The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has announced the winners of the 6th Annual Teddy Awards.

Ottawa: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) held its sixth annual Teddies Waste Awards Ceremony to honour the best of the worst in government spending at a black tie news conference today on Parliament Hill. CTF Federal Director, John Williamson, acted as master of ceremonies.

The expected spending scandals are listed, of course. But there are some lesser known gems.

Worst Use of Props — Pizza 9-1-1: The Ontario city of Kawartha Lakes’ fire department has offered to deliver pizzas to residents as part of a fire safety promotion campaign. If Kawartha residents own a working smoke alarm the pizza will be free.

It reportedly didn’t take long before residents realized that there was no limit set on the number of “smoke detector inspections” you could order to your door.

Manitoba Arts Council put up $5,000 to fund Aliza Amihude’s jewelry made with her toenails, pubic hair, mouse droppings and dead ladybugs. We are told one necklace sold for $360. No word yet if the “art” proceeds will be repaid to the Arts Council or dedicated to psychologist bills.

The complete list of award winners can be found at the organization’s website.

Miriam B�dard is a national Canadian hero in an unlikely sport – she won two Olympic gold medals in the biathlon at the ’94 games. The sport combines cross country skiing with target shooting.
She’s a national hero again today. Her attempts to draw attention to bloated invoices during her employment in the marketing department at Via Rail, resulted in being pushed out of her job. With the Adscam scandal being dragged into the full (partial?) light of day, she put her former boss, Jean Pelletier, in her crosshairs. She wrote to Prime Minister Paul Martin relating what had happened.
Pelletier, a Chretien appointee, had some choice words for her.

“I don’t want to be mean to her, but she is a weak and pitiful girl, a girl who does not have a spouse, as far as I know. She has the pressures of being a single mother who has financial responsibilities. Honestly, I find her pitiful.”

(B�dard is married, and drives a BMW. )
Today, Paul Martin had some choice words for Jean Pelletier. – “Clean out your desk”.

I’ve belonged to a fair number of email groups over my years on the net. My current list is a fairly typical snapshot of what lands in my email inbox, and are devoted to the following interests:

The atmosphere on these lists ranges from the dry and highly technical, to the completely unmoderated where the highlights include inspired forays of insult exchange, featuring four-letter-word derivatives that would embarrass a longshoreman.
Why mention this? Because on a great many of these lists, there exists a small subset of self-appointed netiquette nannies. And because there are others who do not subscribe to their personal code of conduct for online discusson, they conclude that we must be unaware of what we are doing. The solution? Enlightenment.
Here, is a sample of one such pronouncement that recently graced my inbox, recieved second hand. In my own little world, these essayists are nearly exclusively the domain of dog club lists. Dog clubs are a bit unlike other lists, in that a great number of members are likely to be “real life” friends, enemies, competitors – or a schizophrenic combination of all three. Thus, debate has more than a passing electronic existance.

Continue reading →

Roger Simon has been on the UN Oil-For-Food scandal for weeks, and finally, the New York Times has broken the story in a big way.
Exerpts:

Perhaps the best measure of the corruption comes from a review of the $8.7 billion in outstanding oil-for-food contracts by the provisional Iraqi government with United Nations help. It found that 70 percent of the suppliers had inflated their prices and agreed to pay a 10 percent kickback, in cash or by transfer to accounts in Jordanian, Lebanese and Syrian banks.
At that rate, Iraq would have collected as much as $2.3 billion of the $32.6 billion worth of contracts it signed since mid- 2000, when the kickback system began. And some companies were willing to pay even more than the standard 10 percent, according to Trade and Oil Ministry employees.
Iraq’s suppliers included Russian factories, Arab trade brokers, European manufacturers and state-owned companies from China and the Middle East. Iraq generally refused to buy directly from American companies, which in any case needed special licenses to trade legally with Iraq.

No war, For Oil.

