. . . Clarkson's recent jaunt through Russia, Finland and Iceland set us back $5.3-million, five times the original reported costs. And that's not even counting the $307,000 paid by the Defence Department for use of a military Airbus.

But the tab is so egregious -- and the trip itself so utterly self-indulgent and useless -- that even Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has cancelled the proposed second leg of her Nordic boondoggle. [. . . . ]

Clarkson's haughty attitude is best illustrated by what happened when discontent about the trip boiled over into a Commons committee last fall. She thought nothing of cavalierly dispatching her secretary and press secretary -- at a cost of $17,000 for two business-class tickets between Ottawa and Finland -- to interrupt their boondoggle just long enough to drop by the committee for an hour to praise their boss, before heading back off again to rejoin Clarkson et al. in Finland.

As for Clarkson herself, her response to demands from elected politicians -- those low-life scoundrels who dared question her omnipotence -- was to declare that "I am above politics,"

[. . . .]Even if Clarkson is "above politics," she is certainly not above living high off the hog on your money. When she took the job in 1999, she promised to restore an air of "elegance" to the vice-regal office.

Apparently "elegance" isn't cheap. It included an immediate $2,400 to restore an organic garden for herself and her husband, John Ralston-Saul, both of whom -- as befits both their station and attitude -- naturally prefer organic meals. Then there was the $29,000 dining room carpet, $1,300 for 10 pairs of snowshoes, $7,700 on drapes, and more than $2,000 to reupholster two sofas. And so on.

OTTAWA - The federal government quietly froze millions of dollars in advertising contracts with Media/I.D.A. Vision this week after the Auditor-General raised concerns about questionable commissions the company collected under the sponsorship program, a senior federal official confirmed last night.

[. . . .] Media/I.D.A. Vision is the government's "agency of record"-- meaning it buys and places all government advertising on television and in newspapers and magazines across Canada. The huge contract is coveted by many Canadian firms.

Opposition MPs also questioned yesterday whether the Surete du Quebec should be investigating part of the scandal following the revelation that SQ officers received money under the program.

[. . . .] The Auditor-General's report said the government signed $435-million of advertising deals signed through Media/I.D.A. Vision since 1998, making the government among the country's top advertisers. However, her report noted bureaucrats had failed to audit the $435-million in deals and had no idea whether taxpayers received "the best possible prices."

Ms. Fraser's report also singled out two commissions the firm received totalling more than $54,000 for moving sponsorship funds from one government agency to another to hide the source of the funds, schemes opposition MPs labelled "money-laundering."

Media/I.D.A. Vision has retained Peter Clark, a Toronto-based lawyer at Heenan Blaikie, and is in discussions with senior Public Works officials to allay concerns officials have about the Auditor-General's report and continuing contracts.

But fears mounted last year after Datti Ahmed, a Kano physician who heads a prominent Muslim group, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, said polio vaccines were "corrupted and tainted by evildoers from America and their Western allies." ... "We believe that modern-day Hitlers have deliberately adulterated the oral polio vaccines with anti-fertility drugs and contaminated with certain viruses which are known to cause HIV-AIDS," . . . (Herald Online, SC -- Health)

Fears mounted last year after Datti Ahmed, a Kano physician who heads a prominent Muslim group, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, declared that polio vaccines were "corrupted and tainted by evil-doers from America and their Western allies.". Subsequent tests initiated by the Nigerian and South African governments proved the vaccines were free of all harmful substances, officials say. (Houston Chronicle -- Health)

Team Seeks Reassurance on Polio Vaccine, Feb 06, 2004

"We want all the stakeholders to see for themselves and be convinced about whether or not the polio vaccines are safe," Lambo told The Associated Press. Lambo will be on the team, along with representatives of state governments and religious organizations including Jama'atu Nasril Islam, among the nation's most influential Muslim groups. (Newsday -- Health)

A "whites-only" scholarship set up as a prank by Republican students at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island has ballooned into a cause celebre, with basic American themes such as race, equal opportunity and freedom colliding. The application form for the scholarship deftly parodies the language of similar documents for black, Hispanic or American Indian students seeking financial help for their education. "In 100 words or less, write why you are proud of your white heritage and explain what being white means to you," it read. "Must attach recent picture to confirm whiteness. Evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants." [. . . . It] earned a rebuke from the Rhode Island Republican Party for its "racist overtones."

OTTAWA—The Liberal whose name appeared on a mural at a Quebec college after he tapped the government's sponsorship fund for $5,000 said yesterday it was all a misunderstanding.

In a report last week, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser cited the incident as an example of improper use of Ottawa's $250 million sponsorship program but didn't name the MP. He was identified in media reports yesterday as Claude Drouin from the Quebec riding of Beauce.

"I never saw the cheque," a shaken Drouin told the Star.

But Mr. Garneau [Charles Garneau, principal of the Beauce-Appalaches community college in Ville Saint-Georges, Que.] said that Mr. Drouin is blameless in the whole affair, and it was the college's decision to put the MP's name on the mural, following the same protocol it uses when receiving donations through provincial members of national assembly.

"He didn't know about the mural," said Mr. Garneau. "The idea of the mural came after the end of the fundraising campaign."

