Liberals play gotcha on NDP MP's past support for bulk-water exports

Charlie you are the most unabashed liberal puppet I have ever read in a progressive publication. Between putting Jack Layton's campaign success down to luck and reaching back eons to before Mulcair was elected and MP (nevermind that he has already publicly declared he supports Peter Julian's opposition to bulk water exports the last time the liberals tried this smear tactic back in 2007) you are an unabashed, biased columnist committed, it seems, to doing whatever you can to help the Liberals maybe finish second in BC.
If this bulk water stuff is what you're going to base your future column decisions on, let's have one about how ILiberal deputy leader Michael gnatieff supports the Iraq war.
Iamgine my surprise if I read that under your byline.

I wrote these words two years ago:
To his credit, Rae has advanced a more enlightened foreign policy than Michael Ignatieff, who was one of the few Liberals who supported extending Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to 2009. Ignatieff also supported the U.S.–led war in Iraq and NATO’s illegal attack on Yugoslavia in 1999.

When Ignatieff recently spoke to the Liberals’ biennial policy conference, he said the party had “three essential purposes”: to protect and enhance national unity; to preserve and defend national sovereignty; and to advance the cause of social justice.

“Unity, sovereignty, justice: the three fundamentals. Everything else is detail,” Ignatieff said, according to the speech posted on his Web site.

Through much of the past decade, Ignatieff has treated global warming as just another detail. He won some environmentalists’ support by proposing a carbon tax to try to reduce the use of fossil fuels, but one doesn’t get the sense from his campaign documents that he is as engaged as Dion in addressing the twin threats of global warming and protecting Canadians from looming energy-price shocks.

I also wrote these words:
Neither Clinton nor Dion are likely to revisit the wisdom of NATO's attack on the Serbs in 1999 even though there is growing evidence that this was a misguided effort in violation of international law. Clinton won't do this because it would implicate her husband as well as her friend General Wesley Clark, then the supreme commander of NATO forces. Dion won't do it because the NATO attack is what cemented his deputy Michael Ignatieff's reputation as a crusader for human rights.
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Whoever wrote the comment above is obviously an NDP propagandist because anyone who has been reading my articles over the years knows how hard I hammered the federal Liberals for the following:
a) gutting the Canada Assistance Plan, causing the race to the bottom in provincial welfare policies, ultimately resulting in the homelessness we see on city streets. When I had a chance to interview Chretien, this is what I focused on: http://www.straight.com/article-120336/chretien-dodges-any-blame-for-hom...
b) the paper recommended the NDP candidate over Stephen Owen in Vancouver Quadra in 2004 and 2006 -- that's the work of a liberal puppet, right?
c) constant reporting on the boondoggle known as the Canada Line, which only came about because the federal Liberals threw massive sums of money at a project that should have been built to the northeast sector--and with a different technology.
I could on, but that's enough for now. One question for Jack Layton--why won't you stand up to Carole James on the carbon tax? The NDP's position on the carbon tax has driven away more than a few of its environmental supporters. I know people who are considering voting for Gordon Campbell for the first time in their lives because they don't think that the provincial NDP braintrust has any comprehension of what's happening in the permafrost and the risk of runaway global warming. One of the comments I heard from a former New Democrat with close ties to people in the caucus about the top brass is this: "They don't read." Why is it that some of the smartest members -- i.e. Chudnovsky and Corky Evans -- are not seeking reelection? Because they want to spend more time with their families? Or because they're not getting enough intellectual stimulation? Why is it that Michael Sather, another bright light, is running for mayor of Maple Ridge? Because he was thrown out of caucus for standing up for his beliefs, which were based on sound research and READING? Gimme a break.

Charlie,

How goes the campaign as of E-7?

I just want to say I think it's a very healthy development that you have noted Prof Weaver's Liberal alignment when refering to his opinion. I think one of the most dangerous things the media can do is quote academic experts who have party affiliations WITHOUT mentioning those affiliations. People then tend to think that this expert is speaking some kind of indisputable truth, rather than expressing an opinion that other, equally well-qualified experts in the same field might well disagree with.

I know Pierre E Trudeau ridiculed economists who said on the one hand, and on the other hand, but I don't think that wisecrack was the late Prime Minister's most helpful observation. A bit of uncertainty, a bit of humility, goes a long way in discussing good public policy.

Rod Smelser

”˜Water is not for trade’ - A myopic and very misguided statement. Why is it that OIL, which in Alberta means money plus devastation of the landscape, is OK to trade, but WATER is not?

The Canadian government should establish a national policy, and it should take control of fresh water sales. The revenues will enable funding of Medicare and Education at a time when the rest of the world's economies are heading into the tank.

NOTE: http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/water-not-policy-in-sight-no...

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/

Charlie:
The bulk water export legal cases continue to move ahead in the Federal Court of Canada (Action T-95-08) proceeding and Federal Court of Appeal (A-209-08) where a colleague and I have sued a whole whack of people including Jean Chretien and Gordon Campbell. The cover up continues because, as you know, Canadians have not been told the true story of the high level corruption that took place relating to bulk water exports and the ensuing cover up.
Best regards
John Carten

These water export sales really bring up the question of ownership, prior commitments, environment and who gets a say. Scared me.

http://cornwallfreenews.com/2011/01/the-wet-job-of-murder-water-politics...