WHOPPER THURSDAY...

... with their majority freshly minted, the Harper government doesn't even need to use Friday for its 'bad news' dump -- unless there's something worse than admitting deception on fiscal responsibility for the sake of votes?
Who's suppose to have it their way, anyways?

SELECTIVE MESSAGING...

Steady Eddie and blustery Brad weigh in for the home team:


“If it isn’t, then I do think we need a time of stability. I think the government that wins the most seats needs to be able to bring down a budget and get the country moving forward,” said Wall.

These blue tories didn't even listen apparently to the Mansbridge interview before stepping into the cowfield -- perhaps they were using the 'selectively edited' CON talking points edition? They also don't like Westminster parliamentary rules, coalition governments (boo Britain, Australia and Finland!) or Canadian history.
Of course, their blinding support of Stephen Harper's Power At All Costs Tour kind of steps around Harper's own dalliance with 'fewer seats, more power' and Jack and Gilles in 2004.

What's good for the goose is not ducky with the hens, apparently.

DEAD HORSE, MEET STUNNED PARROT...

The Harper CONbots are up in arms twisting in circles and trying to create a controversy over Michael Ignatieff's response to Peter Mansbridge's question on what happens if a minority government is elected on May 2nd.
This is what Ignatieff said...

“[I'd] talk to Mr. Layton, or Mr. Duceppe, or even Mr. Harper, and say, ‘We have an issue, and here’s the plan that I want to put before Parliament, this is the budget I would bring in,’ and then we take it from there.”

... and this is different from this in what way?

If ignorance is what Canadians are when it comes to their own governance, then Stephen Harper has provided the perfect platform. However, it is also obvious that there is someone on the hustings who is only in it for himself, and that person is Stephen Harper.

Which leads us to something completely different...

SOMETHING TO SAY...

Of all the things that I wish had been brought up during last night's english language debate, one specific theme should have had its 2-minutes of talk: Honesty and integrity.
But how would that be massaged into a four-circle bickering match, while making a salient point about the choices Canadians are facing? Well, let's imagine...

IGNATIEFF - Mr. Harper, you continue to talk about the necessity of having a steady hand helping guide the Canadian economy, protecting jobs and creating opportunities.
All these things are part of the Liberal Party platform, and have been accomplished by past Liberal governments.
But when it comes to leadership, I think what you've delivered falls far short of what Canadians deserve. Just yesterday, one of your senior members had to humbly apologize for your government's deliberate choice to take words the auditor general applied to a report on fiscal management -- a report she wrote in 2004 -- and pasted it onto the preliminary discussion on the G-8 summit.
As someone who spoke fervently at one time about accountability, you continue to relegate responsibility to others when you've been found with your fingers in the cookie jar.
So I ask you, sir, will you apologize for this secretive, undemocratic and trust-breaking act you have done?

HARPER: Mr. Ignatieff, the auditor general's report on the G-8 summit remains unreleased, the documents being leaked to the press, as she has suggested, are not representative of her final report ...

IGNATIEFF: I'm sorry sir but you're misleading the Canadian people here. I'm not talking about the auditor general's final report, of which members in your own caucus continue to suggest are known to you.
I'm talking about the report, tabled to a Commons committee, in the final week of Parliament. You stole quotes from Ms. Fraser and made a mockery of integrity, sir. You sent out Stockwell Day to apologize for it, when Mr. Day had nothing to do with it. I can understand, how you -- having been caught already for plagarizing a speech, and avoiding responsibility on that -- would prefer to sweep this under the rug and avoid talking about it. However, you are talking to the Canadian people, or are you just talking to that camera? Here is your chance to show some leadership Mr. Harper, to say what all Canadians understand to be true -- that plagarizing and misleading people about what someone else has said, are wrong? Will you do that?

HARPER: Again, our government has directed its efforts on guiding the economy during tough times and mistakes have been made, when Mr. Ignatieff distracts Canadians with expensive problems, an unnecessary election...

IGNATIEFF: I'm sorry sir, but that doesn't sound like accountability, Mr. Harper, it sounds like denial, that you having something to hide. Great leaders, and Canada has had many, have taken responsibility for their mistakes. They've not a stable of ministers and assistants take the blame for them, like you have. If you refuse to take accountibility for this one act, which sends a seriously wrong message to young and old alike, how can Canadians trust you with the keys to their economy? I must compliment you on your game-playing skills, Mr. Harper. If we were playing a game, I would admire it, however we are talking about leading a country. The Canadian people are not part of a game who you can mislead and misapropriate from, Mr. Harper.

