A never-ending journey of a thousand miles begins with a thousand first steps

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:10 AM - 66 Comments

Environment Minister John Baird, this weekend, on the Cancun accord. “This represents the first step to a single, new legally binding agreement … A first step.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, last week, on the Copenhagen accord. “Mr. Speaker, the Copenhagen accord was only a first step.”

Environment Minister Jim Prentice, last February, on the submission of Canada’s emission targets to the Copenhagen accord. “We took our first step down that road on Sunday, January 31, 2010.”

Environment Minister John Baird, three years ago, on the Bali climate talks. “With the United States now signed on to this framework the results of this conference show progress and we see that as an important first step.”

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, four years ago, on the Clean Air Act. “After more than a decade of inaction on the environment by the previous government, Canada’s Clean Air Act is the first step in turning things around to protect the health of Canadians.”

Headline of news release from the office of Environment Minister Stephane Dion, five years ago, on the coming into force of Kyoto targets. “Achieving Our Kyoto Targets – A First Step Toward a Greener Canada”

Environment Minister David Anderson, nine years ago, on the Kyoto Protocol. “The Kyoto Protocol is only the first step on a long road towards implementing an effective solution to climate change.”

The implosion of Expo '17

By Colby Cosh - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 11:16 AM - 58 Comments

The federal government has officially refused to give the City of Edmonton $700 million to hold a World’s Fair/Expo here in 2017, and I’d just like to mention to the Dominion at large, for the sake of civic dignity, that not everybody here is as apoplectic about it as our mayor, Stephen Mandel. I know what you’re all thinking, since you have probably learned about the bid for the first time in the morning papers.

A World’s Fair? Really? Edmonton’s latest bright idea for crashing through the scenery onto the world stage…was a concept that was already moth-eaten a hundred years ago? Are we talking about the kind of World’s Fair that attracts public debt, corruption, ethnic folk dances, and tractor displays? The kind that indulges everything from phony science to junk food to dictators? The kind that’s essentially an Olympics without the fun? That kind of World’s Fair?

Yeah, that kind of World’s Fair—the kind that, nowadays, comes with a tagline like “Harmony of Energy and Our Future Planet”, which was the proposed slogan of the aborted Edmonton proto-bid. (Presumably it sounds better in the original Mandarin.) To senior citizens and nostalgia freaks, the idea of the Expo carries a certain cachet; you must be a person whose pulse was once capable of being quickened by words like “progress” and “modernity” to feel the allure. I’m not immune myself, but a professional brand manager would surely suggest that Edmonton ought to get involved with something more hip, current, and relevant. Like the Boy Scouts or the League of Nations.

Certainly $700 million is $700 million, and in fact the total would certainly end up being much more. But one can’t help feeling that Edmonton has been spared some humiliation in being forced to withdraw from a bribery/flattery contest in which we were destined to be pitted against a super-heavyweight like the capital of Kazakhstan. “The bidding process alone,” the Edmonton Sun notes this morning, “was expected to carry a price tag of around $22 million.” Twenty-two million; nobody says either “Wow!” or “Why?” anymore when presented with a fact like this. Such an investment carries a nice little return (obtained from other Canadians) if you win the competition, but where do you suppose it ends up, and what obligations to the recipients are involved?

Some of the $700M that came Edmonton’s way would have been left behind in the form of infrastructure—infrastructure that would not in any sense benefit the nation as a whole (and that, in the wake of past Expos, has often taken the form of rusting, guano-streaked eyesores). Edmontonian boosters of the bid didn’t seem to realize that as their scintillating shopping lists of purely local benefits got longer and longer, the necessary rationale for federal funding grew shorter and shorter. The same could certainly be said of the Toronto Pan Am Games of 2015, which Ottawa is supporting; but, then, Toronto wisely held out its begging bowl in the summer of 2008, while the federal treasury was still in surplus and the streets were still paved with gold.

Mandel ranted yesterday about his city receiving different treatment during a recession, showing no sign of perceiving any difference between the conditions of 2008 and those of 2010. The supposed injustice to Edmonton is perhaps a good example of why cities should be left alone (with the necessary tax points) to build their own monuments to planetary energy harmony and whatnot. But for as long as we are governed according to Sloppy Federalism, some projects are inevitably going to become victims of the business cycle. You snooze, you lose—in this case, you lose several million dollars and get nothing back but James Moore’s signature. (Moore can now boast that his autograph costs several orders of magnitude more than Wayne Gretzky’s.)

