Born: May 30, 1977

Age: 35

Education: Honours degree in political science from the University of Western Ontario, master’s degree in political science from the University of Calgary.

Private career: Worked as a researcher for the right-leaning National Citizens Coalition when it was led by Harper.

Political career: Active in student politics at the University of Western Ontario. Interned in former Reform leader Preston Manning’s office and later for then-Reform MP Rob Anders. Finalist in Magna’s “If I Were Prime Minister” essay contest in 2000. Became Harper’s executive assistant when he returned to federal politics in 2001 to lead the Canadian Alliance party. Named principal secretary in 2008. The longest-serving member of Harper’s inner circle.

Personal: Known as a monarchist. Once lived in a one-bedroom apartment over the garage at Stornoway when Harper was Opposition leader.

For the record: “Ray is really good, and trusted. He’s quiet and handles lots of tough issues. And yes, he stays out of the limelight.” — Jason Lietaer, former head of the Conservative Resource Group

The group — which includes author Margaret Atwood, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and actor Gordon Pinsent — has signed an online petition to rename this Monday’s public holiday “Victoria and First Peoples Day.”

Peter Keleghan, an actor and spokesman for the group, says the name would provide a chance to honour both the Crown and the indigenous peoples of Canada.

He says it would help create a better understanding of the various peoples who helped shape Canada.

National Aboriginal Day is celebrated every year on June 21 but it’s not recognized as a national holiday.

Victoria Day marks the birthday of Queen Victoria and is celebrated every year on the last Monday before May 25.

Quebec celebrates National Patriots’ Day on the same day, to honour the rebellion against the British in 1837.

Earlier this week the PM’s office admitted that Wright personally paid off $90,000 in inappropriately claimed housing expenses for Duffy.

Wright said that Harper has accepted his resignation.

“It is with great regret that I have accepted the resignation of Nigel Wright as my Chief of Staff,” Harper said in a statement. “I want to thank Nigel for his tremendous contribution to our Government over the past two and a half years.”

The resignation comes as something of a surprise, as it was only a week ago that the Conservatives were expressing confidence in Wright.

“It was just days ago that the PM’s director of communications had come out and said, no, Stephen Harper has full confidence in Nigel Wright, when there questions swirling about whether he would be fired or forced to resign from this scandal,” said 680News Parliament Hill reporter Cormac MacSweeney.

Explaining his actions as far as writing the cheque, Wright said he intended “solely to secure the repayment of funds,” which he considered to be in the public interest.

He says he did not tell Harper how Duffy’s expenses were repaid, either before or after the fact.

“I accept that Nigel believed he was acting in the public interest, but I understand the decision he has taken to resign,” Harper added in his statement.

Wright says he regrets the impact the matter has had on the government, the Tory caucus and all his colleagues.

Duffy, meanwhile, has resigned from his spot in the Conservative caucus, but remains as an independent senator.

]]> http://www.680news.com/2013/05/19/harpers-chief-of-staff-nigel-wright-resigns-over-duffy-controversy/feed/ 5 http://www.680news.com/2013/05/19/many-new-car-dealers-not-using-voluntary-fuel-efficiency-labels-report/ http://www.680news.com/2013/05/19/many-new-car-dealers-not-using-voluntary-fuel-efficiency-labels-report/#comments Sun, 19 May 2013 09:15:03 -0400 Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press 1420637 Read the Rest of the Entry]]> OTTAWA – A growing number of Canada’s car dealers are removing fuel-efficiency labels that the industry agreed to display on each vehicle under a voluntary deal reached with Ottawa 15 years ago.

A survey of almost 600 dealerships across the country found that the labels were attached to only 63 per cent of the new vehicles on outdoor lots.

And vehicles displayed in dealer showrooms had the labels affixed just 43 per cent of the time. Some high-end models — BMW and Rolls-Royce, for example — had a zero compliance rate.

The poor showing comes as Natural Resources Canada conducts a review of the voluntary label program for new vehicles, under the brand EnerGuide, including a proposal that it be made mandatory.