... and I'm sure it would translate into french...

READ BETWEEN THE LINES...

Stephen Harper has been known to say one thing and do another.
He's also tried to dance like Toller Cranston around the intentions of his actions and words of the past.
While I think Canadians are eager to have a new debate on how their health care system has to adapt to meet the changing demands and rising costs, Harper is happy to skirt the issue and just pledge what the other guys are pledging (not to let the other leaders off on a technicality, however they are in opposition and not the current government).

Just in case you've forgotten, here is what so-called leader Stephen Harper has said about Canada's health care system in the past:


"We also support the exploration of alternative ways to deliver health care. Moving toward alternatives, including those provided by the private sector, is a natural development of our health care system."

- Stephen Harper, Toronto Star, October 2002.



"It's past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."

- Stephen Harper, then Vice-President of the National Citizens Coalition, 1997.



"What we clearly need is experimentation with market reforms and private delivery options [in health care]."

- Stephen Harper, then President of the NCC, 2001.



"I know this is a dangerous subject. My advisors say don't talk about it, but the fact is sometimes provinces have allowed in the past few years, they've brought in private services covered by public health insurance... Why do I care and why do we care as a federal government how they're managed? What we care about is whether people can access them. This is just an ideological agenda."

- Conservative leader Stephen Harper at the leadership debate, June 15th 2004, conceding that he shouldn't talk about his positive view of privatization of health care.

CHAPTER 421 IN HARPOCRISY...

... The Chicken is trying to turn the page after he turned the other cheek and ran.
He laughingly tries to blame the per-vote subsidy in putting parliament on a regular election cycle.
That downplays the role of his own party, under Stephen Harper's own watch, that began with regular stunt bluster in calling everything a confidence motion, then launched into out-of-election advertising ad nauseum, which has resulted in the lead he holds today. Yep, no argument here, advertising when done slickly and abundantly, does work. At CON central tho, truth plays no factor.
He says parties are bankrolled for an election almost immediately following an election due to the Chretien implemented per-vote subsidy. As someone who's involved with local riding politics, I know for a fact that the rebates for the per-vote subsidy typically take two years to arrive. Another Harper lie.
That being said, I do agree that the per-vote subsidy should be tinkered with, even democratized.
If each ballot had another check box, this time at the bottom -- requesting the voter if they wished a $2 subsidy to go to the party of their choice -- it would enable those who don't like the subsidy to have their way. Also, there should be a proportional element that rewards parties that run more candidates; one-province parties should not receive the same amount of subsidy per-vote as a party that runs candidates (and meets the 5% threshhold) in 250+ ridings. Ring up the subsidy in 1/4s - 1/4 if you run candidates in 78 ridings or less; 1/2 of the amount if you run candidates in 156 ridings or under, etc.

JUST ANOTHER 'BUYING OPPORTUNITY'?

The whole Bruce Carson scandal says so much about Stephen Harper.
One of Harper's closest advisors -- a man who earned the nickname 'the mechanic' for being able to move into a department on Harper's sayso and 'fix' things -- had taken hold of a scheme to sell First Nations groups with serious water issues, while making his escort/fiancee a whole lot richer in the process.
Carson, who had been working for government on the environmental file not long ago, also was linked to Big Oil through an appointment to the University of Calgary's Canada School of Energy and the Environment. In northern Alberta, what is one of the biggest factors in undrinkable water? Oil.
Most importantly is the question why water is being continually treated as a saleable commodity over its use for citizens.
I hope all parties come out and make this one of their main campaign promises: Drinking water is a critical resource and will be established as an unassailable right for all Canadians.

READY, SET...

While they accuse the opposition of being too eager for an election, this arrived in my mailbox 11:12 a.m. pst...

Faux outrage is quaint. Good luck getting this candidate (or 303 other CON candidates, for that matter) to a debate or public meet and greet.

Go Read This...