The Pan Am Games cannot be rationally regarded as imposing a universal, permanent obligation on the federal government to fund the frenzied dreams of every big-city mayor. And thus Edmonton loses an opportunity for an expensive prolonged applauding of its ever-rambunctious self. Our arts, our sciences, and our industry will just have to bear the blow. Lily-livered culture cringers who imagined that a World’s Fair (actually a second-rate “International Recognized Expo” under BIE rules, rather than a full-fledged “World Expo”) would fling Edmonton onto the front pages of the planet’s newspapers have had their fantasies euthanized. Since these were nonsensical fantasies in the first place—go on, can you name the location of Expo 2010? It ended less than a month ago!—it is hard to regret their demise.

In memoriam

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 2:27 PM - 24 Comments

The concept of ministerial accountability was born on the morning of May 25, 2010, invoked so as to protect ministerial staff from having to testify before parliamentary committees. It lived a short, but fitful life.

The concept was injured slightly in October when a member of Christian Paradis’ staff resigned after meddling in access to information requests, but Minister Paradis himself went unpunished. It was wounded again days later when Mr. Paradis did not answer questions on the matter in the House. The concept was emboldened somewhat when the official opposition declined a confrontation on the matter, but, sadly, it sustained serious injuries weeks later when Rona Ambrose, rising to answer about events involving Mr. Paradis, explicitly directed questions to the public service. Continue…

The Commons: Repeat after Rona

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 25, 2010 at 6:35 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. To his credit, Christian Paradis did not avoid the House this afternoon. No doubt knowing he would face a new round of questions about the latest in an unfortunate series of circumstances, the former minister of public works and current minister of natural resources took his seat along the front row all the same.

No doubt knowing he would not have to rise to answer a single one of these questions, he surely did so quite comfortably.

“Mr. Speaker, in September 2007, one week before it closed, the request for proposals for renovation of the West Block North Tower was amended and the qualifications needed to bid dramatically downgraded,” Liberal Marcel Proulx said first, reviewing the newest revelation for the benefit of the House. “Experts in the construction industry have said this would have benefited only one bidder, LM Sauvé.”

Nearly every other day of the last month has brought some new curiosity such as this—another clipping to tape to the wall in search of connections. Were it not for Richard Nixon, it might all be the stuff of whispered conversations around the booths at Hy’s. As it is, 38 years after those two-bit burglaries, we sit around the press gallery wondering how properly to attach the suffix “gate” to the situation.

Once more it is difficult to know whether to curse or thank the 37th president of the United States. Continue…

The Commons: Off we go with no idea where we’re headed

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 6:06 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. “Everything we’ve learned so far has all the hallmarks of a scandal,” Liberal Geoff Regan was quoted as exclaiming in a party press release this afternoon.

And indeed, on this—the hallmarks, that is—there can be little debate. There is a lucrative government contract. There is an RCMP investigation. There is an individual, unregistered to lobby the federal government, who received payments from the individual who was awarded the lucrative contract. There is the party fundraiser the contract winner hosted that was attended by the cabinet minister whose department oversees such contracts. There is—or at least was—some kind of departmental probe that may or may not be related to all of this.

That there is as yet little sense of what exactly, if anything, this amounts to only heightens the intrigue—the House rarely as excited as when it hasn’t the faintest idea where it’s headed.

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Top Tory staffer says goodbye

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 7:45 AM - 0 Comments

Jamie Ellerton (below), longtime aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney held his goodbye party at The Buzz in Ottawa. Ellerton, one of the Tories’ top staffers, is now the executive assistant to Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak.

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Immigration minister Jason Kenney.

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Government House Leader John Baird.

