I saw this story last night over at Steve’s place, where even he was impressed with the turnout and the welcome amount of money raised for the Dion fundraiser in Montreal.

Do you want to help boost that even more, Liberal and wanna-be Liberal members? Do you want to show that members of the Liberal Party of Canada are able to donate just as well as their Cons. counterparts? Want to help bring in more grassroots/netroots money and wean the Liberal Party off its corporate donations, which no longer works as a fundraising tool in this new era of capping donations from companies, corporations, etc?

More importantly, do you want to help boost the coffers of our party to make it a fairer fight for next election, when we are running against the most neo-conservative, radical, reactionary, ultra-partisan Conservative government in Canadian history? Do you want to help make sure their reign of error is ended after the next election?

Donate to the Victory Fund then.

This will be interesting to watch and see the Canadian government’s reaction and whether they will send real aid to victims of the earthquake in China or not:

Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to offer relief to earthquake-ravaged China. Surrounded by leaders of Chinese organizations from across Greater Toronto, the Scarborough-Agincourt MP said messages of sympathy alone won’t help relief efforts as China continues to dig out from the devastating quake.

(China, by the way, is also accepting aid, but like Burma is refusing to allow foreign aid workers to the scene of the devastated areas  -in their case claiming it’s a matter of logistics and not being able to accommodate additional personnel.)

As was mentioned, so far all Canada has done is send sympathy messages in the wake of the earthquake that has so far killed 12000 people, with the death poll expected to rise dramatically.  We’ve sent aid to Burma despite being in profound disagreement with their military dictatorship and their tactics so far in squelching aid, so that wouldn’t be a reason for not sending aid to China.  I’m waiting to see if Harper and his Cons. show any consistency in being "compassionate Conservatives" here.

Not good:

Burma’s military regime distributed international aid Saturday but plastered the boxes with the names of top generals in an apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last week’s devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise. One box bore the name of Lt. Gen. Myint Swe, a rising star in the government hierarchy, in bold letters that overshadowed a smaller label reading: “Aid from the Kingdom of Thailand.” “We have already seen regional commanders putting their names on the side of aid shipments from Asia, saying this was a gift from them and then distributing it in their region,” said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, which campaigns for human rights and democracy in the country. “It is not going to areas where it is most in need,” he said in London.

While the regime uses this to try and bolster itself and skims the aid off from the areas that need it most, things are forecast to get worse:

Diplomats and aid groups warned the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses and said thousands of children may have been orphaned.

By comparison, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami killed approximately 225 000 people, but in 11 countries. The potential 100 000 figure for 1 country is equally as grim.

The problem is there’s not much anyone can do about the junta’s actions other then to continue sending aid and hoping they relent to let aid workers in and/or let the aid get to where it is needed most. I hope that seeing what this regime is doing to their own people doesn’t cause others in Canada and elsewhere to stop generously giving donations/contributions towards the relief effort.

Everyone knows that for the past couple of years, the Conservatives have been far and away the best of the political parties at getting contributions from their party members and others under the new campaign financing rules. The Liberals have been playing catchup for quite awhile.  Much of this was due to the fact that the party at one time relied heavily on corporate donations and not enough from the individual party members, and it has struggled to find a way to tap individual contributions. I think you’ll find with a bit of research that CPC members donate far more to their own party’s coffers then LPC members do.

There has been debate why that is, and I’m sure it will continue, but today the Liberals announced the first step in trying to remedy that financial gap with the Conservatives with the formation of The Victory Fund, which the LPC hopes will a) make it easier for LPC members to contribute, and b) motivate them to contribute.

I’ve added a new logo to my one sidebar where my logos reside - you’ll see it’s called victoryfund.ca. If you click on it, you’ll see it goes to a link where you have a lot of easy ways to donate.  I’ve noted these popping up at many other Liblogs sites, so perhaps the LPC’s efforts at getting more grassroots involvement is getting noticed and embraced by Liberal bloggers - many who have been asking for more netroots/grassroots involvement for the past couple of years.

I caught this little snippet today in the paper when talking about about the SPP or “3 Amigos” summit that the leaders of Mexico, Canada, and the US soon will be holding. What is one of the biggest priorities for Canada at this summit? Apparently, it’s to make sure we aren’t prevented from polluting the atmosphere with even more greenhouse gases in the rush to exploit the oil there:

Canadian officials told reporters that this country will be pressing to know more about potential implications of a recent U.S. congressional move to limit purchases of energy from sources with high output of greenhouse gases. That measure could harm Canadian exports of energy to the U.S. from the Alberta tar sands and have serious consequences for the Canadian economy, the official said.

At least the Canadian officials are acknowledging subtly that the tarsands are a major contributor of GHG -  I suppose for this government, that’s progress. 

