Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
There goes the union vote
Hillary Clinton, who was a director of Wal-Mart for more than six years, appears to have done nothing to advance unions or women in that time (watch the video):
Wal-Mart's anti-union efforts were headed by one of Clinton's fellow board members, John Tate, a Wal-Mart executive vice president who also served on the board with Clinton for four of her six years.
Tate was fond of repeating, as he did at a managers meeting in 2004 after his retirement, what he said was his favorite phrase, "Labor unions are nothing but blood-sucking parasites living off the productive labor of people who work for a living."
In politics, intra-party battles tend to be the most vicious and personal. A contested race for the position of secretary-treasurer of the Ottawa-Vanier Young Liberal Association is typically more bitter than between the Liberals and Tories in a general election. The personalities know each other well, and it is just like a fight inside a family.
Rueben Devlin, a leader in the dump John Tory movement, has been subject to a vicious personal attack on a pro- John Tory blog:
What's interesting about Devlin is that he is the current president and CEO of the Humber River Regional Hospital.
Last month it was revealed that HRRH has the highest patient mortality rate in the Greater Toronto Area and the second-highest rate in the entire country - 36 points higher than the national average.
While other hospitals were releasing their results, Devlin's hospital initially kept their's secret. They had to be forced by the government to release these statistics.
Here's what the Toronto Star had to say about Stonewall Rueben:
"Since the data were released, Humber officials, most notably president Reuben Devlin, have refused to comment on the statistics or to explain how the hospital will address community concerns arising because of the figures.".
But it's not because he's media shy. Nope. He's more than happy to speak to reporters when he's criticizing an election campaign he had no involvement in.
Here's what Devlin had to say to the North Bay Nugget:
"The leader is accountable for everything. The leader selects the people who surround him. The leader signs off on the policies. The leader is the person who makes those final decisions, just like the CEO of a company."
Or, say, just like the CEO of a hospital?
Perhaps, if Rueben is going to insist on giving media interviews, he should start by explaining why patients die more frequently at his hospital than at any other in the GTA.
This is jaw-dropping. If I were to make a ranking of people I thought were most likely to be the victim of a personal attack, Rueben Devlin would be the very last person on the list. He is one of the most outstanding people I have ever known in politics. He's also one of the rare political junkies out there who has a life outside politics. A doctor, he has achieved great success in his profession, rising to become the head of a major Toronto hospital. Because his livelihood does not depend on where the next political consulting fee cheque comes from, he has always been able to keep the highest standard of integrity and speaks his mind, hence his vocal opposition to Tory (one of the few to do it openly early on.) This is the thanks he gets?
In 13 years of involvement in and observation of Canadian conservative politics, I have never seen such an unjustified and malicious attack on an individual. The coward(s) running this blog (there is no other word for the person(s) -- the blog is being written anonymously) should be shamed and marginalized, and Rueben Devlin might even want to explore legal options. It is a sickening attack on one of the Ontario Conservative Party's most respected and well-liked members.
UPDATE: B-Double, who I might add has been on the opposite side of me on more than one Ottawa-Vanier Youth Association-type bloodbath, agrees and sheds light on a second Tory campaign embarrassment. Also see his comment to this post.
UPDATE II: Josh Somer weighs in with similar thoughts.
If anyone was wondering why this blog became less active in 2007, the answer in part is that I was helping to organize this conference, which took place last Thursday to Saturday in Québec City. It was a major project involving endless hours of work for more than a year by a team of about 15 people from McGill and Laval University law schools.
QUEBEC - In a heated and emotional debate yesterday about the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, the former chief of staff of Jean Chrétien, Eddie Goldenberg, accused former Quebec premier Bernard Landry of comparing Pierre Elliott Trudeau to Adolf Hitler.
In his speech delivered to law students in Quebec City, Mr. Landry quoted the late Liberal prime minister and driving force behind the patriation of the Constitution as saying at the time: "This Constitution will last 1,000 years."
Mr. Landry, a founder of the Parti Québécois, added: "He drew inspiration, I am afraid, from one of the most horrible people of western history and I don't need to say his name."