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Mitchel Raphael on the celeb who claims Ottawa has a nightlife

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

What got Rona Ambrose upset
Rona Ambrose, minister for status of women, was recently in Israel where she met with her counterpart Gila Gamliel. Ambrose also toured the Israeli-Lebanese border and met three brigades of female soldiers. The women’s job is to protect the frontier through intelligence gathering and high-tech surveillance. The leader of the brigades told Ambrose that when the women are done serving, high-tech companies swoop in and hire them because their skills are in such demand. The minister also met the leader’s commander, 45-year-old Lt.-Col. Dov Harari. The two talked about the hardware store Harari owned with his brother and then chatted about his family. When Ambrose discovered the commander had relatives in Toronto, she asked whether he had ever been to Canada. He hadn’t he said. Ambrose encouraged him to come visit, but Harari pointed to the border he had been working to protect so much of his life, and said, “I have this to take care of.” Last week, Ambrose’s staff broke the news to her that Harari was killed in the recent skirmish on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Ambrose, who had been very impressed with Harari, was visibly upset by the news.

Among her other projects, Ambrose is now working with Governor General Michaëlle Jean on a special conference. The plan is to have a gathering of all the women who have influenced Jean to celebrate the end of her term.

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Mitchel Raphael on summer MPs: flipping burgers, pushing kale

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

The calories on the bus go . . .
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is in the midst of his Liberal Express bus tour across the country. The bus has a supply of granola bars, a fridge stocked with Red Bull and “whatever food we picked up at the last farmers’ market we visited,” notes Ignatieff’s press secretary Michael O’Shaughnessy. After the Barrie, Ont., farmers’ market, for instance, there were “fresh cherries and some cinnamon buns.” There’s a water cooler on the bus and everybody writes their name on a hard plastic water bottle to minimize waste. There are also lots of flowers: Iggy’s wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, receives a bouquet or two daily at stops. At Tim Hortons breaks, Ignatieff, who drinks black coffee before 11 in the morning and steeped tea in the afternoon, will often pick up a 40-pack of Timbits for everyone. The bus recently stopped at the hamburger joint Webers, a famous pit stop in Ontario cottage county. While he was there, Iggy met Mike McParland, a.k.a. “Key Man,” who has been flipping burgers at Webers since July 1963 and carries signature clanking jail keys. Key Man took Ignatieff behind the grill to try him out and “was impressed with the leader’s flip of the wrist.”

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Government at work

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 10:35 AM - 0 Comments

In the middle of an article that notes, in part, the superfluousness of changing the Criminal Code to cover “honour killings,” this explanation for Rona Ambrose’s comments.

While a spokesman for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson on Monday shot down Ms. Ambrose’s assertion that the government is “looking at” the change, his director of communications, Genevieve Breton, yesterday said “minister Ambrose’s comments are consistent with our approach” to law-making.

When what we say is the opposite of what is actually happening

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Rona Ambrose misspeaks.

The Conservative government dispatched one of its ministers Monday to the city where a 16-year-old girl was killed by her father and brother to condemn so-called honour killings, but it appears Rona Ambrose may have spoken out of turn…

She was asked if the government was considering such changes, and she replied that it was under consideration. ”I’ll say that it’s something that we’re looking at,” she said. “Nothing more than that at this time.”

However, when contacted for more details about possible changes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said in fact, that is not the case. ”There are currently no plans to do that,” said Pamela Stephens.

Mitchel Raphael on who Laureen Harper got Paul Gross to call and dancing Senators

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 1 Comment

Peter Milliken’s ‘luxury’ lodgings
In the course of reporting on Peter Milliken’s decision to release uncensored documents about transferred Afghan detainees, the National Post’s Don Martin noted that the Speaker’s job “comes with a luxury apartment inside the Centre Block.” Years back, tired of journalists constantly referring to the Centre Block apartment as “luxurious,” Milliken invited some of them in to take a look at the lodgings: it’s basically two large walk-in closets with a cheap single bed. That stopped the journalists for a while—until Martin’s story. Milliken’s fabulous official residence, the Farm at Kingsmere, is of course another story.

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Paul Gross, Laureen Harper and a pack of Twizzlers

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 10 Comments

Heritage Minister James Moore hosted Ottawa’s premiere of Gunless, starring Paul Gross, at the Museum of Civilization. Below (left to right): Laureen Harper, Heritage Minister James Moore and Paul Gross.

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Laureen Harper offers Justin Trudeau some Twizzlers.

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Conservatives and the men in blue

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, April 30, 2010 at 3:47 PM - 18 Comments

The Conservatives’ Law Enforcement Officers Caucus held a special reception for the Canadian Police Association while they were in town. Below is caucus chair Shelly Glover.

