This is the way the CBC remebers Adscam ... not as a corrupt Liberal Party but as a Liberal Party painted corrupt by the opposition:

The sponsorship program, now defunct, was designed to raise the federal government's profile in the wake of the 1995 sovereignty referendum in Quebec. Over its life, Liberal-friendly ad firms in that province took in millions of taxpayers' dollars.

Some of the money ended up in the pockets of high-ranking Liberal organizers in Quebec, allowing the opposition to paint the government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien as corrupt.

Poor Jean Chretien... he was treated so unfairly... why everyone knows that he and his buddies never got a dime. And Paul Martn knew nothing about it .... nor did Dion or Tobin or Copps....

Justin Trudeau...now there's a deep thinker ... Speaking to "adoring" high school students, he offered this:

Trudeau suggested to the students the capitalist "machine" that sustains modern existence may also become modern civilization's downfall.

The system promotes exploitation of natural resources without accounting for future consequences of consumption, he said.

"Our capitalist model has given us tremendous things," Trudeau said. "But the time has come for us to look at it critically and try to improve on it, given the accelerated pace of change and the fact that we have limited space."

Trudeau said Canada's environmental and social justice record have deteriorated.

"We consume more water per capita than anyone else on the planet. We produce more solid waste than just about anyone else on the planet. In terms of social justice, our treatment of our aboriginal communities are an absolute disgrace."

Tinkering with capitaism by placing state controls on the market have failed worldwide. Sure the civil servants make out like bandits, but the rest of us are left beholden to the state to maintain some sort of passable standard of living. Still, the juvenile question, why can't we all just get along, makes the idea of tinkering for the greater good desirable.

Trudeau seems able to spout his old man's conclusions, but I doubt he's given it much thought. For his information, we have more water than anyone else, per capita or in volume. Are we supposed to stop consuming water just because there is less water in Arizona? Stop Consuming out of guilt? Where is the water going if we don't consume it? I'm not talking about draining the rivers or anything, but water consumption is not exactly a priority for Canadains is it?  More solid waste? Huh? We are 30 million people with, in case you haven't noticed,  plenty of places to put it and the natural resources of Canada are found in alomst all of them. I guess we are going to run out of trees soon ...wait...the tree cover in North America is increasing .... never mind. The Liberal policy of throwing money at aborignals until they are all dead is something that Mr Trudeau can address with his party if and when he gets elected.

NPR reports:

One former Taliban official and Afghan author on the group says the Taliban's goal at this stage is not to take over Afghanistan — which they neither have the manpower nor popular support for — but to force the ouster of Western troops from Afghanistan.

(via: Gen X At 40)

CBC Reports: MPs to vote on motion to take troops from Afghanistan by 2009

A Liberal motion that would ensure Canada end its combat operations in southern Afghanistan by February 2009 is slated to be voted on in the House of Commons Tuesday, but it is not expected to pass.

The NDP is expected to join the Conservatives in defeating the motion, which was introduced by Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre on April 19.

The motion calls on the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to serve notice immediately to NATO that Canada will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in February 2009

Shame on the Liberal Party for their motion to remove Canadian troops by 2009. Playing politics in this realm is dangerous. What will the Taliban take from the vote? If they hang on for a couple of years they will have another run at contoling the country. My question for Dion is what information does he have that the situation will be such as to allow for the safe withdrawl of the troops in 2009. How does he know that the allied forces will not be on the cusp of victory and that a withdrawl will be a set back? How does he know that the troops won't be in the middle of an offensive, from one side or the other and leaving will put our allies in greater danger. How does he know that there will be someone their to take our place ( of course the evil Americans will be there and we know that regardless of the President that they will jump in to pick up our slack)? This cowardice for political gain is sickening.

Now that it's been said, it had better happen for Iggy's sake:

 Ignatieff organizer and Liberal MP Denis Coderre (Bourassa) said there are "dozens" more officials who will announce they are switching allegiances in the coming days.

Nothing kills the mojo like no one showing up.

With that said, it is an interesting development and may offer some insight as to the direction the Liberal Leadership is heading. In the dirty world of politics it is much better to back a winner than a loser and if the tea leaves...or the ex officio votes ...  are reading Ignatieff, the earlier you jump to that ship the better.

