Canadian Politics

[The Unknown Poster]

Nice story. Except for the firing part.

When the Harper family got together to eat dinner, it wasn't about quail eggs or rare oddities—no, it was more typical Canadian fare.

Tim Wasylko knows. He has spent the past five years cooking meals at 24 Sussex Dr. as the executive chef, and his recollections paint a picture of an average, usually relaxed family sitting round the dinner table.

“It was never about luxury,” he said. “It was just about serving an incredibly busy family.”

But not anymore.

“I am no longer the chef," he told the Sun. "Mrs. Trudeau sacked me."

A statement on the website of the Privy Council Office confirmed his termination, with no details offered.

Wasylko said he wished his departure from 24 Sussex Dr. hadn't gone down the way it did.

After a long meeting with the prime minister's wife, Sophie, the head of house staff walked into a relatively vacant 24 Sussex Dr. and delivered good news to staff with a smile, according to Wasylko.

For about the week the staff had been in limbo, wary of the election fallout, he said.

“Everybody gets to keep your jobs,” Wasylko recalled being told.

But not him. The Trudeaus had another chef in mind, he said.

Despite losing his job, he said he's not bitter.

Wasylko, who lives on a farm in Winchester, has been intimately involved in the best and worst moments of Parliament since 2010.

“Somebody told me to start cooking. It was a long day,” he recalled of Oct. 22, 2014, the day a gunman killed a soldier at the war monument then stormed Parliament Hill.

"We cleaned out every last bit of food we could. We made pots of chilli, everything....nobody packs a lunch for a lockdown."

He was also the guy who ordered 60 large non-partisan pizzas to parliamentarians trapped over on the Hill that day.

“Conservatives, Liberals, the NDP. I fed all of Parliament,” he said.

Being a chef for the Harpers these past few years wasn't about the fine European wines indulged in by former prime ministers, he said.

It was chicken pot pie and home-cooked meals. Meatloaf and taco night. It was chicken soup when was someone was sick.

Wasylko shared fond memories of the Harper family he fed.

“He put anyone I've ever met to shame when it came to work,” he said of Stephen Harper. “The man worked hard. You had to make sure he was fuelled properly.”

The former chef said he never felt like a servant or a butler.

He recalled the first thing Laureen Harper saying to him as “I want you to cook for my family the way you cook for your family.”

“And I often did,” he recalled.

He suggested the Harper family had no hints of being spoiled by the silver spoon.

“The kids had part-time jobs, they had chores. It's hard to believe that, but it was as normal a family as it could be.”

The fridge at 24 Sussex Dr. was always stocked with food from across the country, according to Wasylko

Wasylko cooked meals for heads of state, from Angela Merkel to Barack Obama to Benjamin Netanyahu.

The chef and former instructor at Algonquin College said his first foray into cooking for bigshots was in his early 20s, when he found himself making mashed potatoes at a UN meeting, many years ago.

“Because I wanted to see one country hand mashed-potatoes to another country,” he recalled.

Through the years with the Harpers, Wasylko adopted a strong belief that one of the biggest elements to diplomacy involves food and eating with one another.

“They talk about the meal, and it's a chance to showcase cuisine,” he said.

He indicated he stepped it up a notch but never went overboard on the menu when a world leader came to visit.

“I would try to keep that home feel, believe it or not,” he said.

From his perspective, meals with foreign powers were always cordial and friendly.

“He seemed well liked with whomever he met.”

These days, Wasylko says he's getting offers from all over the place after being booted from the Big Kitchen.

He said one of his most memorable times serving as the executive chef was when Harper mentioned him in the House of Commons in the days following Oct. 22.

"That just brought tears to my eyes. I'm a proud, patriotic Canadian as it is. But to have your boss actually thank you, well, it just goes back to the power of food."

[Fatty Liver]

Hopefully the Liberals examine the fine print of the TPP and act in the best interest of Canada.  Throughout our history we have ended up under the thumb of the Uncle Sam on too many trade deals.  

 

 

Jim Balsillie fears TPP could cost Canada billions and become worst-ever policy move

 

Jim Balsillie warns that provisions tucked into the Trans-Pacific Partnership could cost Canada hundreds of billions of dollars — and eventually make signing it the worst public policy decision in the country's history.

 

After poring over the treaty's final text, the businessman who helped build Research In Motion into a $20-billion global player said the deal contains "troubling" rules on intellectual property that threaten to make Canada a "permanent underclass" in the economy of selling ideas.

 

Last month, in the middle of the election campaign, the Conservative government put Canada's signature on the controversial 12-country pact. The Pacific Rim agreement, which includes the massive American and Japanese economies, has been described as the world's largest-ever trade zone.

