PM could set record for most women in cabinet

PM could set record for most women in cabinet
JANE TABER Globe and Mail Update October 29, 2008 at 9:01 PM EDT
Stephen Harper could make history Thursday by surpassing the record for the number of women in a federal cabinet and appointing the first cabinet minister from Nunavut, who is also a woman. More women in cabinet could address some of the Prime Minister's challenges in Quebec, say political observers, who note that Premier Jean Charest turned around his fortunes after he chose women to make up half of his cabinet. The Harper Conservatives elected 23 women MPs on Oct. 14, 12 more than in 2006. There were seven women in the Tories' last cabinet, two of whom were junior ministers. Mr. Harper is expected to add four or five more Thursday, bringing to 11 or 12 the number of women in what could be a 30-member cabinet. This could be the largest percentage of women – 36 or 40 per cent – in a federal cabinet.
Jean Chrétien appointed nine women to his 37-member cabinet in 2000 – 24 per cent – and Paul Martin had 12 women in his 39-member cabinet in 2003-04, or 30 per cent. “Stephen Harper is very well positioned this time around [to add a significant number of women to cabinet],” said Françoise Gagnon, executive director of Equal Voice, an organization dedicated to getting more women elected in Canada. “He's got 23 women and if you look at the calibre who are coming to the Hill there's some huge talent pool in there for him to pick from. I think [Thursday] is going to show some interesting and possible historical results.” Ms. Gagnon says that if Leona Aglukkaq, the first Conservative MP elected from Nunavut, is appointed to cabinet it would be “huge” because it addresses “the needs of a population whose voice has not been heard at that level before.” Ms. Aglukkaq has held several positions in the territorial government and is expected to get a new northern development portfolio. It's also expected that the Tory's new MP from PEI, Gail Shea, a former provincial minister, will be given the fisheries portfolio (the Conservatives have not had a seat in PEI since 1988). Lisa Raitt, who beat Tory turncoat Garth Turner in the coveted 905-area around Toronto, is also expected to be given a post, as is Shelly Glover, a bilingual Metis police officer from Manitoba. The women-factor could play a role in reversing the Harper Tory fortunes in Quebec. Peter Donolo, of The Strategic Counsel polling firm, said Mr. Harper's approval ratings in Quebec dropped significantly during the election campaign as a result of being “out of sync” with Quebeckers, including cutting cultural programs and announcing a youth justice scheme that was hugely unpopular in that province. “He went from hero to zero in record time,” he said. Adding more women could increase his success in the province as it did for Mr. Charest, whose voter-approval rating increased in a few months from 32 per cent to 49 per cent. Many credit this to the fact that he appointed women to half of his 18 cabinet positions. “This … was very public, very symbolic,” Mr. Donolo said. “It doesn't just signal gender equity. It signals the kind of values the government has. Women tend to skew somewhat differently from men on a whole range of issues and it says you are going to be more sensitive to those issues … social issues, primarily.” Sheila Copps, a former Liberal cabinet minister, said a government “gets more balance” with more women in senior roles. “The problem that the government had with its conflicted cultural message, I don't think it would have happened [with more] women,” she said. “As a general rule, women tend to be more supportive of government involvement in supporting the collective and the society and not just the individual. In a sense women's views tend to very much reflect the view of Quebeckers and those are two areas they very much need work on.” One Tory strategist said Mr. Harper will not put rookie women into senior cabinet posts to avoid the so-called “Rona effect” that saw Rona Ambrose, a young, untested MP from Alberta, flop as Environment Minister. “I don't think you're going to see new MPs thrust into cabinet positions they are not ready for,” the strategist said.

Summary: The Conservatives could make history on Thursday by beating the record for the number of woman appointed to the federal cabinet. Harper could also make history if he appoints the first cabinet minister from Nunavut, who is also a woman.
There were 7 woman in Harper's last cabinet and he is expected to rase that number to 11 or 12 out of the cabinet of 30 members. This would mean that woman would make up 36 to 40 percent of the cabinet, which is the largest in history
Questions:

1. If Leona Aglukkaq is appointed to cabinet how is this important to Canada?

2. How are a woman's views different with a mans views in government according to Sheila
Copps?

3. How does this relate to what we have studied so far in history?

By. Jono McConnell (8-02)