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Senator Nancy Ruth with the boys in blue.

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Mitchel Raphael on the end of the blond troika and the new minister of everything

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 5 Comments

By Mitchel Raphael

SOME NEW FACES IN THE HOUSE WHEN HARPER IS SPEAKING

No longer in the Conservative caucus, Helena Guergis now sits as an independent in the back row of the House. Guergis was part of the blond troika behind Stephen Harper, picked up by the TV cameras whenever he rose in the Commons. The other two were Lisa Raitt and Diane Ablonczy. Now the three blonds in the shot have been replaced with dark-haired MPs: Minister for International Co-operation Bev Oda, Minister of State Denis Lebel, and Rona Ambrose, who took over Guergis’s status of women portfolio. Ambrose now has one of the longest titles in the government: minister of public works and government services Canada and the receiver general of Canada, minister for status of women, vice-president of the Treasury Board, and regional minister for northern Alberta. Or as one MP joked: “Minister of everything.” Ambrose got back recently from a trip to Afghanistan with Defence Minister Peter MacKay. In Kandahar, the two stopped by the Tim Hortons, where the cups are designed to look like camouflage and the prizes for Roll Up the Rim to Win included special edition Kandahar hats. Neither Ambrose nor MacKay won anything.

By Mitchel Raphael

IT’S THAT FRENCH TEACHER’S FAULT

NDP MP Glenn Thibeault was recently in the House foyer going over notes for a French TV interview. The Ontario MPfor Sudbury has been trying to work on his French in an effort to become bilingual. Thibeault comes from a francophone family. When he was younger, his parents sent him to a French immersion school. One of his teachers told him he must learn “French” French and not Quebec French and his parents were so insulted they pulled him out and put him into a regular English school where he lost all his French. He’s currently taking three hours a week of French lessons. He is the youngest in his family and now gets his siblings and parents to speak only French to him—“even if I don’t understand,” he jokes.

SHE’S THAT FABULOUS

Jer’s Vision fifth anniversary gala in Ottawa celebrated those who have helped battle bullying and homophobia. The event was hosted by Global National anchor Kevin Newman, who spoke publicly for the first time about his gay son, Alex Newman. Kevin Newman was the first person to interview NDP MP Libby Davies on TV when she came out. At last year’s event, Davies won a Youth Role Model of the Year award. This time one went to Liberal MP Hedy Fry. One of the youth who nominated Fry noted in a letter that he realized he was gay and went to a Pride parade where he met the MP. “When I asked her what it was like to be gay, she said she was not gay but she was proud to stand with another individual and celebrate working toward equality. I was inspired how someone could be so fabulous, and not even be gay.”

By Mitchel Raphael

THANKS FOR THE SHIRT, I THINK

During his visit to Ottawa, New Zealand PM John Key was presented with an Olympic Team Canada hockey jersey by Stephen Harper. In return, Key presented Harper with a very fitted New Zealand All Blacks rugby shirt. Harper quipped that the New Zealand PM would have an easier time getting into the baggy hockey jersey than he would getting into his gift.

THE VERY LAST ALL-PARY PARTY

NDP MP Peter Stoffer says April 28 will be the last All-Party Party. The bash has been held in 200 West Block for years, but now the building will be closed as of this summer for several years for renovations and asbestos removal. Stoffer says there is not a large enough space elsewhere on the Hill to accommodate MPs and Hill staff, and also that if it were held somewhere else, it would be too costly.

Musical chairs

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 4:21 PM - 15 Comments

After the Conservative government was reelected in 2008, Lisa Raitt was awarded seat #44 in the House of Commons, the spot immediately visible to TV viewers over the Prime Minister’s left shoulder—a seat previously and ably occupied by Rona Ambrose.

As Question Period began this afternoon though, Ms. Raitt was in a new seat, in the near right corner of the House. That spot, until today, was occupied by Rona Ambrose. And seat #44 was filled, once again, by Ms. Ambrose.

The next great leader

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 1:23 PM - 96 Comments

The Mark convenes a number of political actors and observers to discuss the best leaders of Canadian history and, amid the expected salutes to Macdonald, Pearson, Douglas and the like, pollster Frank Graves speculates on what will define the next great prime minister.

