What next for US energy policy?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 12:47 PM - 0 Comments

The Obama administration could not get cap-and-trade legislation through the Congress before the mid-term elections. It’ll be even harder after Republicans expand their ranks on Nov. 2.

Here is one joint suggestion from conservative and liberal think tanks on where to go from here:

Post-partisan Power

Never heard of the oil sands? Really?!?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Alberta: Eighty-six per cent of Albertans have heard, seen or read something about the oil sands. That means one in six Albertans know nothing about their province’s most valuable resource. In Quebec, the land of abundant hydro power, only 66 per cent have heard about the oil sands.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba: Eighty per cent of women between the ages of 45 and 64 in Saskatchewan and Manitoba believe  that they are smarter investors than their mothers were at their age. And while 29 per cent of Canadian females have a financial plan, that number climbs sharply to 38 per cent of the women in those two Prairie provinces.

Quebec: If NHL players have their way, then La Belle Province should be next in line to get a hockey franchise. In a survey of 90 pro players, Quebec City earned the most support, with the backing of 37 per cent. Other top Canadian cities included Winnipeg, which finished second with 20 per cent of the vote, and Hamilton, a distant fourth, with 12 per cent.

Atlantic provinces: When it comes to entrepreneurship, the East Coast lags behind most of Canada. Only 3.1 per cent of individuals in the region took steps to create or take over a business. And just 7.4 per cent own a business, compared to Alberta and British Columbia, where 13.2 per cent of the population are owners. (Quebec was lowest with 5.1 per cent.)
SOURCES: Léger, Ipsos Reid, The Hockey News, Léger, Environics

Stratego

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 12:21 PM - 0 Comments

India and China reportedly supported Portugal over Canada in the security council vote, while an official with the United Arab Emirates admits the UAE lobbied against Canada.

Shashishekhar Gavai, India’s High Commissioner to Canada, refused to comment on how India voted, pointing out that the member nations cast a secret ballot. However, he said Canadians should not become preoccupied with the loss of face associated with the defeat, pointing out that India lost a similar contest in 1996.

“One has to move on. It’s not really the end of the world,” Mr. Gavi said Wednesday in an interview. “Canada’s position does not stand diminished in any way.”

Saving their bacon

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Last week, city councillors in Whitehorse narrowly voted down a proposal to introduce “Meatless Mondays,” which would have made Yukon’s capital the first municipality in Canada to officially encourage its residents to avoid meat one day a week. “The [northern] diet has lots of meat,” says massage therapist Andrew Buchan, who, along with Suat Tuzlak, a local vegan bakery owner, introduced the proposal. Traditionally, much of the meat consumed in the city came from wild game, the activists say, which is usually leaner and healthier. Today, they say, much of the meat is factory-farmed.

Healthier eating isn’t the only goal of the program, which has taken hold in cities like San Francisco and Tel Aviv. (No Canadian cities have officially adopted it, but vegetarian groups promote Meatless Mondays; in Quebec, it’s called “Lundi sans viande.”) The environment is another impetus, especially in a place like Whitehorse, where groceries are often shipped thousands of miles before reaching store shelves. Shipping meat up North “takes a lot of fossil fuels,” says Buchan, which adds to the price tag: last Thanksgiving, one remote Arctic store made headlines across the country when it charged $200 for a turkey. According to Buchan, some local produce is available around Whitehorse during the short summer growing season. (The territory has about 160 working farms, according to the Yukon Agricultural Association.)

And yet, by a count of four to three, city councillors rejected the proposal, which would have encouraged restaurants, grocery stores and schools to offer more veggie-based options on Mondays; they said it wasn’t up to them to tell people how to eat. Buchan and Tuzlak aren’t giving up the cause. “We’re going to try to talk to the schools,” says Buchan, “and talk to the hospital, and get the word out.”

