WiFi on Steroids: Could 'White Space' save Canada's Internet?

By Jesse Brown - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:59 PM - 10 Comments

A Texan grandma is years ahead of any Canadian, technologically speaking. She was the first to tap into a fledgling White Space broadband network, using technology that could allow broadband WiFi access to be blanketed over entire populations, much like a radio station’s signal.

In February of 2009, the U.S. switched over to digital TV, and the nation’s supply of rabbit-ear antennae instantly became worthless. The switchover freed valuable low-frequency UHF spectrum—the kind that goes through walls. Canada will follow suit this August.

Google co-founder Larry Page calls White Space “WiFi on Steroids,” referring not only to the technology’s reach, but also to the blazing speeds it could enable. Others call it “Super Wifi,” which nerds argue is technically inaccurate. But no one is arguing about the fact that White Space has the potential to completely disrupt the ISP business, rendering irrelevant the entire expensive “last mile” issue—those millions of cables leading into millions of homes.

How will White Space happen? Google has pondered the possibility of providing White Space access for free to test communities. Their rationale? The easier it is for people to use the Internet, the more people will use the Internet, and the better for Google. If the project is deemed a success, the search giant could simply destroy the ISP business, obliterating the subscription model entirely.

Alternatively, governments could invest in White Space infrastructure and provide access as a free public utility, like water fountains in parks.

Or, new ISP entrants could bid on the spectrum and provide a competitive alternative to the existing players. Or universities could provide access, which is already happening in Houston, thanks to Rice University and the National Science Foundation.

But before any of that happens here, Canada will again have to follow America’s lead; the FCC approved the unlicensed use of White Space in November of ’08. The CRTC Industry Canada has yet to make any such commitment, and may choose instead to privatize the spectrum.

Paul Wells: This election campaign is going to have extra innings

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:54 PM - 12 Comments

A little help from their friends?

By Nancy Macdonald - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:50 PM - 2 Comments

Ken Goudswaard/The Chilliwack Times

Nepotism, cronyism, coronations—B.C. Conservatives, long used to attacking the Liberals with these charges, now find themselves in the curious position of attacking their own the same way.

The issue has cropped up in the old Reform heartland, where MPs like Chuck Strahl and Stockwell Day used to make hay tackling the patronage and privilege infecting Ottawa. On March 12, Transport Minister Strahl announced his retirement from politics. Barely a week later, his son Mark snagged the nomination in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon, his dad’s Bible belt riding, hardly hurting for fresh Tory blood. Yet Strahl faced a single opponent. “A number of very prominent, very interesting people” were keen to run, says Chilliwack deputy mayor Sue Attrill. But the abbreviated process barred “80 per cent” of them, says Casey Langbroek, an accountant who served for 16 years on council. Langbroek, who was stranded in Ontario on business when he learned of the race, calls the process a “gross injustice.”

It’s the same story in the riding next door, long held by Treasury Board President Stockwell Day, who announced his retirement the same day as Strahl. In Okanagan-Coquihalla, only three candidates, all associates of Day’s—his former parliamentary secretary and two members of his constituency board—were able to get their nomination papers in on time.

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What’s the real issue here?

By Josh Dehaas - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:40 PM - 3 Comments

In last week’s English-language debate, Stephen Harper didn’t bother mentioning his income-splitting plan or proposed fitness tax credit. Neither Jack Layton nor Michael Ignatieff talked about their support for cap and trade policies. Layton only brought up old age pensions once and Ignatieff only squeezed in one mention of his home renovation tax-credit promise. In fact, there was almost no policy discussion at all.

That explains why there were significantly fewer mentions of the major policy issues in newspapers following the debate, says Stuart Soroka, the McGill University political scientist who runs the Federal Election Newspaper Analysis Project. (Soroka tracks which issues get written about in eight major English language papers, and the tone of the coverage. Maclean’s publishes analysis of the results each week.) “The debate seems almost invisible,” says Soroka, referring to its impact on the statistics. “If the objective was to get people to think more seriously about policy differences, it sure didn’t happen.” Only health care was written about in a greater share of stories following the debate, up from 12 to 14 per cent. Crime and justice fell from 54 to 31 per cent. Even the economy dropped from 32 to 22 per cent.

