About that National Post op-ed…

A few days ago, the esteemed Kelly McParland of the National Post published a piece on the Post’s online group blog Full Comment on the Quebec student protests and education boycott.

He included this paragraph,

[The York Federation of Students’ (and various leftwing groups’)] petition, posted on the website of Stephen Taylor, director of the National Citizens Coalition, heaps praise on the efforts of the small minority of Quebec post-secondary students who managed to disrupt the final weeks of the school year through a program of street violence and intimidation.

I read the piece on Full Comment at the time and it didn’t strike me as odd or out of place. But then again, I know my position on the student protests and McParland does too as he published my own op-ed in Full Comment on the Quebec student protests and how Charest would do well to polarize against them. In fact, McParland has been nothing but fair to me and, as you can see, has been good enough to me to encourage my own contributions.

Yet, the piece ran in print today and boy, did we get letters at the National Citizens Coalition! Are we in favour of the student demonstrations in Quebec? Have we donned red squares and joined the riots? Have we lost our good conservative minds?

No, no, and no.

It is the petition that I uncovered that heaps praise on the protesters. It of course heaps praise upon them because it was written by Ontario Marxists. I was only bringing it to everyone’s attention. The sentence structure in McParland’s op-ed takes two ideas (my website and the petition) and breaks the flow between mutually exclusive actions (posting and praise). I posted the petition. The petition praises the protesters.

In short, I think the petition is mad. And those spoiled students don’t know how good they’ll still have it in seven years time.

I hope that clears things up!

Quebec-style student strike to come to Ontario?

The entitled madness may be building in Canada.

Members of the Canadian Federation of Students are petitioning the organization to call an Ontario-wide strike vote this fall in order to show solidarity with the students in Quebec. Here is their letter,

Redford’s new ad

Take a look at the PC Party of Alberta’s new ad featuring their leader Alison Redford. In the ad, there’s a featured shot of an oil production facility with the words “Leading the Nation”.

Here’s a still from the video:

Video producers take stock video from stock video websites in order to make ads. This video is from Canada-based iStockphoto. You can see the video on the website here.

The title of the video? “oil drill platform sailing under sky”

Uh oh! How many sea-faring oil platforms does the coastal province of Alberta have?

(h/t @Johnnyjesus)

UPDATE: iStockphoto search tags for this video include the term “Yellow Sea” which is a body of water just off the coast of China. If you view the Redford ad in HD, you can even see the Chinese flag on the oil rig:

“Leading The Nation”?

Redford’s stock video of “Alberta” comes from just off the coast of China. In an ad that seeks to illustrate the Alberta economy, this is an odd clip to use.

UPDATE: The Redford video has been made “private” by PC Alberta meaning it is unviewable on their account for now. Luckily I had the relevant part of the video stored in my browser cache. I have re-uploaded the first part of the video to YouTube. Here is the controversial part of the ad that the PC Party presumably doesn’t want you to see: