Lois Johnson is someone I respect and trust. A long time organizer within the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and from the beginning with the Conservative Party, Lois is exactly the sort of person you want to see involved in politics. Smart and completely fair and honest, she is one of the good ones.

Currently Lois is president of the Vancouver South Conservative Electoral District Association; in a life before the David Emerson affair, I was secretary of that EDA. Currently Lois is the campaign manager for the riding's candidate who I have heard some good things about, Ms. Wai Young.

Lois is the penultimate backroom powerhouse, preferring to put her seemingly limitless energy and organizational skills into action without getting into the limelight.

Therefore I was a little surprised to see Lois quoted in a news story this morning regarding a contract and grant which Ms. Young's company had won.

The funding from Citizenship and Immigration was earmarked to pay for the LINC Administrators Conference 2008, a professional-development event on language instruction for newcomers to Canada. The three-day conference was held in June at the airport Holiday Inn in Toronto.

Ms. Young was unavailable for comment, but her campaign said yesterday that she had consulted with the federal ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson, to ensure that the work did not put her in a conflict of interest.

"She was concerned that her opponents might draw the wrong conclusions about this work, and she wanted the focus in her campaign to be on the real issues," campaign manager Lois Johnson wrote in an e-mail. "Therefore, she also took it upon herself to step away from her business during the course of the election campaign, despite the Ethics Commissioner's advice that there is no conflict."

Although Citizenship and Immigration lists the $578,590 for Wai Young & Associates under its "grants and contributions" section, Ms. Johnson said the contract was awarded by Citizenship and Immigration's Ontario regional office after Ms. Young responded to a request-for-proposal, a process used in government tendering.

The Liberals have put out a media release accusing the government of funnelling funds to a candidate. I see no evidence of that whatsoever, although clearly there is a need to be above reproach if one is running for office. It appears Ms. Young has taken steps to ensure she was.

Not noted in the article, in addition to being this year's LINC conference organizer, Ms. Young was the master of ceremonies at the LINC conference the year prior. Another firm not related to Ms. Young received the contract grant to host the conference in 2007.

I don't know Ms. Young at all, but I do know Lois Johnson well. My experience with Lois is that she is honest to a fault and based on that I see no scandal here.

MP Michael Chong

If you live in the west, you probably don't know of Michael Chong. He's one Conservative MP I would vote to re-elect without hesitation, which puts him in Chong in a group I need only my fingers to count. Lately I'm getting close to only needing one hand to keep track.

Unfortunately for Mr. Chong his positions on important issues of the day tend to be at odds with his party's. Acting not in a grand-standing showy way like some, but in a quiet, determined, truly principled manner that is far too rare these days where "principled" has been twisted to become a synonym for rabidly partisan.

A party with more Michael Chongs in it... would be a party with more Michael Watkins in it. I like to think of that sort of "conservative" party as one which is thoughtful, careful, yet progressive in all the right places and unafraid to act.

Today's Conservative party is nothing like that. It is the worst amalgam of partisanship and radical and dogmatic ideology this country has ever seen.

Chong on the other hand is an independent and thoughtful representative of his constituents. He's concerned about food security. He's concerned that we are plowing money into infrastructure which only makes our climate change related gas emissions worse, while also exacerbating problems such as urban sprawl - unsustainable in the long term. Continuing to build out infrastructure as if the future is going to be like the past merely further commits us to maintaining these high cost highways and bridges that ultimately must play a smaller role in our futures. Chong gets it and is unafraid to speak his mind.

Perhaps the strongest environmental argument against sprawl is the global threat presented by rising greenhouse gas emissions. In destroying this farmland, in creating this sprawl, we are constructing a high-carbon infrastructure system of highways and sprawling communities that will not only prevent us from reducing our greenhouse gasses, but will in fact ensure we only increase them. Conservative MP Michael Chong

Vancouver-area readers will recognize David Emerson's pet project, the Gateway initiative, as something Chong would abhor. As do I.