Not all debates are so unmoving. When Martin challenged Harper on gay marriage and abortion in 2004, social issues moved to the front pages. In 2008, coverage shifted to the economy after the debate.

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One thing I’ll say for Bruce Carson

By Rick Mercer - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:30 PM - 79 Comments

Frank Lennon/GetStock

I am about to be embedded. This week, in the employ of Maclean’s, I will be following in the footsteps of a long line of brave journalists who risked life and limb to get the real story, visiting hot spots and danger zones all over the world without any regard for personal safety. This is the week where I will follow Canada’s leaders around the country on the campaign trail. I will go where I am told, take notes and try my darndest to become co-opted by unlimited glasses of Canadian wine and deli-grade funeral meats. I am, if nothing, a cheap date.

While I admit I am not a journalist, I do play one on TV, so the thought of sitting on an actual campaign plane hobnobbing with Craig Oliver has me very excited. Like Keith Richards, Craig has been around. He has stories.

The actual process of becoming embedded, however, has left me shaken.

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Harper and Ignatieff offer a study in contrasts

By John Geddes - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:20 PM - 4 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

The most disparaged job in this election campaign—even more than, say, scripting attack ads—must be checking photo ID outside a Stephen Harper rally. Harper draws criticism for appearing only before carefully screened crowds, and had to apologize when a student was barred for posting a picture of herself with Michael Ignatieff on Facebook. But an hour before the Prime Minister is scheduled to deliver his stump speech to the Conservative faithful at a Toronto airport hotel, the volunteers working the four tables at the entrance are all smiles. With cheerful efficiency, they match names on driver’s licences to those on lists of invited loyalists. And nobody seems to mind.

There’s something about this mundane quality-control exercise that sums up the Harper campaign. Obsessive attention to who gets in may generate press scorn and opposition ridicule, but it works. The audiences are uniformly enthusiastic. His supporters don’t show up expecting to be part of a mob; they’re proud to be on a party roster and to have received a computerized phone or email invitation. The same risk-averse attention to detail, combined with an understanding of his base, dominates every aspect of Harper’s run for re-election. And it was on display in every aspect of last Thursday’s rally—Harper’s first big outing after the TV debates that marked the midpoint of the five-week campaign.

The venue for that watershed moment is worth noting. It might look like an airport-strip hotel anywhere, but this Hilton is in Etobicoke North, a Liberal-held riding on Toronto’s western edge. The coveted ethnic vote is big here, and the suburban housing tracts are prime territory for the Conservative pitch to middle-class families. If he can’t grab this sort of seat, Harper can’t win the majority he craves. As it happens, Ignatieff is slated to hold a rally the next evening, about a four-hour drive northwest, in Sudbury, Ont. And for this post-debate event, too, the location is meaningful. He’ll be visiting a former Liberal stronghold the NDP won in 2008. If Ignatieff can’t claim back that sort of seat, then his campaign is doomed.

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Bill Blaikie’s daughter and Ignatieff’s rival

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:10 PM - 0 Comments

Mitchel Raphael

All in the family

The next generation of politicians is stepping up. Rebecca Blaikie, the daughter of former NDP MP Bill Blaikie (now Manitoba’s minister of conservation), is running for election in Winnipeg North. Mark Strahl, the son of Transport Minister Chuck Strahl, who is not running again, is contesting his B.C. riding of Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon. Maureen Comuzzi-Stehmann, running as a Conservative in the Ontario riding of Thunder Bay-Rainy River, is the niece of former MP Joe Comuzzi, who was elected as a Liberal and crossed the floor to the Conservatives in 2007. Ryan Keon is running for the Liberals in the Ottawa riding of Nepean-Carlton against Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre.

The Liberal candidate’s father is retired Conservative senator Wilbert Keon, a renowned heart surgeon who founded the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. It was a conversation with former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley that made him switch parties from the Conservatives to the Liberals. His father, he says, has been extremely supportive. Ryan has never discussed Senate reform with his father, but says his dad fought hard for health care, believing that “keeping the car out of the repair shop is the real solution for health care.” Ryan says his father provides him with no inside information on the Tories. “My father takes caucus confidentiality very seriously.”