In the high-flying days after Iraq was allowed to sell its oil after 10 years of United Nations sanctions, the lobby of the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad was the place to be to get a piece of the action.
That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude.
The vouchers had considerable value. With the major oil companies monopolizing most Persian Gulf oil, there was fierce competition among smaller traders for the chance to buy Iraqi oil. And as long as Iraq kept its oil prices low enough, traders could make a tidy profit, even after buying the voucher and paying the surcharge

Scott Ott called ’em as he saw em…

Other Iraqi officials said the ministries were forced to order goods from companies and countries according to political expediency instead of quality.
“There would be an order that out of $2 billion for the Trade Ministry and Health Ministry, $1 million would have be given to Russian companies and $500 million to Egyptians,” said Nidhal R. Mardood, a 30-year veteran employee of the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, where he is now the director-general for finance.
“It depended on what was going on in New York at the U.N. and which country was on the Security Council,” he added. “They apportioned the amounts according to politics.”
One result, for Iraqis, was a mishmash of equipment: fire trucks from Russia, earth- moving machines from Jordan, station wagons from India, trucks from Belarus and garbage trucks from China.

The Chretien government’s steadfast support of the United Nations makes one wonder if the federal Liberals weren’t handing out advertising contracts in Iraq.
More links, including one to the NYT article, at Outsidethebeltway

Japan cult leader sentencing

Shoko Asahara, leader of the Japanese cult that released sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway in 1995, was sentenced to hang for multiple charges of murder today.

It has taken 8 years to get to a verdict and sentencing, Asahara can count on another 16 years before his appointment with the rope.
That’ll teach these terrorist folks a few thing or two about the consequences of using WMD’s !

Fall kills student
[Who are they kidding? This was a cull. -ed]

A Carleton University engineering student participating in a spitting contest with friends plunged 11 floors off a downtown highrise to his death late Saturday night. Ameer “AJ” Jinah was celebrating his 20th birthday in his apartment with about a dozen friends when the accident happened about 11 p.m.
Police said it appears Jinah took a running start to try to spit farther than his two friends when he unintentionally vaulted himself over the balcony railing.
“It was purely accidental,” said Ottawa police Sgt. Joe Simpson. “Momentum carried him beyond.
Police said alcohol was being consumed at the party.

They don’t make Engineering Students the way they used to. But think of the bright side – how many lives were saved because of his absense from the construction industry?

“He was one of the smartest, most polite guys I ever met in my life,” he said. “I think he was one of the classiest guys. He had a maturity beyond his age.”

He was three? Maybe I’m being harsh.

The CTV news:

According to a report in The Toronto Star, the environment minister’s staff helped a music festival secure the funding from the scandal-ridden federal sponsorship program singled out in the recent Auditor General’s report.
In the report from Ottawa, the newspaper said long-standing federal Liberal Party member Jamie Kelley approached Anderson’s constituency office in 2001 for help with the event.
The office was eager to help, he said.
“They told me of a secret slush fund where they could access money for constituency programs. There was no application form, no process other than to write a letter (to Public Works).”
After writing a four-page letter and following up with phone calls to the Minister’s office, he was assured Anderson had personally taken his file to then public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

In the latest mea not culpa, Environment Minister David Anderson is denying that there was anything wrong with the transaction. Well, I guess he would, eh?
In other Adscam news, three Crown Corporation heads have been disciplined pending further review – Via Rail President Marc Lefrancois, Canada Post President Andre Ouellet and Michel Vennat, president of the Business Development Bank.
Andrew Coyne has lots of links, and this observation:

“Suspended? “Disciplined”? After the Beaudoin affair, why hasn’t Vennat been charged with something?”

I can’t be the only person struggling with this mental image.

Saddam Hussein is visited by the Red Cross and gets mail privileges.

James Bow of Bow, James Bow has an open letter to the Minister of Immigration.