Liam Neuman Boy stabbed walking home from school; called 911 The Star's Bob Mitchel and Sandro Contenta

A 15-year-old youth, arrested today in the stabbing death last week of a 14-year-old boy as he walked home from school, appeared in a Brampton courtroom late this afternoon.
Rajiv Dharamdial was stabbed to death last Tuesday. He called 911 in a frantic attempt to save his own life.
Peel Police confirmed earlier this afternoon that they had arrested and charged a 15-year-old with first-degree murder.
The mother of the dead boy, Sunita Dharamdial, appeared at the courthouse in the company of about a dozen family members.
She was wearing a t-shirt with a photograph of her son on the front.
"I never thought in a million years that this would happen to us,” she said as she arrived.


Summary: A 14 year old boy was stabbed lats tuesday he called 911 to try and save his own life. They caught and arrested the killer and charged him for first degree murder. The mom of Rajiv Dharamdial wore a plain white shirt with a picture of her son on it to the court.

Questions

1. How do you feel about this?
2. How does this relate to what we are studying so far?
3. How should we stop this from happening?

Liam Neuman's Current Events 8-02

My Current Events - The Recent Canadian Election

Bilaal Rajan Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Fiasco Complete, This Minority Will Have to Suffice for Harper
Roy MacGregor Wednesday's Globe and Mail
October 15, 2008 at 1:49 AM EDT
Article:

Now that this turkey's done, let the chickens come home to roost.
Let us begin with the Prime Minister.
Perhaps it is only appropriate that the Hunter's Moon was in full glory this clear night over Ottawa. Also known as the Blood Moon, it seems an ideal choice to show the way ahead.
It was clear, from the moment polls closed in Eastern Canada, that nothing significant was going to change. As CTV's Craig Oliver so accurately called it, the “Groundhog Day” election was over. Or was it?
What's everyone doing tomorrow?
The Prime Minister of Canada broke a law, his own law, in order to gain what he believed would be an easy majority government without waiting for the legal fixed-date election. For Conservatives to pretend, as they did all last evening, that the object all along was to gain another minority is to insult the intelligence of everyone old enough to cast a vote – no matter for which party.
After 37 days and $300-million, the conclusion is not profoundly different today than it was on the day the Prime Minister called the Parliament “dysfunctional” and claimed it was not working – except, of course, for all the claims he instantly made to the contrary.
How, one wonders, could Stephen Harper not have won an easy majority when the Liberals began play with an empty net and never really got their game together?
If there is no immediate blood on the floor where Stephen Harper stands – he does, after all, have a “stronger” minority – then surely mops will be required this morning wherever Stéphane Dion chooses to stand, his only ally in holding onto power the powerlessness of his own nearly bankrupt party.
And yet how, one also must wonder, could the Liberals not capitalize on the long string of Tory goofs – apologies over puffins and stupid comments of workers and cabinet ministers, a serious faux pas in Quebec over the arts and crime, Harper's cold-hearted comment about buying stocks when the world appears in collapse – if the Liberals really are, as they believe, the natural ruling party of Canada?
Given the performance of the two main characters in this expensive farce, Harper and Dion, one is reminded of the comment Marion Pearson let slip in the John Diefenbaker sweep of 1958, when her husband, Lester, took Algoma East: “We've lost everything. We've even won our own seat!”
Harper, with his iron grip on everything in the Conservative Party from policy to the Pepsi supply, will surely hold on until, one distant day, the forces who now believe he can never deliver a majority start wondering where all those familiar old Tory knives are buried.
Dion, on the other hand, is doomed. He not only ran a dreadful campaign – incapable of explaining the only plank that mattered, the Green Shift – he had to turn in the end to those he defeated in the 2006 Liberal leadership race. Not only does he now have the ambitions and rabid supporters of Rae, Ignatieff, Hall Findlay, Dryden and Kennedy to contend with, but a whole new wave of leadership hopefuls in Justin Trudeau and Dominic LeBlanc and, presumably, names not yet heard in the national chat room.
M. Dion is toast.
And given that both the main parties performed so listlessly, how can it be that Jack Layton, who seemed alert as a chihuahua at the mail slot throughout the campaign, could gain no remarkable traction himself beyond the usual NDP payoff? A half dozen seats or so do not seem fair pay for all that hard work. His leadership is obviously safe, but the deeper story may well be that there is, simply, an orange ceiling out there, and Mr. Layton has just bumped his bobbing head against it.
As for Gilles Duceppe, the luckiest man in this magnificent country called Canada, how else do you explain what happened to a man who, only months ago, declared himself ready to bail to provincial politics, only to be told he wasn't wanted?
And so, what are we left with after this fiasco?
A minority – stronger, yet, but in more important ways different from the minority that wasn't good enough for Stephen Harper 38 days back.
This one they might have to make work – and the country will insist that it does.
This one, he won't be able to fold up at his own discretion and try, try, try again.
Not next time.
Not after this.