Meanwhile, Bill Blaikie gives his daughter advice “when it is sought. I try not to be a meddling father.” He is out knocking on doors for her, though. This is not Rebecca Blaikie’s first run for office. In 2004, while she was studying in Montreal, she ran against Paul Martin. Bill Blaikie admits “it was a long shot.” This time Rebecca is running in the riding of Winnipeg North, which was won recently by the Liberals in a by-election after former NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis stepped down for an unsuccessful bid to be Winnipeg’s mayor.

Bill Blaikie sat as an MP for 30 years and worked with many MP fathers and then their MP sons: Pierre Trudeau and Justin Trudeau, Elmer MacKay and Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Roméo LeBlanc and Dominic LeBlanc, and of course Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Robert Layton and NDP Leader Jack Layton. If his daughter wins, Bill Blaikie says she will already know her way around, because Rebecca used to be a Parliament Hill guide, and was even head of the guide program: “She won’t have to figure out where the washrooms are.”

Harvard vs. Harbord

Michael Erickson, a 36-year-old left-wing Toronto activist, has one thing in common with Stephen Harper. Both want to see Michael Ignatieff lose. Erickson is running for the NDP against the Liberal leader in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Erickson, who recently lost in Toronto’s municipal elections, just joined the NDP in January. The candidate has some things in common with Iggy. Erickson is a teacher at Harbord Collegiate Institute; Iggy taught at Harvard University. Both live outside the riding. While Ignatieff is several ridings over, Erickson is just one, or as he describes it, a “bike ride,” away. Ignatieff has many books under his belt tackling issues such as ethnic warfare and ancestry; Erickson’s writings include a university essay on washroom-stall graffiti.

Location, location, location

One party volunteer says Green Leader Elizabeth May has a lot more campaign help this time around: a Green “army” is descending on the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. One reason is many feel she can win there against Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn (who has held the riding since 1997), as opposed to her run against Peter MacKay in Nova Scotia. The other factor is location. Greens say they have way more support in B.C., so it helps that May is running on the West Coast.

The King's precedent

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:04 PM - 70 Comments

John Duffy recalls what preceded the King-Byng Affair.

That said, I certainly agree that Mr. Harper knows his Mackenzie King … He’ll know, then, that King actually did govern from below a plurality from 1925 until 1926. So there are federal as well as provincial precedents for non-plurality governments.

To these then, Mr. Mansbridge might add one more question for Mr. Harper: Do you believe Mackenzie King’s government in 1925 or the Liberal-NDP accord in Ontario in 1985 were illegitimate?

Your iPhone is logging your location

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 4:45 PM - 11 Comments

Software hackers have discovered that Apple’s iOS 4 software has a file that stores locations and time stamps of an owner’s every move. The file, labeled “consolidated.db,” can be accessed using an open source program called “iPhone Tracker.” iPhone and 3G iPad owners can use the program to output their location file onto an interactive map, with pins in all of the locations they have been to since owning the gadget. The iPhone Tracker comes courtesy of hackers Peter Warden and Alasdair Allen, who discovered the mystery file. “Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps,” Warden and Allen wrote. “We’re not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it’s clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations.”

Wired

Cooler runnings

By Jenny Manzer - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 4:40 PM - 6 Comments

Photograph by Chris Bolin

It was as if my body’s warranty had run out. I turned 40, and my left knee called it quits. After 25 years of running, I couldn’t do it anymore. Full stop. I’d had grand hopes this year of running a 10K race in under 40 minutes. I’d even coined a slogan: “Over 40, under 40!” But I couldn’t even walk or climb stairs without feeling pitchforks of pain.

My family doctor and physiotherapist agreed on the most likely culprit: patellofemoral pain syndrome—pain under the kneecap, a common running injury. For many it becomes recurrent, and some shelve their running shoes for good. By chance I discovered the existence of a cutting-edge 3-D biomechanical test for runners from a research team at the University of Calgary. Their 3-D gait analysis takes some of the guesswork out of injury treatment and prevention. It’s akin to having X-ray eyes to see what’s happening when your foot hits the pavement.