Conservatives pull ahead with seven-point lead

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

The Conservatives have built up a seven-point lead over the Liberals according to a new EKOS poll commissioned by CBC News. Support for the Tories is up, and currently sits at 34.4 per cent, while the Liberals have slid to 27.8 per cent. Support for the Bloc Québécois was down to 9.3 per cent. In Ontario, the Conservatives and Liberals are still in a dead heat, while in British Columbia, it’s a three-way race with the Liberals leading slightly, followed by the Conservatives in second place and the NDP in third.

CBC News

Arrest warrant issued for Graham James

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 11:51 AM - 0 Comments

Winnipeg police have issued an arrest warrant for Graham James, former coach of NHL star Theo Fleury. After revealing in his 2009 memoir that he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by James as a teenager, Fleury went to police last January to file a criminal complaint. James was previously convicted of sexually assaulting NHL player Sheldon Kennedy in 1997 and was sentenced to 42 months in prison. James received a pardon in 2007, prompting outrage from his victims. Reporters found James living in Guadalajara, Mexico last year and it’s unclear if he’s still in Mexico. “Finally me and my family can move on with our lives and not have this kind of dark cloud hanging over our head,” Fleury told reporters.

CBC News

UAE says it campaigned against Canada at UN

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 11:49 AM - 0 Comments

A United Arab Emirates official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, has revealed that his country lobbied against Canada’s bid for a UN Security Council seat. The revelation is the latest blow to relations between the two countries, which have soured over a dispute about airline landing rights. (Canada recently refused to allow more flights for the fast-growing carriers Emirates and Etihad, prompting the government in Abu Dhabi to retaliate by forcing Canada to leave a military base used to supply Canadian forces in Afghanistan.) The UAE official claims the opposition was based on Canada’s “protectionist” trade policies and perceptions that Ottawa does not sufficiently support Arab causes, including efforts to ease the Israeli restrictions on Palestinians in Gaza. While it’s unclear how much the UAE could have swayed UN sentiments against Canada, the country carries influence because of extensive international business ties.

Washington Post

What's driving the car craze

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Steve Russell/Toronto Star

For the first time ever, vehicles outnumber people in Saskatoon. According to a new report, the city’s 218,000 people now own more than 245,804 vehicles. It’s the result, says Angela Gardiner, the city’s transportation branch manager, of Saskatoon’s relatively small size, low urban density, and recent prosperity thanks to a wealth of natural resources like uranium, oil and potash. Another key contributor is the increase in multi-car families, which is largely driven by rising numbers of teens earning their licence.

Not everyone, however, is happy with the car culture in Saskatoon, where 79 per cent of people drive to work (the national average is 72 per cent). “You’re seeing a combination of aging infrastructure and more cars causing traffic jams and headaches,” says Charlie Clark, a city councillor. Most Saskatonians, he adds, used streetcars for much of the 20th century. He thinks the clock could be turned back with public education, improved bike lanes and express bus routes. But Gardiner doesn’t think that’s realistic. The city just started “Saskatchewan Speaks,” a community consultation process aimed at discovering how residents want their expanding city to grow, and so far, she says, “there isn’t an interest in public transit.”

Though there isn’t a national database tracking the car-to-resident ratio of every city, a survey of several major urban areas, including Edmonton and Toronto, as well as cities with similar population numbers to Saskatoon, such as Surrey, B.C., and Burnaby, B.C., shows that only Regina—which also has more vehicles than people—is as car crazy.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

Steven Staples says never mind the F-35s, the future is drones.

“There is no Russian bomber threat (in Canada) and there are new technologies emerging that could save us a lot of money for domestic surveillance and control, like intercepts,” he said…

Staples asserts that Canada does not need fighters for military operations overseas and the lifespan of the current CF-18 planes may be extended by a decade by restricting their work to North American surveillance.

Noting that the United States patrols the Canada-U.S. border with drones, he recommends the government investigate the acquisition of unarmed long-range, pilotless aircraft for domestic and coastal surveillance, search and rescue and surveillance on overseas missions.

