Hudson's Bay Company discovers Canada!

Was I the only one seething during yesterday's Grey Cup game at the HBC TV ad for the Vancouver Olympics? It seemed to air at every break, with the narrator intoning: "We arrived 340 years ago to a land of rock, ice and snow." Since then, HBC has been outfitting a nation, one that didn't just survive but thrived. 

And what's really great is that they did it all by themselves in that empty, empty land.

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An Olympic factoid: In 2005, the Hudson's Bay Co. was chosen to outfit Canada's Olympic athletes through 2012. The contract between HBC and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing is worth more than $100 million. HBC was sold to  NRDC Equity Partners of New York in 2008.

O Canada.

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New president-elect in Honduras, while old one still at Brazilian embassy

This is hardly surprising. On Sunday, Hondurans elected Porfirio Lobo president-elect and, shortly thereafter, top U.S. officials called on Manuel Zelaya to participate in reconstruction talks. Zelaya, you may recall, was ousted by an army coup earlier this year and hustled out of the country in the middle of the night. At first - for about six hours - there were calls for his reinstatement and claims the age of the coup was over in Latin America. Not so fast. Those calls quickly turned into consideration of a more temporary reinstatement before the Nov. 29 elections and finally to a position that appeared to represent no reinstatement at all, at least before the elections. Despite a visit by, among others, Peter Kent, secretary of state for foreign affairs, to Honduras, the coup leaders weren't in a mood to make any concessions; for Zelaya to talk transition now seems to mean little more than finding a way to get him out of exile at the Brazilian embassy and out Honduras. Honduran legislators vote tomorrow on a U.S.-brokered plan to restore Zelaya to government until the transition date of Jan. 27 but that, too, looks unlikely. Why should the military leaders bend now? It would, I suppose, be nice if Zelaya were there to smile and bow at the handover so that everybody could pretend the coup never happened and that the U.S. and Canada, among other Western Hemisphere nations, offered more than empty rhetoric. Oh, and U.S. officials praise the election as fair.

There are a few loose ends, including the sticky situation of Zelaya stuck in the embassy and calling the election "a fraud." Moreover, a different view is available at the Common Frontiers website from a delegation of Canadian labour, human rights and faith-based organizations. In the daily reports you can read on their site, they describe conditions under military rule, with police barricades blocking communities and protestors facing tear gas, water cannons and a massed police presence, while military helicopters circled overhead. They also describe what appears to be a scant election turnout, which doesn't mean you shouldn't prepare for what could be wildly inflated numbers. Members of this delegation fanned out across the country to talk to the people (as much as possible with the heavy military presence).

What do they know?

Remembering the animals

The sad state of affairs at the Toronto Humane Society is, nevertheless, a chance to remind readers about http://onebarkatatime.blogspot.com/ and the great work of this blog. See what he's been writing about the Humane Society.  I also love the art:

 
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There's only one thing about the raid that is troubling, and that is the pepper-spraying of Bandit, the half-lab, half-pitbull Tim Trow rescued and kept in his office. Without gettting into Bandit's history, or what should or shouldn't have happened in the past as human beings were messing up this dog's life, there's no apparent reason police should have gone in and pepper-sprayed the animal. The dog's  presence in Trow's office could hardly have been a surprise; in fact it was probably the one thing police could anticipated before events unfolded. There are other ways to capture a dog without blasting him in the eyes with pepper spray. They might have done a little preparation, no? Also, it's a good bet Bandit will be put down down because he will be seen as a symbol of Trow's troubled tenure and it will be as much about Trow as Bandit. A shame.

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I had my own bad experience with the Toronto Humane Society, learning only later that I was hardly the only journalist to be treated with disdain. I was covering a murder of a middle-aged woman who lived in subsidized housing in the city. Her partner was arrested for the murder but neighbours wanted to take in her little dog. They showed me a photo album of the animal, who seemed to have spent a lot of time with the murdered woman's friend. She lived in the next-door apartment in the housing complex. Police had taken the animal to the Humane Society and, when I called on behalf of the neighbour (who'd already been turned away when she tried to adopt), the public relations officer was extremely rude, insisting they knew best what should be done with the pup. From the superior attitude, it was clear to me the person felt a resident of public housing could not possibly care for an animal as per their specifications. Did I mention the photo album made it clear the dog had spent a good deal of time with the woman who wanted to adopt her? She even had a big stash of chew toys and a sleeping mat for the dog in her apartment. But, as I said, they knew best.

Liberal knickers in a knot over Janine Krieber

I did a little search this morning to see what kind of posts/pages have  been stripped from Facebook and came up with some pretty disgusting  examples, from hate literature to death threats against President Barack Obama. Take them down, fair enough.

But Janine Krieber expresses her opinion about the Liberal party and Liberals swoon faster than southern damsels in whalebone? A little over-the-top, wouldn't you say? Pundits (not all, mind you) mocked with such superiority, letter-writers attacked ("bitter" and "naive" being favorite descriptives) and, behind-the scenes, Liberals spoke of vile betrayal by the wife of former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. How could she do such a terrible thing? It should be noted it was leader Michael Ignatieff who did the smart thing (teeth gritted or not) by stressing support from Dion, as pointed out this morning by my colleague Susan Delacourt.