... because it's a scintillating read.
Of course, in Stephen Harper's world, forged documents are not unlike faked tapes, plagarized speeches, doctored documents, non-compliant accountability and baldfaced lies.
Bloggers like Curiousity Cat, Impolitical and FarnWide continue to lead the way.

NO KIDDING, EINSTEIN...

Jim Flaherty to Peter Mansbridge after delivering his budget:
"This isn't Paul Martin."
After wiping the Canadian taxpayers for $40.5-Billion deficit in 2010, after a $55B one in 2009 (and spending the cupboard bare in 2008 BEFORE the economic downturn), Jimbo finally calls one right.
You sir are no Paul Martin.

But give the Stephen Harper CONservative government kudos on one thing -- they sure know how to create a pot of chicken soup. Too bad it isn't edible.

SCOUNDRELS AND BLACK HEARTS...

It's been obvious for a long time that the 'new' CONservative party knows no bounds when it comes to stooping.
They've changed the parameters of politics -- it's all about the win, and rules and honour are for whiners.
Their latest attack on Michael Ignatieff is again part of their modification of history, where they get to tell someone else's story. However, their latest launch is an incredibly new low -- attacking the dead relatives of the leader of the opposition.
For those who worry about the state of our country and the tenor of our nation's current leadership, every new gamesmanship strategy from Harper is a confirmation of what is wrong within our community. Non accountable, without ethics or moral compass, Stephen Harper's war machine will continue to salt the political landscape until people with backbone stand up, speak up and demand facts and reality as opposed to whispers, malicious lies and innuendo.
Do we really deserve that kind of governance?

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE...

... You don't suppose the fact that a TV station was doing an investigative piece on the scummy buddy of Stephen Harper had anything to do with said so-called leader tossing his buddy under the bus, or at least to the bushes where his other buddy, Mr. Grumpy Pants Elliott, could 'speed things up', do you?
Check into Bruce Carson's background and you'll see he didn't suddenly become an unethical sleazy bastard overnight. He was fine as a confidante/advisor until the heat and election drive got tangled up in blue.

HARPER'S NUCLEAR SECRET...

Stephen Harper's boast of Canada being the new energy superpower was just one more of those fake channel changers, ie Northern Star... or was it?
While we all watch with horror, compassion and empathy at what's happening in Japan, we should be reminded that our own so-called leader was (is?) eager to plant Canada's energy future in the nuclear camp.
He's tried to tie his faux environmental plan (a plan that must include mermaids and unicorns, because all of them have the same basis in reality) to a nuclear 'strategy'.
Impolitical has treaded this topic well, here and here.
Harper's abject interest in reducing public oversight, breaking down a publicly owned corporation and selling it piecemeal to likely Harper-friendly big business stirred up some concern. But it's been well hidden and nearly forgotten.
Let's remind ourselves that Stephen Harper's central focus is reducing public investment in areas where he deems it 'competition' to his friends, to eliminate the government's ability to provide safeguards and checks and balances, and let industry police itself.
Oh, no doubt Harper's next spiel about 'nuclear' will be in that sweater voice, expressing caution while placating his allies with deep pockets. It's like handing out 0-down, 40-year mortgages in one sentence, then bemoaning the level of debt Canadians carry.
We don't need to hear his psychic dresser tell us where that could end up, do we?

SIGN OF ROUGH SEAS AHEAD?

...as the rats start to leave?
No doubt the Stephen Harper CONs will be able to find potted plants in these ridings to run (and win), but the signal's pretty clear.
Exit while the getting's good.

One more chance to flash back to one of Day's worse performances as a lying CON...

NEW STORY, SAME OLD LINE...

Stephen Harper says that the $530,000 buyout was the quickest and most efficient way to extricate disgraced integrity commissioner Christiane Ouimet from her position.
The person the Harper regime put in place to oversee whistleblowers and watch over the ongoings of governmental departments had proven to be a colossal failure and drain on the department's resources -- unless of course you're the self-satisfied Prime Minister of a government with lots to hide.
It's bad enough when the odd leak gets out -- all governments know that -- so the occasional William Elliott situation or stompin' mad performance from the soon-to-be senator for Millhaven may create a bad impression on Stephen Harper, he of the carefully, psychic-guided image issue.
So, along with the free pile of taxpayers money is what is now guaranteed CONservative policy: a confidentiality agreement.
Nice to see Stephen Harper takes care of his own.
Could he at least do it with his own money for once?