Me and my shrinks

By Dan Hill - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON

“Before we can get properly started, there’s something I really need to disclose.” This was my new therapist’s opening gambit in 1999. I leaned back, enjoying the role reversal: the shrink unloading a bombshell on his patient.

“Sure, doctor. What’s up?”

Dr. Tony (not his real name) breathed in dramatically and rolled his leather chair closer.“I’m extremely attracted to your wife,” he confessed, the words tumbling out in one fevered exhalation. “She’s the classiest, most charismatic woman I’ve come across in all my years as a therapist.”

At 53, Dr. Tony was seven years my senior, and appeared vaguely athletic, not unlike an ex-NHLer who’d downed a few too many beers. Exuding a jousting alpha-male presence that verged on self-parody, he was hardly a threat to my marriage. Still, the doctor’s confession left me discombobulated.

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UFOS and the U.S. Air force

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Chip Simons/Getty Images

Aliens have visited Earth, penetrated American nuclear missile sites, and sabotaged weapons, according to seven retired U.S. military officers. The men claim to have gathered testimony from more than 120 military personnel revealing alien interference at nuclear weapons sites as early as 1948, and described their encounters at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington last week.

According to an official statement, the U.S. Air Force investigated UFOs from 1947 to 1969 but concluded that there was no evidence that “unidentified” sightings should be classified as extraterrestrial. Capt. Robert Salas claims otherwise, and said at the news conference he’s seen UFOs succeed in disabling nuclear missiles. Salas says he was on duty as a weapons controller at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 1967 when he had his first encounter with a “reddish pulsating oval-shaped object.” The base’s missiles temporarily went offline, and Salas thinks the aliens were trying to send a message about nukes: “My interpretation is, get rid of them because it’s going to mean our destruction.”

The ideal crime?

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

John Lund/Getty Images/ Rick Wilking/Reuters

Several years ago, the Bank of Montreal first noticed what it described as “irregularities” in some mortgages sold in Alberta. After conducting an internal investigation, it quietly launched a lawsuit last year that alleged a massive mortgage fraud scheme involving hundreds of people, ranging from lawyers to mortgage brokers and four of the bank’s own employees—even a Calgary MP. It also hired a forensic accounting firm to try to trace the funds. BMO claims it advanced a total of about $70 million in mortgage funds to the scheme’s architects, with its losses estimated at $30 million.

Those who work in Canada’s mortgage lending industry described the case, which only came to light earlier this year, as unusual—not because mortgage fraud is rare in Canada (police say it’s not), but because of the size and sophistication of the operation, which involved as many as 14 different interconnected groups.

BMO’s decision to file a lawsuit (in a bid to recoup its money) is also seen as an oddity, with some suggesting that banks and other lending institutions are reluctant to talk about what is believed to be a relatively easy—and lucrative—crime to commit. “If you’re a bank with 1,200 branches, they would probably say that by talking about it, they’re going to educate people on how to pull off a fraud,” says Gerald Soloway, the chief executive of Home Capital Group, which sells mortgages in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia. “I happen to feel that it is a big problem. And I, for one, would like to see more resources devoted to trying to stamp it out.”

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A small housekeeping problem

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Reed Saxon/AP

Hard work is the theme that has underpinned Meg Whitman’s political campaign. The Republican nominee for governor of California and former eBay CEO has often drawn on the image of her “intrepid and adventurous” mother Martha, a homemaker who sprang to action in the Second World War, learning how to overhaul jeep and airplane engines. “I am my mother’s daughter,” Whitman has said. Hard work is also what helped her become the fourth-wealthiest woman in California, with a net worth of $1.3 billion. She was a good student at Princeton University and Harvard Business School. She gained experience at some of America’s largest corporations, including Proctor & Gamble, and went on to build her own empire, turning the fledgling online auctioneer eBay, with its 30 employees, into a 15,000-strong Silicon Valley powerhouse.

