Back on February 28th, the day Canada’s mens team won hockey gold, a couple of Canadians down in La Quinta, California decided it would be fun to celebrate the Canadian win by hiking up a steep mountain, taking down an American flag and replacing it with a Canadian flag.

Local police have tracked down the two suspects and have asked their local district attorney to lay misdemeanour vandalism and flag desecration charges against them. When the owner of the flag’s son when up in early March to swap the two flags, he discovered the American flag had been torn apart and buried under some rocks.

Adding insult to injury, the flag has been flying at this location in honour of those killed in 9/11 which also includes 24 Canadians. The local Walmart donates a new flag every six months to keep the flag in good shape.

Personally, I think those two should be charged. I think it is great the Americans have a charge specifically for desecrating flags, Canada would be wise to adopt one. Should fit right in with Harper’s ‘tough on crime’ campaign. But I digress.

Well Canadians have been more willing to wave the flag in the last several years, we often do so without a lot of thought to what that flag represents. It is not just our country but all those who have gone before it to uphold and preserve our freedoms. The Americans understand that fact and take it very seriously.

Those two guys could have found a lot of other ways to show their pride in their Olympic hockey team than than rubbing salt in a very raw wound. They seem to have forgotten, Canadian soldiers are fighting and dying today in Afghanistan as the result of 9/11.

Seems they need a serious lesson in respect.

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Ignatieff has moved to change the people around him. Ian Davey has been replaced by Peter Donolo as Chief of Staff. Donolo is best known for shepherding former Prime Minister Jean Chretien through his dark days as an underdog Liberal leader.

I see the move as being smart on Ignatieff’s part. It is taking him some time to learn but he is learning how much he needs substance and experience over friendship and loyalty in the circle around him. It has been apparent for some time now that he has been floundering as he listened to those around him. Those around him were clearly drawing on their lack of experience.

Having said that, one task the Liberals have accomplished is they have truly started to be the Official Opposition instead of propping up the government at every turn. That job has fallen to the socialists (NDP) and the separatists (Bloc).

With the Conservatives going after Layton and blaming him for the protestors which took over the visitors gallery in the House of Commons earlier this week, it makes me wonder how much crap the NDP will take before they decide it is time to bring Harper down. Although, he’ll need to think long and hard before bringing him down as that may be exactly what Harper is after considering that the polls are looking in his favour right now.

Donolo’s arrival in the Liberal leader’s office may leave Harper wanting an election sooner than later before Donolo has a chance to start turning those polling numbers around. There is hope for getting rid of this government yet.

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The Canadian Federation of Municipalities passed a resolution at its meeting in Whistler, BC to shut out US firms from their municipal contracts in response to the Americans doing the same. The resolution is not binding on all municipalities and I personally would have preferred to see a “Buy Canadian” resolution.

The resolution is a response to US municipalities taking on a Buy American approach to their local acquisitions. The Americans do so largely because they have enough confidence in their own abilities and independence to believe they can look inward and thrive. They likely can in reality look inward and manage to survive but not necessarily thrive.

In order for Americans to learn that lesson, other municipalities, especially where their policies have killed jobs and businesses, need to return the favour and refuse to allow American firms to tender on local projects.

Canada needs to have enough guts and confidence in our own business people to support them when they are being denied access to foreign markets.

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A third nanny is claiming that Ruby Dhalla and her family hired her to work illegally and then proceeded to overwork her. Specifically, this one claims Dhalla’s mother did most of the overworking her. The same mother who while needing a nanny to care for her manages to use Dhalla’s flying privileges as an MP to travel to various places around the world.

Ruby Dhalla, having resigned her critics position, has now asked the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner to examine her role and decide if she has done anything wrong. The Immigration Committee is calling her accusers to appear before them to testify about their alleged abuse. All very nice, good feed for the media but nothing of any substance.

If Ruby Dhalla is truly determined to restore her reputation and clear her name, she needs to call in the RCMP and invite them to investigate if she has broken any laws. If she can come out of their investigation without facing some jail time, then she will have restored her name.