WHO'S MINDING THE STORE...

Of course, when the higher-ups are busy forging documents, making 'financial offers' to dying MPs for their vote, and busy misleading parliament and the people of Canada, should we even ask?
From the CP:
OTTAWA — Conservative staffers with minds of their own or speed-bumps under the wheels of Tory re-election buses?

The resignation of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's director of multicultural affairs added another name to the lengthy list of Conservative aides who have quit over stumbles, blunders or scandals.

Kasra Nejatian resigned last week after his name appeared on a party fundraising letter sent on Kenney's parliamentary letterhead. Kenney said Nejatian disobeyed his explicit instructions not to do partisan work at the ministerial office.

Nejatian is not alone. Since the Tories took power in 2006, at least a half-dozen staff have taken the blame for controversial actions they say were completely their own.

Half of those resignations occurred since the Conservatives announced that ministers would be accountable for the actions of their staff.

"There is a clear case to be made that the accountability of political staff ought to be satisfied through ministers," former House Leader Jay Hill told the Commons last May.

"Ministers ran for office and accepted the role and responsibility of being a minister. Staff did not."
I guess we can just chalk it up to more unreported criminal activity in Harperland.

TAKE THAT, LESS FORTUNATE...

A House of Commons human resources committee took three years to come up with 58 recommendations that Ottawa could utilize to fight poverty in Canada.
Guess who's not interested?
Stephen Harper's CONservative government, that's who. It's because Harper and sadsack minister/future jailbird wife Diane Finley have their own plans for the less fortunate of the land.
It involves prorogued promises, mega prisons for those practitioners of unreported crimes, and something extra -- courtesy of the Canadian taxpayers -- for those who take care of themselves first.
And if it's a job the poor are looking for, there's a position open in the PMO office: Wanted, stooge able to look guilty on command and able to take the hit when the $#!% hits the fan...

Oh, and those pesky stats that help both public and private groups research and reach out to those in poverty? Well, while they may be perfectly fine for assisting CON ministers in devising ways to scam the public for funding partisan ventures and misrepresenting government business, Stephen Harper has found a way to avoid having to answer to other 'special interest groups' like the poor, underrepresented and ungrateful.
But how about that cake, eh?

GOOD FOR THE GOOSE...

Here it is in a nutshell.
While he can make the law, Stephen Harper isn't above it, despite what he wants you to think.
Unless he makes forgery and stealing legal.

RETAIL POLITICS

Naturally, Jason Kenney has a flunky to fall on his sword, just as Stephen Harper has one at the ready for any missteps.
Why wouldn't Harper try to ply his lies in other languages, too?
That Kenney's parliamentary secretary accidentally let the lid off the CONs latest swindle -- that's what you call it when the government uses public finances and machinery to lure in votes -- shouldn't surprise anyone. If anything, that has been the hallmark of Canada's New, er, the Stephen Harper Government.
Pitch, pitch pitch, and make sure the people know who's pitching. That credo has been used by previous Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, too.
But there's a big difference in today's new world -- where programs and policy take a backseat to the partisan appeal.
It was revealed in the blatant cheque photo ops, in the corporate copying of Canada's Olympic logo, and in the minutia of every day governing. However, the budget-pinched world of the media, especially at the community level, hasn't had the power, inclination or heart to look into how their own Harper drones are milking the system.
Case in point -- Senator Yonah Martin. Here's a failed CON candidate, a political neophyte whose main task, if you can find her schedule and see her at work, is to troll for ethnic votes. Often at the lapel of Jason Kenney.
What has her contribution been to the senate, to the legislation that is supposedly getting sober second thoughts from her and her clones?
Harper is happy to keep us all in the dark -- and while the press give us Charlie Sheen schaudenfraude by the bucketload, it seems the truth will only surface when Harper's minions screw up.
Thankfully, there appears to be no shortage of Harper aides to throw under the bus.

FISH ROTS...

At the head of the CONservative party, your crimes are not their crimes.
Up is down. Right is wrong. Bad is good.
Stephen Harper made it so.
Now, the party that lied about standing for accountability and ethics has been slapped down once more for its scheme that would bilk Canadian taxpayers of over $800,000 that they eagerly wanted to stuff into their overflowing pockets.
Receipts that appear doctored.
Shock! -- Not.
Stephen Harper, he of the plagarized speech, of the entrapment 'Grewal tape', the man who OK'd an offer to a dying MP in exchange of his vote - now slyly defending his party's right to forge documents. A man of many broken promises who never saw a downed rival who he wouldn't kick.
His agents in the in-and-out falsified invoices threatened to lean heavily on their own Conservative people who stopped to question this scheme.
Yes, that guy.
Sure, there's the smoke-screen defence put up by No. 1 thug, the Rgt. Hon. Senator from Millhaven that Harper knew nothing of this scheme... Sgt. Schultz couldn't have said it better.
Liberals are right to state that the In-and-Out scandal is about character -- at the top.
Lack of it seems to be the next conclusion.

USUAL SUSPECTS...

Looks who's being charged for 'allegedly' breaking Canadian election laws?
Take a good look at goon No. 1 -- your honourable senator for Ontario (Millhaven?)... No doubt his senatorial bio reads: Doug loves curling up with a good bundle of election spending declaration forms and using them as napkins for his double-Doublicious.

Prior to his 'elevation into the chamber of sober second thought', Mr. Finley was rumoured to be the brains behind a new but ultimately unsuccessful plan to boost an MP's benefit package...

Two Stephen Harper bagman-appointees to the senate, facing charges for breaking election laws? Where did I see that before? Hmmm, it seems the psychic-led emperor has had previous problems with election laws...
Well, if it's good enough for the King, it's good enough for his Sir Guy of Gisbourne...

Now here's a classic that never gets old...

HARPER'S FEAR FACTOR...

It seems Stephen Harper's central plank in getting a majority is fear.
He and his CONservative party have played the 'be scared, very scared!' card for a long time, while using it as a whip for both his followers and the not-so-nimble opposition.
His plan to imprison more Canadians -- and not just the unreported criminals of unreported crimes! -- has raised some interesting concerns from the Congregations of Christian Churches across Canada.
Using facts and actual studies, as opposed to Harper's lies and intestinal self-interests, the Church Council on Justice and Corrections are asking Harper to reconsider his expensive, both fiscally and socially, plan to ramp up jail times for non-violent offences:

“We are trying to educate the public and the people in our churches about this,” said Lorraine Berzins, co-ordinator of analysis for the CCJC, who worked in Canada’s federal penitentiaries for 14 years. “It goes so much against all the evidence about what keeps communities safe, and it does so much harm, and they are going to spend so much money, that it’s really surprising that there isn’t more opposition.”

A BOOK ON A GREAT CANADIAN...

... who was once one of the top leading men in Hollywood.
I'm an easy touch for classic films and their stars.
Although Glenn Ford passed away in 2006, failing health and a decision to retire in seclusion meant the Quebec City-born actor had long fallen off the radar of most filmgoers.
If you consider yourself a serious film fan, titles like Gilda, 3:10 to Yuma, Blackboard Jungle, The Big Heat, The Fastest Gun Alive, Pocketful of Miracles, The Sheepman, The Courtship of Eddie's Father and Experiment in Terror, to name just a few of his 107 film and TV credits, will stir a memory or two.
After nearly 10 years in the making, son Peter Ford will be releasing a biography on his father that is expected to straighten out some of the publicity-mill myths that were repeated as fact for many years. Glenn Ford's story starts as the only son of a railway employee (his mother escaped a burning building days before his birth), the family's migration to southern California, and his rise to starring in movies alongside Bette Davis, Fredric March, buddy William Holden and favourite leading lady Rita Hayworth. Married to Hollywood sweetheart Eleanor Powell, who at the time was a star who's film credits dwarfed those of her husband, Ford's career caught fire after returning from a stint in the U.S. Marines on the back of film noir masterpiece Gilda. From that point on, he was among Hollywood's top-10 male stars for nearly 20 years, and remained a 'name' on any film that attracted attention right into the 1980s.
One of his briefest cameos was a touching performance in Richard Donner's Superman, where he played Pa Kent.
Will the book correct stories about Ford's war record, his romances, and tidbits like being related to John A. Macdonald? All I can say is, from a dinner I had with the author and his-then collaborator Christopher Nickens in 2004, separating fiction from fact was a main goal. Even if some of the more 'glorious' pieces of publicity were subtracted from Ford's bio, it still promised to be very enticing for a film fan like myself. Here's hoping.
I've already ordered my copy, which is due out later this spring.