Andrew Coyne's latest is well worth the read. Here's an excerpt:

Many indictments may be laid at the feet of Joe Volpe, but the most severe I can think of is this: I think he means it. I accuse him of sincerity. I accuse him of believing his own humbug: that all those children of all those Apotex executives each individually decided to donate the maximum $5,400 to his campaign of their own free will and out of their own bank accounts, because they were excited about his "message"; that the dead people his Quebec campaign signed up as members are the kind of "anomalies" one should expect in the "hurly-burly" of politics; that he is the victim of an anti-Italian smear campaign on the part of unnamed members of the party "establishment," but that he will fight on because, after all, it's for the kids. It would be one thing if Mr. Volpe mouthed these absurdities in a cynical, calculating attempt to divert attention from his campaign's multiple misdeeds. That at least would be recognizably human behaviour, the kind of thing you expect from your average grifter: Caught in the act, deny. Caught again, deny again. But in fact it's much worse than that. We haven't seen this sort of self-delusion since Sheila Copps's encounter with the woman at the bank machine. You remember: The reason she finally agreed to abide by her campaign promise to resign her seat if the GST was not abolished was that she found herself unable to look the woman behind her in the eye -- a fabrication of quite mind-warping dimensions, inasmuch as it was supposed to illustrate how deep-down honest she was: how troubled she was at having broken her promise to resign. But the promise, as her subsequent behaviour made clear, was never intended to be kept. It was itself a lie, told to make people believe the original, ur-lie, namely that the Liberals would abolish the GST. Only Ms. Copps had been in the game so long she was genuinely unable to see this. The moral she drew from the whole experience? "I don't think I'll ever be putting my seat on the line again if the voters are generous enough to reinvest their confidence in me." Spend a couple of hours plumbing the depths of that one.

If you missed the Chretien press conference to announce his bid for judicial review, you missed a classic Chretien performance. Shifting blame, abrasive and defiant, he stuck a shiv through Martin's ribs, attacked Gomery, praised the worst parts of his record as great achievements, insulted his own lawyer and scoffed at his detractors. At the end of the day, he claims it was not his fault at that when he learned of it he called the cops. That is not quite the way I remember it. I recall stories in the press, questions in the House of Commons, a general knowledge throughout the political country of the program and denial after denial. It was only when the cat was out of the bag, and Chretien had shrugged his shoulders at the theft that he called the RCMP. And what difference does that make? The RCMP were up to their eyes with the Chretien corruption, from taking orders from the PMO to pre-emptively arrest people at the APEC Conference to the politically motivated Mulroney investigation to the BDC forgery to the RCMP involvement in taking sponsorship money and hiding it in illegal bank accounts, the Chretien PMO and the RCMP appeared to be walking with their hands in each other's back pocket. So call the cops, there is a biy of immunity in that relationship. Still, Chretien is the most ruthless bastard in the country and if he is going down, do not expect him to go solo.

Officials at HRDC were intimidated into the immigration exemption for strippers. You know the one that has Judy Sgro in so much trouble. The National Post is reporting the following:

A senior government official said intimidation by organized crime in the adult entertainment business led HRDC to set up the fast-track program for foreign strippers. …

Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe finally cancelled the special exemption on Dec. 15, but he had to battle his own officials who feared HRDC field officers could face retaliation from organized crime.

Senior HRDC officials informed Mr. Volpe's office the special exemption was given to foreign dancers because they didn't want their front-line officers to deal with strip club owners on a case-by-case basis.

Organized crime may well be better than the arbitrary, unorganized kind. The organized criminal has a tendency to keep to his own crowd and of course they provide the vices that the government does not. Government has the alcohol & gambling rackets, organized crime has the drug & prostitute rackets, the police have the protection racket. The only way to get rid of organized crime is for the government to take over the drug and prostitution rackets or to legalize the same. The government has legalized limited gambling and booze sales, controlling access and content. The mob are pretty well out of that business. One could assume that legalizing limited solicitation and pot would sure put a damper on the business of the mob as well. These activities would become legitimate businesses, paying taxes and the like. All that would be left would be hardcore drugs, but they may well go the way of bookie betting, guns, the unions and the protection racket. I do not think that some police officers will be that happy with the competition.