Dear Ms. Sgro
I call upon you to personally intervene in the matter of Song Dae Ri and grant this individual asylum in Canada. It strikes me as inconsistent, not to mention inhumane, that we should have a reputation for lax border controls and immigration laws, and yet send this individual back to certain death in North Korea.
I am particularly confused that your department would rule Mr. Ri to be a war criminal, simply for being a trade official in North Korea’s dictatorship. I remind you that no specific allegations have been made against him and that Canada’s War Crimes Unit have found no evidence of wrongdoing. This perplexing stance, that simply being a part of North Korea’s dictatorship prevents you from defecting from it, prevents North Koreans from speaking out against their country’s dictatorship and saving themselves and their families. In your own small way, by using Mr. Ri’s alleged and unsubstantiated complicity in North Korea’s human rights abuses, you have bolstered North Korea’s dictatorship, allowed it to act with impunity against its citizens, and have made it harder for average North Koreans to bring about democratic change.
Over and above that, your own department acknowledges that Mr. Ri will face execution upon his return to North Korea. For this reason you have allowed his six-year-old son to stay (which, on its own, is reason enough to allow the father to stay). Every measure of humanity and standard of compassion requires that Mr. Ri be allowed to remain in Canada. This country has balked at allowing the extradition of citizens and landed immigrants to countries where they might face execution for legitimate crimes; what does it say about Canada that we make North Korea an exception?
I understand the reasons for having a bureaucratic process, but bureaucracy should never be allowed to get in the way of the most basic human rights. As the minister of immigration, you have the power to intervene. Do so, now, and allow Mr. Song Dae Ri to remain in Canada with his son.
Sincerely,
James Bow

And don’t come out until you’ve finished your caviar.

Prime Minister Paul Martin is appearing on the Saskatoon based John Gormley show tomorrow morning. He will be live in studio with the talk radio host and former Conservative MP for an hour – taking calls from listeners.
Let that sink in for a moment, and you may get an inkling of how much trouble this PM thinks he’s in.
When Auditor General Sheila Fraser released her scathing report on the mishandling of funds in the Sponsorship Program scandal, it set into motion a political runaway train.
John Chretien had a reason for vacating the office of Prime Minister a few months early.

According to Julie Hebert, media relations manager in the AG’s office, deputy ministers of all of the departments mentioned in Sheila Fraser’s blistering report, were handed draft copies of the report in October, to give them an opportunity to reply, which is standard procedure.
Chretien clearly read the report and as such, read the writing on the wall.
So, instead of taking the heat from the fallout of the report and breaking for Christmas in December, and instead of coming back in the New Year to celebrate his 70th birthday in the House of Commons on Jan. 11 as he long planned, Chretien pulled a fast one on Parliament, his party and most of all, his enemy, Paul Martin.
After all, what’s one more broken promise in a career filled with them?
Martin, who was visibly pleased by Chretien’s early departure, was either too blinded by ambition or too stupid to recognize Chretien’s last act as PM was to stick a long knife in his back.

Originally uncovered two years ago, the jist of the scheme involved the illegal transfer of federal funds through a handful of advertising agencies in Quebec owned by Liberal party supporters. These agencies then moved the money on to various agencies and Crown Corporations, after taking hefty commissions. The odds on speculation is that those funds found their way back to Liberal party coffers. $100 million of the $250 million spent on the program (intended for feel-good-about-Canada PR events prior to the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum) was diverted in this manner.
Cited in the illegal transfers are several Crown Corporations headed by Chretien appointees, including Canada Post, Via Rail and the RCMP. Especially embarrassing for the Mounties, they have had to call in the Quebec Provincial Police to conduct the investigation. Irregularities cited by the Auditor General include lack of any indication as to how the program was initiated, or by whom.
And the shoes keep dropping. Although the scandal surfaced two years ago, news that one of the firms involved has recieved further government contracts surfaced yesterday. In December the Martin government awarded $500,000 in contracts to a Groupe Everest subsidiary.
Today Sheila Fraser will be naming names at the Commons public accounts committee.
And what has private citizen Chretien have to say for himself?

“We should be skiing today, it would be better,” he told reporters outside his Ottawa law office.
“I don’t think anymore,” he said. “I was the government, I replied to all your questions � a lot of them. Now if you have questions ask the government.

Update: More meaty details from Andrew Coyne