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OTTAWA The Liberal government has put a lot of effort into travelling to the United States to help ease the way into the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations, but so far, a relatively small amount of money.

The Canadian Press tallied the travel expenses a dozen cabinet ministers excluding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau racked up in airfare, meals and accommodations for trips to Washington, D.C. and elsewhere south of the border since President Donald Trump came to power.

The total amount, with some caveats, was about $96,000 for 29 trips from mid-January to the end of May.

The travel included in this amount is just one part of a wider strategy to send federal cabinet ministers, parliamentary secretaries, MPs, senators, premiers, political staffers and government officials across the U.S. to secure face-to-face meetings with everyone from state legislators to Trump and those around him in the White House.

"Our government has worked hard to establish a constructive working relationship with all orders of the U.S. government, especially with the administration, and the president and his team directly," Cameron Ahmad, a spokesman for Trudeau, said in an emailed statement.

"We have been actively engaging in comprehensive outreach across the United States in order to build upon the strong relationship between our two countries and advance areas of mutual interest."

The data analysis was based on a list of trips by cabinet ministers that the office of Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland considered part of these efforts. Freeland is the lead minister on Canada-U.S. relations and the NAFTA talks.

The list was then cross-referenced with travel expenses disclosed under government transparency measures.

These early figures provide a snapshot of the ground game the Liberal government has been building to deal with one of its biggest priorities and challenges through forging relationships not only with the White House, but also members of Congress who will ultimately decide the fate of any new trade deal, and anyone else they might be listening to.

The list includes high-profile events such as when Freeland, alongside Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary for Canada-U.S. relations, attended the inauguration of Trump in Washington, D.C.

It also counts trips to events the cabinet minister in question might have attended anyway, such as when International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau went to Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.

Trips that received little attention, such as when Government House Leader Bardish Chagger, who is also the minister of state for small business and tourism, went to Toledo, Ohio and Chicago, Ill. to discuss cross-border trade, were also on the list.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who is co-chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group, said these meetings can help Canada set the facts straight and get its message across on thorny trade issues such as dairy and softwood lumber.

"I think if ever there was a time we had to deal with facts and clear facts, not the perception it's now," Easter said.

The analysis comes with some caveats.

There was no amount available for two trips Sajjan took to Washington, including to attend the inauguration, because he flew on a Challenger jet and his office did not have that information available.

There was also a handful of expense claims that lumped the cost associated with a visit to the U.S. in with other legs of a much larger trip.

The figures for trips taken since June 1 are not yet available, and neither are the costs associated with trips taken by the prime minister.

And each cabinet minister would also be travelling with at least a couple of staffers and officials, which would multiply the costs.

The numbers also exclude travel by everyone outside of cabinet, which has been quite extensive.

According to data provided by Freeland's office, overall there had been 78 visits to Washington plus 87 trips to 42 other cities, from Albany, N.Y. to Whitefish, Mont., as of last week, which is just part of the more than 315 individual contacts that have taken place as part of this outreach so far.

Earlier on HuffPost:

Read more:
Liberals Make 29 Trips In 6 Months Ahead Of NAFTA Talks - Huffington Post Canada

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says she will testify at the trial of two Liberals facing bribery charges under the Election Act.

The trial for Pat Sorbara, the premier's former deputy chief of staff, and Liberal fundraiser Gerry Lougheed, is set to begin in September.

The pair is accused of offering a would-be candidate, Andrew Olivier, a job or appointment to get him to step aside in a 2015 byelection in Sudbury, Ont., for Glenn Thibeault.

At the time, Thibeault was a New Democrat MP. He is now the energy minister.

Sorbara and Lougheed both deny the charges.

Wynne says she could use parliamentary privilege to avoid testifying at the trial but will not be doing so.

"I will testify, I will go along with the process and do what I can to clarify," said Wynne who has maintained that the Liberals were just trying to keep Olivier in the party fold, and that there was no need to offer him anything because she had already decided he would not be the byelection candidate.

"I've been very clear that I was going to work with the process and I've done that and I will continue to do that," Wynne said Tuesday.

When asked if she would welcome Sorbara back to work in her office if she was acquitted, Wynne said she looked forward to the opportunity to work with Sorbara again.

Sudbury Byelection Scandal: Key Dates

Original post:
Sudbury Byelection Scandal: Kathleen Wynne To Testify At Trial Of 2 Liberals Facing Charges - Huffington Post Canada

The Democrats new slogan is out, and its fine: A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, a Better Future.

Well, you cant say it isnt an economic message, which was the big (and legit) beef with Hillary last fall. Chuck Schumer, after taking a surprising little pop at HRC along these lines (and at the party generally), said on This Week on Sunday that Dems will be introducing elements of the agenda as the weeks pass to make sure that by 2018 the voters will know the party has a strong economic agenda.

Week after week, month after month, were going to roll out specific pieces here that are quite different than the Democratic Party you heard in the past, Schumer said. We were too cautious. We were too namby-pamby. He affirmed that measures heretofore seen as scarily liberal are all on the table, including a Medicaid buy-in, a Medicare buy-in, Medicare for folks down to age 55, and even single-payer. (The first two are basically ways to give more people access to health care through those two well-established vehicles.)

Thats all good. The party needs boldness. It needs clarity.

But what it needs most is 24 seats in the House.

And this may be why, as Bloomberg reported last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is working with the moderate Blue Dog caucus to recruit candidates in selected districts.

Personally, Im pretty liberal. If I could wave a wand, boomsingle-payer health care, a much higher minimum wage, a massive infrastructure program, a top marginal (and please make sure you understand what marginal means before you call me a communist) tax rate around 50 percent, a much higher payroll tax cap, and more. But there are no wands. It doesnt matter what I think, and it doesnt matter what you think, either.

