Burn After Wearing

A unique protest was to take  place near St. John's tonight.

Actress Mary Walsh, also known as Warrior Princess, gathered a group of Newfoundlanders at Middle Cove Beach for a Sweater Vest Burning Bonfire — a shot at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new clothing style.

People were being asked to bring along a sweater or vest for burning in protest. The arts community is livid with the Conservatives for cutting funding to arts programming.

Truth to power, dude

Give George Stroumboulopoulos, host of CBC's The Hour, full marks for cutting to the chase.

Interviewing NDP Leader Jack Layton for tonight's show, "Stroumbo" had the travelling press pack in stitches.

He asked Layton if it was wise to keep saying he was going to be Prime Minister.

"Keep talking like this, people are going to think you smoke pot," said the host.

Later, Layton insisted he "didn't get into politics to be in opposition."

Not missing a beat, Stroumboulopoulos cracked: "Why did you join the NDP?"

The Hour airs at 11 pm on the CBC's main network.

Layton puts his money where his mouth is

NDP Leader Jack Layton hates red ink.

"I don’t like paying interest on debt. Why pay debt to bankers?" Layton told the Toronto Star's editorial board, where he defended his pledge not to run a deficit if elected Oct. 14.

Asked if he and wife Olivia Chow, the NDP incumbent in Trinity-Spadina, have a mortgage, he said: "No, I don't. We paid it off."

"Of course we had a mortgage – everybody has had to have a mortgage at some point," said Layton.

"We worked bloody hard to pay that thing off, believe me. We had our little celebration last year. I’m at that age now," said the 58-year-old.

Layton and Chow live in downtown Toronto in a rambling Victorian house with a solar-panel roof.

- Robert Benzie

Where am I?

Liberal Immigration critic Maurizio Bevilacqua could have used a good proof reader before he fired off a news release today criticizing the NDP for turning their backs on new Canadians.

The news release was datelined "Vaughn."

The party probably meant to write Vaughan, the large city on Toronto's northern border. Yes, the same city that Bevilacqua represents in Parliament.

Let's hope the hometown audience doesn’t spot the error.

- Bruce Campion-Smith

Puttin' on the Ritz

Gerry Ritz lives.

The Conservative agriculture minister, who disappeared earlier this month after joking about listeriosis tainted meat victims, showed up today for a Canadian Federation of Agriculture debate.

Ritz was cornered by a Canadian Press reporter at Ottawa Airport Sept. 17 to explain his comments in a teleconference with public servants in which he referred to the victims as "death by a thousand cold cuts."

Although Ritz aplogized, the macabre humour continues to haunt him.

That's Some Ad Placement

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion was asked on CTV's Canada AM this morning what it's like to be belittled in a concerted personal campaign of anti-Dion Conservative advertising.

Dion said he is overcoming it during the election campaign because he's getting a chance to speak directly to the Canadian people. But, he observed: "Never has an individual been attacked by so many millions of dollars of attack ads than me."

Then CTV interrupted the interview for a couple of ads. You guessed it - one of them was the Conservative ad that tries to depict Dion as an ineffective ditherer and uses newspaper headlines to question his ability to manage Canada's economy.

- Les Whittington

Tout le monde en parle

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion said this election is crucial to his future, as well as the country’s, on tonight’s installment of Canada’s most watched talk show, Tout le monde en parle, on Radio-Canada television.

The show, a must-see in Quebec with about 1.5 million viewers every Sunday, like many talk shows in France, hosts numerous guests around a table in a very brightly-lit, modern studio.

Dion, whose party is struggling in the polls across the country, and particularly in Quebec, was reminded by host Guy Lepage that the election is crucial for the future of the country. “But isn’t it for you as well?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dion replied solemnly. “It’s the fight of my life.”

Dion had a couple of good moments during the show, despite looking a bit like a deer in the headlights.

When Lepage told him that the public is having trouble understanding his “Green Shift” plan, a centerpiece of the Liberal platform, he offered Dion 60 seconds to explain it.

“Cut income taxes, shift to pollution,” he said. It’s a line he’s used more often recently, but Lepage seemed to like it: “And you still have 55 seconds!”

Dion also scored points when he spoke of strategic voting and the need for progressive forces to unite behind the Liberals. In Quebec, he said, while it might be fine to vote for the Bloc Quebecois as a protest against Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a vote for the Liberals is a step toward replacing him – something the Bloc could never do.

