Conservative Party Rules Chair[persons] Want to 'Beat Harper'? . . . "a leaked e-mail suggests that members of the Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC) are trying to fix rules to beat Harper".

Martin is enraged, a show of force is rquired, and it is said that heads are about to roll. According to sources extremely close to Martin who spoke on condition of anonymity, he is likely to turf . . .

for government assistance to save its 8,300 employees and 11,000 retirees, many of whom work in Hamilton . . . . According to a CP report, "Stelco has said it faces a $1.25-billion shortfall in its pension liabilities and some $918 million in post-retirement pension benefits.

The Quebec sponsorship scandal is perfect news channel fodder. Why not round up some of Canada's toughest political partisans and savviest commentators for a rousing round of debate? Not at Newsworld, or at least not on prime time when people are actually watching television, and certainly not in competition with The National on the main CBC network. That would be against the rules.

What regulatory manipulation has left Canada with a national television market totally devoid of sharp, intelligent and opinionated debate?

[. . . . ] While Canadians are kept on hold, Americans have an opportunity to plug into a constant stream of discussion. Why don't Canadians? The answer is regulation and government funding. CBC Newsworld, which has a near-exclusive lock on the news-comment format, howls in protest whenever a private channel comes along with a competitive idea. CTV Newsnet, to get on the air, had to cook up a non-competitive format. Other channels have trouble beating the regulatory system.

The result is stifled competition, both for viewers and ideas. One suspects the structure is deliberately set up to prevent debate and protect the governing Liberals, although that's hard to prove. But if last Thursday night's The National, and the limited public affairs debate on all the networks, is any indication, it's certainly the effect.

[. . . .] When Mr. Martin was finance minister, he removed himself from discussions concerning CSL and the shipping company's clients, such as Stelco. He did so even though he had placed CSL and his other holdings in a semi-blind trust. (It was later revealed that he received periodic strategic briefings from Howard Wilson, Mr. Chr?tien's ethics counsellor.) [Read more on Howard Wilson below: PM Keeps Wilson For Now -- It is Useless to Dust Off Your Resume]

[. . . . ] Although CSL faces the same rates as other Canadians on taxes it pays in this country, its international affiliates, registered in the tax haven of Barbados, pay almost no tax on their profits. They can then send the money to Canada as tax-free dividends, thanks to tax arrangements confirmed while Mr. Martin was finance minister.

Advertising and patronage have walked hand in hand ever since politicians realized they needed professional help to make them attractive to the public. . . .They set things right by creating a French-Canadian advertising community, when necessary assigning government accounts to companies that possessed nothing at the time except a post office box and a yearning for wealth.

Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, as well as former ministers Alfonso Gagliano, Don Boudria and David Dingwall - now president and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint - were on the list sent by Auditor General Sheila Fraser to a House of Commons committee.

OTTAWA (CP) - Jean Chretien's friends will strike back with "every conceivable measure" at Prime Minister Paul Martin if he drags their old boss into the sponsorship scandal, Chretien loyalists warned Friday.

Some pockets of the Liberal party are reacting with fury to insinuations that Chretien's inner circle is to blame for a scheme that bilked $100 million from the public purse.

And there were warnings that the lifelong political street-brawler could emerge from retirement to lay a retaliatory uppercut on the chin of his longtime nemesis Paul Martin.

Two longtime Liberals raised the issue of a libel lawsuit against any Martin aide spreading rumours that the former prime minister was to blame for the scheme.

[. . . .] U.S. defence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Spc. Ryan Anderson, 26, signed onto extremist Internet chat rooms and tried to contact al-Qaida operatives, offering the organization information on U.S. military capabilities and weaponry.

[. . . . ] Anderson, from Everett, Wash., became a Muslim during the last five years, officials said.

Anderson is the second Muslim soldier with Fort Lewis connections to be accused of wrongdoing related to the war on terror.

Capt. James Yee, 35, a former Fort Lewis chaplain, is accused of mishandling classified information from the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yee ministered to Muslim prisoners there. . . .