As governor, Whitman has promised she would apply that work ethic to fix California’s $19-billion deficit. By 2015, she would create two million new jobs—and they would not go to illegal migrants. Whitman has been tougher on immigration than her Democratic challenger, Jerry Brown, and has even called for stricter sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers. “I am 100 per cent against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Period,” she said. But now, in the final days before the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election, allegations have surfaced that Whitman herself was actually the employer of an illegal immigrant. From 2000 to 2009, Nicandra Diaz Santillan worked as a housekeeper for Whitman and Whitman’s husband Griffith Harsh in their Silicon Valley mansion. Though Whitman says she fired Santillan in 2009, after learning that the maid from Mexico did not have legal status in America, Santillan claims that her boss knew she was undocumented since at least 2003.

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A worldly workforce

By Angelina Chapin - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Felipe Trueba/Corbis/ Roberto Caccuri/Contrasto/Redux

Paul Beamish hired Gigi Wong because of her answer to a simple question: how would she react if a Chinese businessman belched after his meal? It was a difference in cultural etiquette he’d observed hosting Asian clients and wanted to know how a prospective employee would handle the situation. A Canadian-born job candidate said she’d politely tell the person to stop, but Wong had the correct response. “I would ignore it,” she said. “It’s a sign they are enjoying themselves.”

Thirteen years later she’s still the associate director of Asian management at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business. Beamish, director of the Asian Management Institute, was looking for someone to help set up an Ivey School of Business branch in Hong Kong, and a colleague recommended Wong, who had been working at the university registrar’s office for 10 years previously, and before that in Hong Kong as a high school teacher. He needed someone with cultural sensitivity, who could help develop teaching materials for the region, host Asian businesspeople and anticipate challenges that would arise. Wong was the perfect fit—entrepreneurial and culturally savvy.

Beamish says when it comes to expanding internationally, companies often need only look as far as their own staff to find someone with the cultural expertise. “These people are often already in an organization and should be the next incremental hire,” he says. “Too many Canadian companies are so risk-averse they don’t notice.”

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Mitchel Raphael on how the sex trade divides all the parties

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Cotler wants to see more of this Tory trend
Some Conservatives are upset over one aspect of David Johnston’s appointment as the new Governor General: Stephen Harper gets no credit for his non-partisan appointments. One cabinet minister says some in the party have pushed Harper to make partisan appointments, especially with key ambassador posts, but almost without exception, the PM refuses. His first Supreme Court judge appointee, Marshall Rothstein, was picked from a list drawn up by the previous Liberal government. When asked about the new GG, former justice minister and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler says, “I can’t think of a better choice. I would like to see more [such] appointments. If that could be the emerging trend, I would be very happy.”

The business side of prostitution
Soon after Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himel struck down key prostitution laws as unconstitutional, the Conservative government appealed the ruling while the Green party “welcomed” the decision. But all the national parties are divided on this issue. All have members, including cabinet ministers, who are fine with decriminalization, and members who aren’t. The Liberals have get-tough-on-johns Judy Sgro doing the talk shows, but Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay says, “I would much rather see [prostitution] regulated for the safety of the individuals involved. I don’t support the criminalization of the activities around it: I think it is an attempt to band-aid the issue. Treat it like a business so you can regulate employee rights, health and safety, zoning. Municipalities can pass laws, just like when people don’t want a bar in their area. I would take the moral judgment piece out. Police could crack down on those who abuse these women if we treated it like a business.”

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David Sedaris talks through the animals

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

David Sedaris’s new collection of animal fables, 'Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk', brilliantly illustrated by Ian Falconer, highlights human foibles; Illustration by Ian Falconer

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk:A Modest Bestiary
David Sedaris, Illustrations by Ian Falconer

Since his first book, Barrel Fever, in 1994, author David Sedaris has been blushing his way into readers’ hearts. His likable musings—often torn from the pages of his diary, performed on National Public Radio and published in collections of short stories—go straight to the heart of topics like sibling rivalry and sexual identity. Nothing is sacred. That’s why, a couple of years back, when Sedaris announced he would stop writing things that could hurt his family or friends, his fans thought, “Good luck with that, David.” His best work is his most caustic.

