Canadian forced to use DNA to prove her Identity to Canadian Government

Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a 31-year-old mother has been stranded in Kenya since May because the Canadian government officials in Kenya claimed that she was not the person on her passport.  Despite being able to produce multiple documents attesting to her identity Canadian officials in Kenya declared her an imposter, confiscated her passport and turned her over to Kenya for prosecution.  All while her 12 year old son was cared for by a family friend in Canada.

I am not sure which part of this story I find more disturbing.  The fact that our own government was the cause of this woman’s ordeal, the fact that it took three months to resolve or the fact that she had to resort to a DNA test proving that she was the mother of her son in order for the Canadian government to admit their horrible error.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said today "Something is fundamentally wrong when we can't count on the Canadian government to stand up for Canadians – I'm not sure I can put it any more directly than that".

I couldn’t agree more!

McGuinty hammers Ottawa for ignoring stranded woman

Raitt Cries Crocodile Tears for Isotope Quip

In a hastily scheduled news conference amid flattering back lighting clearly meant for front page pictures, natural resources minister, Lisa Raitt finally decided to apologize. On Jan 30th, not long after the heavy water leak at Chalk River nuclear reactor caused a shortage of medical isotopes worldwide, she told her aid that she thought the whole situation was “sexy” and looked at it as a way to promote her political career.

It is hard to believe that Ms. Raitt is sincere in her apology because not 24 hours earlier she was refusing to make the very same apology. In fact, it would be easier to believe that she is more motivated by political survival than true regret for the hurt her words caused. In her apology, she lists every one of her relatives that died from cancer in a contrived effort to elicit sympathy and deflect attention away from her words on Jan 30th and her cold and calculating response to those words prior to sudden about-face apology.

The performance was worthy of an academy award. Well Ms. Raitt, if this political gig doesn’t work out there is always Hollywood.

Angry White Men Storm Parliament Hill

On the front page of the Ottawa Citizen today the headline reads "Hey hey ho ho Stephen Harper has to... stay!" Put aside for one moment the paper's obvious slant towards supporting Stephen Harper (a similar demonstration in support of the coalition only made page 6 of paper on Dec 5, 2008) and dissect the coverage of the facts.

If the page one photo of the demonstration in support of our create-a-crisis Prime Minister accurately protrays the crowd, it contained 99.9% men, carrying English signs, draping themselves in the Canadian flag and all angry (really all that were missing were the pitch forks). The question becomes why did the crowd look like that. Could it be because the Harper Conservatives have been attacking women and minority rights since day one?

The page 6 photo contains a mix of men and women all carrying simple signs in both English and French a single Quebec flag. (I can't help but wonder if that was the only Quebec flag there and the photographer chose to do a little editorializing of his/her own.)

The Ottawa Citizen, on the day that it covered the demonstration in support of the coalition chose to put a super size picture of Harper on the front page proudly stating that 43% of Canadians polled said that the would vote for Harper in an election.

First a lesson in civics: Unless you live in the riding of Calgary South, you can't vote for Harper. In Canada, citizens do not vote for Prime Minister they vote for their Member of Parliament (MP for short). Stephen Harper is Prime Minister because his political party, the Conservative Party of Canada (the Conservatives), chose him to be their leader and the Conservatives won more seats that the other parties (although not a majority of the seats).

In the House of Commons all MPs are created equal, and all MPs are elected in their perspective ridings, including Stephen Harper. Therefore if the coalition forms and takes over as the governing "party" all that will have changed is who wears the hat of Prime Minister. The MP that was elected in your riding will continue to be your MP and represent you in the House of Commons. -- I.E. No one's vote will have been stolen and the angry mob was attempting to say on Saturday.

Now on to my second point, if my math serves me correctly if 43% of Canadians would vote for the Conservatives that means that 57% would not! In the absence of Parliamentary reform, a coalition that represents how the majority of Canadians would actually vote, sounds VERY DEMOCRATIC.

Reference: Thousands rally across the country to protest coalition's power play