The survey of 592 new-car dealerships in 33 large cities was carried out earlier this year by Posterity Group Consulting Inc. under a $113,000 government contract.

The EnerGuide label program for vehicles was launched in 1998 to help consumers make informed choices about the fuel efficiency of new passenger cars, vans and light-duty trucks.

The labels are attached by manufacturers, indicating the number of litres of fuel needed to travel 100 kilometres, and showing the difference between city and highway driving.

The program requires manufacturers to test fuel efficiency of various models under government-approved procedures and standards.

Posterity’s final report, delivered in late March, was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

Posterity found that some dealers removed the manufacturers’ EnerGuide labels because they also included the retail price. Others tore them off because of “aesthetics,” while some said the labels affixed to the windshield were “impeding” drivers’ vision during test drives.

Many others who pulled them off claimed the labels gave inaccurate or misleading information about fuel-efficiency.

“At some dealerships, EnerGuide labels were missing due to the errors discovered in the mileage estimates claimed by these manufacturers,” says the report.

“Ten makes had compliance rates of zero per cent, including Aston Martin, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, Mini and Rolls-Royce.”

A spokesman for the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, representing 3,250 dealerships selling 22 brands, said the poor compliance rate across the country was no surprise.

“These things are less and less relevant,” chief economist Michael Hatch said in an interview. “The paper label is decreasingly relevant for consumers.”

Apart from price, the most important specification for new-vehicle buyers today is fuel efficiency, Hatch said. And most consumers walking into a showroom have done extensive homework online, unlike in 1998 when there were fewer options for obtaining timely data.

“The world has changed,” Hatch said.

Natural Resources plans to radically revamp the label program, with a label redesign, new information on carbon dioxide and smog emissions, and special labels for electric vehicles.

The current fuel-consumption label “does not provide Canadians with the information they need to compare the energy, environmental, and financial costs and benefits of different vehicle choices,” the department says.

A new fuel-efficiency testing regime would also expand to include air-conditioner usage, cold temperature operation and higher speeds with faster acceleration.

“For most vehicles, consumption will increase by about 15 per cent,” spokesman Guillaume Berube said in an email.

The department is also considering making the new EnerGuide label regime mandatory for the 2016 model year.

Hatch says his group is opposed to mandatory labelling, given that consumers have many other ways to acquire relevant information about new vehicles.

“It’s kind of an old-school solution to a problem that in our view doesn’t exist,” he said. “It’s just another layer of red tape.”

Hatch’s group has no objection to retaining an improved paper label, but does not want regulations requiring them.

Berube says the department has received 168 submissions on the proposed changes, including a requirement to colour them blue.

He said he could not provide a timeline for eventual changes, but the department’s regulatory notice says a voluntary system would have to be in place by December this year to catch the 2016 model year.

If a mandatory system is chosen, proposed regulations would be published next year, says the notice.

A vessel with three men aboard hit a sandbar in rough seas early yesterday morning and started taking on water.

The body of a 23-year-old man from Tracadie-Sheila was later found near where the boat ran into trouble off of Tabusintac (ta-BOO’-sihn-ak).

The RCMP say a 35-year-old man from Tabusintac and a 32-year-old man from Brantville are still missing.

A military search for the two was called off Saturday afternoon about 10 hours after the boat issued a distress call.

The Rescue Centre in Halifax said two Coast Guard vessels and a Cormorant helicopter did all they could to find the two, and the matter was now in the hands of the R-C-M-P.

Mounties, along with search teams from Miramichi and Restigouche and local residents were expected to continue combing the shoreline today for any sign of the two men.

The Transportation Safety Board is also sending a team to investigate the tragedy.

—

ScH

As things begin to warm up, many people take out their tools and start digging, trimming and planting, all of which can be hard work.

Before going for a run or hitting the gym you likely stretch and warm up, but how about before starting gardening?

Dr. Stacy Irvine, a chiropractor at Totum Life Science, says it’s important to do that, and also to break up your work.

