Liberals will be back to work on January 25 as opposition mounts across Canada to Harper's proroguing of Parliament

The Canadian Press news agency is reporting tonight that Liberal MPs and Senators will return to Parliament Hill on January 25, the date they were  to resume work until Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament.

Apparently Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told his caucus Tuesday that he expects them to be back to work on January 25 even though Parliament is not to resume now until March, according to the Canadian Press.

Ignatieff may well be reacting to a grassroots movement sweeping the country on facebook where more than 75000 people have joined groups attacking the Harper government.

Michael Ignatieff on Vancouver Canada Line on day Greyhound wants bus service cuts in Manitoba

As a federal election becomes a distinct possibility for this fall, Liberal Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff arrived in Vancouver Thursday taking the Sky Train on the city's newly opened Canada Line into downtown Vancouver. The symbolism can't be missed as the Canada Line was originally an initative of the former Liberal government, and Mr. Ignatieff addresses transportation policy in his new book, True Patriot Love.



His Sky Train ride came on the same day that Greyhound Bus Lines announced its plans to eliminate service in Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario saying it simply can't afford to provide the service any longer. Greyhound is also reducing service in parts of rural British Columbia.



National transportation should really be a major election issue, given that for the past 20 years at least, nobody seems to have wanted to talk about it. For example, when I left Chapleau, Ontario, about 20 years ago, which is on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, there was a daily transcontinental Via Rail train serving the community. Heading west the train passed through small Northern Ontario communities like Marathon, White River, Schreiber, Terrace Bay, Nipigon to Thunder Bay, then on to Kenora and Winnipeg, and across the Prairies to British Columbia. Eastbound it went to Sudbury, where it was split, one section heading off to North Bay and Montreal, or to Toronto. In fact, this is the national railway that John A. Macdonald had built to create Canada! Today there is no passenger service to speak of on the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks across Canada. A Budd Car runs from Sudbury to White River three days a week.



Via Rail does run a part-time passenger service from Vancouver to Montreal on the Canadian National Railway tracks through Edmonton to Saskatoon and Winnipeg and then across a vast relatively unpopulated area to Sudbury. It boggles my mind when I think that Calgary and Regina for example do not have daily transcontinental passenger train service.



Chapleau no longer even has bus service and it looks like rural Canadian communities are going to become even more isolated than they are now if Greyhound cuts its service as announced.



The turn back the clock and accept the status quo mentality that permeates municipal, provincial and federal goverments in Canada has to end. They need to be jolted into accepting that we face new realities because of their failure to properly serve the people who put them into office over the past 20 years and longer.



One place to start is with a national transportation policy equivalent to the vision that Sir John A. and the founders of Canada had in the 19th century.



In his book Mr. Ignatieff writes about the success of high speed passenger trains in Europe but in Canada studies have been done for 50 years on high speed between Vancouver and Calgary, Windsor to Quebec City and Calgary to Edmonton. Nothing happened. He suggests that if we are really nation builders we would start on them now. I agree with Mr. Ignatieff, and suggest that if he becomes prime minister he look at rural Canada and the needs of the people who live there too.

Michael Ignatieff, in True Patriot Love, on national vision for Canada

In his latest book True Patriot Love, four generations in search of Canada, Michael Ignatieff writes like a leader, shares his passion for and belief in the country, and provides an insight into the major challenges he sees facing the nation.

He does it all most effectively while telling the stories of his great grandfather, George Monro Grant who travelled with Sandford Fleming to map the railway line across Canada; his grandfather, William Lawson Grant who served in World War I, returning home with belief that Canada earned right to be sovereign nation, and his uncle, George Grant, who believed that Canada had gone from colony to nation and back to colony -- the second time of the United States.

Now that he has stated his case so eloquently, Mr. Ignatieff, who is the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada , has to convince Canadians that he has the right stuff to meet the challenges facing Canada as prime minister.

Mr. Ignatieff suggests that the Trans Canada highway should be four lanes across the nation as we "pretend" we have a national highway today. "In many places -- northern Ontario or the interior of British Columbia -- it dwindles down to two lane blacktop, and the local residents will tell you these narrow sections make the national highway a death trap." Having lived in northern Ontario most of my life and for the past 20 years in the interior of British Columbia, I could not agree more with Mr. Ignatieff.

He cites the high speed railways used to tie Europe together, while after "fifty years of studies" we are still considering a high speed link between Windsor to Quebec City, Vancouver to Calgary and Calgary to Edmonton. "If we want to tie Canadians together, if we want to be nation builders, we would start on them right now." Agreed!!!

He argues that we are one of the few countries that has never created a petroleum reserve to protect citizens from fluctuations in supply from foreign countries. He asks if it makes sense that we ship oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the United States but import lage quantities to meet demand in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

Mr. Ignatieff raises other issues too, all in the context of telling the stories of his own family members, suggesting that our ancestors would ask what is the "national vision of our age." It has been a long time since I heard a Canadian politician of any political party speak of a national vision for Canada.

True Patriot Love is a good read, and a starting point for a national conversation on the future of Canada.

And that was the week that was ... Levi Johnston vs Sarah Palin and Harper in Europe

What can we expect in the dog days of summer but a media dominated by stories that range from the sublime to the ridiculous with Levi Johnston emerging at the end of the week as a reliable source on the Sarah Palin resignation as governor of Alaska. Levi, the hockey hunk and hunter from Wassila, who also happens to be the father of Palin's first grandchild, spoke out because people want to know why she is resigning, so says his lawyer.