Article Summary:

The failure of Steven Harper of the Conservative Party to gain a clear majority to solve a “dysfunctional” parliament with an earlier minority government and the clear indication of voters to send Stephane Dion and the Liberals to their worst election by total votes in Canadian history tells us that this election was a waste of time, effort, and funds to the tune of $300 million for all Canadians. Mr Harper will probably stay on until voters eventually decide to dump the Conservatives while Mr. Dion is “toast” as there are a handful of potential leadership candidates waiting in the wings. The other leaders like Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton were fortunate as Quebeckers ditched the Conservatives and the NDP feasted on the Liberal death toll.

Course Topic Link - History 8-02:

Never before since pre-confederation times has Canada been so divided and polarized according to regions. The West and Rural Ontario want to get more say and autonomy as their economies are experiencing a natural resource boom that have elected Steven Harper’s minority Conservative government . Major urban centres with their economic powerhouses and the East are Liberal strongholds supporting neither side of the political spectrum and Quebec voters are still, since French rule in Canada, seeking a way out by electing the pro-sovereignist Bloc Québécois in most ridings (again except urban Montreal). This is idealistically the same situation just before Sir John A Macdonald, George Brown, and George Etienne Cartier joined forces to form a coalition to improve legislative gridlock before confederation. Canada East (Quebec in preconfederation times) wanted to preserve French rights and language as they do now, the West is largely untamed economically as they are now, and the regions in the East coast of Canada were suspicious of the intentions of the government based in the Canadas (Ontario and Quebec formerly) as they are now. The more Canada changes, the more it stays the same.

Questions?:

1) What was the purpose of this election in your opinion?
2) What do you think the impact of the election will have for the future of Canada?
3) Will Canada ever resolve the Quebec French sovereign issue? Why do you think so or not?

Current events Marc Romanin

'I'm a good boy,' autistic man, 43, tells officers after they Taser him in bedroom, family alleges
Oct 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Dale Anne Freed Staff Reporter

A 43-year-old physically and mentally disabled North York man and his family are suing several police officers, including members of the Emergency Task Force, and the Toronto Police Services Board for more than $9 million in damages after he was hit with a Taser in his bedroom.
According to the lawsuit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, George Lochner was in his second-floor bedroom when emergency task force officers came looking for his brother Silvano, who was wanted for allegedly threatening to assault his neighbour with a sledgehammer.
None of the family's accusations has been proven in court. In a statement of defence, the police and the board deny all of the family's allegations.
Police Tasered Lochner twice and beat him on his face and all over his body, his brother Silvano, 50, said last night at the family home in a quiet, middle-class neighbourhood.
"It was scary. My brother was in his room on the second floor sleeping when emergency task force officers came in with rifles. They said my brother tried to attack them," said Silvano, as he and his mother Lina, 77, showed the Star photos of George's injuries. "We have a medical report that says he was Tasered twice.
"Look what they did to him – he's handicapped, he's autistic," said his brother.
"Our lawyer, Clayton Ruby, will explain it all at a press conference at his office (today.)"
On Aug. 11, 2006, Silvano, who police said showed "violent tendencies," refused to surrender. The emergency task force team, backed up by tactical paramedics, arrived at the Lochner family home, where George Lochner lives with his parents and Silvano.
Police found George's mother and his brother Paul Lochner in the garage. They told police Silvano was out walking their disabled father and nobody was in the Verwood Ave. home.
The Lochners claim police attacked and punched Paul, pushed him to the ground, "pointed guns at his head" and handcuffed him.
Police then went in the home, "clearing" it room by room and found George lying in his bed.
Police say they identified themselves and told the special-needs man not to move, but say he tried to attack them and had to be subdued. But the Lochner family claims that police Tasered George "numerous" times in "drive stun mode" and "full deployment mode."
"I'm a good boy," George reportedly told police after they Tasered him. Silvano was later arrested.
Police say they used no more force than necessary and that he "suffered no physical injuries."


