Helena Guergis Lawsuit: Former Tory MP Sues Harper, Others For Defamation

Former MP Helena Guergis is suing Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Conservative MPs Shelly Glover and Lisa Raitt, the Conservative Party of Canada and a number of other individuals for defamation and other claims.

The former member of Harper's cabinet, who had to leave the Conservative caucus in April 2010 following allegations against her and her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, launched the court action in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice. The statement of claim was obtained by CBC.

The unproven allegations related to drug use, fraud, extortion and association with prostitutes.

Guergis is not only suing her former boss and colleagues, but also Ray Novak, Harper's principal secretary, Arthur Hamilton and the law firm he works for, Cassels Brock & Blackwell, Guy Giorno, Harper's former chief of staff, Axelle Pellerin, a former aide to Guergis, and Derrick Snowdy. Snowdy is the private investigator from Toronto whose allegations helped spark the controversy around Guergis and her husband.

Snowdy spoke to Hamilton about Guergis and Hamilton then spoke to Novak, Harper and others, according to the statement of claim. Hamilton gave the impression that Guergis had used cocaine and engaged in other unlawful activities and that there was video evidence of it, the document suggests.

Cardinal George: Chicago Gay Pride Parade, LGBT Movement Could 'Morph Into Ku Klux Klan'

Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, this week told a Chicago news station that he agreed with a local Roman Catholic church's objections to the city's recently-adjusted Gay Pride Parade route passing by its doors and warned that the parade could "morph into the Ku Klux Klan."

George made the comment Sunday on Fox Chicago when asked about Our Lady of Mount Carmel's complaints that the parade passing by its Belmont Avenue location would force the church to cancel its morning mass. The church recently launched a petition urging the city to force parade organizers to adjust their plans.

"I go with the pastor," George told Fox. "He's telling us that he won't be able to have services on Sunday if that's the case. You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism."

When the Fox host pointed out that George's comparison was "a little strong," the cardinal stood by his statement.

"It is, but you take a look at the rhetoric," he continued. "The rhetoric of the Klu Klux Klan, the rhetoric of some of the gay liberation people. Who is the enemy? Who is the enemy? The Catholic Church."

Governor Cuomo Is Still Governor One Percent

As 2011 slips into history, it appears a safe bet that despite tough competition, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has walked away with this year’s coveted award for “stupidest and most offensive analogy made by a non-Republican candidate or a journalist not covering said candidate.” Asked why, when he was being forced to lay off thousands of city and state workers, cut the pensions of countless others, and reduce aid to mass transit and education, he insisted on fighting tooth and nail to kill the so-called millionaire’s tax on the state’s highest earners—a tax, by the way, that would have ensured an additional $4 billion for such needs, and that was favored by 72 percent of respondents in an October poll—Cuomo replied, “The fact that everybody wants it, that doesn’t mean all that much.” Cuomo then recalled that his father, Mario Cuomo, famously opposed the death penalty despite strong majority support. “Reporters would say, ‘Well, people want it,’” Cuomo added. “And the point was, you know, we don’t elect—you can’t just have as a governor a big poll-taking machine, right?” So Andrew Cuomo’s willingness to thwart the will of the majority and stick a thumb in the eye of his own party on behalf of the interests of multimillionaires and billionaires—literally, the “1 percent”—is somehow analogous to the lonely, brave and extremely costly political stand his father took on behalf of condemned prisoners on death row.

Such myopic self-regard should have sunk Cuomo with liberals and progressives, but to the contrary, all appears hunky-dory in these precincts. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that many liberals have jettisoned the politics of economic equality and prefer to focus on the far less expensive practice of lifestyle liberalism. Andrew Cuomo was the hero of the gay marriage struggle this past summer and hence is beloved in Hollywood and at the Huffington Post. But no less important has been his ability to conduct a mind-meld operation with many in the MSM to communicate the nonsensical message that, while the governor may insist, on principle, on killing the special surtax, he did not oppose forcing the well-off to pay their fair share to meet the state’s burgeoning obligations.

Larry Craig Lobbies On Mine Safety As Reform Slowly Dies

WASHINGTON -- Having left Congress after an embarrassing 2007 arrest, former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has quietly reemerged in Washington as a lobbyist working on behalf of the coal industry. According to his federal filings, Craig has registered to wheedle his former Capitol colleagues on the obscure but critical issue of mine safety.

It's an issue that Craig's new client, Murray Energy, knows all too well. The largest privately held coal company in the nation, Murray Energy owned a subsidiary that ran the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, the site of a tragic cave-in incident that took the lives of six miners and later three rescuers. The cave-in occurred in August 2007, just weeks after Craig was arrested for allegedly soliciting sex in an airport bathroom.

The addition of a heavyweight like Craig to the coal lobby serves as a reminder of just how difficult it can be to pass mine safety reform in the face of industry influence, even in the aftermath of the worst mining disaster in 40 years. Since 29 miners died in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia in April 2010, a bill that would further empower the Mine Safety and Health Administration to shut down dangerous mines and punish unsafe operators has languished in Congress. Now that more than a year and a half has passed, the window of opportunity may have already closed for meaningful reform, industry observers say.

Democrats Defend Cutting Unemployment Benefits

WASHINGTON -- A top ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives on Tuesday defended his party's support for cutting 20 weeks of unemployment benefits, a position that has escaped much notice in the payroll tax cut debate consuming Washington.

Democrats want the House to pass a Senate bill that would postpone the January expiration of federal unemployment programs for two months. But even if it is reauthorized, one of those programs will automatically phase out next year, unless Congress changes federal law to allow states to keep it, a provision not included in the Senate bill.

