Jonty's First Laugh

Luisa and Jonathan have gone to Winnipeg to visit her parents and sisters for a couple of weeks. Jonty chose the occasion to have his first laugh which Luisa managed to capture on video.

Enjoy :-)

Jesuits: More than 500 victims over roughly 60 years in U.S. Northwest

The Budget: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

According to an Ipsos poll, half (50%) of Canadians say to opposition parties: pass budget, avoid election.

I must confess that, although I do not like the idea of 6 weeks of politicians plying their platitudes, I cannot support this budget and I am glad the opposition parties are rejecting it. That puts me in the other 50%.


Here’s what I like

• $400 million to extend the ecoENERGY Home Retrofit program for one year.
• $300 million to benefit low-income seniors
• $300 a year in Family Caregiver Tax Credits for family members looking after sick or disabled relatives.
• Forgiving a portion of education loans for doctors and nurses if they work in rural and remote communities.

Here’s what I don't like

• $400 million to support the nuclear industry but nothing to support alternative energy.
• $1 billion in subsidies to oil and gas companies that already made a profit of over $8 billion in 2010.
• $10 million for the Grey Cup and Calgary Stampede versus $2.5 million for the Great Lakes (which supply drinking water to 8.5 million Canadians) shows pretty clearly how much the current government values clean water.

Here’s what we should all be worried about

The budget doesn’t even mention the $29.3 billion (Parliamentary Budget Office estimate) the Harper government plans to spend on 65 fighter jets.
Also unaccounted for is the estimated $9 billion for building new prisons that the Harper government is committed to--despite the fact that crime rates are falling!
That’s $40 billion of spending (as much as transfers to all the provinces or total support for seniors) that’s missing from this budget. That’s not financially responsible.

Source: Green Party of Canada

Stephen Harper should stay the course.

As leader of the Conservative Party of Canada this is not the time for you to get cold feet. Continue the courage of your convictions, Sir. You surrounded yourself with brave, forward looking, independent, creative, innovative thinkers and politicians. To find such valueable resources for the PMO and your cabinet you had the courage to ignore the staid, old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy advice of CSIS and the RCMP. Don't throw Bruce Carson under the bus now.

Who cares that Bruce Carson received an 18-month jail sentence in 1983 after he pled guilty to forging cheques and stealing $23,900 from a corporation and two other clients that he represented (Allan Woods, Toronto Star.)   Isn't this just the type of creative mindset that we need when approaching the accounting required for reviving an economy?

Think about it. Bruce Carson and I are roughly the same age. If I started courting a beautiful, vivaceous 22-year-old escort my sons and daughters would be around before you could blink and have me bundled off in a straight jacket to a phrenologist and from there to a padded cell. I do not have "edge". Bruce does. He can do something like that and make it look dapper. Sure, tongues will wag, but thousands of men out there are enviously wondering, as I am, "How does he do it? How does he keep it up?" People like Bruce not only bridge the gap between the generations but help those around him to do so as well or, at least, appear to - including Stephen.  This is the "edge" that the Conservative Party needs to widen over its weary, black-suit, same-old, same-old political rivals.

The Conservative Leader has astutely garnered others into The A-Team: Maxime (Playboy) Bernier, Bev (keep 'em guessing) Oda, Helena (Hellhole) Guergis. These are the flashy ones, in the public eye, image is everything. But there are others who deserve our respect. Who's brilliant idea was it to withhold from the Canadian Parliament the cost of building new and bigger prisons to hold all the new prisoners from all the increased crime that is going unreported? That will show Parliament who's boss and at the same time stimulate the economy. Kudos, too, for the man or woman who first came up with the idea of awarding a contract for new F-35 fighter jets with a low-ball cost estimate. This is how you get what you want.

The economy is far too important for us to be distracted by little things like contempt of parliament, peddling influence, lying about departmental recommendations for the long form census, withholding information, falsifying documents and lying about departmental recommendations for Kairos funding, election accounting fraud. On the contrary, we should see these things as signs of strength in adversity. What's a minority government supposed to do when the majority of MPs are against you? Stephen (Win some, lose some) Harper and his A-Team know what's best for us. Don't change now just because you came into power on a "Transparency" ticket. Obviously that was just a brilliant ploy to woo the voters who were sick of The Sponsorship Scandal. After coming into power the Conservatives were able to blow a surplus before the recession even hit. Nobody knows better than they do how to spend money. They surely now know best how to turn a deficit into a surplus so that we can spend even more money.

If Stephen Harper has a problem, if no one else can help, and if he can find them, you know whom he hires. Now is not the time to make risky changes. Stay with the man whose judgement you can trust. Stephen Harper... and the A-Team.

Geoff's Four-Oh Bash

The clan got together at the Boothroyd's place for a little celebration of Geoff's coming to responsible maturity. He had to compete with Claire and Jonty to be the centre of attention - and lost miserably, actually he lost happily.  The day finished with us watching cricket highlights from the India vs. South Africa game.  For those who don't know, Geoff has become quite a cricket aficionado.

Here are a few happy shots plus a link to the Picasa album with all 19 photos, and two YouTube links.


YouTube
Claire at Geoff's Fortieth


YouTube
Jonty on Geoff's Fortieth

The Winter that Refuses to Go

Even after 12 years as a South African in Canada I have this fascination, some would call it a morbid fascination, with the beauty of the snow in winter. This winter has been particularly special.

Ingrid looking incredulous

These branches are normally protected

Forgive me for all these pictures of snow but I have this irresistable urge to show the world.
Find more of my Seasons pictures here

Turning the pages

Reading Dr Seuss

On Saturday Geoff and Miriam brought Claire around. She is such a delight and cannot resist being drawn in if you start reading one of her books.


Find more pictures of Claire here