The drama in the Conservative caucus over the status of Brian Mulroney just gets more and more interesting. The Canadian Press is now reporting that Peter MacKay tried to ask Don Plett, the party president, to try and intercede and declare that as a past Prime Minister, Mulroney should be at the very least granted an honorary lifetime party membership. And Plett said no. Not only did he say no, he didn’t deny it to the press. Add to that, Mulroney’s spokesperson has said that there are several party members breaking ranks to call up the former Prime Minister to offer their sympathy, in obvious defiance of Harper’s decree that the caucus was to keep their distance from the former Prime Minister while the Oliphant inquiry drags on. All of this could mean that there is even more strain on the two “wings” of the party than has been previously thought.
While not federal political news, I did want to point to this story out of Nova Scotia, where a provincial election is soon to take place. Provincial Liberals have forwarded “semi-nude” photos of one provincial NDP candidate, Lenore Zann, to the media, after she had appeared in an episode of The L Word. (NSFW episode recap here, including photos. I believe she’s the one wielding the knife in the prison showers). They’re claiming that the images are in the public domain, and that they were bound to come out sooner or later, and that it’s especially relevant given that Truro is in the riding, and they’ve had issues with the mayor refusing to declare Pride or raise the rainbow flag. That excuse, however, doesn’t make it any less of a douchey move.
Liberal MP Keith Martin is a man of many talents and many passions, including trying to reform freedom of speech in this country. He’s also a medical doctor, and he has an email interview with the Globe and Mail about ways in which we can try to reform our health care system to take the best European models and integrate them into ours.
And finally, it’s little surprise, but the CBC says that if there’s money to help bail out private broadcasters, then they should be included too. And really, fair is fair. It’s not like we haven’t actually been subsidising the private broadcasters with money-for-nothing things like simultaneous substitution of US signals (thus claiming higher viewer figures and advertising dollars), and lax Canadian Content regulations, while giving the CBC the burden of actually having to produce and broadcast Canadian Content without the more lucrative American programming that will supposedly draw in viewers. The CBC has also been forced to cut much of its local programming, while the private broadcasters claim it’s exactly why they need the bailout – even though they’re the ones who leveraged themselves to unwieldy levels in order to acquire specialty cable channels, which is part of why they’re in such rough shape, while the CBC, well, didn’t. But how much do we want to bet that “something” will be worked out for the private broadcasters, while the CBC will get nothing under the excuse that they already get government funds?
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