Nor Do I Often Disagree With Canada & The USA..

But I think I do in regard to Palestine and its bid for Nation Status at the United Nations.





Today the President of Palestine tabled a motion at the United Nations claiming full Nation State Status among the Nations of the World.





The Motion will now go to the UN's Security Council and will be voted on in due course.





Canada and the United States are on record as opposing the Palestinian request and with the US Veto, it will assuredly be denied.





But should Canada and the United States be taking this position?





I think not.





Imagine, if you would, that Canada was in a similar position as Palestine and we were being blocked by the US veto or any other Veto Power Nation. How would we feel; probably no different than the Palestinians.





Now in fairness, I think that the Palestinian Leadership's true intention is to foster dissent - more dissent, against Israel and its Allies than currently exists - if that is possible.





If they were sincere in their application, it would have been made years ago.





But from their people's perspective, to go down the state-hood road and then be blocked by outside countries, would be a bitter pill to swallow.





That there is going to be violence and blood shed because of the Veto, goes without saying.





But let's be honest, that same fear of violence exists should State Hood be granted.





So either way; riots, calamity and even war are a likely fallout regardless of which road is taken.





So why not go with the State Hood Road?





At least it grants the Palestinians honour and if we in the West were seen to approve of their application, it would provide us with a measure of favour on their part.




If as the West believes, State Hood will make the negotiations with Israel more complex than they already are - so be it.


Nothing much was happening in that regard - nor is likely to happen.


Palestine wants the right of return and Israel wants recognition.


The two goals are simply incompatible.


So why not grant them their State Hood and go from there come what may.


As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'

I Do Not Often Agree With Bob Rae,,,but

Hey, I can never recall agreeing with Bob Rae..


But, I found myself in agreement with him Tuesday when he critiqued the Tories' new Omnibus Tough on Crime Bill.


Rae found that in this day of crumbling economics, there are better ways to spend Canada's limited financial resources than on tough on crime measures and prison building.

And in that I agree.

If the Tories had added but one word to their Bill, I would be in support of it; and that word is 'Violent'

As in 'Tough on Violent Crime Bill'.

Assuming of course that the Bill limit its application to 'violent offenders'; which I not so sure it does.


And hence my sympathy with Rae and company.

Let me be totally honest with you as well. I have not read the Omnibus Bill - nor even intend to so if it turns out that it does apply mostly to violent criminals my mind could be changed.

But I do know that one of its provisions is to get tough on marijuana growers having as few as 6 plants which hardly seems "violent" to me. Indeed I am on record as saying pot should be decriminalized and police efforts directed to areas where they can really make a difference.

And all this said, Canada already has, I believe, all the measures it needs to fight crime of all types; it can be found in our extensive and comprehensive Criminal Code. And this applies to the Police, the Prosecution, and the Judges.

The problem as I see it is that there is not enough effort to properly enforce what already exists.

A couple of examples:

A few years ago my wife was in Montreal and parked her car on Ste. Catherines, probably the busiest street in the city. She parked in the well lit lot directly beside her Regional Office.


She had parked in day light but when she returned to her car, a few hours later, it was starting to get dark. Someone had broken the car's door lock and had opened the trunk and taken her suitcase which contained some valuable jewellery.


Anne called the police who told her to come to their office and make a report. The report they told her was for insurance purposes since they would not spend anytime on it given the high number of such incidents occurring each day.


Excuse me? If that type of thing was happening so often, one would think it would warrant some priority on the part of the gendarmes.


Another recent case here in Ottawa, saw a small corner store owner swarmed by 40 or so punks yet no charges have been laid despite the fact that the police have pictures of each of these individual swarmers. And despite the fact that this store owner has been the subject of numerous robberies of late. Why not stake the store out and put a stop to this reoccurring criminal activity?

And of course, why not charge the 40 known swarmers?

Did I mention, the swarmers were non-white?

So we have the tools to do the job if there was real interest on the part of the authorities to act upon it.

A few years back New York City was in a similar situation. Tough on crime Rudy Giuliani became Mayor and insisted that the City of Police act on all crimes no matter big or small. The city soon shaped up when the culprits realized the free ride was over.

But jail is not always the answer either. Indeed it should be limited for those who commit violent crimes.

Stats show here in Canada that only 12.5% of inmates are violent. Nearly 50% are in for "property crimes".

Included in property crimes are B&Es which by their nature I would class as violent since those offenders are breaching the privacy of an individual's home.