The ever sober-looking Dion managed to elicit a laugh from the audience when Lepage asked him, in English, whether his poor command of English would be a problem in the English debate. “I don’t understand,” Dion replied with a grin.

-Andrew Chung

Stephane Dion on foreign policy

ooLiberal leader Stéphane Dion, on CBC Radio’s call-in show Cross-Country Checkup, gave a new take on why Canada’s military should withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011.

“We have other roles to carry in the world, including by the way the Olympics that are coming in Vancouver where we’ll need our military forces big time to welcome the world for matter of security.”

“So this is what is the policy of the Liberal Party of Canada, only the Liberal party of Canada will give you the iron-clad guarantee that this (Afghan) mission will end in 2011.”

What Dion didn't mention is the Vancouver Olympics are in 2010, long before the withdrawal Dion backed in parliament.

Dion contrasted Liberal leaders to Conservative leader Stephen Harper, whom Dion said, on foreign policy, follows the Americans “on everything.”

He reminded a caller that former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien kept Canada out of Iraq, but he said “Mr. Harper wanted us to go in the war in Iraq. He’s not a prudent man, he’s always willing to follow the view of the Americans.  He thinks the Americans are our model.”

“To me, the Americans are not our model. They are our ally, but not a model.”

Dion stressed Canada was involved in a NATO mission there, “not an American mission.”

“Until 2011, we need to do our best to provide more security in Afghanistan, more training for their troops, their police, more hospitals, more schools and it’s a miracle what we’re doing there.”

Dion said he was proud that “we’re one of the rare countries in the world that never sent our army abroad for other reasons than for peace and democracy and justice.”

He said if he thought most people in Afghanistan “see us as an invading force,” he would demand an immediate withdrawal.

- Tonda MacCharles

In the Words of Nellie McClung

Stephane Dion finished his speech at a boisterous morning rally in Toronto with the words of Nellie McClung, saying "No nation rises higher than its women."

But several female Liberal MPs who pumped up the rhetoric in introducing Dion appeared to set that bar somewhat low.

MP Dianne Marleau, chairman of the Liberals' women's caucus, asked if Canadians want a country "ruled by a dictator." She said Conservative leader Stephen Harper has "contempt for women."

MP Carolyn Bennett, a physician by training, noted with women making up more than half of medical school classes, "medicine is now a meritocracy, unfortunately politics is not." She slammed Harper's leadership style: "the meanest boss" that Canadians "ever had in their life."

And Bennett, pointing to Dion's wife Janine Krieber, said she was so glad that Dion "prefers smart to smart alec. We're thrilled to have Mme. Krieber here today."

MP Yasmin Ratansi said Harper cut funds for the federal Status of Women's office "because he is mean-spirited" and asked "when you remove the word equality (from the office's mandate) what do you want? Inequality for women." Ratansi accused Harper of "stupid economic management."

"Boot him out," chanted the crowd.

Perhaps Dion should have quoted McClung's other famous saying (reprinted on pink shirts worn at the rally) "Never retract, never explain, never apologize. Get things done and let them howl."

- Tonda MacCharles

Limousine Liberals, Champagne socialists or neither?

So much for Liberal criticism that NDP MP Olivia Chow is tooling around Toronto in a limousine.

Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis distributed photographic proof that Chow, wife of NDP Leader Jack Layton, was being driven around in a chauffeur driven-car.

“While Jack and the NDP state that they support the people of Main Street they get around like Wall Street tycoons,” says Karygiannis’s accompanying e-mail.

Alas, there is an explanation.

“The RCMP in the election requires the spouse to be in an RCMP car because they’re worried about safety. It’s not her choice. I’m being taken around by the RCMP,” said Layton today.

“Most people know Olivia and I normally ride around town on our bicycles. That’s how we travel,” he said.

“I would prefer that right now, but the RCMP suggests to me that while they would be happy to ride bicycles with me – and they do look good in spandex, I’m told – that in an election I’m running for Prime Minister a certain minimum set of practices have to be in place.”

Layton laughed and said it’s “ridiculous” for the Liberals to make the charge against his wife.

“I would suggest that they may have other things they should be focusing on.”

-Robert Benzie