Lawyers for an Algerian man wanted in the U.S. on terrorism charges spent most of the day behind closed doors in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver arguing issues related to his extradition case with a federal prosecutor representing the U.S.

Samir Ait Mohamed, 36, is wanted in the U.S. in relation to the plot involving Ahmed Ressam to bomb the Los Angeles airport on Dec. 31, 1999.

OTTAWA - Ethics Counsellor Howard Wilson has spent about $250,000 in the past 10 years attending international conferences as an expert on ethics.

A tally of his expenses, which were released quietly on his own Web site, shows Mr. Wilson spent 456 days out of his Ottawa office during the past decade attending conferences in places such as Hong Kong, Canberra, Brasilia, Prague, Seoul, Beijing and Santiago. As well, he made five trips to Paris, four to London, England and three to Buenos Aires since 1994.

Mr. Wilson was absent from his office an average of about 45 days or six weeks a year despite the fact that Robert Benson, the Deputy Ethics Counsellor, recently testified the Ethics Counsellor has been slow to respond to complaints because office resources are limited.

[. . . .] His salary is between $157,000 and $184,700, and Mr. Wilson has collected annual performance bonuses which could have reached as high as $27,705 while serving Mr. Chretien.

The list of expenses also consist of hospitality charges, including lunches and dinners. Mr. Wilson acknowledged he did occasionally go over the limit of $30.65 for lunch in 2003, the last year he has filed his expenses.

On Sunday, the day after Valentine's Day, the CBC will air an hour-long celebration of same-sex marriage. The likely climax: two guys kissing -- like Madonna and Britney Spears, perhaps? -- at the altar. Eat your heart out, Bette Midler.

Even as Paul Martin sends the issue to the Supreme Court for clarification, the state broadcaster hypes this as the first-ever live broadcast of a homosexual marriage. [. . . .]

This taxpayer-funded stunt is a slap in the face to Christian groups, including the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. They have promoted Valentine's week as a time to proclaim the sanctity of marriage. They complain the CBC is legally mandated to be balanced; yet, they claim, it relentlessly pushes a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agenda that does not reflect mainstream Canadian opinion.

You doubt this? Then why did CBC "moderator" Carol Off introduce a recent "objective" discussion of same-sex marriages by describing the "beautiful" same-sex wedding ceremony she had just attended?

[. . . .] Paul Martin's beleaguered brain trust wants to get rid of the instantly recognizable Liberal logo -- a clear signal of how far they want to distance the "Martin" Party from the ancien regime of Jean Chretien, a notion members of the Ontario Liberal caucus call dumb and profligate.

[. . . .] In a quid pro quo deal that would make Machiavelli proud, Mr. Collenette [quitting politics] agreed not to run again in Don Valley East, opening the way for Paul Martin's candidate, John Kazanjian, a Harvard-educated lawyer. Then, Penny Collenette, one-time director of patronage appointments in the Chretien PMO, agreed not to challenge Liberal Richard Mahoney (another PM favourite) in Ottawa Centre. In return, sources say, Mrs. Collenette, with hubbie in tow, will be appointed Consul General to Boston after the next election.

As a means of addressing the national aspirations of Quebecers, the programs of the Canada Information Office and its successors were a poor joke -- a doomed blitzkrieg of insolent poppycock. Liberals treated Quebecers' suspicions of central Canadian power, suspicions rooted in centuries of experience, as a mere error of fact that could be corrected by means of -- posters! Murals! Colouring books! Free flags for everybody! It is as if they had said: "Why, we just have to remind these Pepsi retards of all the nice things Ottawa does for them, and how pretty the Maple Leaf flag is, and they'll come around!"

[. . . . ] As a Westerner, I could, of course, add another scandalous component to this list: namely, that fostering national unity seems to involve placating Quebec, and only Quebec, with tax money raised from all Canadians. Even disregarding the element of corruption, this is the sort of thing that gives "national unity" the negative overtones it has in the West. (When a politician says "national unity," check your wallet.) Some, it seems, believe that lawlessness of this sort is wrong if the beneficiaries are Jean Chretien's friends, but right if the beneficiaries are Jean Chretien's ethnic compatriots in general.