Mr. Drouin, reached in his southern Quebec riding yesterday, said he never intended to benefit personally from the donation, and did not even know his name was on the mural until he was contacted by journalists on Thursday. "I didn't do this for my own visibility, but for the foundation," he said. "It was a good cause, a foundation to help youth." He said he has asked the college to remove his name from the mural. It is being replaced by the phrase "gouvernement federal."

They assume they need about 30 cents of every dollar in their economy to come as a net federal transfer from the economies of Ontario and Alberta.

[. . . . ] The economist Fred McMahon, formerly of Halifax, wrote about this problem in the November edition of Fraser Forum.

Canada, he says, transfers more regional equalization funds than any other country in the world. As a direct result, other countries or regions that were stagnant a generation ago (i.e. Ireland, the Dixie cotton states, Taiwan) have adapted and are now prosperous in their own right while Atlantic Canada is still hooked on political hand-outs that Ottawa transfers from Alberta.

A newspaper recently printed a column by Andrea Bear Nicholas, the chairperson in Native Studies at St. Thomas University. In the first section, she listed some of the numerous gestures made by the provincial government to help the Maliseets reclaim their culture and get a leg up in native businesses -- "All funded with great fanfare and a lavish outpouring of money by the New Brunswick government," she claims. She doesn't mention the equally lavish outpouring of federal funds. Still, hers is not a thank you note; rather, it is diatribe against "the government's sinister intentions". Listed among those intentions are . . . "Forcing our children to be educated in English . . . actively destroying our culture by promoting entrepeneuralism and Canadian citizenship." I guess that keeping their children unilingual in Maliseet will ensure their cultural integrity -- while also ensuring that they will never get jobs anywhere in North America. However, if one's entire existence is going to be living on the government tit on a Maliseet reserve, it doesn't really matter, does it?

All of these "sinister intentions" are considered by her to be a purposeful attack on fundamental Maliseet values. Concerning apartheid South Africa, the hue and cry world-wide was that the white government had forcefully segregated the blacks into Bantustans, where they would be isolated from the wealth-producing benefits of the white world. Obviously, Ms. Bear Nicholas would consider the Bantustan idea a cultural treasure chest -- so long as said Bantustans were subsidized by lavish amounts of wampum (That would be Canadians' tax dollars.) Despite what she calls "the gifts, the jobs, and the celebrations dispensed throughout the year", she demands more. Considering that she believes the entire province belongs to the native people, she might have a legitimate grudge.

It is this kind of retreat from the modern world that produced the Taliban. She complains "Our people still die at hugely disproportional rates, from poverty, poor diets, and disease, caused by the subsequent pollution of our lands and resources."

First of all, most reserves are not situated in industrial areas, and second, after the Canadian taxpayers hand over more than $10 billion--that's TEN BILLION DOLLARS!--a year to them, the taxpayers will not--should not have to--take responsibility for their poor diets or poverty. Perhaps she should examine more closely the rampant corruption on the reserves. Recently, a couple of councillors on the Big Cove reserve were arrested for siphoning off two million dollars in funds. Some chief in a small Nova Scotia reserve pays himself a third of a million dollars a year. These frauds are seamlessly woven throughout the reserve system. I guess that is the fault of the whites, as well. The final irony of Ms. Bear Nicholas's screed is that, if education is the curse of the Maliseets, then why is she the chair of Native Studies at a university? She could go back to the Tobique reserve -- or wherever -- and practice her fundamental Maliseet values.

Speaking of native education, it is always interesting to see that natives made up at one point--if not still today--the vast majority of the university social work graduates at her university -- to the point where a respected researcher, now deceased, used to call it the Native Drunks and Druggies' degree -- since most graduates returned to the reserves to work in social services. In the other faculties which might improve the natives' lot through acquiring marketable skills, native students were almost non-existent. I suspect it is still the case. With someone like Bear-Nicholas as the Native Studies chair, this perpetual whinging is not surprising. An acquaintance who was involved with the math program for natives at one of Canada's universities remarked that if one moves beyond the high school level with them, they drop out in alarming numbers. This educator's supervisor/department head simply said, "Forget about standards and pass them. It's a political correctness joke. Go with the government's flow." So to keep a job, make a guess as to what happened.

Another educator's experience came from teaching an adult up-grading course--GED--at a nearby reserve. This teacher had to drive outside the city to the students because the potential students refused to accept the previous system of busing them into the city to the local high school. So unmotivated that it would involve too much effort on their part, the official reason given was that they felt "out of place". Starting with approximately 40 students, by the end, there were never more than four in each of the two classes -- and not the same ones either. You could not depend on the same ones returning; maybe they sent their friends to take notes for them. Two weeks before the final exam, almost nobody showed up -- as they had a softball game to attend. Another time, they had to attend a fashion show at a local mall. I guess you have to have your priorities straight. Ten students wrote the final exam, three of whom had never attended more than a few classes. All passed -- miraculously. (There is another story as to how that was achieved -- which will be left for another time.) Then it was on to university and Ms. Bear Nicholas' xenophobic curriculum -- or that of another like her. God help us all.