One of the problems with asking the Ethics Commissioner to examine her actions is that the request first has to be examine to determine if the Ethics Commissioner has jurisdiction. If she doesn’t then she has to decline to act which will allow Dhalla to trumpet that she has been vindicated. The public will swallow that without noticing that she hasn’t been vindicated, just that the buck needs to be moved to the more appropriate venue, a police investigation — or whoever has the power to investigate and prosecute violations of immigration law, labour law and human rights abuses.

Never mind the feeding frenzy, let’s see this properly examined and ruled on.

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I’m going to say at the outset, I’m a firm believer in a terminally ill person’s right to die with dignity. My personal standard is that the quality of life will have deteriorated to a point that the person is unlikely to enjoy any improvement in what will be an inevitable death. There is room to argue about what defines ‘quality of life’, that for the most part would have to be determined by the person suffering through the illness.

A Vancouver woman, who is otherwise in good health, wants to die alongside her husband. She says that her life would be unliveable without her husband. Her husband is dying from heart disease. I’ve been down that particular path, the spouse of a man dying of heart disease. Twenty years ago in August my husband succumbed.

The wife will suffer from grief but that is not a terminal illness for most people. Life will be different, it might not even seem as good but it will continue. Good grief lasts two years and bad grief a lifetime. Presumably, the lady will have the love and support of her two daughters, maybe even some grandchildren.

To me, choosing to end your life because your partner dies is going way too far when it comes to dying with dignity. I can’t begin to imagine what my life would be like if several people who I know and love were no longer around. I couldn’t imagine my life without my husband at the time. You know what? It went on, it wasn’t easy but it went on.

Because it went on for better or worse, I have continued to meet and enjoy the company of some wonderful people in my life. My home doesn’t have two legged companions in it but I enjoy the company of 3 four legged ones.

We may not want to deal with grief and loss but it is pretty much a required part of living. To allow anyone to opt out of that is to opt out of our respect for life. At some point in the whole death with dignity debate limits have to be set and maintained or it turns into no respect for life — our own or others.

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The e-Justice Blog has posted a very interesting piece about Google and what they know about you. You may be very surprised to learn just how much of a profile they can put together about us.

The blog lists 25 pieces of information Google can access about us some without our knowledge. In these days of increasing concerns about online privacy, you need to be aware of as much as possible about who can find what about you.

Items Google can collect include:

• your financial informaton
• what blogs you read
• who and what you are emailing
• what’s on your computer
• your research paper, upcoming blog posts, bills etc
• where you are even without using Google Lattitude
• your problems
• your medical issues
• and more…

Check out the complete article for an eye opener about how transparent you can be online. Some of those items can be avoided by being careful, others are the nature of the beast.

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After weeks of there being just a bit of a semblance that maybe the boys and girls on Parliament Hill were capable of playing nice and getting the business of government done — someone let the other Harper out of his cage. Mayhem threatens, again.

Is Harper completely clueless or does he just prefer to negotiate with a baseball bat? He gained the conditional support of the Liberals to get his budget through the House, a support that can be pulled at just about any time. One would think he’d move to show some respect for the Opposition and them doing their jobs by trying to reach out to get other things through.

He managed to do so when his government hung by a thread…. oh wait, first he ran to the Governor General to prorogue Parliament. The signs have been there in the last 2-3 weeks when his pet bulldog Flaherty was making demands of the Opposition to pass measures immediately, without further debate. The ‘tude showed up in all it’s glory yesterday when Harper demanded that MPs pass an interim supply bill which includes a $3billion fund to be passed out by departments as ‘stimulous’ projects and bypass the usual approval process.

Just the day before, Flaherty admitted that there would be foul ups in getting the stimulous funds out and then proceeds to make sure this comes true in technicolour. I can understand and in fact expect that the Opposition should do their jobs and question strongly the wisdom in this fools errand. The last time we had a slush fund around the Hill… it became a sponsorship scandal. Oh my, isn’t that what Harper brought Martin down over?