But the bottomline here is that too many offenders are prison bound. Other methods of penalty need to be found with the result being less prisons not more.

So we have the tools and we have more than sufficient numbers of prisons.

I cannot imagine how the Tories Omnibus Bill can make things better but I will carefully watch it as it makes its way through Parliament and will let you know if I have any change of heart.

I do know, that the costs attached to this Bill will be steep and now does not appear to be the time to incur such added expenditure especially if the results are suspect.

As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'











And then there is something as inoccuos as graffiti. It has run amuck in modern cities but here in Ottawa, the property owners are liable for court action if they do not remove the offending markings.

The General ....

Is Flying 2nd Class.

A Big Flap continues this week on whether Chief of Staff General Walter Natynczyk should pay out of his own pocket for private related travel or else fly commercial.

The General's initial response was for the public to buzz off - so to speak and that he had every right to fly free in military jets.

Indeed he tried to suggest that these planes needed to be in the air anyway for training purposes and his being aboard did not add to the overall cost.

The poor General needs a Spinmeister.

His excuse was a little far fetched.

Plus it obviously ran counter to Prime Minister Harper's position whereby he reimburses the cost of his flights on a commercial basis. For instance, if he flies to Vancouver for a football game, by Challenger Jet and a comparable flight with Air Canada would have cost $3k - Harper pays to the General Revenues the $3,000 cost.

They are both wrong though in their approach to this issue.

And in any event, it all hit the fan today when Harper met with the beleaguered General and demanded that he repay the cost of a recent flight he had taken to join his family on holiday in the Caribbean.

Even though the poor General had to miss the commercial flight with his family since he was meeting the bodies of four of our soldiers coming into Canada from Afghanistan.

The Right Answer to all of this is that neither the Chief of Staff nor the Prime Minister should be paying for their "private travel". For the Simple Reason that when it comes to these two gentlemen, Neither One Has Private Travel; they are on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Similar in fact to what the President of the United States experiences.

There are a couple of others who I believe should qualify for this special status including the Minister of Finance, External Affairs, and Public Security.

The planes any of these officers take, should standby ready to whisk them back to wherever they are needed.

Anything less is simply bush league.

As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'

The Premier Says It Is All About Jobs...

And in that, he is correct !!





Too bad they are not being created in his own Province of Ontario.





New Grit Ads are out showing Mr. Premier alone and waxing eloquent about all the jobs he and his Party have created.





30,000 he states, most recently...





Despite the fact that in that same period, Stats Canada statistics show only 20,000 have been created in all of Canada...





And Despite the fact that these same statistics show Ontario in 9th position just ahead of 10th place PEI in job creation.





To his credit, Dalton was never one to let the facts get in the way of what he views as the truth.





And speaking lately of Conspiracy - last week Premier McGuinty held a photo op at a new Solar Plant - and he went on to claim that it was plants like this that were creating numerous skilled jobs. To date he noted that Green Energy had produced 20,000 such skilled j0bs in Ontario and is well on the way to producing another 30,000.





The only thing is, the plant was shut down. No one was working there.





But again that did not slow spinmeister McGuinty one little bit.





The Media was there in full force and reported his every uttering but failed to mention that the plant was shut down for want of work. Now that's a Conspiracy.





Only one reporter - for the conservative National Post - blew the whistle on his outrageous stunt.





But that is not all.





These "well paid, skilled jobs" at the shut down plant consisted of employees (when working) making $13 per hour assembling parts manufactured in China. Rather like a meccano set.





But again our distinguished Premier ignored this reality in his bid to gain re-election.





And in that respect, he is consistent since he very capably ignores reality even when he's not campaigning.





Asked time and again for particulars of these supposed 20k green jobs, McGuinty and his cohorts are lost for words. Indeed a rare occurrence.





The fact is, there is but only a small handful of people working in Ontario's green energy sector.





One final point in all of this Green Energy nonsense and the related issue of Jobs.





The reason Ontario today has such a vast surplus of power is because, under McGuinty's 8 year administration, the manufacturing sector has been decimated.





And decimated to the extent that Ontario has had to pay other jurisdictions to take our surplus energy off our hands.





All the while we pay green energy suppliers 10x the going rate to produce power we do not need and have to pay others to take.





It would be hilarious if the costs were not so high for Ontarians.





As I see it...





'K.D. Galagher'