 

But Balsillie said parts of the deal will harm Canadian innovators by forcing them to play by rules set by the treaty's most-dominant partner: the United States.

 

The fallout could prove costly for Canada because technologies created by these entrepreneurs have the potential to create huge amounts of wealth for the economy, he says.

 

"I'm not a partisan actor, but I actually think this is the worst thing that the Harper government has done for Canada," the former co-chief executive of RIM said in an interview after studying large sections of the 6,000-page document, released to the public last week.

 

"I think in 10 years from now, we'll call that the signature worst thing in policy that Canada's ever done...

"It's a treaty that structures everything forever — and we can't get out of it."

 

Balsillie's concerns about the deal include how it would impose intellectual property standards set by the U.S., the biggest partner in the treaty.

 

He fears it would give American firms an edge and cost Canadian companies more money because they would have to pay for someone else's ideas instead of using their own.

 

On top of that, Balsillie believes the structure could prevent Canadian firms from growing as it would also limit how much money they can make from their own products and services.

 

Balsillie, who spent much of his time building RIM by negotiating agreements around the world, called the comprehensive final text a "brilliant piece of literature."

 

"It's such brilliantly systemic encirclement. I'm just in awe at its powerful purity by the Americans...

"We've been outfoxed."

 

Negotiators 'failed Canadians,' says Balsillie

And unlike legislation passed in Parliament, he noted treaties like this one set rules that must be followed forever. This deal, he added, also features "iron-clad" dispute mechanisms.

 

"I'm worried and I don't know how we can get out of this," said Balsillie, who's also helping guide the creation of a lobby group that would press for the needs of Canada's innovation sector.

 

"I think our trade negotiators have profoundly failed Canadians and our future innovators. I really lament it."

He said the government should have dispatched a more-sophisticated negotiating team.

 

Harper had hailed the agreement as a means of ensuring Canadian access to a market of nearly 800 million people and before it was signed, warned Canada couldn't afford not to take part.

 

The deal must be ratified by all 12 countries, and then it would come into force six months later. It would require a parliamentary vote in Canada.

 

Alternatively, the treaty can also take effect if it's ratified by half the countries representing 85 per cent of the zone's economy. A country can withdraw any time, on six months' notice.

 

The Liberal government has yet to say how it will proceed.

International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, named to cabinet a day before the finalized treaty was made public, reiterated that the Liberals believe in trade, but she was careful to note the deal was negotiated by the Conservative government.

After the text was released, Freeland told reporters she wanted Canadians to send her comments about it.

"I'm going to take that seriously — we're going to review it," she said Thursday.

 

The government, she added, is committed to a full parliamentary debate on the deal and a vote in the House of Commons, though she had yet to set a deadline.\

 

She declined to answer questions whether the Liberals would be prepared to walk away from the deal.

Balsillie warned that the Liberals' plan to run budgetary deficits of up to $10 billion in each of the next three years could pale in comparison to what could be lost in the country's ideas economy because of the TPP.

 

"These provisions are more important by far — times 10 — than anything else in the agreement," he said.

"But we're having no discussion on it."

[Mark F]

Not a good deal for Canada, or the United States. It was written by and for Transnational corporations.

 

It takes law making out of the hands of elected government, and gives it to appointed arbitrators, who are paid by the corporations. You don't even get to know their names.

 

Decisions made on the secret panels override the laws passed by elected governments, and are not appealable.

 

Canada has lost a number of these panel rulings under Nafta, and they have dismantled laws passed by legislatures, and costing hundreds of millions of dollars in direct payments.

 

Expect many more of those, if this deal goes through. Things like challenging our drug pricing tribunal, that regulates what drug companies can charge. Expect challenges to that.

 

The drug companies hate our patent drug regulation laws, and want to be able to charge whatever they want, the way they can in the US.

 

Some drugs in the US cost ten times what the same drugs cost here in some instances, cause they have no price regulation law.

 

Exactly what are we going to sell to the Pacific Rim, where wages are in some places 8 cents an hour, workers have zero rights, and their are literally billions of people seeking a job.

 

"
 

Facing growing imports of low-cost seafood, fish processors in the Northwest, including Seattle-based Trident Seafoods, are sending part of their catch of Alaskan salmon or Dungeness crab to China to be filleted or de-shelled before returning to U.S. tables.

“There are 36 pin bones in a salmon and the best way to remove them is by hand,” says Charles Bundrant, founder of Trident, which ships about 30 million pounds of its 1.2 billion-pound annual harvest to China for processing. “Something that would cost us $1 per pound labor here, they get it done for 20 cents in China.”