"There are things in this bill as we pointed out that we had to make concessions on," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday in response to a question from HuffPost.

"That's the process. We understand that," Hoyer continued. "Unfortunately there are an awful lot of tea party activists who were elected to the Congress who don't understand compromise. That provision is one of the provisions that [Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.)] has concerns about."

When the Senate on Saturday passed its 60-day bill, which would also extend a payroll tax cut first enacted last year, Levin, the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees jobless aid, criticized the measure as "wholly inadequate."

'Secret' Environment Canada presentation warns of oilsands' impact on habitat

Contamination of a major western Canadian river basin from oilsands operations is a "high-profile concern" for downstream communities and wildlife, says a newly-released "secret" presentation prepared last spring by Environment Canada that highlighted numerous warnings about the industry's growing footprint on land, air, water and the climate.

The warnings from the department contrast with recent claims made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Peter Kent that the industry is being unfairly targeted by environmentalists who exaggerate its impacts on nature and people.

The presentation noted figures from the Canadian Energy Research Institute, a collaboration among industry, government and academics, that estimate the oilsands sector is responsible for more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs in Canada, and will contribute more than $1.7 trillion to the country's economy over the next 25 years.

But it warned that Alberta and other parts of Western Canada are facing a steep economic and ecological price tag for failing to crack down on the industry's collateral damage.

Tories unfazed by UN criticism of Attawapiskat

More international embarrassment for Canada. This time it’s from the United Nations, which this week took to task the federal government for its failure to deal with a desperate housing crisis at northern Ontario’s Attawapiskat Indian reserve.

Predictably, Ottawa’s reaction was to shoot the messenger. A government spokesman accused James Anaya, the UN’s special rapporteur on indigenous peoples, of grandstanding.

The government also gleefully pointed out that Anaya directed his query to former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon rather than the current occupant of the post, John Baird. It argued that this shows the UN doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

In fact, given the reality on so many Canadian reserves, the UN official’s statement is mild.

He states the obvious — that conditions at Attawapiskat and many other native communities are “dire.” He expresses the UN’s concern, which is his job. And he asks the Conservative government to comment.

Honesty in politics is the best policy, and so it should be required by law

The recent scandals involving Conservative Cabinet ministers Peter MacKay’s use of a military helicopter for his travel, and John Duncan’s statement that he only heard about problems in Attawapiskat a couple of weeks prior to the story breaking, are yet more examples showing the clear need for an honesty-in-federal-politics law that applies to everyone and allows for complaints by anyone to an independent, non-partisan watchdog agency such as the federal Ethics Commissioner.

Last winter, if the Conservatives had a majority of seats in the House of Commons, they would have stopped the parliamentary process aimed at penalizing Minister Bev Oda for her misleading statements.

During past majority governments, many Cabinet ministers made false statements but no committee held hearings because ruling party MPs controlled the committees and blocked motions by opposition party members for accountability measures.

Similarly, it is very unlikely that MacKay or Duncan will face any penalty for misleading the House, even if the unlikely occurs and their Conservative colleague, House Speaker Andrew Scheer, decides to find them guilty.

In a minority government situation, the process is tainted by partisanship because the Speaker of the House — usually from an opposition party — decides if a Minister or MP is guilty of misleading the House, and opposition MPs decide whether the Minister or MP will be penalized.

Tories may target union haters in next fundraising drive

"There are two things that are important in politics," said Mark Hanna, the bagman for William McKinley's successful 1897 U.S. presidential run. "The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one is."

A key explanation for the recent electoral success of the Conservatives is that they have more dough than their rivals. From 2007 to 2010, they raised $73 million, while the Liberals raised $24 million and the NDP $17.7 million.

Gerry Nicholls, who spent years working side by side with Stephen Harper at the National Citizens Coalition, thinks the party now faces an uphill battle, since they have a majority government.

Nicholls, who is no longer on Harper's Christmas card list, raised money for the NCC for 22 years, writing bushels of letters to wring money out of small-c conservatives across Canada, but especially in the interior of British Columbia, southern Alberta and southwestern Ontario.

To get those donors to reach for their chequebooks, he says the Tories will need a new villain, and says public sector unions "are from central casting."

ORNGE president steps down

The president of ORNGE, Ontario’s air ambulance service, has stepped down.

In an internal memo to staff Thursday morning from ORNGE chair Rainer Beltzner, the publicly funded air ambulance agency announced that president and CEO Dr. Chris Mazza has taken an “indefinite medical leave.”

“The board of directors for ORNGE and ORNGE Global met last night and I am writing to inform all staff that Dr. Mazza will be on indefinite medical leave,” the chair said in his memo to ORNGE employees.

In Mazza’s absence, Tom Lepine (a senior executive) will be interim president of the non-profit ORNGE, and an ORNGE vice-president, Maria Renzella, will be interim president and CEO of ORNGE Global, the for-profit entity.

Mazza and the air service have been under fire recently after the Star revealed high salaries were kept secret from the public and that ORNGE’s Thunder Bay helicopter was frequently unavailable for emergency flights.

Earlier this week Mazza gave a town hall speech to ORNGE employees in which he sounded frustrated that the media did not understand he was trying to make the service better. Mazza, who started his career as an emergency room doctor at Sunnybrook Hospital, created ORNGE in 2005 with the province’s blessing.

No reason was given for the medical leave. Mazza has been unavailable for interviews since the Star began its investigation early this summer.

“I ask that everyone respect his privacy and that of his family during this time,” the chair said in the memo.

Original Article
Source: Star