At a news conference at his lawyer's office, Levi, who is now estranged from Palin's daughter Bristol, who is the mother of his infant son Tripp, said the governor wants to cash in on the lure of financial enrichments as the most logical explanation for the governor's sudden resignation.

A Palin spokesperson shot back that Johnston is also trying to land his own deals -- movie, book, modeling. But that is old news already reported in a major, generally favourable feature on Johnston in the July issue of GQ magazine. Meanwhile GQ's sister publication Vanity Fair comes out with an unflattering piece on Sarah Palin.

As many of you know, I was involved in small town hockey and politics for a long time, but the Palin saga, goes beyond anything that was ever in my wildest imaginings, and we were a pretty colourful cast of characters ourselves in Northern Ontario in the Seventies. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, on a much more serious note, if that's possible these days, Stephen Harper, the prime minister, almost missed his second photo op at a meeting of world leaders. But he made it as his peers started to call his name. Harper missed the photo op at a meeting earlier this year of G-20 leaders. Unbelievable. reminds me of that trip Joe Clark, another Tory prime minister took, and lost his baggage.

Then Harper sees an opportunity to lash out at Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff for remarks the Liberal leader allegedly made. Turns out that Ignatieff never made the remarks, and there we have our prime minister on the international stage forced to formally apologize to Mr Ignatieff.

Want to bet heads will roll in the prime minister's office very soon. Harper tries so hard to come across as a world leader and twice he's blown it. At the next election Canadians will decide if he goes too.

So there we have it. Lots of very important issues out there but it's much easier to bring you the latest on Levi vs Sarah, and Harper blowing it on the world stage.

A not with a bang but a whimper week!

I had high expectations that last week would result in news from the political and sports worlds worthy of much commentary, but by its end, with all apologies to T.S. Elliot for the misquote: "This is the way the week ends not a bang but a whimper."
TYPICALLY CANADIAN
On Parliament Hill, the possibility loomed of a summer election as Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff made noises that he would bring down the minority Harper Conservative government in a vote of confidence on Friday by having the Liberals join the New Democats and Bloc Quebecois in voting against the government.

Such was not to be as Harper and Ignatieff held a couple of face to face meetings and in typical Canadian fashion decided to appoint a committee to look into Employment Insurance changes and report back in the Fall. Both, of course took credit for the compromise, but what about those who may have benefited from EI changes now.
BALSILLIE BID QUASHED
Meanwhile, a judge in Phoenix, Arizona, squashed Jim Balsillie's plans to buy the National Hockey League Phoenix Coyotes saying there wasn't enough time to get the deal done for the 2009-2010 season, and move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. So for the moment NHL Gary Bettman can relax but Balsillie says he will be back.

As an observer, I predict that the Phoenix Coyotes mess is the tip of the iceberg for the NHL. Other teams are in deep trouble, and Bettman won't be able to keep his leaky hockey ship afloat forever. Stay tuned.
WHIMPERING WINGS
Still with hockey, rather than let Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins enjoy their Stanley Cup victory, the media kept alive a totally nonsensical story about Crosby not shaking hands with Detroit Red Wings player(s). Gordie Howe finally stepped in and said to lay off and give Crosby a break already. Whimpering Wings!
PAMPERED PLAYERS
And in Ottawa Dany Heatley goes public about wanting a trade ostensibly because he wasn't getting along with Cory Clouston, the new coach of the Senators. Apparently Clouston put Heatley on the second power play unit. I know Cory from the years he spent in Cranbrook as assistant and head coach of the Kootenay Ice of the Western Hockey League.

He is a great coach who is absolutely committed to the game and his players, and yes, he is demanding but no more on others than he is on himself. I hope pampered players like Heatley get their just reward -- a trip to the minors for a year or so.

For sure the dog days of summer are with us!

I disagree with friend and former student Robert Fife of CTV News!

With all respect to my good friend and former student Robert Fife, I disagree with his recent statement that by letting Newfoundland and Labrador MPs vote against the Harper government budget, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is "marching to the drumbeat" of Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams and the Liberal MPs from the province.

Bob, The Ottawa bureau chief of CTV News added that Ignatieff opened the door to any of his members of parliament being able to vote against the Liberal Party position if that's the view of their premier or their province.

Premier Williams is in a squabble with the Harper government over equalization payments.

Au contraire Bob to your view, and I still consider you one of the best reporters in Canada, Ignatieff is showing himself to be a master strategist by giving his Newfoundland and Labrador MPs the freedom to break caucus discipline on an issue very close to their constituents; likely keeping the province Liberal in the next election; firing a shot across the bow at Stephen Harper that the report cards on the stimulus package better be good or next time all his MPs may vote to bring down the government, and sending a clear signal that it is not politics as usual with him at the helm.

What's so wrong with giving MPs from certain parts of the country a modified free vote on issues that are of great concern to the people they represent. To those entrenched in the Ottawa way, it is more than time to shake up how national politics is played in Canada.

Sure Ignatieff has opened a new door, and let's hope it is a breath of fresh air for Canada!

Final Point ... Just today President Barack Obama nominated another Republican to join his cabinet, this time as commerce secretary,. That makes three now. No coalition, no need to join the Democratic party, just a desire to serve the best interests of the United States!

My email mj.morris@live.ca or post comments