The test involves placing close to 40 markers at exact points on a runner’s feet, lower and upper legs, and pelvis. The subject walks and runs on a treadmill while three video cameras collect pictures—about 200 images a second. The gait information is then modelled into a three-dimensional stick figure. It’s the same motion-capture technology used to create the Lord of the Rings movies, says Reed Ferber, director of the University of Calgary’s Running Injury Clinic.

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Drilling in the Gulf resumes

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 4:31 PM - 1 Comment

Drilling has resumed in the Gulf of Mexico, which only a year ago suffered widespread environmental devastation on a scale the U.S. has never seen. The CBC reports that Washington has approved a handful of permits which will allow for oil exploration in the Gulf, with some Republicans pushing for even more. “The fact of the matter is we have a tremendous abundance of fossil fuels that we need to utilize,” said Representative Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington state. Hastings is shepherding three bills through the House that would allow drilling on the west and east coasts following a 30-year-ban.

CBC News

War photographer Tim Hetherington killed in Libya

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 4:26 PM - 0 Comments

Celebrated photographer Tim Hetherington was killed in the Libyan city of Misrata after he and other photographers working near the front lines were struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. Among other accomplishments, Hetherington was a co-director and producer of the film Restrepo. Photographers Chris Hondros and Guy Martin were also severely injured in the attack. Hondros is reportedly still in a coma after being revived, while Martin suffered shrapnel wounds and was undergoing vascular surgery. For several weeks, Misrata has been the scene of intense fighting between troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and the rebel fighters trying to overthrow his regime.

The New York Times

And now a word from Brad Wall

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 4:25 PM - 87 Comments

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall decides that the nation needs his constitutional insight and issues a written statement.

The party that wins the most seats on May 2 should be recognized as the government, period. If that were to be the Liberals, I would join with other Canadians in accepting this result and recognizing Mr. Ignatieff as our next Prime Minister. However, if the Conservatives win the most seats but come up short of a majority, I would expect Mr. Ignatieff and his party to accept that result … Ironically, this election was caused by a confidence vote over “contempt for Parliament.” I can think of no greater contempt for Parliament or for Canadian voters than the spectre of a party leader refusing to recognize the democratic outcome of the election.

Play ball! Soccer, that is.

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 3:50 PM - 2 Comments

Michael Probst/AP

Football, footy, soccer—whatever you call it, most Americans still don’t get it. But that hasn’t stopped a few Americans, very wealthy ones, from taking a serious interest in the sport overseas. On April 11, U.S. billionaire Stan Kroenke bought Arsenal, the English soccer team, for US$1.2 billion in cash. Kroenke, who made his fortune in real estate development and then became considerably richer when he married Ann Walton of the Wal-Mart Walton clan, already sat on the team’s board of directors. Now the famed club is part of his growing sports empire, which includes the Denver Nuggets of the NBA and the NHL Colorado Avalanche. The deal came just days after basketball star LeBron James took a minority stake in the soccer club Liverpool. Last year, Fenway Sports Group, a company controlled by Florida hedge-fund manager John Henry and Hollywood producer Tom Werner, paid US$488 million to buy the club.

Lots of trouble under the bridge

By Chris Sorensen - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 3:20 PM - 7 Comments

Dave Chidley/CP

Michigan’s newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, recently endorsed a proposed US$2-billion bridge linking Detroit, Mich., with Windsor, Ont., over the Detroit River. The new span, first pitched back in 2004, is deemed necessary to alleviate chronic congestion at the nearby Ambassador Bridge, which was erected in 1929 and is now the busiest crossing between Canada and the United States, the world’s biggest trading partners.

