Ottawa calls for investigation into PEI immigration regime

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 11:43 AM - 6 Comments

The federal government has asked the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency to look into Prince Edward Island’s immigration program, after alleged fraud and bribery allowed hundreds of people—mainly from China—to buy entry into the country. Premier Robert Ghiz has been dogged by such allegations for years since some of his relatives, as well as those of other ministers and MLAs, benefited from the province’s immigrant investor program, wherein immigrants invest in local companies. The federal Citizenship and Immigration Department called in the police after a provincial official described an incident at a Hong Kong hotel where PEI bureaucrats accepted cash filled envelopes from would-be immigrant investors to have their applications approved. Ghiz questioned the timing of the allegations, which come three weeks before Islanders head to the polls for a provincial election. “Although there are clear political motivations to these allegations—which have been raised repeatedly in the past and have been shown to have no substance—government will cooperate fully with any formal inquiries into these matters,” he said in a statement to the Globe and Mail. The province has never released a full list of companies that received investment through the program.

The Globe and Mail

Where will P.E.I. Muslims go to pray?

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 50 Comments

Call it Little Mosque on the Island. Last week, the CBC ran a news story about a Muslim doctor whose efforts to build the first mosque in P.E.I. have thus far come to naught. The “disappointed” doctor asked the province for financial assistance, only to be “turned down.”

The CBC story also suggested that there was reason to believe the city might step in. It quoted Charlottetown Coun. David MacDonald as saying he would be willing to meet with Muslims and “see if the city can assist in building a mosque.” But when Maclean’s spoke to MacDonald, he said, “We wouldn’t give any assistance to a religious group any more than we would to anybody else. We don’t provide financial assistance to any kind of developer.” The meeting, MacDonald says, will be little more than an “information session.” Continue…

Megapundit: Inside Stephen Harper's big tent

By selley - Monday, September 15, 2008 at 2:34 PM - 6 Comments

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Must-reads: James Travers on the wilderness-bound Liberals; Haroon Siddiqui on pulling out of Afghanistan; Greg Weston on Dion’s green math; John Ivison interviews Stephen Harper; Dan Leger on Tory hopes in Nova Scotia.

Welcome to Week Two
In which serious policy discussions replace the media’s collective obsession with gaffes. No, really!

The Conservatives’ basic election strategy is “to defang Mr. Harper among swing voters,” Jeffrey Simpson argues in The Globe and Mail, and they’re doing a fine job of it in spite of the gaffes committed during week one of the campaign—or maybe even because of them. Hardly any of those swing voters are paying attention to the campaign yet, Simpson suggests, and those that are may well have been impressed by Harper’s uncharacteristic humility in dealing with his war room’s excesses.

The Prime Minister spews forth various talking points in an interview with the National Post‘s John Ivison, but also provides an interesting status report on his plan “to make conservatism the natural governing philosophy of the country.” Mission accomplished on the “market economy and fiscal responsibility” front, Harper suggests. And he also thinks Canadians are gradually realizing that “the protection of law-abiding citizens, their families and their property” has to take precedence over rehabilitation in the criminal justice system, that Canadian unity can’t be solved by consolidating power in Ottawa, and that focusing on the “social fabric of the country” doesn’t necessarily point to any “theological agenda.”

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Megapundit: Young, broke and Liberal

By selley - Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 2:04 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Don MacPherson on the magic of legislation.

Media matters
National Post attacked from the left! CBC attacked from the right! All is well at The Globe and Mail!

If the Post were to fall into liberal (or Liberal) hands, the Globe‘s Lawrence Martin says “it would be like the Liberals losing the Toronto Star.” No more daily bashing of Stéphane Dion; no more giving “the Harper government the benefit of the doubt on every issue imaginable”; no more gross caricaturization of other newspapers’ editorial positions… oh, wait, that’s Lawrence Martin. In any case, we’re not totally clear on why Jerry Grafstein (or anyone else) would necessarily turn the paper hard to the left just on principle, if there was a business case to stay in bluer territory. The current owners aren’t exactly right-wing ghouls, after all—heck, as recently as 2005, David Asper himself gave $5,000 to the Liberals!

The Toronto Sun‘s Peter Worthington isn’t surprised to learn CBC employees are profoundly unhappy with their jobs, because unlike private sector media, there’s no “accountability” to the viewers, listeners and readers, and no chance to really make a splash. “The Mother Corp. knows best,” he sneers. “It forcefeeds listeners and viewers with what it thinks they deserve. If the public doesn’t like it, let them write letters or phone Rex Murphy on CBC Radio Sunday afternoons.”

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