There really isn’t a whole lot I can say about the response to the Haiti earthquake other than the fact that I do find it rather cynical of the Prime Minister to continue to stage photo ops to show just how good of a job he’s doing on this file, or just how much he cares – like when he staged a photo op where he and his wife went down to Red Cross headquarters to deliver a personal cheque. Really? I mean, it’s great to help out, but the photo op is a bit crass – especially when the release to media outlets says “photo opportunity only.”
Oh, and incidentally – can We The Media stop obsessing about every MP’s tweets? It’s dull and doesn’t further the democratic discourse.
Meanwhile, The Canadian Press uses the opportunity of the deployment to Haiti to remind Canadians that the Harper government really didn’t expand our DART team capabilities the way they said they would. Oops.
Elsewhere, the Conservatives come armed with a legal opinion that says that they can unilaterally change Senate term lengths as they prepare to re-introduce their piecemeal “reform” legislation. But opinions aside, I believe the Supreme Court has already ruled in a reference that it would actually take a constitutional amendment to do that because guess what – term lengths of as little as eight years will in practice fundamentally alter the essential character of the Senate. Part of the Senate’s job is institutional memory – which eight-year terms does not sufficiently garner – not to mention the fact that a two-term majority Prime Minister can completely turn over the population of the Senate if they all have eight-year terms, which goes against the very spirit of the Upper Chamber. Nice try, but no. It’s another red herring that only serves to confuse the issue.
And it seems that the President of Uganda is getting the message – the world community thinks that a bill that condemns gays to death is a bad thing. Nothing, however, if he still thinks that life imprisonment is still okay, let alone locking up those who don’t inform on the gays. Remind me – how much aid money are we giving them? And should we start looking at attaching a few more strings to it?
Why you can trust Xtra
