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VANCOUVER The federal Liberals have announced another multimillion-dollar top-up for a key project under the national shipbuilding strategy after the former Conservative government lowballed the original budget, says the minister in charge.

We inherited a bit of a mess, said Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote shortly after committing an additional $30 million to build an offshore oceanographic science vessel.

The project is over budget and behind deadline.

Were working to try to fix that mess.

Foote made the announcement in front of hundreds of hard hat-toting workers gathered inside a Seaspan Shipyards hangar in North Vancouver on Monday.

The minister also promised $35 million for Seaspan to start work on three joint supply ships. Those vessels will deliver fuel, ammunition, spare parts, food and water to Canadian and allied vessels, allowing them to remain at sea for long periods.

The previous government relied on an unrealistic costing methodology that failed to take into account various price increases including inflation, Foote told reporters after the event.

This is the second cash infusion for the science vessel since the Conservatives initial $108-million budget in 2008 was boosted by $35 million a year later. Mondays announcement puts the projects overall cost at more than $170 million, or 60 per cent over budget.

Conservative procurement critic Steven Blaney said the Liberals inherited a rigorous process that was recognized by the auditor general as being fair and competitive.

The new government is responsible to ensure those ships are delivered on time and at cost, he said.

The Liberals cannot blame others for meeting the responsibility to ensure the best interests of the navy, of the coast guard and of the taxpayers. Thats what we expect them to do, Blaney said.

They are in charge. Now they have to step up to the plate.

During her announcement, Foote left the door open to the possibility of further cost overruns and downplayed the suggestion that Seaspan is to blame for the spiralling price tag.

Its not about fault. We have not had a shipbuilding industry in this country in 20 years, so getting it right is really important, she said, adding that more funds would be made available if necessary.

Seaspan president Brian Carter said the initial 2008 budget predated his companys involvement in the national shipbuilding strategy, which became official four years later.

When we came into this situation it was our first look at the projects and we made an honest assessment of what we thought it would take to build these ships, he said.

And right now were working right to that estimate.

Carter said he was unable to provide an overall dollar figure for the science vessel, explaining that final estimates are typically made after the construction contract is signed and immediately before building begins.

When we came into this situation it was our first look at the projects and we made an honest assessment of what we thought it would take to build these ships

The offshore oceanographic science vessel is the fourth of 17 ships tentative slated for construction at the North Vancouver shipyard. Work has already started on the first of three fisheries vessels, which also have budget woes.

Internal briefing notes dated Nov. 16 show the budget for those ships spiked by 181 per cent between 2009 and 2015 to $687 million.

The documents attributed this increase to the federal governments inexperience overseeing multiple, complex ship projects, as well as a steep learning curve for Seaspan, which needed to find skilled staff and learn to use its new facilities.

This announcement comes days after Foote rejected an unsolicited bid from Quebec-based Davie Shipyard to take over many of the contracts already awarded to Seaspan.

A draft statement obtained by The Canadian Press last week acknowledged Davie had proposed to build or repurpose a fleet of Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers and support ships years ahead of the current schedule and at a fraction the cost of Seaspan.

The statement said the federal government did not respond to unsolicited proposals.

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Liberals say Tories lowballed estimate and government ...

OTTAWA The Liberal government is expected to face an uproar from disabled veterans after backing offits promise to reintroduce lifelong pensions for those injured in the line of duty.

Tuesdays federal budget included a number of new measures to help ex-soldiers struggling with injuries they sustained in uniform. That includes reopening nine Veterans Affairs Canada offices closed by the previous Conservative government, and hiring more front-line workers.

Our veterans have dedicated their lives to the defense of their country, Finance Minister Bill Morneau told the House of Commons. They deserve our gratitude, our respect and our support. We made a solemn promise that they will have it. And we will keep that promise.

But the budget made no mention of bringing back disability pensions for veterans who are forced to leave the military because of their injuries.

The Liberals were the only party that campaigned on a promise to bring back disability pensions for injured veterans after they were abolished in 2006 and replaced with a controversial new system that included lump-sum payments. The pledge was a centrepiece of their effort to court veteran voters.

Tuesdays budget instead boosted the amount injured veterans can receive through those lump-sum payments. The increases will be retroactive for about 70,000 veterans who have been given such a payment since 2006.