I'm only spreading this as "news" today because I noted in my aggregated political feed that the Liberals have stumbled upon Mr. Chong's website which contains a number of articles supportive of their position on climate change. I'm certain that the Conservative party will demand Chong pull his writing off the internet, and I'm certain Chong will say no.

Some have suggested that an alternative to the “command-and-control approach” of urban and transit planning is to use “market forces” to achieve the same goal of halting urban sprawl. This alternative is the increasingly talked about “carbon tax”, essentially a tax on fuel and energy. This carbon tax would have to be priced high enough to effect change and have an impact. Many argue that the additional tax revenues produced by a carbon tax could be used to reduce personal income taxes, as well as taxes on savings and investments (i.e. capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, taxes on interest earnings, etc.). In addition to the environmental benefit of stopping sprawl, this could also produce an economic benefit. All other things being equal, productivity and wages would increase. Reducing taxes on savings and investments would lead to increased inflows into the capital markets. This means an increase in capital available for companies to invest in plant and equipment, which in turn means increases in productivity and wages. More >

This isn't the first time I've sung praises of Chong. When Harper used the politics of division, driving through a motion in the House to recognize Quebec as a nation, Chong stood fast, resigned his cabinet seat, and voted against the motion. He did the right thing. Neither of us are anti-Quebec, far from it. I love the province and language and people and its unique culture. I just don't believe that a western politician with a track record of disunity and separatist beliefs should be playing fast and lose with the fabric of our country.

Keep up the good work Michael.

Filing away these links for later in the campaign:

http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/ - "was designed by Canadians who believe what the vast majority of the world’s scientists have told us. That we are out of time and we must start to reduce our fossil fuel pollution now to save the planet from dangerous climate change." Aussi disponible en français: (http://www.voterpourlenvironnement.org/)

http://unissonsnosvoix.ca/ - a compelling collection of French-language videos in support of ABC, Anything But Conservative. Strategic voting 101 en français:

Voter stratégique, c'est voter pour le candidat qui est le plus susceptible de contrer le candidat conservateur. Ceci diffère d'un comté à l'autre. Pour savoir à qui irait un vote stratégique dans votre comté, consultez: http://www.voterpourlenvironnement.org/

Dion did what he needed to do.

Whether anyone in le Canada anglais was listening remains to be seen, but he looked and sounded prime ministerial and did well on balance through the entire debate. The impression I received (on the west coast so take that with a grain of salt) is he very carefully used inclusive terms throughout. Us. We. Stressing he is a Quebecer, lets take what works in Quebec elsewhere. From a western perspective it sounded positive and non threatening. From an Albertan perspective who knows. But what I liked... and may not see in the English debate, is that he clearly is comfortable in his own skin when the discussion is on issues, not personality.

Harper as to be expected was on the defensive, or perhaps more accurately, was the recipient of most of the attacks. Held his own but didn’t gain anything. He looked uncomfortable and had a forced smile much of the time.

Layton I doubt gains from this; not because he didn't do a good job (he did) but because in the polls he's already up and I think he needed to truly exceed in order to support those numbers. Not sure he achieved that, although I liked his bit on gun control.

May was perhaps the most disadvantaged from a language perspective but on the environment she brought credibility and it helped to keep Harper on the defensive.

Duceppe probably gained additional support from Quebec from this performance unless there is a greater desire to elect government than more Bloc. If the former, its quite possible the Liberals will see a lift in la belle province. If they simply decide they are happy to block Harper, then perhaps Duceppe did what he needed to do. Like the French language debate in the 2004 election, I thought Duceppe was the overall "winner" in that he is totally in his element and sounds like he speaks with authority on every issue, even when perhaps his authority on some issues is suspect.

Clearly there is a lot of synergy among the opposition parties on many of the key issues. Whether that works for them or against them remains to be seen.

My 9 year old (who is virtually bilingual) made a comment “All Harper seems to want to talk about is taxes, taxes, taxes”.

I thought that was rather interesting and perceptive.