Sure, it could be deemed embarrassing for a party to have the wife of its former leader argue said party is in dire straits and risks collapse but, then, is there an intelligent Liberal who is not aware of that fact? Didn't the party just make a major shakeup where it counts - backroom organization and communication in the OLO - with the installation of a new team headed by Peter Donolo? I thought the purpose of that switch was to pull the party back from a dreaded scud into oblivion. Krieber says she's looking for an alternative, and Liberals should be hoping that's not what party supporters are thinking en masse, but polls haven't been kind lately. The latest seepage has been to the NDP on the left. (I maintain, by the way, Krieber was a party supporter and may well still be - to those who darkly suggest she's always held treason in her heart.  Gasp! Is she separatist?) She talks about control by Toronto elites - snooze, was that new even last spring? When the party was at its lowest earlier this fall (Liberals should hope) senior people who felt sliced out of the decision-making process came from the West, the Maritimes and even certain groups in Toronto, as well as Quebec. Again, the reason for Peter Donolo et al. While Liberals may rail against her attack on Ignatieff for his support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq and his writings on torture (Mr. Ignatieff does not approve of torture!), Krieber's argument paled compared to the significance of the leader's own actions last week. He absented himself from the House during, arguably, the most important Question Periods of his tenure, the debate over the testimony of diplomat Richard Colvin on Afghanistan.

The thing is, everybody knows the Liberals are in trouble. It happens to political parties. One needs only to cast back 16 years to a PC party stripped to two members in the House. Steps have been taken to wrestle with problems, Ignatieff was in good form today and there are top Liberals who believe these things too will pass and are working hard to make it so. Wasn't it Bob Rae who said last week he's a "happy camper."

Still, one can only imagine the full-court press on the weekend to get the fiery Ms. Krieber - a terrorism expert who has advised CSIS, among others  - to withdraw her post to Facebook friends. Did she have to beg for the retrieval of separate emailed versions and delete them herself? Has her hard drive been purged? By the Party? Will she be more closely watched? Around-the-clock?

 It falls to Political Decoder to throw out the crazy little notion the real danger here is censorship. That's the kind of permanent damage you don't want. Why, it smacks of that very thing Liberals accuse Stephen Harper and his Conservatives of doing.

Besides, Janine Krieber posted the comments, not Stéphane Dion. She's his wife, not his alter-ego. In 2009, women are still supposed to think like their husbands? Or maybe just some women  - those whose husbands used to be leader of the Liberal party. Were Dion still Liberal leader, I suppose I'd hope she'd keep similar thoughts to herself, had she had them at the time, which it would appear, she did not.

Toronto mayoral battle going to be messy

So far, there are two declared candidates, George Smitherman and Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti for the mayor's chair. But the battle between Smitherman and John Tory has already begun, even though Tory hasn't yet declared his intentions. (Hmmm, wonder what he'll do?) Mischievious anti-Smitherman elves are doing a bit of pre-Christmas scandal-mongering by whispering about how he's being a naughty boy with his consituency office.

According to anonymous gnomes, Smitherman will take advantage of the perks of being an MPP - a constituency office, plus one at Queen's Park - and they've tallied all his covered expenses from Nov. 9 to Mar. 1 at somewhere just over $80,000. However, they admit it's only a guess-timate and there are "intangibles." They did a little playing with Excel sheets and worked up the total to include his salary, office staff, photocopying, mailing and contact with voters over the next three months, et cetera, et cetera.  "This is in no way a definitive spreadsheet," says their email, "but it is a fairly accurate representation of what an MPP would spend in three months if he were to open a mayoralty campaign office. This is not right."

From Smitherman's camp, media relations chief Erika Mozes dismisses the estimates as not credible.

"On the MPP office, the legislative assembly provides MPP's a total of about $80,000 a year to run their constituency offices so to begin with their number is way off.  George Smitherman still has a number of files to complete before he leaves - he has been an MPP for 10 years- not something you should simply drop overnight.  Gerard Kennedy also transitioned in this way when he left cabinet.  I don't see how he would be able to utilize his community office to help him in his future pursuits - and to note he has not yet officially launched any campaign, he has simply signaled his intent to run."

Mozes stressed Smitherman will resign as MPP for Toronto Centre once he's officially in the race early next year.

It's hard to build a story on an anonymous tip about money Smitherman's people say is going for legitimate purposes. But this initial flurry signals a mayoral race that could be far from pretty - very dirty indeed. We don't even know yet whether a well-known name from the left will enter the fray, making a three-way race among three strong contenders with name recognition even nastier.

Should make for interesting coverage.

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Humble apologies for my absence. I was immersed in an investigative project that didn't lend itself to blogging and then right into a profile of George Smitherman. I thought Star photogapher Steve Russell's photos were so fine, I've posted a couple for you today. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontomayoralrace/article/725803--george-smitherman-a-big-bully-the-city-needs.

All to say - Political Decoder is back.

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A subhead caught my eye last week. It comes from the Star, Nov. 16, under the headline, "APEC leaders admit climate deal unlikely."

The subhead: "Copenhagen agreement won't be signed but hope turns to Mexico summit."

There's always next time, right? It is to weep.

Journos at Washington Post exchange blows over story

Tell a Washington Post reporter she's written "the second worst story" in an editor's 43 years in the paper's Style section - the Washington society (if that's not an oxymoron) bible - and fists fly. Them's fightin' words. It's just like the Star's newsroom. Joke.

This is pretty funny. It is, I'm afraid my only posting until next week. Next time I'll learn to better judge the time required for an assignment. Enjoy: 

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/14004.html