The government will also make it easier for some severely injured veterans to receive long-term benefits, and increase the amount others receive while searching for work after they leave the military. Those two measures are expected to benefit about 20,000 injured veterans this year.

The increased lump sums, expanded benefits and other measures will assuage many veterans, others will be upset and even angry the Liberals didnt bring back the pensions. The government also faces the risk of being painted with the same brush as the Conservatives when it comes to veterans.

Some critics, including the Conservatives and NDP, had previously accused the Liberals of promising to re-introduce the disability pensions simply to win votes. They had warned that such a move would be prohibitively expensive, and that the new system was more responsive to the needs of todays veterans.

Theres fiscal realities to some of these things that have to be addressed, former veterans affairs minister and current Conservative MP Erin OToole told the Ottawa Citizen last month in response to the Liberals promise.

Theres fiscal realities to some of these things that have to be addressed

And its irresponsible to get some veterans and some advocacy groups believing that theres going to be some major, retroactively applying payment of some sort.

The disability pensions were abolished when the Conservatives implemented the New Veterans Charter, a new system of benefits and services for those who had served and were injured after the Korean War, in 2006. The charter had received unanimous support in the House of Commons the previous year.

Focused on getting veterans into the workforce, the charter replaced pensions with a lump-sum payment for injuries and career training. But modern-day veterans, including many who had served in Afghanistan, said it was unfair. They said the lump sums and other benefits offered them less support than the previous system.

The government is also increasing funeral benefits for low-income veterans. Currently, veterans with assets worth about $12,000 can receive financial support for the government for their funerals. That amount will be increased to about $35,000, which should help about 109 veterans per year.

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Liberals expected to face backlash after budget backs off ...

The Left Column

KamaAina

(New Civil Rights Movement) Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory says that even though he personally called for lawmakers to take action against Charlotte's nondiscrimination ordinance, even though Republicans initiated a special one day legislative session to do so, even though Republicans drafted and pushed HB2 through both chambers, even though every Senate Democrat walked out making the bill's passage by Republicans unanimous, even though he personally signed HB2 less than 12 hours after it was first introduced last month in the General Assembly, and even though he staunchly has defended HB2 every day since, liberals are to blame for it.

"This hornets nest, he argued, was first kicked not by him, but by the Democratic City Council in Charlotte, which passed a nondiscrimination ordinance in February allowing transgender people to use mens or womens bathrooms," The New York Times reports. "Before it passed, he said, he emailed the Council to warn it that if it changed 'basic restroom and locker room norms,' he would be forced to support a state law overriding them."

KamaAina

(Fortune) No, I dont do that, Trump said on the Opie and Anthony show in 2005. Theres a lot of women out there that demand that the husband act like the wife and you know theres a lot of husbands that listen to that Im really like a great father but certain things you do and certain things you dont. Its just not for me.

I mean, I wont do anything to take care of them. Ill supply funds and shell take care of the kids. Its not like Im gonna be walking the kids down Central Park, Trump said in a 2005 interview with Howard Stern. Marla used to say, I cant believe youre not walking Tiffany down the street, you know in a carriage. Right, Im gonna be walking down Fifth Avenue with a baby in a carriage. It just didnt work.

Liberal_in_LA

(CNN) Former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Harris Wofford announced Sunday that he is marrying a man 50 years his junior, almost 20 years after his wife died.

Wofford, a Democrat who was also a top adviser to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., announced his marriage to Matthew Charlton in a New York Times op-ed published Sunday.

"Too often, our society seeks to label people by pinning them on the wall -- straight, gay or in between," Wofford wrote. "I don't categorize myself based on the gender of those I love. I had a half-century of marriage with a wonderful woman, and now am lucky for a second time to have found happiness.

packman

(In These Times) On Monday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported accounts of unusually candid comments by an oil and natural gas industry executive, Terry Bossert, at a Pennsylvania Bar Institute gathering in Harrisburg this April.

We heard Range Resources say it sites its shale gas wells away from large homes where wealthy people live and who might have the money to fight such drilling and fracking operations, stated an attendee.

KamaAina

(The Hill) Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich says he opposes voting rights in Congress for Washington, D.C., in part because it would give more votes to the Democratic Party.

What it really gets down to, if you want to be honest, is because they know thats just more votes in the Democratic Party, Kasich said.

alp227

(Charlotte Observer) NBA Commissioner Adam Silver reiterated Thursday that if North Carolinas LBGT law remains unchanged, the 2017 All-Star Game would have to be moved from Charlotte.

