Winnipeg's worst kept secret is out

Well, any pretense of secrecy evaporated when she filed her papers yesterday, but the big announcement was today. Wasylycia-Leis was introduced by Sharon Carstairs, and gave a fiery campaign speech, pulling no punches in criticizing Sam Katz. There were an awful lot of people there, among them former mayor Bill Norrie, onetime mayoral candidate Kaj Hasselriis, councillors Jenny Gerbasi and Harvey Smith, and Family Services minister Gord Mackintosh. She's got a wide base, and hopefully will be able to have a solid campaign. The thing that could win this for her, though, is that there are likely to be a lot of people willing to volunteer on her campaign. Given the typically low turnouts in municipal elections, getting the vote out will be crucial, and volunteers make all the difference.

I guess it's OK to call it terrorism now

You recall that Rupert Murdoch's Melbourne tentacle published a headline the other day that suggested that the attempted car bombing in New York City was not a terrorist act, presumably because a suspicious-looking white guy was seen on a security video. Of course, they didn't say that was the reason; the article focused on the amateurish nature of the bomb's design, but we all know the real reason. Well, the white guy turned out to be a red herring, and now they've got a brown guy in custody, so you can be sure they'll be back on the "terrorism" script now (and let's forget about the fact that the bomb is no more sophisticated now than when it was found, shall we?)

Judy's in the race

Judy Wasylycia-Leis, as expected, has filed her papers to run for Mayor. Interestingly, none other than Sharon Carstairs is going to serve as her campaign co-chair. It's going to be a heck of a campaign for sure. It will also be interesting to see who else shows up at her official campaign launch (tomorrow at 11:30 AM at the Tower Atrium at the Forks, in case anyone's wondering).

What's the deal with this "New West Partnership"?

If you've been following the proceedings of the Manitoba legislature you'll no doubt have noticed this question that Hugh McFadyen asked of Premier Greg Selinger (scroll down to "Western Provinces Partnership Agreement"):

Mr. Hugh McFadyen (Leader of the Official Opposition): Western Canadian provinces are working together to build the economy of the future, and the focus in Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. is to work together in order to create more jobs and more income for their people to support health care and other initiatives going forward.

I want to ask the Premier if he can confirm that he'll be in Regina tomorrow for this exciting announcement regarding co-operation among western provinces.

Well, of course he wasn't (if he was going to be, Hugh wouldn't have asked the question). But is this the horrible thing that Hugh thinks it is? Erin Weir at Progressive Economics doesn't seem to think this agreement is such a good thing:

Saskatchewan had rejected TILMA because it empowers business to directly challenge a broad range of public policy, without identifying or solving actual problems. In addition to implementing that flawed model, the New West Partnership also hoses Saskatchewan in several specific respects.

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The New West Partnership’s core is the “New West Partnership Trade Agreement” (NWPTA). If you do not want to read the whole thing, check out the five-page backgrounder.

The first page describes it as “a comprehensive agreement to remove barriers to trade, investment and labour mobility [that] covers all public sector entities, including government ministries and their agencies, boards and commissions, Crown corporations, municipalities, school boards, and publicly-funded academic, health and social service organizations.”

The second page provides for “financial penalties of up to $5 million if a government is found to be non-compliant with its obligations.” In case the reader still doubts that NWPTA replicates TILMA, page four helpfully notes that “British Columbia and Alberta fully comply with the agreement” already and then lists a series of “Saskatchewan-Specific Transition Measures.”

There is no quid pro quo: only Saskatchewan has to change its tendering system, regulations and standards. There is no compromise: Saskatchewan must harmonize to the existing Alberta-BC model.

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Third, since Saskatchewan has a much wider array of Crown corporations than Alberta and BC, it is committing much more. For example, Alberta and BC businesses will gain a legally-enforceable right to access SaskTel’s procurement. But Saskatchewan businesses will have no parallel right to access procurement by Telus, the main telephone company in Alberta and BC.

Sounds like a neocon's wet dream to me. Selinger does well to stay the heck away from this.

Push poll?

A blogger known as CathiefromCanada reports (h/t pogge) that Harris-Decima called her with some interesting poll questions:

Along with questions about whether I buy store-brand vegetables, there were two questions about the Afghan prisoner/Parliamentary privledge issue.

The first was a scenario I have already heard about, whether I would support MPs signing a confidentiality oath to see the prisoner documents. (And actually, no I wouldn't.)

But the second was interesting -- whether I would support an election being called because the Bloc Quebecois should not be permitted to sign a confidentiality oath and therefore should not be permitted to see the documents.

I wonder who commissioned this?

Interesting development in the attempted terrorist attack in NYC

Apparently this wasn't done by a terrorist. The esteemed Herald Sun of Melbourne says so:

Crude New York Time Square car bomb no signature of a terrorist

THE failed car bomb used in New York's Times Square does not match records of those used by professional terrorists and contained 50kg of fertiliser that was incapable of exploding, police said today.

MyFOXny.com quoted investigators as saying that professional terrorists tend to use the same "bomb signature" over and over again but the Times Square bomb did not match any on their database.

This has led investigators to believe that although the bomb was dangerous, it was probably not made by an expert or trained terrorist.

Uh-huh. To be fair, the actual text of the article isn't quite as egregious as the headline, but it's interesting to note this:

"There is no evidence that this is tied in with al-Qaeda or any other big terrorist organisation," Mayor Bloomberg said.

I wonder if what they'll say if this guy is tied in with a militia? Will anyone in a position of authority be prepared to investigate whether some of these organizations are terrorist organizations? They tend to avoid the term in this context for some strange reason, and that goes doubly so for any media outlet owned by News Corporation (like, say, the Herald Sun)...

The oil spill could be about to worsten dramatically

As bad as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is already, US authorities are looking at the possibility that it could become far worse:

A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

"The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28. "Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."

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The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead and kinked piping currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons -- per day.

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate.

Source (h/t Rajiv in this iTulip thread). If that happens, this could have effects that reach far from the source of the problem. For instance, further down in the same thread, we_are_toast posted the following:

You people across the pond better get your paper towels ready. If the riser pipe fails and it takes 90 days to drill a relief well, you're in for a big surprise.

Yikes. And for further emphasis, a couple of posts down we have this:

As others in the thread have pointed out, this could be the oil industry's Chernobyl.