That explains his cunning new book Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. In it, Sedaris airs no dirty laundry. It’s comprised of 16 fables that lampoon human nature. The cast of characters is drawn exclusively from the animal world, except for the odd mention of a farmer and his wife. Most of the stories are two-handers (“The Squirrel and the Chipmunk”) that send up racism (“It’s not that I have anything against squirrels per se,” says the Chipmunk’s mother), homophobia, bigotry, infidelity and vigilantism.

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Hayley Wickenheiser on men's versus women's hockey

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photography Chris Bolin

Hayley Wickenheiser, captain of Canada’s gold-medal-winning women’s hockey team, is the game’s most decorated female player, with more goals, assists, penalty minutes and medals in international play (including three Olympic golds and a silver) than any other woman. Her new memoir, Gold Medal Diary, recounts her experience of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the gruelling six-month lead-up to the Games, and juggling life with her 10-year-old son, Noah.

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What’s badgering the U.K.?

By Leah McLaren - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Even Queen guitarist Brian May has spoken against the ‘slaughter’; Cater News/Keystone Press

“Good heavens, this business about badgers has been rumbling on for nearly 40 years!” declares Jack Reedy, spokesman for Britain’s Badger Trust, a charity devoted to “the conservation and welfare” of badgers. “It’s about time it was sorted.”

The “business” in question is Britain’s controversial badger cull proposed for next spring—an effort to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB), which has been on the rise over the past four decades. The disease is particularly serious in the southwest of England and Wales, where badgers are known to be carriers.

Last month, Elin Jones, Wales’s rural affairs minister, and Britain’s secretary of state for agriculture, Jim Paice, announced separately they would support proposals for major badger culls. In Wales, this would take the form of government run bio-security measures, including restricting the movement of cattle, in tandem with a supervised badger control program. In England, however, the proposal would simply license farmers to shoot the protected species at will.

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Gordon Campbell's soup

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ian Smith/PNG/ Andy Clark/Reuters/ Darryl Dyck/CP

He swept into office with the biggest majority in the country’s history, having united the traditionally fractious right flank. But after he rammed through a new, “value-added” tax in the middle of a recession—a move loved by economists but despised by the public—his approval rating sank to just 11 per cent, making him the most unpopular leader in Canada’s history. In fact, Brian Mulroney’s goods and services tax was widely seen as a major factor in the once-mighty Tories’ wipeout in the subsequent election. Canadians eventually came to accept, if not love, his GST. But the Tories languished in the political wilderness for well over a decade.

Premier Gordon Campbell, too, steamrolled into office. In 2001, with B.C.’s unruly right united under his free-enterprise banner, he won the biggest landslide in B.C. history: his Liberals took all but two of the province’s 79 seats. But after ramming through his “value-added” harmonized sales tax in the dark days of the downturn last year, his approval rating has sunk to just 12 per cent—within a point of Mulroney’s record-setting low. It is the lowest approval rating ever recorded for a sitting premier, pollsters Angus Reid told Maclean’s. Campbell is now less liked than Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate and Lyndon Johnson in the worst days of Vietnam, and distrusted by a stunning 83 per cent of British Columbians, according to Angus Reid.

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A place for pitches

By Colin Campbell - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

CP Images

On the popular CBC show Dragon’s Den, inventors are given a chance to pitch their ideas to wealthy investors. P2P Financial Inc. wants to replicate that online, with a market it launched last month to link independent lenders with entrepreneurs seeking investments ranging from $25,000 to $1 million.

While small businesses can turn to banks and venture capitalists for funds, there are still billions of dollars loaned each year by informal, or “angel” investors, says Matthew McGrath, the president and CEO of Toronto-based P2P. But it’s an “opaque and fragmented arena” that has lacked a formal market, he adds. The venture capital market has also slowed considerably since the recession, creating pent-up demand for financing. P2P’s Online Financing Market (which charges entrepreneurs a percentage of the money they raise) so far has a handful of listings, including a green energy firm offering an equity stake and a yoga studio seeking a start-up loan.