What matters is this reality, which many liberals refuse to accept: To get to 218 House seats, Democrats have to win in 20 to 25 purple districts. And that means electing some moderates.

Let me put it another way: There can be ideological uniformity. Or there can be a House majority. There cannot be both.

This is different from the Republican Party, which is more ideologically uniform than the Democratic Party is. The Republicans can get to 218 with only conservatives. The Democrats cant get to 218 with only liberals.

Assuming you agree that getting to 218 is better than maintaining ideological purity, then you need to ask, OK, how to get there?

And this leads to another question: What is moderate even going to mean in 2018? That is to say, people on the left flank hear that word and think automatically of the dawn of the New Democrat age in the 1990s and Wall Street Democrats who back free trade, less government, deficit reduction, and tax cuts.

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But a lot of time has passed and some things have changed. I dont know that moderate needs to mean those things anymore. On trade, I dont see many Democrats being free traders in 2018. That ship has sailed. And it doesnt seem like theres a vast constituency out there for deficit reduction. Twenty and 25 years ago, there were historical reasons why there was pressure on Democrats to adopt those positions. Those reasons and pressures dont exist so much today.

If anything, theres pressure on Democrats to be more activist on behalf of middle-class families and all those Trump voters in those shelled-out, opioid-sogged places where most people these days are barely middle class. And thats great.

But that very general message can be packaged in a variety of ways, and its going to have to be, because the kinds of districts Democrats need to win to retake the House are not at all homogenous. And this is where liberals have to just accept that everyplace isnt Vermont, or for that matter Massachusetts or Maryland.

To wit I introduce to you a report put out last month by Third Way. Now you can stop reading here if you want, because its Third Way. But its interesting, so read on.

The report breaks 65 battleground districts down into four types: thriving suburban communities; left-behind areas; diverse, fast-growing regions; and finally, a dozen non-conformist districts that dont fit neatly into the first three categories.

Democrats are going to have run different kinds of candidates and different kinds of races in all these places. In left-behind areas, some Sanders-style populism, as long as its combined with a little (hopefully not too excessive) sail-trimming on social issues, could work well. In more affluent suburbs, that wont play. Those are places where the Democrat should definitely talk more about growth than fairness but can probably get away with somewhat more liberal social positions. In diverse districts, they mostly need good Latino candidates. If the one in Texas needs to be more conservative on some things than the one or two in California, then so be it.

Trying to enforce a national litmus test on candidates from Washingtonor God forbid from Williamsburg (hipster, not Colonial)is ridiculous. And it shows no understanding of American party history. For Gods sake, the Democrats spend decades as the party of black people and at the same time the party of the most venal segregationists who existed. Its great the segregationists were driven out, but the point is that the party has usually been characterized by disagreements far, far greater than those that exist now. And even that party, morally compromised as it was, managed to pass Social Security, the GI Bill, Medicare, and so on.

If youre on the center: Dont think replaying the 1990s can work now. It cant. And if youre on the left: Look, youve got Chuck Schumer talking single-payer. Youre way ahead of the game. But no one, center or left, is ahead of anything until there are 218 Democrats reporting to work in the House.

Read the original here:
Sorry, Liberals: There Is No Majority Without Moderates - Daily Beast

The State

The real liberal critique: Republicans aren't liberals The State James Fallows, in The Atlantic, describes their behavior as the most discouraging weakness our governing system has shown since Trump took office. He singles out Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse for scorn because he leads all senators in his thoughtful, ... When shrieking liberal protesters went low, John McCain went highWashington Examiner America's liberals want Republicans to not be RepublicansThe Japan Times all 2,720 news articles »

Read more here:
The real liberal critique: Republicans aren't liberals - The State

Posted: Monday, July 24, 2017 2:30 pm

Letter: I dont recognize todays liberals

Editor: Imitation is the greatest form of flattery so I thank Mr. Maurer.

Ever since the 1960s Ive debated the lefts descent into tyranny using specific examples of the ruling elites disdain for those they believe are below their class. To counter my arguments of the lefts vitriol, ignorance, anger, and disinformation he uses my exact same language. He holds up the Constitution and the Bill of Rights inferring the left holds these rights to be true and given to us by God as our founders proclaimed over and over again. Yet at every opportunity they have torn down these ideals doing their best to do away with our rights stated in the Bill of Rights and in 2012 tried desperately to do away with God in their political plank.

The book I referred to by Mr. Owens, Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps was directed at todays liberals. But this disease of the spirit where everyone is a victim infects liberals of every race or political party. The liberal of my youth is foreign to present-day liberals.

The liberals of my day were closely akin to our founding documents while todays liberal is more closely associated with Marx and Engle. Intolerant of independent thought outside the accepted beliefs of the group think, Our children have been indoctrinated into this mind-numbing philosophy and the proof is in what has happened to a once vibrant Democratic Party and higher academia that once fought for free speech and inclusion descending into anarchy with not one constructive belief to run on.

What do Democrats stand for? All I see is violence, intimidation, personal attacks. Mr.Maurer ends with my opinion reminds (him) of the story about a mother attending her sons graduation from Army boot camp who exclaimed: oh look, my son is the only one in step. That would be my ma but she would correct you and tell you her son is a United States Marine like his father before him of which she was most proud.

Ronald Portal

Lodi

Posted in Letters to the Editor on Monday, July 24, 2017 2:30 pm.

Originally posted here:
Letter: I don't recognize today's liberals - Lodi News-Sentinel