Harper opinions that the Opposition has no say as he considers them as having nothing to contribute to this economy. He could have a point since it was Harper who burned through the surplus he inherited from the Liberals. Having said that, it is the government’s job to come up with the ideas and to earn the approval of the Opposition when in a minority position. That is what debate is for.

There are lots of reasons for red flags to go flying high and fast on this move. Let’s start with the Conservative claim that they will report to Parliament on where the money went after the fact. That sounds all well and good were it not following on the report from the Information Commissioner that this government is the worse in recent memory for access to information.

Harper campaigned in 2006 on openness in government, promising to make government open and accountable. He’s been neither, leading the most secretive government in modern history. The Opposition and most certainly the Canadian people have no reason to believe that they will get full disclosure of where the money was spent when the government has repeatedly gone to great lengths to avoid access to information.

Another issue which has been raising its head all too often lately is the complaints of favouritism toward ridings which are Tory blue over those where Opposition MPs were elected. One of the most examples was the Native Reserve unable to get approval for a new school until after the Tories won the riding in October. If it walks like a duck….It will only be after the fact that the Opposition can go after this favouritism should the Tories go down that path.

I don’t believe the Opposition should do any foot dragging just because the Tories are good at it, nor do I believe that Harper has any call to demand the Opposition abdicate their responsibilities. They were not the ones who had Parliament sitting on their hands for 6-8 weeks in order to save Harper’s butt.

I very clearly disagree with Harper threatening an election over the Opposition doing their job and insisting on appropriate oversight. However, the Liberals suggesting that June could be soon enough to see if there is any benefit from the Conservative stimulus package is foolhardy. Unless the Liberals want to be seen as trying to be opportunist and playing politics in the midst of an economic meltdown, they had better be prepared to be watching closely until at least September before they even think about an election over the stimulus package.

Expecting measurable results by June is a little like sending a row boat to turn the QE2 and expecting it done in 20 minutes. We need leadership not political brinkmanship.

So, what do you think? Can the boys and girls on the Hill ever learn to play nice? Is there a leader among them?

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Barak Obama arrives in Ottawa today for his first foreign visit since taking office in January. Ottawa is the traditional stop for new presidents, although his predecessor chose to visit Mexico first. While the visit is for the most party barely registering on the American media, the Canadian media seems to be going gaga over the arrival.

Obama will be in the nation’s capital a mere 6 hours or so and is not expected to appear in public. Security will be massive, crowds are expected to be large on the hill as people gather in the hope of catching a glimpse of him.

He’ll be greeted at the airport by Governor-General Michaelle Jean with little pomp and ceremony. From there he’ll travel to the Hill for a private meeting with Harper, talks with various government officials, a working lunch in the Senate speakers suite before being returned to the airport where he’ll have a brief meeting with Ignatieff before boarding Air Force One to be back in Washington in time for supper with Michelle.

Much speculation has taken place about what the two leaders will talk about. Officially, the main subjects appear to be the economy, Afghanistan and the environment. Nothing monumental is expected to come out of the talks. Visits like this are generally get to know you type trips.

For the media, these encounters are rift with speculation and attempts to read nuance into every move that occurs or doesn’t occur. The airport meeting with Ignatieff has drawn considerable comment both from the media and others. It is traditional for the leader of the Official Opposition to meet with visiting heads of state.

Ignatieff’s office is a floor above where Obama will be yet the PMO has put the meeting at the airport claiming it is the wishes of the American protocal people. Yeah right, and there will be two moons in the sky tonight. It doesn’t take much to figure out that Harper wants the optics to be the meeting is an ‘addon’ rather than an expected part of the event.

Had Martin done that to Harper when his buddy Bush arrived in Canada, there would have been hell to pay. But then Martin has class and Harper has demonstrated repeatedly, he lacks that gift. Speaking of which, I hope that Obama manages to find some semblance of personality in our rather dour PM.

Maybe he’ll wear a blue sweater cardigan for the occasion to warm him up a bit.

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