Green party Leader Elizabeth May.Elizabeth May and the Green party have taken it upon themselves to apologize to the world on behalf of Canada for the Harper government's action to prevent the blacklisting of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material at a recent UN conference in Geneva.

In the apology letter posted on the party's website, May speaks of the shame she and other Canadians feel.

"I'm ashamed of our government's action on asbestos. I think most Canadians are ashamed. Our government behaved disgracefully in Geneva, and we owe the world an apology . . . If the government won't do the right thing, we will. I invite all Canadians to join me in saying, 'We're sorry!' to the world."

The Greens are asking Canadians who want to submit their own apologies to do so at a newly created Facebook page.

More than 3,000 people have 'liked' the asbestos apology page with hundreds of Facebook users posting their own apologies.

"I'm sorry that less fortunate people in this world have to suffer the effects of Canada's

NDP Leader Jack Layton.Non-voters can run and certainly hide and they did, but thanks to the people at Statistics Canada we now know who didn't cast a ballot May 2 because they lacked interest.

Some would argue an ill-informed, apathetic voter shouldn't cast a ballot anyway, but still a disinterested electorate doesn't help the cause of democracy.

A survey conducted by StatsCan of people who didn't vote indicates 27.7 per cent said they weren't interested or didn't think their vote mattered, while 22.9 per cent confessed they were too busy, while 10 per cent were just "away".

One wonders if some of the respondents have ever heard of advance polls. Something to ponder for 2015.

If you can believe it, four per cent said they simply forgot to vote and more than one per cent didn't vote because of religious beliefs.

About 7.5 million eligible voters failed to cast a ballot in the federal election.

If we were to just consider the disinterested, it's not just the young who didn't care about the federal election.

The Stephen Harper government is set to increase user fees in as many 12 federal departments, reports The Globe and Mail.

The decision to do so is the latest turn in a series of Tory flip-flops on the issue.

During the election, Harper went out of his way to say he would not increase taxes. The Conservatives went as far as releasing an attack ad warning Canadians former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would be the one to raise taxes if elected prime minister.

Then on June 8, as chronicled by Aaron Wherry of Maclean's Magazine, Treasury President Tony Clement gave a closed-door speech to federal public service executives where he suggested there will be some new user fees.

"We are encouraging departments to develop a full range of options in areas such as administrative and program efficiencies, business consolidation and user fees," he said, according to a prepared text of the speech.

On June 9 during Question Period Clement seemed to back away from the notion of the new fiscal

Prime Minister Stephen Harper.You generally hear how a governing federal party spends taxpayers' dollars, but have you ever wondered what happens when it opens its own wallet?

Since parties are obligated to file their returns with Elections Canada by June 30, some of the figures are now posted online, although the Liberal numbers have yet to be released. The NDP asked for an extension.

So, without dragging this out to an accountant's nightmare, here's how the Conservatives raised and spent their money in 2010:

As of Dec. 31, 2010, the Harper Tories had $7.2 million in cash and equivalents and another $2.8 million in capital assets like computers and furniture. Numbers are approximations.

Total revenue: $29 million

Total expenditures: $22 million

Total donations received: $17.4 million

Per-vote subsidy courtesy of taxpayers: $10.4 million

Membership fees: $1.2 million and $194,837 from "other sources"

The Tories spent $552,771 on advertising last year, but that pales in comparison to 2009 when the party was

Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons.Immigration Minister Jason Kenney launched his latest salvo in the battle against crooked consultants with new legislation that will make it illegal for unauthorized individuals to provide immigration advice while receiving a fee.

But is it a battle he can win?

To immigrate to Canada, an individual does not need to retain the services of a lawyer. Many prospective immigrants will instead hire one of the approximately 1,500 licensed immigration consultants who can legally act as their representative.

Throughout the years, however, an underground industry has developed of unlicensed, untrained, unscrupulous advisers referred to as "ghost consultants" because their names don't actually appear on the documents their clients submit.

These individuals, whose sales pitch to people is often, "I have an 'in' with Canadian immigration officials," frequently charge large amounts of money and make unrealistic promises about fast tracking or even guaranteeing immigration.

In some cases, they will

Canada shared its birthday Friday with British Columbia's carbon tax.

The economy-wide environmental tax introduced three years ago is successful - by many accounts - and seemingly popular, but peculiarly still remains the only one of its kind in North America.

The carbon tax puts a levy on each tonne of greenhouse gas emitted, with the expectation it will, over time, elicit a powerful market response resulting in reduced emissions. For the average consumer, this  means they pay an extra 5.6 cents per litre of gasoline.

The fiscal measure, according to economist Stewart Elgie, has reduced B.C.'s per-capita fuel usage by more than four per cent compared with the rest of Canada. Moreover, a recent study found 70 per cent of British Columbians support the tax.

If the effects of the tax are so positive, why have there been no carbon copy cats?

The answer is political survival.

Introducing another tax on gas, especially at a time when prices at the pump are at record highs, would be akin to

Treasury Board President and prolific tweeter Tony Clement caused a stir over the weekend after tweeting a picture of the royal couple in a private moment.

The picture, taken at a Canada Day reception, shows the backs of Will and Kate watching the fireworks display on Parliament Hill.

Clement tweeted: "http://img.ly/5KgI A regal fireworks display..."

Matthew Rowe of the Monarchist League of Canada — Ottawa Branch told Yahoo! Canada News Clement's picture was "definitely inappropriate."

"It was a private event. There was no media allowed. It was a chance for the royal couple to watch the fireworks without having all kinds of attention focused on them," he said.

"As gaffes go, it's a relatively minor one. I don't think there was any 'malintent' but obviously it was inappropriate."

Media covering the royal tour are given limited access to the royal couple. In other words, photographers would not have been able to take the same picture.

Christina Blizzard of the Toronto Sun stated

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

And, they are literally but not to invade Canada, but certainly to lay claim to vast stretches of the Arctic that could hold up to one quarter of the world's untapped oil and gas.

Stephen Harper and Minister of Defence Peter MacKay haven't kept Canada's Arctic ambitions and claim to sovereignty in the Far North a military secret, rattling the Russians into rhetoric like we're the ones fomenting another "Cold War."

MacKay, no foil by any stretch of the imagination, understands what the Russians are up to, and announced a massive military exercise in the Arctic this summer - one of the largest in recent history - without actually mentioning the Russians of course.

In other words as operation Kandahar comes to a close in the coming weeks, operation Arctic, or as it's really called, Operation Nanook, will commence and last for a month involving most branches of the military, including CF-18 fighters and about 1,000 troops.

The operation