Gen X and Gen Y see little of relevance to them in the federal government. They are less interested in ethics, crime, security, and health care, and more interested in climate change and a post-carbon economy, knowledge and skills, human rights and internationalism. In order to build a federal state that is focused on both the future and the present (and less the past), our next leader should be drawn from the half of Canadians under the median age of 41…

It might also be appropriate to find someone who reflects the growing diversity of Canada, and perhaps it isn’t too much to expect that as over half of Canadians are women we might eventually get around to electing a woman PM.

Ladies and gentlemen, Canada’s next great prime minister.

Don't hold your breath

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 15, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 58 Comments

Anonymous senior Conservatives are apparently agitating for Helena Guergis to be swiftly dispatched to the furthest reaches of the government backbenches. Make of this what you will.

Keep in mind that, if memory serves, no minister in the Harper government has been outright fired or banished. Michael Chong resigned as minister of intergovernmental affairs in opposition to the Quebecois motion. Maxime Bernier resigned after misplacing his briefs. Various ministers perceived to be underperforming (Gordon O’Connor, Rona Ambrose, Lisa Raitt) have been moved to less-prominent portfolios, but only in the context of a cabinet shuffle. No one, if I recall correctly, has ever been outright and unambiguously fired.

The day's most useful analysis

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 12:39 AM - 27 Comments

Via Susan Delacourt.

Rona’s name is pronounced “Ronna”. She’s not a home-reno store. Have heard it wrong more than right today on TV. Just saying.

Who seems to be up, who seems to be down

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 11:11 AM - 22 Comments

Conventional perception seems to have Stockwell Day, Christian Paradis and Rona Ambrose rising, Lisa Raitt and Peter Van Loan falling. Keith Ashfield gets a promotion to cabinet, Rob Moore gets to call himself a minister of state.

Early reviews from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star, Canwest, Reuters, Bloomberg, CBC and CTV.

Your musical chairs sneak preview

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 18, 2010 at 11:46 PM - 14 Comments

If CP has it right, Lisa Raitt is now tracing Rona Ambrose’s career arc all the way to cabinet obscurity.

The biggest surprise may be that controversy-prone Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, once a rising star in the party who rocketed to cabinet within weeks of her first election win in October 2008, is getting demoted.

The high-profile Raitt ran into trouble last year when she was caught on tape criticizing some of her fellow ministers. Raitt will stay in the cabinet, but in the relatively obscure Labour post.

Canadian Press has Christian Paradis going to Natural Resources in Raitt’s place, Rona Ambrose going to Public Works to replace Paradis, Peter Van Loan replacing Stockwell Day at International Trade, Day replacing Vic Toews at Treasury, Toews replacing Van Loan at Public Safety and Jean-Pierre Blackburn going to Veterans Affairs to replace the retiring Greg Thompson.

Firefighters, liver cancer, and Trudeau hits the dance floor

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:32 PM - 7 Comments

What A Girl Wants was a fundraiser for the Canadian Liver Foundation, which included a fashion show and Ottawa firefighters. Below, Justin Trudeau has a dance off with Kenzie Potter from Conservative House leader Jay Hill’s office.

One of the organizers Annette Martin (centre), wife of National Post columnist Don Martin, with Labour Minister Rona Ambrose and a firefighter.

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Mitchel Raphael on why Ambrose worried about MacKay

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Life after Parliament Hill for Rahim Jaffer
Former Edmonton Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer says he is now enjoying running his own business. Jaffer is part of GPG Corp., a new company specializing in alternative energy sources. The company will be building a solar farm in Bancroft, Ont. Jaffer says Ontario has a great solar subsidy program and pays people for supplying the power grid. GPG is also looking into a “dragon power system,” which consists of plates on the road that capture kinetic energy from moving vehicles and turn it into electricity. The Chinese, notes Jaffer, are very interested in this because of their huge traffic volumes. He is looking to open an office in China, but that may not sit well with his close friend Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who has always taken a tough stand on China. “Jason will be mad,” admits Jaffer. “But our government is getting excited about China. Stockwell Day was there. Jim Flaherty was there.” Jaffer and his wife, Helena Guergis, minister of state for the status of women, are looking to buy a house together in the Ottawa area and hope to have children soon. Jaffer says they need a home with large closets. “After all the years I did politics, I have as many clothes as Helena.”