Silvers comments on the states controversial House Bill 2 came at the Associated Press Sports Editors commissioner meetings Thursday, according to attendees. Earlier in the day, Silver again called the law problematic for the league as it stands, but he said hes confident state lawmakers will do the right thing.

trof

(The Week) In the eyes of the British government, the U.S. may now be a risky destination for LGBT travelers. The British Foreign Office posted a travel advisory update to its website Tuesday warning members of the lesbian gay, bisexual, and transgender communities about anti-LGBT laws passed recently in North Carolina and Mississippi.

"The U.S. is an extremely diverse society and attitudes towards LGBT people differ hugely across the country," the advisory reads. "LGBT travelers may be affected by legislation passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi."

47of74

(CNN) On Tuesday, Schilling caused a social media backlash when the former Red Sox pitcher shared an anti-transgender image on Facebook, according to Bleacher Report

Schilling has since deleted the image which had a man in ripped women's clothes under a caption that read: "Let him in to the restroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!"

MerryBlooms

(NPR) Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew is expected to announce that he has decided to put abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman on a new $20 bill, according to a spokesman for the Treasury Department.

The decision caps a public campaign asking for the change and months of deliberation by the Treasury to either replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill or Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

As we reported, an unofficial contest by the activist group Women on 20s gave the nod to Tubman to take Jackson's place on the $20 bill. The campaign then sent a petition to President Obama.

progressoid

Yesterday, Ted Cruz sent a campaign fundraising email whining about the significant sacrifice hes made to run for President. He whined about facing constant attacks, nonexistent family time, his limited health and sleep, and having no personal time.

Are you kidding me? Were supposed to pity him because trying to be the leader of the free world is hard?! Ive got two words for you, Ted: Boo hoo.

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Democratic Underground

Heres whats most notable about the flurry of critical post-mortems on the Trudeau Liberal governments first budget, including this week from the Parliamentary Budget Office itself: Nobody cares.

That is to say, some of us care; taxpayer watchdogs, a few pundits and columnists, opposition politicians and the like, care. But the average Jane and Joe appear not to give a hoot.

Forty-nine per cent, as measured by poll aggregator Eric Grenier, supported the federal Liberals in February, up four points from January. The Rona-Ambrose-led Conservatives retained their perpetual frozen base of 29.5 per cent. Tom Mulcairs New Democrats, for their part, continued to melt in the warm spring drizzle. They clung to 12.5 per cent in February, which according to Grenier may be the NDPs worst single month since 2003.

But heres the thing about those numbers: They cant last. They never do. And the Liberals, with the prime minister himself leading the way, are behaving as though they will.

Just as Tory support was said by some to be immutable, good for a century, back in 2012, so Grit sentiment now has a triumphalist edge. Criticism is routinely waved aside by insiders as biased, unfair or foolish. And the PM himself responds to fair questions with the most outrageous nonsense.

Wednesday, the Ottawa Citizens Kathryn May reported that the PBOs earlier criticism of Budget 2016 for opacity in the numbers was actually more complex than it first appeared.

Jean-Denis Frechettes office was in possession of data, given it by the Finance Department, that would have allowed for a five-year breakdown of the governments taxing and spending plans, rather than the two years provided for in the budget. But the PBO was forbidden to release the data by Finance, on grounds it is confidential, May reported.

Such data was not deemed confidential in the past, either under the Stephen Harper or Paul Martin governments.

We as a party have always demonstrated a level of openness and transparency in how weve conducted our affairs and we will continue to set a very high bar

The fair questions, then, which only a cretin would not think to ask: Why is this information confidential now, when it was not before? And how can this Liberal party, whose leader lashed himself to the mast of transparency long before he became PM, justify a move that appears to limit the PBOs power to publicly dissect government projections, and thus, this independent office of parliaments freedom of action?

The Liberals dined out for years on the previous governments ill-concealed hostility to parliamentary institutions, including the PBO. Accountability, openness, transparency, idealism these are Trudeaus brand qualities. He campaigned for the Liberal leadership on them and won big. He campaigned for the prime ministership on them, making himself a near-perfect political foil to the taciturn, controlling Harper, and won bigger.