THE PLAYER PIANO MAN...

... or just more broken promises from the man who wasn't, Stephen Harper.
Apparently, people who believe the CONservatives were earnest about getting things done for Canadians on the fighting crime front were just as duped as those who bought the 'economic stewardship' from the faux economist who in mid-2008 said "if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now."
On the 'make sure there are more police officers on the streets' front, it's been one dodge after another. When Harper isn't sending his attack dogs to call police chiefs "a cult" for saying the long gun registry was a useful tool in fighting crime, he's cancelling the 'high priority' crime bills so he can recalibrate the national anthem.
Who said he had to pay for that promise -- after paying for all the partisan 10-percenters, the secret focus groups, the larger cabinet, and keeping his psychic dresser in crystal balls?

TACTICAL SHAME...

Stephen Harper is considered by many to be a genius. Sure, an evil genius by many, but smarter than the average bear by most.
Very few people have come out and described him as compassionate and reasoned. If there is no political gain for doing something, he'd just as soon wait, growl, snap his whip at his underlings, and let silence reign.
Another piece of evidence to that theory was the government of Canada's decision to ban six phthalates this week, chemical additives to soft plastic toys that have been considered by many nations for a long time to be a hazard to children.
Harper has been Prime Minister since January of 2006.
The European Union has had phthalates banned since 1999. The U.S. banned them two years ago. Being no friend of science nor scientific evidence, Harper has held onto the decision to follow suit for at least two years -- if we're to assume that his boast on 'waiting for the US to set policy', as in the environment, military and softwood lumber precedents.
He's trotted out this 'action' at a time when the heat and headlines are beginning to put him and his inactive government under some scrutiny. Harper's track record of getting legislation through the House and into the books has been abysmal, no small part due to his unwillingness to cooperate with his rivals in a minority parliament, and his addiction to prorogation. Lester Pearson's government showed us what kind of action could be done under similar circumstances.
This is not the first time that some 'important issue' was held back until a more beneficial release date -- that 'red tape commission' is the most recent joke he's thrown at Canadians. His penchant for only acting when it serves his party and person has become a black hole on our governance.
Time to remove the spot.

PROPHETIC PHOOLS...

... So the men who brought us Zero-percent down, 40-year mortgages is now prepared to run through the theatre lobby with his hair afire?
"Ottawa to tighten mortgage rules" so says G&M.
Did someone just clue the economic clueless duo that Canadian taxpayers are on the hook if CMHC's floor falls? What's another concrete belief for Harper if he can't blow it up and do a 180-degree turn, right?
I'm not disagreeing with the latest move, however the experts I've been reading have been clamouring for this for nearly two years now. It is to laugh when the plagarist and faux economist starts nagging Canadians about their debt-load, and to see the so-called leader then open the taps to build gazebos and fake lakes and weekly focus groups on how to demonize the opposition.
Now that we're at the top of the rollercoaster, I dare say it's a fool who expects it to stop to let him off.
Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty, making it up as they go along...

WHERE DOES IT END...

Is this what happens when the leaders of one partisan political group fire up their supporters into hatred?
I'm sending my prayers for the victims, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The early stories suggest it was an opponent of Obama's health care program that entered a shopping centre in Tucson, killing six including a nine-year-old girl, and injured a dozen others.
Should I hold my breath for FOX News' talking heads to apologize for leading in stirring up the debate with their lies and fearmongering, or just rely upon them to attempt to turn this tragedy on its head and turn it into more fuel?
Here in Canada, there are plenty who are expecting hatred and irrational anger to lead them to the promised land. That one of their staple tenets is against gun control doesn't help in the feeling that this could happen here, too.

LAME DUCK MINISTER...

Meet the new guy, same as the old guy. In other words, Peter Kent will get to put his 'anchorman' skills to the test as Stephen Harper's newest carny player, er environment minister. Will it be the door to Kent's assension to corporate windfall, or as a role in the bobblehead choir, or lead him to the higher calling of being Harper's pit bull in training?
Just don't expect anything but rote reading of the action of others, how that's good/bad and Canada will follow it's own/the US decision someday soon.