Prime Minister Harper is intervening on behalf of Canadian Mohamed Kohail, sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia.  Obviously, this is a good thing.  We don’t support capital punishment in Canada, and there are questions about the way trials are conducted in Saudi Arabia.

What’s upsetting is that Harper is not intervening in other cases.  Three months ago, he announced that Canada would not intervene in death penalty cases in democratic countries.  He thus overturned decades of precedent in Canadian diplomacy and incurred the wrath of many human rights organizations and the Anglican Church of Canada.  As a result, at least one Canadian, Ronald Smith, is likely to be executed in the United States.

Not that this is a big surprise.

I’ve been relentlessly negative about the Harper Conservative government.  So I feel a responsibility, when they get something right, to offer some praise.  Today, the Harper government announced $80 million in funding for de-mining Afghanistan.      Read more »

Recently, I’ve received both posted and emailed messages from Jack Layton attacking Stephane Dion for abstaining from the vote on the Throne Speech.  These attack are disingenuous and dangerous.     Read more »

The good news, reported in this blog before, is that the Green Party is rising in the polls, even beating out the NDP nationally in popularity in some polls.

The bad news is that rising popularity and entrance into the main fray of politics means that we’re subjected to the same sort of nastiness the big boys used to reserve for each other.

The good news is that Prime Minister Harper’s policies, for a while thought to be substantive on climate change by much of the population, are now being recognized for what they are: fraudulent greenwash that actually reverses what little progress we’ve made.

The bad news is that Prime Minister Harper skewered any meaningful action on climate change at the recent Commonwealth talks in Uganda and managed to ram through a toothless policy guaranteed to allow climate change to roll on unchecked.

The good news is that on the heels of this development, one of his few allies in the commonwealth and indeed in the world, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, was turfed out in a general election where climate change was a major issue.

The bad news is that on the heels of all the bad publicity surrounding his irresponsible actions, Prime Minister Harper has attacked Elizabeth May for her searing denunciation.

The good news is that apparently Elizabeth May is the authority that Harper feels needs attacking.  We’re not such an inconsequential party after all.

The other good news is that what Elizabeth actually wrote about Mr. Harper is reasonable and sound.