 

 

 

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is about to allow U.S chickens to be sent to China for processing and then shipped back to the U.S. for human consumption.

 

 

yah that's great for jobs here in North America.

 

It's the opposite of Democracy. It's a scam.

 

Under Obama's us trade deal with S. Korea, that he said would result in more jobs in the US, the American trade deficit with S. Korea has massively increased, and caused the loss of American jobs.

• The U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has swelled 90 percent, or $13.6 billion, in the first three years of the Korea FTA (comparing the year before the FTA took effect with the third year of implementation).
• The trade deficit increase equates to the loss of more than 90,000 American jobs in the first three years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs ratio that the Obama administration used to project job gains from the deal."

 

 

Obama is a con artist of the first order. This is his deal.

 

If Trudeau buys into this, he's only slightly better than the previous outfit.

[The Unknown Poster]

I wont pretend to know intimately details of this deal but I dont think its as simple as being for or against.  I heard a discussion on the radio where the guests were extremely pro-deal.  So are they morons?  Surely not.  But from their perspective it was neccessary for Canada.

[17to85]

Canada hates the TPP and America hates the TPP, but the corporations love it, that should be a concern to anyone. Corporations need to be slapped down by governments every now and then if you ask me. Keep them from becoming out of line and treating the general population and their work forces like scum.

[Mark F]

American manufacturing has been destroyed by "free" trade agreements.

 

they have rust belts in all the former manufacturing states.

 

People aren't stupid.

[Fatty Liver]

Not a good deal for Canada, or the United States. It was written by and for Transnational corporations.

 

It takes law making out of the hands of elected government, and gives it to appointed arbitrators, who are paid by the corporations. You don't even get to know their names.

 

Decisions made on the secret panels override the laws passed by elected governments, and are not appealable.

 

Canada has lost a number of these panel rulings under Nafta, and they have dismantled laws passed by legislatures, and costing hundreds of millions of dollars in direct payments.

 

Expect many more of those, if this deal goes through. Things like challenging our drug pricing tribunal, that regulates what drug companies can charge. Expect challenges to that.

 

The drug companies hate our patent drug regulation laws, and want to be able to charge whatever they want, the way they can in the US.

 

Some drugs in the US cost ten times what the same drugs cost here in some instances, cause they have no price regulation law.

 

Exactly what are we going to sell to the Pacific Rim, where wages are in some places 8 cents an hour, workers have zero rights, and their are literally billions of people seeking a job.

 

 

Rocks and trees and any other natural resource we can provide them with that will feed their manufacturing sectors. There is nothing we can manufacture that they could afford or would ever need.

[Taynted_Fayth]

Well if u end up like that dude (martin shkreli) who bought up that aids treating drug or whatever it was then jacked it up 10x what it was costing people that'll probably get u some death threats and a vip pass to the dbag award ceremony

[Mr Dee]

Private, behind the door deals, will never be good for the common folk. This deal is no better.

Justin. Boot the deal.

[kelownabomberfan]

We need Teddy Roosevelt to make a reappearance. Every 100 years or so.

[Fatty Liver]

Turns out Harper wouldn't have been able to balance the budget after all.  Wish somebody had the balls to put the GST back to 7% as originally calculated, that made economic sense at the time and still does.

 

What the PBO report means for the Trudeau government's spending plans

Just one week after taking over the ship of state, the new Liberal government has had its first peek in the engine room and there are signs of smoke.

 

To judge by a report released Tuesday by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the outgoing Harper government was unduly optimistic in its forecasts and estimates.

 

The Canadian economy continues to face strong headwinds, from both sluggish global demand and stubbornly low oil prices.

The PBO is now predicting the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude will increase slowly to about $59 by 2020. In the last estimates, produced in April, the same barrel of oil was forecast to be worth about 10 per cent more over that period.

The low price of oil and other external factors have combined to slash the PBO's economic growth forecast for this year to 1.1 per cent from 2.1 per cent.

 

The Canadian economy is now forecast to produce $32 billion less income next year than had been anticipated in the last forecast, published in April. National income for 2017 will be $43 billion less than expected.

 

Surplus a mirage

All of that suggests that the Conservatives' heralded return to a budgetary surplus was in fact a mirage that could not have been achieved without the one-time sale of government-held shares in General Motors early in the first quarter.

 

For each of the next five years, the PBO projects fiscal deficits averaging $4.3 billion a year.

However, those deficits don't include the Trudeau government's spending plans. They are the deficits that would have occurred under the budgeting of former prime minister Stephen Harper, if his government had remained in office.

