Remember a while ago when Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was supposed to make a stopover in Newfoundland? And how the government was going to give him a piece of their minds around statements he’d made around celebrating a convicted terrorist? Well, as it turns out, Harper personally approved the stopover. What, so he could send Lawrence Cannon over there expressly to give him a finger-wagging? The stopover never did happen, but this little revelation just puts one more little tick in this government’s (rapidly growing) hypocrisy column.
Oh, look – the Military Police were hearing rumours of torture happening to Afghan detainees, while others were delighted in being turned over to Afghan authorities because they knew they could buy their way out in short order. But this government hasn’t yet heard any credible allegations, and if they did, they’d totally investigate them, yadda, yadda, support the troops.
Three Canadian police officers are headed to Haiti to help them rebuild their child exploitation protection.
Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe visited Newfoundland on his cross-Canada tour, and raised the spectre of Newfoundland separatism, before not answering any serious questions posed to him.
Maclean’s Ottawa bureau chief likes the talk of John de Chastelaine becoming the next Governor General. Which is all well and good, but I somehow doubt he’ll be as stylish a de facto head of state as Her Excellency.
And it looks like the CBC is about to lose some $12 million in funds for programming because the Heritage Minister – who totally watches TV on his iPod these days and not on TV, yo! – hasn’t implemented the promised rules for the new Canadian Media Fund (which really wasn’t new, but just the old Canadian Television Fund and Canadian New Media Fund put together with a shiny new label slapped on it and called new). Those new rules would have guaranteed more funds for networks that put first-run Canadian shows in Prime Time – which the CBC does exclusively rather than simply simulcast American shows, and rerun old Canadian shows on sister stations using creative accounting in order to make quotas as some other networks who won’t be mentioned. Perhaps if the Heritage Minister did his job and worried about Canadian content actually making it to air rather than talk about how he totally watches TV on his iPod, yo!, then maybe a) CBC would get rewarded for actually creating Canadian content (and good content at that), and b) we might actually see more actual Canadian content on our screens that’s competitive and decent on the private broadcasters. But whoa, that might be too much for the Minister to handle. After all, he’s busy totally watching TV on his iPod, yo!
Why you can trust Xtra