“Try to spend approximately fifteen minutes doing each task, which means that you’re going to be changing your body position while gardening,” Irvine said. “People get in trouble when they stay in one position for too long.”

Improper techniques can lead to back injuries as well as repetitive strain injuries to joints and muscles.

Beyond warming up and alternating tasks, it’s also important to lift right – bending your knees and keeping a straight back – as well as ensure you kneel when planting.

You should keep a straight back doing this as well, and you can ease the strain on your knees with knee pads or a kneeling mat.

Prime-time ads began airing this week during NHL playoff games — currently the priciest advertising real estate on the dial — that tout a new federal Canada Jobs Grant for training workers.

The trouble is, the freshly announced program is at present little more than a concept that has yet to be negotiated with provincial governments, and requires buy-in from employers as well.

Peter Van Loan, the Conservative government House leader, described the Canada Jobs Grant last week as a “proposal that needs to be fleshed out and developed fully.”

“What we’ve announced is a concept of how it could work,” Van Loan said in Toronto as the government began what it calls roundtable consultations on the proposal.

The concept requires that Ottawa, the province and the employer kick in up to $5,000 each toward the training of a worker.

Legislation to create the federal training grant is still months away from even being considered by Parliament — which is why the TV ads note in fine print that the program is “subject to parliamentary approval.”

But the program will also require provincial agreement, and that of business.

“The Canada Job Grant will be introduced as part of the renewal of the labour market agreements with the provinces and territories in 2014-15,” Human Resources and Skills Development said in an emailed response.

“Its final design will be negotiated with provinces and territories over the next year, in consultation with stakeholder groups.”

The department did not respond directly to questions about the ethics of spending public funds to advertise programs and services that do not exist.

“It is important the government communicates about programs that benefit Canadians and their families,” said the email.

The Conservative government has come under increasing scrutiny for its lavish spending on feel-good “economic action plan” ads that deliver little useable information but tell viewers that Canada’s economy is flourishing. Ottawa has spent at least $113 million on the ads since 2009.

No budget was provided for the latest media blitz, but with ads on Hockey Night in Canada costing up to $95,000 per 30-second spot, the ad buy could easily be in the millions of dollars.

An anti-Harper protest group with a naughty name, found at www.shd.ca, has been soliciting money to air its own TV ad mocking the government’s “economic action plan” blitz.

The group said Friday that it had raised $66,000, two-thirds of the cost of a single airing during Hockey Night in Canada.

Jonathon Rose, an expert in political advertising, called the Canada Jobs Grant advertisement “misleading.”

Rose, a political science professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., sits on Ontario’s independent government advertising advisory board, which is legislated to ensure government ads are non-partisan, informative and fact-based.

He said the currents ad’s “proviso — ‘subject to parliamentary approval’ — does not offset the verb ‘will partner’ or ‘will result,’ which makes it seem like a foregone conclusion.”

“Government ads are not excluded from the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards and I think this would fail tests of accuracy and clarity on a number of levels,” said Rose.

Agnes Maltais, Quebec’s minister for employment and social solidarity, was equally blunt.

French-language versions of the ad are running in Quebec, where the provincial government has already stated it is not interested in taking part.

“The ads on the Canadian job grant are the blatant proof of the bad faith of the federal government,” Maltais said in an email.

“On one side, the federal government says it wants to ‘negotiate’ with the provinces the reform of the job market deals, and on the other side it launches ads selling the Canadian job grant.”

Liberal MP John McCallum, the party’s Treasury Board critic, called the current ads “totally offside.”

Imagine Stephen Harper’s reaction if past Liberal governments had spent millions of dollars advertising universal daycare or the Kelowna Accord while the measures were still being hashed out, McCallum said.

“I think he would have gone apoplectic, and rightly so.”

Mathieu Ravignat, the NDP Treasury Board critic, said the whole idea of parliamentary approval appears to have “become a farce” for the majority Conservatives.

