they don't care or don't vote I say this: Parliament may not affect what you think yo...