'For the first time ever, the Green party of Canada has written a campaign plan that is fully detailed'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 8:35 PM - 34 Comments

And on the off chance that’s enough for you to take Elizabeth May seriously now, there’s more.

To upgrade her standing as a federal candidate May has been addressing other non-environmental issues by filing releases on her website, commenting on issues like Wafer-gate — when a New Brunswick newspaper alleged the prime minister slid a communion wafer into his pocket during a memorial service for a former governor general, in June.

Harper maintained that he ate the wafer, and the newspaper that ran the story has since retracted it and apologized, but not before May weighed in on the issue. While it might have been a matter of little interest to Green voters focused on environmental issues, Carr said it’s important that the party shows they aren’t a one-song band.

“Comments have to be made, and Elizabeth is great … she follows and tracks all the issues, and what’s really important is that people understand that the Green party is not a one-issue party, that we actually have comments and solutions to the full range of issues.”

Why Michael Ignatieff is hard to find these days

By Paul Wells - Friday, August 7, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 95 Comments

We are pleased with reports that the New Democratic Party is thinking of dropping “New” from its name. This is welcome news. No “New” is good news, you might say. Yes, you’re right, you probably wouldn’t say it, but you might. I am younger than the New Democratic Party and absolutely nobody thinks of me as New Paul Wells. Well-Preserved Paul Wells, maybe. Rumpled and Lovable Paul Wells, if you insist. No, really, go ahead, I’m powerless to stop you. But not New.

The downside with the whole N-less DP thing is that dropping the New would leave “Democratic Party,” leaving the party of Tommy Douglas and Alexa McDonough semantically indistinguishable from a party which (a) supports parallel public and private health care systems—“two-tier medicine,” as it’s sometimes called; (b) overwhelmingly supported the Iraq invasion in 2003; (c) is American. Continue…

UPDATED AGAIN: Wafergate, Radio-Canada/CBC and the Youtube takedown: Oh boy, an excuse to geek out about copyright law!

By kadyomalley - Friday, July 10, 2009 at 9:56 AM - 40 Comments

UPDATED AGAIN! Scroll down for the official response from CBC/Radio Canada and the poster behind the extended “Wafergate” video!

With thanks to Michael Geist — and whoever first noticed the sudden disappearance of the extended remix of the PM taking communion at the LeBlanc funeral — ITQ is on the case. (Seriously, an excuse to write about digital copyright law? Just try to hold her back.)

Inquiries have been sent out to all of the parties involved — really, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to explain Wafergate to the sure-to-be-utterly-baffled Youtube press officer at the other end of the general press email address —  and I’ll keep you posted as more information comes out, but in the meantime, I just wanted to make a few quick points based on the discussions that have arisen thus far.

Continue…