That statement in a nutshell describes the Conservative position on the environment; which is they want to pump out the oil at the expense of the environment rather then try to, you know, cap those emissions or look at alternative energy sources. The environment be damned - as long as we, er, the oil companies, are making obscene profits, who cares?

On a side note, I find it rather fitting that Bush would hold this summit in New Orleans. There is not a starker symbol of his failure as a president then the shameful neglect of that city in the aftermath of Katrina (and that neglect is still occurring today).

When we hear from “anonymous Liberal sources” in the media, it’s usually to attack Dion or attack our strategy or to reveal our election strategy. On the other hand, when we hear from “anonymous Conservative sources” in the media, it’s to attack or smear independent agencies, such as Elections Canada.

Just an observation of mine. I’m not sure which is better (or worse). However, I’d sure like to know which senior Conservative officials these were, and why the media felt compelled to quote them if they weren’t willing to publicly state their views on this. The media gave these Cons. officials an anonymous front to try and attack Elections Canada’s credibility with. As Warren points out, these were clearly coordinated talking points, not some Maxime Bernier off-the-cuff stuff from an angry Conservative junior staffer.

- We’ve seen this movie before, or at least in Ontario we’ve seen it. I’m not sure the rest of the country will react much better either - but that’s a good thing.  Thanks in part to Flaherty, the Conservatives were removed from government in Ontario. Here’s hoping that Flaherty has the same effect on his federal Cons. friends in Ottawa.

- This news would fall in a category called “we’ll say anything you want to hear if it helps us win, but we really weren’t serious when we said it”. The IOC and its president Jacque Rogge reminds China that at the time of their Olympic bid, they promised that awarding the games to them would promote and advance social change, including human rights. China’s reaction back to the IOC? Butt out: you’re trying to politicize the Games.  Was the IOC that naive to believe China’s leadership? What evidence was there that this would happen?

- I don’t give much if any credit to the Conservatives for doing anything right (mainly because they haven’t done anything to warrant it), but I will laud them for blocking the sale of this satellite company (who made the RadarSat-2 satellite, which monitors the Canadian Arctic) to a US buyer. Sure, it was done by Jim Prentice under  intense pressure, even by the Cons. own normally docile MP’s, but I think it was the right decision - why sell a satellite company to a foreign nation when it transmits images and data potentially vital to our sovereignty?

I’d hate to annoy any of my readership (particularly my conservative readership) with any more poll analysis, so instead of me talking about it, go visit Steve at his blog, where he talks about 2 more polls released in addition to the PPP poll which shows Obama rapidly closing in Pennsylvania. I never thought she’d lose that state, but with more then 3 weeks to go, who knows?

This isn’t very good news out news out of Zimbabwe: President Mugabe seems determined to nullify the elections that saw him lose power in the Lower Parliament and apparently the presidency as well. Sanctions will not persuade him to go peacefully - I suspect it will take an international or at least an African pan-national force to “persuade” him to leave peacefully and accept the will of the people.

With regards to the Tom Lukiwiski affair, I’ll predict that Harper and Co. will refuse to ask for his resignation or the stepping down of any parliamentary secretarial duties as they’ve said in this article. That shows weakness… unless of course internal polling shows it’s dragging the Cons. down - and then he’ll be promptly dispatched.. as that’s how Harper and his PMO works.

UPDATE: I missed this earlier: The NDP can’t even have a joint press conference with the Liberals - supposedly to show they are on the same side of an issue - without taking potshots at them. If NDP supporters on here wonder why Liberals think they’re attacking them more then the Cons, this and other such events, like Mulclair rising in the house to go after Bob Rae rather then the Cons - would be the reason why. Perhaps they’d better pay attention to that recent Decima poll that showed them in the low tweens nationally and only 10% in Ontario - and last place behind even the Greens. The core constituency probably is telling them they prefer attacks on Cons, not Libs… but so far that’s not sunk in.

I’m sure everyone is not too surprised that Canada was able to get a commitment from NATO (or more specifically, France sending troops to the east, meaning US soldiers there could rotate to the south) for those 1000 extra soldiers in the Kandahar region . The question will be whether 1000 extra soldiers will be enough.  I’ve seen reports where military experts say it would take several thousand troops shifted there as a minimum to make a difference.   The other question will be if it turns Canadians toward supporting the extension to 2011. Early poll indications show a majority are not convinced the Liberal/Conservative compromise on the Afghanistan extension was a good thing.

As we see more news stories today of China sending in more troops to try and quell Tibetans, and we also see evidence that they  are doing a preventative crackdown on other minority groups in order to stop them from joining in on the protests, I think I’ve come to a personal decision on my earlier question about whether Canada needs to do to show China we disapprove of their behaviour. I believe we now do have to send a signal.

A boycott of the Opening Ceremonies is at least one thing we can do - the European Union has talked about doing this - but if the repression gets worse, and/or we see the Chinese killing demonstrators or executing them, I think nothing less then a full-fledged boycott will suffice.