When it was Mr. Goldenberg's turn to talk, he bluntly accused Mr. Landry of drawing a parallel between Mr. Trudeau and Hitler. The notorious Nazi ruler had promised to lead the German people into a Reich, or empire, that would last 1,000 years.
"When he used a quote from Trudeau to compare him with Adolf Hitler, I found that absolutely disgusting and I wish he would apologize to the Trudeau family," said Mr. Goldenberg, author of an insider account of federal politics titled The Way it Works.
This was without question the climax moment of the conference. I was sitting in the front row, and Landry's face was so red during Goldenberg's take-down that at one point it looked like Landry would either get up and bolt out of the room, or sock Goldenberg in the face.
Of the many things that came out of this conference, one of main ones, in my view, was the need to put the 1982 constitutional era and the personalities involved in it behind us. The bitterness surrounding what happened is still palpable and healing is basically impossible amongst those who participated.
More than 140 disaffected party members voted to create a new riding executive they hope will in turn hold a nomination runoff to decide who will carry the party banner for the northern riding of Desnethe-Misinippi-Churchill River in a March 17 byelection.
But the party already has a candidate - former provincial NDP cabinet minister Joan Beatty - who was appointed by party leader Stephane Dion last week.
Nevertheless, Jim Durocher, an organizer of the event and past president of the Metis Association of Saskatchewan, said democracy must prevail.
"Why should Stephane Dion - who doesn't know anything about our constituency - impose that on us? That's just not right. We're not going to take it," he said.
The move has left provincial party brass shaking their heads, given, they say, that the riding already has an executive and that any final nomination decision rests with senior party officials in Ottawa.
"It's confusing," said Frank Proto, president of the Saskatchewan Liberal Association.
"There was an executive put in place last April."
Proto said they will work with the interim committee to address future concerns, but that as far as Beatty goes, it's a done deal.
"We have a candidate and that's not going to be reversed," he said, adding he toured the sprawling northern riding last week and found unanimous support for Beatty.
The members at Saturday's meeting - including area mayors and native leaders - also decided to formally petition and write to Dion and urge he retract the Beatty decision. They will also ask Beatty to step down and run in a nomination race.
The byelection is one of four being held that day.
The riding had been held by Liberal MP Gary Merasty. He won by just 67 votes over his Tory competitor in 2006, but resigned last year.
David Orchard - a former Conservative party leadership candidate and a key supporter in Dion's 2006 successful bid for the Liberal crown - was at the meeting, said Durocher.
Orchard had been campaigning hard to win the nomination in the riding, which has a large aboriginal population.
David Orchard has now wreaked havoc on not one but two of Canada's mainstream political parties. The next obvious step is to decamp to the NDP.
This video may give new meaning to the term that sunlight is the best disinfectant. The more people who know about this frightening assault on freedom, the better. (They are now going after Mark Steyn and Macleansfor the same reason.) Ezra Levant gives a powerful and damning sermon to a clueless Alberta bureaucrat acting as official interrogator for the provincial "human rights" commission. The only comment Ezra didn't make that I would have: there is no human right not to be offended.
UPDATE: Looks like the complainant is trouble with some of his own mosque attendees.
Well, don't ever say American politics isn't exciting. We now have a race that is totally unpredictable on both sides. No serious person can claim to be able to know the outcome of this. It's a great time to be a political junkie.
The New York Times has added Bill Kristol to its stable of columnists. From the announcement:
Mr. Kristol, 55, has been a fierce critic of The Times. In 2006, he said that the government should consider prosecuting The Times for disclosing a secret government program to track international banking transactions.
In a 2003 column on the turmoil within The Times that led to the downfall of the top two editors, he wrote that it was not “a first-rate newspaper of record,” adding, “The Times is irredeemable.”
This effort by the Times -- whose circulation numbers have been steadily bleeding to death -- to try to show it is respectful of conservative critics will likely fall on deaf ears.
Happy 2008 to all. It was sad saying goodbye to 2007 last night, although 2008 should be just as great. We are living in truly amazing times, despite the significant challenges on the international scene. I'll be back next week.
