Re: [OT] British MP defends cousin marriages

On 2024-12-17 4:44 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Tue, 17 Dec 2024 14:04:00 -0500, Rhino
<no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
 

As you anticipated, I certainly heard lots about that family that
drowned and it clearly affected the election. But I never heard the part
about the father failing to even fill in the application form. The
failure of the media to mention that at the time is appalling but not
particularly surprising: it helped Trudeau at a time when he was far
from a shoo-in and ushered in the past 9 years of misery. There's no doubt most of the media was on Team Trudeau. I still recall the
once-respectable Tom Clark interviewing Trudeau and focusing on his nice
hair rather than matters of policy. (Is it really surprising that Clark
was made Consul-General in New York and set up with a 9 million dollar
condo as a reward?)

 Glad you remember the 2015 mostly the way I do. Didn't know about the
consul-general job but certainly that's the most prestigious
non-ambassadorial job in the Canadian diplomatic service.
 Not sure the 2015 Kurdi affair directly affected electoral districts
(I avoid saying 'ridings' to avoid confusing our US friends)
nationally but it certainly did in the Metro Toronto area which is
where the aunt lived. (And as you know has a crapload of House of
Commons seats which as Canada's largest city it should - Toronto is
after all the (depending on the source you use since different sources
use different metropolitain areas) either 4th or 8th largest in North
America.
 And while I don't have a cite on the Kurdi non-application it was
definitely covered at the time.
 There's a headline on the National Post this morning saying 'give
Singh his pension and have the election NOW... but no question while
they're not going to have the time have a federal election before US
inauguration day, they shouldn't wait until the normal time which
would be Sept/Oct 2025.

I think someone should launch a fund-raising effort - maybe via GoFundMe - to raise an equivalent amount of money to what Singh would get once his pension vests provided he votes non-confidence in a short timeframe. I would NOT want to see Parliament change legislation to make some kind of exception just to give Singh his pension early; that would set a bad precedent.
I don't know if you remember TERF, (Pierre) Trudeau's Early Retirement Fund from back in the day when we were getting heartily sick of Trudeau the Elder: I seem to remember they were trying to raise a million dollars, back when that was still substantial money, via private donations. I don't think they ever raised the target amount and Trudeau didn't take it in any case but a similar effort with Singh would show what a prostitute he was if he actually took it. I'd certainly contribute to that and I think a whole LOT of Canadians would too!
Mind you, I saw one article that said Singh is trying to make sure that some of his NDP MPs also get THEIR pensions but theirs don't vest until Oct 27, which is why they want to delay the election another week to Oct 27. (As I recall, Singh got in a bit earlier because someone stepped aside to let him run in a by-election just before the last federal election but the other MPs in question only got in at the next federal election so their pensions vest a few months later than that.) But that seems like a red herring to me. That would require changing laws to delay this one election an extra week which seems like a very bad precedent. Of course the Liberals and NDP COULD force it to happen anyway given the number of votes they have but that would taint both parties very badly, as well it should. That might not be enough to prevent it though. But if a short delay on the election can be avoided ONLY Singh's pension is preventing an early election which is so desperately wanted by everyone except the Liberal and NDP MPs. In that case, maybe SERF (Singh's Early Retirement Fund) is worth trying....
--
Rhino