Summary A 43 year old mentally challenged man was tasered twice becasue the police were looking for his brother. The police said he tried to attack them. The family is suing several police and several men on the task force for $9 million dollars.


Questions,

1. How can things like this be prevented
2. Do you think police should be tasering autistic/mentally and physicly challenged people.
3. How could this relate to our history course, (no tasers, less violence)

Current Events 8-02 Nicholas Whitelaw

EDWARD ALDEN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
October 4, 2008 at 12:22 AM EDT

Stephen Harper has said that, if he is re-elected, he wants a "fresh start" with the new U.S. administration on dealing with the border, to see if ways can be found to reassure the Americans on security while easing restrictions that are causing costly delays for Canada.
John McCain, who made the unusual gesture of delivering a campaign speech in Ottawa in June, said he recognizes that the backups caused by new security measures "can pose a serious impediment to trade." Barack Obama has wanted nothing to do with Canada since a Canadian official embarrassed him by leaking one of his adviser's private reassurances over NAFTA, but he too is likely to be sympathetic to the Canadian concerns.
There is little reason, however, to think that dealing with border issues will be any easier after the elections in both countries; indeed, it is likely to become harder.
Canada and the United States long defined what it meant to have an open border. The orange cones that were placed at night across rural border crossings from Vermont to B.C. symbolized an extraordinary level of trust, rarely achieved by two neighbouring nations. That trust permitted ever deeper, and in some ways riskier, economic ties, from an automobile industry that grew up in virtual disregard of the border to a free-trade agreement that set rules since imitated on a global scale.
Enlarge Image
Canadian and American flags at a border crossing.
Related Articles
Recent
Live, Monday: Edward Alden on U.S. border security
Madelaine Drohan: Canada is not the U.S.
From the archives
Globe Editorial: Data as baggage
Since Sept. 11, 2001, we no longer live in a high-trust world. In the eyes of many Americans, 9/11 was a failure not of its foreign and military policies, or even of its intelligence agencies, but rather of its open borders. In seven years, the United States has doubled the number of its Border Patrol agents and tripled its enforcement expenditures and it is now deporting more than 250,000 illegal immigrants a year, all in the elusive quest for border security. On the Canadian border, it's known as "thickening"; on the Mexican border, it comes closer to warfare.
In the months after 9/11, some in the Bush administration turned to Canada in the hopes of building what they called "the border of the future" - one that would be open to trade and tourism but impervious to terrorists, drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. The virtual shutdown of the border after the terrorist attacks had been disastrous for the auto industry and the regions that relied on it, and both Ottawa and Washington were determined to prevent anything similar in the future. Tom Ridge, the White House homeland-security czar, had grown up on the shores of Lake Ontario and, as a former Pennsylvania governor, he understood the value of trade with Canada.
The result was the 2001 Smart Border accords, a laundry list of measures that was a remarkably cool-headed, sophisticated response to the trauma of 9/11. Its architects on both sides of the border believed two seemingly contradictory things: that the safeguards against terrorists crossing the border had to be maximized, but that barriers to legitimate cross-border traffic must be minimized for the prosperity of both countries. The way to do so was to "manage risk." By using modern information technologies and co-operating closely, the two governments would be better armed to recognize threats to security. Low-risk traffic — the commercial truck filled with auto parts or the nurse crossing daily from Windsor to Detroit — would be sped through, saving precious inspection resources that could instead be devoted to more suspicious targets.

Summary: This story talks about the U.S. border and about the security of the border.

Questions: 1. How does this relate to what we have studied so far?

2. Back then did Canada have troubles with the American boder?

Instant poll finds Dion clear debate winner

French-speaking Canadians surveyed by Ipsos Reid immediately after Wednesday's debate said the Liberal Leader won the night, and one in five viewers say they changed their mind

BRODIE FENLON

Globe and Mail Update

October 2, 2008 at 11:53 AM EDT

TORONTO — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion clearly prevailed in the French-language leaders' debate, according to viewers surveyed by Ipsos Reid immediately after Wednesday's telecast.

