Call me Ishmael!

Would you pay $8,679, or even $2,952, to be trapped for nine days aboard a boat, even a very large boat, with Ezra Levant, Michael Coren, Brian Lilley and a host of other sorry reruns from the Sun News Network commentariat, not to mention the communications vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers?

This is a serious question, people! And if you answered yes to it, then perhaps © Ezra Levant's Freedom Cruise next August is for you. Anchors aweigh!

"When we say that Canada is open for business, we do not mean that Canada is for sale to foreign governments," Prime Minister Stephen Harper intoned at a news conference in Ottawa Friday -- except, he didn't add, those parts of Canada our government's rich pals feel like selling off.

So, once again, Dec. 7 gets to be a date that will live in infamy, in this case the soon-to-be infamous sale of Calgary-based Nexen Inc. for a tidy $15 billion to the government of a Communist dictatorship -- or whatever it is you call a Crown corporation run by the government of a Communist dictatorship, which by definition one would think is an uncrowned sort of place.

Canada would be a different place without our 80,000 registered charities dedicated to everything from health to economic policy to the environment. We'd be much poorer without the two million employees and millions of volunteers who devote their time to causes that strengthen our nation.

Just over a week before the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings began, EthicalOil.org and its allies launched a pre-emptive PR offensive on environmental and First Nations groups who oppose the pipeline. Their new website, OurDecision.ca, and ad campaign are an attempt to invalidate opposition to the pipeline by pointing to the small amount of American funding going to some environmental groups, and claiming that pipeline opponents are actually the “puppets” of “foreign interests.”