Quebecers have more backbone than the politicians in Ottawa

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Mathieu Belanger/Reuters

Maclean’s has heard a great many voices over the past two weeks regarding our recent cover story on corruption in Quebec politics (“The most corrupt province in Canada,” Oct. 4, 2010).

Many of these voices, largely the political elite in Quebec, have expressed a degree of outrage ranging somewhere between apoplexy and eye-popping fury. We have been wildly accused of xenophobia and bigotry. The House of Commons, in a unanimous motion orchestrated by the Bloc Québécois, declared its “profound sadness” at our coverage.

We’ve heard a very different message from the public at large, however. Canadians have told us loudly and clearly that they are concerned about the significant problem of corruption and unethical behaviour displayed by their elected representatives. And this sentiment is noticeably stronger in Quebec than any other province. It seems a far more convincing expression of the public interest than complaints from a bunch of self-interested politicians.

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Wild times on Atatürk's yacht

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Just as the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the secular Turkish state, is slowly being eroded by the current Islamist government in Ankara, his memory suffered another blow when Turkish officials seized his former yacht as part of a human trafficking sting on Sept. 28.

The state-run Anatolian news agency reported the MV Savarona had been leased to a Kazakh businessman, who used the state-owned luxury vessel to throw sex parties. Two underage girls and eight women, all said to be prostitutes, were removed after authorities in the city of Antalya confiscated the yacht. The sex ring had been under observation by police for seven months, and reportedly charged between $3,000 and $10,000 for a night with the prostitutes. Eight people were arrested for human trafficking and detaining the women, who were said to have originated from Russia and Ukraine.

The Turkish government bought the yacht in 1938, and Atatürk spent a few weeks aboard the Savarona before dying later that year. He remains highly exalted among many Turks because of the economic, social and cultural reforms he introduced to transform the former Ottoman Empire. Insults to his memory can be punished with a jail sentence.

Spinning a toy story

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

For the second time in three years, the world’s largest toy maker has had to issue a massive recall for some products over safety concerns. Fisher-Price, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc., said last week that more than 11 million children’s toys and accessories were being recalled. The list includes high chairs and toy cars, along with seven million tricycles equipped with a protruding plastic “ignition key” that can cause “serious injury, including genital bleeding” when sat upon improperly, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

In 2007, Mattel recalled millions of toys with paint containing elevated levels of lead (for which it was later fined US$2.3 million by the CPSC), or small magnets that could be swallowed. Yet the latest recall may prove to be less serious, especially given the company’s careful and quick response. “They’re doing this as a precautionary measure,” says Niraj Dawar, a marketing communications expert at the University of Western Ontario. Many of the toys are no longer in circulation (the tricycles were sold as early as 1997) and Fisher Price says they can still be used with “simple fixes.” “The recall is a notice to consumers to be careful,” adds Dawar, “and shouldn’t have much of an impact on Fisher-Price.”

It goes straight to the top

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 9:02 AM - 0 Comments

In an opinion piece for Fox News, a former spokesman for several American ambassadors to the United Nations says the United States did not rally support for Canada ahead of the security council vote. And that unnamed conservatives believe a grand conspiracy was afoot.

Some conservatives in Canada believe that the Obama team worked with Canadian liberals to leave Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s conservative government hanging without vocal U.S. support.  In the past, American ambassadors around the globe were instructed by Washington and led by the US Mission to the UN to work aggressively behind the scenes rallying capitals around the world to support certain countries in crucial Security Council elections.  At other times, vocal American support was needed to highlight a priority U.S. issue.  In Canada’s case, Rice chose to say nothing publicly and declined to lead a global campaign on behalf of our northern neighbor.  Her silence also seemed politically coordinated when Canadian Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff criticized his own country’s policies on climate change and its staunch support for Israel – policies the Obama team disagrees with.