How can this same leader, mere months later, not see the glaring contradiction, not to mention political peril, in withholding data that was previously public, from a parliamentary agency whose job it is to hold the government to account on its numbers?

Relatedly, by what mental leap can anyone imagine that Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Rayboulds $500-a-plate Bay Street fundraiser passes the sniff test, with the Ontario Liberals currently on the rack over their practice of selling access for cash? The Ethics Commissioner apparently has signed off on the Justice Ministers event. So? Maybe that means the Ethics Commissioner has become a paper tiger.

In June 2013, not long after Trudeau won his partys leadership in a landslide, he came under personal criticism for a series of paid speeches hed given to charities between 2008 and 2012. The speeches were then standard practice for MPs and senators; legal; and had been approved by the Ethics Commissioner. Nevertheless, it became clear as the storm mounted that public perception mattered more than the Augustinian legalism of Trudeaus initial defences (Lord, make me chaste but not yet!)

In short order, Trudeau offered to repay those speaking fees. The charities responded, predictably, by gazing downward, scuffing their toes in the dirt and declining to be repaid. Controversy gone, point Trudeau. It was an early signal of political skill that, at that time, was still largely not recognized.

It is difficult indeed to reconcile the deft defusing of that mini-scandal, then, to the PMs clumsy response to this brewing controversy, now.

We as a party have always demonstrated a level of openness and transparency in how weve conducted our affairs and we will continue to set a very high bar on our expectations of how Canadians need to be able to see that politicians are accountable, Trudeau told reporters Wednesday in Montreal.

Sorry, Prime Minister, but no. You cant say these words when youre not doing those things. The good move would be to climb down, release the sought-after data, cancel the Justice Ministers fundraiser, lick your wounds, and move forward to the next days news.

Unless its already circle-the-wagons time, not half a year into the mandate.

Twitter.com/mdentandt

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Michael Den Tandt: Trudeau looks hypocritical as Liberals ...

Has there been a mass murderer in recent history with as much power to change America as Dylann Roof? Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC last summer, set off a furious wave of indignation. After witnessing such a horrible, racist crime, the country wanted to take action. Thats understandable. But instead of focusing our energies on the white supremacist cults and ignorance that led Roof to do what he did, the left decided to make his shooting spree all about one thing: the Confederacy.

The Confederate Flag had nothing to do with Roofs murders, of course, but thats somehow where we landed. The issue seemed so tangential that you almost had to wonder if there was something about those murders that the media wanted us to overlook. For instance, Roofs long manifesto, which at times sounded a lot like the whiteness theories coming out of liberal academia. While Roof obviously derived different conclusions from these theories than most progressives, you cant ignore the similarities.

Even today, blacks are subconsciously viewed by White people are lower beings, Roof wrote. They are held to a lower standard in general. This is why they are able to get away with things like obnoxious behavior in public. Because it is expected of them.

Thats not exactly how a professor of white privilege would put it, but the ideological foundation is identical. In his essay, Roof criticizes todays history classes for instilling a subconscious White superiority complex in Whites and an inferiority complex in blacks.

So liberals had a keen interest in avoiding any detailed discussion of Roofs ideas.

Or perhaps they just didnt want Americans to think too deeply about how useless our national background check system was in this instance. Every mass shooting that gets significant television coverage leads to one, predictable thing: a renewed push for gun control. Not even the San Bernardino terrorist attack was exempt. But this one was. Why? Because Roof bought his gun legally, despite the fact that he should have been disqualified through a background check. The system failed, and it proved that liberal gun control does not have the answers they promised.

So they made it all about the Confederate Flag. And its still continuing to this day. Just last week, the University of Louisville announced that a Confederate monument honoring Kentuckians who died in the Civil War would be removed to a more appropriate place. Read: Somewhere no one will ever have to look at it again.

History is a story. We emphasize certain things and we downplay others. Shine a bright enough spotlight on anyone and you can find a justification to vilify them. Out of 44 presidents, not one of them left office without innocent blood on their hands. Shall we really demonize Andrew Jackson for the Trail of Tears while giving JFK a pass for Vietnam? And you can go right on down the line.

Confederate soldiers didnt give their lives to protect the institution of slavery, they died for a principle they believed in the right to oppose federal oppression. And when you realize that, it suddenly becomes clear why todays liberals hate the Confederate Flag so very much.

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Liberals Still on the Anti-Confederate Warpath - Total ...