Weekend News

1. The latest Ipsos poll has Canadians warming to Stephen Harper. OK, so they may not yet feel about him the way Ellen DeGeneres feels about homeless puppies, but it's getting there. 58% of Canadians want a majority government and 58% of those want a Tory majority. Which means Harper is looking at a pretty solid base of 34% of people who want a Tory majority.


2. Mario Silva has proposed a national "Pierre Elliot Trudeau" holiday to celebrate Xavier Trudeau's birthday. In the words of UWHabs "I just can't wait to see the PET Day parade in downtown Calgary".


3. Although it doesn't look like we'll get a crime election, I do kind of miss the prospect of the inevitable "child pornography moment" it would be sure to generate.

"If they have a problem with the area on dangerous offenders, and that's the hill they want to die on, standing up for dangerous offenders in this country, that's their decision," Nicholson told reporters.


4. The PQ is proposing a bill that would prevent non-French speakers from running in elections or donating to political parties:

Under the proposed law, immigrants who can't speak proper French after an appropriate apprenticeship in provincially funded language courses would be forbidden from running for election in provincial and municipal elections as well as those for school boards.

PQ Leader Pauline Marois said she sees the measure as "normal.''

Normal? Well, for South Africa, maybe. But to deny someone the right to run for School Board trustee on the West Island because they can't speak French? This is absolutely insane.

Crime, Crime, Everywhere a Crime

Stephen Harper's new New Government appears to have survived the throne speech so its next test will be on an omnibus crime bill - most of it being composed of legislation sent to parliamentary purgatory this spring. It will be a matter of confidence which seems fair enough to me, given the size of it and the fact that it's one of the original "five priorities" that still hasn't come to pass (fun fact - "The 5 Priorities" is also the name of Stephen Harper's garage band).

Among the proposed highlights:

-tougher sentences on gun crimes (NDP has pushed for this before)
-raising age of sexual consent to 16
-higher penalties for impaired driving
-reverse onus for repeat offenders of violent crimes
-dealth penalty for anyone who doesn't pay back their leadership debt in time (that one is just speculation on my part)

Now, I do think there's a chance the NDP or Bloc might decide to support this legislation, but let's assume they don't for a minute. That leaves Stephane Dion in the unenviable position of, yet again, having to give Harper a de-facto majority or of triggering an election.

And while I think a lot of experts would agree that there are some very bad and very unnecessary proposals here, at the end of the day, this is politics. And there's enough popular policy in here that I don't think this is the hill Dion wants to die on. If he was debating this legislation against Harper in front of a law class, he'd probably win (well, at least a french law class). But explaining to Canadians why you don't want to get tough on drunk drivers and gun crimes? That's a bit harder to sell.

So this one probably falls into the "live to fight another day" category. I would advise the Liberals to let this one through and I suspect they likely will.