No Canadian can access the program being advertised, he noted.

“It’s about selling the Conservative brand to Canadians,” said Ravignat.

“They know things are not as rosy as they would like to paint them with regards to the economy. It’s about appearing like good financial managers, good job creators, and it’s about damage control.”

“This is all sorts of wrong.”

How many? Forty-seven? Fifty-three? Maybe even 60 seats.

There’s 85 seats in B.C. legislature, and the feeling — right out there in the open — was an NDP majority was only a few hours away.

The confidence of impending victory for Dix’s New Democrats on election night was oozing, overflowing — for the party and seemingly most everyone else — on Monday night, less than 24 hours before the polls closed. It was as if Dix’s orange NDP campaign bus was running on a tank filled with over-confidence.

But it ran out of gas at polling booths across B.C.

The NDP’s unbridled sense that the keys to the gates of power were about to be handed over is similar to the 1996 B.C. election campaign that saw former premier Gordon Campbell’s Liberals running as if they were destined for government. They lost to Glen Clark’s New Democrats in the last days with Campbell denying he made a deal with the virtually dead Social Credit party to secure faltering right-wing votes.

Embedded campaign reporters and those who packed the bus last week for the NDP’s final day and night’s push to Hope, B.C., and beyond were there to witness a victory tour. What they got was a historic campaign crash that saw Dix steer the NDP into the ditch and Christy Clark’s Liberals cruise to a fourth term.

“He is a giant egghead,” said one disgruntled New Democrat who said the campaign started on a high note but kept sliding downwards as the weeks wore on and Clark’s Liberals framed Dix as negative and an economic risk.

“He thought he would win a policy war during an election campaign. That proved to be fatal,” said the NDPer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Adrian kept talking about how he had one (crappy) suit and Christy looks like a million bucks.”

Dix frequently mentioned during campaign stops that he had two suits, but noticed on the first day he mixed up his pants and jackets. At one stop, he addressed a Surrey town hall with birthday cake icing stains on his pants and tie. Campaign workers were seen carrying fresh shirts after the cake incident.

As the Dix bus pulled out of Hedley and onto the winding Hope-Princeton highway, the first song out of the exceptionally fine bus speakers was “Come Together” by the Beatles. The irony of the song choice and what was to transpire a few hours down the road was epic.

The bus stopped at the entrance to Manning Park and Dix looked up at the expanse of shimmering stars above him.

“I’ve got all kinds of Hope,” deadpaned Dix as he strode into Hope’s Tim Horton’s just after midnight and ordered a medium coffee, one milk.

He was greeted by Chilliwack-Hope NDP candidate Gwen O’Mahony, who won a historic byelection in Liberal territory last year.

“Don’t say we don’t know how to close in this campaign,” Dix said. “Today we’ve got to work one more day to bring change to British Columbia.”

Dix reminded the dozen New Democrats out for a late-night snack at Tim’s that O’Mahony’s Chilliwack-Hope byelection win offered “some real hope for everybody. You can win everywhere.”

O’Mahony was among those who lost Tuesday night.

The 24-hour victory lap covered some 1,700 kilometres and was scheduled to make 14 community stops, starting in Courtenay on Vancouver Island and concluding in Dix’s own Vancouver-Kingsway riding just as the polls opened.

Kamloops, Williams Lake, Prince George and Penticton were airport stops where Dix met diehard party supporters whom he reminded to work every last minute of the campaign to get out the vote, ending with a rephrased version of the Sam Cooke ballad “A change is going to come” to British Columbia in 24 hours.

But the chain-link, barbwired-topped fences at the airports that formed an ominous barrier between Dix and his supporters did little to foster the impression his campaign was building spontaneous momentum on the journey home.

In Prince George, Dix took reporters’ questions and spoke at length about his decision to run a positive, issues-focused campaign, but reporters were hustled onto the waiting plane and left without a chance to file his comments for about two hours when the flight landed in Penticton.

At Williams Lake, Dix was greeted by a supporter who spoke with real excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation of an NDP victory.

