Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Last week’s Globe carried a story with the headline "Politician’s promises not set in stone, court says".  The Canadian Taxpayers Federation took Dalton McGuinty to court over a broken promise.  In a much publicized media event during his campaign, McGuinty promised not to raise taxes, and then promptly jacked up taxes when he got into power.  The court said that campaign promises couldn’t be construed as a legally binding contract.

The judge wrote "anyone who believes a campaign promise is naive about the democratic system", and "Imposing a duty of care in the circumstances such as exist in the present case would have a chilling effect and would interfere with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty."

By this reasoning, elections are a total farce. Democracy is reduced to a parade of empty promises, foisted on a gullible public by politicians in search of a steady job. Why wouldn’t the electorate, either in a fit of cynicism or stupidity, vote themselves bread and circuses?

Here’s a thought experiment for us all.  What if there were a penalty for failing to live up to campaign promises? What if, like the hit TV show "The Apprentice", the penalty for failing to live up to a substantial percentage of election promises was that the leader of the party in power was ineligible to run in the next election?

Dalton McGuinty - YOU’RE FIRED!

I retired the Motorola MPx200 last week.  As much as I loved this phone, the radio was an 1800/1900 unit, and completely impractical in Ottawa.  Reception was always spotty, and battery minimal as the poor thing valiantly tried to keep a signal alive by increasing the gain on the radio.

I replaced it with a Blackberry 7290.  This quad band unit has great reception, great battery life, and can do email too!  So far, I like it a lot.

I also grabbed a Motorola HS-820 headset, and a D-Link DBT-120 bluetooth interface for my PC.  Both are a little tricky to set up (I highly recommend a visit to support.dlink.com to read the Windows XP SP 2 directions), but the end result is excellent.  Sound quality is very high, and the HS-820 is so light and comfortable that you almost don’t notice that you’re wearing it.

Cutting the cord eliminates one of my biggest complaints with PC telephony - the cord. I can now roam wirelessly around my office chatting on Skype, or a SIP softphone.  Similarly, I can be up to 30 feet away from my cell phone and answer it.  

A report in the Ottawa Citizen this morning claims that gay marriage opponents in the United States are funnelling massive dollars into Canada. It’s illegal for Canadian lobbyists (or any foreign lobbyist, for that matter) to spend money to influence the vote in the US, but it’s not illegal in our country for US lobbyists to spend money to influence our politicians. 

The Citizen’s report is behind their firewall, unfortunately, but according to the paper:

U.S. groups say they will spend whatever it takes to ensure same-sex marriage does not become legal north of the border.

Patrick Korten, vice-president of communications for the Knights of Columbus head office in New Haven, Connecticut, says no limit has been set on the help his organization is prepared to offer. Mr. Korten said the U.S. headquarters of the Catholic men’s group paid $80,782 Cdn to print two million postcards now being distributed in Catholic churches across Canada

Focus on the Family, is also sending support and services worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to its Canadian affiliate. Focus on the Family U.S. has channelled $1.6 million in services to its Canadian affiliate between 2000 and 2003, the latest year for which financial reports are available.

To put that in perspective, Egale, the Canadian gay rights lobby group, has so far raised just $46,000.

This is just plain offensive.  We deserve the breathing room to make up our own minds on this issue.   Please go to http://vote4equality.ca and let your member of parliament know that you support equality.