Saturday Morning News Bites

Here are a few bits & pieces in the news this morning.

From James Travers in The Star:
"Political purpose is admirable when it's transparent. What's worrying in this election is that the extreme effort to hide that chaos beyond the campaign bubble radically changes how those purposes can be pursued. Deficit is such a dirty word that party platforms are built on the now ludicrous growth, revenue and surplus projections of the February federal budget. Chances are between slim and none that even Conservative promises, the most modest of the bunch, can be kept without raising taxes or slashing programs."

More vandalism done to Liberals in Toronto ridings:
"Senator Jerry Grafstein woke up yesterday morning to discover he had become the latest victim of election vandalism in the St. Paul's riding.
The Liberal senator and his wife, who live on a highly visible property on Spadina Rd., had their Cadillac's dashboard pried open, wires pulled apart and the remaining interior vandalized."

And more on the illegality of Harper calling this election:
"The unfairness of allowing Prime Ministers unfettered discretion to call an election seems to be universally accepted; it provides another ground for finding this election to be illegal. In several recent cases (e.g., Figueroa, Harper), the Supreme Court of Canada has held that section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees Canadian citizens the right to vote in "fair" elections. The unfair advantage that the Prime Minister has obtained for his party by choosing the election date might well be found to contravene section 3 of the Charter."

Finally, Ex-NHL' er, Mike Danton, who's in prison in the U.S., wants to come home to serve out the rest of his time here. The Cons Stockwell Day won't let him.
"The Ottawa Citizen has learned that Anne McLellan, the former public safety minister under the Liberal government, approved Danton's transfer in June, 2005, on the condition that U. S. authorities agreed.
The U. S. Department of Justice approved the Danton transfer in May, 2008, but Stockwell Day -- the Tory minister who assumed the public safetyportfolio-- has not, according to the jailed hockey player, Canadian prison officials and U.S. authorities."