This Just Keeps Getting Better

Harper must have woken up this morning, checked the headlines and wondered, "Is it too late to change my mind?"

Canada squeaks past recession as GDP rebounds

OTTAWA -- Canada's economy limped ahead in the second quarter barely enough to avoid the first recession in 17 years, recording the thinnest of gains after a much worse winter quarter than previously believed.

But with Statistics Canada sharply revising downward it's first quarter tally on gross domestic product to a negative 0.8 per cent, the modest 0.3 per cent gain in the March-June period meant that the economy actually contracted during the first six months of 2008.

It constitutes the worst performance by the economy since 1991...

.....


Ottawa wanted U.S. to accept more lenient meat inspection regime

OTTAWA — The Canadian government strongly opposed tougher U.S. rules to prevent listeria and lobbied the United States to accept Canada's more lenient standards, internal documents reveal.

Briefing notes prepared by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for an April 7, 2006, meeting with the board of directors of the Canadian Meat Council outline how both industry and the Canadian government were frustrated with the increased precautions the United States was demanding.

Specifically, Canada opposed daily inspection visits and the testing of finished products for Listeria monocytogenes.

.....


Walkerton mayor calls for public inquiry on listeria outbreak

OTTAWA — The Mayor of Walkerton, Ont. is calling for a public inquiry into the outbreak of listeria, saying he cannot believe lessons failed to be learned from the tainted water tragedy that killed seven people in May 2000.

Mayor Charlie Bagnato released a statement today decrying the current outbreak as “outrageous” and noting that some of the cabinet ministers who were in the Ontario government in 2000 are now in the federal cabinet.

.....

Tories' arts cuts spark ire in Quebec

The recent Conservative cuts to arts and culture have done what neither the pursuit of the unpopular Afghan war nor the demise of the Kyoto Protocol had accomplished: wake up a sleeping Quebec giant that is now gathering strength for a show of force in the upcoming election campaign.

In the swift-changing Quebec political narrative, the controversy is shaping up to offer the Liberals their best chance to rise from the dead in the province. By putting the axe to a host of cultural programs on the eve of a probable campaign, Stephen Harper's Conservatives may have given Stéphane Dion the kiss of life in Quebec.

Let's see... the Liberals need seats in Ontario, Quebec and BC. All three have active arts, film and television industries. All three have suffered listeriosis cases. Ontario and Quebec are already feeling the effects of a looming recession. Ontario remembers Walkerton. Quebec is full of disenchanted ex-Bloc voters looking for a new home.

Oh, yeah - and urban BCers haven't been reacting at all well to those Conservative ten-percenters about the nasty "junkies". Or to Tony Clement's asinine comments about safe injection sites.

If Dion just keeps picking at those sores while presenting a clear, comprehensive plan to lead us in a new direction, I think the results might just surprise everyone. Then again, anything can happen in 36 days. That's why politics is my favourite sport!

____________________

BTW, I found this comment by Harper to be very interesting...

The most common definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic output, but Mr. Harper said this wouldn't worry him because it would only be a "technical recession," while Canada's outlook is strong.

"Even if it's true, I don't think it's a real recession. ... There are job losses, but overall employment is pretty stable."

... especially when you compare it to this statement by John McCain's top economic advisor:

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

Don't worry. Be happy.

Tony Speaks from the Wrong Orifice Again

And it ain't the one in his head...

Public supports shutting injection site, Ottawa says

MEXICO CITY -- Ottawa is determined to shut down Vancouver's safe-injection site because it's necessary to "draw a line" about which public health measures are acceptable, Canada's Health Minister says...

"You have to draw the line somewhere and we feel we're drawing the line in a place Canadians are comfortable," Mr. Clement said in an interview in Mexico City, where he is attending the 17th International AIDS Conference.

Now, granted the headline of the Globe article isn't quite what he said, but he certainly does seem to be implying that he has some special insight (pardon the pun) into public opinion in Canada regarding safe injection sites.

Eh, not so much...

Two-thirds support safe-injection site, poll says

VANCOUVER - Only a quarter of people in the Metro Vancouver region support shutting down the city's precedent-setting supervised-injection site, according to a poll done this week by AngusReid Strategies.

The poll of 400 residents showed that about a third of people overall oppose its operations, 10 per cent aren't sure and almost 60 per cent support the site, which is the only one of its kind in North America.

But hey, that's just those dirty hippies out in BC, right? I'm sure if you asked all Canadians what they thought...

Majority supports safe-injection sites
Ipsos Reid poll shows 55% of Canadians think centres like Insite 'a good idea'

Most Canadians say it's "a good thing" heroin addicts in Vancouver have a safe, legal place to shoot up, according to a poll conducted this week for Canwest News Service and Global National.

An Ipsos Reid poll made public yesterday found that 55 per cent of Canadians say the Downtown Eastside centre Insite is "a good thing" and 54 per cent say it should remain exempt from the country's drug laws, despite a Conservative government appeal to shut it down.

Yeah, but I'm sure those hardworking rural folks are all totally against it, right? Or maybe the results are skewed by those bastards in Eastern Canada...

Quebecers were the most likely to say safe injection is "good," with 66 per cent of the province agreeing, followed by Alberta (58 per cent), Atlantic Canada (55 per cent), British Columbia (54 per cent), Ontario (49 per cent) and Saskatchewan and Manitoba (45 per cent)...

The poll also found a split between rural and urban populations. Those in urban settings (57 per cent) have a higher tendency than those in rural settings (50 per cent) to agree that Insite is a "good thing."

I think what really annoys me about the Globe article isn't the headline - it's that they didn't spend the same ten minutes I did looking up past poll results to see if Tony actually had a point, or if he was just talking out of his ass again.

Tony, Tony, Tony...

I don't know about you, but I for one am getting tired of our government's ministers embarrassing us abroad.

The latest Harper minion to trip over his own shoelaces on the world stage is Tony Clement. Seems our Health Minister spoke at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico yesterday and used the opportunity to once again slam safe injection sites like Vancouver's Insite, even calling the policy "a form of harm addition".

Oops.

While the minister's views on Insite are well known, Mr. Clement repeated them Tuesday at an event where he was endorsing and promoting a new WHO “how-to” guide on battling the epidemic, which promotes needle exchange and safe injection sites. The Health Minister's comments left officials from the agency flummoxed and red-faced.

Teguest Guerma, associate director of the HIV-AIDS department at the WHO, who was clearly uncomfortable about the exchange between the minister and reporters about the apparent contradiction in Canada's position, would only say: “The WHO supports harm reduction.”

Canada's Not-So-New Government: Making Us All Look Like Idiots Since 2006.

(H/T to Rolling Back the Tide of Extremism)