Stop Bill C-15 in Canada (Wonderful World Of Cannabis!)

The Conservative party in Canada is proposing a bill that would introduce mandatory minimum sentences for growers, following the U.S standard of a drug war. We all know this type of prohibition causes much harm to the people and fills prisons fast with people who aren’t criminals! Go to this facebook page to see how [...]

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Stop Bill C-15 in Canada (Wonderful World Of Cannabis!)

Big huge gov’t tells private industry: do biz this way, or we’ll force you to! We are the gov’t! (ProudToBeCanadian Blog)

Spoken like a true fascist… Banks told to ease credit card terms or face new rules Updated Thu. May. 28 2009 6:05 PM ET The Canadian Press OTTAWA—Canada’s banks have been warned to work together to respond to customer complaints about credit card practices or face regulations they ‘are probably not going to like.’ — Conservative MP Ted Menzies, the parliamentary secretary to Finance…

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Explore : Canada, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Venezuela, World

Big huge gov’t tells private industry: do biz this way, or we’ll force you to! We are the gov’t! (ProudToBeCanadian Blog)

The video Ignatieff doesn’t want you to see

Liberals fail to block video of Ignatieff calling America his country.

 

Yesterday Canadians learned that the Liberal Party, through its lawyer, tried to get a US television network to block the Conservative Party from using network footage of Michael Ignatieff calling America his “country” . Filmed just 18 months before he came back to Canada to run for Prime Minister, the footage appears in the Conservative ad appropriately titled “Country“.

Citing “freedom of speech” and the fair use provision, the network rejected the Liberal attempt to prevent Canadians from seeing Michael Ignatieff, just 18 months before he came back to Canada to run for Prime Minister, calling the United States of America his “country”. It is clear that the Liberals are terrified of Canadians watching Mr. Ignatieff – unedited and uninterrupted – express his true feelings.

Click here to watch the video the Liberals don’t want you to see.

The video Ignatieff doesn’t want you to see

No apology

MP Pierre Poilievre is the latest in a long line of politicians to take flak for uttering the words.

Referring to the Liberals, he said: “On that side of the House, they have the man who fathered the carbon tax, put it up for adoption to his predecessor and now wants a paternity test to prove the tar baby was never his in the first place.”

For some, the word “tar baby” is no big deal; it’s just a term to describe a sticky situation. Others though, feel the term is a racist slur against black people.

— Alison Crawford

No apology

Unforgettable Address by Paul Hawken

I post this because it should be read by people widely. See the end for the answer to Who is Paul Hawken? . . . Paul Kompass

THE (UNFORGETTABLE) COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS BY PAUL HAWKEN TO THE CLASS OF 2009, UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken.

Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.

The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint.

And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data.  But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”

There could be no better description.  Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more.  This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection.  Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power.  Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done.  Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement.  It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force.  It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, re-imagine, and reconsider.  “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers.  This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots.  Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know.  Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself.  The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved.  Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages.

And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty.

But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.

And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart.

What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life.

I can think of no better motto for a future economy.  We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes.  We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets.

Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.

We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future.

One is called restoration and the other exploitation.

And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono.

We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours.

Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it.

In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?  Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end.

Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature.

What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God.

Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation.

You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night.

They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss.

The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

* * *

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.  He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible. www.paulhawken.com

http://www.renewalpartners.com/blog/pamela-chaloult/commencement-address-paul-hawken
http://www.charityfocus.org/blog/view.php?id=2077

Unforgettable Address by Paul Hawken

Unforgettable Address by Paul Hawken

I post this because it should be read by people widely. See the end for the answer to Who is Paul Hawken? . . . Paul Kompass

THE (UNFORGETTABLE) COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS BY PAUL HAWKEN TO THE CLASS OF 2009, UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken.

Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.

The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint.

And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data.  But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”

There could be no better description.  Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more.  This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection.  Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power.  Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done.  Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement.  It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force.  It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, re-imagine, and reconsider.  “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers.  This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots.  Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know.  Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself.  The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved.  Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages.

And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty.

But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.

And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart.

What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life.

I can think of no better motto for a future economy.  We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes.  We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets.

Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.

We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future.

One is called restoration and the other exploitation.

And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono.

We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours.

Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it.

In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?  Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end.

Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature.

What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God.

Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation.

You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night.

They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss.

The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

* * *

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.  He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible. www.paulhawken.com

http://www.renewalpartners.com/blog/pamela-chaloult/commencement-address-paul-hawken
http://www.charityfocus.org/blog/view.php?id=2077

Unforgettable Address by Paul Hawken

Rwanda, AIDS, border issues dominate Bush-Clinton talk

By Andrew Davidson, Kas Roussy and Mark Gollom of CBC News, from the George Bush-Bill Clinton debate of U.S./Canadian issues in Toronto:

As the discussion between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton continued Friday afternoon, moderator Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to the U.S., brought up the issue of Rwanda.

“You were the president of the United States,” he said to Clinton, asking why the former president hadn’t stepped in to stop the killing.

Clinton responded that the decision not to act was “one of my greatest regrets” as president.

“We couldn’t have saved all of them,” he said. “[But] we could have saved as many as 300,000 lives … I have no defence.”

He said Rwandans were the most “astonishing” people for their ability to forgive.

Bush defended Clinton’s stand on Rwanda, saying that it’s “not realistic” to think you could just pick up the phone and order 20,000 troops into a conflict zone.

Asked whether the U.S. should have intervened in Darfur, Bush replied: “I was confronted by a situation of where do I send in marines?” The broad consensus among NGOs and government advisors was to not intervene unilaterally, he said, ‘”So I didn’t.”

Bush added that Hu Jintao, leader of the People’s Republic of China, “needs the energy,” so he won’t support a Sudan resolution at the UN. “We are trying to expedite troops to Darfur, but getting the international community together is hard … [diplomacy] only works with leverage.”

Clinton jumped in to defend Bush on Darfur, calling the attempts to build an international consensus an “agonizing process” and comparing it to Bosnia. “It’s not as simple as saying ‘he should have done something’ … He [Bush] did about all he could do.”

On the issue of same-sex marriages, Bush said he doesn’t agree with the repeal of the Defence of Marriage Act.

“I was hoping we’d stay away from national amendments,” Clinton added, saying it should be a matter for the individuals to decide, along with state laws and the rules of their respective faiths.

McKenna said Canada feels its history of mutual respect is being torn apart by new U.S. border restrictions, a statement that drew broad applause from the audience.

Bush replied, “I don’t know about the passport issue,” and added that he had tried to get a simpler “EZ-Pass” passport project through government. He seemed genuinely unaware of passport requirement changes that go into effect at the Canada-U.S. border June 1.

Clinton added that he didn’t know about the passport changes until it was mentioned to him Thursday. “We need to find a less severe alternative,” Clinton said, but added that he wants to hear more from Homeland Security on the matter.

“Let me just say you’ve got my attention with this and I’m going to go home and ask more about it,” Clinton said.

On the cross-border trade issue, Bush said: “Buy American provisions are bad for our business and I’m against them.”

McKenna brought the discussion back to issues in Africa, telling Bush, “The world owes you a debt of gratitude” for his administration’s massive anti-retroviral AIDS drug program for Africa.

“To whom much is given, much is required,” replied Bush. “Don’t thank me, thank the taxpayers of the United States of America.”

He added that the best way to counter terrorist killers recruiting from the world’s hopeless and poor is through the efforts of “armies of compassion.”

Clinton in turn praised Bush for bringing a Christian appeal to the members of the Republican-dominated Congress, as well as church groups and non-governmental organizations. He also hailed the racial and ethnic diversity of cabinet choices under Bush.

“What he did on the AIDS drugs and the diversity in the cabinet … he deserves a lot of credit.”

The discussion ended with a standing ovation from the crowd, but some left with a feeling of disappointment that the debate hadn’t gone deeper into major issues.

Jonathan Tucker, a chartered accountant in the audience, said he was surpised there wasn’t more disagreement between the ex-presidents.

“Clinton could have taken some shots, but he didn’t” Tucker said as he left the auditorium.