A crimp in Trudeau's plans?

The Liberal government has committed to a major infrastructure spending program, designed in part to stimulate the economy.

In its campaign platform, the party announced that "with the Liberal plan, the federal government will have a modest short-term deficit of less than $10 billion in each of the next two fiscal years."

 

That plan was built on earlier estimates that saw the federal Conservative government returning to surplus in 2015 and staying in the black over the next few years. Under that scenario, the whole of the deficit the Liberals planned to run would have been available for new stimulus spending or other priorities.

 

Under the new forecasts, it now seems that nearly half of that deficit is already spoken for, even before counting any new spending.

 

For Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau, it suggests that if he wants to keep the deficit within the $10-billion bounds promised in the Liberal Party platform, the amount of money available for infrastructure spending has been cut almost in half.

One reason for the government's worsening fiscal situation is that the PBO based its forecast on the Conservative government's commitment to cut Employment Insurance premiums starting next year from $1.88 per $100 earned to $1.44.

 

The Liberal government also plans to cut EI premiums, but by only about half as much. That means the loss of revenues will not be as great as it would have been under the Harper plan.

 

Still, there will be less money available than the incoming government believed based on previous estimates.

 

Options include bigger deficits

What to do about that reality now becomes a political question on which the Liberals have two options.

 

One is to shrink their spending plans, in order to keep the deficit under $10 billion. That will mean fewer new bridges, fewer new green jobs and fewer dollars for transit and housing projects.

 

The other option is to declare that the economy and budget they inherited from the Harper government are in worse shape than they thought and that their deficits will therefore need to be bigger.

 

Conservative MP Tony Clement, who served as Treasury Board president in the previous government, said in a statement Tuesday that the Liberals need to tell Canadians how they will respond to the downturn.

 

"We want to know how the Liberals will avoid falling deeper into the fiscal hole," Clement said in the release. "Our concern as Official Opposition remains that the shortfall will be made up through the pocketbooks of hard-working Canadians using tax hikes on their paycheques, removal of benefits they rely on and cutting services they need."

 

Morneau acknowledged the PBO report Tuesday, but said he he couldn't say much more until he's more fully briefed, noting he has been in the job for just six days.

 

However, he did say that the more pessimistic numbers in the PBO report reinforced the government's view that the spending outlined in the party's election platform is needed.

 

"Our platform talked about significant investments and infrastructure, investments that we believe will help us to enhance growth, investments that we see will have the possibility of creating jobs, and investments that will enable us to improve the lives of Canadians across the country," Morneau told reporters.

 

"So, this really does reinforce for us the need for our platform, one that we think will make an enormous difference."

Morneau said he expects to deliver a fiscal update before the end of the year.

[Mark F]

Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary to the treasury under R. Reagan, associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service.on trans pacific partnership:

 

 

 

"The Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Partnerships eliminate political sovereignty and turn governance over to global corporations.

These so called “trade partnerships” have nothing to do with trade.

 

These agreements negotiated in secrecy grant immunity to corporations from the laws of the countries in which they do business.

 

This is achieved by declaring any interference by existing and prospective laws and regulations on corporate profits as restraints on trade for which corporations can sue and fine “sovereign” governments. For example, the ban in France and other counries on GMO products would be negated by the Trans-Atlantic Partnership. Democracy is simply replaced by corporate rule."

 

 

and so on.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Moose Jaw Times-Herald reporter resigns. Is it wh0re or horde?

 

http://mickeydjuric.com/

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/reporter-posts-video-says-saskatchewan-mp-calls-ndp-candidate-a-*****-351805381.html

[iso_55]

Well, politicians calling each other names. If another male politician called another vulgar names it would barely be newsworthy. How many times did former NDP MP Pat Martin call people vulgar names? So, this bad behaviour crosses all party lines.  

If the guy quit his job on principle over the fact the Medicine Hat newspaper refused to run the story then who's really the dumb one? I'd say the former reporter himself is playing politics now.

If the NDP candidate feels like her character was besmirched then she can take civil action as the comment was made outside of the H of C. I think most people in the riding & elsewhere are going to say that the comments may have been out of line but there's bigger issues to deal with right now. If he was my MP, I'd just want him to own up to it, apologize rather than deny, make the apology public, say he's sorry & then move on.

[The Unknown Poster]

Hmmmmmm

The use of the word ***** in this context is not reserved solely for women. It was certainly disrespectful though.

[iso_55]

Hmmmmmm

The use of the word ***** in this context is not reserved solely for women. It was certainly disrespectful though.