“I tell you, the Liberals devastated everybody I know, including myself,” said Wayne Potter, a former BC Rail worker. “I’ve been waiting for 10 years to see this and I tell you, I think it’s going to happen and I pray to God when I wake up Wednesday morning it’s the NDP and Adrian running this province.”

The NDP’s John Horgan, who was re-elected in the suburban Victoria riding of Juan de Fuca, likely shared Potter’s sense of disappointment and dismay Wednesday morning.

Horgan told Victoria radio station CFAX the NDP campaign fell flat.

“The NDP, my party, has to take a good look at our soul and say what are we?” he said. “Are we a perpetual opposition party or are we going to be putting forward a platform that people are excited about and vote in favour of? Clearly, that didn’t happen this time.”

Horgan, who ran for the NDP leadership against Dix in 2011 but is considered one of his strongest supporters, suggested the campaign message to keep things positive and stay out of the gutter politics of the Liberals needs to be deeply re-examined.

“Adrian Dix is a very good friend of mine,” said Horgan. “He ran the campaign he wanted to run, and I supported every step of that. Clearly, I was hearing on the doorstep that people wanted to hear more about the Liberal record and we did a bad job of that, there’s no question.”

Dix allowed the Liberal negative attacks on past New Democrat governments and the NDP’s campaign spending promises to take root, and it wasn’t until the last week of the campaign Dix started to counter the Liberal messages with examples of their failures, but by then, it was too late, said the disgruntled New Democrat.

Others said the campaign went off course during the televised leaders debate and Dix’s Earth Day decision in Kamloops to reject Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand its oil pipeline operations in Metro Vancouver. Dix said British Columbians don’t want Vancouver to become a major oil exporting port.

Former B.C. NDP premier Ujjal Dosanjh who later was elected as a federal Liberal, said Dix’s decision to take a strong stand against Kinder Morgan in an effort to win Green votes threw the Liberal campaign a life ring.

“This is one of these defining differences that make or break a campaign,” Dosanjh said.

The disgruntled New Democrat said party brass and grassroots members now have the next four years to examine why the NDP was on cruise control in the final days of the campaign, working harder on transition teams and victory speeches than considering the significance of having just spent 12 years eating Liberal dust.

The long road for the NDP now sits at 50 Liberals, 33 New Democrats, one Independent and one Green.

Harper, who as a member of the legislature blocked the Meech Lake constitutional accord in 1990, died Friday at age 64.

The province says the public will be able to view Harper on Monday afternoon and that books of condolences will be available.

Later that evening, a funeral service will be held at Glory and Peace Church in Winnipeg.

The burial service will take place Thursday in Red Sucker Lake, where Harper was born and was once chief of the Ojibwa-Cree Red Sucker Lake First Nation.

Jennifer Wood, a longtime friend who worked with Harper in Winnipeg and in Ottawa, said the casket will be open during the viewing and that there will be a Manitoba flag draped over a portion of it.

Wood said she believes Harper would have been pleased many of the people he worked with at the legislature will be able to publicly pay their respects.

“I know it’s exactly what Elijah would have wanted,” she said.

The Meech Lake deal was intended to win Quebec’s signature on the Constitution but Harper said it ignored aboriginal rights.

He was a member of the New Democrat opposition in the legislature at the time and the accord had to be ratified by Parliament and most other legislatures. His vote against it prevented it from being ratified by Ottawa’s deadline and eventually scuttled it.

Images of him in the legislature holing an eagle feather while voting “No” were printed and broadcast across the country.

The event was called “Jeeps Go Topless” and was being held in the parking lot of a shopping centre to raise funds for the Edmonton Food Bank.

Police say it appears one of the Jeeps was involved in a climbing demonstration when it lost control and struck a woman.

Paramedics provided CPR to the woman but she was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital, police say.

Police say the driver of the Jeep was also taken to hospital with unknown injuries.

No one from the food bank could be immediately reached for comment.