Heather Williams, another member of the audience, said she was disappointed Bush didn’t face a direct question over Iraq. “It was eye-opening, but I wanted to hear his justifications for going to war,” the 29-year-old said.

Rwanda, AIDS, border issues dominate Bush-Clinton talk

The moderated discussion begins

By Andrew Davidson, Kas Roussy and Mark Gollom of CBC News, from the George Bush-Bill Clinton debate of U.S./Canadian issues in Toronto:

After giving their opening remarks, former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush moved on to a discussion moderated by Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to the U.S.

Saying he wanted to explore areas where the pair agreed and disagreed, McKenna asked for each man’s view about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Clinton says he supported the action in Iraq, but would have preferred it if Hans Blix had been given more time to conduct inspections for weapons of mass destruction. “We disagree on that, but the real issue is what in the world are we going to do now?”

Clinton added that he sees the Pakistan’s instability and the Afghan drug trade as the biggest issues in that region. Afghans “want to be free, they don’t want to be under the Taliban again,” he said.

Bush called the premise that Iraq distracted from Afghan war “false.”

“Getting rid of the heinous dictator Saddam Hussein has made the world a safer place,” he said.

He also thanked Canada for standing with the U.S. in Afghanistan.

On the issue of Cuba, Bush said he felt it was “important” to keep the U.S. trade embargo in place.

Clinton said his view on Cuba was “more like that of the current Secretary of State,” (his wife Hillary), generating laughter from the crowd.

Cuba is our neighbour, he told the audience, and “they ought to be part of our future.”

Clinton then called for Congress to give the current president the power to be flexible with Cuba and negotiate a better future for both countries.

The moderated discussion begins

Bush’s opening remarks

By Andrew Davidson, Kas Roussy and Mark Gollom of CBC News, from the George Bush-Bill Clinton debate of U.S./Canadian issues in Toronto:

“Welcome to the Bill and George show,” Georeg W. Bush told the crowd in Toronto, earning laughs right off the bat.

Bush took the stage to warm applause, looking tanned in a navy blue suit and aqua tie. He earned a standing ovation from some in the crowd, but the number of people on their feet didn’t match Clinton’s reception. Still, if success in the opening remarks is judged by the level of laughter from the crowd, Bush came out ahead with his stories of life after the presidency.

Bush followed up with some thoughts about life after the presidency, saying that it’s “hard to go from 100 miles per hour to zero,” but that retirement is “not all that bad,” and that he is enjoying spending time in Texas out of the spotlight.

He added that Clinton has been spending so much time with George Bush senior that he (Bush Jr.) now considers Clinton like a brother, a quip that generated more laughs.

Turning to more serious issues, Bush said he wants to build a policy centre at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and that he wants to continue pushing what he referred to as the “freedom agenda.”

He said he also wants to write a book, and speculated about how the news would be received by the public: “Write a book? The guy can’t even read a book! … I hope to prove them wrong,” he said to laughter from the audience.

Bush added that peace should be foremost on the international agenda. “It’s in the interests of free nations to advance freedom to promote peace … Freedom is transformative, freedom brings hope and freedom brings peace,” he said, receving a round of applause from the crowd.

“I have a great sense of optimism for the future.”

Bush’s opening remarks

Clinton gets serious

By Andrew Davidson, Kas Roussy and Mark Gollom of CBC News, from the George Bush-Bill Clinton debate of U.S./Canadian issues in Toronto:

After warming up the audience with a string of one-liners, Clinton quickly got serious as he continued with his opening remarks.

He said George Bush “could hardly ignore 911.”

Clinton praised Bush for increasing U.S. funding for AIDS and malaria in Africa, calling it “one of the most important achievements” of his administration.

He also doled out praise for to Toronto mayor David Miller for taking action to address climate change. He added that global warming will be “calamitous” unless people “answer the ‘how’ question” and help the government and the private sector make changes.

He also urged Canadians to participate in microcredit loans to developing nations.

“We do live in an interdependent world,” Clinton said.

“You can do something about it, be it in your own neighbourhood or around the world. You don’t have to be a former president … You can make a difference.”

He received a wave of warm applause as he ended his speech and turned the floor over to George Bush.

Clinton gets serious

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