In a move universally rejected by veterans groups, it would appear that the Harper government wants to give the unknown soldier our country's highest award for valour, the Victoria Cross. Specifically he wants to give the CVC (Canadian Victoria Cross) that was re-instituted into our honours system back in 1993. Canada's "New" Government (TM, Pat. Pend.) says its to honour all veterans. Given that veterans groups are not on side with this, it starts to look more and more like political grandstanding on Harper's part. Not that he'd ever do that.

So the Harper government had decided to court the senior vote by brining in a Seniors' Advisory Council that is tasked to provide the government advice about senior's issues. On the face of it this is a good idea as the voice of seniors is often drowned out in the background noise that is politics. I have some concerns though, which only time will allay. Sadly, these concerns are only in place because of the governing party and their lack of transparency and little to do with the mandate of the council.

We now have Stephen Harper's "New" government, in the spirit of openness and accountability, bullying a doctor near Ft. MacMurray to keep him quiet about increased cancer rates in the area. Now from my understanding, the doctor hasn't claimed that tar sand development is the cause, just asked that government, in the best interests of it citizens, look into the matter. The Alberta government has and found that yes, there is an increase of some forms of cancer in the region. The government of Alberta, renowned for it's secrecy, is unwilling to look into the matter any further, lest there be a connection between the oil industry and the cancer. The Alberta Tories don't want anything to stop the big donations from the oil industry to stop. Which brings us to the actions of Canada's "New" Government (TM, Pat. Pend). It's starting to look a lot like the actions of the Alberta Provincial Government, meaning that the federal Tories are just as bad as their Alberta counterparts when it comes to dealing with the oil industry.

In his attempt to continually malign the Liberal party (as opposed to generating policy) Steven Harper is following the lead of the rest of his party and is now lying to Parliament. There's no way that the misinformation the Tories are spewing out are "mistakes" or based on "bad intelligence". The are now deliberately making up misinformation (or lies as we call them here in the real world) and spewing them in Parliament in order to deliberately mislead the Canadian public.

It would appear that the amount the CPC reimberses the Canadian taxpayer for Stephen's flying around on government jets is considerably less than what it costs taxpayers. Canada's New Government (TM, Pat. Pend.) is looking more and more like Canada's Old Government, if not worse.

From Basil Berntsen's blog I found out about the federal government "consulting" Canadians about the upcoming budget. If you don't get to this by noon on the 28th of February, don't bother, that's when it's over. There are two things that get me about this "consultation".

Prime Ministers are often accused of arrogance. So a new poll here at Castle Evil. Which of these PM's do you think was the most arrogant? So click here to get to this site's main page and the poll is on the right hand side.

By negotiation and not back to work legislation. I guess Harper and Co. won't be able to show how tough they are on those evil unions just yet. You know they want to....

So in the past month or so we have the Harper Tories attacking the Liberals with negative ads, blaming the previous government as answers to questions in question period and now accusing the Liberals of supporting terrorism. All in a day's work for a party that's struggling outside of Alberta. This election style attack on the Liberals may make for great political theater, and plays well to the Tories' home audience in Alberta, but is it good government?

It would appear that Dubya is getting ready to invade Iran. He's been rattling the sabre for months and now there's "intelligence" reports of Iranian made weapons showing up in Iraq. Of course Iran denies this and states that the US has "a history of fabricating evidence". The problem for Bush and Co. is that the Iranians are right about that.