Rona Ambrose coaches hockey
Ontario Tory MP Patrick Brown hosted and played in his second Hockey Night in Barrie charity game at the Barrie Molson Centre. Each team had a mix of players including Conservative MPs such as Gord Brown, Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean, Olympic medallist goalie Sami Jo Small and former and current NHL players like Brian Little of the Atlanta Thrashers. Also in attendance, but not playing, was former NHLer Eddie Shack. Bringing some comedy to the game with an animal print protective cup was Marc Hickox from the TV show Rent-a-Goalie. Coaches included Labour Minister Rona Ambrose for the white team and Helena Guergis for the blue team. Defence Minister Peter MacKay played for the whites. His arm is still not at 100 per cent after being broken in a rugby match on Parliament Hill. Ambrose told the medic on site to make sure MacKay wasn’t in pain and to get him off the ice if he was. The medic said, “He won’t let me pull him.” Ambrose’s firm response: “I’ll pull him if I have to.” She also asked MacKay’s team members Aaron Johnson of the Chicago Blackhawks and his brother Cory Johnson to keep an eye on their fellow Nova Scotian. The event raised $121,000 for Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital. Team Blue won 15-13. Continue…

Hockey in Barrie with Conservatives and animal print protective cups!

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 12:47 PM - 13 Comments

Ontario Tory MP Patrick Brown hosted and played in his second Hockey Night in Barrie charity game at the Barrie Molson Centre. The teams were a mix of Conservative MPs, past and present NHLers and some celebrities. The event raised $121, 000 for Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital. Team Blue won 15 to 13. Below, Labour Minister Rona Ambrose and Defense Minister Peter MacKay.

Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean.

Marc Hickox from the TV show Rent-A-Goalie.

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Mitchel Raphael on the cabinet minister who loves Elvis

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Unfortunately Rahim Jaffer was busy that day
Helena Guergis, minister of state for the status of women, has been a regular at the annual Collingwood Elvis Festival in her Ontario riding. For three years, she says, the Elvis impersonators she rode with in the opening parade coincidentally all went on to become champions in various categories later in the festival. This year, though, she rode with a past winner, Gino Monopoli. The first album Guergis ever bought was one of Elvis’s. When she was young, Teddy Bear was her favourite Elvis song. “As I got older it was Devil in Disguise,” she says. Guergis now owns a huge collection of Elvis cassettes—her uncle gave them to her after he put the music onto disks for himself. Guergis says she wanted her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, to come to the festival and dress up: “I tried to get him to be the brown Elvis in this year’s parade.” She says if Jaffer will do it next year, she’ll go as Priscilla Presley. Jaffer, who lost in the last election, decided not to run again. The new Conservative candidate in his Edmonton riding will be Ryan Hastman, who used to be an aide to Stockwell Day.

Gandhi, Chavez and Trudeau gather
Members of the Gen II Global Peace Initiative held their second formal meeting in Toronto. The group is made up of activists who are the children or grandchildren of peacemakers and human rights leaders. The Toronto meeting included Martin Luther King III, the son of Martin Luther King Jr., Christine Chavez-Delgado, granddaughter of labour icon Cesar Chavez, and Montreal MP Justin Trudeau. After the group’s first meeting in London in 2007, Trudeau says he has kept in touch with Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, daughter of the assassinated Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin, and Nadim Gemayel, son of the assassinated Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel. Rabin and Gemayel did not make it to Toronto, but Trudeau did meet for the first time Tushar Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. Trudeau says while his name can be a blessing and challenge in Canada, Gandhi has an international reputation to live up to. He says the two discussed the situation in Sri Lanka. (Trudeau has a large Sri Lankan community in his Papineau riding.) Gen II is still trying to build itself up. “We are all working with the legacies our ancestors left us,” notes Trudeau. “What we are trying to see is if there is a collective power. These are people who have worked hard to live up to the responsibility of the names they have been given.” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney addressed the group and welcomed them on behalf of the Canadian government. He also managed to add a little sparkle to the proceedings: just before entering the room, he opened a gift from a friend who had used gold glittery wrapping paper. The glitter clung to Kenney’s suit and was so fine it floated onto the garments of a few Gen IIers. Continue…