Grab a stubbie out of your two-four, get comfy on your chesterfield, put on a toque, and get ready for the great white north's pundit round-up.
Paula Arab begs to differ with those who think that Calgary is the cultural capital of anything, much less Canada.
Hicks on Six accurately describes all of the pain and suffering which happens while riding Edmonton's [1h: or Calgary's] public transit system during rush hour and asks why politicians aren't doing anything to fix it.
Jeffrey Simpson worries that if Canada promises to be out of Afghanistan by 2011, it implies three more years of losing good men to the Afghan meat grinder with no real purpose or reason.
Implicitly, they are being told the mission, however defined, cannot succeed, because if progress were being made, and if success, however defined, seemed possible, no political leader would be committing at this point in time to leave in 2011. He would keep things flexible, waiting on events, talking to allies and to the Afghan government, holding open the option of returning to a new Parliament with an amended motion if one seemed appropriate.
Richard Gwyn discusses Canada's aversion to conservatism and the strangeness which is this current federal election.
In this country, voters supporting either the Liberals, New Democrats, Greens or Bloc Québécois, all of which are left of centre, outnumber the Conservatives by a wide margin of around 60 per cent to 40 per cent.
The left in the broad social democratic, progressive or reformist sense is actually Canada's majority.
Barbara Kay discusses Quebec's abortion laws and the promiscuity of the women who use it while simultaneously complaining that a Quebec riding association president might be too Muslim and extremist because she has discussed drinking in Quebec and the promiscuity of women who drink. All while arguing that politicians running for office should not be confronted with such issues.
Greg Weston points out the best chance for Dion to win this election may well be his opponents -- Stephen Harper and his gang of merry partisan hacks.
John Ivison discusses the endless series of gaffes that the Conservative campaign has subjected itself to during the first week of the federal election.
Paula Simons
The document, Canada's Power Play, insists we cannot create a climate change policy in isolation from national energy and transportation policies. It makes a compelling argument that Canada needs a plan to develop and maintain a secure and sustainable conventional and non-conventional energy supply and to create a national research and development policy to support clean energy production.
And, says the report, Canadians need an incentive to reduce energy consumption -- a carbon tax.
It's little short of shocking to hear a small-c conservative, Calgary-based think-tank advocating any kind of national energy program, much less one that involves the much-demonized carbon tax.
Bill Kaufmann points out a Canadian Sisyphus-like political struggle in Alberta -- running as a federal Liberal party candidate in Calgary. Of note, at least when Calgarians "ordered her off their doorsteps", they do it "in a polite way."
Don Martin wonders why Harper would willingly open up the scabbed over wounds of Quebec separatism over an environmental matter like a carbon tax. Don is unable to figure it out and ends up blaming it on the Republican Party trained backroom boys. He fails to note that this is not the first time Harper questioned national unity. For example, the Alberta firewall letter was signed by Stephen Harper.