The online poll found 40 per cent of voters said Mr. Dion won the debate, compared with 24 per cent who gave the contest to Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper came in at 16 per cent, NDP Leader Jack Layton at 11 per cent, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May at just 1 per cent.

A Crop poll for La Presse with a smaller sample size found Mr. Dion ranked second, trailing Mr. Duceppe by only 6 per cent among viewers who rated their performance as "excellent" or "very good." Only 18 per cent said Mr. Harper had won the debate.

While there was no knock-out punch, Mr. Dion was at ease in his native tongue and set the agenda by promising he would implement a five-point economic action plan within 30 days of becoming prime minister. He may have also benefited from low expectations after a rocky campaign plagued by poor polling numbers.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion speaks during the French language debate at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Wednesday. (Chris Wattie/AFP/Getty Images)

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Darrell Bricker of Ipsos Reid said a pre-debate poll found most voters expected Mr. Dion to do very poorly, so even a moderately credible performance had significant impact on post-debate results. Likewise, Mr. Harper was expected to "wipe up the floor" with everyone there save for Mr. Duceppe, he said.

"Dion outperformed expectations and Harper underperformed against expectations," said Mr. Bricker, adding that it reminded him of the 1988 free trade debates in which then-Liberal leader John Turner defied low expectations by going toe-to-toe with Brian Mulroney.

The Ipsos Reid poll found 36 per cent of viewers rated Mr. Dion as the leader who sounds and acts most like a prime minister, ahead of Mr. Harper at 31 per cent. One in five respondents – 20 per cent – said they had changed their mind about who to vote for as a result of viewing the debate.

The debate, which took place at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, was seen as critical to Mr. Harper's effort to win a majority government and to Mr. Dion's efforts to revive the faltering Liberal campaign. The bout saw Mr. Harper raked over the coals, smiling thinly as his opponents did most of the talking. The multipronged barrage appeared to leave the Conservative Leader resigned to having to weather the onslaught.

Mr. Bricker said Mr. Dion's performance may end up benefiting the Bloc by shaking those soft nationalists on the fence who were toying with a vote for the Conservatives.

"What he's done is made them maybe think again about voting for Duceppe. It sets up a really interesting tail-end to the campaign in Quebec," he said.

Other findings:

• 41 per cent of voters said Mr. Dion offered the best policies and ideas during the debate. In second was Mr. Duceppe at 22 per cent, Mr. Layton at 19 per cent, Mr. Harper at 13 per cent and Ms. May at 1 per cent.

• Mr. Layton was ranked most likeable and the person voters would most like to go out with for a beer or coffee. Mr. Layton was also viewed to be the most visually attractive (33 per cent), following by Mr. Duceppe at 22 per cent, Mr. Dion at 19 per cent, Mr. Harper at 15 per cent and Ms. May at 5 per cent.

Christian Leuprecht, who teaches political science at Kingston's Royal Military College of Canada, said he doesn't expect the debate to change Mr. Dion's fortunes in Quebec, where he is widely viewed as a Chrétien Liberal and a key player behind the Clarity Act.

Mr. Leuprecht said he expects Mr. Harper to do especially well in rural Quebec and that recent polls showing a drop in Tory support in the province reflect an urban bias that may not be mirrored in election day results. The unprecedented support for the NDP in Quebec, he added, may make like difficult for the Liberals and even the Bloc, regardless of whether it translates into seats for Mr. Layton.

Ipsos Reid polled a total of 637 French-speaking Canadian voters – 556 of them in Quebec – online immediately after the debate. The results are considered accurate plus-or-minus 3.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20. The data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's age, sex, regional and party support composition reflects that of the actual French-speaking voter population. The sample was drawn from a pre-recruited panel of 12,000 voters from Ipsos Reid's internet panel.

Summary: This article talks about the French language debate between Mr Harper, Mr Dion, Mr Duceppe and Ms May that took place on October 1, 2008. The results from the polling show that 40% of voters felt that Mr Dion had won. One in five respondents said they had changed their mind about who to vote for after watching the debate.

Questions to Think About:
1. All of the people polled were French Canadians. How do you think this affected the results of the poll?

2. How important are debates in Canadian elections?

3. Which political leader do you think has the best qualities to be the Prime Minister?

This article has a link to our course topic because our elections are an important part of Canadian history.