The ministry responsible for the official opinions of women put up more than $1-million in taxpayers’ money for feminist organizations to hold meetings in order that they will be prepared to hold other meetings in the future. One wonders how many meetings were held to decide to fund these meetings`

“This 36 month project will span the three years preceding the Women’s Worlds Forum. The ultimate outcome will be the creation of an inclusive and democratic virtual network of women who will work towards hosting a unique Forum that represents the diversity of Canadian women. Acting through 6 regional networks, 100 participants will raise awareness of the Forum, its themes and create a medium through which Canadian women can participate in Forum planning and delivery.”

Dumping another few bucks into a feminist gab-fest doesn’t make Guergis or the Conservatives feminists per se, but had they bankrolled, let’s say…an equivalent pro-life get-together, well you know. Government doesn’t just pick winners and losers in the economy any more, it picks winners and losers between the sexes, and within the sexes holding officially sanctions views.

This hellhole of taxpayers’ money is enough to make anyone throw a fit.

*Correction: Jumped the gun on this one. Helena Guegis became Minister of State for the Status of Women in October 2008 while the grant noted above was made 4 months earlier in June of the same year, at which time Josée Verner was minister. My appologies Ms. Guergis. Tisk, tisk Ms. Verner.

Whodat? None-other than Maxime Bernier. Bernier gave a speech that as Andrew Coyne noted should not be remarkable, except that as things currently stand, any politician willing to openly challenge the new Ottawa-consensus of deficit spending, corporate welfare, bailouts and interventionism must clearly be out of his or her mind.

Or the only one in it.

Bernier made the case for a concept that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has been calling for in terms that should send shivers down the spins of the bureaucratic Mecca that is Ottawa, Zero Growth in Government. Spending since 2003 has grown by 60% under both Liberal and Conservative governments, well beyond even the combined rates of inflation and population growth (2.5% annually during this period), which in itself is massive.

A politician arguing that spending be frozen without any increase at its current level, forcing government to live within it’s means and decide within actual bounds how to re-allocate finite resources sounds nothing short of radical in today’s Ottawa.  That should say more about today’s Ottawa than it does about Maxime Bernier.

But it still does say a lot about Bernier who in this speech has made a gutsy move to say something independent and dare I say…conservative?  Recognizing that he may be on more than an extended leave from cabinet (symbolic perhaps of all fiscal conservatives?) lets hope that Bernier is preparing to become the lone voice in Parliament calling for sanity in our public finances.

For those of you who probably think that you read that incorrectly, you did not.  The government (via Elections Canada) is refusing to accept repayment for money that was overpaid to the Conservative Party. Making the logic of Elections Canada even more dizzying is its own defence that the Conservative Party repaying the amount owed would “create and unfair playing field”. “Unfair to whom?” one might ask.  Seemingly, it would be “unfair” to the Conservatives for having to pay it back while the other parties do not, which leads to a screamingly obvious solution, that Elections Canada should require all parties to repay the duplicated rebate.

And what would it mean if this resolution was passed and (pray) included in legislation? Well, if the resolution wasn’t terribly watered-down in the political process, it would give those of us (yes, like me) currently bound by unions against their will the right to opt-out. Further, those on strike could no longer block entrances or preform otherwise illegal acts that are for some reason currently tolerated, bizarrely.

Some union enthusiasts might argue that if you don’t want to be apart of a union, you don’t have to work there. That’s essentially the same logic as if the federal government forced immigrants to join the Conservative Party.

Our fundamental right to freedom of association extends beyond our right to form and join organizations, they extend to our right to NOT be apart of organizations.