Sure it was. Definitely disrespectful but worth a journalist resigning in anger?? Like I said the NDP candidate it was aimed at deserves an apology & that's it. If that's not enough for that person then take civil action.

[The Unknown Poster]

I can respect his desire to resign. It was newsworthy. I'm not sure from listening that he meant "*****" in the context that she's a female/****/hooker but ***** in the sense that if he was speaking about a man he'd use the same word.

Stupid choice of word. Deserving of apology.

I'm fairly sure he said *****. Which makes the MP in question a liar. "Horde" doesn't really seem to fit he context. Id be more disappointed in him lying after he fact then admitting he chose his word poorly.

The journalist is a woman right? I wonder if she is letting gender bias make it more personal for her. I'm not saying she doesn't have the right to feel stronger about the word than others but her personal affront about the word is irrelevant to the soeaker's intent and context.

[Fatty Liver]

From my take if he wanted to say horde he would have used "the" as in "the NDP horde" instead he used  "a"  as in "a NDP horde", which doesn't make sense in the context.   Not the first time Lukiwski has said or done something stupid but being a Conservative. from Sask. his words and actions won't deter his supporters.

 

[iso_55]

Well, he keeps getting elected so if he's hated that much why does he keep getting in? This is frigging politics. Politicians insult each other all the time so it's nothing new.I saw former NDP MP Pat Martin in a video call a candidate at an All Candidates forum, " A  f u c k i n g  a s s h o l e" & it didn't even make the news because the person to whom he called the slur was another man. That's just as disresepctful or worse than calling a woman a w h o r e. So, disrespect crosses all party lines & not just reserved for Conservatives. If you don't like it then follow something else or get a tougher skin. Yeah, what he said was disrespectful & he needs to apologize. He would be wise to do so. If not, he's in for 4 years & like Pat Martin when he was in office, just  doesn't care. 

[The Unknown Poster]

Yeah in the big picture it's not that bad. But it's a man calling a woman a ***** in front of a female journalist who wanted to make it about how a man treats a woman rather about a jerk using a word in the context that could apply to either gender.

I'm generally a feminist but I don't see this one. As I said, bigger story to me is he's a liar and a coward.

[iso_55]

Yeah in the big picture it's not that bad. But it's a man calling a woman a ***** in front of a female journalist who wanted to make it about how a man treats a woman rather about a jerk using a word in the context that could apply to either gender.

I'm generally a feminist but I don't see this one. As I said, bigger story to me is he's a liar and a coward.

He is a liar as he obviously said it. I agree. Dude has to apologize.

[The Unknown Poster]

CBC

The new Liberal government is delaying approval of a deal to convert a civilian cargo ship into a badly needed military supply vessel, leading to concerns the plan will soon be scuttled and the navy will be left unable to properly defend Canada or deploy its force abroad.

Shipbuilder Chantier Davie had proposed a new-for-Canada plan to buy a cargo ship and turn it into an interim supply vessel able to support a Canadian naval task group at sea by providing fuel, food and ammunition.

The government signed a letter of intent earlier this year, and in October finalized a roughly $700-million, seven-year contract with Davie. The deal was dependent on cabinet approval, expected to flow out of a cabinet committee's meeting this week.

But CBC News has learned that on Thursday, the committee has delayed deciding on the deal for at least two months, provoking anger inside some corners of the shipbuilding industry and fears inside the navy.

There is also an economic consequence to the decision to delay.

The letter of intent signed by the government offers Davie $89-million if the finalized contract is not signed by Nov. 30.

Davie has already bought the ship and has brought it to its yard on the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City.

Meddling by Irving Shipbuilding?

There are also allegations from different high-level sources in those same corners that Irving Shipbuilding Inc., a longtime competitor of Davie, meddled in the decision by sending letters to several cabinet ministers about the deal, an event that in the words of one defence source "tipped over the apple cart."

[The Unknown Poster]

@josh_wingrove: A bit of a standoff between Liberal cabinet and media on Hill today. Libs refusing to speak outside cabinet room. 1/2

@notandrea: So there's a bit of a standoff happening between press/cabinet and it seems the giddy media access honeymoon is effectively over. #cdnpoli

[The Unknown Poster]

Fighting climate change one SUV at a time

@TheRebelTV: .@brianlilley Trudeau's motorcade idles outside Premiers' climate summit https://t.co/LJWMBa8uTY#cdnpoli #tcot https://t.co/ut3ChagJXu

[bigg jay]

Fighting climate change one SUV at a time

 

 

To quote you earlier in the thread, should he have rented a Prius?