Tag: steve janke

Hello Steve Janke!

There’s a lesson here: never throw out the B-roll!

As some of you may know, I, along with Tasha Kheiriddin and Greg Staples armed ourselves with video cameras and stalked the halls of the Liberal Party leadership convention in December looking for interesting people to talk to and fun moments to catch on tape.

Steve Janke has the post of the day (already featured on Bourque, National Newswatch and Rutherford) about John Duffy’s hypocritical position on climate change. Duffy is co-founder of the website www.climateliberal.ca and was pushing the issue of climate change at the convention. As Steve Janke brilliantly points out today, Duffy’s position is… um… unsustainable as the former Paul Martin confidante was a lobbyist for the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (a front for the bromine producing industry) where he worked to keep bromine off of Environment Canada’s list of toxic chemicals. Bromine is “the most effective heat trapping greenhouse gases of all” according to Environment Canada.

Anyway, do go and read Steve Janke’s excellent post!

And, now… watch the following video that Tasha was able to shoot for Blogging Tories during the Liberal convention.

CBC’s Paul Hunter tries too hard on climate change story

Consider the following clip by the CBC’s Paul Hunter which aired on the National broadcast on January 9th, 2007. (Watch for the “curb” comment and the criticism of the PM and the RCMP for idling the PM’s motorcade).

Mansbridge: “As Paul Hunter discovered today, Baird may have some work to do curbing his own colleagues.”

…

Hunter: “But is the government listening? Even as the environmentalists were saying that inside, just outside the Prime Minister’s motorcade sat idling. At 10:30 this morning, 11:30, 12:30 and beyond, just meters from his office door.”

Hunter failed to report on a few facts that, when revealed, hardly puts the PM in a negative light.

RCMP security protocol demands that the Prime Ministerial motorcade (ie. security detail) be ready to evacuate the Prime Minister at a moments notice.

The RCMP are not permitted inside the confines of the buildings of Parliament. If not meters (meters!) from the Prime Minister’s door, then where? 10 meters? On Wellington? In Gatineau?

What was the Prime Minister doing that day? Is his office newsworthy, or his cars?

Stephane Dion’s new limo is a Cadillac, not quite so environmentally friendly.

How many greenhouse gases are produced by coast-to-coast-to-coast broadcasting during idle times at the CBC? (ie. during the nightly test pattern and re- (and first-)runs of The Hour).

Does the CBC idle its satellite trucks?

UPDATE: Steve Janke asks some more good questions.

Western Standard Party

While hanging out with fellow Manning conservatives this weekend, Ezra Levant told me about a little party that he was having on Sunday night for the ‘founders’ of the magazine. “Oh, and by the way” he said, “Lord Black of Crossharbour is going to be there.”

Well, no matter who you are (except perhaps Lord Black), that’s an intriguing guest list already.

As it turned out, there were a few other intriguing people at the small and intimate party (about 25 people) which was located in a suite at the Sutton Place Hotel.

I met fellow Blogging Tories Steve “you don’t look Angry” Janke and Bob Tarantino who both brought their charming better halves.

Journalists in attendance included the witty and lovely Rondi Adamson, fellow youngster Michael Taube, our over-worked host Ezra Levant and of course, National Post favourite Andrew Coyne.

Regular freedom fighter (or is that “fighter for freedom”) Gerry Nicholls also made an appearance.

Even CPC party MP Jason Kenney was in attendance. I asked Jason if he wanted to do a podcast one day. “Pot-cast?!” he asked shocked, “You want me to do pot?” Of course, I thought this was funny, so I shot back “I’m game if you are”. Hopefully Jason and I will spark up a conversation one day (to be available in downloadable syndicated MP3 format). I’ll bring the salty snacks.

Some old friends were in attendance as well including Michael Moore plaintiff Kaz Nejatian, Toronto CPC candidate Michael “pull the goalie” Mostyn, and my grade school friend Peter Kroll. My new pal Tasha Kheiriddin was also in attendance charming fellow party guests and promoting her exciting new book.

I had a chance to meet the controversial Lord Black and found him to be surprisingly talkative and I noticed that he still had his trademark streetfighter style. We chatted about the newspaper business and the evolution of the medium. I told him that I represented a group of online “citizen journalists”. He laughed and said that anything could be better than the paid ones.

Some say Lord Black is a hero of the Canadian right for how he provided a real opposition in the press to Liberal governments. However, minority shareholders of his companies have felt abused for years by his business practices. I found Lord Black to be a nice guy (from our 5 minute chat), however, I never invested in Hollinger.

Party guests drank Albertan Trad and Grasshopper, munched on veggies and dip and tried to look natural in front of Ezra’s professional photographer (expect to see us on the “Society Page” of the Western Standard next month). Ezra is one of the hardest working people in Canadian conservatism and I’m glad that he has a lot of fun doing it.

Pictures appear in the extended entry (click the “Continue Reading ‘Western Standard Party'” link below)

Continue reading Western Standard Party