Just one problem. The Ambassador Bridge is, unusually, a privately owned and operated crossing, and Michigan’s wealthy Moroun family, headed by 83-year-old Manuel “Matty” Moroun, is fighting tooth and nail to protect the value of its 1979 investment in this key piece of international infrastructure. The reclusive family also owns a trucking empire and huge swaths of property in both Windsor and Detroit, much of which has fallen into disrepair. With the state’s legislature set to vote on the New International Trade Crossing proposal this spring, the Ambassador Bridge’s owners recently launched a US$400,000 ad campaign to convince Michigan voters that a competing, publicly funded bridge would be a huge boondoggle.

To get their point across to legislators, the Morouns also hired Fox News analyst Dick Morris as a lobbyist. Morris, a one-time Clinton adviser who now speaks at Tea Party events, has painted the bridge as yet another case of reckless government spending, which threatens to resonate in a state hit hard by the recession and grappling with a US$1.4-billion budget shortfall. “I’m delighted we have a Republican governor, I just wish he’d act like one,” he said of Snyder during a recent interview with a local Detroit radio station.

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The onus is on who?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 2:41 PM - 100 Comments

Stephen Harper rejects your hypothetical and substitutes his own.

The question of who would govern in the 41st Parliament if no party has a majority of seats is threatening to overwhelm this election, after the Liberal Leader said Tuesday he would be prepared to form a government if the Conservatives won the most seats but were defeated on their Throne Speech. The obvious next question is whether Mr. Harper would be willing to temper that Throne Speech and compromise on the budget to secure opposition-party support.

But Mr. Harper was having none of it. “I don’t accept the [premise of the] question,” Mr. Harper replied, when asked by a reporter if he would be prepared to compromise to stay alive. The other parties “are saying that even if we receive a mandate from the people they will defeat us on our budget if they can,” he maintained. “They will get together and form another alternative, of some other kind of government.”

Mr.  Ignatieff responds.

No need for a scholarship

By Josh Dehaas - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:50 PM - 3 Comments

Peter Gilfoy

Five people were arrested in Quebec in early April for protesting a $325 increase to annual tuition fees. By 2016, tuition in the province will hit $3,800 a year. But that’s still a bargain compared to Ontario, where the average bill tops $6,500. So it’s no wonder an increasing number of Canadian students are studying in Germany, where tuition is free for citizens and foreigners alike. There are currently 534 Canadians enrolled at German universities—up 52 per cent since 2002.

Peter Gilfoy, a 23-year-old from Halifax, couldn’t believe his luck when he stumbled upon free tuition during his year-long exchange at the University of Frankfurt. He had already paid his fees for that semester to Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, where he’s now finishing his commerce degree. But free tuition allowed him to stay an extra year in Frankfurt and take university courses simply to improve his German.

He was even more surprised when students marched in the streets to protest a new fee: $280 to cover their train pass. “I was in awe considering they know full well how much Canadians and Americans pay,” he says. Gilfoy also found bargains on rent, beer—only $1.50 per half-litre—and cafeteria food, which is government-subsidized.

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Just like being there

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:42 PM - 10 Comments

Upon safely returning to Ottawa after a few days aboard the Liberal tour, a couple notes for which I did not previously find an excuse to mention in passing.

1. In the wake of Sudbury, Mr. Ignatieff now enters the room to the chorus of Jumpstart by These Kids Wear Crowns. He was previously entering to the upbeat part of Ashley MacIsaac’s Wing Stock.

2. Also since Sudbury, reporters on the Liberal plane have taken to chanting “rise up” as the campaign plane hurtles down the runway for takeoff and then cheering once it takes flight. Mr. Ignatieff seems to take this in good humour, pumping his fist or motioning upward in time with the chanting from the front of the plane.

Harper won't bend for the opposition

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:37 PM - 84 Comments

Stephen Harper says he has no plans to play nice with the opposition even if he’s sent back to Parliament with a minority government. Harper shot down the possibility of cooperation during an appearance in Rivière-du-Loup, Que., on Wednesday, saying the opposition has already decided it would topple a Conservative minority and govern as a coalition. “We don’t know what that [coalition] government will stand for,” Harper said. “But we do know the general outlines. There’s no focus on the economy. There are tax hikes, and of course these parties have very dangerous and conflicting views on national unity and constitutional matters.” In an interview with the CBC on Tuesday, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said his party would be open to working with the Conservatives in a minority government.

Postmedia

Loonie surges against U.S. greenback

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:31 PM - 13 Comments

The Canadian dollar soared to a three-and-a-half year high against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, briefly reaching US$1.0529, a level not seen since November 2007. Market watchers say high commodity prices and above-forecast inflation figures in Canada are behind the loonie’s surge. A larger-than-expected rise in Canada’s consumer price data released on Tuesday prompted expectations that the Bank of Canada would hike-up interest rates in July. But the Canadian dollar was down against most other G10 currencies, leading one analyst to tell Reuters that the exchange rate move reflects an independently weaker U.S. greenback, rather than a strengthening Canadian dollar.

CTV News

Ministers intervened in Harper spokesman's lobbying

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:18 PM - 16 Comments

The Globe and Mail has revealed that foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon and public works minister Michael Fortier both intervened to stop Dimitri Soudas, Stephen Harper’s spokesman, from lobbying the Montreal Port Authority to appoint engineer Robert Abdallah as its president. A former staffer of Fortier’s said the intervention resulted in a tense call from Soudas, who claims he did nothing wrong and simply indicated the Prime Minister’s preference for the next president. But Soudas also told the Commons Operations Committee in 2008 that he had not met with board members on the issue, and that he “did not remember” contacting them. While the federal government does directly appoint the heads of many agencies, the Montreal Port Authority has the sole authority to select its president as outlined in the Canada Marine Act.

The Globe and Mail

Kylar Thomas Russell Williams

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 7 Comments

Kylar Thomas Russell Williams was born on May 15, 1995, to Sherry Avery and Kyle Williams, who live in Alberton, P.E.I. In those days, Sherry stayed home with the boys (brother Taylor was almost two years younger) while Kyle worked on a nearby potato farm. By the time Kylar was about four, he started tagging along with his dad. “He’d play around the tractors, or ride in the potato truck,” recalls Kyle. “He loved anything with a motor and a set of wheels.”

Kylar spent a lot of time with his grandparents, Nancy and Russell Williams, who live in nearby Elmsdale, especially after his parents split up several years ago. Kylar was their first grandchild, Nancy says, and would call her Nana. “He was a very active, energetic boy,” says Nancy. Kylar played hockey as a kid, until he fell off a potato truck and broke his arm when he was about six. But he continued to love the sport, especially the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Over the past few years, Kyle spent winters out west working in the oil patch. Kylar moved in with his grandparents, and Taylor stayed with Sherry. Hockey continued to be a family bond, even though Taylor and Sherry loved the Montreal Canadiens. “Kylar would call whenever Toronto beat Montreal,” says Sherry. “I tried to get him to cheer for Montreal since he was little, but there was nothing I could do to change his mind.”

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France and Italy to send officers to aid Libyan rebels

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 2 Comments

Small teams of French and Italian military officers will be dispatched to aid Libyan rebels, officials announced Wednesday. France will send fewer than 10 officers while Italy will send 10 officers, in an effort to advise rebels who seek to topple Col. Muammar Gadhafi’s regime. A French government spokesman reaffirmed that France has no intention of deploying a military force in Libya. The Italian defence minister said that stronger intervention may be necessary, so long as it falls within the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1973, which authorizes “all necessary measures short of occupation.” On Tuesday, the UK announced it would be sending a similar team to Benghazi, the rebel stronghold.

BBC News

Harper on health care: hard to make it a vote-driving issue

By John Geddes - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 12:31 PM - 23 Comments

The Liberals have been making a late-campaign push to turn Stephen Harper’s past remarks about health care into a big election issue, and it’s hard to blame them. Those painstakingly selected quotes from Harper are certainly more germane to an actual policy file than any of miscellaneous old Michael Ignatieff lines the Conservatives creatively cut and paste into their attack ads.

Still, I doubt dredging up Harper’s past pronouncements on health is doing him much harm. He has a solid track record of not tampering with the status quo. His calls for Ottawa to step away from dictating health policy and let the provinces overhaul the system date from back before his creation of the new, more cautious Conservative party in 2003.

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